Sudden Prey (26 page)

''Where're we going?'' Sandy asked, still behind the wheel.

''The mall,'' LaChaise said.

''We oughta take care of some business first,'' Martin said.

''Yeah? What's that?''

Martin had a map of the downtown area. ''I want to go look up the hospital where they're taking these people . . . Hennepin General. Then I want to go over to this other one, where Davenport's old lady works. Just a recon, to see where it is.''

''All right,'' LaChaise said. ''I'm just glad to be out.''

The first hospital, as it turned out, was only six or eight blocks from Harp's apartment. There were cop cars parked by the entrances.

''That'd be tough,'' Martin said.

''But we could get to it on foot, if we had to,'' LaChaise said. ''If that big storm comes in . . .''

The other hospital was farther away, but easy to get to-- straight down Eleventh to Washington, right, a couple of naturalturns, across the river and up the hill past a building that looked like it had been built from beer cans--and there it was.

No cop cars.

''This one would be simpler,'' Martin said.

''But it's big,'' said LaChaise. ''Finding her could be a problem--even knowing for sure that she's in there could be a problem.''

''We could work it out,'' Martin said.

Sandy drove, listening; she was shocked by the coolness of the discussion. They'd done robberies, she was sure: Candy and Georgie hadn't started on their own. Still, she was reluctantly impressed by the cool appraisal of the targets.

''Now: out to this mall,'' LaChaise said. He stretched out in back, favoring his side. The wound was tightening up. ''Feel like I'm being held together by banjo strings,'' he grumbled. But he sat up as they approached the mall.

''Looks like Uncle Scrooge's money bin,'' he said.

''You ain't far wrong,'' Martin said.

Sandy found a parking spot in the ramp, and they went inside. The mall was packed, but nobody gave them a second look. And LaChaise was fascinated.

''Goddamnedest thing I ever seen,'' LaChaise said, as they stopped outside the Camp Snoopy amusement park. A gangbanger dragged by, looked them over--two old guys with beards and long black coats. They looked like cartoons. The gang-banger smirked, kept going.

LaChaise took them on a circuit of the mall, browsing through the stores, checking out the women, dragging Sandy along.

''We gotta get out of here,'' Sandy said, after the first circuit.

''We just got here,'' LaChaise said, enjoying himself.

''Dick, please . . .''

''Tell you what, let's catch a movie.''

''We can see a movie back at the apartment, he's got HBO. Please.''

''Then let's get a pizza, or something. God, is that cinnamon rolls I smell?''

The gang-banger went by again, this time from the other direction--they'd both made a circuit of the second level-- but this time, after he passed, he turned and followed them.

There was something not quite right here, the banger thought. There was something wrong with the old guys, and the blond was nervous. Her nervousness gave the whole trio a sense of vulnerability. The feel of vulnerability brought him in, like a mosquito to bare flesh. Victims . . .

There may have been ten thousand people in the mall, but there were also dead spots. One of them was next to an automatic teller machine. The banger watched as the trio bought cinnamon rolls and Cokes, then sat on a bench next to the ATM.

Nobody real close. The banger put on a grin and wandered up, put his hand in his pocket and dropped the blade on a butterfly knife.

''How's it going, folks,'' he said to LaChaise. LaChaise bobbed his head, didn't look up, but the banger could see the smile. The victims usually smiled, at first, trying to pretend that the contact was friendly. ''Whyn't you just give it up? A few bucks,'' the banger said.

Now LaChaise looked up at him, his voice soft. ''If you don't go away, I'm gonna take that fuckin' blade and cut your nuts off.''

The banger took a step back. ''I oughta . . .''

''Fuck oughta. You want to do something, do it, pussy,'' LaChaise said. The banger looked at Martin, and the pale eyes fixed him like a bug.

The banger said, ''Fuck you,'' and walked away.

''We gotta get out of here, Dick,'' Sandy pleaded.

''Felt kinda good,'' LaChaise said to Martin, and Martin's head bobbed. ''Hey, c'mon; let's go see a movie.''

''Dick, please . . .''

LaChaise pulled her close. ''You shut up, huh? Quit whinin'. I haven't been outside in years, and goddamnit, I'm gonna enjoy myself one afternoon. Just one fuckin' afternoon, and you're coming along. So shut up.''

LACHAISE COULDN'T FOLLOW THE MOVIE: BUILDINGS blew up, cars got wrecked, and the cops seemed to have antitank missiles. All bullshit. Martin fell asleep halfway through, although he was awake when it ended.

''Let's get out of here,'' LaChaise muttered.

On the way out, they passed an electronics store with a bank of TVs lit up along one wall. As they were passing, the chief of police came up: they knew her face from the hours of news. ''Hold it,'' Martin said. They watched through the glass, and suddenly Martin's face came up.

''Shit,'' he said. ''They got me.''

''That means they got the truck,'' LaChaise said.

''We knew they would,'' Martin said.

LaChaise looked him over, then looked back at the TV, and said, ''You know, nobody'd recognize you in a million years. Nobody.''

Martin looked at Sandy, who looked at the TV picture, back to Martin, and nodded in reluctant agreement.

Martin watched until his picture disappeared, and then said, briskly, ''Let's get a beer.''

LaChaise nodded. ''We can do better'n that. Let's find a bar.'' And he turned to Sandy and said, ''Not a fuckin' word.''

* * *

THEY FOUND A PLACE ACROSS FROM THE AIRPORT, A long, low, yellow log cabin with a Lite Beer sign in the window, showing a neon palm tree. The sign looked out over a pile of dirty snow, freshly scraped from the parking lot. Above the door, a beat-up electric sign said either Leonard's or Leopard's, but the light bulbs in the fourth letter had burned out, along with the neon tubes on one side. Seven or eight cars and a few pickups, all large, old and American, were nosed toward the front door. Inside, they found a country jukebox, tall booths, a couple of coin-op pool tables and an antisocial bartender.

The bartender was drying glasses when they walked in, and twenty people were scattered around the bars, mostly in clumps, with a few lonely singles. Two men circled the pool table, cigarettes hanging from their lips. They checked La-Chaise and Martin for a long pulse, and then started circling again.

LaChaise said, ''Hey, let's get some money in the jukebox, goddamnit. Sounds like a tomb in here.'' He held up his arms and wiggled his hips: ''Something hot.''

Martin muttered, ''You're an old man.''

LaChaise said, ''Yeah, well . . . let's get a beer.''

LaChaise got Waylon Jennings going on the jukebox, while Sandy found a booth. LaChaise slipped in beside her, and Martin across from them. A waitress stopped, and LaChaise ordered three bottles of Bud and two packages of Marlboros and gave the waitress a twenty.

When the beer came back, LaChaise shoved one at Sandy and said, ''Drink it.''

She didn't care for beer, but she took it, and looked out of the booth, thinking: Most ladies' rooms had telephones nearby. After a couple of beers, she'd have to pee. She could call . . .

She was trying to work it through when the waitress cameby again, and LaChaise ordered another round. She tried to tune in on the conversation: LaChaise and Martin started talking about some black dude in prison who spent all his time lifting weights.

''. . . they thought something must've popped in his brain 'cause they found him layin' on this mat, nothing wrong with him except he was dead,'' LaChaise said. ''Somebody said there was a hit on him and somebody stuck an ice pick in his ear.''

''Sounds like bullshit,'' Martin said.

''That's what I say. How're you gonna stick an ice pick in the ear of a guy who can press four hundred pounds or whatever it was? I mean, and not make a mess out of it?''

Martin thought it over: ''Well, you could spot for him, maybe. You're right there by his head if he's doin' presses, and when he finishes he sits up, and you're right there . . .''

LaChaise nodded. ''Okay, that gets it in his ear, but how come there's no blood? That's the thing . . .''

Sandy closed her eyes. She was in a booth with two men trying to work out a way to kill a guy who'd wring your head off if the attempt failed--and how you'd do it with a weapon you'd have to sneak into the weight room.

Martin was tapping the table with the Bud bottle: ''The suspicious thing is, he was found alone. How many times do you see the weight room empty?''

''Well . . .''

WHEN SHE OPENED HER EYES, SHE FOUND HERSELF looking into the face of a cowboy-looking guy sitting with three friends in a booth across the room. He was about her age; she glanced away, but a moment later, looked back. They made eye contact a couple of times, and she saw him say something to one of his friends, who glanced at Sandy and then said something back, and they both laughed. Nicelaughs, more or less; nothing too dirty. Sandy looked away, and thought about Elmore. Dead somewhere: she should be making funeral arrangements.

Sandy didn't cry, as a matter of principle. Now a tear trickled down her cheek, and she turned away from the men to wipe it away.

''If I absolutely had to do one of those guys, I might think about getting a piece of steel cable, like a piece of that cable off the come-alongs in the welding shop . . .''

She made eye contact with the cowboy-looking guy again, and he winked, and she blushed and turned back to Martin, who was saying, ''. . . two-hundred-grain Federal soft-points. Busted right through its shoulder and took out a piece of the lung . . .''

Talking about hunting, now.

More beer came, and LaChaise was getting louder as Martin slipped into a permanent, silent grin.

''Let's dance,'' LaChaise said suddenly, pushing at her with an elbow. She'd had three beers, the two men maybe six each.

She flinched away. ''Dick, I don't think . . .''

LaChaise turned back to Martin and said, ''You know, goddamnit, this is what I missed, sitting around in that fuckin' place. I miss going out to the cowboy joints.''

LaChaise trailed off and looked up. The cowboy-looking guy, a Pabst in his hand, was leaning against the back of Martin's seat, looking at LaChaise. ''Mind if I take the lady out for a dance?''

LaChaise looked at him for a minute, then at the beer bottle in front of him.

''Better not,'' he said.

Sandy smiled at the cowboy and said, ''We're sort of having a talk here . . .''

''Ain't that, I just don't want him dancing with you,'' LaChaise said.

''Hey, no problem,'' the cowboy said, straightening up. Sandy realized he was as drunk as LaChaise, his long strawcolored hair falling over his forehead, his eyes vague and blue. ''Wasn't looking for trouble, just looking for a dance.''

''Look someplace else,'' LaChaise grunted.

''Well, I will,'' the cowboy said. ''But it'd be a goddamn pleasanter thing if you were one fuckin' inch polite about it.''

LaChaise looked up now, and smiled. ''I don't feel like I gotta be polite with trash.''

Talk in the bar suddenly turned off. Martin moved, just an inch or two, and Sandy froze, realizing that he was clearing his gun hand. The cowboy stepped back, to give LaChaise room to get out of the booth. ''Come out here and say that, you ugly old dipshit,'' the cowboy said.

The bartender yelled, ''Hey, none of that. None of that in here.''

LaChaise spoke quietly to Martin, barely turning his head: ''Barkeep.''

''Yeah.''

Then LaChaise slipped out of the booth, uncoiling, keeping his distance from the cowboy. Sandy said, ''Dick, goddamnit . . .'' and LaChaise turned and pointed a finger at her and she shut up.

The cowboy said, ''Here you are, old man, what've you got?''

The bartender yelled, ''Not in here, goddamnit, I'll have the cops on you.''

LaChaise said to the cowboy, ''Fuck you, faggot motherfucker, your faggot cowboy boots . . .''

The cowboy took a poke at him. He coiled his arm, pulled his shoulder back, uncoiled his arm: to LaChaise, the punch seemed to take a hundred years to get going. LaChaisebrushed it with the back of his left hand, stepped inside, and with the heel of his right palm, smashed the cowboy under his nose. The cowboy went down and rolled, struggled to his hands and knees.

Sandy called, ''Dick, stop now.''

The bartender yelled, ''That's all; I'm callin' the cops . . .''

Martin was out of the booth and he stepped toward the bartender as LaChaise circled to the right and kicked the cowboy in the ribs, nearly lifting him from the floor. The cowboy collapsed, groaning, and blood poured from his face. The other patrons were on their feet, and an older man yelled, ''Hey, that's enough.''