Rules of Prey

said. He smiled, showing his eyeteeth. “I guess we’re really not welcome, are we?” He carefully set the bowl back on its shelf and turned to Sloan. “Let’s go,” he said.
    Outside, Sloan glanced sideways at him. “That wasn’t much.”
    “We’ll be back,” Lucas said contentedly. “You’re absolutely right. The motherfucker is hiding something. That’s good news. Somebody has something to hide in the maddog case, and we know it.”
     
    They called Mary Rice from a street phone. She agreed to talk to them. Sloan led the way up to the house and knocked.
    “Mrs. Rice?”
    “You’re the policemen.”
    “Yes. How are you feeling?” Mary Rice’s face had gotten old, her skin a ruddy yellow and brown, tight and hard, like an orange left too long in a refrigerator.
    “Come in, don’t let the cold in,” she said. It wasn’t quite a moan. The house was intolerably hot, but Mary Rice was wrapped in a heavy Orlon cardigan and wore wool slacks. Her nose was red and swollen.
    “We talked to the man who bought the ivory carvings from your husband,” Sloan said as they settled around the kitchen table. “And we’re wondering about him. Did your—”
    “You think he’s the killer?” she asked, her eyes round.
    “No, no, we’re just trying to get a better reading on him,” Sloan said. “Did your husband say anything about him that you thought was unusual or interesting?”
    Her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “No . . . no, just that he bought them little carvings and asked if Larry had any other things. You know, old swords and stuff. Larry didn’t.”
    “Did they talk about anything else?”
    “No, I don’t know . . . Larry said this man was kind of in a hurry and didn’t want any coffee or anything. Just gave him the money and left.”
    Sloan looked at Lucas. Lucas thought a minute and asked, “What did these carvings look like, anyway?”
    “I still got one,” she offered. “It’s the last one. Larry gave it to me as a keepsake when we were married. You could look at that.”
    “If you could.”
    Rice tottered off to the back of the house. She returned a few minutes later and held her hand out to Lucas. Nestled in her palm was a tiny ivory mouse. Lucas picked it up, looked at it, and caught his breath.
    “Okay,” he said after a minute. “Can we borrow this, Mrs. Rice? We can give you a receipt.”
    “Sure. But I don’t need no receipt. You’re cops.”
    “Okay. We’ll get it back to you.”
    Outside, Sloan said, “What?”
    “I think we’ve got our friend Alan Nester by the short and curlies, but I also think I know what he’s lying about. And it isn’t the maddog,” Lucas said gloomily. He opened his hand to look at the mouse. “Everything I know about art you could write on the back of a postage stamp. But look at this thing. Nester bought fifteen of them for five hundred bucks. I bet this thing is worth five hundred bucks by itself. I’ve never seen anything like it. Look at the expression on the mouse’s face. If this isn’t worth five hundred bucks, I’ll kiss your ass on the courthouse lawn.”
    They were both peering into Lucas’ hand. The mouse was exquisite, its tiny front and back legs clenching a straw, so that a hole ran between the legs from front to back. “They must have used it for something, a button or something,” Lucas said.
    Sloan looked up and Lucas turned to follow his gaze. A patrol car was in the street, almost at a stop, the two cops peering out the driver’s-side window at them.
    “They think we’re doing a dope deal,” Sloan laughed. He pulled his badge and walked toward the car. The cops rolleddown the window and Lucas called, “Want to see a great-lookin’ mouse?”
     
    The Institute of Art was closed by the time they left Rice’s house, and Lucas took the mouse home overnight. It sat on a stack of books in his workroom, watching him as he finished the last of the hit tables on the Everwhen game.
    “God damn, I’d like to have you,” Lucas said just before he went to bed. Early the next morning he got up and looked at it first thing. He thought it might have moved in the night.
    It took a while to find out about it. Lucas picked up Sloan at his house. Sloan’s wife came out with him and said, “I’ve heard so much about you I feel like I know you.”
    “It’s all good, I expect.”
    She laughed and Lucas liked her. She said, “Take care of Sloan,” and went back inside.
    “Even my wife calls me