Night Prey

a taste of her at the suburban Smart Book. “She used to come to readings,” the store owner said. He nibbled at his lip as he peered at the photograph. “She didn’t buy much, but we’d have these wine-and-cheese things for authors coming through town, and she’d show up maybe half the time. Maybe more than that.”
    “Did you have a reading last Friday?”
    “No, but there were some.”
    “Where?”
    “Hell, I don’t know.” He threw up his hands. “Goddamn authors are like cockroaches. There’re hundreds of them. There’s always readings somewhere. Especially at the end of the week.”
    “How do I find out where?”
    “Call the Star-Trib. There’d be somebody who could tell you.”
     
     
     
    LUCAS CALLED FROM a corner phone, another number from memory. “I wondered if you’d call.” The woman’s voice was hushed. “Are you bringing up your net?”
    “I’m doing that now. There’re lots of holes.”
    “I’m in.”
    “Thanks, I appreciate it. How about the readings?”
    “There was poetry at the Startled Crane, something called Prairie Woman at The Saint—I don’t know how I missed that one—Gynostic at Wild Lily Press, and the Pillar of Manhood at Crosby’s. The Pillar of Manhood was a male-only night. If you’d called last week, I probably could have gotten you in.”
    “Too late,” Lucas said. “My drum’s broke.”
    “Darn. You had a nice drum, too.”
    “Yeah, well, thanks, Shirlene.” To Connell: “We can scratch Crosby’s off the list.”
     
     
     
    THE OWNER OF the Startled Crane grinned at Lucas and said, “Cheese it, the heat . . . How you been, Lucas?” They shook hands, and the store owner nodded at Connell, who stared at him like a snake at a bird.
    “Not bad, Ned,” Lucas said. “How’s the old lady?”
    Ned’s eyebrows went up. “Pregnant again. You just wave it at her, and she’s knocked up.”
    “Everybody’s pregnant. I gotta friend, I just heard his wife’s pregnant. How many is that for you? Six?”
    “Seven . . . what’s happening?”
    Connell, who had been listening impatiently to the chitchat, thrust the photos at him. “Was this woman here Friday night?”
    Lucas, softer, said, “We’re trying to track down the last days of a woman who was killed last week. We thought she might’ve been at your poetry reading.”
    Ned shuffled through the photos. “Yeah, I know her. Harriet something, right? I don’t think she was here. There were about twenty people, but I don’t think she was with them.”
    “But you see her around?”
    “Yeah. She’s a semiregular. I saw the TV stuff on Nooner. I thought that might be her.”
    “Ask around, will you?”
    “Sure.”
    “What’s Nooner ?” Connell asked.
    “TV3’s new noon news,” Ned said. “But I didn’t see her Friday. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was somewhere else, though.”
    “Thanks, Ned.”
    “Sure. And stop in. I’ve been fleshing out the poetry section.”
    Back on the street, Connell said, “You’ve got a lot of bookstore friends?”
    “A few,” Lucas said. “Ned used to deal a little grass. I leaned on him and he quit.”
    “Huh,” she said, thinking it over. Then, “Why’d he tell you about poetry?”
    “I read poetry,” Lucas said.
    “Bullshit.”
    Lucas shrugged and started toward the car.
    “Say a poem.”
    “Fuck you, Connell,” Lucas said.
    “No, c’mon,” she said, catching him, facing him. “Say a poem.”
    Lucas thought for a second, then said, “The heart asks pleasure first/And then excuse from pain/and then those little anodynes/that deaden suffering. And then to go to sleep/and then if it should be/the will of its inquisitor/the privilege to die.”
    Connell, already pale, seemed to go a shade paler, and Lucas, remembering, thought, Oh, shit.
    “Who wrote that?”
    “Emily Dickinson.”
    “Roux told you I have cancer?”
    “Yes, but I wasn’t thinking about that. . . .”
    Connell, studying him, suddenly showed a tiny smile. “I was kind of hoping you were. I was thinking, Jesus Christ, what a shot in the mouth. ”
    “Well . . . ?”
    “The Wild Lily Press over on the West Bank.”
    He shook his head. “I doubt it. That’s a feminist store. He’d be pretty noticeable.”
    “Then The Saint, over in St. Paul.”
     
     
     
    ON THE WAY to St. Paul, Connell said, “I’m in a hurry on this, Davenport. I’m gonna die in three or four months, six at the outside. Right now I’m in remission, and I don’t feel too