Wicked Prey

forgotten about Shafer, the guy with the .50-cal. “I got people looking for him all over two states and I can spread it out to Iowa, if you want. I won’t be able to do much personally.”
    “We had something come up,” Jacobs said. “Two hours ago, a Mexican guy—an illegal, God bless his soul for reporting it—was cutting a hedge behind one of those big houses up on Summit Avenue, right where the hill drops off. He trims it up once a month or so. So today he’s cutting it, and he finds a couple of nice shiny .50-cal shells in the grass behind the hedge. He looks down the hill, sees the convention center . . . and calls his boss, who called us. The Mexicano says the shells weren’t there when he cut the hedge last month. Said they were sitting right out in the open. Says he didn’t touch them, and we can see some smudging, so we might get prints . . .”
    “How far . . .”
    “Seven hundred and fifty yards, more or less, from the hedge to the front of the convention center. Nice high angle, too. One more thing: the spot where the shells were, there’s an old wall, probably going back to the nineteenth century. It’s falling apart, but you never saw a better gun rest in your life. Put a beanbag on that, and I could snipe somebody at the convention center. “
    “Ah, shit.”
    “We’ve got the place staked out, and if our boy shows up, he’s dead as a mackerel,” Jacobs said. “But we’d like to find him sooner than that, if we could. The Secret Service is all over us.”
    “Yeah . . . Jesus. Now . . . Listen, there’s another problem, and we’ve already got a dead cop.”
    “The guy in Hudson? I heard about it on the news. How’s that tie in . . .”
    Lucas explained, and Jacobs said, “Man—the Secret Service is going to be pissing its collective pants. What do you need from us?”
    “I need access to the hospitality committee. Like right now,” Lucas said.
    “Let me get you an address—you can talk to them as soon as you can get there,” Jacobs said. “If you need an SS guy to add weight, I’ll send one along.”
    “That might help,” Lucas said. “Get me an asshole, if you got one.”
    Short, dry chuckle from Jacobs. “Okay. If I can find one,” he said. “And, hey—Lucas. Talk to Iowa about looking for Shafer. Talk to everybody.”
    * * *
    CRUZ HAD TAKEN two hours to dye Brutus Cohn’s hair and beard. When he got out of the shower, after the final shampoo, he hardly recognized himself. In addition to the mop of black hair, he’d shaved off his beard, leaving behind a small trim mustache, also black. He put on his pants and trotted out to the condo’s living room: “I look like a goddamned Irish cardsharp,” he said.
    “You looked like a goddamned Irish cardsharp when you had red hair,” Lindy said.
    Cruz nodded: “It’s too even, too black, even with that little bit of color”—they’d isolated some of his natural hair with tinfoil, and let it fall back into the dyed hair—“but I wouldn’t recognize you. Not walking down the street. Makes you look even taller.”
    Cohn went back and looked in the mirror again, and came back out.
    “You’re not still planning to leave?” Cohn asked Cruz.
    “Damn right I am,” she said. “It’s time to go, Brute. We need to get in the cars and drive.”
    “But: what if we do the guy tonight? Completely different situation,” Cohn said.
    “They may be watching everybody, now that there’s a dead cop,” she said.
    “Can’t watch everybody,” Cohn said. “Especially not when these guys are dealing illegal money.”
    “Brute, they’ve got your number. You’ve got to get out of sight.”
    “I don’t have enough money,” he said. “I just don’t have enough. I’m not going to be some old fucking guy, sitting on a dock in Costa Rica, pissing in his pants and eating cat food. It’s not like I’m gonna have Social Security coming in. I need that hotel, Rosie. I need this guy tonight.”
    Cruz looked at him for a moment and then said, “I’m sure you’ve figured this out, but somebody pointed the cops at you. What we’re doing now, there’s no way that fits with your history. They knew something.”
    He looked at her for a moment, then grinned. “We’ve been talking about that,” he said. “Our feeling—me and Lindy—was that you were the best candidate. My feeling, all alone, was that it was either you or . . . Lindy.”
    They both turned to look at Lindy, who, horrified, shouted, “Brute.