Mortal Prey

looked carefully up and down the street. Even from a block away, he looked worried.
    She grinned as she tossed the glasses on the passenger seat and put the car in gear. She needed him worried. She needed him eager to make a deal, eager to explain, eager to talk.
     
    WHEN SHE GOT back to Pollock’s, she found a copy of the Post-Dispatch on the kitchen table with a piece of typing paper on it; Dorothy had scrawled, “READ THIS.” Rinker picked up the paper, didn’t take in the headline at all, but saw the man in the orange suit and the chains, and there was a click of recognition but she couldn’t place him, and then she thought, No, no…
    They had Gene, and they were dragging him.
     
    RINKER READ THE story through. An FBI agent, a woman named Malone—Rinker recognized the name from Minneapolis—was dragging Gene. Gene, she said, might provide clues to Clara Rinker’s whereabouts, and was inclined to be cooperative because he’d been arrested for possession of drugs. This was his fourth arrest on drug charges, and this time, Malone said, he could be going away for a long time.
    Rinker put the paper down, sprawled on the couch, and stared at the ceiling and thought about it. She thought for ten minutes, then rolled off the couch, still uncertain, walked out to the car, climbed inside. She needed someplace reasonably far away, like in Illinois….
    She drove north, crossed the river, drove across East St. Louis without looking down, and on the outskirts found a truck stop with a half-dozen pay-phone booths designed for truckers. She got five dollars in quarters, checked the phone book, called 612 information, got the number, and called the Minneapolis police department and asked for Lucas Davenport.
    The phone rang once, and a woman answered: “Marcy Sherrill.”
    “Is this Chief Davenport’s office?” she asked.
    “Yes, it is, how can I help you?”
    “Can I speak to Chief Davenport, please?”
    “I’m afraid he’s not here right now…. I’m not exactly sure when he’ll be back. Could I help you, or have him call you?”
    Rinker thought again, then frowned and asked, “Is he still in St. Louis?”
    “Yes, I think so. Who is this, please?”
    “Um…Charlotte. Could you tell him Charlotte called?”
    Now the woman on the other end of the line sounded pissed. “Charlotte? Charlotte who?”
    “Just…Charlotte. Thanks a lot.” She hung up, then grinned to herself. Sounded like she had gotten Davenport in trouble.
    She thought about crossing back to St. Louis, since Davenport was there. But the pile of quarters was right in front of her, with a couple of phone books, so she turned to the yellow pages, found “Hotels,” and started calling those with the biggest advertisements. She found him on the fifth call. Nobody in his room. Thought another minute, looked around, found a white pages for St. Louis, looked up the FBI.
    What was the name of the woman in Minneapolis? Marcy? Or Cheryl? Marcy, she thought.
    She got a central switchboard at the FBI office and said, “My name is Marcy, and I’m with the Minneapolis Police Department. I work for Chief Lucas Davenport. Chief Davenport is there in St. Louis, working with Special Agent Malone. I really need to talk to him—it’s an emergency with a case he’s on.”
    “Please hold.”
     
    AND THEN , after a minute and a half on hold, like magic, after a click or two, Davenport was on the line. “Marcy?”
    “Lucas?”
    “Yeah…Is this Marcy?”
    “No, actually it’s not, Lucas.”
    A long silence, then, his voice gone suddenly deeper: “How’ve you been?”
    “Not so good—but you should know about that.” She could imagine the ferocious gesturing and waving on the other end of the line.
    “Yeah, I heard you were hit pretty bad.” He sounded calm enough. “I’m really sorry about the baby. My fiancée is pregnant…. I’m doing that whole trip myself. Gonna get married in the fall.”
    “Your fiancée—anybody I’d know?”
    “No. She’s a doctor. Pretty tough girl. You’d probably like her.”
    “Maybe…but to cut the b.s., I just wanted to call you and to tell you to keep Gene out of this. I knew the federales were going to get involved, I wasn’t surprised when I saw that woman Malone in the paper, but we all know that Gene isn’t quite right. Putting him in jail won’t help anything. I’m not going to come in—you can’t blackmail me. But you can tell whoever’s running that show over there that I take Gene