Storm Prey

said. “I got a bad feeling about it. I think they ditched it. Threw it out the window.”
     
     
    LUCAS AND JENKINS drove Honey Bee out to Lake Elmo, to a self-storage place, and got the manager to open the unit. The floor was covered by wooden pallets, on which were stacked a couple of dozen TVs and computer monitors, computers, including a half-dozen Apple laptops, a gift box of Wüsthof knives, paper shredders, printers, speakers and audio receivers, Blu-ray and DVD players, a dozen GPS handhelds, fish-finders and marine tracking units, six new-looking Yamaha 25-horsepower outboard motors, and one snowmobile.
    No drugs. Because, Lucas thought, the drugs had been at Ike’s.
    They called the Washington County sheriff, told them about the unit, knotted a piece of crime-scene tape on the lock, and told the manager not to touch anything.
    “Nothing for us,” Lucas said, as they pulled out. To Honey Bee: “We need Joe. We need a different phone, we need the doc, we need you to give us something we can use, or I’m slamming your ass in jail.”
    “I don’t—”
    “Think of something,” Lucas said. “Or else. The doc: is he a French guy? Do you know anything about that?”
    She touched her lips and said, “Oh.”
    “Oh, what?”
    “The doc guy. Joe Mack once cracked some joke about a rag-head. I think he was talking about the doc.”
    “The doc’s an Arab?”
    “Or one of those kinds of people who have, you know, turbans. I think so. But I’m not sure. That’s all I can think of that might help.”
    “What’s his last name?” Lucas asked.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know anything else. I heard them talking about the doc.”
    “That’s not a hell of a lot,” Jenkins said.
     
     
    VIRGIL AND WEATHER were put with the payroll people, who looked through a list of the French-accent workers. None had called in sick, but two of them had the day off. Virgil said, “I need to get you home, so the guys can cover you.”
    “You shouldn’t look for them on your own,” Weather said.
    “So I’ll take Jenkins or Shrake,” Virgil said. “Gotta do it, though—this could be something.”
    They’d just finished when Lucas called for Virgil. Lucas told him what Honey Bee had said, and Virgil said, “If it’s an Arab, that’s gonna be a bigger problem. There’re lots more Arabs around here than Frenchmen.”
     
     
    JENKINS AND LUCAS played good-cop bad-cop for a while, Jenkins suggesting that Honey Bee had helped some, and she might help more, and so deserved another chance. Lucas wanted to put her in jail. Eventually, Lucas backed away, and agreed to stick her in a Holiday Inn, in downtown St. Paul.
    “You go out to eat, and that’s it. You sit here and watch TV If I call you on your cell, you better answer in one second,” Lucas said.
    “I will,” she said.
     
     
    HONEY BEE SAT in her room for a half hour, staring at her suitcase, watching the TV without seeing it. She was scared of the killer, scared of Davenport, scared of the future. She wondered if they were watching her: peeked out in the hall, saw nobody. Went back to her room, sat in the bathtub. Made a decision.
    She’d make a practice run, she decided. She took the elevator down three floors, then the stairs the rest of the way, listening for doors closing above her...
    On the street, head down, she walked to a sandwich place on West Seventh, a block from the X Center, sat in a booth in the back, and watched the door. Business was slow, no hockey on the schedule: a few people came through, but nobody who felt like a cop. She left by a back door, into a side street, got her guts together, crossed the streets to the X Center, took the Skyway first up and then down, to the tunnel, watched her tracks, got into the main system, moving fast now.
    At the bank, she got directions to the safe-deposit area, took the elevator down, rented a safe-deposit box, showing her checks to confirm her status as a customer, and dropped seventeen thousand into it, kept a thousand as walking-around money.
    Took the elevator back up, expecting to see Davenport waiting at the doors: nobody.
    Walked back through the Skyways, looking for a pay phone ... and found one, one of the last public phones in the world, she thought. She got quarters from a popcorn stand and dialed long distance.
    Two rings, three. Then, “Hello?”
    “Eddie? It’s me, Honey Bee.”
    Silence. Then, “You with the cops?”
    “Not now. They had me all day. I’m