Shadow Prey

“Please wait,” she said. She went into a back room, and soon Lucas could hear her typing on a computer keyboard.
    It was all bullshit, Lucas told himself. Not a chance in a fucking million. A moment later a printer started, and then the woman came out of the back room.
    “The bills have always been sent to the same place, every six months, forty-five dollars and sixty-five cents. Sometimes they’re slow-pay, but they always pay.”
    “Who?” asked Lucas. “Where’d you send the bill?”
    The woman handed Lucas a sheet of computer paper, with one short line pinched between her thumb and forefinger. “It’s right here,” she said. “A Miss Barbara Gow. That’s her address under her name. Does that help?”
     
    Corky Drake had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, only to have it rudely snatched away in his teens. His father had for some years neglected to report his full income to the Internal Revenue Service. When the heathens had learned of Corky Senior’s oversight . . . well, the capital barely covered what was owed, much less the fines.
    His father had removed himself from the scene with a garden hose that led from the tailpipe of a friend’s Mercedesinto the sealed car. The friend had refused to forgive him, even in death, for what he had done to the upholstery.
    Corky, who was seventeen, was already a person of refined taste. A life of poverty and struggle simply was not on the menu. He did the only thing he was qualified to do: he became a pimp.
    Certain friends of his father’s had exceptional interests in women. Corky could satisfy those, for a price. Not only were the women very beautiful, they were very young. They were, in fact, girls. The youngest in his current stable was six. The oldest was eleven, although, Corky assured the wits among his clientele, she still had the body of an eight-year-old . . . .
    Corky Drake met Lawrence Duberville Clay at a club in Washington. If they hadn’t become friends, they had at least become friendly. Clay appreciated the services offered by Drake.
    “My little perversion,” Clay called it, with a charming grin.
    “No. It’s not a perversion, it’s perfectly natural,” Drake said, swirling two ounces of Courvoisier in a crystal snifter. “You’re a connoisseur, is what you are. In many countries of the world . . .”
    Drake would serve his clients in Washington or New York, if they required it, but his home base was in Minneapolis, and his resources were strongest there. Clay, in town on business, visited Corky’s home. After that, the visits became a regular part of his life . . . .
    Drake was talking to the current queen of his stable when he heard the car in the driveway.
    “Here he is now,” he said to the girl. “Remember, this could be the most important night of your life, so I want you to be good.”
     
    Leo Clark sat in a clump of brush thirty yards from Drake’s elaborate Kenwood townhouse. He was worried about the cops. Barbara Gow’s car was parked up the street. It didn’t fit in the neighborhood. If they checked it and had it towed, he’d be fucked.
    He sat in the leaves and waited, looking at his watch everyfew minutes and studying the face of the Old Man in the Moon. It was a clear night for the Cities, and you could see him staring back at you, but it was nothing like the nights on the prairie, when the Old Man was so close you could almost touch his face . . . .
    At ten minutes after nine, a gray Dodge entered Corky’s circular driveway. Leo put up a pair of cheap binoculars and hoped there’d be more light when Corky opened the door. There was, and just enough: the elegant gray hair of Lawrence Duberville Clay was unmistakable. Leo waited until Clay was inside the house, then picked his way through the wood to Barbara’s car, quickly started it and headed back to her house. He stopped only once, at a pay phone.
    The message was simple: “Clay’s at the house.”
     
    Anderson was waiting in his office when Lucas hurried in.
    “What you got?”
    “A name,” Lucas said. “Let’s run it through the machine.”
    They put Barbara Gow’s name into the computer and got back three quick hits.
    “She’s Indian, and she’s a rad, or used to be,” Anderson said, scanning down the monitor. “Look at this. Organizing for the union, busted in a march . . . Christ, this was way back in the fifties, she was ahead of her time . . . . Civil rights and then antiwar stuff there in the