Mortal Prey

point?”
     
    THEY WERE HALFWAY downtown, the old courthouse on the horizon with the Gateway Arch behind it, when Bender called. Andreno answered, then handed the phone to Lucas: “I can’t talk and shift.”
    Lucas took the phone. “What’s up?”
    “My daughter’s name is Jill. She’s got a friend in the computer systems department over at Heartland, and he can get you a list of Levy’s private clients. Take about twenty minutes.”
    “Can he do it without anybody knowing that he’s the one who printed it? We don’t want Levy pissed at anybody, in case…you know, in case Rinker’s a friend of his.”
    “We talked about that: He can get it without anybody knowing. Turns out he pipes stuff out to a business guy at the Post-Dispatch, so he’s done it before. Jill’s gonna get it, she’ll meet you at Tony’s Coffee.”
    Lucas looked at Andreno. “Tony’s Coffee?”
    “Sure. Right downtown. Ten minutes.”
    “We’ll be at Tony’s,” Lucas told Bender.
    “How’re we doing?”
    Lucas laughed. “Everything that’s broken on the case was broken by us. We’re rolling.”
    “Hang around Tony’s. I’ll see you there myself in a half hour,” Bender said.
     
    JILL BENDER WAS a thin redhead with a big nose and wide smile. She found them two-thirds of the way back in Tony’s, huddled over cups of coffee. She slid in beside Andreno and asked, “Where’ve you been keeping yourself?”
    “Playing golf,” Andreno said. He introduced Lucas and then asked her, “How’s your mom?”
    “She still hurts. They say they replace both knees at the same time, because if you only do one, you’ll never do the other, because of the pain.”
    “Better than being crippled,” Andreno said. To Lucas: “Arthritis.”
    “I heard that about the knee thing,” Lucas said. “My fiancée’s a surgeon.”
    Bender was digging in her purse, and came up with a plain white business envelope. “You never heard of me,” she said.
    “If they really busted their asses, could they figure out how it got to us?” Lucas asked.
    She shook her head. “I don’t see how. Nobody knows about me and Dave, and even if they did, it’d be a long train. And dad sounded excited about the whole thing…so take it.”
    Lucas took the envelope and put it in his pocket. “I’d like to buy you something: a cup of coffee or a diamond necklace or something—but it’d probably be better if you got out of here.”
    She bobbed her head. “Yup. You guys be careful. Make Dad be careful.”
    They said they would, and she patted Andreno on the thigh in a niece-like way and left. Lucas took the envelope out of his pocket and spread the four sheets of paper on the table. On the left side of the paper was a list of names and addresses, and on the right, a bank balance and account number. He scanned them, but nothing in particular caught his eye. As he finished each page, he pushed it across the table to Andreno. When Andreno had read the last page, Lucas asked, “See anything?”
    “I know a couple of the companies, the names,” Andreno said. “Nothing out of line. But did you see the balances? Nothing under four mil. Bronze Industries at thirty-two million? What the hell is Bronze Industries?”
    “I don’t know. Some kind of metal deal? I never heard of it.”
    “Only four individuals, never heard of any of them. I don’t know what to tell you.”
    “I gotta get this back to the feds,” Lucas said. “This is what they’re good at.”
    “There’s a copy place down the street—they probably got a fax.”
     
    ANDRENO WAITED AT Tony’s for Bender, while Lucas walked down the street. On the way, he punched Sally’s number into the cell phone, got her, and asked for a fax number. She came back with it, and he scribbled it on the palm of his hand.
    “What is it?”
    “Andy Levy’s private client list, with addresses, account numbers, and current balances. You need to look at them and see what they lead back to. Most of them are companies.”
    “Where’d you get it? This might not be legal.”
    He heard somebody else in the room ask, “What?”
    Lucas said, “Look, I’m gonna fax these things to you. If you don’t want them, shred them. As far as legal is concerned, I’m not a lawyer. I just got them from a guy.”
    He punched off and, five minutes later, started dropping the sheets into the fax machine; the machine on the other end was running, and accepted them.
     
    BENDER AND ANDRENO were drinking coffee when