Shadow Prey

hadn’t come out first . . . . How come you never went to a Smith?”
    “Well, this thing just feels right to me. When I was shooting in competition I used a 1911 from Springfield Armory in thirty-eight Super. I want the forty-five for the street, but all that competition . . . the gun feels friendly.”
    “You shot competition?” Lucas asked. The cops at the window, who had been listening in an abstract way, suddenly perked up at an undertone in Lucas’ voice.
    “I was New York women’s champ in practical shooting for a couple of years,” Lily said. “I had to quit competitionbecause it was taking too much time. But I still shoot a little.”
    “You must be pretty good,” Lucas offered. The cops by the window glanced at each other. A bet.
    “Better than anybody you’re likely to know,” she said offhandedly.
    Lucas snorted and she squinted at him.
    “What? You think you can shoot with me?”
    “With you?” Lucas said. His lip might have curled.
    Lily sat up, interested now. “You ever compete?”
    He shrugged. “Some.”
    “You ever win?”
    “Some. Used a 1911, in fact.”
    “Practical or bull’s-eye?”
    “A little of both,” he said.
    “And you think you can shoot with me?”
    “I can shoot with most people,” Lucas said.
    She looked at him, studied his face, and a small smile started at the corners of her lips. “You want to put your money where your mouth is?”
    It was Lucas’ turn to stare, weighing the challenge. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Anytime, anyplace.”
    Lily noticed the cops by the window watching them.
    “He’s sandbagging me, right?” she said. “He’s the North American big-bore champ or some fuckin’ thing.”
    “I don’t know, I never seen him shoot,” one of the cops said.
    Lily stared at him with narrowed eyes, gauging the likelihood that he was lying, then turned back to Lucas. “All right,” she said. “Where do we shoot?”
     
    They shot at a police pistol range in the basement of a precinct house, using Outers twenty-five-foot slow-fire pistol targets. There were seven concentric rings on each target face. The three outer rings were marked but not colored, while the inner four rings—the 7, 8, 9 and 10—were black. The center ring, the 10 ring, was a bit smaller than a dime.
    “Nice range,” Lily said when Lucas turned on the lights. A Hennepin County deputy had been leaving just when theyarrived. When he heard what they were doing, he insisted on judging the match.
    Lily put her handset on the ledge of a shooting booth, took the .45 from her purse, held it in both hands and looked downrange over the sights. “Let’s get the targets up.”
    “This P7 ain’t exactly a target pistol,” Lucas said. He squinted downrange. “I never did like the light in here either.”
    “Cold feet?” Lily asked.
    “Making conversation,” he said. “I just wish I had my Gold Cup. It’d make me feel better. It’d also punch a bigger hole in the paper. The same size as yours. If you’re as good as you say, that could make the difference.”
    “You could always chicken out if the extra seven-hundredths of an inch makes you nervous,” Lily said. She pushed a magazine into the Colt and jacked a shell into the chamber. “And I don’t have my match guns either.”
    “Fuck it. We’ll flip to shoot,” Lucas said. He dug in his pocket for a quarter.
    “How much?” Lily asked.
    “It’s got to be enough to feel it,” Lucas said. “We ought to give it a little bite of reality. You say.”
    “Best two out of three rounds . . . One hundred dollars.”
    “That’s not enough,” Lucas said, aiming the P7 downrange again. “I was thinking a thousand.”
    “That’s ridiculous,” Lily said, tossing her head. The deputy was now watching them with real interest. The story would be all over the sheriff’s department and the city cops, and probably St. Paul, before the night was done. “You’re trying to psych me, Davenport. A hundred is all I can afford. I’m not a rich game-inventor.”
    “Hey, Dick,” Lucas said to the deputy. “Lily’s not gonna let me put the targets up, you want to . . .”
    “Sure . . .”
     
    The deputy began running the target sheets out to twenty-five feet. Lucas stepped closer to Lily, his voice low. “I’ll tell you what. If you win, you take down a hundred. If I win, I get another kiss. Time and place of my choosing.”
    She put her hands on her hips. “That’s the mostgoddamned juvenile