Rules of Prey

Interstate. That meant nothing, he knew, but he couldn’t suppress a tiny surge of hope. Maybe it had been coincidence.
    The Interstate was crowded, and though he watched, he didn’t see any cars with broken turn signals. He sighed, felt the tension seeping out. When he reached his exit, he ran the car up the ramp to the traffic signal and waited. Another car came off behind. Coasted up the ramp, slowly. Too slowly.
    The traffic light changed to green. The maddog waited. The other car eased up. The left-front turn signal was broken, the white light shining brightly past the amber. The maddog looked up, saw the green, and took a right.
     
    “Jeez, you don’t look so good. You sick?” His secretary seemed concerned.
    “No, no. Just had a little insomnia the last few nights. Could you get the papers for the Parker-Olson closing?”
    The maddog sat at his desk, the office door closed, a blank yellow pad in front of him. Think.
    The news stories of the surveillance on McGowan’s house mentioned that the cops set up observation posts both in front and in back. Would they have done the same at his place? Probably. There were empty apartments on the block; he’d seen the signs, but not paid much attention. Nor did he know his neighbors, other than to nod at the others in his fourplex. Could he spot the other surveillance posts?
    The maddog stood and stepped over to the window, hands in his jacket pockets, staring sightlessly out at the street.
    Maybe. Maybe he could spot them, maybe he could deduce where they were. Where would that get him? If they came for him, he would not resist. That would be pointless. And had he not imagined himself in court, defending himself against his accusers? Had he not dreamed of capturing the jury with his eloquence?
    He had. But now the vision of a magnificent defense did not come so easily. Deep in his heart, he knew they were right. He was not a good attorney; not in court, anyway. He’dnever taken the fact out and looked at it, but the fact was there, like a stone.
    He paced two steps one way, two steps back, tugging at his lip. They were watching. No matter how long he suppressed the urge to take another woman, they would eventually come. They wouldn’t wait forever.
    He sat down, looked at the yellow pad, and summarized:
    They were not sure enough to arrest him yet.
    They could not wait forever.
    What would they do?
    He thought of Davenport, the gamer. What would the gamer do?
    A gamer would frame him.
     
    It took him a half-minute on his knees in the garage to find the radio transmitter on the car. It took another hour to find the photographs under the mattress. The beeper he left in place. The photos he stared at, frightened. If the police should come through the door at this instant, he would go to jail for eighteen years, a life sentence in Minnesota.
    He took the photographs into the kitchen and, one by one, burned them, the pictures curling and charring in the flames from the stove burner. When they were gone, reduced to charcoal, he crushed the blackened remains to powder and washed them down the kitchen sink.
    That night he forced himself to lie in bed for fifteen minutes, then crept to the window and looked down the street. There was a patchwork of lighted windows, and many more that were dark. He watched, and after a while crawled back to his bed, got both pillows and put one on the floor and the other upright against the wall, where he could lean on it. It would be a long night.
     
    After three hours, the maddog dozed, his head falling forward. He jerked it back upright and peered groggily through the window. Everything was about the same, but he couldn’t watch much longer. There were only two lights still on, he had noted them, and he was simply too tired to continue.
    He got up, carrying the pillows, and flopped facedown on the bed. Paradoxically, as soon as he was willing to allow himself to sleep, he felt more alert. The thoughts ran through his brain like a night train, hard and quick and hardly discernible as independent ideas. A mishmash of images—his women, their eyes, Lucas Davenport, the fight outside McGowan’s, the broken turn signal.
    From the mishmash there came an idea. The maddog resisted it at first, because it had the quality of a nightmare, requiring a broad-scope action under the most intense stress. Finally he considered it and paraded the objections, one by one. The longer he turned it in his mind, the more substantial it became.
    It was