Silent Prey

"Did you know you were going to sleep with me?" Lucas asked. "When you got here?"

She sat unmoving for a moment, then said, "I thought it might happen. So I went to the hotel first, and checked in. In case anyone called."

He ran a fingernail down the bumps of her spine, and she shivered. She was going back to the hotel in case "anyone" called…

"This guy you're sleeping with? 'Anyone'?" Lucas said.

"Yes?"

"What are you going to tell him?"

"Nothing. He doesn't need to know." She turned toward him. "And don't you tell him anything, either, Davenport."

"Why?" Lucas said. "Why would I ever see him?"

"His name's Dick Ke

CHAPTER

5

Early morning.

Lucas strolled along Thirty-fifth Street, sucking on half of an orange, taking in the city: looking at faces and display windows, at sleeping bums wrapped in blankets like thrown-away cigars, at the men hustling racks of newly made clothing through the streets.

The citric acid was sharp on his tongue, an antidote for the staleness of a poor night's sleep. Halfway down the block, he stopped in front of a parking garage, stripped out the last of the pulp with his teeth, and dropped the rind into a battered trash barrel.

Midtown South squatted across the street, looking vaguely like a midwestern schoolhouse from the 1950s: blocky, functional, a little tired. Six squad cars were parked diagonally in front of the building, along with a Cushman scooter. Four more squads were double-parked farther up the street. As Lucas paused at the trash basket, disposing of the orange, a gray Plymouth stopped in the street. A lanky white-haired man climbed out of the passenger side, said something to the driver, laughed and pushed the door shut.

He didn't slam the door, Lucas noticed: he gave it a careful push. His eyes came up, checked Lucas, checked him again, and then he turned carefully toward the station. The fingers of his left hand slipped under a brilliant-colored tie, and he unconsciously scratched himself over his heart.

Lucas, dodging traffic, crossed the street and followed the man toward the front doors. Lily had said Ke

"Are you Dick Ke

The man turned, eyes cool and watchful. "Yes?" He looked more closely. "Davenport? I thought it might be you… Yeah, Ke

Ke

"Lily's been telling me about you," Lucas said, as they shook hands.

"All lies," Ke

"Christ, I hope so," Lucas said. Lucas took in Ke

"Gauguin," Ke

"What?"

"Paul Gauguin, the French painter?"

"I didn't know he did neckties," Lucas said uncertainly.

"Yeah, him and Christian Dior, they're like brothers," Ke

"Yeah, but when you croak, how'd you like it to say on the stone, 'Died opening a door'?" Lucas asked. Ke

"I could die pulling the tab on a beer can, if they let me drink beer, which they don't," Ke

"I don't want to hear about it," Lucas said.

"I don't want to talk about it, but I do, all the time," Ke

"Yeah, yeah…"

Lucas followed Ke

"… your people'd get off their fuckin' asses, we could get somewhere. That's what's fuckin' us up, nobody wants to go outside because it's too goddamn hot. We know he's using the shit and he's got to get it somewhere."

"Yeah, well I'm not the asshole who told everybody we'd have him in a week, am I? That was fuckin' crazy, Jack. As far as we know, he's buying whatever shit he's using in Jersey, or down in fuckin' Philly. So don't give me no shit…"

A half-dozen more plainclothes cops, in thin short-sleeved shirts and wash pants, weapons clipped to their belts, watched the argument from the plastic chairs spread around the institutional carpet. Four of the six held Styrofoam coffee cups, and two or three were smoking cigarettes, snubbing them out in shallow aluminum ashtrays. One unattended cigarette continued to burn, the foul odor like a fingernail scratch on a blackboard.

"What's going on?" Ke

"Discussing strategy," the sunburned cop said shortly.

"Any conclusions?" Ke

The cop shook his head and turned away. "No."

Lucas found a seat halfway back, the other cops looking at him, openly, carefully, with some distance.

"That's Lucas Davenport, the guy from Mi

"How come you let this motherfucker Bekker get out?" the sunburned cop asked.

"Wasn't me," Lucas said mildly.

"Should of killed him when you could," dog-face said. Dog-face's two top-middle teeth pointed in slightly different directions and were notably orange.

"I thought about it," Lucas said, staring lazily at dog-face until the other broke his eyes away.

Somebody laughed, and somebody else said, "Shoulda."

Ke

The cops lifted hands or nodded at him as their names were called out. They looked like Mi