Secret Prey

be open: Chuck’s Wagon, a diner, and the Oxford Supper Club, which had a liquor license. They drove down to the supper club and were met at the entrance by a cheerful, overweight woman with hair the same tone of orange as the county clerk’s, and a frilly apron. She took them to a red-vinyl booth and left them with glasses of water and menus.
    ‘‘That hair color must be a fashion out here. She looks like a pumpkin,’’ Sherrill whispered.
    ‘‘Mmm. Open-face roast beef sandwich with brown gravy, choice of potato, string beans, cheese balls as an appetizer, and pumpkin or mince pie with whipped cream, choice of drink, seven ninety-five,’’ Lucas said.
    ‘‘You ever hear of cholesterol?’’
    ‘‘Off my case. I’m starving.’’
    Lucas ordered a martini, to be followed by the roast beef sandwich; Sherrill got the Traditional Meatloaf with a Miller Lite up front. They ate in easy companionship, talking about the day, talking about cases they’d worked together and what happened to who, afterwards. Touched lightly on Weather’s case. Lucas got a Leinenkugel’s and Sherrill got a second Miller Lite, to go with the pie. They were just finishing the pie when Lucas felt the khaki pants legs stepping up to the table. He looked up at two sheriff’s deputies, two men in their late twenties or thirties, one hard, lanky, the other thicker, like a high school tackle, with the beginning of a gut.
    ‘‘Are you the Porsche outside?’’ asked the one with the gut.
    ‘‘Yeah. That’s us,’’ Lucas said.
    ‘‘So you’re the guys from Minneapolis.’’
    ‘‘Yeah. What can we do for you?’’
    ‘‘We were just wondering if you’re done here,’’ said the lanky one. His voice was curt: his cop voice.
    ‘‘I don’t know,’’ Lucas said. He was just as curt. Across the table, Sherrill had swiveled slightly on her butt so that her back was to the wall, and her legs, still curled up, projected toward the deputies. Their attitude was wrong; and other patrons in the restaurant had noticed. ‘‘We didn’t get very far today. We weren’t getting a lot of cooperation.’’
    ‘‘We were just talking over at the office about how everybody was cooperating, and you were being pretty damn impolite about it,’’ said Gut.
    ‘‘Not trying to be impolite,’’ Lucas said. Swiveling a bit, as Sherrill had. ‘‘We’re trying to conduct an investigation.’’
    ‘‘Yeah. I bet you were investigating the hell out of this chick up to the Sugar Beet,’’ Gut said.
    Sherrill said, ‘‘Hey, you . . .’’ But Lucas held up a peremptory finger to silence her, and she stopped and looked at him; then Lucas said to Gut, ‘‘Fuck you, you fat hillbilly cocksucker.’’
    Gut looked at the slender man, who stepped back a bit and said, ‘‘Let’s cool this off,’’ but Gut put his fists on the table and leaned toward Lucas and said, ‘‘If you said that outside, I’d drag your ass all over the goddamn parking lot.’’
    ‘‘Let’s go,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I’m tired of this rinky-dink bullshit.’’
    • • •
    LUCAS TOSSED A TWENTY ON THE TABLE AND FOLLOWED Gut toward the entrance; the lanky man said, ‘‘Hey, whoa, whoa,’’ and Sherrill said, ‘‘Lucas, this is a bad idea . . .’’
    But six feet outside the door, Gut took a slow, short step, feeling Lucas closing behind him, spun and threw a wild, looping right hand at Lucas’s head.
    Lucas stepped left and hit the heavy man in the nose, staggering him, bringing blood. As Gut turned, bringing his hands up to his face, Lucas hooked him in the left-side short ribs with another right; when Gut pulled his arms down, Lucas hit him in the eye with a left, the other eye with a right, then took the right-side short ribs with a left, then crossed a right to the face. Gut was trying to fall, staggering backward, got his back wedged against a pickup truck, and Lucas beat him like a punching bag, face, face, gut, face, ribs, face, face, like a heavy workout in the gym.
    Lucas felt it all flowing out: the frustration with Weather, the attacks on Weather and Elle, the uncertainty, the depression. And heard Sherrill screaming, flicked somebody’s arm off his shoulder, was hit from the left and turned, almost punched Sherrill in the forehead, felt another man moving behind him, spun, and saw the lanky man covering Gut, holding his hands in front of him, shouting something . . .
    The world began to slow down, and Lucas backed up,