Sudden Prey

apartment. “He said the cops was hassling him because of these white boys killing cops. So he went on a trip. With Jas-Min.”
    “You know where?”
    “He said maybe Mexico. Someplace warm,” Sell-More said. “Is that good for the ten?”
    “You lyin’?” Lucas asked.
    “No way,” Sell-More said. He shivered. “If the boss was here, I’d be eating.”
    Lucas handed him the ten and said to Del, “Mexico.”
    Del looked around at the snow: “Wish I was with him.”
    Stadic nodded, happy with the story. If Davenport thought Harp was involved, he’d just keep coming back. He didn’t want Davenport poking around Harp’s operation: not now.
    They’d taken a couple of steps away from Sell-More when Lucas stopped and said, “You wanna go for a hundred?”
    Sell-More said, “What?”
    “We’re looking for cops who might be . . . dealing. If you want to ask around, get a name or two, it’d be worth some cash.”
    Stadic tensed: he hadn’t planned on this. “Do I get the bread now?” Sell-More asked hopefully.
    “Hell no,” Lucas said. “When I get the names—and the names better be good.”
    Sell-More said, “That’s pretty dangerous, what you want.”
    “Yeah, well, that ten won’t last long,” Lucas said. He took a card out of his pocket and handed it to Sell-More. “You get hungry again, get a name and call me. Nobody has to know about it.”
    Sell-More’s eyes seemed to roll inward, and after a moment of silence, he looked from Lucas to Del to Stadic, and then he said, “I think I might know somebody.”
     
     
     
    LA CHAISE LOOKED AT Martin: “They’re gone.”
    Martin nodded. “Yup.”
    “I can’t believe it,” LaChaise said. He looked down at Sandy and said, “We’re good as gold.”
    Sandy nodded. She could still feel her heart thumping. The cops had hit the Frogtown house the day after the first shootings. She didn’t know how they’d done it, but they’d killed Butters and they would have killed all of them, probably. Now they were knocking on the door of the new place. The whole thing was coming apart, just like Elmore had said it would. Elmore had never been bright: now he was looking like a prophet.
    She didn’t say any of that: instead, she thought, Telephone.

16
    LUCAS CHECKED ON his crew: Sloan and Sherrill were probing sources in the local biker groups. Del and Franklin were working independently, running more dopers. Anderson, who worked for Lester, was running lists of names though personnel, asking who might know enough to crack the personnel computers. Lucas stopped by his office: “Anything?”
    Anderson said, “Your name keeps coming up.”
    “I think we can eliminate that one,” Lucas said.
    Anderson yawned and said, “Well, that leaves about sixty more, including everybody in your group, and I’m not finished running the roster.”
    “Give me a list when you get it,” Lucas said.
    He also got a copy of Buster Brown’s tape and carried it back to his office and listened to it again.
    “. . . need to know where this Weather is, and be good to know where Capslock’s old lady is, her room number. And we need to know where Davenport is working, and Capslock, Sherrill, Sloan, Franklin and Kupicek. You know the list.”
    Long pause.
    “That don’t sound right; you better be tellin’ the truth, or your name’ll be on the list, motherfucker . . . Hey, listen to what I’m telling you . . . No, not you. Did you find out anything about Elmore?”
    Another pause.
    “That’s what we thought. We’ll look those boys up when we’re done here . . . Now listen, we need that shit and we need it right now. We’ll call back in . . . two hours. Two hours, got it?”
    Pause.
    “I don’t know. And you let us worry about getting back to you. You might be pulling some bullshit. And if you are, you better think twice . . .”
    Pause.
    “ Yeah, yeah. Two hours.”
    He rolled it back and listened for background sounds: he’d seen a movie where they figured out where something was by the sound of a train . . . but there was nothing. Buster thought he could hear a television, but Lucas couldn’t pick it out of the tape noise. Then he thought, What was that about Elmore?
    LaChaise:
    Did you find out anything about Elmore? . . . That’s what we thought. We’ll look those boys up when we’re done here . . .
    Huh. That sounded like they hadn’t killed Elmore Darling. That sounded like they thought they knew who had—and so did the cop talking to them.