Sudden Prey

that it was too late. Cops’ families had been attacked. That was worse than killing the cops themselves. If anyone found out that he’d been involved, there’d be no place to hide. If he were to be saved now, salvation would come in one form: the death of LaChaise and all of his friends. Which wasn’t impossible . . .
    He sat in his car, took out his cellular phone, punched in his home number. Two calls on the answering machine. The first was Daymon Harp, who said two words: “Call me.” The second call was nothing.
    Stadic erased the tape, hung up, found LaChaise’s number in his wallet and punched it in. The phone was answered on the first ring.
    “Hello?” A man’s voice, a southerner.
    “Let me speak to Dick,” Stadic said.
    LaChaise came on a second later: “What?”
    “You’re fucked now. You can’t walk a block without bumping into a cop.”
    “We can handle it. What we need is their location. We heard on the radio they were all being moved.”
    “They’re at the Sandhurst Hotel in Minneapolis,” Stadic said. “They’re sequestered in interior rooms. There are cops all through the place. Snipers on the roof. The streets are being dug up outside, so you can’t get a car close.”
    After a moment of silence, LaChaise said, “We’ll think of something.”
    “No, you won’t. There’s no way in. And who got shot? One of you is hit, they found blood down Capslock’s sidewalk.”
    “I got scratched,” LaChaise said. “It’s nothing. We need to know more about this hotel.”
    “There’s no way in,” Stadic said. “But there are some people outside you might be interested in—and I don’t think there’s a watch on them.”
    “Who’s that?” LaChaise asked.
    “You know Davenport?” Stadic asked. He looked down the street at the hotel. Another cop paraded the lobby, behind the glass doors, in the doorman’s uniform. Stadic was due back in the uniform in the morning. “He runs the group that shot your women.”
    “We know Davenport. He’s on the list,” LaChaise said.
    “He’s got a daughter that almost nobody knows about, because he never married the mother,” said Stadic. “She’s not on any insurance forms.”
    “Where is she?”
    “Down on Minnehaha Creek—that’s in south Minneapolis. I got the address and phone number.”
    “Let me get a pencil . . .” LaChaise was back in a minute, and scribbled down the address. “Why’re you doing this?” LaChaise asked.
    “ ’Cause I want you to finish and get out of here. You got three of them. You get Davenport’s daughter, we set something up on Franklin, and you’re outa here.”
    LaChaise said nothing, but Stadic could hear the hum of the open line. Then LaChaise said, “Sounds like bullshit.”
    “Listen, I just want you to get the fuck out of here,” Stadic said. Then, “I gotta go. I’ll call you about Franklin.”
    Stadic hung up, and dialed Harp’s unlisted number. Harp picked it up on the first ring.
    “What?” Stadic asked.
    “Cops were here. Capslock and Davenport and another guy. Somebody saw you and LaChaise in the laundromat. They think I know something about LaChaise.”
    “Just hang on,” Stadic said.
    “I don’t know, man. I’m thinking about taking a vacation.”
    Stadic thought a minute, then said, “Listen, how much trouble would it cause the business, if you were gone for a week?”
    “Not much,” Harp said. “I make a couple of big deliveries, we’d be all right. You think I should walk?”
    “Yeah,” Stadic said. “Go somewhere they wouldn’t expect. Not Las Vegas. Not Miami.”
    “Puerto Rico?”
    “That’d be the place,” Stadic said. “They’d never think of it.”
    “Great pussy. No pussy like Puerto Rico pussy,” Harp said.
    “Forget the pussy. Just get your ass down there so Davenport can’t get right on top of you. Take Jas.”
    “What for? She ain’t doing me no good,” Harp said. “She been weepin’ around about this finger.”
    “You need a witness. There’s some heavy shit coming down. You might want to prove that you weren’t here. Take a credit card, and buy some stuff down there. Keep the receipts, so you can prove it.”
    “Yeah, okay. Good idea,” Harp said.
    “Stay in touch. Call my place, leave a hotel name on the tape. Nothing else, just the hotel name.”
    “We’re outa here,” Harp said, and he hung up.
    Harp’s disappearance would simplify things, Stadic thought: one less problem to worry about. LaChaise would be gone