Wicked Prey

it’s one thing we’ve got that they don’t know about.”
    Lucas thought about it, then said, “Okay. A day. If we come up with anything, we can stretch it out. After that, we’re going with the TV. I’ll get Carol to print up photos of Cohn and this woman for you guys to take around town.”
    He turned to Mitford: “At night . . . they’ve been hitting these guys at night, because it’s easier to locate them, and it’s easier to operate without letting their faces be seen. We need the names of the four or five biggest money dealers that you still see out there, and we’ll put somebody in their rooms. See if we can ambush them.”
    “I don’t know if they’ll go for that,” Mitford said.
    “They’ll have to do their deals somewhere else. Maybe they can rent two rooms. But that’s what we need, Neil. We got four dead.”
    Mitford nodded: “I’ll make some calls.”

    LETTY HAD twenty dollars from Lucas when she walked in the door at Channel Three that morning. The receptionist buzzed her through the security gate and she walked back past the studios, where the Bob & Jane morning show was unwinding. She nodded to the weatherman, who walked by, on his way to do a thirty-second bit, shaking peanuts out of a cellophane bag, and said, “You’ve got something stuck to your cheek.”
    He said, “What is it?”
    “Peanut skin?” She brushed it off. “Gone now.”
    “Thanks.”
    * * *
     
    SHE WENT on her way, turned into the greenroom, where people waited for their turn on Bob & Jane , got two sweet rolls, and ate them on the way back to Jennifer Carey’s office. She’d had breakfast, but not much—she and Lucas were both light eaters in the morning. She realized on the way over that since she planned to give the twenty dollars to Juliet, she’d better get a couple of sweet rolls when she could.
    A coffee niche, for employees only, was located down the hall from Carey’s office. She stopped there, looked around, stepped inside, and picked up the coffee donation can and peeled off the plastic lid. Three or four dollars. Not worth taking.
    She needed eighty dollars more, although a hundred would be better, she thought—enough to convince Whitcomb that Juliet had been working.
    Down the hall, she found Carey poking at her computer. Carey looked up and said, “Hi, good-lookin’,” with just enough forced cheer that Letty instantly knew who’d ratted her out. It might have been Lois, but it had gone through Carey to Lucas.
    “You ratted me out,” she said.
    Carey started to deny it, and then gave it up: “You’re too young. You don’t think so, but you are. When I was your age, I thought I was twenty-eight, too, but I wasn’t.”
    “How old were you when you shot your first cop?” Letty asked.
    “Letty, that’s not fair.” Carey was a hockey mom, and sometimes acted like one.
    “How old were you when you first drove your drunk mother home from the bar?” Letty asked.
    “Letty . . .” Carey was getting flustered.
    “How old were you when you first stole money to get something to eat?” Letty was all over her now.
    “For Christ’s sakes, I gotta do what I think is best,” Carey said. “You’re fourteen.”
    Letty leaned into it: “I know how old I am. When it comes to trouble, I am twenty-eight. Try not to forget that the next time you turn me in.”
    Carey rolled her eyes: “I don’t want to fight with you.”
    “I’m done,” Letty said. “But I need a ride to St. Paul and I need a camera in the park. I talked to some street kids—not prostitutes, just skaters from St. Paul—who are going to skate in one of the marches. It’ll make a good snip of film.”
    “I’m going over in fifteen minutes,” Carey said, eager to make peace. “The cameras are already over there, so . . . we’ll hook you up.”
    Letty smiled: “I’m not really mad at you. Everybody thinks they’re doing the right thing. You’re not, but I appreciate it anyway.”
    * * *
    CAREY HAD her personal reporting rules that she’d been passing along to Letty. Like, before you go out on a job, always pee first. Even if you don’t feel like you have to. A woman can never find a comfortable place to pee when she needs one. Check your makeup and your hair; there’s never a place to do that when you need one—a little too much hairspray is better than too little.
    Letty went out in the newsroom to chat with some of the producers, keeping one eye on Carey’s office. When Carey came out and looked