Wicked Prey

leader,” McCollum said. “So, the cash is like oil. It greases the wheel.”
    “Seems like a lot of money,” Lucas said. “A million bucks, more . . .”
    “It is a lot, at this level, when it’s in a suitcase. Once you get down to the street, it’s pretty parceled out. You might put a couple of million in a big place like Philly, or Dade County, or Cleveland, but it’s mostly in handfuls. Mostly, less than a grand. You know, you get two or three thousand people working informally, they need lunch and cab fare and so on . . . you can go through a mil pretty damn fast.”
    “Inflation,” Mitford said.
    “Damn right. Back in ’eighty-eight, I bet the dollar amounts were maybe a quarter of what you see now,” Landy said. “Gas was cheap, food was cheap, everything was cheap. Now, it’s more. Million doesn’t go as far as it used to.”
    “If it’s a million in Philly or Miami, what’s it in Chicago or LA?” Lucas asked.
    “Mmm, doesn’t really work that way. Pennsylvania’s in play, so’s Florida,” Landy said. “They could go either way, so getting out the street vote is critical. Illinois and California are pretty safe for us, so it’s not that critical. Republicans won’t spend much, either. There’s going to be money, but . . . maybe not quite as intense.”
    * * *
    WHILE LUCAS was sitting in the bar, sipping on his Coke, talking political money, Rosie Cruz was walking back toward her room from the Coke machine, and saw the cop in the lobby. The cop car was parked a few spaces down from the lobby door, and with a bad feeling, Cruz pushed through the lobby door and walked up beside the cop, a pudgy young blond guy, who was talking to a couple of desk clerks.
    The cop was showing the clerks a badly colored Xerox printout of a photograph of Brutus Cohn. One of the clerks glanced at her and she asked, brightly, “What time is the shuttle to the airport?”
    The clerk pointed at a sign, which said that the shuttle left every four hours starting at 7 A.M., and turned back to the cop. The other clerk was saying, “It sorta looks like a guy. But it sorta doesn’t, too. Let me see, he’s in a corner room, let me see . . .” And he hunched over a schematic of the hotel and the cop crooked his neck to look at it.
    Cruz walked out the door and turned away from Cohn’s room, and as soon as she was out of sight, called Cohn on her cell. Cohn’s phone rang four times before he answered, and he said, “Yeah?”
    “Get out of there. There’s a cop in the lobby with a picture of you and he’s coming down to your room. Get out, get out . . .”
    “How many?”
    “One, here, but he could call in more,” she said. “Get out.”
    * * *
    THEN COHN was gone and she snapped the phone shut and walked up a flight of stairs to an exposed walkway where she could see the parking lot. A minute or two later, she saw the cop, one hand on his gun, walking down the parking lot toward Cohn’s room. She punched the speed dial and Cohn came up: “Yeah?”
    “He’s walking toward your room. He’s alone. He’ll be there in one minute,” she said.
    And he was gone again.
    * * *
    BRUTUS COHN was buck-ass naked, in bed with Lindy, when Cruz called with the warning. He jumped up, looked around: normally neat, he was with Lindy, now, and she was a walking hurricane. Clothes were strewn all over the room, shoes, papers, everything.
    “Get dressed,” he snapped.
    They had a picture of him. They had fingerprints, too, but they’d never taken a DNA sample, because they didn’t do DNA samples the last time he was in jail. Now his prints and his DNA were all over the place . . .
    “What’s going on?” But she’d been a criminal’s girlfriend long enough not to ask too many questions, and she was already pulling up her underpants and the phone rang again and he said, “Yeah?” listened and snapped it shut.
    “Take your pants off,” he said.
    “What?”
    “Take your fuckin’ pants off. A cop is coming down here, he’ll be here in ten seconds and I want you to answer the door.”
    “Naked?” Now she sounded interested.
    “Yeah, goddamned right, naked. Get your goddamned pants off . . .”
    He looked around, picked up an end table by the legs, and smashed it against the floor. The legs broke, but didn’t come completely free, and he flipped the table and wrenched one loose. It was half the length of a pool cue, but shaped like a ball bat.
    “When he knocks, say, ‘Just a minute,’ and then pull