Secret Prey

and said, ‘‘It might be more than a few minutes.’’
    ‘‘I think I could cut down the turnaround time.’’
    ‘‘I’m sure you could,’’ he said. ‘‘But you know what? I’m starving. I’ve got some bologna in the fridge, and some beer, and I think there’s some hamburger buns.’’
    ‘‘Three of the major food groups,’’ she said. ‘‘We’ll live to be a hundred.’’
    ‘‘Let’s go.’’
    ‘‘Show me the shower first.’’
    He showed her the shower; the turnaround time was eliminated, and the bologna sandwiches temporarily forgotten.
    BUT THEY GOT TO THE SANDWICHES, EVENTUALLY, spreading mustard over the discs of mystery meat in the light from the refrigerator, and then sat in the dark to eat them with bottles of Rolling Rock.
    ‘‘I think we oughta keep this quiet,’’ she said finally.
    ‘‘Yeah, right. We’re in an office full of investigators. You’re gonna walk in and you’re not gonna look at me and Sloan is gonna come up later and he’s gonna say, ‘You’re fuckin’ her, aren’t you?’ ’’
    ‘‘So romantic. Coming over here and getting fucked.’’
    ‘‘Hey, you know the talk.’’
    She laughed and said, ‘‘Yeah, and it’s not that hard to take from Sloan. He can be a pretty funny guy.’’
    ‘‘He thinks you’ve got nice headlights.’’
    ‘‘I do.’’
    ‘‘What can I say?’’ he said, talking through the bologna sandwich. ‘‘The evidence is on your side.’’
    ‘‘I better get going,’’ she said. ‘‘My car is downtown . . .’’
    ‘‘Oh, bullshit,’’ he said. ‘‘You’re staying. I’ll give you a T-shirt.’’
    ‘‘Lucas . . .’’
    ‘‘Shut up. You’re staying.’’
    ‘‘Okay. Um, was that the last of the bologna?’’
    • • •
    SHE SLEPT ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE BED, A GOOD sign, since Lucas slept on the right. They’d settled down, talking, her hand on his stomach, when the phone rang.
    Lucas glanced at the bedside clock. Ten after eleven. ‘‘Bet it’s Harriet Ashler.’’
    And it was. ‘‘We’ve got a few bits and pieces, and a couple of good prints, but none that I can identify as from McDonald,’’ Ashler said. ‘‘None of the good ones are, for sure. In fact, I’m pretty sure that none of the fragments are either.’’
    ‘‘Okay.’’
    ‘‘Sorry to wake you.’’
    ‘‘No problem,’’ Lucas said. And he imagined a wry questioning tone in her voice. It was impossible, he thought as he headed back to bed, that anybody knew yet.

EIGHTEEN

    ELEVEN O’CLOCK AT NIGHT, AND WILSON MCDONALD was savagely drunk.
    Stunned by the board’s impetuous decision and a patronizingly courteous afternoon meeting that Bone had called with the bank’s top managers, he’d stopped at the liquor store on the way home and purchased three-fifths of the finest single-malt scotch, which he proceeded to gargle down as though it were Pepsi-Cola.
    After the board decision he’d been, in sequence, angry, despairing, resigned, and finally faintly upbeat. He imagined that he might have a future in the merged bank, until Audrey dismissed the idea with such withering contempt that he lapsed back to despair.
    AUDREY HAD SPENT THE AFTERNOON IN THE BACKYARD, wrapped in a winter parka, staring at the sky. The cold air and the hint of burning leaves—an illegal act in Minnesota, sure to be avenged by a politically correct neighbor—reminded her of the bad old days of her childhood on the farm with Mom and Pop and Helen. Hated the farm. Hated this suburb, rich as it was. She should have had a place in Palm Beach and Malibu to go with it.
    The very top job at Polaris had always been their goal and intent, the one goal that she and Wilson could agree upon, without reservation. There were other jobs that would have been as good—running First Bank, or Norwest, or 3M, or Northwest Airlines or General Mills or Pillsbury or even Cargill—but they’d been Polaris people, and Polaris was Wilson’s one real shot.
    Few people outside of the top-management community realized the difference between, say, president and CEO on one hand, and executive vice president on the other. One was an American aristocrat, who held the lives of thousands of people in his hands, while the other was just another suit, a face, a yellow necktie. A CEO had the company plane and a car and driver; an executive vice president had to fight to go business class. And the spouse took status from the CEO: Audrey’d been a half-step