Certain Prey (29 page)

She heard Rinker lower the driver’s-side window; heard the cashier mutter something, and a minute later, they were rolling out of the building.

“You can get up on the seat,” Rinker said a minute later. “But I wouldn’t sit up, yet. Let me take a few side streets, see if there’s anybody back there.”

“If there are, there’s nothing to do but run for it,” Carmel said cheerfully.

“Yeah, well, just stay down for a few minutes anyway.” Rinker didn’t know anything about throwing off a following car, but she’d watched enough cop shows on television to know that they might be both in front of, parallel to, and behind her. She took the car across the Washington Avenue bridge to eliminate the parallel cars, a block the wrong way down an empty one-way street to eliminate the forward cars, and then quickly along a one-way frontage road in the warehouse district, looking for followers. She didn’t see anybody, and that was the best she could do.

“Best I can do,” she told Carmel.

“I can’t think of anything else,” Carmel said. “Pull over; let me get in the front.”

• • •

M
AX
B
UTRY
CAME
from a short line of mean cops; his father was one, and so was Max, the meanness beaten into him from a tender age. “You don’t stay alive long on the streets unless . . .” his father would say, following with a lecture about a specific point of manhood in which Max was faltering: “You don’t stay alive long on the streets if you hide behind your hands. What if some greaser’s got a shiv, huh? He’ll cut your hands right off.You gotta come down on those boys.”

And his father would come down on him, show you how you beat a guy right into the ground by getting in close and on top of him, and fuck all your cherry greaser knives.

Butry carried the attitude onto the force; and on this night carried it into the bus station. A desk clerk had called to say that two guys were smoking dope in the john, and the smog was getting so thick nobody could get in to take a leak. By the time Butry arrived, though, the smokers had gone, and he turned around and banged back through the door.

Outside, three skaters were practicing slides off a planter onto a curb. There was nothing illegal about this, but Butry considered skateboards one symptom of the decline of American civilization, and himself, by virtue of the badge in his pocket, one of the pillars of that civilization. “They don’t gotta respect the man—hell, they probably don’t even know you—but they goddamn well gotta respect the badge,” his father said. “If they don’t respect the badge, the country starts caving in. Look what they got with the niggers down in Chicago. There are places in Chicago where you can’t even show the badge or the niggers’ll carve you up like the Christmas turkey. And you know how that started? It started when the first fuckin’ nigger saw the badge and didn’t show respect and nobody called him on it. And from there, the word got around, and the next thing you know, the world caves in. You got that? Huh?”

Niggers, skateboarders, transgender migrants, yuppie scum, all the same stuff. People without respect. Butry swerved out of line to cross with the skaters. One of them, the toughest-looking kid, maybe sixteen with the baggy pants and the chain billfold and a ballpoint pen tattoo on his forearm, saw Butry coming and there was no respect at all in the way he looked at him.

“Hey, dickhead: get them boards outa here. This is a bus station, not a playground,” Butry said.

And the oldest kid said, “Fuck you, asshole.” Butry pulled his badge with one hand and his gun with the other, which would have gotten him fired if anybody else had been around to see how early it came out. “I’m a fuckin’ cop, wiseass. See the badge? Now sit on the fuckin’ ground and put your hands over your heads, all three of you.”

The smallest of the kids, who looked like he might be fourteen, and had the bony look of a boy who hadn’t eaten right for a month or maybe a few months, that lonely, hollow-cheeked glow of hunger like a personal portrait, said, “Fuck you, fat boy.” He pulled up his t-shirt to bare his belly, and to show off a half-dozen steel rings that pierced the skin around his belly button. “Here: you want to shoot me? Here, shoot me, asshole.”

Butry was fast, faster than the kid, who may have been slowed by hunger: Butry’s hand lashed out, open but heavy as a ham, a slap that knocked the boy off his feet.

“On your goddamn knees,” he screamed. “On your goddamn . . .”

At the very last second, he began to realize that he was over his head, but that very last second was too late. The young kid had come back up, on the toes of his ragged black tennies, and in his hand that pointed toward Butry’s nose was a piece-of-shit two-barrel Crow derringer; you couldn’t, as one of the gun magazines noted, expect to hit
your target at six feet. But the gun was only nine inches from Butry’s face when the kid pulled the trigger, and the .45 slug went through the bridge of Butry’s nose and out the back of his skull.

His father had forgotten to tell Butry that you don’t fuck with people who have nothing to lose.

The three skaters froze at the impact of the blast, at the sight of the falling cop; then the oldest said, “Run,” in the harsh semi-whisper of panic, and the three scooped their boards and were running across the street through the moving cars like a pack of starving terriers.
S
HERRILL
AND
B
LACK
were slumped in her car, and Sherrill was talking to Lucas on her cell phone: “I’m starting to feel like a country song,” she said. “There’s something wrong about not feeling right . . .”

Then their radio burped and Black picked it up and Sherrill-said to Lucas, “Just a minute,” and then a dispatcher was screaming something about a cop down, shot at the bus station, three men running away, everybody available get to the bus station, looking for three youths possibly carrying skateboards and last seen running toward Loring Park . . .

“We got a call, there’s a cop down, shot, we’re going,” Sherrill said. And to Black, behind the wheel: “Go-go-go . . .” and Black was already going.
C
ARMEL
SAID,
“Listen, Pam . . .”

“It’s Clara,” Rinker said. “My name is really Clara. Rinker.”

“Clara?” Carmel tasted the name for a second. “I like that. Clara. Better than Pam.”

“Anyway, you were saying . . .”

“You are looking at this from the wrong point of view. People have always been allowed to kill in self-defense, and my dear, this is exactly what we’re doing. We’re trying to
defend ourselves: Davenport has put us in this position, and we really don’t have much option. So what I’m saying is this: I don’t understand how you could kill for money, and not feel bad about it, and now you can feel bad about killing in self-defense.”

“I think it’s because I know these people, or, anyway, I know about them,” Rinker said. “They’re not dirtbags who deserve it. They’re just people who are in the way.”

“No, no, no, they’re not in the way; they’re simply essential to us. We could not kill them, but that would leave us exposed. I’ll tell you what; if you want, I’ll do all the shooting.”

“Who actually does the shooting is hardly the point, if we both cooperate in setting up the killing.”

They weren’t exactly arguing: they were exploring, Carmel thought. Rinker—Clara—was feeling some qualms, while Carmel felt none at all. They were working together through the gray ethical areas of murder . . .

“T
HIS
IS
the place—the brick house, with the white shutters,” Carmel said, pointing across the dashboard as they rolled past the house. “We’ve gotta decide now: I don’t want you coming in unless, you know, at some level you
believe,
that you
know,
that what we’re doing is necessary. We’re not doing it out of madness, we’re doing it out of forced necessity.”

“I’m not objecting so much from any kind of definable, rational viewpoint; I’m saying that I feel a little different about this,” Rinker said. “I even worry about the effect it will have on
you.
”

“Don’t worry about that.” Carmel took the car to the curb, killed the engine. “Are you in or out?”

“I’m in,” Rinker said.

• • •

L
UCAS
ARRIVED
at Hennepin County Medical Center to find Sherrill standing with a group of cops on the sidewalk by the emergency entrance. When she saw the Porsche, Sherrill broke away from the group and walked into the headlights just as Lucas shut them off. “He’s dead,” she said as Lucas got out of the car.

“Damnit. I was afraid this would happen someday,” Lucas said in a low voice. “Butry was an asshole and not too bright. It’s a bad combination.”

“Yeah, well, he was a cop.”

“Yeah. They got a line on the shooters?”

“They’re gone. Desk clerk said there were three skateboarders, kids, outside the station who might’ve seen something, but they took off right after the shooting. We’re looking, but we ain’t finding.”

“What about Carmel?”

“She’s locked up in her building. I’ll head back there as soon as I’m sure there’s nothing I can do with this thing.”

“Probably no point,” Lucas said. “It’s so late now. What about Butry? Who’s his next of kin?”

“Haven’t found anybody yet,” Sherrill said. “His folks are dead, no brothers or sisters, far as we know. Never married . . . hell, there might not
be
anybody.”

“Must be somebody.”

“I hope so,” Sherrill said. “If there turned out to be nobody . . . that’d be the worst thing I ever heard of.”

TWENTY-TWO

Carmel and Rinker stood on the porch steps, each of them holding a phone book, and leaned sideways to peer at the curtained windows. The windows were dark, and nothing was moving. Nobody home. As stupid as it was, it was something they hadn’t counted on. Plan B was going down.

“She’s gotta be around,” Carmel complained. “I called her office today, and she picked up the phone.”

“She’s probably off visiting her mother or something,” Rinker said. They were both a little deflated, and wandered back down the dark sidewalk toward the car, carrying the phone books.

“Visiting.” Carmel stopped in her tracks. “Yeah, I bet she’s visiting . . . C’mon.”

“Where?” Rinker was puzzled.

“Up to Hale’s place.”

“But I thought we were going to take Clark first. If we don’t take her, there’s no point in . . .”

“I think she’s at Hale’s place. I’ll bet you a dollar.”

“Hale’s?”

“Yeah. Hale’s.”

• • •

AT HALE’S, Carmel cruised past, slowly. The back window, Hale’s bedroom, showed just the faintest glow on the window shade. “She’s there. He’s got this votive candle . . .”

“What an
asshole
,” Rinker said. “I mean, you’re talking about marrying him? And he’s still sleeping with his ex-girlfriend?”

“Sneaking,” Carmel said. “Can’t say he’s not sexually active.”

Carmel continued around the block, and pulled to the curb fifty yards up the street from Allen’s house, where they could see the back window. She punched up her car phone, and on the second ring, a light came on in the bedroom. A moment later, Hale Allen picked up.

“I think I can get out of here, darling,” Carmel cooed. “I’ve got to stop at my apartment for a minute, then I’ll be over.”

“Maybe I should come to your place . . .” Hale said.

“No, no, I’m already in the car. See you.” And she hung up.
F
IVE
MINUTES LATER,
Louise Clark squirted out of the house like a wet watermelon seed. She jogged down the sidewalk and climbed into a silver Toyota Corolla.

“Really makes me angry,” Carmel said. “Really, really . . .”

“I can’t believe it,” Rinker said. “It’s like a complete emotional betrayal. You’re tough enough to take it, but other women? They could be totally emotionally crushed by something like this.”

In another ten minutes, they were back at Clark’s house, walking up the sidewalk again, Carmel carrying the phone books. Clark had just gone inside, and the lights were coming on. Rinker caught Carmel’s arm and whispered, “Let me go first. If she sees you . . .”

At the door, Carmel stepped to the side and Rinker
pulled open the storm door, propped it back with her foot, took a breath, dropped her gun hand to her side and knocked urgently on the door with her other hand. They heard Clark walking toward the door, and a voice through the wood panel: “Who is it?”

“Clara Rinker, from down the block,” Rinker said. “I think you’ve got a little fire.”

“A fire?”

“A little fire, by the corner of your house, there’s smoke . . .”

The door opened, tentatively; no chain. Rinker stiffarmed it, hard, and it banged open, past the startled, mouth-open face of Louise Clark. The gun was up and Rinker was inside, pushing her, followed by Carmel. Louise cried, “Carmel, what are you doing, Carmel . . .”

Carmel said, “You’re fucking my boyfriend. That’s gotta stop.” She caught the sleeve of Clark’s blouse, and pulled her toward the back of the house. Rinker kept the gun in her eyes. “Carmel, Carmel . . .”

“You’re fucking my boyfriend,” Carmel said. They could see the bathroom down a short hall, a door open in the hall to one side. Carmel flipped a light: the bedroom. “Lay down on the bed, and keep your mouth shut,” Carmel said. “Just keep your mouth shut.”

“You’re going to kill me,” Clark said, sinking on the mattress. “You killed those other people.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, we’re just gonna talk to you about Hale,” Carmel said. “We’re gonna get a few things straight.”

They got her down on the bed, faceup; got her down on the pillow. Then Carmel walked around the bed and said, “Look at me,” and when Clark looked at her, Rinker, who’d been kneeling on the floor with the gun, reached forward, put the barrel of the gun against Clark’s temple and pulled the trigger.

The bullet shattered Clark’s skull, continuing through
her head and into the wall on the other side. A red cone of blood on the pillow pointed back to Clark’s head like a crimson arrow; the expelled shell landed next to her ear. The gun was a neat ladies’ .380, with a neat ladies’ silencer. As Rinker had explained to Carmel, a .22 didn’t always kill with one shot, even from two inches, and a second shot would be awkward if the victim was supposed to be a suicide . . .

“Good,” Carmel said, looking down at the body. “You can see exactly how it happened. The rest of it probably won’t be necessary, because they
were
back there fucking, but let’s do it anyway.”

Getting Clark out of her clothing without smearing anything was the hard part; she’d soiled her underpants, so they left them on, found a pink negligee in her chest of drawers, and pulled that over her head and let her drop back on the bed.

“Ah, God, we forgot the pubic hair,” Carmel said.

“Yuck.”

Rinker lifted Clark’s negligee and Carmel slid one hand into her pants, gave a tug, and came back with a half-dozen pubic hairs, which she folded into a piece of notebook paper.

“The coke,” Rinker said. “And the gun.”

“Yeah.” Carmel had had a bit of coke on hand, had rounded up a few more grams during the week. She put it all into an amber medicine bottle and dropped it into the bedstand drawer. Rinker took one of the silenced .22s out of her carry-girdle. They hid it in a winter boot, in the closet.

“That’s it?” Rinker asked.

“I think so,” Carmel said. “Except for the nitrites.”

“Okay,” Rinker said. “Just set the phone books up over there.”

She fit Clark’s hand to the gun, aimed it at the phone books, and pulled the trigger. The slug hit the front phone book with a
whack!,
and they fell over. The slug hadn’t
made it through the first one. “Get the phone books, and let’s go,” Rinker said as she picked up the empty shell.

Ten minutes later, they were back at Allen’s place. “We can’t go back now,” Rinker said. “If we go back now, nothing will make any sense.”

“I don’t have any intention of going back,” Carmel said.

“I sorta thought, when we got right down to it . . .”

“You sorta thought right. But you’ve got to have priorities,” Carmel said. “That’s one of the first things we were taught in law school: prioritize. Besides, he was getting on my nerves even before this Louise Clark thing. You ever been with a man who lays in bed at night and picks the calluses on his feet?”

“No . . . And tell you the truth, that seems kind of minor.”

“Not if you’ve got a ten o’clock appearance the next day and there’s all kinds of pressure and you need sleep more than anything, and he’s over there, pick, pick, pick . . . And he tries to sneak it in, so I won’t hear it, so I wait . . . God!”

“How do you want to do it?”

“I’ll just do it,” Carmel said. “There’s nothing else to do at this end. No arrangements of anything.”

“I’ll go around the block,” Rinker said. “Hurry.”
C
ARMEL
GOT OUT,
walked down the block to Allen’s. He met her in a bathrobe, at the door, with a big grin. “God, you got off,” he said. “That’s great.”

“Gotta make a call,” she said. She called the office law library, the answering machine, dropped the receiver on the table, said, “C’mere,” and walked around him back to the bedroom.

“What?” He looked at the phone, puzzled, then went after her.

He was six or seven steps behind her. At the bedroom door, she slowed, let him catch up, turned with the gun, bringing it up. His warm brown puppy-dog eyes had no
chance to show fear or anything else. She pulled the trigger and the gun went
whack!
And Hale Allen, as dead as his former wife, started falling backward. Carmel fired three more times as he fell, and afterward stepped up beside him, pointed the gun down at his forehead and fired twice more:
whack, whack.
And again into his heart:
whack.

“Goddamnit, Hale,” she said as she walked back into the bedroom. “You were my one true love.” Her photo smiled at her from the bedstand as she opened the folded piece of notebook paper, and let the odd strands of Clark’s pubic hair fall on the sheet. On the way out, she hung up the phone, then looked back at Hale Allen’s motionless body.

“You prick,” she snarled. “Screw around on me . . .”

She kicked him in the chest, and then again, in the face, and then in the arm; and, breathing hard, went to the door. On the street, Rinker was coming around for the first time. Carmel stepped out and Rinker pulled over. “That was quick,” Rinker said as Carmel got in the car.

“No point in messing around,” Carmel said. “Let’s move.”

“Did you say good-bye?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Carmel said. “I did the phone thing, got him walking and shot him in the head.”

“Huh.” Rinker continued on for a block, then said, “You know something?”

“What?”

“We’re good at this. If I’d met you ten years ago, I bet we could have set things up so that all of my outside jobs pointed somewhere else.”

“Not too late for that,” Carmel said. “When you get to wherever you’re going, you get established, set up a couple new IDs, cool off for a while . . . and then come talk.”

“It doesn’t bother you? At all?”

“Actually, I kind of like it,” Carmel said. “It’s something different, you know? You get out of the office. You see
lawyers on television, running around the courthouse, but ninety percent of my time is sitting in front of a computer. This is a little exercise, if nothing else.”
B
ACK
AT
CLARK’S, Rinker carefully pulled the clip, pressed an extra shell into the bottom of the clip using a piece of toilet paper to keep her prints off of it, then reloaded the cartridges in the same order that they’d come out. They left the gun next to Clark’s hand on the bed, but pointed away. “I saw a suicide once, one of my clients,” Carmel said. “The gun was like that.”

“Then that’s good,” Rinker said. She took a last look around. “We’re done.”
O
N
THE SIDEWALK
outside, Carmel looked up at the sky and said, “I’m gonna miss you. Do you think you could get the
New York Times
wherever you’re going?”

“I’m sure I could.”

“Okay. Then listen: I’ll leave a message for Pamela Stone in the
New York Times
personal column on Halloween, and the days around there. It’ll just say something like, ‘Pamela: Zihuatanejo Hilton, November 24–30.’ Or wherever. That’s where I’ll be, if you feel safe and still want to do Mexico.”

“I’ll look for it,” Rinker said.

“Listen, are you gonna need the other gun?”

“No, probably not. I’ve got a couple more stashed.”

“Could I have the one you’ve got?”

“Sure, but it could be dangerous. If you were caught with it.”

“I’ll hide it out,” Carmel said. “But if anything else comes up . . .”

“All right.” As they got back in the car, Rinker slipped the gun out of her girdle, pulled the clip, jacked the shell out of the chamber, pushed it back into the clip and handed the pistol to Carmel. “There you go. Be careful.”

“I will be . . . Are you gone, then?”

“Yeah. I gotta move: I’ll be out of the country in a week. And I’ve got to make a few stops. I’ve got money stashed all over the place.”

Back at the parking ramp, Rinker and Carmel shook hands: good friends, who’d been through a lot together. “If I don’t see you again, I’ll remember you,” Carmel said.