Night Prey

subsided again. He lay with one arm outstretched, the other over his pelvis. There was something wrong with the outstretched arm, Lucas saw, moving closer. Just off the mattress, a flat-topped stump was apparently being used as a table. A group of small brown cylinders sat on the stump, like chunks of beef jerky. Beside the stump was a one-gallon aluminum can of paint thinner, top off, lying on its side.
    “Hey. . . .”
    The man rolled up farther, tried to sit up. Junky Doog. He was barefoot. And he had a knife, a long curved pearl-handled number, open, the blade protruding five inches from the handle. Doog held it delicately, like a straight razor, and said, “Gothefuckaway,” one word. Doog’s eyes were a hazy white, as though covered with cataracts, and his face was burned brown. He had no teeth and hadn’t shaved in weeks. As he stood, his graying hair fell down on his shoulders, knotted with grime. He looked worse than Lucas had ever seen him: looked worse than Lucas had ever seen a human being look.
    “There’s shit all over the place,” Greave said. Then: “Watch it, watch the blade. . . .”
    Junky whirled the knife in his fingers with the dexterity of a cheerleader twirling a baton, the steel twinkling in the weak sunlight. “Gothefuckaway,” he screamed. He took a step toward Lucas, fell, tried to catch himself with his free hand, the hand without the knife, screamed again, and rolled onto his back, cradling the free hand. The hand had no fingers. Lucas looked at the stump: the brown things were pieces of finger and several toes.
    “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. He glanced at Greave, whose mouth was hanging open. Junky was weeping, trying to get up, still with the knife flickering in his good hand. Lucas stepped behind him, and when Junky made it to his knees, put a foot between his shoulder blades and pushed him facedown on the worn dirt just off the mattress. Pinning him, he caught the bad arm, and as Junky squirmed, crying, caught the other arm, shook the knife out of his hand. Junky was too weak to resist; weaker than a child.
    “Can you walk?” Lucas asked, trying to pull Junky up. He looked at Greave. “Give me a hand.”
    Junky, caught in a crying jag, nodded, and with a boost from Lucas and Greave, got to his feet.
    “We gotta go, man. We gotta go, Junky,” Lucas said. “We’re cops, you gotta come with us.”
    They led him back through the shit-stink, through the weeds, Junky stumbling, still weeping; halfway up the path, something happened, and he pulled around, looked at Lucas, his eyes clearing. “Get my blade. Get my blade, please. It’ll get all rusted up.”
    Lucas looked at him a minute, looked back. “Hold him,” he said to Greave. Junky had nothing to do with the killings; no way. But Lucas should take the knife.
    “Get the blade.”
    Lucas jogged back to the campsite, picked up the knife, closed it, and walked back to where Greave held Junky’s arm, Junky swaying in the path. Junky’s mind had slipped away again, and he mutely followed Lucas and Greave across the yellow dirt, walking stiffly, as though his legs were posts. Only the big toes remained on his feet. His thumb and the lowest finger knuckles remained on his left hand; the hand was fiery with infection.
    Back at the shed, the fat man came out and Lucas said, “Call 911. Tell them a police officer needs an ambulance. My name is Lucas Davenport and I’m a deputy chief with the City of Minneapolis.”
    “What happened, did you . . . ?” the fat man started, then saw first Junky’s hand, and then his feet. “Oh my sweet Blessed Virgin Mary,” he said, and he went back into the shed.
    Lucas looked at Junky, dug into his pocket, handed him the knife. “Let him go,” he said to Greave.
    “What’re you gonna do?” Greave asked.
    “Just let him go.”
    Reluctantly, Greave released him, and the knife, still closed, twinkled in his hand. Lucas stepped sideways from him, a knife fighter’s move, and said, “I’m gonna cut you, Junky,” he said, his voice low, challenging.
    Junky turned toward him, a smile at the corner of his ravaged face. The knife turned in his hand, and suddenly the blade snapped out. Junky stumbled toward Lucas.
    “I cut you; you not cut me,” he said.
    “I cut you, man,” Lucas said, beginning to circle to his right, away from the blade.
    “You not cut me.”
    The fat man came out and said, “Hey. What’re you doin’?”
    Lucas glanced at him. “Take it easy. Is the