Shadow Prey

bedroom?”
    She sighed, smiled a sad smile and said, “Lucas . . .”
     
    When they talked about it later, Lucas and Lily agreed that there wasn’t anything notable about the time they spent in bed that afternoon. The love was soft and slow, and they both laughed a lot, and between times they talked about their careers and salaries and told cop stories. It was absolutely terrific; the best of their lives.
    “I’ve decided what I’m going to do about David,” Lily said later in the day, rolling out to the edge of the bed and putting her feet on the floor.
    “What are you going to do?” Lucas asked. He had been putting on his jockey shorts, and he stopped with one foot through a leg hole.
    “I’m going to lie to him,” she said.
    “Lie to him?”
    “Yeah. What we’ve got going, David and I, is pretty good. He’s a good guy. He’s attractive, he’s got a nice sense of humor, he worries about me and the kids. It’s just . . .”
    “Keep talking.”
    “There’s not the same kind of heat as there is with you. I can look at him sometimes and I get a lump in my throat, I can’t even talk. I just feel so . . . warm toward him. I love him. But I don’t get that kind of driving hot feeling. You know what I mean?”
    “Yeah. I know.”
    “I was thinking about it the other night. I was thinking, Here’s Davenport. He’s large and he’s rough and he makes himself happy first. He’s not always asking me if I’m okay, have I come. So what is this, Lily? Is this some kind of safe rape fantasy?”
    “What’d you decide?”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t decide anything, really. Except to lie to David.”
    Lucas got fresh underwear from his chest of drawers and said, “Come on. I’ll give you a shower.”
    She followed him into the bathroom. In the shower she said, “David wouldn’t do this either. I mean, you just kind of . . . work me over. Your hands are . . . in everything, and I . . . kind of like it.”
    Lucas shrugged. “You’re hurting yourself. Stop talking about David, for Christ’s sake.”
    She nodded. “Yeah. I better.”
    When they got out of the shower, he dried her, starting the rough towel around her head and slowly working down her legs. When he finished, he was sitting on the side of the bathtub; he reached around her and pulled her pelvis against his head. She ruffled his hair.
    “God, you smell good,” he said.
    She giggled. “We’ve got to stop, Davenport. I can’t handle much more of this.”
    They dressed slowly. Lucas finished first and lay on the bed, watching her.
    “The hardest part of lying to him will be the first ten or fifteen minutes,” he said suddenly. “If you can get through the first few minutes, you’ll be okay.”
    She looked up, a guilty expression on her face. “I hadn’t thought of that. The first . . . encounter.”
    “You know when you bust a kid for something, a teenager, and you’re not sure that they did it? And they get that look on their face when you tell them you’re a cop? And then you know ? If you’re not careful, you’ll look like that.”
    “Ah, Jesus,” she said.
    “But if you can get through the first ten minutes, just keep bullshitting along, you’ll stop feeling guilty and it’ll go away.”
    “The voice of experience,” she said, with the tiniest stain of bitterness in her voice.
    “I’m afraid so,” he said, a little despondently. “I don’t know. I love women. But I look at Sloan. You know, Sloan’s wife calls him Sloan? And they’re always laughing and talking. It makes me jealous.”
    Lily dropped onto the foot of the bed. “Let’s not talk about this,” she said. “It’ll put me in an early grave. Like Larry.”
    “Poor old Larry,” Lucas said. “I feel for the sonofabitch.”
     
    The next day was sunny. Lucas had on his best blue suit with a black wool dress coat. Lily wore a dark suit with a blue blouse and a tweed overcoat. Just before they left Lily’s hotel room, TV3 had begun live coverage of Larry Hart’s funeral. The coverage opened with a shot of Lawrence Duberville Clay arriving at the funeral. Clay spoke a few clichés into a microphone and went inside.
    “He thinks he’s the fuckin’ president,” Lucas said.
    “He might be, in six more years,” Lily said.
    The Episcopalian church was crowded with welfare workers and clients, cops and Indian friends and family. Daniel spoke a few words, and Hart’s oldest friend, whom he’d called brother, spoke a