Sudden Prey

bad?”
    “CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN and one or two of the Fox cop shows all have people on the way. Nightline is doing a segment tonight. They’re talking about LaChaise and his group being militia. Ever since the federal building was blown up in Oklahoma City, that’s a hot topic.”
    “ Are they militia?” the mayor asked. “Do these media guys know something?”
    “The FBI says LaChaise was on the edge of things, but they don’t show him really involved,” Lester said. “He knew some of the Order people back in the eighties . . .”
    “Didn’t the Order kill that radio guy in Denver?” the mayor asked.
    Lester nodded: “Yes. But the feds took them out a little while later. LaChaise was a big guy in the Seed, and some of the militia people from Michigan were involved in the Seed back when it was a biker gang. And later on, some of the Seed people got involved with Christian Identity—that’s sort of an umbrella group. And we know LaChaise used to sell neo-Nazi stuff in his bike shop: The Turner Diaries , and all that. Some people think the Seed got its name from a right-winger who went on the radio and said it was too late to stop the movement, because there were Seeds everywhere. But that could be bullshit.”
    “We gotta nail that down,” the mayor said, jabbing a finger at Roux. “If these are militia, we gotta start thinking in terms of bombs and heavy weapons.”
    Roux glanced at Lucas, scratched her head and said, “I don’t think . . .”
    She stopped, and the mayor’s eyebrows went up. “Yeah?”
    “I don’t think that’s much of a possibility, Stan. I think we’re basically dealing with some goofs, with guns. Three guys, psychos, who maybe rode together in a biker gang. And maybe messed around on the edge of the Nazi stuff.”
    “Well, you’re probably right,” the mayor said. “But if they blow up the fuckin’ First Bank, I don’t want to be standing there with my dick in my hand, trying to explain why we didn’t know what was coming.”
    Roux nodded. “That’s one thing: we’re gonna need a very tight public relations operation, or we’re gonna get run over,” she said. “We’ll have cops gettin’ paid off, we’ll have reporters chasing witnesses . . .”
    “The guy at Rosedale—the other clerk with Kupicek’s wife, in the TV store—he’s already signed up for Nightline ,” Segundo said.
    The mayor was an olive-complected, bull-shouldered man, with fine curly black hair just starting to recede. He looked at his deputy, then at Roux: “Rose Marie, it’s gonna be you and me.”
    “Sounds like a hit song from the fifties,” the deputy said, “Rose Marie, it’s you and me.”
    Everyone ignored him.
    “We lay down the law about cops talking to the press: if you do it, you better get a lot of money, ’cause you won’t be working here anymore,” the mayor said. “We have four major press briefings every day: one early, to catch the morning shows; one just before noon; one just before five; and one at eight forty-five, to catch the late news. You’ll have to coordinate with your investigators—we should have a bone to throw them at every press conference. Doesn’t have to be real, but it has to be satisfying . . . ”
    The mayor went on for five minutes, laying out the handling of the press.
    Then he turned to Lester and Lucas: “Lucas, I want you and your people totally off stage. We don’t want any arguments about whether the response was provoked by the shootings at the bank.”
    “I didn’t know that was still a question,” Lester said.
    “There isn’t a question,” the mayor said irritably. “But the media’ll chew on any goddamned bone they can find. You gotta remember we’re dealing with the entertainment industry. Die Hard , Oklahoma City, it’s all the same. Now it’s our turn to make the movie.” He rapped on the table with his knuckles, still looking at Lester and Lucas: “We can only bullshit them for so long. We gotta catch these guys.”
    “We’ve got a procedure in emergencies,” Roux said, and the mayor swiveled back to her. “We run two parallel investigations. Lucas and his bunch play the angles, and Frank runs the main sweep. Everybody coordinates through Anderson. He puts out a book every day on every little piece we get. Nobody hides anything from anybody.”
    “It works?” asked the mayor.
    “So far,” Lucas said.
    “Then let’s do that,” the mayor said. “Do we have one single thing we can move on now?