Easy Prey

who was with Alie’e and Corbeau on the bed, this Catherine Kinsley. Did he know about the relationship?” Lucas asked.
    “They’re not in yet,” Rose Marie said.
    Lester said, “I did just sit in on an interview with Alie’e’s boyfriend--”
    “I saw him,” Lucas said.
    “Noxious little penis,” Lester said. “His real name used to be Jim Shue. He didn’t think he looked like a shoe, so he tried to change it to JX. J for James, X for nothing. The court told him he had to have a vowel, so he winds up Jax. Anyway, he knew all about the relationship with Corbeau. He says it didn’t bother him. He called it Alie’e’s ‘alternate modality.’ He said that they were both multisexual. He said pretty soon everybody will be.”
    “Too late for me,” Rose Marie said.
    “Yeah. I’m barely unisexual,” Lester said. “Anyway, he’s a dipshit. He said he had nothing to do with her death, but we’re putting him on the shortlist.”
    “What about the media thing?” Rose Marie asked Lucas. “The human sacrifice?”
    “I’ll ask Del,” Lucas said. “He’s setting it up.”

6
    DEL WAS WAITING outside Lucas’s office, leaning patiently against the wall. When he saw Lucas coming, he walked down the hall to meet him and said, “I’m clear with IA.”
    “What about finding somebody we can throw to the media?”
    “I can’t find a connection. These aren’t street people. But the dope guys are set up to raid George Shaw’s operation--”
    “Shaw is street. He’s not Alie’e’s dealer,” Lucas said.
    “I know, but it’s what we got,” Del said. “We got confirmation last night that he’s got a lot of cocaine on hand and maybe some heroin. So they’re gonna hit him, and I thought we could ride along. We don’t say anything, but we get your picture taken.”
    “Where?”
    “A place down on Thirty-fifth. Shaw has been sleeping there, usually until three o’clock or so. He’s there now. We’re gonna hit him a little after noon. If we work it right, the TV people are gonna jump to a conclusion. We can deny our ass off and they won’t believe us for a minute.”
    “That’s not exactly what we wanted.”
    “No, but that’s as good as we’re gonna get it,” Del said.
     
 
LUCAS THOUGHT ABOUT it for a second. The movie people weren’t stupid; if they thought they were being manipulated, there’d be trouble. But if they weren’t thrown some kind of meat, they’d be running around like a pack of wolves, and pretty soon the politicians would start to panic, and then the attorney general—you never wanted to stand between the attorney general and a TV camera—would get into it, on some theme like police negligence. In a fairly short time, a world-class pissing match would be going on and . . .
    “All right. If that’s what we got.”
    “I’ve already tipped TV3 to be ready to roll between noon and one o’clock,” Del said. “Rose Marie and the mayor already said at the press conference that you’d be monitoring the investigation. So if you’re monitoring the raid, and if they want to put two and two together . . . that’s their problem.”
    “But the raid isn’t a put-up job, is it? I mean, it’s legit?”
    “It’s fine. Shaw got a ton of shit a week ago, but he’s been moving, wholesaling it to all the little assholes. Couldn’t find him. Now he’s holed up at his sister-in-law’s and he’s still got some left.”
    Lucas nodded. “Because if it was a put-up job, and somebody gets hurt, the word would get out and we’d all be in shit city.”
    Del nodded. “We’re okay. The drug guys were talking about it last night, before Alie’e, as soon as they spotted Shaw walking home.”
     
 
THE TWELVE-MAN EMERGENCY response team met at a south side precinct house and was briefed by a guy named Lapstrake from Intelligence. Lapstrake was a bland, twenty-something guy with a home haircut who wore blue Sears work pants and a blue shirt that read, “Cairn’s Glass” on the back. He used a flip pad to illustrate the approaches to George Shaw’s house. Lucas and Del sat on folding chairs in the back of the room, listening in.
    “We’re gonna have to move fast,” Lapstrake said, pointing with a laser. “George’s got relatives all over the neighborhood, and every one of them’s got him on speed-dial. Four guys go in the back, coming in from Thirty-fourth. You’ll split up and go around this house . . .” He put a red laser-dot on the house behind Shaw’s.