Night Prey

of dead skin off his elbows; the heartbreak of psoriasis. A door behind the fat man led to a phone booth-size room with a sink and a toilet. The door was open, and the stool was gurgling. A half-used roll of toilet paper sat on the toilet tank, and another one lay on the floor, where it had soaked full of rusty water.
    “So he says it’ll cost a hunnert just to come out here and look at it,” the fat guy said to the telephone, looking into the bathroom. “I tell you, I run up to Fleet-Farm and I get the parts . . . Well, I know that, Al, but this is drivin’ me fuckin’ crazy.”
    The fat guy put his hand over the mouthpiece and said, “Be with you in a minute.” Then to the phone, “Al, I gotta go, there’s a couple guys here in suits. Yeah.” He looked up at Lucas and asked, “You EPA?”
    “No.”
    The fat man said, “No,” to the phone, listened, then looked up again. “OSHA?”
    “No. Minneapolis cops.”
    “Minneapolis cops,” the fat man said. He listened for a minute, then looked up. “He sent the check.”
    “What?”
    “He sent the check to his old lady. Put it in the mail this morning, the whole thing.”
    “Terrific,” Lucas said. “I really hope he did, or we’ll have to arrest him for misfeasance to a police officer on official business, a Class Three felony.”
    Greave turned away to smile, while the fat man repeated what Lucas said into the phone, then after a pause said, “That’s what the man said,” and hung up. “He says he really mailed it.”
    “Okay,” said Lucas. “Now, we’re also looking for a guy who supposedly hangs around here. Junky Doog. . . .” The fat man’s eyes slid away, and Lucas said, “So he’s out here?”
    “Junky’s, uh, kind of . . .” The fat man tapped his head.
    “I know. I’ve dealt with him a few times.”
    “Like, recently?”
    “Not since he got out of St. Peter.”
    “I think he got Alzheimer’s,” the fat man said. “Some days, he’s just not here. He forgets to eat, he shits in his pants.”
    “So where is he?” Lucas asked.
    “Christ, I feel bad about the guy. He’s a guy who never caught a break,” the fat man said. “Not one fuckin’ day of his life.”
    “Used to cut people up. You can’t do that.”
    “Yeah, I know. Beautiful women. And I ain’t no softy on crime, but you talk to Junky, and you know he didn’t know any better. He’s like a kid. I mean, he’s not like a kid, because a normal kid wouldn’t do what he did . . . I mean, he just doesn’t know. He’s like a . . . pit bull, or something. It just ain’t his fault.”
    “We take that into account,” said Greave, his voice soft. “Really, we’re concerned about these things.”
    The fat man sighed, struggled to his feet, walked around the counter to a window. He pointed out across the landfill. “See that willow tree? He’s got a place in the woods over there. We ain’t supposed to let him, but whatcha gonna do?”

    LUCAS AND GREAVE scuffed across the yellow-dirt landfill, trying to stay clear of the contrails of dust thrown up by the garbage trucks rumbling by. The landfill looked more like a highway construction site than a dump, with big D-9 Cats laboring around the edges of the raw dirt; and only at the edges did it look like a dump: a jumble of green plastic garbage bags, throwaway diapers, cereal boxes, cardboard, scraps of sheet plastic and metal, all rolled under the yellow dirt, and all surrounded by second-growth forest. Seagulls, crows, and pigeons hung over the litter, looking for food; a bony gray dog, moving jackal-like, slipped around the edges.
    The willow tree was an old one, yellow, with great weeping branches bright green with new growth. Beneath it, two blue plastic tarps had been draped tentlike over tree limbs. Under one of the tarps was a salvaged charcoal grill; under the other was a mattress. A man lay on the mattress, faceup, eyes open, unmoving.
    “Jesus, he’s fuckin’ dead,” Greave said, his voice hushed.
    Lucas stepped off the raw earth, Greave tagging reluctantly behind, followed a narrow trail around a clump of bushes, and was hit by the stink of human waste. The odor was thick, and came from no particular direction. He started breathing through his mouth, and unconsciously reached across to his hipbone and pulled his pistol a quarter inch out of the holster, loosening it, then patted it back. He moved in close before he called out, “Hello. Hey.”
    The man on the mattress twitched, then