by Sudden Prey
He had ten minutes. He closed his eyes, settled in and thought about the other men he'd killed. Martin didn't worry about killing: he simply did it. When he was a kid, there was always something around the farm to be killed. Chickens, hogs, usually a heifer in the fall. And there was the hunting: squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, doves, grouse, deer, bear.
By the time he killed his first man, he didn't much think about it. The man, Harold Carter, was owed money by LaChaise, that LaChaise had borrowed to set up his motorcycle parts store. Carter was talking about going to court. LaChaise wanted him to go away.
Martin killed Carter with a knife on the back steps of his own home, carried the body out to his truck and buried the man in the woods. Nothing to it; certainly not as hard as taking down a pig. A pig always knew what was coming, and fought it. Went squealing and twisting. Carter simply dropped.
His second killing had been no more trouble than the first. His third, if he did it right, should be the easiest yet, because he wouldn't have to deal with the body. Martin closed his eyes; if he were the type to sleep, he might have.
LACHAISE, DRIVING ELMORE'S TRUCK, DROPPED BUTTERS at the Rosedale Mall. Butters carried both pistols, the short.380 in his left jacket pocket, and the nine-millimeter, with the silencer already attached, in a Velcroed flap under his arm.
He cruised past TV Toys. A tall woman talked to a lone customer, and a thin balding man in a white shirt stood behindthe counter. Butters stepped to a phone kiosk, found the paper in his pocket, and dialed the number of the store. He watched as the man in the white shirt picked up the phone.
``TV Toys, this is Walt.''
``Yes, is Elaine there?''
``Just a moment.''
The man in the white shirt called over to the tall woman, who smiled and said something to her customer and started toward the counter. Butters hung up and glanced at his watch.
Five-twenty. LaChaise should be getting to Capslock's place.
CAPSLOCK'S WIFE WAS A NURSE AT RAMSEY GENERAL Hospital, according to her insurance file. She finished her shift at three o'clock.
LaChaise stopped at a Tom Thumb store, bent his head against the storm, punched in her phone number-the insurance forms had everything: address, employer, home and office phones-and waited for an answer.
Like Butters, LaChaise carried two pistols with him, but revolvers rather than automatics. He didn't care about the noise he made, so he didn't have to worry about a silencer; and he liked the simplicity of a revolver. No safeties or feed problems to think about, no cocking anything, just point and shoot.
Cheryl Capslock answered on the fourth ring. ``Hello?''
``Uh, Mrs. Capslock?'' LaChaise tried to pitch his voice up, to sound boyish, cheerful. ``Is Del in?''
``Not yet. Who is this?''
``Terry-I'm at the Amoco station on Snelling. Del wanted, uh, he wanted to talk to me and left a number. Could you tell him I'm around?''
``Okay, your name is Terry?''
``Yeah, T-E-R-R-Y, he's got the number.''
``I'll tell him,'' Cheryl Capslock said.
MARTIN WALKED ACROSS THE STREET TO THE CAR LOT. The Firebird was in a display stand, forty feet from the main side window on the dealership. He walked once around the car, then again, then bent to look in the side window.
As he rounded the car the second time, he saw a salesman, in the lighted room, pulling on a coat. Martin took the knife out of the sheath and put it in the right side pocket of his coat. Ten seconds later, the salesman, shoulders humped against the snow, trotted out to the car. His coat hung open, showing a rayon necktie.
``She's a beaut,'' he said, tipping his head at the car.
``You're Mr. Sherrill?'' asked Martin.
``Yeah, Mike Sherrill. Didn't we meet last week sometime?''
``Uh, no, not really... Listen, I can't see the mileage on this thing.''
Sherrill was in his mid-thirties, a onetime athlete now running to fat and whiskey. A web of broken veins hung at the edges of his twice-broken nose, and his once-thick Viking hair had thinned to a blond frizz. ``About fifty-five thousand actual. Let me pop the door for you.''
Sherrill skated around the car, used a gloved hand to quickly brush the snow off the windshield, then fumbled at the locked keybox on the door. Martin looked past him at the dealership. Another salesman stood briefly at the window, looking out at the snow, then turned away.
``Okay, here we go,'' Sherrill said. He got the key out of the keybox and unlocked the car door.
Martin didn't mess around, didn't wait for the better moment. He stood to one side as Sherrill opened the door. When Sherrill stepped back, he moved close against the other man,put one hand on his back, and with the other, delivered the killing thrust, a brutal upward sweep, like a solar plexus jab.
The knife took Sherrill just below the breastbone, angling up, through the heart.
Sherrill gasped once, wiggled, started to go down, his eyes open, surprised, looking at Martin. Martin guided his falling body onto the car seat. He pushed Sherrill's head down, caught Sherrill's thrashing legs and pushed them up and inside. Sherrill was upside down in the car, his feet over the front seat, his head hanging beneath the steering wheel. His eyes were open, glazing. He tried to say something, and a blood bubble came out of his mouth.
``Thanks,'' Martin said.
Martin pushed down the door lock, slammed the door and walked away. There was nobody in the dealership window to see him go.
BUTTERS WAITED UNTIL THE MAN IN THE WHITE SHIRT had a customer and the woman was free. He walked into the store, his hand on the silenced pistol. At the back of the store, near the door to the storeroom, was a display for DirecTV. He headed that way, and Elaine Kupicek followed. She was a nice-looking woman, Butters thought, for a cop's wife.
``Can I help you?'' She had a wide, mobile mouth and long skinny hands with short nails.
``I own a bar, down in St. Paul.''
``Sure...''
``If I put in DirecTV, would I be able to get, like, the Green Bay games, even when there's no broadcast over here?''
``Oh, sure. You can get all the games...''
The man in the white shirt had moved with his customer to a computer display, where they were talking intently about TV cards for a Windows 95 machine.
``We have a brochure that shows the options...''
Butters looked at her, then put the fingers of his left hand to his lips. She stopped suddenly in midsentence, puzzled, and then he took the.380 out of his left pocket and pointed it at her.
``If you scream, I'll shoot. I promise.''
``What...''
``Step in the back; this is a robbery.''
He prodded her toward the door. She stepped backward toward it, caught the knob with her hand and her mouth opened and Butters said, conversationally, ``Be quiet, please.''
She went through, her eyes looking past Butters, searching for the man in the white shirt, but Butters prodded her further into the room, and then closed the door behind them.
``Don't hurt me,'' she said.
``I won't. I want you to sit down over there... just turn over there.''
She turned to look at the chair next to a technician's desk: a brown paper lunch sack sat on the table, with a grease stain on one side. Her lunch sack, with a baloney sandwich and an orange. She stepped toward the desk and said, ``Please don't.''
``I won't,'' he promised, in his gentle southern accent. She turned back to the chair and when her head came around, he took the nine-millimeter out of the Velcroed flap in one swift, practiced motion, put it against the back of her head and pulled the trigger once.
Kupicek lurched forward and went down. Butters halfturned, and waited, listening. The shot had been as loud as a hand-clap, accompanied by the working of the bolt. Enough noise to attract attention in an ordinary room, but the door was closed.
He waited another two seconds, then stepped toward the door. Elaine Kupicek sprawled facedown, unmoving. Buttersput the pistol back in the Vel
croed flap, and the.380 decoy gun in his pocket.
When he opened the door, the man in the white shirt was still talking to the customer. Butters strolled out easily, hands in his pockets, got to the tiled corridor outside the store, looked both ways and then ambled off to the left.
LACHAISE CROSSED THE STREET IN THE SNOW, UP THE walk to the left-hand door of the town house. He carried the.44 in his right hand, and pushed the doorbell with his left. He stepped back, and a gust of snow hit him in the eyes. The gust came just as the door opened, and he wondered later if it was the snow in his eyes that was to blame...
A woman opened the inner door, then half-opened the storm door, a plain woman, half smiling: ``Yes?''
``Mrs. Capslock?''
``Yes?''
He was coming around with the gun when Del loomed behind her: a shock, the sudden movement, the face, then Del's mouth opening...
Capslock swatted his wife and she went sideways and down, and Capslock screamed something. LaChaise's gun, halfway up, went off when Capslock screamed, and Capslock's arm was coming up. LaChaise's gun went off again and then Capslock had a gun, short and black with the small hole coming around at LaChaise's eyes, and LaChaise slammed the storm door shut as Capslock fired. Splinters of aluminum sliced at LaChaise's face and he backed away, firing the Bulldog again, aware that the door was falling apart, more slugs coming through at him.
The muzzle flashes were blinding, the distance only feet, then yards, but he was still standing and Capslock was standing: and then he was running, running toward the truck, anda slug plucked at his coat and a finger of fire tore through his side...
DEL FIRED FIVE TIMES, CUTTING UP THE DOOR, SMASHING the glass, then stopped, turned to Cheryl, saw the blood on her neck, dropped next to her, saw the wound, and her eyes opened and she struggled and he rolled her onto her side and she took a long, harsh, rattling breath.
``Hold on, hold on,'' he screamed, and he ran back to the phone and dialed 911 and shouted into it-was told later that he shouted. He remembered himself talking coldly, quietly, and so he listened to the tape and heard himself screaming...
LACHAISE WAS BLEEDING.
He drove the truck, looking at himself in the rearview mirror. Shrapnel cuts on the face, agony in his side. He was holding his side with his hand, and when he looked at his hand, it was wet with blood. ``Motherfucker...'' he groaned.
A spasm of fear seized his heart. Was he dying? Was this how it would end, with this pain, in the snow?
A cop car went screaming past, lights blazing, then another, then an ambulance. Hit somebody, he thought, with a thread of satisfaction. God, it hurt...
The man must have been Capslock himself; and he was fast with a gun, blindingly fast. And what had he screamed? He'd screamed LaChaise...
So they knew.
LaChaise looked into the rearview mirror.
He was bleeding...
EIGHT
LUCAS WAS ON THE WEST SIDE OF MINNEAPOLIS, PUSHING the Explorer up an I-394 entrance ramp, when a dispatcher shouted, ``Somebody shot Capslock's wife,'' and a second later, Del patched through: ``LaChaise shot Cheryl.''
``What?'' Lucas was on the ramp, moving faster. To his right, an American flag as big as a bedsheet fluttered in the gloom. ``Say that again.''
``LaChaise shot Cheryl...'' From behind Del's voice, Lucas could hear a jumble of noise: voices, highway sounds, a siren. Del seemed to be out of breath, gasping at his radio.
``Where are you?'' Lucas asked.
``Ambulance. We're going into Hennepin.'' Now the words were tumbling out, like a coke-fired rap. ``I saw him, man. LaChaise. I shot at him. I don't know if I hit him or not. He's gone.''
``What about Cheryl?''
``She's hit, she's hit...'' Del was shouting; several words came through garbled, then he said, ``It's our wives, man; he's going after the families. Eye for an eye...''
Weather.
She'd be in the clinic, doing minor patch-up work on postop patients. The fear caught Lucas by the throat; Del said something else, but he missed it, and then Del was gone.
The dispatcher blurted, ``We lost him, he closed down.''
``I'm going to the U Hospitals. I want Sherrill, Franklin, Sloan and Kupicek on the line now ,'' Lucas said. He fumbled a cellular phone out of an armrest box and punched the speeddial button for Weather. A secretary answered, then transferred him to the clinic, where another secretary, bored, said Weather was busy with a patient.
``This is Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport of the Minneapolis Police Department and this is an emergency and I want her on the line immediately ,'' Lucas shouted. ``GET HER.''
Then Franklin came back through Dispatch: he was in the office.
``Get your wife and kid and go someplace until we know what's happening,'' Lucas said.
``The kid's in school...''
``Just get them,'' Lucas said. ``Have you seen Sloan?''
``I think I just saw him goin' in the can...''
``Tell him. Get his wife, get out someplace. Anywhere. Get lost, but stay in touch...''
``You think...'' ``
Move it , goddamnit.'' Lucas was stomping the gas pedal, trying to get more speed out of the Explorer.
Weather came up: ``I'm on my way there,'' Lucas said. He took fifteen seconds to tell her what had happened: ``Get out of the clinic and stay away from your office,'' he said. ``Tell the secretary where you'll be. I'll stop and see her when I get there.''
``Lucas, I've got things to do, I've got a guy with a skin cancer...''
``Fuck the clinic,'' he snapped, his voice a rasp. ``Gosomeplace where you're not supposed to be, and wait there. If the guy comes after you, he might start killing your patients, too. Everybody can wait an hour or two.''
``Lucas...''
``I don't have time to chat, goddamnit, just do it.'' He cut off a white-haired guy in a red Chevy Tahoe and could see the guy pounding the steering wheel as he went by.
Sherrill was working an ag assault in a bar off Hennepin, drunk college kids beating a black guy with bar stools until he stopped moving. He still wasn't moving, but he wasn't quite dead, either. Sherrill called, and Lucas gave her the word on Del.
``Oh, my God, I'm going over there,'' she said.
``No. Call Mike, tell him to take a walk. Tell him to go sit in a restaurant until you get to him. We want everybody where they shouldn't be until we figure out what's going on.''
Dispatch came back: ``Del hit LaChaise-there's blood on the sidewalk, going out to where a truck was parked. All the hospitals know, we're covering the emergency rooms...''
Kupicek came up. He and his kid were at a peewee hockey match. ``Call your wife, you all go out to eat somewhere on the department, catch a movie,'' Lucas said. ``Check with me before you go home. Look in your rearview mirror, stay on the radio.''
``How's Del's wife?'' Kupicek asked.
``I don't know: we've got people on the way to Hennepin.''
``Keep me tuned, dude,'' Kupicek said.
Thirty seconds later, the dispatcher came back, and asked Lucas to switch over to a scrambled command frequency. ``What?'' he asked.
``Oh, God.'' The dispatcher sounded as though she were weeping, a sound Lucas hadn't heard from Dispatch. ``
Roseville called: Danny's wife's been shot. She's dead. In the store at Rosedale.''
Lucas felt the anger rising, building toward a black frenzy: ``Don't put this on the air, don't tell anyone outside the center... when did this happen?'' ``The call came in at five-seventeen, but they think she might have been shot about five-twelve.''
``When was Del?''
``About five-fifteen.''
So there had to be more than one shooter. How many?
``Who'll tell Danny?'' the dispatcher asked.
``I will,'' Lucas said. ``Does Rose Marie know?''
``Lucy's on the way to her office.''
Lucas called Kupicek back. ``Danny, where are you?''
``Hennepin and Lake. Looking for a phone.''
``Yeah.''
``Light it up and get it in there...''
``I got the kid.''
``Bring him: he'll be okay.''