Mortal Prey

Levy. There’s an Andy Levy who’s a vice president at First Heartland National Bank here in St. Louis. I don’t know he’s the one, but he’s a possibility.”
    They all turned to look at him again. Malone, who’d been sitting in the corner poking at a laptop, asked, “Where’d you get this?”
    “On the street,” Lucas said. “While I was out drinking.”
    “Drinking with any specific guy?” asked the tomboy agent, who the day before had been wearing khaki. Now she was wearing an olive-drab blouse, with epaulets. Lucas liked the look, sort of square-shouldered Italian Army.
    “Nobody specific,” he said. “Just a bunch of guys.”
    “Maybe nothing to take seriously,” said another one of the agents.
    “Gotta take it seriously,” Lucas said. “You don’t take it seriously and Andy Levy gets hit, and the papers hear about it, then you’re a laughingstock. That’s not the FBI way. Or maybe it is, but it’s not something you’d want to talk about.”
    “Who’d tell the papers?”
    Lucas shrugged. “I might. I always liked newspaper guys.”
    Mallard said, “Ah, man—Lucas, let’s step out in the hallway for a minute, huh? We gotta talk.”
     
    MALLARD PUSHED THE door shut, stood with his back to it, and asked, “Who’s your source?”
    “A guy I ran into last night,” Lucas said. “If you wind up desperately needing him—and I can’t see how that would happen—then I’ll tell you who he is. Until then, the information’s got to be enough.”
    “Is it good information?”
    “It’s good. It comes right out of Rinker’s mouth. But I’m not sure the guy at Heartland is the right guy. Rinker’s the one who called him a banker, and my source doesn’t know if she meant a mob banker or a legit banker or what. If Levy’s legit, maybe Rinker’s got some money with him.”
    “That’d be good—that’d be really good. Anything else I ought to know?”
    “Yeah. The AIC here is running another Rinker group out of his back pocket. Four guys named Striker, Allenby, Lane, and Jones, out of Intelligence. He doesn’t like you being here. What that means is, there are about six groups of cops looking for the same woman and not finding her. But pretty soon, they’re gonna start finding each other.”
    “Boy—you do keep your ear to the ground. Where’d you hear this? On the street?”
    Lucas grinned. “Everybody knows about it. You’re the last.”
    Mallard sighed and said, “Listen, I’m going over to talk to John Ross. That’s really why I was a little anxious about your not being here. I want you to come along, and we’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”
    “Could have called.”
    “Never occurred to me that you might be sleeping in,” Mallard said. “I figured you were up to something…and I was right. And listen, take it easy in here, okay? I know they’re a little chilly with outsiders.”
    “A little chilly, my ass. I almost froze to death last night,” Lucas said. “I’m sure your guys are good at what they do, but that’s not what I do. I think I’d be more valuable doing what I’m doing—hooking up with the locals, seeing who is doing what.”
    Mallard shrugged. “That’s fine with me, as long as you stay in touch. I sort of value your input.”
    “I’ll be around.”
    “Andy Levy, a banker,” Mallard said.
    “That’s right.”
    “Let’s go back in.”
     
    BACK INSIDE , Mallard looked at one of the agents and said, “I want you and four more guys on this Andy Levy, and I want a list of all the Andy Levys in the metropolitan area. As soon as we’ve got the right guy, I want a team on him around the clock. Start now—find him. Take whoever you want, except Sally.”
    The woman named Sally, in the epaulets, sat up and tapped the eraser end of a pencil on her yellow pad. Why not her? Mallard answered the question without being asked.
    “Sally, Lucas is going to be running around town. I want you to run around with him as our liaison.”
    She shook her head, looked at Lucas, unhappy.
    “I can’t do that,” Lucas said.
    “Don’t be a princess, Lucas,” Malone snapped from the corner. “Take Sally. Her old man is a cop, her brother’s a cop, she understands.”
    “I don’t care if her father’s the fuckin’ Pope of Cleveland, I ain’t taking her,” Lucas said. “The people I talk to aren’t going to talk to me if she’s around.”
    “Don’t tell them that she’s with the Bureau.”
    Lucas looked at Mallard. “Think about the