Mortal Prey

Cancún, where she’d worked illegally as a bookkeeper at a boutique hotel called Passages.
    Lucas had danced with her once, not knowing who she was, at her club in Wichita, The Rink. They’d had a good time, for a little time, that night. She’d even chatted with Mallard and Malone. She must’ve known who they were, although they hadn’t known who she was. Later, she’d tried to kill Lucas in his own front yard. She’d missed almost purely by chance…as he’d missed her.
     
    READING ABOUT HIS own encounter with Rinker, Lucas was struck with the strangeness of writerly synthesis. He was in the story, but it didn’t sound like him, or feel like him. He felt as though he were looking at himself in an old 8-millimeter movie, something that wasn’t quite true, but was undeniably accurate…and he wondered if the entire report was like that, accurate but not especially true.
    Rinker came across as Mallard saw her, as the daughter of the devil. At the same time, almost against the will of the writer, another picture was emerging, a kind of Annie Oakley old-timey story of survival.
     
    AFTER COMPLETING THE detailed review of Rinker’s life and activities, the report went on to detail what was known of the business and crime activities of her various bosses: Names were named, connections made, possibilities explored. Much was speculative, but all of it was based on the kind of rumor-fabric that Lucas had lived with most of his working life. Not much could be proven, but much could be understood….
    He was two-thirds of the way through the report when he heard the flight attendant saying something, but he paid no attention until the plane’s attitude changed with an audible clunk that reverberated through the cabin. He sat upright, looked around, and saw that people were packing up briefcases, putting away computers, sticking stuff back into the overhead. He looked at his watch: They’d been in the air for two hours and were coming into Cancún.
    He leaned forward, tapped Malone’s arm, and when she turned, passed the report back.
    “Finish it?”
    “No. Got another hundred pages. And I’ll want to read the whole thing over,” he said. “Good stuff in there. I can see what you meant when you said… inflected. Tough life.”
    “Which is not exactly an excuse for all the people she’s killed—especially people like Barbara Allen.” Allen had been a rich charity-and-foundation socialite in Minneapolis. Rinker had shot her to death so that her client could get at Allen’s husband.
    “No. But it was still tough,” Lucas said.
    “The thing is, you kinda liked her,” Malone said. “You went for that whole perky cheerleader teased-hair bar-owner act.”
    “What’s not to like?” Lucas asked. He said, “Better buckle up,” and leaned back out of the conversation.
     
    THE PLANE FAILED to crash in Cancún, but the heat and humidity jumped them as soon as they walked off the plane. They retrieved their luggage and took a taxi from the mainland over to the Island, where Mallard had gotten rooms at the Blue Palms. “Let’s get cleaned up and find something to eat,” he said. “The hotel restaurant is supposed to be okay.”
    “How about the Italian place where Rinker was shot?” Lucas asked. “Your report says it’s pretty good.”
    “Saving that for lunch tomorrow,” Mallard said.
    The hotel room was a blank-faced off-white cubicle with a TV and a minibar, a too-soft double bed, and a bathroom without a tub. The place smelled faintly of bug spray and salt water, and could have been at any seaside anywhere. Lucas hung his clothes in the closet and washed his face, then walked out onto the narrow balcony and looked down at the water.
    Rinker had been here, and not long ago. Had worked within a couple of blocks of the Blue Palms, had probably spent time on the beach ten stories down. She might well be in the same kind of place, somewhere else on the globe, looking for a job, trying to settle in.
    Or she might have a hidey-hole in St. Louis, ready to go to war on her lover’s killers. If she’d simply run, they’d never find her. But if she’d gone to St. Louis, he thought…
    If she’d gone to St. Louis, they’d get her.

4
    THEY HAD DINNER TOGETHER, AND caught up with their separate lives. Lucas poked at Malone’s new relationship with the Sheetrocker, despite Mallard’s efforts to warn him away. Malone had almost nothing to say about her friend, except that he had terrific shoulders