Mind Prey

I’m talking. Just keep working on the sandwich, huh?”
    The kid didn’t look up. “What’s going on?”
    “There’s a van across the street, and it might be trouble. I’m gonna call in a squad car to check. Hand me one of those large root beer cups and keep working on the sandwich.”
    “I’m almost done,” the kid said, glancing up at Lucas.
    “Make another one. Same thing. Don’t look out the window.”
    Lucas carried the root beer cup to the soda machine, where he was out of sight, took the cellular phone out of his pocket, and called in. “This is Davenport. I’ve got a van tailing me out to a Subway on University Avenue, I need a couple of cars here quick.” He gave the dispatcher the address and asked that the cars come in at the corners on either side of the van. “Get one guy out of each car to walk to the corner on foot. Let me know when they’re in position, and I’ll come out.”
    “Hang on.” The dispatcher was back fifteen seconds later. “Two cars on the way, Lucas. They’ll be there in a minute or a little more. Stay on, and we’ll let you know.”
    “Do they know what they’re supposed to do?”
    “Yes. They’ll wait until they see you moving out of the Subway.”
    The kid was finishing the second sandwich when Lucas moved back to the counter with the cup full of cellular telephone.
    “We gonna get robbed?” the kid asked, keeping his head down.
    “I don’t think so,” Lucas said. “I think this is something else.”
    “Been robbed twice, this place has,” the kid said. “I wasn’t here. My brother was.”
    “Just give them the money,” Lucas said, handing the kid a ten-dollar bill.
    “That’s what everybody says.” The kid handed him some change, and the cellular scratched from the cup. Lucas put it to his face and said, “Say that again?”
    “We’re all set.”
    “I’m on my way out.”
     
    A HELL OF a way to end it, Lucas thought as he walked toward the entrance. He was tight: something was wrong at the van. Something was about to happen. Anyone who had been on the streets would have seen it, would have felt it coming.
    At the door, the sandwich bag in one hand and the cup and cellular phone in the other, he paused, put his hand in his pocket as though fumbling for car keys, and checked the van. It was older, with rusted-out holes on the fenders, side panels, and around the taillights. The cup said something to him, and he put it to his mouth. “What?”
    “Two men just got out of the other side of the vehicle where you can’t see them. They may be armed.”
    “Okay.” Two men?
    Lucas pushed through the door and started toward the Porsche. He was halfway to the car when the two men came around the back of the car and started toward him. One was tall and thin, with a thin goatee; the other short and muscular, with long, heavy arms. The tall one wore a thin cotton jacket; the short one wore a high school letter jacket without a letter. They were pointing toward him, and he thought: A mugging? Maybe nothing to do with Mail?
    They were twenty yards away and walking fast, hands in their pockets, looking at him, cutting him off from the car. Lucas stopped suddenly, and they changed direction toward him, and he stooped and put the sandwiches on the blacktop and drew his pistol in the same motion, pointed it at them.
    “Police. Stop right there. Get your hands in the air, get your hands up.”
    And two uniformed cops came running in from behind, guns drawn, and one shouted, “Police.”
    The van tried to leave—the driver, unseen behind the dark glass, cranked the engine, gunned it forward, and a squad popped out of the street halfway down the block, and paused. The van driver stopped, then pulled to the side of the street. The two men in the street were looking around, uncertainly, and one pulled his hands from his pockets slowly and said, “What? What do you want?” The other slowly lifted his hands.
    “On the ground,” Lucas shouted. “C’mon, you know the routine: on the ground.”
    And they knew. They dropped to their knees, then lay on the ground with their hands behind their heads.
    Lucas moved in close and asked, “Is that Mail in the van?”
    “Don’t got no mail,” the taller of the two men said. “What’re you doing to us?”
    “You know what the fuck I’m talking about,” Lucas said harshly. “You’ve got Andi Manette and her daughters, and if we don’t find out real fuckin’ quick where they’re at, we’re gonna