Phantom Prey

Siggy. He doesn’t walk like Siggy.”
    “Then who in the hell was she kissing?” Shrake asked.
    The guy pulled the shades on the second window, and Del said, “Shit, he looks like Siggy, but I think you’re right. He’s a dummy.”
    “Gimme the glasses,” Jenkins said. “I know the fucker pretty good.” The guy appeared in the last window on the left, the kitchen, and pulled the shade, and Jenkins, peering through the 12x36 image-stabilized binoculars, said, “Goddamnit. He does look like Siggy. And goddamnit, they’re pulling our weenies. That’s not him.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Yeah—you know how? His earlobes are wrong,” Jenkins said. “Siggy plays with his earring. He did it all the way through the bail hearing, kept playing with that diamond, big as a lemon drop, and he’s got these great big fat fleshy earlobes. This guy’s got no earlobes at all, and his mouth isn’t quite right. Jesus, he looks like him. He’s got the haircut, but that ain’t him.”
    Lucas looked at Shrake: “Talk to the SWAT. This is just more security . . . he’s coming in.”
    “How’re we going to see him with the shades down?” Jenkins asked.
    “The shades aren’t down in the bedroom,” Lucas said. “Siggy’s a horny bastard, he’s gonna nail her the minute he comes through the door. Unless they pull the shades down.”
    “Unless he’s been getting some tail down in Miami,” Jenkins said. “They got some primo stuff down there.”
    “He’s a family man,” Shrake said. “Even if he’s been getting it three times a day, he’ll try to prove to her he didn’t. I know what the guy’s like.”
    Del said, “But what if that tummy bump isn’t his work? Then what?”
    FIVE MINUTES.
    Del said, “One of the guys was peeking at us, out of the kitchen window. He’s got glasses.”
    “Can’t see in, we’re okay,” Shrake said. When they took the apartment, they’d covered the windows with a thin gray 3M film. From the other side of the street, it looked like you could see in, but you couldn’t.
    FIVE MINUTES. Jenkins said, “They’re in the street. One of them is coming right at the drugstore.”
    “You know what? He’s going to ask about us,” Del said.
    “How many of them know about us?” Lucas asked.
    “Phil and Ann. They’re the only ones,” Del said. He had his phone in his hand, and he was speed-dialing. A moment later, he said, “Phil? This is Del. There’s a guy coming in the door. He’ll ask you who lives up here. Let somebody else answer—get out the back or something. Get Ann out of the way, too. He’s wearing a leather jacket, he’s just coming up to the door, now. Just get out of sight . . . don’t try to fake him out, he’ll read your face.”
    TWO MINUTES. Phil called, Del listened. To Lucas: “The guy just left, he talked to Nancy, the pharmacist, she told him nobody lives here right now. Phil said it looked like he was headed around back, to the door.”
    “Snap-latch, should be locked,” Lucas said.
    They went quiet, listening. Nobody came up the stairs.
    Two minutes: they saw the guy come back around the end of the drugstore, and head across the street. He was talking on a cell phone.
    “Get ready,” Lucas said.
    SIX MINUTES.
    Siggy showed up, but they didn’t know it. They found out later that he was in a raggedy ass Chevrolet that turned down into the parking garage entrance, and disappeared.
    Jenkins wondered, “Why didn’t she go to him?”
    “Kid,” Lucas suggested.
    “Leave the kid with Mom. Meet in a hotel across town. She comes in at a preset time, his security is all set up, they see if anybody comes in behind her.”
    “Maybe you ought to suggest that for next time,” Shrake said.
    “He doesn’t believe we’d still be here,” Lucas said. “It’s been too long.”
    “He knows we just busted Antsy.”
    “But that was Antsy’s fault,” Lucas said.
    “He doesn’t believe—”
    “Wait-wait,” Del said, urgently, and they all looked at the remaining open window, and Heather was there laughing, in the arms of a big man who reached out and pulled the blind, and they were already tumbling toward the bed when the blind came down, and Jenkins said, “Hello, Siggy.”
    Lucas talked to the SWAT commander: “We know he’s got at least three security guys—we’ve seen them. He might’ve had more people with him, when he came in. You gotta count on five or six guys. Just looking at them, I’d say they’re cocked and ready to