Hidden Prey

and he’s gone, or he’s gonna be gone by the time you assholes figure this out.”
    Now the two cops were confused, and another cop car pulled up and the passenger-side cop came from behind his door and said something to his partner, and they skated around the car, pistols pointed shakily at Lucas, and then one cop said, “Put your hands down and behind your back, sir. We’re gonna cuff you till we find out what’s going on.”
    Lucas tried to be calm: “The guy who shot Reasons just ran around that corner—”
    “There are more people down the block; just try to be calm and put your hands down . . .”
    Lucas put his hands down, and said, “If you don’t get a car down there in five seconds, he’s gone,” and the cops said, “That’s all taken care of, sir,” but he didn’t exactly say sir as if he meant it, and the driver-cop cuffed him, the other cop took the .45 out of his belt.
    Lucas was talking fast. “If we go back to the Radisson, I’ve got my ID in my room, and I talked to a guy named Larry Kelly in yourdetective bureau when we found the old lady’s stuff down by the tracks . . . and the Russian investigator can ID me . . . Listen, you gotta find out . . .” He stopped, took a breath: too late. “Ah, fuck, never mind.”
    “Never mind, what?” asked the cop who cuffed him. Lucas could tell he’d started to believe.
    “Never mind trying to put more guys on the killer. He’s gone. He’s gone. Didn’t even get a look at his fuckin’ car . . .” He looked down the street, pulled around, hoping against hope that a car might zip through one of the intersections he could see. None did.
    Now they believed him a little more; didn’t uncuff him, but he said, “Look, let’s go over to the hotel. Reasons looked pretty bad. And be careful of the .45. The safety’s on, but it’s still cocked and there’s a round in the chamber.”
    He let them put him in the backseat of the squad car, and then said, “Put out a call and tell them to nail any speeders they see. I don’t know what kind of car, but we’re looking for a thin blond guy in a black jacket or a white shirt. He was wearing a white shirt when I saw him, but he pulled a black jacket over it.”
    The driver put out the call immediately; then the other guy said, “What about Reasons?”
    Lucas thought about Reasons shaking and trembling on the floor of Nadya’s room. Brain death. He’d seen it before, when a guy’s brain was starving of oxygen. “I think Jerry . . . Jerry was hit pretty hard,” Lucas said. “I called nine one one before I ran after the guy, but he was hit hard.”
    “You think . . .”
    “Yeah, I think.”
    “Jesus Christ,” the cop said, his eyes big. “Jesus Christ. I was just talking to him this afternoon.”
     
    T HE UNIFORM COPS brought Lucas through the police lines around the hotel, everybody looking at him hard—they thought hemight be a suspect—and they went up in the elevator and Nadya, in the hallway, her blouse soaked with black blood, saw them coming and said, “Lucas, why are you . . .” and then Larry Kelly, the cop who’d been leading the Wheaton murder, and who had been talking to her, turned, saw his arms pinned behind him and asked, “What’s going on with you?” looking querulously behind him at the uniform cops.
    “How about Jerry?” Lucas asked.
    Kelly shook his head. “Didn’t even bother to transport him. He’s still here.”
    Lucas stepped forward and looked in the room: Reasons was as Lucas had left him, sprawled faceup on the carpet.
    “So what about you?” Kelly said, pressing.
    “Found him in the street waving a gun, so we picked him up,” one of the cops said, and then, to Lucas, “Sorry,” and he stepped behind Lucas and popped off the cuffs.
    “Did you see the man?” Nadya asked.
    “I chased him about a fuckin’ mile,” Lucas said, rubbing his wrists. “Then we sort of got tangled up . . .”
    “What?” Kelly demanded of the uniforms, incredulity riding his voice. “You had two guys running and you busted this one?”
    “Ah, there was no way for them to know,” Lucas said. “They couldn’t see the other guy and there I was running around in the dark, no ID. Nothing but a gun. They did okay.”
    “Maybe not,” one of the uniformed said. He handed Lucas his .45. “I sorta let off a couple of rounds.”
    “Yeah.” Lucas remembered. He looked down at his left shirtsleeve, put his little finger through