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Lucas and the surveillance cop watched the car roll down the street and ease to the curb two houses down. It sat with its lights on for one minute, two, and Lucas said, “I’m going down there.”
He was at the stairs when the tall cop said, “Hold it.”
“What?”
“It’s the girl.”
“High-school girl down the street,” said the short cop. “She’s going up to the house now. Must be a date.”
Lucas walked back in time to see her going through the porch door. The car left.
“Could be something going on with her phones,” the short cop said a while later. The phone-monitoring station was at the other surveillance post, behind McGowan’s house.
“What? You mean McGowan’s?” asked Lucas.
“There were a bunch of calls last week and over the weekend. There’d be a whole group, a half-hour apart, more or less. But whoever it is doesn’t leave a message on the answering machine. The machine answers and they hang up.”
“Everybody does that—hangs up on machines,” Lucas said.
“Yeah, but this is a little different. It’s the first time it’s happened, for one thing, a bunch of calls. And she has an unlisted number. If it was a friend, you’d think he’d leave a message instead of calling over and over.”
“It’s like somebody’s checking on her,” said the tall cop.
“Can’t trace them?”
“It’s two rings and click, he’s gone.”
“Maybe we ought to change the machine,” said Lucas.
“Maybe. She’s due home in, what, an hour and a half?”
“Something like that.”
“We could do it then. Set it for five rings.”
Lucas went back to the mattress and the two cops started the gin game again.
“What do I owe you?” asked the tall cop.
“Hundred and fifty thousand,” said the short one.
“One game, double or nothing?”
Lucas gri
Half an hour later, the cop radio burped again.
“This is Davey,” a voice said, carrying an edge of excitement. “It’s showtime, folks.”
Lucas rolled to his feet and the tall cop reached back and grabbed the microphone.
“What do you got, Davey?”
“We got a single white male dressed in dark slacks, dark jacket, dark gloves, watch cap, dark shoes, on foot,” Davey Johnson said. Johnson had been on the street for years. He didn’t get excited without reason, and his voice was crackling with intensity. “He’s heading your way, coming right down the street toward you guys. If he’s heading for McGowan’s, he’ll be in sight of the side of the back-lot house in one minute. This dude’s up to something, man, he ain’t out for no country stroll.”
“York with you?”
“He’s gone on foot, behind this guy, staying out of sight. I’m staying with the unit. God damn, he’s walking right along, he’s crossing the street, you other guys out on the wings, start moving up, goddam—”
“We see him out the side windows of our house,” said a new voice.
“That’s Ke
Lucas turned and headed for the stairs. “I’m going.”
“He’s going in the alley,” he heard Ke
Lucas ran down the three flights of steps to the front door and brushed past the white-haired architect who stood in the hallway with a newspaper and a pipe, and ran out into the yard.
The maddog parked five blocks from McGowan’s house, facing the Interstate. Checked the street signs. Parking was okay. Lots of cars on the same side of the street.
The weather had turned bad early in the morning. A cold rain fell for a while in the afternoon, died away, started again, stopped. Now it felt like snow. The maddog left the car door unlocked. Not much of a risk in this neighborhood.
The sidewalk was still damp, and he walked along briskly, one arm swinging, the other holding a short, wide pry bar next to his side. Just the thing for a back door.
Down one block, another, three, four, onto McGowan’s block. A car started somewhere and the maddog turned his head in that direction, slowed. Nothing more. He glanced quickly around, just once, knowing that furtiveness attracts attention all by itself. His groin began to tingle with the preentry excitement. This would be a masterpiece. This would set the town on its ear. This would make him more famous than Sam, more famous than Manson.
Maybe not Manson, he thought.
He turned into the alley. Another car engine. Two cars? He walked down the alley, reached McGowan’s yard, glanced around again, took a half-dozen steps into the yard. A car’s wheel squealed in deceleration a block away, the other end of the alley.
Cops.
In that instant, when the turning wheels squealed against the blacktop, he knew he had been suckered.
Knew it. Cops.
He ran back the way he had come.
Another car, down the block. A tremendous clatter behind him; one of the cars had hit something. More cops. A door slammed. Across the street. Another one, behind McGowan’s.
He turned out of the alley, the pry bar slipping from beneath his jacket and falling to the grass, and he ran across the yard one house down from McGowan’s, through bridal wreath, ru
The maddog ran.
The rookie Cochrane was at the wheel, and tires squealed as he slowed and cranked left into the alley, an unintended squeal, and his partner blurted “Jesus!” and quick as a turning rat, they saw the maddog run into the alley ahead of them. Cochrane wrenched the car straight in the alley, smashed through two empty garbage cans, and went after him.
The maddog was ru
Sally Johnson jumped out of her car and saw Lucas coming from across the street, ru
The maddog had already crossed the next street, and Sally Johnson snatched her radio from her belt carrier and tried to transmit, but couldn’t find words as she ran fifteen feet behind Sickles, Sickles with his gun out. Another cop, York, came in from the side and behind her, gun out, and Sally Johnson tried to get her gun out and saw the maddog go over a board fence across the street and dead ahead.
The maddog, fear and adrenaline blinding him to anything but the tu
The dog ke
August heard the commotion and pricked up his ears and poked his head out and just then the maddog came sailing over the fence, staggered, sprinted across the yard, and went over the back fence. Either dog could have taken him, if they’d had the slightest idea he was coming. As it was, July, exploding from her ke