Sudden Prey

love the smell of burning leaves in the autumn,” Martin said, looking out the window at the snow.
     
     
     
    SANDY GOT INTERESTED in the disguises.
    She got LaChaise to sit on a stool in the bathroom, ran her fingers through his thick, stiff hair. “Can’t just layer over your natural color, ’cause it’s too dark,” she said, half to herself. She got the bleach and LaChaise said, “You sure about this?”
    “I see it done all the time, up at Pearl’s,” she said, and she started working the bleach in. When she was done with his hair she said, “The bleach might be too harsh for your face . . . maybe you oughta shave.”
    “Try it,” he said. She worked it in; the fumes were bad, but LaChaise, eyes closed, sat it out.
    When she was finished, bleach had turned LaChaise’s normally dark hair and beard to a thin, watery yellow, the color of corn silk. The delicate color contrasted oddly with the harsh contours of his face. “Holy shit, I look like some kind of fag,” he said, staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. “Maybe I oughta leave it like this.”
    “Too weird,” Martin said. “You want people to look away from you, not stare at you.”
    They did the color next, and when he looked again, LaChaise was impressed. With the gray beard, he looked as though he might be seventy. “Get your back humped, nobody’ll give you a second look,” Martin said.
    LaChaise looked at Sandy: “You done really good,” he said.
    Sandy had been enjoying herself: now it went away, and under her breath, as she turned way, she said, “Fuck you.”
    LaChaise said to Martin, “Your turn.”
     
     
     
    ANDERSON HAD PHOTOS of Bill Martin. “We’ll put them out at the afternoon press conference,” he said. “We’ve got a line on his truck and license tag, and we’re putting that on the street right now.”
    “All right—have you seen Stadic?”
    “Yeah, he was through here. We sent him home. I think he’s kind of messed up.”
    “He’s never shot anyone before,” Lucas said. He yawned and said, “He saved my bacon this morning . . . Jesus, I got to get some sleep.”
    “Go get it,” Anderson said. “There’s nothing going on . . . what happened with Weather and Jennifer?”
    “Jen should be okay—they’ve got armed security at the station, and the kids are gone. But I want to find a couple of cops who’ll stick by Weather on an off-duty basis. I’ll pay them. She’s getting bitchy, she won’t stay put.”
    “You should have got her some knitting stuff,” Anderson said. “You know, so she’d have something to do over there at the hotel.”
    “I don’t think . . .” Lucas started. Then he looked at Anderson, whose face was resolutely stuck in neutral.
    “I just don’t want them hurt, that’s all,” Lucas said.
    “Yeah, I know, you don’t want them to take the risks you’re taking . . . as much fun as they are.”
    Lucas looked sideways at him: “Whose side are you on?”
    Anderson shrugged. “Theirs.”
    “A traitor to his sex,” Lucas said, and he yawned again. “Listen, I’m gonna grab a few hours. If you need me, I’m at home.”
    “We’ll call,” Anderson said.
    Lucas said, “Goddamn women.”
     
     
     
    LA CHAISE STARTED LAUGHING when he saw Martin, and made Martin link arms with him and shuffle around the apartment. Martin joined in, almost as though he’d stepped outside his dour personality.
    “Don’t quite look old,” Sandy said. “You look old, but you move young.”
    “We need some practice,” LaChaise said. And then, a spark in his eyes, “Let’s go on out to this big fuckin’ mall. What do they call it—the Mall of America?”
    Sandy was appalled by the idea: “Dick, you’re nuts.”
    His smile vanished. “You never fuckin’ say that,” he said.
    She shut up: Dick, she thought, was losing it. Play to him, look for a chance. Try not to be in the way when the shooting started.
     
     
     
    MARTIN TOOK THE truck, and Sandy and LaChaise followed behind in the Continental. Martin left the truck in a neighborhood north of the airport. He patted it once, like he might a horse, looked it over, then got in the Continental.
    “Makes you want to cry,” LaChaise said.
    “Damn good truck,” Martin said, looking back at it as they drove away. “You know, it was perfect, mechanically. New engine, new tranny—new about everything. I could go anyplace, and nobody’d give it a second look. Good thing, too, when you’re dealing