Certain prey

Some people, Carmel thought when she hung up, get hot at the prospect of cash.

Not because of what it can buy, or what it may represent, but just with the pure, smooth, slightly greasy feel of currency. The cop was one of those. She didn't understand it; but then, she'd never tried very hard. She was grateful the need existed, and that she could fill it. A couple of cops had been useful over the years.

After she thought about it for a while, she took a walk out to a pay phone, punched in Rinker's number, and left a message.

Chapter Thirteen

Bright and early the next morning – a cool morning that promised heat in the afternoon; with pale blue skies that went on forever – Mallard called Lucas from

Washington. The call came in an hour before Lucas had pla

'We have some news on the Te

'What's the news?'

'There is no Te

'That's nice,' Lucas said.

'That's what I thought. The phone number goes into a suite of short-term offices. There're a couple of receptionists out front from eight o'clock in the morning until seven at night. In the back, there're a couple more women ru

The answering-service calls come in on separate numbers, which the switchboard women answer with a specific name, depending on which number rings. Te

'So who pays the bills? Where do the checks come from?'

'We don't know, yet. We want to listen on the Te

'No.'

'Somebody from Mi

'Huh… what time?'

'Around five-thirty, our time.'

'Huh. We took a photo-spread over to a little girl who actually saw the shooters

… you probably read about her, in the files.'

'Yes.'

'We had a photo spread with the face of our suspect inserted in it. We got nothing, but that would have been about an hour-and-a-half before your call. And

I'll tell you what: this woman's got some contacts inside our department.

Probably inside yours, as far as that goes.'

'Ours didn't know about the photo spread.'

'All right – if there was a leak, it was us. If there was a leak. .. but damn it, I would have leaked to her myself, if I'd known she might call. Do you have a recording of the voice?'

There was a brief pause, as if Mallard were contemplating the stupidity of the question. 'Of course,' he said.

'I want to hear it,' Lucas said. 'I know the suspect personally, I've spoken to her in the past week. Maybe I could nail it down.'

'Which leads to my second question,' Mallard said. 'What's her name?'

'Jesus…'

'I've got to have it. This is turning into something. As long as your case was nothing more than an intuition, it was one thing. Now it's another.'

'She's a well-co

And I know she gives money to the politicians – U.S. senators, congressmen, you name it. If you fuck this up, they could find us both buried in the back yard.'

'Three people here will have the name. That's all. If we're buried in the back yard, the other two guys'll be buried under us, I guarantee it.'

Lucas sighed, hesitated, and said, 'All right. Her name is Carmel Loan. I can't tell you how nervous this makes me.'

'The woman who called yesterday identified herself as Patricia Case.'

'I'll check around, but I've never heard of her,'

Lucas said. He picked up the St. Paul phone book, thumbed through it to Case.

'Could be some kind of code,' Mallard said. 'Although that's pretty far fetched.'

' Te

'Yeah, just a minute. Uh, it's at 505 Nicollet Mall.'

'Five-Oh-Five,' Lucas muttered, as he ran his ringer down the Case listing in the phone book. He said, half to himself, 'There aren't any Patricia Cases listed in the St. Paul phone book. I don't have the Mi

'We already checked, and there aren't any Patricia Cases. We also checked the

505 number, and got some department stores. There's a Nieman Marcus.'

'That's an easy two-minute walk from Carmel Loan's office,' Lucas said. 'I can check, but it might be the closest pay phone to Carmel's office.'

'Interesting,' Mallard said.

'Please don't let anything out about Carmel,' Lucas said urgently. 'Not yet.'

'Nothing will come out of this end. I swear to God.'

'One more thing,' Lucas said. 'When are you going to hit this place? The office suite? Go in and talk to the people?'

'We'll give it another day, anyway.'

'Call me the night before. I'm three hours away: I'd like to be there when you do it.'

'No problem. Anything else?'

'One other thing… one of the victims, Rolando D'Aquila, used to be a heavy drug-dealer. The word from our drug people is that he bought his coke out of St.

Louis, a Mafia co

Mafia. And this shooter, his woman, she seems to tie in down there.'

'Damn,' Mallard said, 'I'm letting something happen here that I've never let happen before.'

'What's that?'

'I'm getting my hopes up.'

Then for two days, nothing happened. Carmel didn't get a call-back. She stayed close to the magic phone, but she never heard from Rinker. Was there a problem with the contact phone? Was it tapped?

The FBI was equally frustrated. There were no more calls to Te

'I'll get a flight out tonight.'

'We can cover that, if you want,' Mallard offered.

'No thanks, I'll do it from here.'

'All right. Anything new?'

'I sent one of my people, Marcy Sherrill, down to St. Louis to schmooze their organized crime people. There's nothing going on up here.'

'If SherrilPs the one I remember from the meeting, she oughta schmooze pretty well.'

'One of her many talents,' Lucas said. 'See you tomorrow.'

Lucas called his travel agent, got a business-class ticket on the nine o'clock

Northwest flight into National and made a reservation at the Hay-Adams. He liked the Hay-Adams because, the half-dozen times he'd stayed there – even the first time – the doorman said, 'Nice to see you again, sir.'

Then he called Do

'Jesus Christ, the outer precincts are heard from,' O'Brien said. 'How'n the hell are you, Lucas?'

'Good. I'm coming to town tonight. I'd like to get together tomorrow, if you've got the time.'

'Want me to get you at the airport?'

'I'll be really late,' Lucas said. O'Brien had four kids to take care of. 'I'll get a cab down to the Hay-Adams. I'll do my thing with the Feebs tomorrow morning, and make it over to your shop by when? Three o'clock?'

'I'll plan on three. Maybe go out for a couple beers, huh?'