Silent Prey

night, it’s personal with me. No bullshit. I just need a little information.”
    “I don’t know fuckin’ Bekker from any other asshole,” Smith said impatiently.
    “Hey, we believe you,” Lucas said. “And I had to do the green. I had to get your attention—you were blowing us off. Isn’t that right?”
    Smith stared at him for a long beat, then said, “So what do you want? Exactly?”
    “We need the names of guys who can get stuff out of Bellevue.”
    “That’s all you want? Then you’ll get off my back?”
    “We can’t promise,” Lucas said. “I can’t talk for Barbara—but I’d be a hell of a lot friendlier.”
    “Jesus Christ, I’m dealing with a fuckin’ fruitcake,” Smith said. Then: “I don’t handle deals at that level. That’s small-time.”
    “I know, I know, but we need a guy who does handle that kind of action. A couple of names, that’s all.”
    “You gonna fuck them over?”
    “Not if they talk to me. But if they fuck me over, I’ll be back to you.”
    Fell jumped in with a sales pitch: “Jesus, Jackie, this’d be so easy if you just ride along. It’s no skin off your ass. You’re actually not helping the cops. You’re helping some poor woman who’s gonna get her heart cut out, or something.”
    “Yeah, you’re the one who poured my coffee on the street,” Smith said, apropos of nothing at all. He looked across the plaza, where a group of black kids were working through a dance routine to rap music from a boombox. “All right,” he said. “Two guys. Well: a guy and a woman. They’re not actually inside the hospital, but they can put you onto guys who are inside.”
    “That’s all we were asking for . . . .”
    “Yeah, yeah. Jesus, you’re both full of shit . . . .” Then he started toward his car and said, “I’ll be a minute.”
    “Making a call,” Fell said as Smith disappeared into the Mercedes.
    He was back in two minutes, with two names and addresses. Lucas wrote the names in his notebook. Smith, with a snort of disgust, turned back to his car, shaking his head.
    “Angela Arnold and Thomas Leese,” Lucas said to Fell. “Where’re these addresses?”
    Fell looked and said, “Lower East Side. Never heard of them, though. Want me to run them?”
    “Yes. Or just drop them off, get them run overnight,” Lucas said, looking at his watch. “Kennett wants to be careful, and I don’t want to step on him. Let’s not worry about talking to them until tomorrow.”
     
    Fell dropped him at the hotel, then went on to Midtown South. Lucas cleaned up, ate dinner in the hotel restaurant, went back to his room and watched the Twins and Yankees through the seventh inning, then caught a cab for Lily’s apartment. She buzzed him up and came to the door in her bare feet.
    “You’re late,” she said.
    “Got hung up,” Lucas said, stepping inside. He’d stayed in her apartment almost two years earlier, when she’d just moved in: the furniture then had a temporary, scrounged look. Boxes had been stacked in the living room, a television had sat on two short metal file cabinets. The kitchen wallpaper had been a bizarre bamboo design, with monkeys; the countertops a well-chipped plastic. Now the place had a careful, colored look: warm rugs over a beige carpet; bright hand-printed graphics on the walls; sparse, but carefully chosen chairs and a broad leather couch. The kitchen was a subtle gold with hardwood counters. He’d stopped by the night before to drop off the key impressions, but hadn’t stayed long enough to look around. Now he took a few minutes. “The place looks good,” he said finally. He felt a pressure: when he’d been there two years before, they’d spent a lot of time in bed, Lily intent on exploring, feeling, desperate for the intensity of the sex. Now they were polite.
    “That’s what happens when your marriage splits up. You work on the apartment,” she said. She stood closeto him, but not too close, one hand just touching the other at her waist, like a hostess. Polite and something else. Wary?
    “Yeah, I know.”
    “I made the back bedroom into an office, everything’s stacked up in there. Go on back. Want a beer?”
    “Sure.” He wandered back to the office, yawned, sat down at the desk, pushed the chair back far enough that he could get his heels on a half-open drawer, picked up the first file. He’d been reading files all day; a million facts floating around free-form.
    “Kays, Martin.” He flipped the