Storm Prey

knees.
    Lucas tried to pin him, but Lighter threw him off and grabbed one of Del’s legs and pulled him into the pile, and Lucas half-stood and hit Lighter on the side of the face, hard as he could. Lighter let go of Del, and Del, jerking away, sprayed blood over Lighter’s face, and Lighter came back at Lucas, snarling like a dog.
    Del shouted “fuck it” and ran away. Lucas didn’t know what had happened except that he was on his own, ducking and rolling, faster than the other man; now on Lighter’s back again, hanging on for dear life, on the ground, in the bloody snow.
    He and Lighter rolled over once and then again, with Lighter trying to pull Lucas’s arms free from his neck, then Del was back and he shouted, “Roll him once more,” and Lucas pushed with one leg and rolled Lighter faceup, on top of Lucas, and then Lucas heard a metallic WHANK and Lighter groaned and jerked and pushed against Lucas, and there was another WHANK and Lighter went slack.
    Lucas rolled him over one last time, with the last of his strength, and Del, looking crazy, his face a mass of blood, stood there with the cast-iron briquette shovel from the charcoal grill. “Bend his arms back, let’s get some cuffs on him.”
    They did, and then sat there in the snow for a minute, Lighter blowing bubbles of blood into the snow, and Lucas asked Del, “How bad?”
    Del said, “My whole face hurts.”
    Lucas said, “Thanks, man. He was kicking my ass.”
    Del laughed and licked blood off his lips. “We gotta call somebody. I’m not hauling this asshole back to town.”
    “Need to get you to a hospital,” Lucas said. He fumbled out his cell phone and punched in 911. A woman asked, “Is this an emergency?”
     
     
    WHILE THEY SAT in the snow and waited for the Washington County deputies, the woman came out on the porch and said, “You took him. Didn’t think you could.”
    “Piece of cake,” Del said.
     
     
    THE WASHINGTON COUNTY deputies showed up with an ambulance, and one cop car and the ambulance headed to the hospital in St. Paul, Del riding with the cop.
    Lucas and the other deputy decided that since the assault took place at the house, they could look around to see if there was evidence that might apply to the crime. They walked through, found a bag of marijuana in the refrigerator and added that to the list, and a bottle of a hundred or so little white pills in the Cadillac, which they agreed was speed, and bagged up for the lab.
    They also bagged both Lighter’s cell phone and the woman’s. Her name, she said, was Butch. Alice, really, but nobody called her that. “Joe never called,” she said. “I’ll tell you, Phil probably would’ve helped him out, if he called, but he never called.”
    No Joe.
    The cop asked Lucas, “How bad are you hurt?”
    “I’m okay. He backhanded me.”
    “You’re limping.”
    “I don’t know what happened, but the sole of my shoe came off,” Lucas said, lifting one foot off the ground. Four hundred and fifty bucks of Italian calfskin, and the shoes looked like suede rags after a car wash.
    “Man, I’m glad you took him on. Somebody was going to have to do it, sooner or later. I was afraid it was gonna be me,” the cop said. “So, what do you want to do?”
    “I’ll write up my part, you write up your part. Del can handle the arrest ... you can do the search ... whatever.” He stood up, bent over and touched his toes, then bent backward. Aches and pains. “I’m tired. I’m going home.”
     
     
    WHEN HE GOT HOME, Shrake eased out the back door, took a look at Lucas and said, “Holy shit. What happened to you?”
    “Tap dancing with a steroid freak,” Lucas said. “Del got his face messed up. He’s down at Regions.”
    “How bad?”
    “They’ve got him sitting in the waiting room, waiting, so apparently it’s not so bad. He hit the guy with a shovel.”
    “With a shovel?” Shrake’s face lit up. “Man, I miss all the good stuff.”
    “Yeah, well, I need a shower.”
    “Listen. Weather’s on the warpath,” Shrake said, his voice dropping. “That’s why I snuck out. Virgil told her what was going on, with the Frenchman, and she freaked out.”
    “Ah, man. Just what I needed.”
    Shrake said, “If you wait a minute, I’ll get a shovel out of the garage.”
    Made Lucas smile, for the first time since the fight.
     
     
    WEATHER WAS WAITING in the kitchen, arms crossed under her breasts in what Letty called the “You’re goin’ down” pose.