Sudden Prey (31 page)

''I thought that was you,'' the man said, looking over Lucas's shoulder as Lucas came through.

''Who're you?''

''Thomason Security,'' the man said. ''We're on all the doors.''

Lucas nodded. ''Good.'' Thomason was a heavy-duty security firm, used mostly for moving money at sports events and rock concerts, but also as a source of armed guards and bodyguards for celebrities. He asked for Jennifer.

''We'll call up,'' the man said. Lucas waited, leaning on a countertop. As the man called, he noticed that the other guard on his side of the lobby had a Winchester Defender twelvegauge at his feet. Even better.

The first guard turned to Lucas and said, ''Go on up. You know the way?''

''Yeah.''

Jennifer met him at the elevators: ''What's going on?''

''We've decided that we've got to pull everybody in tight-- back at the hotel,'' Lucas said. ''These guys are suicidal.''

Jennifer shook her head: ''I know, but you saw our security. There's no way they can get at me. I'm as safe here asI'd be at the hotel. I've got to work; I'm on camera four hours a day. This is the biggest story of my life.''

''Look, goddamnit, we know they were coming after you guys . . .''

''That's all taken care of. They can't find out where the kids are, because nobody knows but you and me and Richard. And I'm safe in here,'' she said. ''I'm sorry, but we've figured the risks. I'm staying here.''

He gave up. ''All right. But I want to talk to Small. I want to make goddamn sure that you've got a tight communications link between here and City Hall, and the second something happens . . .''

WEATHER WAS WORSE.

When Lucas walked into the suite, Weather was talking with Sarah. When Lucas began the pitch, she picked Sarah up and held her on her lap.

''Listen, Weather . . .'' Sarah blocked Weather off, like some kind of psychic barricade. He couldn't operate with Sarah looking at him with his own blue eyes; couldn't sell. He couldn't touch Weather, and he needed to touch her to convince her, he thought.

''Lucas,'' she said, exasperated, when he finished. '' Nobody can find me at the hospital. Nobody. People who work there can't find me, unless they have my schedule--and half the time they can't find me then. I've got jobs lined up all week. I just can't skip them because there are some lunatics running around out there.''

''The problem is, you're a lure,'' Lucas said. ''You could bring a hell of a lot of trouble down on the heads of everybody around you. And now we know they've got a cop feeding them information . . .''

''Look,'' she said. ''Let's do this. Let's tell everybody-- everybody, including the police--that I'm in the hotel. Wecan sneak me in at night, and I'll go around and complain about being stuck there, so everybody knows I'm around. Then we'll sneak me out in the morning, and nobody'll know but the two of us.''

''Somebody'll know,'' Lucas said.

''Two or three people. You can use guys you're sure of.''

Lucas said, ''How about if you were interviewed on TV tonight--ten minutes from now, a half hour--in the hotel? About what it's like to be shut up here, and wait? So it'll be on TV?''

She nodded. ''If that will keep me on the job,'' she said.

''I'll call Jen and see if she can set it up,'' Lucas said. He made a quick circle of the room, coming back to the pair of them, picked up Sarah and bounced her. ''Want to see your mom?''

''She's breaking a major story,'' Sarah said solemnly.

''I think she could take a minute away to see her kid,'' Lucas said. ''Let's go talk to her.''

Chapter
Nineteen.

LACHAISE WAS MANIC: THEY'D SHOT THE COP, HE SAID, his face alight, as though he expected Sandy to have a celebration prepared.

''What d'ya think about that, huh? What d'ya think?''

Sandy, coldly furious, turned her face away until the chain came off, and then stalked up the stairs, into the back bedroom, the one they said was hers, and slammed the door in LaChaise's face. She said not a word. She'd felt like a dog with the chain around her waist, and a mistreated dog at that.

She lay on the stripped-off bed for half an hour, thinking about Elmore, thinking about horses, smelling the odd lingering body odors of strangers.

Horses. She got up, went out to the living room. LaChaise and Martin were drinking, watching television. ''I've got to call a guy, to make sure he's feeding the stock,'' she said.

LaChaise shrugged. ''Use the cell phone. It's in my coat pocket. Don't talk more'n a minute or so, in case there's some way they can trace it. And call from out here, where we can hear you.''

She nodded, went to his coat, dug around. She found the stack of photos, the photos of the cop, deep in one pocket. Ten of them, two men at a table, one black, one white. Which one was the cop?

She listened for a minute, then took two of the photos, the two that showed each of the faces best, and slipped them into her jeans pocket. She put the rest back, found the telephone, and went out to the hallway where the men could hear her.

Jack White. She knew the number, dialed in. Jack's wife answered:

''Sandy, where are you, we can't believe . . .''

''It's not what anybody thinks,'' she said. ''I can't talk-- but you've got to tell Jack to take care of the stock.''

''He's already doing that, as soon as he heard about Elmore.''

''Tell him he'll get paid; I swear, as soon as I can get out of this,'' Sandy said.

''He'd do it anyway.''

''Gotta go . . . and thanks. I won't forget it.''

She hung up and LaChaise said, ''Still think you might get out of it, huh?''

''I'll put the phone back in your coat,'' she said coldly. She did, and went back to the bedroom, flopped on the bed.

Tried to think. Got up after a while and poked around the room: this was a guest bedroom, and had been used as storage. LaChaise had torn the place apart, looking for money, and found nothing of interest. She went to the window, lifted the blind and looked out. The snow had quit, and distant streetlights seemed to sparkle in the suddenly clear air. Must be an inch of snow, she thought. She leaned forward to peer at the ledge . . .

And thought: Out the window .

Bedsheets--but she didn't have any bedsheets. The bed had been folded and pushed against the wall when they gotthere. She could get sheets, there were sheets in a closet down the hall, that'd be natural enough: but that goddamn Martin would think about the sheets and the window.

She looked back out, then to her right. And the fire escape was there, one window down, at the end of the long hall. Ten feet, no more. The ledge was a foot wide . . . and snowcovered. The fall was twenty feet or more. Enough to kill her.

Still. The snow could be brushed away . . .

The window had a swivel lock, and she twisted it: after some resistance, it went. She tried the window. Didn't budge. She looked closely at it, but it didn't seem to be painted shut. She tried again, squatting to push up with stiff arms . . . and it gave, just an inch, but it'd go.

She looked back at the door. This would be a bad time, with both of the men drinking, both of them awake. As she thought it, LaChaise screamed from the front room.

''Motherfucker . . .''

The police?

Sandy pulled the window back down, locked it, pulled the shade and then quickly tiptoed to the door. Then she opened it and peered down the hall.

''. . . can't get it right,'' LaChaise roared. ''Why'd he wear a vest to go home . . .''

The television brought the news that Franklin wasn't dead--that he wasn't even in particularly dangerous condition, that he'd been saved by a bulletproof vest.

''What do I gotta do?'' LaChaise shouted at Martin. ''What the fuck do I gotta do?''

''You did right,'' Martin said. ''You hit him four times in the chest, is what the news says.''

But Martin's efforts to calm him down only made LaChaise angrier. Already full of beer, he got Harp's Johnnie Walker and started drinking it off, carrying a water tumbler full of ice cubes, pouring the whiskey over them, gulping it downlike Coca-Cola. He paced as he drank, watching the television.

A blond newscaster from TV3--''She's the one we want to get,'' Martin said, ''Davenport's woman''--reported that ''Police are searching for an informant who provided critical information earlier this week, but who has disappeared. They ask that you call the department on the 911 line, as you did the last time, or any police line and ask for Chief Lucas Davenport. Police said they would offer the informant absolute protection from retaliation from Richard LaChaise or any of his accomplices.''

''Yeah? How are you gonna do that?'' LaChaise brayed at the screen. Then: ''I'd like to fuck her,'' and then: ''Who could be talking to them? We don't know anybody.''

Sandy shrank back: she knew.

''Probably whoever told them about the house we was in,'' Martin said. ''Ansel had to ask around, talking to a bunch of dopers. Somebody probably gave him up.''

''Yeah . . . Goddamn, ol' Ansel. I miss that sonofabitch.''

LaChaise's face crinkled, and Sandy thought he'd begun to weep. He turned abruptly, marched down the hall into Harp's stereo room and began tearing the vinyl record albums out of their covers and smashing them, three and four at a time.

Martin looked at Sandy, but showed no sign of disapproval--or approval, either. He showed nothing, she thought.

To the sound of the breaking records, Sandy went back to the bedroom and shut the door. Martin was nuts, but he was controlled. But the booze had pushed LaChaise over the edge, and the very air of the apartment carried the smell and taste of insanity, of the expectation that something crazy was about to happen.

She had to get out.

A moment later, she heard Martin's arrows start to whack into the target outside her door. Martin had put the target nextto the window at the end of the main hall. If he pulled an arrow to the right, she thought, it'd go right through the window shade and glass, out over the fire escape and into the roof of the next building . . .

She was sitting on the bed when LaChaise stopped breaking records. A moment later, LaChaise and Martin were shouting at each other, and she heard the thumping of heavy bodies colliding in the front room. She ran to the door and down the hall again, and found Martin on the floor, on top of LaChaise, with a heavy arm around LaChaise's neck. LaChaise was facedown, and trying to get to his hands and knees.

''Let me up, you motherfucker,'' LaChaise roared.

''Can't do that; can't do that,'' Martin was saying urgently. ''We need the goddamn TV . . .''

He saw Sandy and said, ''Tried to kick in the TV.''

''Fuckers don't do nothing but lie,'' LaChaise said, but he sounded calmer.

''But we need to see what they're saying, and what happens with the cops,'' Martin said.

After a moment of silence, LaChaise said, ''Let me up. I won't kick it.''

Martin nodded. ''All right.''

Martin stood up, between LaChaise and the television, and LaChaise grunted as he stood up, a tight grin: ''You kicked my ass.''

''You're drunk as a skunk.''

''Well, that's true,'' LaChaise said. ''But you're pretty fuckin' drunk yourself.'' Sandy moved away, stepping back toward the bedroom, but LaChaise turned and saw her and said, ''What're you lookin' at?'' and then, ''Hey, wait a minute.''

Sandy padded back toward the room, looking for a place to hide, and heard LaChaise say to Martin, ''If I can't kickthe TV, might as well jump me a little puss.''

Sandy turned around inside the bedroom: looking for a way out. There wasn't any. LaChaise came to the doorway and leaned in, and she said, ''Dick, don't.''

''Bullshit,'' he said.

''I won't fuckin' move. I'll lie there like a brick. And if I get a chance to kill you, I will.''

He stepped toward her and she thought he'd hit her. Instead, his eyes wavered, and he said, ''Fuck you,'' and staggered away.

She shut the door. Had to get out. Had to.

LUCAS AND SLOAN BROUGHT WEATHER INTO THE BACK of the hotel, while Sherrill and Del brought in Jennifer and a TV3 crew. Weather went to fix her hair and check makeup, and Jennifer, standing aside with Lucas, muttered, ''I wouldn't let Weather look at this Sherrill chick too long.''

''What?''

''Give me a break, Davenport. Never in your life would you fail to appreciate the young woman's qualities.''

''Well, I do appreciate them,'' Lucas said stiffly. He suddenly felt like an asshole, broke down and grinned. ''But I'd never do anything about it.''

Jennifer looked at him in an appraising way, and said, ''Maybe you really have changed.''

''Yeah, well . . .''

Weather came back out and they went down to the lobby for the interview, a two-minute no-brainer on the cops' families suffering from cabin fever, how it felt to be barricaded inside. Jennifer did another quick interview with Sloan's flustered wife, and then went out the back door with her protection.