Sudden Prey

Daymon Harp. That’s first name D-A-Y-M-O-N, last name H-A-R-P. I need to know what he drives.”
    The captain looked at him curiously; five seconds later, Dispatch came back, a different voice. “Lucas, Sandy Darling just called. She’s left the phone off the hook, she says they’re there . . .”
    “On Eleventh Avenue?” Lucas asked.
    “Yeah . . . how’d you know?”
    Then the other dispatcher: “Lucas, he’s got a 1994 Lincoln . . .”
    “A brown one,” Lucas said.
    “Yes.”
    “All right,” Lucas said, and he felt the rush, the lift that came at the end of a hunt. “I want to do this right. They’re at Harp’s apartment on Eleventh, it’s a two-story, they’re up above a laundromat. There’s a front stairs and a garage on the side. I want somebody down there now, and we’ll need an ERU team . . .”
    Behind him, the patrol captain broke for his car. He shouted back, “I’ll get some guys moving.”
     
     
     
    AGAIN, STADIC HEARD the sudden rush on the radio. And the phrase, “Down on Eleventh.”
    He knew immediately what it was. He grabbed his phone, punched in Harp’s number. Busy. Christ. He couldn’t allow a siege: there’d be survivors.
    The apartment would be surrounded, there’d be helicopters overhead . . . when it came to outright suicide, LaChaise and the other crazy fucker might change their minds. And once they were out, and behind bars, they’d deal him.
    The fear clawed at him, propelled him out of the car door. He ran up the side street past the garage, around the corner, kicked in the glass on the bottom floor door and ran up the stairs. At the top, facing the pile of cardboard boxes, he screamed: “LaChaise, they know you’re here. They’re coming now. Right now. You’ve got less than a minute. They’ve got Harp’s car, they’ve got Harp’s car. You hear me? Harp’s car, they got it.”
    And he ran back down, seeing in his mind’s eye a cop car pulling up from across the street, leveling a shotgun at him, the questions . . .
    The street was empty. Hell, the radio traffic hadn’t started more than a minute ago. He ran back around the corner, jumped in his car, started it and rolled away.
    And as he went, he noticed the utter silence of the night, the quiet in the snow. Every siren in town had been killed. But every cop car in town was rolling toward him.
    He punched the car down the street, one block, two, and stopped: when the first cars came in, he wanted to be with them.
    The first car came in as he thought, gliding in silence toward the laundromat on the corner.

26
    LACHAISE RAN TOWARD the back door, saw Sandy in the kitchen, grabbed her, and she screamed, “Let me get my coat, my coat . . .”
    LaChaise ran back to the front room, grabbed his own coat and Sandy’s. Martin had his bow in his hand, six arrows in the bow-quiver, a fistful more in the other hand, his coat gaping open. He hobbled after them as LaChaise hit the stairs and Sandy followed, pulling on the coat.
    When Martin reached the bottom of the stairs, the garage door was halfway up. He heard LaChaise scream, “Aw, shit . . .” and LaChaise’s rifle came up and began the stroboscopic flash and stutter, and then LaChaise, with Sandy a foot behind, was out in the snow.
    Martin was ten feet behind. He looked left: a cop car, windows shattered, sideways in the street. LaChaise was already running to the right.
    “This way, this way . . .” LaChaise was screaming at him. Martin caught up and they turned the corner and Martin said, “Give me the rifle.”
    “What?” LaChaise’s face was white, antic, the skin stretched around his eyes. Sandy was running away from them, down the street. Let her go.
    “I won’t make it. I can’t move, my leg’s fucked, I pulled something loose again,” Martin said. He fumbled at his waistband. “Take my pistol,” he said, handing it to LaChaise. “You got yours. That’ll be enough. Grab a car, get moving . . .”
    “Christ,” LaChaise said. He tossed Martin the rifle, fumbled two spare magazines out of his pocket, passed them over, then caught Martin around the neck in a bear hug, held him for a half-second, said, “I’m going for Davenport’s woman. I’ll probably be seeing you in a while,” then turned and ran after Sandy.
    Martin went back to the corner and peeked. Fifty yards down the street, a cop was behind a car door, looking at him. He fired a burst, then pulled back and hobbled away, across the street, a thin trickle of pink