Wicked Prey

about your interrogator?”
    Lucas said, “Yes,” and stopped.
    Shrake, feeling a level of discomfort, added, “We’re giving Shafer somebody he can get comfortable with. If we need somebody with a plutonium suit, we can put one of you guys in there. Later.”
    The Secret Service guy gave him a gentle poke to the gut with an elbow, and said, “You know I love you.”
    * * *
    DEL SAID, pushing a picture of the woman-of-many-names across the table at Shafer, “You’re sure that’s her?”
    “That’s her. That’s her, and she’s Bill Hefner’s girlfriend. The anarchists are coming in, and they’re gonna tear you guys a new butt-hole. When you come looking for help, our guys’ll be there, ready to go. We’re coming in from all over the country, we’re the final backstop. Hefner is tight with you guys. He’s on your committee.”
    Del rubbed his forehead and said, “I hate to tell you this, Justice, but Hefner isn’t on a committee, he’s in jail in Oregon, and he never heard of you, and he doesn’t have a girlfriend, he’s got a wife, and this lady . . .” He tapped the photograph. “This ain’t her.”
    “He’s in jail?” Shafer suspected a lie.
    “He sold a couple of modified ArmaLites to an ATF guy and he’s in fuckin’ jail,” Del said.
    “That’s fuckin’ crazy,” Shafer said.
    “Tell us about scouting out that bluff over town,” Del suggested. “We know you were up there, because we found a couple of shells. They’re your shells, Justice. They’ve got your prints on them.”
    “You’re framing me,” Shafer said. “You’re trying to get me.”
    One of the Secret Service agents asked Lucas, “You read him his rights?”
    “More or less,” Lucas said.
    The agent nodded. Lucas got the impression that he didn’t much care; prosecution wasn’t his problem.
    * * *
    DEL ASKED, pressing, “Then how’d they get up there? Answer me that.”
    “Somebody else put them there,” Shafer said.
    “Some other dude did it,” Del said, the skepticism right out there. “The two-dude defense.”
    “It’s the truth,” Shafer said. Then, his eyes lifting, he said, “You answer me a question. Answer me this: How in the hell did I get wherever you said it was and let off a couple of rounds with that .50 cal and nobody noticed? You ever hear a .50-cal? How’d I do that?”
    “Good question,” one of the agents said. “How did he do that?”
    Del said, “We don’t know when you were up there. You might have done it two weeks ago, and somebody thought they were backfires. The highway’s right down the hill.”
    “Good answer,” said another one of the agents.
    “A .50-cal don’t sound like no fuckin’ backfire,” Shafer said.
    “Good point,” the Secret Service guy said.
    “And look at me,” Shafer continued. “You got me swearin’ like the devil. I don’t talk like that, and now you got me talkin’ like you.”
    Lucas turned to the head Secret Service guy and said, “Did Jacobs tell you about our murder gang?”
    “I heard something about it,” the guy said.
    “So I got a story for you,” Lucas said. He looked through the window, where Del was retracing his steps in the interrogation. “Let’s find a place to sit down.”
    * * *
    THE AGENTS all sat around straddling backward chairs, and Lucas laid out the details of the assaults on the convention moneymen, and the cop shootings, which the local Secret Service guys already knew about. “So we know who these guys are, more or less, and what they’re doing. One of them is dead. Their usual practice, at this point, would be to get out—maybe they haven’t gotten everything they wanted, but in the past, they’ve always been cautious.”
    “But now they’re going crazy,” one of the agents said.
    “That’s right,” Lucas said. “And we don’t know why. We do know that one of them is talking to Shafer and his .50-cal, and from what we understand, the woman with the gang actually financed the gun. Not only financed it, but gave him the list of stores to check out. She told him that the store guys were all connected to this Hefner guy, that the store might be bugged, so he should show up, talk about buying some ammo, and then get out. Then the store guys supposedly would pass the word that Shafer was still on the case.”
    “What a dumb shit,” one of the agents said.
    Lucas threw his hands up: “That’s what we all get. What a dumb shit . But these other people aren’t dumb shits. Why are they