Mortal Prey

Not the floor.” Then: “I’ll set it up for this afternoon. It’s getting late, so it’ll have to be soon. The Gene thing.”
    “What about Levy? You were all set to walk in on him.”
    “We’re still go on that,” she said. “We’ll take him home, and when he gets there, we’ll knock on the door.”
     
    THEY TOOK AN HOUR to get organized, get in touch with Andreno, and make it to Clayton, where Gene Rinker was being held in a rented cell at the county lockup. “I thought it was better from a security point of view, given Clara’s style, to hold him here,” Malone said, as they went up in the elevator. “We’re not moving him in and out of an obvious spot when we want to talk to him.”
    Andreno, who’d been waiting for them in the parking lot, said, “So, you guys been working day and night on this thing? Round the clock?”
    Malone glanced at him. Andreno had changed to a lush gray double-breasted chalk-striped suit that he’d apparently bought from Mafia Tailors. “Pretty much,” she said. “We have more than fifty agents in the field right now.”
    “Got some great Italian restaurants in this town,” he said.
    Lucas shook his head. “She already has romantic entanglements,” he said.
    Andreno worked his eyebrows. “Yet another reason she might want to try the local rigatoni.”
    Malone looked troubled, and turned to Lucas: “He’s not even a very good Sheetrocker. I realized that last night.”
    Andreno was puzzled: “A Sheetrocker?”
    “The bottom line is, her heart belongs to another,” Lucas said. “We’re just trying to identify him.”
    Andreno shook his head. “If…”
    “Ask me later,” Lucas said to Andreno. “We’ll get a cup of coffee and talk about feelings.”
    “Fuck you,” Malone said, but she didn’t say it in a mean way.
    The elevator bell dinged, the doors opened, and they got out.
     
    GENE RINKER WAS already in the interview room. Malone hung back, while a jailer let Lucas and Andreno into the room. The jailer gave Rinker the be good look, and shut the door.
    Rinker sat wordlessly as Lucas and Andreno settled in. Rinker was an inch sort of six feet, and slender, but not thin: unhealthy, as though he ate bad food, his face so weathered that it actually seemed to be pitted with grains of sand. His hands were rough, as weathered as his face, slack in his lap; the roughness made them dark, but the first two fingers of his right hand were nicotine-stained. His hair was limp, dishwater blond, and fell lifelessly to his slumping shoulders. He wore a gray T-shirt and jeans a size too big, with white gym shoes—the clothing appeared to have been given to him by somebody who’d guessed at sizes. He didn’t look straight at either Lucas or Andreno.
    If Lucas had seen him on the street, he would have thought, Loser, a throwaway kid, a street kid, probably did a little dope, probably stole a little, probably too unsure of himself to go violent. As Lucas and Andreno sat down, he rubbed one finger between his eyes, nervous, then dropped his hands back to his lap.
    “We’re not feds,” Lucas started. “I’m a cop from Minneapolis, this other guy’s a cop from St. Louis…. I’ve actually talked to your sister a couple of times. Talked to her yesterday.”
    Rinker was skeptical, but too scared to say anything. Lucas grinned at him. “You would’ve liked it. She called me in the FBI building, right in the middle of a meeting, and told me to get the feds off of you. There were FBI agents running around like chickens. We figured out where she called from, but by the time we got there, she was gone.”
    Rinker nodded, cleared his throat. “Good,” he ventured.
    “Listen, son, the feds only got one handle on Clara, and you’re it, and they’re pissed,” Andreno said. “They’re gonna stuff you in a drawer someplace if we don’t catch her pretty soon, and you’re not gonna like it. They got some tough goddamn prisons in the federal system.” He was using his sincere voice, and it came off. He sounded absolutely paternal, Lucas thought.
    “Catching Clara would be the best thing for everybody,” Lucas said. “I know you don’t want to hurt your sister.”
    “Not gonna hurt her,” Rinker said.
    “That’s good, that’s family feeling. I’m Italian, and we got that feeling,” Andreno said. “The problem is, Clara’s gonna get hurt. There’s no way around it. The feds are gonna hunt her down, and they’re probably gonna kill her. If we