Sudden Prey

fuckin’ money,” Martin said impatiently. “I feel bad enough anyway. The cash comes off a drug dealer downtown, there’s no tracing it, it’s all clean. It’ll more than cover the cost of the stuff.”
    “Still not right,” Frank said. He took the money.
    “I know,” Martin said, almost gently. “But there’s no help for it. Now walk us out to the car so you can wave good-bye.”
    They were in the car, rolling, and Frank went back to the house with his hands in his pockets. They turned the corner, headed down another side street, then out to the highway. As they sat at the intersection, waiting for the light, a dark sedan crossed the highway against the light, and flashed past, heading into the welter of streets they’d just left.
    “Asshole,” LaChaise muttered.
    Sandy closed her eyes.
     
     
     
    LUCAS PUSHED THE Explorer out I-394, his foot to the floor, the car banging and creaking with the speed, Del braced in the passenger seat, cursing with every slip and bump. Dispatch said the owner of the phone was a guy named Frank Winter, no priors anywhere, but he was a registered federal firearms dealer.
    “So she knew what she was talking about,” Del said.
    Ten minutes after they left City Hall, they found a phalanx of City of Minnetonka and Hennepin County cars blocking access to the subdivision. Lucas hung his badge out the window and a cop pointed at a group of men, some in uniform and some in plainclothes. Lucas parked and he and Del walked over.
    The command cops looked up and one of them, in plainclothes, said, “Lucas,” and Lucas nodded and said, “Gene, what’s happening?”
    “We got a couple of guys in the house across the street,” the cop said. “There’re lights on, but there’s no cars out front. There’s a set of tracks going up into the driveway, and then backing out. Pretty fresh. We’ve had this off-and-on snow and the guys say the tracks are crisp.”
    “Might have come and gone,” a uniformed cop said.
    “The question is, do we call ahead? Or do we just take the place?”
    Lucas shrugged and grinned at him. “You da man.”
    “Yeah, right,” the plainclothes cop said sourly. Then, “Fuck it. He’s a firearms dealer, so he could have all kinds of shit in there . . . If we go bustin’ in, we could have a fight. If we call ahead, what can they do? Can’t get out.”
    He was thinking out loud. One of the Hennepin cops said, “He can’t flush the evidence down the toilet.”
    “Huh. All right. Let’s call.”
     
     
     
    FRANK WINTER CAME out of the house with his hands over his head, and stood that way in the driveway, until an armored cop directed him down the middle of the street to a blocking car. Winter said on the phone that LaChaise, Martin and Darling had been there—had left only fifteen minutes earlier—but the house was now empty. When he got to the blocking car, where Lucas and Del were waiting with a group of uniformed cops, one of the uniforms turned Winter around and patted him down.
    “He’s wearing a vest,” one of the cops said.
    “Why the vest?” Del asked.
    “In case one of you officers decided to shoot me,” Winter said simply. “The woman called you in, didn’t she?”
    “What woman?”
    “The one with Martin and his friend,” Winter said. Then, “Do I need a lawyer?”
    “Better give him his rights,” Lucas said, and one of the cops recited the code. “You want one?”
    “Yeah, I better,” Winter said. “I was sitting there, thinking about calling you, when you called me.”
    “Why didn’t you?” Lucas asked.
    “Because I figured Martin would kill me, or LaChaise.”
    “What’d they get from you?” Del asked.
    “A couple of pistols, an accurized seven-mil-Magnum Model 70 and a box of handloads and a whole bunch of AR-15 ammo. Martin’s an Armalite freak: he’s always reworking them. I’d be careful. I’d bet they’ve got modified with them.”
    “This Model 70,” Lucas said. “Got a scope?”
    “Yeah. A Leupold Vari-X III in 3.5 × 10.”
    “A sniper rifle.”
    “A varminter,” said Winter.
    “Yeah, if elk are varmints,” Lucas said.
     
     
     
    AN ENTRY TEAM swept the house. The basement was an arsenal, but, as one of the cops said cheerfully, “Nothin’ illegal about that.”
    Lucas was looking at a Model 70, a gray synthetic-stocked Winchester .300 Magnum with a Pentax scope. He turned the eyepiece down to two-power and sighted across the basement at a crosshairs target. Winter had