Easy Prey

said.
    “Come on, Davenport.”
    “All right. You know that fake Indian dreamcatcher you’ve got hanging over your sink?”
    “Yeah . . . ?”
    “Go get it,” he said.
    “Go get it? What for?”
    “Listen, are you going to do this, or not?”
    “Well . . . I just wanted to know . . .”
    “You’re gonna need that hawk feather,” he said.
    After a moment, she said, “Hang on.”
    “Wait a minute! You still there?”
    She came back. “Yes?”
    “Didn’t I see one of those Lady Remington leg shavers in the bathroom?”
    “Yes?”
    “Bring that, too,” Lucas said.
    “I’ll tell you right now, I’m not shaving anything,” she said.
    “You don’t use those things to shave ,” Lucas said. “You use them to shave ? You naive little waif, you.”
    “I’ll be right back,” she said.
     
 
THE CITY HALL was quiet; there were fewer TV trucks at the curb, and the Homicide office was mostly empty. Del called on the cell phone and said, “Hot damn, you’ve turned it on.”
    “Yeah. What’s going on?”
    “Nothing. I was just calling to ask.”
    “All right. I’m turning this fucking thing off.”
    “No—don’t do that. Listen, I’m gonna take off with the old lady this afternoon. Go see an aunt of hers, and then maybe go look at some carpet.”
    “You’re doing carpet?”
    “Yeah, maybe for the family room.”
    “All right. Well. See you later.”
     
 
HE WOUND UP in his office with all the paper on the case; he found nothing new, but strengthened his sense that Spooner was at the bottom of it. Then Lester called, and said that the gay friend of John Dukeljin, who had identified Spooner as being at the party, and carrying a shoulder bag, remembered seeing a man with a bag but couldn’t pick Spooner out of a photo spread.
    “Par for the course,” Lucas said. “You find anybody else?”
    “Two other people think they saw him. But the guy is sort of a nebbish, and the light was bad, they had those strobe things you dance to. . . . So that’s what we got.”
     
 
ROSE MARIE CALLED and said, “Here’s a mystery for you. Why would the head of the state highway patrol call me up at home and say, ‘Tell that fuckin’ Davenport to knock it the fuck off’?”
    Lucas thought for a moment. “Must be political,” he said. “He’s a Republican.”
    “I thought it might be something like that,” she said.
    “Is Olson coming in this afternoon?” Lucas asked.
    “No. I told him we’d call if there were any serious developments.”
    “All right. I’m outa here.”
    “See you Monday. . . . And Lucas, knock it the fuck off, whatever it is.”
     
 
HE CALLED CATRIN at her home, ready to hang up at a man’s voice. “What are you doing?”
    She didn’t need to ask who it was—a good sign. “Well. I’m moving out.”
    “When?”
    “I’m staying with a friend tonight. Jack seems to be mostly amused,” she said. “Maybe he thinks I’m going through some kind of phase. It’s making me really angry.”
    “If you’d like to get a bite and talk, I’ll meet you halfway.”
    “God, Lucas, could we tomorrow?” she asked. “I’m just really jammed today. I mean, I packed away my daughter’s First Communion pictures.”
    “Okay, okay. Don’t tell me. You’ve got my cell phone?”
    “You never answer.”
    “It’s now permanently on—at least for the duration of the Alie’e thing.”
    “I’ll call you.”
     
 
HE HAD WICKED designs on three women, was worried sick about how he could possibly juggle them . . . and he couldn’t get a date. “They’ll always take you at Saks,” he said to his office walls.
    They took him at Saks. For a lot. “Lucas, how are you . . .” the custom-shop salesman said. “We have got something for you. I’ve been saving it. Two new fabrics from Italy, you won’t believe that they’re wool.”
    He killed two hours at Saks and wrote a check for three thousand dollars. He took a call halfway through the fitting from the cops who were tailing Olson.
    “We got a concept,” the cop said.
    “I’m interested.”
    “We just took Olson back to his motel. He’s preaching tonight down in West St. Paul . . . you know where the Southview Country Club is?”
    “Yeah.”
    “He’ll be at a church right around there. He actually got off this tour he was doing, and drove into the church parking lot, like he was just figuring out where it was. Then he went back to driving, and finally wound up here at the motel. And what we got to