Wicked Prey

sure that none of these people will admit that they had the cash.”
    “So why do anything ?” Lucas asked. “Why not call it a day and go home?”
    “Because they’re some of us ,” Mitford said. He patted himself on the chest. “Us political guys. We’re like cops. Everybody hates us, so we’ve got to take care of each other. And I really don’t want to see anybody get killed by these assholes.”
    “If I get them, if there’s a trial . . .”
    “I’ll worry about that when I get to it,” Mitford said. “Prosecutors are politicians—plea bargains are out there, things can be done. But right now, Lucas: stop them.”
    Lucas just looked at him for a moment.
    Mitford pushed some paper across his desk. “Names, room numbers, cell phones. Please?”
    “I’ll take a look,” he said.
    “And . . . one more thing,” Mitford said. “Keep it to yourself? Much as you can?”
    * * *
    LUCAS WENT back home, got undressed, crawled into bed, and went back to sleep. He woke again when Weather got up. She pulled a drape halfway back, and a shaft of sunlight cut across the room. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
    “Need to talk,” he said, rolling onto his back.
    “Uh-oh. What happened?”
    “Get cleaned up, then I’ll come brush my teeth and we can get some coffee.”
    * * *
     
    SEVEN O’CLOCK, and quiet, though they’d all be up soon enough. Weather usually got up at five-fifteen on weekdays, and was at the hospital by a little after six: sleeping to seven o’clock was a weekly treat. Lucas rarely got up before nine o’clock, rarely went back to bed before 1:30 or two o’clock. He got up with her Sunday so they could get an hour together with a little quiet.
    They got coffee going, and oatmeal, and some ready-made hot-cross buns from a can, and odors mixed pleasantly across the kitchen. When she sat down with the coffee, he told her about the robberies, about the no-tell cash.
    “So Neil wants you to catch these people, or at least stop them, without telling anybody about the money,” she said.
    “That’s about it,” Lucas said.
    “Why’d he tell you about the money? He could have asked you to look into it, without telling you about it,” Weather said. “He could have told you that these people were important, or were political friends, and that would have kept you out of it, ethically . . .”
    “He knew I’d find out,” Lucas said. “He wanted to be able to predict what I’ll do.”
    “All right.”
    “The thing is, I already have an idea who they might be. They might be some guys who killed a couple of cops in New York.”
    He told her about the Friday call from Lily Rothenburg. She’d heard a story from Del or Sloan about Lucas and Lily and the front seat of an earlier Porsche; she said now, “Old Bucket Seat.”
    Lucas rolled his eyes, “C’mon. It was years ago. She’s married and has a family . . .”
    “You never tried to get me in the Porsche . . .”
    “At our age, we’d have to take a year of yoga first,” Lucas said. “Anyway, she called to tell me that there’s this heavy-duty stickup gang in town. They only go for large amounts of cash, and they’re good at it—always work off a plan, bold, but very careful. This sounds like them.”
    “Then you’ve got a problem,” Weather said. “You’re going to have to bring some other people in on the deal. Other cops. You can’t go up against them by yourself. Then you’ve got to tell the other guys.”
    “That can be handled,” Lucas said. “Cohn might be down in Texas by now. On the other hand, he might have a list. If I can spot the gang, there’d be no problem bringing in a SWAT team to take them down. I mean, there’re already two robberies on the table. Formal complaints, one guy in the hospital. It’s more . . . You know, if I do this, I’m sort of one of them. The political guys.”
    “You already are,” Weather said.
    He wagged a finger at her. “No. I’ve taken assignments that had a political component, but the assignments were legit. You know, chasing down some asshole because Henderson owes some sheriff a favor. This is different—I know about a pretty serious crime. I’m going to have to ignore it. Probably.”
    “You’ve ignored crimes before,” Weather said. “When we got Letty, all those nuns were bringing illegal drugs across the border. You knew about it and let it go.”
    “There was a certain morality involved, there,” Lucas said. “I was on the right side of