Silent Prey

problem . . .”
    Lucas hung up, turning it over in his head.
    “What’s Charleston?” Fell asked from the bathroom doorway.
    “It’s both a dance and a city . . . . Sorry, that was a personal call. I was trying to get through to my kid’smother. She’s gone to Charleston with the Probe Team.”
    “Oh.” Fell tossed the towel back into the bathroom. “You’re still pretty tight with her?”
    “No. We’re done. Completely. But Sarah’s my kid. I call her.”
    Fell shrugged and grinned. “Just checking the oil level,” she said. “Are you going to call Kennett?”
    “Yeah.”
     
    They ate a quick breakfast in the hotel coffee shop, then Lucas put Fell in a cab back to her apartment. He called Kennett from his room and got switched from Midtown South to a second phone. Kennett picked it up on the first ring.
    “If we don’t get him tomorrow, at the speech, I’m heading back to the Twin Cities, see what I can find,” Lucas said.
    “Good. I think we’ve got all the routine stuff pinned down here,” Kennett said. “Lily’s here, and we were about to call you. We’re thinking about a boat ride.”
    “Where’s here?” Lucas asked.
    “Her place.”
    “So come and get me,” Lucas said.
    After talking to Kennett, Lucas sat with his hand on the phone, thinking about it, then picked it up again, dialed the operator, and got the area code for Charleston. He had no idea how big the city was, but had the impression that it was fairly small. If they knew assholes in Charleston the way they knew them in the Twin Cities . . .
    The information service got him the phone number for the Charleston police headquarters, and two minutes later, he had the weekend duty officer on the line.
    “My name is Lucas Davenport. I’m a cop working outof Midtown South in Manhattan. I’m looking for a guy down your way, and I was wondering about the prospects of finding him.”
    “What’s the problem?” A dry southern drawl, closer to Texan than the mush-mouth of South Carolina.
    “He saw a guy get shot. He didn’t do it, just saw it. I need to talk to him.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Cornell Reed, nickname Red. About twenty-two, twenty-three . . .”
    “Black guy.” It was barely a question.
    “Yeah.”
    “And you’re from Midtown South.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Hang on . . .”
    Lucas was put on hold, waited for a minute, then two. Always like this with cops. Always. Then a couple of clicks, and the line was live again. “I got Darius Pike on the line, he’s one of our detectives . . . . Darius, go ahead . . .”
    “Yeah?” Pike’s voice was deep, cool. Children were laughing in the background. Lucas identified himself again.
    “Am I getting you at home? I’m sorry about that . . . .”
    “ ’S okay. You’re looking for Red Reed?”
    “Yeah. He supposedly witnessed a killing up here, and I’m pretty hot to talk to him.”
    “He came back to town a month ago, the sorry-ass fool. You need to bust him?”
    “No, just talk.”
    “Want to come down, or on the phone?”
    “Face-to-face, if I can.”
    “Give me a call a day ahead. I can put my hands on him about any time.”
    • • •
    Now he had to make a decision: Minneapolis, Charleston. Two different cases, two different leads. Which first? He thought about it. He wouldn’t be able to get down to Charleston and back in time. The New School trap was the next night; if they didn’t get Bekker, then the trip to Minneapolis was critical. Bekker was killing people, after all. Charleston might shed some light on Robin Hood, and Robin Hood was killing people, too—but those were mostly bad people, weren’t they? He shook his head wryly. It wasn’t supposed to matter, was it? But it did.
    Lucas made one more call, to Northwest Airlines, and got a seat to Minneapolis-St. Paul, then a triple play, Minneapolis-St. Paul to Charleston to New York. There, that was all he could do for now. It all hinged on tomorrow night.
    When Lily called from the front desk, he’d changed to jeans and blue T-shirt. He went down, found her waiting, eyes tired but relaxed. She was wearing jeans and a horizontally-striped French fisherman’s shirt that might have cost two hundred dollars on Fifth Avenue, and an aqua-colored billed hat.
    “You look like a model,” he said.
    “Maybe I oughta call Cruising World. ”
    “Yeah, you look kinda gay,” he said.
    “That’s a sailboat magazine, you dope,” she said, taking a mock swipe at