Hidden Prey

Another intelligence cop wandered down the block toward them and said, “He’s still inside. His girlfriend’s in there with him.”
    “We understand he’s got those fire rope things, tied to radiators, ready to go. When we kick the door, he runs into the other apartment, locks the connecting door, goes out the window,” Marcy said.
    “But we’ve got the squads,” Lucas said.
    “With the best on-duty runners.” Sherrill reached under her coat, pulled out a Glock, checked it, reholstered it, and said, “If everybody’s ready . . .” She lifted a radio to her face, got the squads, and said, “Go.”
    They went down the street in a rush, Nadya trailing. They were exposed to view from an upstairs window for five seconds, and then they were on the porch, still moving quietly, careful not to bang open the outer door. A student with a backpack stood on the sidewalk across the street, gaping at them.
    One of the intelligence cops, wearing soft Nike running shoes, led the way up the interior stairs, gun drawn, the hammer man right behind him; the stairway smelled of old flaking wallpaper and detergent and onions and maybe the early twentieth century. Marcy followed behind the hammer, then the third intelligence guy. The rest of them came up behind, as quietly as they could. Lucas had just crossed the top stair when the hammer man hit the door lock, and with a rush, the first few were inside and one of the cops was yelling, “Wait wait wait wait,” and there was another bang as a second door went down, and a woman began screaming, “Run, Larry, run.” She didn’t sound frightened; she sounded excited, like a bettor at a racetrack.
    Then Lucas was inside and heard a male voice saying, “Take it easy, I’m not running, take it easy, man, okay, okay . . .”
    Lucas followed the sound of the voices through a bedroom, where a cop was looking up at a tall, skinny, black-haired young woman standing on a bed, wearing only semitransparent underpants. She had small cupcake breasts with brown nipples, a tattoo of a dragon around her navel, and was pierced in several places by bits and pieces of metal; she was bouncing on the bed, excited, laughing, clapping her hands.
    The voices were in the next room, and when Lucas went through, he found two of the intelligence cops leaning over a blond man in white Jockey shorts who lay on the floor, his hands bent behind him. One of the cops was putting on handcuffs. “Not too tight, for Christ’s sakes, I play the piano,” the guy said.
    “Gonna be the skin flute from now on,” the cop said.
    “Look at this place,” Marcy said, coming in behind Lucas. “We hit the fuckin’ mother lode.”
    Dozens of laptop computers, piles of high-end audio equipment, perhaps fifty televisions, and what appeared to be hundreds of PDAs were lined up on raw pine-board shelves along the walls.
    The intelligence cops lifted Larry to his feet and they all backed into the first room, where the woman was still standing on the bed. “Get down from there,” Marcy said.
    “You gay?” the woman asked.
    “Get off the fuckin’ bed,” Marcy said.
    “You’re getting a pretty good look,” the woman said. She stuck her tongue out at Marcy, then said, “Watch this.” She licked her two index fingers and then twirled them over her nipples which perked right up. “Pretty good, huh?”
    “You want me to get her off?” asked the intelligence cop who’d kept her on the bed. He looked like he’d enjoy it.
    “Yeah, do that,” the woman said to the cop. “I need somebody to get me off.”
    Lucas said, “Just hose her down with Mace, put the cuffs on, and throw her into the fuckin’ car.”
    “Hey, wait a minute,” the woman said, offended. “I’m coming down.” To Lucas: “Jesus Christ, I was just kidding.” She hopped off the bed, picked up a shirt, and pulled it over her head. As they brought Larry out of the back room, she stepped close to him and kissed him and said, “See you around in a couple years, I guess.”
    “Ah, fuck you,” Larry said, but he laughed.
    Nadya, who’d followed well behind the entry, peered first at Larry, then at the young woman, and said, “This was very interesting.” To the woman, who was buttoning her shirt, “Why do you poke so many holes in yourself?”
    “ ’Cause it feels so creamy,” the woman said.
     
    L ARRY AND THE WOMAN , both of whom were allowed to put on jeans and boots, as soon as the cops figured they were under