Mortal Prey

where Rinker could reach them.
    “How much?” Rinker asked.
    “You don’t have to pay,” Sellos said. “Just take the fuckin’ things.”
    “How long are they good for?”
    “Couple of weeks, anyway. Two of them are arranged, the other two are on vacation.” Arranged phones were phones that the owner arranged to have stolen, for a fee. Vacation phones were lifted in burglaries of people who were out of town.
    “All right. You know the numbers for these phones?” Rinker asked.
    “They’re on the tape on the back.”
    She looked at the back of one of the phones, found a piece of white adhesive tape, with a number in blue ballpoint. “Write this down,” she said. She read the number off, and Sellos wrote it on his desk pad. “Soon as I leave here, I want you to call Nanny Dichter on his private line and tell him to call me at this number. I don’t talk when I’m driving, so I won’t turn the phone on until I’m somewhere safe. But you tell him to call me, okay?”
    “Are you and Nanny, uh…are you lookin’ for each other?”
    “You don’t want to know about this, John. You call Nanny, tell him I want to talk about John Ross. Eleven o’clock, right around there.”
    “Nanny’ll be pissed at me. ” He shook his head sadly, thinking about it.
    “No, he won’t. Just get in touch with him when I leave, and tell him I was pointing a gun at your head. I’ll tell him the same thing.”
    “You gotta promise me,” Sellos said. “To tell him that.”
    “Cross my heart,” Rinker said. “Now. I need a home phone number for Andy Levy.”
    Sellos was puzzled. “Andy who?”
    “Levy. The bank guy.”
    Sellos shook his head “I don’t know him.”
    “John…”
    “Honest to God, Clara, I never heard of him. He’s a Jew or something? I don’t know hardly any Jews. Honest to God.”
    Rinker looked at him for a moment, her best look, and decided that Sellos was nervous but was probably telling the truth.
    “All right. I’ll find it somewhere else.”
    “I’d do anything, Clara….”
    Rinker stood up. “The best thing for you to do, John, is to give me a few minutes before you call Nanny. Or anybody else. If the cops come screaming down the street, I’ll come back and kill you first.”
    “No problem, I won’t call the cops. You ought to see this.” He pushed the piece of paper across the desk. It looked like a wanted poster and had Rinker’s face on it.
    “Where’d you get it?”
    “It’s in every goddamn bar and motel in St. Louis,” Sellos said. “The picture’s not very good—it could be anybody. But if you know you, it looks like you.”
    “Why’re you telling me?” Rinker asked.
    He shrugged. “I always sorta liked you…when you were working out of the warehouse. I didn’t know about the gun stuff until it was in the papers.”
    She nodded—he had liked her, she thought. She remembered that. “All right. Give me a couple minutes.” She stood up and stepped away, to the office door, and then said, “Listen, John, you gotta get rid of that fuckin’ folk music, okay? Promise me?” She let out a thin smile. “I mean, I’m not gonna shoot you if you don’t, but just do it for…American civilization?”
     
    NANNY DICHTER LIVED on Chirac Road, a semiprivate dead-end lane in Frontenac. All the houses sat well back from the lane, and any car turning into it could be seen—watched—from any of the houses along it. On the other hand, any car coming out of the lane could be seen up and down Nouvelle Road, the main street. At ten minutes past ten o’clock, Rinker parked on Nouvelle Road, three blocks from Chirac. Ten or fifteen cars lined the street; a party. She parked at the end of the line closest to Chirac, turned off the lights, and slumped behind the steering wheel, watching Chirac in the rearview mirror.
    Bunches of kids were still arriving at the party, and a couple left. From her spot in the street, Rinker could hear their music and see flickering multicolored lights. Some kind of techno shit, she thought. Better than folk music, anyway. A little after ten-thirty, a kid wandered out of the party, stood on the front lawn of the party house, and began vomiting. He continued for a minute, then walked on to his car, got in, got back out, vomited again, then got back in the car and drove away.
    Happy trails, Rinker thought.
    At ten-thirty-five, she began to wonder if Dichter was going to call her, or if he’d been home when Sellos called him—what if he’d