Hidden Prey

Pioneer Press, he would see that the governor’s daughter’s boyfriend had been arrested for possession of a controlled substance after a party the two of them attendedtogether, and there was a rumor around the university that the kid was taking the fall for the girl.
    “Probably wind up as the highway commissioner,” Lucas said.
    “I just don’t want you to get involved. I don’t want you to have anything to do with it,” Weather said. “I don’t want you fixing anything.”
    He promised he wouldn’t.
     
    A FTER HE GOT off the phone, he went down to the lobby, bought both the St. Paul and Minneapolis newspapers, rode back up, and read them as he watched the evening news. Then, restless, he called Nadya’s room to see if she wanted to get a bite. No answer.
    He cleaned up a bit, went back down, drove out to the mall, and spent an hour browsing through a bookstore, and then, with a half dozen magazines under his arm, did a walk around to see what was in the place, crossed the highway to an outdoor-sports shop, where he looked at guns and fishing equipment, and finally headed back to the hotel.
    He was suffering from the nothing-to-do, out-of-town blues. If there was nothing from Spivak the next day, he thought, and nothing obvious to do in the afternoon, he might zip back home for dinner. He could be back in two hours . . .
     
    H E WAS WATCHING a Seinfeld rerun and reading a Gray’s Sporting Journal when his cell phone buzzed at him:
    “Lucas?” A male voice, hushed but intense.
    “Yeah?”
    “Listen, man, there’s something weird going on here, and I don’t know what the fuck to do,” the words tumbling over each other. “I’m watching the guy’s car, waiting for the bar to close, and it closes but he doesn’t come out. All the lights go out except one in the back, and nothing’s moving. So I get a plastic garbage can and I carry it over to thewindow and I stand on it and peek in, and the guy is standing on a six-pack of beer, bottles, with a rope around his neck and there’s somebody in there with him. The guy’s legs are shaking like crazy but the place has got a big fucking metal door on the back and there’s no way I can kick it and if I go in through the front it’ll be too late and I don’t have a gun, it’s back in my car . . .”
    “You mean right now?” Lucas asked.
    “I mean right fuckin’ now. I’m still standing on this fuckin’ trash can and I can see the guy standing there.”
    “Don’t move,” Lucas said. “Just hang on, I’m going on the other phone.”
    He had no phone numbers. He dialed 911 and when the operator came up, said, trying to remain calm and authoritative, “I’m Lucas Davenport. I’m an agent with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I’ve got an emergency up in Virginia, and I need the telephone number of the Virginia cops right now . . .”
    The operator said, “Please slow down, sir. You need the emergency number for Virginia? Can you describe the nature . . . ?”
    “Give me the fuckin’ number,” Lucas shouted. “The emergency number for Virginia . . .”
    The woman tried to calm him again and he shouted her down and she transferred him to a supervisor, while, in his other ear, the male voice was saying, “What’s going on, man? You got something coming?” and then the supervisor came up and said, “Can I help you?”
    In the end, he thought, it took him only a minute to get through to the Virginia cops: “I am an agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, my name is Lucas Davenport. Anthony Spivak at Spivak’s Bar is being hanged in the back room of the bar and you have to get a couple of cars there RIGHT NOW.”
    “Sir, tell me again who you are . . .”
    The cops got something going, and ten seconds later, in the cell phone, the male voice said, “He’s out, there’s a guy out the back andlet me see, ah holy, I’m running . . .” Then the voice went away, but Lucas could hear a clunking, wrestling sound, and the male voice shouting something, then the cell phone apparently hit the floor, and Lucas got back on the other phone and shouted, “I’ve got a man in the bar, I’ve got a man in the bar, be careful with him, he’s not armed, he’s my man.”
    The cell phone went out. Lucas dialed it, but got no answer. On the hotel phone, he shouted at the Virginia cop, “What’s going on? I’ve lost my guy.”
    “We’re on the scene now, sir. Can you tell me your location? You