Silent Prey

waited uncertainly by the paint room door. He was tall, too thin, with prominent white teeth.
    “Police to talk to you. One from New York,” his father said. “I’m gonna listen.” Red Reed looked apprehensive, but nodded.
    “Can we find a place to sit?” Lucas asked.
    The elder Reed nodded: “Nobody in the waiting room . . . .”
     
    Lucas took Bobby Rich’s report from his pocket, unfolded it, and led Red Reed through it, confirming it bit by bit.
    “White-haired guy,” Lucas said. “Thin, fat?”
    “Yeah. Skinny, like.”
    “Dark? Pale? What?”
    “Tan. He was, like, tan.”
    “What was the scene like, when Fred Waites was shot?”
    “Well, man, I wasn’t right there. I saw the car go by and I thought I saw a gun and I headed the other way. I heard the shooting, saw the car.”
    “What kind of car?”
    “I don’t know, man, I wasn’t paying attention to that,” Reed said. He was looking at his hands. Pike moved impatiently, and Reed’s father looked out the door but didn’t say anything. Reed’s eyes wandered to his father, then back to Lucas.
    “What time was it?” Lucas asked.
    “I didn’t have a watch . . . .”
    “I mean, afternoon, evening, night?”
    Reed nervously licked his lips, then seemed to pick one: “Evening.”
    “It was three o’clock in the afternoon, Red,” Lucas said. “Bright daylight.”
    “Man, I was fucked up . . .”
    “You don’t know what kind of car it was, but you could see inside that the guy was white-haired, skinny and tanned? But you didn’t see anything about the other guys? Red . . .” Lucas glanced at Don Reed. “Red, you’re lying to us. This is an important case. We think the same guys shot a cop and, before that, a lawyer.”
    “I don’t know nothing about that,” Reed said, now avoiding everyone’s eyes.
    “Okay, I don’t think you do. But you’re lying to me . . .”
    “I’m not lying,” Reed said.
    Don Reed turned to face his son and in a harsh, cuttingvoice said, “You remember what I told you? No bullshit, no lies, no dope, no stealing, and we’ll try to keep you alive. And you’re lying, boy. There never was a time, from when you were a little baby, that you didn’t know what kind of car was what—and you see a man and know he’s got white hair and a tan, and you don’t know what car he was in? Horseshit. You’re lying. You stop, now.”
    Lucas said, “I want to know how much John O’Dell had to do with it.”
    Reed had been staring miserably at his feet, but now his head popped up.
    “You know Mr. O’Dell?”
    “Aw, shit,” Lucas said. He stood up, walked once around the tiny room, whacked the spherical Lions Club gum machine with the palm of his hand, then pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. “You’re fuckin’ working for O’Dell.”
    “Man . . .” said Reed.
    “O’Dell a dope pusher?” Don Reed asked, voice dark, angry.
    “No,” Lucas said. “He’s about the fifth most important cop in New York.”
    The two Reeds exchanged glances, and Pike asked, “What’s going on?”
    “A goddamned game, pin the tail on the donkey,” Lucas said. “And I’m the jackass.”
    He said to Reed, “So now I know. I need some detail. Where’d you meet him, how’d you get pulled in on this . . .”
    Reed blurted it out. He’d met O’Dell at a Columbia seminar. O’Dell spoke three times, and each time, Reed talked to him after class. Harlem was different than an Irish cop could know, Reed said. The fat cop and skinny southerner argued about life on the streets; went with afew other students and the professor to a coffee shop, talked late. He saw O’Dell again, in the spring, but he was into the dope by then. Busted in a sweep of a crack house, called O’Dell. The arrest disappeared, but he was warned: never again. But there was another time. He was arrested twice more for possession, went to court. Then a third time, and this time he had a little too much crack on him. The cops were talking about charging him as a dealer, and he called O’Dell. He got simple possession, and was out again.
    Then O’Dell called. Did he know anybody, a crook, with a connection to a cop? To a detective? Well, yes . . .
    “Sonofabitch. It was too neat, it had to be,” Lucas said.
    “What the fuck is going on?” Pike asked again.
    “I don’t know, man,” Lucas said. To Reed, he said, “Don’t call O’Dell. You’re out of this and you want to stay out. Whatever’s