Easy Prey

could he be happy? Did he even want to be?
    “Fuck it,” he said aloud. But he didn’t mean it. He was hanging a little over 125 on a nearly empty interstate when he passed Snelling Avenue. Thirty seconds later, he flashed past a highway patrolman going the other way, on the other side of the highway. He saw the flashers come up and grinned, took the Porsche up the ramp at Cretin-Vandalia, and turned left toward home.
    The guy had no chance.
     
 
AT TEN O’CLOCK the next morning, a cop called to say that Olson was moving. “We don’t know what he’s doing. He got out on the interstate and he’s done a couple of laps around the St. Paul side. He stopped once at White Bear Avenue to get gas.”
    “How close has he gotten to Highland Park?”
    “He took 35E from 94 to 494, so he went right past Spooner’s exit at Randolph or at Seventh. If he’d gotten off at either one, we would have been screaming our heads off—but he’s just driving.”
    “Keep calling me,” Lucas said.
     
 
WEATHER CALLED WHILE he was in the shower. “I’ve got a problem,” she said.
    “No lunch?” he asked, dripping water on the hallway floor.
    She could hear the disappointment. “I’m sorry, but this . . . thing . . . just came up and I’ve got to deal with it.”
    “Doesn’t sound medical,” Lucas said.
    “It’s not. Lucas, I’m being . . . damnit, we need to sit down and talk this out. I have not had a sexual relationship since we split up.”
    “Why face a disappointment any sooner--”
    “Will you shut up? Will you just shut the fuck up for a minute?” she said.
    “All right,” he said.
    “I have not had a sexual relationship, but there was this doctor . . .”
    “The Frenchman?”
    “You know about this?” she asked.
    “I know you were going out with some Frenchman.”
    “Not going out with. I went out with him three times. Or four times. Or maybe, I don’t know, five or six times. We never really stopped or anything. I was busy or he was busy and it sort of drifted, and then he had to go back to Paris for a while.”
    “He came back.”
    “Yeah. He called last night and he wanted to have lunch today,” she said. “He was pretty insistent, even when I said I was pretty busy. . . . I think I’ve got to go talk to him.”
    “And . . . ?”
    “I’m ultimately not interested in Frenchmen,” she said.
    “Well, Jesus, Weather, why don’t you just tell him to blow it out his froggy ass?”
    “I don’t think that would exactly be a diplomatic way to handle it . . .”
    “You aren’t the fuckin’ State Department.” He let himself get a little angry about it.
    “. . . and I’ve got to work with him. He’s an important guy around here.”
    They talked for another minute or two, and he let himself get a little angrier—and at the bottom of it, was satisfied that she was impressed by the anger. Then he went back to the shower, finished cleaning up, and got dressed. All right. He picked up the phone and dialed Jael.
    She answered on the third ring, and he said, “Your problem is, you’re too Victorian.”
    “That’s my problem, all right,” she said lazily. “Hang on. . . .” He could hear her yell, “It’s okay, it’s for me,” and then she was back.
    “Have you had breakfast?”
    “I’m barely awake. It’s not even ten-thirty,” she said.
    “I’ll come get you if you want.”
    “Can’t. I’ve got a half-dozen people coming at noon. We’re working out a joint show, and we’ve got way too many people. We’re trying to figure out how to screw some of them. You’re welcome to come over, but you wouldn’t like the people, and I don’t want any of them thrown out any windows.”
    “Goddamnit. I can’t find anyone to talk to this morning,” he said.
    “And tonight, my dad’s getting in. We’re all going over to the airport to pick him up. So . . .”
    “No dinner. No midnight snack.”
    “You ever tried phone sex?” she asked.
    “Tried once, but it doesn’t work. I feel like a silly jerk-off.”
    “That’s sort of inevitable,” she said.
    “On the other hand, I’m good at giving it. I wouldn’t want to use the word brilliant , but then, I’m a modest kind of guy.”
    “Really? That’s interesting,” she said. “I mean, how would you start it?”
    “Are you still in bed?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What are you wearing?” he asked.
    “A flannel nightshirt and underpants and socks,” she said.
    “Socks? Jesus. That makes it a little harder,” Lucas