Sudden Prey

guns.”
    “Where’re we going?” Sandy asked, still behind the wheel.
    “The mall,” LaChaise said.
    “We oughta take care of some business first,” Martin said.
    “Yeah? What’s that?”
    Martin had a map of the downtown area. “I want to go look up the hospital where they’re taking these people . . . Hennepin General. Then I want to go over to this other one, where Davenport’s old lady works. Just a recon, to see where it is.”
    “All right,” LaChaise said. “I’m just glad to be out.”
    The first hospital, as it turned out, was only six or eight blocks from Harp’s apartment. There were cop cars parked by the entrances.
    “That’d be tough,” Martin said.
    “But we could get to it on foot, if we had to,” LaChaise said. “If that big storm comes in . . .”
    The other hospital was farther away, but easy to get to—straight down Eleventh to Washington, right, a couple of natural turns, across the river and up the hill past a building that looked like it had been built from beer cans—and there it was.
    No cop cars.
    “This one would be simpler,” Martin said.
    “But it’s big,” said LaChaise. “Finding her could be a problem—even knowing for sure that she’s in there could be a problem.”
    “We could work it out,” Martin said.
    Sandy drove, listening; she was shocked by the coolness of the discussion. They’d done robberies, she was sure: Candy and Georgie hadn’t started on their own. Still, she was reluctantly impressed by the cool appraisal of the targets.
    “Now: out to this mall,” LaChaise said. He stretched out in back, favoring his side. The wound was tightening up. “Feel like I’m being held together by banjo strings,” he grumbled. But he sat up as they approached the mall.
    “Looks like Uncle Scrooge’s money bin,” he said.
    “You ain’t far wrong,” Martin said.
    Sandy found a parking spot in the ramp, and they went inside. The mall was packed, but nobody gave them a second look. And LaChaise was fascinated.
    “Goddamnedest thing I ever seen,” LaChaise said, as they stopped outside the Camp Snoopy amusement park. A gang-banger dragged by, looked them over—two old guys with beards and long black coats. They looked like cartoons. The gang-banger smirked, kept going.
    LaChaise took them on a circuit of the mall, browsing through the stores, checking out the women, dragging Sandy along.
    “We gotta get out of here,” Sandy said, after the first circuit.
    “We just got here,” LaChaise said, enjoying himself.
    “Dick, please . . .”
    “Tell you what, let’s catch a movie.”
    “We can see a movie back at the apartment, he’s got HBO. Please.”
    “Then let’s get a pizza, or something. God, is that cinnamon rolls I smell?”
    The gang-banger went by again, this time from the other direction—they’d both made a circuit of the second level—but this time, after he passed, he turned and followed them.
    There was something not quite right here, the banger thought. There was something wrong with the old guys, and the blond was nervous. Her nervousness gave the whole trio a sense of vulnerability. The feel of vulnerability brought him in, like a mosquito to bare flesh. Victims . . .
    There may have been ten thousand people in the mall, but there were also dead spots. One of them was next to an automatic teller machine. The banger watched as the trio bought cinnamon rolls and Cokes, then sat on a bench next to the ATM.
    Nobody real close. The banger put on a grin and wandered up, put his hand in his pocket and dropped the blade on a butterfly knife.
    “How’s it going, folks,” he said to LaChaise. LaChaise bobbed his head, didn’t look up, but the banger could see the smile. The victims usually smiled, at first, trying to pretend that the contact was friendly. “Whyn’t you just give it up? A few bucks,” the banger said.
    Now LaChaise looked up at him, his voice soft. “If you don’t go away, I’m gonna take that fuckin’ blade and cut your nuts off.”
    The banger took a step back. “I oughta . . .”
    “Fuck oughta. You want to do something, do it, pussy,” LaChaise said. The banger looked at Martin, and the pale eyes fixed him like a bug.
    The banger said, “Fuck you,” and walked away.
    “We gotta get out of here, Dick,” Sandy pleaded.
    “Felt kinda good,” LaChaise said to Martin, and Martin’s head bobbed. “Hey, c’mon; let’s go see a movie.”
    “Dick, please . . .”
    LaChaise pulled her close.