Sudden Prey

in the snow where he passed.
    He could hear the sirens now, coming in from everywhere.
     
     
     
    LUCAS AND AN out-of-uniform patrol cop named Bunne rode toward Eleventh in Lucas’s Explorer. Bunne wore a baseball jacket, the first thing he’d seen when he’d run out of a locker room before heading down to the hospital on foot. They were six blocks from Harp’s: one minute. A half-minute after they left the hospital, they got the choked call on the radios, almost unintelligible over the panicked, harsh, into-the-mike breathing, “We got fire, we’re shot, we’re taking fire, Dick’s shot, for Christ’s sake, get help.”
    “Goddamn,” Bunne said. Lucas had been following the patrol captain. Now he put the Explorer on the wrong side of the slippery street and they roared along, side by side, sirens everywhere. At the same time, he was shouting, “Where’d they go, you dumb shit?”
    The cop came back, as though he’d heard, “They’re on Eleventh, they’re on Eleventh heading toward the Metrodome, they’re on foot.”
    “Ten seconds,” Lucas said.
    Bunne drew his pistol and braced himself, white-faced, but at the same time showing Lucas a shaky grin: “This stuff scares the shit out of me,” he said.
    Lucas, focused on the driving, said, “The snow isn’t that bad, it’s the fuckin’ night that’s killing us.”
    “Nah, it’s the fuckin’ snow,” Bunne said.
    A red car, a small Ford, pulled out of a side street and Lucas nearly hit it. The Ford jumped a curve and piled up on a street sign, and they went by, the ultra-pale face of a redheaded kid peering at them through the glass. “Law-suit,” Bunne said, and they went around the corner, on the outside, and then they were on Eleventh on top of Harp’s place, the patrol captain fifteen yards behind them. A squad was parked sideways in the intersection. A cop ran toward them, as Lucas and the patrol captain, in the other car, slid to a stop. The cop was pointing back past them: “They’re on foot,” he hollered. “We gotta get a perimeter up. They’re not more’n a minute ahead. You must’ve come right past them . . .”
    Lucas got out of the car and another plainclothes guy, Stadic, joined them, carrying a shotgun. Lucas got his own shotgun out of the car and tossed it to Bunne and said, “Let’s go.”
    The three of them started off, and then another cop ran up behind, carrying another shotgun, and the four of them went off into the snow. The last cop, in uniform, said, “Charlie said they crossed the street . . .”
    Lucas led the way, said, “Don’t bunch,” and the others self-consciously spread out. Lucas said, “Everybody got a vest?” Stadic and the uniform cop said yes; Bunne shook his head, he was bareheaded, barehanded, and wearing penny loafers. “Go back and get a vest,” Lucas said.
    “Fuck that, I’m coming,” Bunne said. Lucas opened his mouth to object, but Bunne pointed at the ground ahead of them: “Look at that. Blood trail.”
    They all stopped and Stadic said, “He’s right,” and they all looked down the street toward a row of old brown brick apartment houses. “This is them,” Bunne said, pointing at the fresh tracks in the snow. “See the different sizes of holes . . . that’s the woman, this one guy is dragging his leg, that’s the blood trail.”
    “Can’t see shit; it’ll be light in an hour,” the uniform cop said, looking around. He was nervous, nibbling at his brushy black mustache. “Got snow on my glasses . . .”
    They pushed into the snow, past the apartment houses and small businesses, a Dairy Queen, a jumble of parking lots and fences, the occasional hedge, Dumpsters behind buildings, all good cover: following the blood which appeared as ragged, occasional sprinkles in the snow, black in the dim light. As they moved up under a streetlight, Lucas said into his handset, “We’re tracking them . . .” and gave the position.
    No way they could get out of the neighborhood, he thought, but there was an excellent possibility that they’d take a house somewhere, and they’d have a siege. “Better get a hostage team down here,” he said. “They could hole up . . .”
    At that minute there was a sharp slap and Bunne said, “Oh, Christ,” and fell down. Lucas screamed “Shooter,” and they scattered. But they could see nothing, and hear nothing but sirens, the traffic on the highway and the peculiar hushed purring of the snow.
    The uniform was screaming, “Where