Easy Prey

Black stood up. "You want me to get the nurse?"

"No, no I just feel hollow."

Del shuffled in, said hello, squatted next to the bed, and looked at Marcy. After a minute, he grunted and said, "You're doing okay. I'm go

"Not for a few days yet," she said, her voice going weak. She turned her head back straight, closed her eyes, and took a couple of breaths. Lucas thought she'd gone back to sleep again. Then she turned back and looked for Lucas, her eyes going in and out of focus. "Did you meet that old friend?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"You're careful?"

"We can talk about it next week."

"You're teasing me"

"She's going through her midlife," Lucas said. "I don't know if anybody can help her."

Marcy said, "Mmmm."

"Great. Office gossip in intensive care," Black said.

Marcy asked, "What else is there?" and closed her eyes again. This time she did sleep. After two minutes, Del stood up, looked at Lucas, put a finger to his lips, and tipped his head toward the door.

Lucas whispered, "We're going You take it easy," to Black, and followed Del to the door. Outside, Del said, "You remember that Logan guy? The other dealer that Outer gave us, along with Bee?"

"Yeah, we never had time"

"Dope hit him three hours agothat's the call I got. They got almost a kilo of coke and a couple of sacks of meth. We're doing a little dance with him. Gave him a stack of photos and told him if he could put two of them together, he might have something to deal with. He chose Rodriguez and Lansing."

"Did you talk to Tim Long about it?" Lucas asked.

"Not yet."

"Get with him, figure out a plea, and run it past Logan's attorney. We'll want a statement as quick as we can get it. Today," Lucas said.

"That's pretty quick, with a lawyer involved."

"I know. You gotta tell his attorney that there's a short-term expiration date on the offer. Right now, Logan can give us something new. If we find another co

"I'm outa here," Del said.

Lucas looked at his watch and headed back to the office, stopped again to talk to Rose Marie.

"What happened with Olson? You tell him?"

She nodded. "That we've got a candidate."

"And I'm going to push Rodriguez, see if we can get him to panic," Lucas said.

"Why?"

" 'Cause the only case we're going to get against him will be circumstantial. The stuff is starting to pile up, but if we can get him to do something irrational, like dump a bunch of money and run for it, if we can bust him with a plane ticket to Venezuela or something that'd look good to a jury."

"All right. We need some public action for the movie people anyway. Ever since Alie'e's funeral was put off, they've been pissed. What are you go

"That depends on Rodriguez. He knows that we're onto him. We'll watch him the rest of today. TomorrowI don't know. Maybe I'll go over and talk to him. Maybe bust him for the cameras, haul his ass over here, then turn him loose again. Shake him."

"Let me know."

Lucas went back to his office, sat in his chair, put his feet up on a desk drawer and thought about it, and, ten minutes later, walked down to Homicide and found Lester.

"When you guys cleaned out Sandy Lansing's house, did you get any photos? Albums, anything like that?"

"A few dozen photosnothing real recent. Family stuff," Lester said. "We didn't find a camera in the place. Wellthere was an old Polaroid in the bedroom closet, but it was so old I don't think you could get film for it anymore."

"How about video?"

"She had a VCR and a few tapes, but the tapes were all movies, and some low-rent commercial porn. No video camera."

"What she do in her life? Everybody's got a camera."

"She went to parties," Lester said. "And bars. As close as we can tell, that's it. She went out every night of her life. She worked out at a fitness place three times a week. She had about six CDs and a compact stereo that probably cost her two hundred dollars, a medium-sized Sony TV, and the basic cable package. That was about it."

"We need to tie her tighter to Rodriguez."

"Go

"And no pictures."

"Not many," Lester said.

"Did you look at the porn?"

"No, but Larry did. She wasn't in it. Other than that, it was just standard jerk-off stuff out of California. Hot tubs and swimming pools and blow jobs."

"Huh. Ever wonder why we live in Mi

"So we don't have to put up with that scum," Lester said.

"What a poop," Lucas said. He stood up and stretched.

"Scratching for anything, huh?"

"At this point"

Just after dark, with rush-hour building outside the door, Lucas started thinking about di

"This is really exciting stuff," the cop said. "Wish I was plainclothes and got to stand in Skyways all the time."

"You calling to thank me, or what?"

"Some dude pulled into Rodriguez's office, he's got a briefcase bigger than my dick, and they sat down and started looking at paper. This dude is pushing all kinds of paper across the desk. I can't tell you anything about it, because all I can see is their shirtsleeves. So, after about an hour, the guy puts all the paper back in the briefcase and comes out, and Rodriguez pulls up his computer and I figure he isn't going anyplace, and maybe I ought to check this other dude"

"And you went after the second guy and Rodriguez skipped on you," Lucas finished.

"Fuck no. I'm looking at him right now. Rodriguez, I mean. Anyway, I followed the other guy into the parking ramp and he gets into a car that's got magnetic signs on the doors. Coffey Realty. I got the phone number off the door and the tag number off the car, and then I ran back to make sure Rodriguez wasn't going away Anyway, Rodriguez is still here, and he was dealing heavy with a guy from a real estate company."

"All right. You done good. I owe you a donut or something."

"Twodonuts. With them little sprinkles. You want these numbers?"

Lucas looked up the tag number for the dealer's car, and got a name and an address. When he called Coffey Realty and asked for Kirk Smalley, Smalley was in, and working. "I need to talk to you," Lucas said after identifying himself. "I can be there before five o'clock."

Coffey Realty was located on University Avenue just down from the state capital, a block from the Atheneum bank. As he parked his car in the gathering darkness, Lucas made a mental note to check on co

"Officer Davenport?"

"Yeah."

"Come on in. I'm Kirk Smalley." Smalley locked the door behind them and led Lucas back to an interior office.

"Big place," Lucas said as they walked back.

"We're a pretty good-sized company," Smalley said. "We specialize in commercial real estate, so we don't do a lot of mass advertising. But we do pretty well." He dropped into a swivel chair behind his desk, waved Lucas at a visitors chair, and asked, "What can I do for you?"