Mind Prey

John Mail is a very smart boy. But maybe we can manipulate him.”
    “How?”
    “I’ve been thinking about that. If he’s talking to this Davenport person, maybe we can send a message.”
    “How?”
    Andi sighed. “I don’t know. Not yet.”
     
    J OHN M AIL CAME back an hour later. Again they felt him coming before they heard him, the vibration of a body on the stairs. He opened the door as he had before, carefully. Andi and Grace were on the mattress. He looked at them both, his gaze lingering on Grace until she looked away, and then he said to Andi, “Come out.”

8
    L UCAS SPENT THE early afternoon reading the papers, then tripping around to the television stations. After his last stop, he called in to Homicide and asked that Sloan be sent to meet him at Nancy Wolfe’s office.
    When Lucas arrived at Wolfe’s, Sloan was examining the same NSX that Lucas had cruised in the morning.
    “Heavy metal,” he said, as he slouched over to Lucas. “Makes the Porsche look like a fuckin’ Packard.”
    Sloan was a thin man, a man who looked at the world sideways, with a skeptical grin. He liked brown suits and had several of varied intensity: in the summer he leaned toward off-tans and not-quite-beiges, striped neckties, and straw hats; in the winter, he went for darker tones and felt hats. He’d just shifted to winter wear, and was a dark spot in the parking lot.
    “The NSX could bite you on the ass,” Lucas said, looking at the car. He flipped the engagement ring in the air, caught it, and slipped it over the end of his thumb. The stone sparkled like high-rent fire.
    “What’re we doing?” Sloan asked.
    “Good guy—bad guy with Nancy Wolfe, Manette’s partner. You’re the good guy.”
    “What has she got to do with it?”
    “You know about the call from the asshole?” Lucas asked.
    “Yeah, Lester played the tape for me.”
    “I’ve been running around asking questions,” Lucas said. “Nobody—none of the papers, none of the stations—carried anything about the shirt. Nobody had anything about me working the case. The only people who knew, outside the department, were the family and a few people close to the family. Wolfe. A lawyer.”
    “Christ.” Sloan scratched his head. “You think somebody’s talking to him? The asshole?”
    “Maybe. I can explain him knowing about me,” Lucas said. “I can’t explain the shirt, unless he made a pretty big intuitive leap.”
    “Huh.” They passed the chewing-gum sculpture. Sloan looked up at it and asked, “How about Miranda?”
    “Yep. We do the whole thing…And she asks for an attorney, we say fine. I’m going after her pretty hard. We want to shake her up. Same thing for the rest of the family, when we get to them.”
     
    “L UCAS. H EY, L UCAS.” They’d started across the bridge, stopped for just a second to look at the koi, heard the woman’s voice, turned and saw Jan Reed hurrying across the street. A TV van was making an illegal U-turn that would take it into the parking lot.
    “ This one makes my dick hard,” Sloan muttered.
    Reed had large dark eyes, auburn hair that fell to her shoulders, and long, tanned legs. She wore a plum suit and matching shoes, and carried a Gucci shoulder bag. She had a slight overbite; a tiny lisp added to her charm.
    “Are you working this?” Lucas asked as Reed came up. “This is…”
    “Detective Sloan, of course,” Reed said. She took Sloan’s hand, gave him a two-hundred-watt smile. Then to Lucas: “I’m trying for an interview with Nancy Wolfe. I understand her records were subpoenaed this morning by the local Nazis.”
    “That was me,” Lucas said.
    Reed’s smile widened slightly: she’d known. “Really? Well, why’d you do that?”
    Lucas glanced toward the truck and then said to Reed, “Jan, Jan, Jan. You’ve got a sleazy unethical microphone in the truck, don’t you? I mean, my golly, that’s very slimy, a really tacky, disgusting, snakelike invasion of my privacy. In fact, it’s very close to criminal. It may even be criminal.”
    Reed sighed. “Lucas…”
    Lucas leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Go fuck yourself.”
    She leaned close to his ear and said, “I like the basic concept, but I hate flying solo.”
    Lucas, backing away, felt the ring in his pocket and said, “C’mon, Sloan, let’s see if we can get to Mrs. Wolfe before the media does…”
    “Goddamnit, Lucas,” Reed said, and she stamped her foot.
     
    I NSIDE, S LOAN ASKED, “Do you