Mind Prey

the sales wars. “Listen, Marcus, something’s up,” Lucas said. He leaned forward and tapped Paloma on the knee.
    “Sure. Cop business?” Paloma had done a little snitching for Lucas.
    “Yeah. You heard about that shrink getting snatched? And her kids? Big news in the Strib this morning?”
    “Yeah, I saw that,” Paloma said, amazed. “Took her right out of the parking lot.”
    “The guy who did it might be a gamer,” Lucas said.
    “A gamer?” Paloma asked doubtfully. Another cat came out of the back, a gray one, a solemn female. Marcus picked her up and scratched her ears, and she stared at Lucas with her yellow eyes.
    “Yeah. Big guy, wearing a GenCon T-shirt, middle twenties. Probably strong, like a bodybuilder. Has a violent streak. Blond, shoulder-length hair.”
    “Nice Dexie,” Paloma said to the cat. Then he shook his head, slowly, thinking. “Not really. Big and tough, huh? That doesn’t sound like too many gamers.” He scratched his nose, thinking. “Except…”
    “Who?”
    “The guy out there now—he’s a big guy.” Paloma nodded toward the door to the front. “Pretty tough-looking. And I think I’ve seen him in a GenCon shirt.”
    “Where? Sitting down? He was kinda short.” Lucas looked toward the curtain that separated the office from the sales floor.
    “He was sitting in an old folding chair. He’s probably six-four, maybe two-twenty. Strong as a bull,” Paloma said.
    Lucas stepped toward the door. “What’s his name?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve seen him two or three times before. Never said much to me.”
    “Have you ever seen his car?”
    “No. Not that I know of,” Paloma said.
    “Huh,” Lucas said. He went back through the door in a hurry, but the dark-haired man was no longer sitting in the chair. To the girl he said, “Where did that guy go? The guy who was sitting over there…”
    She shook her head. “He left. You gonna sign a book for me?”
    “Who is he? You know him?” Lucas hurried toward the street door.
    “Nope. Never saw him before,” she said. “Why?”
    “How about you?” he called back to the male gamer. “You know him?”
    “Nope. I’m with her.”
    Out on the sidewalk, Lucas went to the corner and looked all four ways down the intersecting streets. No van in sight. Nothing but a green Mazda, driven by a redheaded woman in a green dress, who seemed to be lost.
    How long had they been talking in the back? Four or five minutes, no more.
    And the guy had gone, disappeared, in that time.
    Lucas stood on the street corner, wondering.
     
    T HE PARKING GARAGE that had once faced the back entrance to City Hall had been razed, and Lucas left the Porsche on the street. Paloma, who’d been following in a Studebaker Golden Hawk, found another space a half-block farther on. As they walked back toward City Hall, they could hear the City Hall bell ringer playing “You Are My Sunshine,” the tune clanging out above police headquarters.
    A thin man fell in step with them. As Lucas turned to him, Sloan said, looking up at the bell tower, “Hope there are no fuckin’ acid-heads around right now.”
    Lucas grinned: “That would be hard to explain to yourself—‘You Are My Sunshine’ banging around your brain.”
    “Makes me want to jump off the tower. And I’m not even high,” Paloma said.
     
    S HERRILL CAUGHT THEM in the hallway outside Lucas’s office. She was carrying a manila file: “We’ve got a problem.” She glanced at Paloma, then turned back to Lucas. “We need to talk. Now.”
    “What? They got a court order?” Lucas asked.
    “No. But you’re not gonna like it.”
    Lucas turned to Sloan: “Marcus is here to look at the composite on the Manette kidnapper. He might want to add some stuff. Could you get him down there?”
    “Sure,” Sloan said. And to Marcus: “Let’s go.”
    Lucas opened his office, nodded Sherrill into a chair, and hung his coat and jacket on an old-fashioned oak coat rack. “Tell me,” he said. And he decided that he liked the tomboy-with-great-breasts look. He’d never hit on Sherrill, and now couldn’t think how he’d missed her.
    “There’s a guy named Darrell Aldhus, a senior vice president at Jodrell National,” Sherrill said. “He’s been diddling little boys in his Scout troop.”
    Lucas frowned. “Does this have anything…”
    “No. Nothing to do with Andi Manette, except that she hasn’t reported the guy. And that’s a felony. What’s happening is, is what everybody was