Sudden Prey

weighed down with their own importance, most looking for a shot on national television. The governor stopped, wanted a briefing; a dozen state legislators demanded time with her, along with all the city councilmen.
    Lucas spent a half hour watching Sloan and another cop interrogate Duane Cale, who didn’t know much about anything.
    “But if Dick is here, I’d get my ass out of town,” Cale said.
    The interrogation wouldn’t produce much, Lucas thought. He locked himself in his office with Franklin, away from the media and cops who wanted to talk about it. Sloan came in after a while, and started making calls. Then Del wandered in, his clothes still dappled with his wife’s blood.
    “How’s Cheryl?” Lucas asked.
    Del shook his head: “She’s out of the operating room, asleep. They put her in intensive care, and won’t let me in. She’ll be there until tomorrow morning, at least.”
    “You oughta get some rest,” Lucas said.
    “Fuck that. What’re you guys doing?”
    “Talking to assholes . . .”
    Between them, they called everyone they knew on the street who had a phone. Lucas tried Sally O’Donald a half-dozen times, and left word for her at bars along Lake Street.
    A little more than two hours after the killings, Roux called:
    “We’re meeting with the mayor at his office. Ten minutes.”
    “Is this real?” Lucas asked.
    “Yeah. This is the real one,” Roux said.
    A minute later, O’Donald called back.
    “Can you come down and look at some pictures?” Lucas asked. “The guy you thought might be a cop?”
    “I can’t even remember in my head what he looked like,” O’Donald said. “But I’ll come down if you want.”
    “Talk to Ed O’Meara in Identification.”
    “Okay—but listen. I talked to my agent . . .”
    “Your what?”
    “My agent,” O’Donald said, mildly embarrassed. “She said she might get five thousand dollars if I talked to Hard Copy. ”
    “Goddamnit, Sally,” Lucas said. “If you screw me and Del . . .”
    “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” O’Donald said. “I’m not going to screw anybody. What I want to know is, are you gonna take LaChaise off the street?”
    “Yeah. Sooner or later.”
    “So if I talk, he won’t be able to get at me?”
    Lucas hesitated, then said, “Look, I’ll be honest. If you talk, and then you bag outa here for a few days, he’ll be gone. He won’t last a week.”
    “That’s what I wanted to know,” O’Donald said.
    “But you gotta tell me when you’re going on,” Lucas said. “We’ll put a guy on your house—in your house, maybe—just in case LaChaise comes looking.”
    “Jeez,” she said. There was a minute’s silence. “You put it that way . . . maybe I won’t. I don’t want to fuck with Dick.”
    “Either way, let me know,” Lucas said. He glanced at his watch. The meeting was about to start. “Come in, talk to Ed . . .”
    “Wait a minute, wait a minute. I thought of something else you might want to know.”
    “Yeah?”
    “You ought to look at the ownership of that laundromat.”
    “Why don’t you just tell me?” Lucas asked.
    “I understand that it belongs to Daymon Harp.” The name hung there, but Lucas didn’t recognize it.
    “Who’s he?”
    “Jeez, Davenport, you gotta get back on the streets a little more. He’s a dealer. Pretty big time . . .”
    “A Seed guy?”
    “No, no, never. He’s a black guy; good-looking guy. Ask Del. Del’ll know who he is.”
    “Thanks, Sally.”
    “You talk to sex?”
    “I’ll talk to them tonight.”
    When he got off the phone, he said to Del, “Daymon Harp?”
    “Dealer—semi-small-time. Careful. Reasonably smart. Came over from Milwaukee a few years back. Why?”
    “Sally O’Donald says he owns the laundromat where she saw LaChaise.”
    Del frowned, shook his head. “I don’t know what that means. I can’t see Harp running with the Seed guys. That’s the last combination I could imagine.”
    “Might be worth checking . . .”
    Del looked at Sloan. “Want to run it down?”
    Lucas interrupted. “Why don’t you get cleaned up first? Sloan and Franklin can stay with the phones. When I get back, we’ll all go down.”
     
     
     
    LUCAS WAS THE last one in the door. The meeting included Roux, the mayor and a deputy mayor; Frank Lester, head of investigations; Barney Kittleson, head of patrol; Anita Segundo, the press liaison; and Lucas.
    Rose Marie was talking to Segundo when Lucas eased through the door. She asked, “How