Easy Prey (31 page)

“Too many chips, too many chips,” Franklin warned. She grabbed a handful of them off the plate, threw them back in the bag, quickly arranged the others on the plate, and Franklin said, “Fifteen seconds.” Jael opened the two bags of cheese, working frantically, spread a small handful from one bag over the plate of chips, opened the other, spread another small handful, and asked, “Is that good?”

“You're looking good, but you're a few seconds behind,” Franklin said. “Gotta keep rolling.”

She picked up the plate and pushed it into the microwave, said, “One minute,” pressed a series of buttons, and the microwave started to hum. Then she went back to the refrigerator, grabbed a jar of salsa, popped the top, got a spoon and dumped three large spoonfuls into a small glass dessert bowl, glanced at the microwave timer, put the top back on the salsa jar, stuck it in the refrigerator, and wrapped up the top of one of the cheese bags, while watching the timer. Then she reached out. . . .

“Not too soon, not too soon,” Franklin said. Jael jabbed a button, popped open the microwave door, thrust the salsa bowl inside, slammed the door, and pushed the Resume button.

“Might be too much time,” Franklin said.

“No, I think we're okay,” Jael said. Working quickly, she wrapped up the top of the second cheese bag, put both cheese bags back into the refrigerator, took out two beers, stepped back to the microwave, said, “Three seconds.”

There was a popping sound, then another. Franklin said, “Shit. I told you. There goes the salsa.”

The microwave beeped and Jael opened the door and looked inside. The interior was spattered with little gob-bets of salsa. “I'll get it later,” she said.

“Classic line,” Franklin said with approval.

She pulled out the dish full of chips and the bowl of salsa, turned to the cooking island, saw Lucas for the first time, put the chips on the butcher-block top, and said, “Time.”

Franklin looked at his watch. “One minute, twenty-nine seconds. If you add ten seconds going and coming, you could've missed a pass play.”

“I don't think I can cut much time,” she said.

“You just don't have the moves worked out yet,” Franklin said. “You lost time with the chips, arranging them, you lost time getting the salsa out. And now you gotta go back and clean the microwave.”

Jael looked at Lucas and asked, “Did you know that if you heat up salsa too fast, the onions pop like popcorn?”

“Everybody knows that,” he said as Franklin turned around. Franklin seemed mildly embarrassed.

“I've been cooking seriously for half of my life, and I didn't know that,” she said. “Even the idea of heating it up seemed pretty brutal.”

“Gotta have it about medium-warm, a little better than room temperature.”

Hutton chipped in. “You want boiling-hot cheese on the chips, medium-warm salsa, very cold beer. You want that range.”

“Do all men know this?” she asked.

All three of them nodded, and said at once, “Of course.”

THE HOUSE ORIGINALLY had four bedrooms and a full bathroom upstairs. Jael had wiped out the bottom floor as a studio; had rebuilt a kitchen upstairs, in what had been the master bedroom; the other three she'd turned into a snug little living room/dining room, a small library/office, and her own bedroom. The space was carefully assembled and connected, and Lucas felt comfortable.

They'd chatted with Franklin and Hutton for a few minutes, eating the nachos with melted cheese—“I can feel my heart clogging up. This stuff is absolute shit,” Jael said—and then Jael said to Lucas, “Let's go talk.”

As she stepped past him, she caught his wrist in her hand and led him out of the room; Hutton raised an eyebrow. In the living room, Lucas sprawled on a couch while Jael settled back in an oversized chair. Lucas said, “Great chair,” and Jael said, “All guys don't really know about that nacho-cheese thing.”

“You're right. There's probably some raggedy-ass cowboy out on a ranch in North Dakota somewhere who doesn't have either a TV or a microwave.”

She said, “It really . . . wasn't bad.”

“If you eat that stuff three days in a row, you'll be as big as Franklin.” Franklin completely filled an average doorway. “In fact, Franklin used to be about your size.”

She nodded, getting rid of the topic. “I went to see Marcy a couple of hours ago. I just missed you.”

“She's hanging on,” Lucas said, his face going grim. “But she's harder than goddamn nails. If anybody can make it back, she's the one.”

“I feel . . . you know. Guilt, I guess.”

“Don't,” he said. “This has nothing to do with you, really. It has something to do with a nut, and some asshole who killed Alie'e and Sandy Lansing.”

“I can't get Plain's body,” she said. “But I finally found Dad. He's on St. Paul Island, which is about as far from here as you can get and still be on Earth. It'll take him a few days to get here.”

“How is he?” Lucas asked.

“Devastated. I'd like to get the thing . . . done with.”

“I'll see about it,” Lucas promised. “This thing with Plain . . . when did that end?”

“A year ago.”

“A year? I thought it might be more recent . . . the way he acted.”

“Time was not a big deal with Plain. Everything was right now. He could read a history book about Rome and get angry about the Roman empire.”

“Tell me about Alie'e,” Lucas said. “Was there anybody that she talked about? Anybody who might be a little over the edge?”

“Are you questioning me?” But she smiled, and when she did, her torn-paper face was beautiful, tough and vulnerable at once.

“No, no. Of course not. And if you want to talk about something else, that's fine. But I start brooding about this kind of stuff. You know,
why
? Most people are freaked out by the idea of shoplifting. If you get somebody killing several people, he's either completely psychotic, delusional, nuts, living in a different world, listening to God . . . or he thinks he's got a reason. This guy we're looking for, he thinks he's got a reason. So there should be some connection to Alie'e. Somewhere, a connection.”

“Her dad . . . was weird. He came on to me a couple of times. I often thought he was a little . . . wrong. Not a killer, but he, I think . . . I don't know.” She lifted her hands to her temples. “His relationship to Alie'e and the other girls, he tried to act paternal, but he was always looking at them. . . . If you know what I mean.”

“Yeah. He was turned on.”

“Yeah. And Alie'e's mom wasn't much of a prize, either. My mom didn't care what I did for a living; she thought the earth owed me one, and let it go at that. But Lil was living through Alie'e . . . and I think she knew about Lynn's interest in sex.”

“You think Lynn might have abused Alie'e?”

“No. Nope. I think Alie'e would have told me, and I think I would have seen it in her, the way she acted around her father. No, maybe it was just my expectations. Somebody's a dad—you don't think of his standing around trying to get a shot at the asses of his daughter's friends.”

“Happens all the time,” Lucas said. “I'll do it. For sure.”

“But he was creepy about it.”

“So . . . no ideas.”

“I told you before, I really think you've got to look at the people on the Internet. Those people . . .”

“We've got somebody checking that, a computer guy named Anderson. If you can think of anything specific along those lines, call him. But the thing is, when he ran Alie'e's name through Alta Vista, he got 122,000 matches. We're trying to narrow them down.”

“What's Alta Vista?”

“A search engine on the Net. You can look for names and so on.”

“Okay. Well, I'll think about it. You know all about her brother, Tom.”

“We're looking into him,” Lucas said.

“He's an amazing guy. From what she said.”

“Is he nuts?”

“She didn't think so. She thought he was holy,” Jael said.

“How bright was she?” Lucas asked.

“Mmm, you've got to be smarter than average to make it as a model, but not a lot smarter. She wasn't intensely bright.”

“So why were you hanging out with her?”

She smiled. “I thought everybody knew that.”

“They know you were sleeping with her, but I thought there had to be a better reason.”

“There wasn't,” Jael said. “She was deep into herself, into feeling good. Into . . .
feeling.
That's what she did best, and she spread it around. She could make you discard everything else and
feel good.
The sex was wonderful. Very intimate and very playful and very sexual. I mean, I can't really explain it to you, because you don't know what I'm talking about and you're not in a position to find out.”

“Did her appearance have anything to do with it? And her being famous?”

“Probably. There was a whole package. When you were with her, you felt sexy and important and wicked and fun. And she'd make you forget everything else and just
feel.
That's why she did those short pops: It was another aspect of feeling for her.”

“So what about her boyfriend, Jax? What'd he think about all this? Sleeping with other women.”

She shrugged. “Jax carried her bags. And slept with her every once in a while. He's basically a remora. He's probably back in New York right now, looking for somebody else.”

“He is. You didn't like him?”

“It's not that. I just didn't
care
about him. Didn't even think about him when he was standing in front of me. He made himself into what he is. Not my fault. He wants to carry bags and hang out with pretty women, and that's what he does.”

“Sounds bad,” Lucas said.

“He doesn't think so.” They sat in silence for a moment, then Jael said, “You and Marcy had a relationship.”

“For six weeks or so. It was a little too intense.”

She cocked her head. “Why would you walk away from intensity? Other people go their whole lives without intensity. They dream about it.”

“Like I said, this was a little too much. We were headed for a disaster.”

“You mean, like, you'd strangle her or something?”

“No. But something was going to happen, and we'd wind up hating each other,” Lucas said. “We didn't want to do that. Risk it.”

“She's still sort of hung up on you,” Jael said. “You know what would've been fun? For the three of us to go away. You and me and Marcy.”

She said it so conversationally that Lucas was neither embarrassed nor surprised. He said, “I'm a little too Catholic for that. Marcy would be, too, if she was a Catholic.”

“Oh, I don't think so,” Jael said. “Not Marcy, anyway. I think she might be interested in the idea.”

“Really?” She'd said it with some certainty, and now he
was
surprised. He looked a question at her.

“No, no, we weren't playing. We hardly had a chance to talk,” Jael said. “But you can sort of pick out people who like to
feel.
Marcy's one of us.”

“You mean, a little gay?” Lucas asked.

“No. That's not what I mean. You're one of us. I could tell from talking to you, and the way you look at women.”

“I gotta stop talking about this,” Lucas said.

“Sure,” she said.

“It really makes me nervous.”

“That's the Catholic part,” she said. “You've probably been fighting it all of your life.”

“Maybe,” he said.

 
 
“YOU KNOW, ” SHE said later, “I'm a little scared.”

“I know. You should be.”

“The way Plain was killed. He probably never had a chance even to say anything.”

“The guy is nuts. But he's not some great force. We just haven't been able to find him. We will.”

“Soon, I hope. I don't like being cooped up. I'm thinking of heading out to New York, as soon as I can get Plain taken care of.”

“You could leave that to your father.”

She shook her head. “Dad . . . couldn't handle it.”

“So New York's an idea,” Lucas said. “But you wouldn't have any protection.”

“I could stay in a hotel. How could he find me?”

“Something to think about,” Lucas said.

DOWNSTAIRS, AS LUCAS was leaving, Hutton asked, “Learn anything new?”

It wasn't meant as a double entrendre, but Lucas turned it into one. “A little more than I wanted,” he said.

 
 
ON THE WAY home, he called St. Anne's, and got Elle on the line. “I know it's cold, but I could take you for an ice cream.”

“Never too cold for an ice cream,” she said. “I'll walk over, meet you there.”

The ice cream shop was across the street from St. Anne's, and was recognized as the local nun hangout. Elle was sitting with three other nuns in a booth near the front of the shop when he walked in, and she laughed and said something to one of the other women and then stood up, and led the way toward the back—a scene, Lucas thought, virtually identical to millions that had taken place in bars that night, if you took away the odor of spilled milk, and, of course, the nuns.

“Get a break?” she asked, and added, “I told Jim to make you a chocolate malt.”

“That's fine. We've got a couple of things working. I think we've got an eye on the guy who killed Alie'e, and we've booby-trapped everybody the second guy might be going after.”