Rules of Prey

said.
    “It’s not exactly an extemporaneous speech,” she said. “I rewrote it about twelve times. I thought it was rather cogently expressed, but with enough emotion to make it convincing.”
    Lucas laughed, then stopped laughing and sat down. He looked haggard, she thought. Or harried. “All right. I give up,” he said.
    “All right to all of it?”
    “Yeah. All of it.”
    “Scout’s honor?”
    “Sure.” He held up the three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
     
    Late in the evening, Lucas lay on the surveillance team’s mattress and thought about it. He could live with it, he thought. For two years? Maybe.
    “That’s weird. You see that?” said the first surveillance cop.
    “I didn’t see anything,” said his partner.
    “What?” asked Lucas.
    “I don’t know. It’s like there’s some movement over there. Just a little bit, at the edge of the window.”
    Lucas crawled over and looked out. The maddog’s apartment was dark except for the faint glow from the night-light.
    “I don’t see anything,” he said. “You think he’s doing something?”
    “I don’t know. Probably nothing. It’s just every once in a while . . . it’s like he’s watching us.”

CHAPTER
30
    It was the winning stroke. If he had the nerve, he could pull it off. He imagined Davenport’s face. Davenport would know, but he wouldn’t know how, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing he could do about it.
    In some ways, of course, it would be his most intellectual mission. He didn’t need this particular woman, but he would take her anyway. To the police—not Davenport, but the others—there would be a logic to it. A logic they could understand.
    In the meantime, the other pressure had begun to build. There was a woman who lived in the town of Richfield, a schoolteacher with almond eyes and rich sable hair, wide teeth like a Russian girl’s. He had seen her with a troop of her children in the basement level of the Government Center, installing an elementary-school art show . . .
    No. He put her out of his mind. The need would grow, but he could control it. It was a matter of will. And his mind had to be clear to deal with the stroke.
    He first had to break free, if only for two hours. He didn’t see them, but they were there, he was sure, a web of watchers escorting him through the city’s streets and skyways. His night watches and his explorations in the attic had been fruitful. He knew, he thought, where two of their surveillance posts were. The lighting patterns were wrong for families or individuals, and he saw car lights coming and going at odd hours of the night, always from the same two houses. One of the houses, he was sure, had been empty until recently.
    They were waiting for him to move. Before he could, hehad to break free. Just for two hours. He thought he had a way.
    The law firm of Woodley, Gage & Whole occupied three floors of an office building two blocks from his own. He had twice encountered one of their attorneys in real-estate closings, a man named Kenneth Hart. After each of the closings, they’d had lunch. If someone had ever asked the maddog who his friends were, he would have mentioned Hart. Now he hoped that Hart remembered him.
    At Woodley, Gage, status was signified by floor assignment. The main reception area was on the third floor, the floor shared by the partners. The lesser lights were on the fourth. The smallest lights of all were on the fifth. With a less-affluent firm, a client arriving at the third-floor reception area in search of a fourth- or fifth-floor attorney would be routed back down the hall to the elevators. With this firm, no such side trip was necessary. There was an internal elevator and an internal stairway.
    Best of all, there were exits to the parking garage on all of the first eight floors. If he could go into Woodley, Gage on the third floor, and the cops didn’t know about the internal elevator, he could slip out on five.
    Before he could use Woodley, Gage, a preliminary excursion would be necessary, and it would have to take place under the noses of his watchers.
    The maddog left the office early, drove his bugged Thunderbird south to Lake Street, found a place to park, got out, and walked along the row of dilapidated shops. He passed a dealer in antiques, peered through the dark glass, and breathed a sigh of relief. The fishing lures were still in the window.
    He walked on another half-block to a computer-supply store, where he bought a carton of