Silent Prey

connections.”
    “Was he a good cop?”
    “He was terrible in uniform,” she said. “He didn’t have that . . . that . . . cold spot. Or hot spot. Or whatever it is. He couldn’t get on top of people—you ought to know about that.”
    “Yeah.” Lucas grinned. “I don’t know if it’s hot or cold, though. Anyway, Petty . . .”
    “So he was terrible on the street and they moved him inside. He was working guard details and so on. Then they tried him on dope. And Jesus, he was something else. I mean nobody, nobody would believe he was a cop. He’d make a buy and the backup would drop on the dealer, and they still wouldn’t believe it. This dork couldn’t be an undercover cop. Sometimes even the judges didn’t believe it. Anyway, that’s about the first job he ever did really well at; he was a bit of an actor. Then he got interested in investigation, in crime-scene processing. He was good at that, too. The best. He’d go into a crime scene and he’d see everything. And he could put it together, too. Then computers came along, and he was great with computers.” She laughed, remembering. “Suddenly, the guy who fucked up everything, the nerd as big as the moon, was a hot item. And he was still good old Walt. When you needed your apartment painted, there he was. He had this great open smile, completely . . . geeky, but honest. When he looked happy to see you, he was happy to see you; he’d just light up. And if he got angry, he’d go off and start yelling, and then he’d maybe start crying or something; or you thought he would . . . .”
    Lily’s lip was trembling, and she dropped her feet off the hassock and dropped her head.
    “How’d he get the job looking for Robin Hood?”
    “He knew computers and he’d worked with O’Dell, and we swung it for him. He could help us, and it was a chance for him to break out. And maybe I had something to do with it—he’d be working with me. Like I said . . .”
    “Yeah. I know exactly what you mean.”
    “Sounds like arrogance, or vanity.”
    Lucas shook his head. “Not really. Just life . . . You think he got close to Robin Hood?”
    “He must have. Jesus, when he was killed, I couldn’t stop crying for a week. I really . . . I don’t know. There was no sexual impulse at all, but when I thought of him over all those years, that puppy-dog quality, that he loved me . . . It was like . . . I don’t know. I loved him. That’s what it came to.”
    “Huh.” He was watching her, his elbow on the arm of the chair, one finger at his chin.
    “So what’s this all about?” she asked. The weariness had slipped from her voice, and she looked up, intent.
    “You and O’Dell are running me as some kind of lure,” Lucas said. “You’re dragging me out in front of whoever your targets are. I need to know who you think they are.”
    After a long moment of silence, she said, “Fell. As far as I know, that’s it.”
    “Bullshit.”
    “It’s not bullshit,” she said. “She’s all we’ve got.”
    “That can’t be right.”
    “It is.”
    “You know everything that O’Dell is doing?”
    “Well, yes, I mean I schedule for him . . . I suppose he could run something on the side . . . .”
    There was another moment of silence, then Lucas said, “I’m afraid you’re betraying me.”
    She was offended, angry. “God damn it.”
    “I know you are—or somebody is. O’Dell for sure, and you’re with O’Dell . . . .”
    “Tell me about it,” she said, sitting back again.
    Lucas looked her over and said, “First of all, Fell’s not involved.”
    “Why not?”
    “I just know, and I’m not wrong,” Lucas said.
    “Lucas, instincts or no instincts, the goddamn records aren’t lying about this,” Lily said. “She’s all over the place.”
    “I know. She’s an alarm.”
    “What?”
    “She’s a trip wire,” Lucas said. “Working the jobs she has, in Burglary, and as a decoy, she knows half the assholes in Midtown. So Robin Hood used her as a reference and picked on assholes that she knew. Then they watched her. If anybody got close, they’d get close to her first . . . .”
    “I don’t know.” Lily was shaking her head. She didn’t believe it.
    “It’d have to be a tough sonofabitch to set that up,” Lucas continued. “As soon as you pulled her off her regular job and put me next to her, the alarm went off. Petty’s been killed, the official investigation seems to be dead in the