Broken Prey

"Of course not. We talk about the second man."

INSIDE, they were taken to the director's office; Lawrence Cale had been fishing the first time they visited, and they hadn't met him. He was a tall, slender, balding man, in his middle fifties, wearing too-large glasses that magnified his eyes. He reminded Lucas of the farmer in Grant Wood's American Gothic painting. He was chewing on a toothpick.

"My deputy says the last time you two were here, you, mmm, seriously disturbed some of the patients," he said, after pointing them into visitor chairs.

"That's right," Lucas nodded. "They were pretty much having screaming fits when we left."

"That's not fu

"I see that as your problem," Lucas said. He was tired of this patient shit. "Those three guys are responsible for three ordinary nice people being tortured to death."

Sloan was digging in his briefcase, pulled out an eight-by-ten print, slipped it across the desk. "This used to be Carlita Peterson. She was a college professor. They haven't found the gut dump yet."

Cale took in the picture, flipped it over, and passed it back to Sloan without comment. "I had Chase, Lighter, and Taylor transferred to isolation. They don't see anybody but staff. No radio or television. Everything that is said to them is taped, and we review the tapes daily. They are allowed two books a day. They specify the genre, and we choose the books, so nobody can plant a message in a book. And we check the books before they go into the cells."

"How about coming out? What happens with the books?" Lucas asked.

"We check them again, for codes. We know most of the ways-pin holes over letters, that sort of thing. We make damn sure that nothing's coming out, either."

"All right. Are you taking us in?"

"No, Sam O'Do

"We'll try not to disturb them any more than we have to," Lucas said.

Cale said, "Mmm, that picture you showed me…"

"What?" Sloan asked.

"Fuck 'em. Do what you need to."

O'DONNELL AND HART were waiting on the other side of the security wall. When Lucas came through, Sloan a few seconds behind, Hart said, "We heard about the professor. That goddamn Pope; I never saw this in him."

"The killer?"

"I saw the killer, I never saw… this,"

O'Do

"Might not be Pope," Lucas said.

The two docs stopped in their tracks. "What?"

"You guys suggested it the last time we were here-Dr.Beloit, maybe. Our own psychologist up in the Cities came up with the idea independently. We think Charlie Pope is being handled by a second man, or a second woman. Somebody who does the pla

Lucas explained, and they started walking again, the two docs taking it in. When Lucas finished, he asked, "Anything more from any of them? The Big Three?"

"Not really," O'Do

THEY TOOK AN ELEVATOR DOWN, a camera looking at them through a recessed glass plate. Two floors below the entrance, they got out, into a tiled corridor that felt like a basement-sound was muffled, and though the air was cool, it felt damp. They passed a couple of staff members, who nodded and went on their way, and stopped at an electronically controlled door with another camera. Hart pushed another button, a woman's voice said, "Hey, Dick," and Hart said, "Hey, Pauline. It's me, Sam and Davenport and Sloan. They should be on your list."

"Yes, they are. Opening up."

The electronic lock clicked, and O'Do

"They'd know," O'Do

The corridor was dim. They could see a dozen rectangles set into the walls, eight of them dark, four lit. All one-way glass. "The Big Three and a guy who tried to cut his buddy with a broken plastic spoon," Hart said. "Where do you want to start?"

"How does it work?" Sloan asked.

"There's a release button next to each window panel. You push it once and the one-way glass slides back and you're looking through a glass security panel. That's if you want him to see you. The talk goes through a microphone with a speaker. The guys in the other cells can't hear what you're talking about, unless you want them to. Then you can turn on their mikes."

THE ISOLATION CELLS were simple: a bed, a toilet,a sink to wash in. The walls were beige, the blanket on the bed was green, the fixtures were white, the uniforms were a washed-out French blue, like the medical scrubs that Weather sometimes wore around the house.

Taylor was sitting on his bunk, staring at the one-way glass. "Can he see us?" Sloan asked.

O'Do

"Open it," Lucas said.

Hart pushed a button, and the glass slid slowly back. As soon as it started moving, Taylor stood up and walked toward it. "You guys," he said, when he saw Lucas and Sloan.

"Yeah, we need to talk to you," Lucas said. "We need to get a name from you. The name of the guy you sent out there."

Taylor wagged his head and showed a short, yellow-toothed smile. "I don't think you got enough for that." His voice, coming from a lowest-bid speaker, sounded like a robot's.

"Let me tell you what we got," Lucas said. Taylor crossed his arms and leaned against the windowsill. "The federal district attorney has decided that your victims… the victims of the guy you sent out… were kidnapped. That's a federal offense, and the victims were killed. They're going for the death penalty. If we put you with the killer… well, you won't have to worry about being pe

"Don't have the death penalty in Mi

"The state doesn't-but we're talking about the feds. They definitely do."

Taylor's gaze seemed to turn inward for a moment, and then he shrugged. "Gotta go sometime. Tell me-did our boy get another one? Did he hunt her down?"

"Hey, you're not go

"So?"

"So we're making this offer to all three of you. Whoever gives us the name, that guy gets a pass," Sloan said. "The other two get transferred over to Illinois, where they get the shot. One of you will think it over and talk. He'll get to wave good-bye to the other two."

"You're really fuckin' me up," Taylor said, his voice flat, and with no change of expression. He ostentatiously looked at his fingernails, "I can hardly stand it."

"All right," Lucas said. He reached for the button that opened and closed the panel. "Enjoy the next few months, or however long it turns out to be…"

Now an expression flicked over Taylor's face. "What's that supposed to mean?" he snapped. "Rules say we can't be kept here for more than two weeks without relief."