Wicked Prey

passed a semi-trailer, then squeezed over the seat back, into the front again. “I hope he was dead,” she said. “I hope he didn’t burn alive.”
    “Shut up. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to think.” He thought for two minutes, then said, “Cruz said they had my picture. Where’d that come from? How’d they get it? How’d they know? Jesus Christ, how did that happen?”
    “Somebody ratted you out,” Lindy said.
    Cohn turned his cool gaze on her, saw her sudden nervousness, then smiled: “Thank you, dear. That makes me think you weren’t the one.”
    “If that jerk Spitzer was here, I’d say he’s the one,” Lindy said.
    Cohn was silent for a moment, calculating, then said, “He was here.”
    “He was?” She was surprised. “Where is he?”
    “He went away,” Cohn said.
    “But then, maybe he’s pissed . . .”
    “He went away,” he said again. His voice had an icicle in it.
    Ah. Now she had it. She looked straight ahead and said, “Good.” Then, “Maybe before he went away.”
    “If he was going to do it, he could have told them exactly where we were at, and when we’d be there.”
    More silence, then Lindy said, “I can’t believe it was the boys.”
    Cohn shook his head: “I can’t either. For one thing, they helped us take down a couple of people already, and I can’t believe they’d do that, if they were talking to the cops. Or if they did, we’d already have been busted. I mean, they were all there when Spitzer went away.”
    “Even Rosie, or whatever her name is,” Lindy said.
    “Yeah, even her.” But he remembered Cruz’s objection to the murder, and then her explanation, which now seemed less convincing.
    Lindy said, “The thing about Rosie is, she might not just be ratting you out. You know what I mean?”
    “I think so,” Cohn said. “But say it.”
    “Maybe she’s playing some other game that we can’t see. She’s really . . . complicated. Where does she get all this information? What is she really doing?”
    “She’s done a lot of jobs with us,” Cohn said. “And three with Jerry, before Jerry’s accident.”
    “Wonder whatever happened to the guy who got Jerry’s heart?” Lindy asked.
    “I don’t know . . .” Cohn shook his head. “I have to think about Rosie. You’re right, she wouldn’t just give us up, because we could give her up. She sure as hell didn’t tell them that she planned a robbery that ended in a couple of cop killings. Three cop killings, now. If she’s the one, why’d she warn us? No—something else is happening.”
    Lindy pointed: “Exit’s coming up.”
    “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Cohn said.
    * * *
    THE NEW SPOT was their disaster hole, a last-ditch hideout that Cruz had arranged, in a condominium building that was half-empty. When she rented the furnished model unit for a month, from the developer, she’d warned him that he couldn’t show it: “I haven’t shown a unit in three months,” he said, ruefully. “I got another model to show if I need to.”
    The developer was under the impression that Cruz worked with the Republicans, that the model would be used for secret meetings, and she didn’t disabuse him. Cruz had had to buy sheets and a couple of blankets, towels and soap and toilet paper, but most everything else had been there, as part of the model.
    Cohn pulled into the parking ramp and punched in the key-code, and went down through the ramp and around to their private parking spaces. Then they were out and climbing the interior stairs, five floors. They opened the lobby door and peeked, saw nobody moving—of the six condos on the floor, only two others were occupied—then hurried down to 402, unlocked it and went inside.
    As soon as they were in, Cohn called Cruz, who was in her car, heading toward St. Paul.
    “The motel looks like a cop convention back there,” she said. “You did that guy?”
    “I had to,” Cohn said. He was looking out the window, over a small park, where a cluster of twenty or thirty peace demonstrators were wandering around, as if they’d lost something: peace, maybe, he thought. A young girl pushed a bike along the sidewalk, on the opposite side of the street, leaned it against a parking meter, walked over to a white van with Channel 3 on the door, and knocked on the window. Cohn had gotten nothing but silence from Cruz, but he waited her out, and finally she said, “I’ll see you in ten or fifteen minutes.”
    Across the street, whoever was in the TV van