Easy Prey

Bentoin said. “Fuckin’ bead-rattlin’, genuflectin’, ring-kissin’ assholes.”
    “Me’n Lucas are Catholic,” Del observed. “Since you got a Frenchy name--”
    “You figured wrong,” Bentoin said.
    “So what are you?”
    Bentoin looked out the car window at the cornfield going by and said, sourly, “An ex-Catholic.”
    Lucas started laughing, and then Del, for the first time since Marcy was shot.
     
 
THE INTERVIEW ROOM was painted an indefinite pastel color, as though the painters had a bunch of pastels but not enough of anything, so they poured them altogether and came up with a lime-cream-rose-baby blue, which resolved itself into a pastel sludge. Al-Balah’s lawyer, a pretty good three-cushion-billiards player named Laziard, was sitting on a bench with his briefcase by his left foot, reading a pamphlet about items forbidden as gifts to inmates. He looked up when Lucas came in with Del.
    “My, my, a deputy chief,” Laziard said. “You must be a little worried. Hey, Del.”
    “We figure you’re gonna sue us for a billion dollars,” Lucas said.
    “You got the number right,” Laziard said genially as Lucas and Del chose spots on the benches.
    “So we thought we should show a little concern, just in case we find Trick again,” Lucas said.
    “Just in case?” A wrinkle appeared on Laziard’s forehead. “I thought Del had him.”
    Del shrugged. “I talked to him, but I didn’t arrest him. I didn’t have anything to arrest him on. He told me he was checked into the Days Inn down on the strip, and when I snuck out and checked, he was. But the next day, when we went down to pick him up, he’d checked out. We just missed him.”
    Lucas said, “The problem is, he might’ve gone back to Panama. The guys in the county attorney’s office don’t want to hear any of this ‘Del saw him’ shit. They want to see Trick. ”
    “What are you telling me?” Laziard demanded. “What . . .”
    The door opened in the back wall, and they all turned. Rashid Al-Balah stepped into the room, a guard a step behind him. Al-Balah was a shaved-head black man with a heavy face and two-day beard. He glowered at Lucas, gave a few seconds of hate to Del. The guard pointed him at a bench. Al-Balah sat down and asked Laziard, “How much longer?”
    “We’re trying to figure that out,” Laziard said.
    “What? What’re you trying to figure out?” Al-Balah’s voice was rising. “Get me the fuck outa here.”
    “There’s a problem,” Lucas said. “Trick went away, and the county attorney’s office is being a stick-in-the-mud about it. They want to actually see his ass before they do anything. I’m sure we’ll find him, sooner or later.”
    “Sooner or fuckin’ later?” Al-Balah shouted. “I packed my shit this morning. I’m ready to go. Right now, motherfucker.”
    “This is not going well,” Del muttered to Lucas.
    “What? What’d you say?” Al-Balah was getting angrier.
    The guard snapped, “Cool down.” Al-Balah looked at him, and the guard took a half-step forward and set his feet. “Just cool down. Keep your place.”
    Al-Balah sagged on the bench. “I packed my shit,” he said to Lucas. “You’re supposed to get me the fuck out of here. I packed my shit up, man.”
    “We’re doing what we can,” Del said. “I’m the guy who brought the whole thing up, you know?”
    Lucas jumped in. “I didn’t actually come out here myself to talk about cutting you loose. I actually came out with a question.” He looked at Laziard. “A question for your client.”
    “A question?”
    “You know about the Alie’e Maison case,” Lucas said to Al-Balah. “There was another woman killed the same night, the same place.”
    “Yeah, yeah, I been seeing it on my TV,” Al-Balah said.
    “This woman, Sandy Lansing, she was dealing. But she was just the street hookup, we don’t know who was running her. We’d like to find out, and we thought you might know. You know all that shit.”
    Al-Balah shook his head. “Fuck you.”
    “All right.” Lucas stood up. “I figured there wasn’t much chance.”
    “When you gonna get me out of here?” Al-Balah asked.
    “Soon as we find Trick. We’ve got some staffing problems with this Alie’e thing, but we can probably spring a guy on it. You know, halftime, anyway. As soon as the Alie’e thing is done with. If Trick hasn’t gone back to Panama or something. I mean, I’ll bet you’re out by spring. Summer at the latest.”
    Al-Balah