Wicked Prey

by John Sandford

  Five minutes gone, she pulled on a hairnet and gloves and walked over to his truck and took the key out of her pocket and popped the back hatch on his topper, crawled inside and pulled it down. He'd thrown a plastic sheet over the gear inside, and she pulled it back, spotted the olive drab army-surplus ammo boxes. There were three of them, and she popped the lid on the lightest one and found it half-full of empty.50-caliber shells. She took four, crawled back out of the truck, locked it, and went back to her car.

  Looked up at the room: the dummy was still sitting there, she thought, staring at the phone, waiting for Bill. But Bill wasn't making any phone calls to hotels in Minnesota: Bill was in jail in Portland, Oregon.

  ***

  Cohn, Lane, and McCall had each driven separately to the hotel, positioning the cars for trouble. If the cops got a call about three guys doing a stickup, and saw a car with three guys in it, they might pull a traffic stop to take a peek. If there was no trouble, and they all left separately, they had an extra inch of safety.

  The night was warm and starlit, quiet in Hudson, but with traffic building into Minneapolis. At the hotel, Cohn circled the block a half-dozen times, saw Lane's car ahead of him, saw Lane spot a car backing out of its parking place, circled a couple more times, saw a movement, pulled in smoothly, got the space. McCall would have gone to the parking ramp, the other emergency car. The scene was just as Cruz said it would be, people coming and going around the hotel. He walked a block back, could hear cheering in the distance- some political thing in Loring Park, he thought-and turned down the alley toward the hotel's loading dock. McCall was already crossing the dock, Lane behind him. Cohn took a last look around.

  This was a danger point-if, for some reason, a cop car went past the mouth of the alley, saw him, and the cop got curious, Cohn was there with a mask and a gun, and that would be hard to explain.

  So he'd kill the cop. He'd killed a cop in Houston one time, and never thought about it anymore. Bad luck, for him and especially for the cop. No animus involved. Some black guy went to death row for the killing-more bad luck for the black guy.

  Lane and McCall were inside. There were five concrete steps up to the dock, nothing on the dock but a metal Dumpster, two steel doors where deliveries would go in, and a steel door to the left, open just an inch. He walked through it and found Lane and McCall at the bottom of the stairs, their masks in their hands.

  "Ready?" He pulled his mask out, slipped it over his head.

  McCall said, "All set," but there was tension in his voice. He tended to get more and more stressed until the action began, and then he was fine. He added, "Car's right where we planned: back of the third floor."

  Pulled on the latex gloves. Adrenaline starting to flow with all of them now, Cohn could hear them breathing in the enclosed concrete stairwell, as if they'd already climbed the stairs. McCall was wearing the tux and red shirt, his mask rolled on top of his head like a watch cap, an empty FedEx envelope in his hand.

  "Ready," McCall said. Lane nodded.

  They were fast going up the stairs, their footfalls echoing off the multiple concrete walls that went up nine stories, the smell of raw cement pushing through their masks. They stopped at the door with the red-painted "5" on it, listening. McCall stepped out into the hallway, one hand to his face, like he had a headache. The hall was empty and he pulled the mask most of the way down. He could see the smoked-glass camera dome halfway down the hall. Film only, Cruz had said; no live monitoring.

  She'd better be right. But of course she was.

  Room 505 was nearly at the front of the hotel and they had to move a long way down the hallway, not quite at a run; found it, knocked with a car key. Felt a vibration from inside.

  "Somebody's coming," McCall muttered. Cohn stood between McCall and the camera, and McCall rolled up his mask. From inside, "Yes?"

  "FedEx," McCall said. He held up the envelope, so it could be seen through the peephole.

  "Just a minute." The door rattled and popped open and McCall turned his face away as a short bald guy in suit pants and a blue dress shirt opened the door, and Cohn was on top of him, flashing the gun, hit him squarely in the center of the chest with his good right hand and the short guy went down and the door banged shut and a young woman in a burgundy dress, sitting on a couch with a carton of chocolate milk, yelped and looked like she was about to scream and she lifted her feet off the floor and Lane was there and he batted the milk away from her like a T-ball, and it splattered across her face and across the curtains and McCall landed on the short man's chest, and hit him once in the face with his fist, breaking the short man's nose, and the woman yelped again and screeched, "Don't do that." Lane put his face six inches from hers and yelled, "Shut the fuck up, bitch," and she shut up, but whimpered, and he swatted her in the face and she went down on the couch, bounced, and rolled off on the floor, losing her shoes.

  The short man was stunned and crying and holding the heels of both hands to his nose and Cohn put the gun three inches from his forehead and asked, "Where's the money?" and before the short man could answer, he started counting down seconds: "Five, four," and he pulled the hammer back on the pistol.

  The woman blurted, "Behind the bed." McCall went to look behind the bed, but she said, "Not that bed-in the next room," and she began weeping. There was a connecting door and McCall peeked through, and then went through, and a minute later he was back with a suitcase.

  Lane was inches from the woman, who was supine on the floor, her side against the front of the couch, and he laughed and said, "Boys, if we got time, I'd like to get a piece of this one," and he reached out and ripped down the front of her dress. She cowered away and Cohn said, almost absently, "Don't have time for a fuck," and Lane said, "She could suck it while we wait'" He pressed the muzzle of his gun against her head and said, "Bet you sucked a little dick in your time, huh, honey?"

  McCall was unzipping the suitcase and he said, "Don't have time for that. We could take her with us, though. Get back to the crib, get her airtight, and when we're done, we could rent her pussy out. Make even more money."

  The short guy said, "Please don't hurt her," and Cohn snapped and kicked him in the ribs and said, "Say what, fool? Say what? You talking to us? We wanna fuck this bitch up every hole she's got, that's what we'll do, fool."

  The short guy groaned and rolled away and Cohn kicked him twice more, and McCall looked in the suitcase and said, "Holy shit," because he'd pulled out two shirts and had found layers and layers of fifty-dollar bills, bound together with rubber bands.

  Cohn said, "Let's go. Jim, we'll be five minutes. You wanna stick your dick in her mouth, you better get off in five minutes, because we're outa here in five."

  Then Cohn and McCall were in the hallway and as the door closed, they heard Lane say, "You got a pretty little mouth, missus," and Cohn said as they were going down the hall, "The dumb shit got that out of that hillbilly movie."

  McCall said, "I felt a little sorry for her. She looked nice."

  Cohn nodded and said, "You do what you gotta do, and she's gotta be scared to death."

  McCall said, "One thing: Rosie's information was right on."

  Cohn chuckled. "Good thing for us."

  ***

  They went down a flight to 431 and did it all over: but when they kicked the door, a fifty-something, tubby, pasty-faced man with a beard staggered back across the room, and before Cohn could get to him, lifted his hands over his head and said, "Ah, shit. It's behind the bed."

  Cohn stopped dead, then reached out and patted the man on the face. "Smart guy."

  McCall fished another suitcase from behind the bed, looked into it, and said, "Better and better."

  "I knew this was gonna happen someday," the bearded man said. "I told them."

  Cohn had been pointing a gun at the man's head, but the fat man, seeming unconcerned, carefully sidled away, and reached out and picked up a glass of scotch.

  Cohn said, "Don't call for help for a couple of minutes.
If the cops come down on top of us, and I've got to run, I'll call my brother on my cell phone and read him your name and address and he'll come to your house and cut the heads off anybody he finds there. You understand that?"

  "They won't find anybody-I've been divorced so many times I rent the furniture," the man said. "Anyway, I don't want to get my head cut off. I'll give you five minutes."

  "Even better," Cohn said.

  "I told them it was going to happen. Too much money floating around," the man said.

  Cohn was backing toward the door. "Five minutes."

  The bearded guy said, "Take one of my business cards."

  Cohn glanced at McCall, who shrugged. "What?"

  "Take one of my business cards. Give me a call once in a while," he said. "You know, couple years from now. A few weeks before the midterm congressionals."

  "Why would I do that?" Cohn asked.

  The guy spread his hands, rattled the ice cubes in the scotch glass. "Because there's a lot more money than this going around. I know where it is and who's got it, from time to time. I'd want' a third?"

  Cohn looked at him for a moment, then said, "Where's the business card?"

  "On the table," the guy said.

  Cohn stepped over, saw them in a desktop card dispenser. He took a couple, slipped them in his pocket. "I might call."

  "I'll keep my eyes open," the guy said.

  "You do that," Cohn said. To McCall: "How much money we got in there?"

  "Shit, I can't tell. It's stuffed. Fifties and hundreds, just like the other one. All used."

  Cohn nodded, then got on his cell phone and called Lane: "G."

  He put his phone away, stepped away from the bearded man, then lashed out, hitting the man on the cheekbone below his left eye. The man went down, and then crawled, on his elbows, saying, "Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus," and then rolled over and looked up, frightened now. The blow had cut open his cheek, and he was bleeding heavily.

  Cohn went over to the bag, where he took out as many bundles of cash as he could span in one hand. He knelt next to the bearded man and said, "Sorry-it won't hurt for long. Need the verisimilitude, you know ' There's gotta be fifty thousand in this little pile." He dropped it on the guy's chest. "It's yours. Give it to somebody you trust before you call the cops. Or hide it where they won't look. Maybe in two years, get a real payday, huh?"

  He patted the man on the leg, and they left: down the hall, down the stairs, where they met Lane on the way down, out on the street, down to the cars.

  As they walked along, Lane said, "I scared the shit out of them." He laughed, a low growl that went huh-huh-huh. "When you left, the little asshole started running his mouth, about how all the cops would be looking out for us, because of how important he is. I picked him up by his shirt and shook him like a baby."

  "Didn't hurt him too bad?" Cohn asked.

  "No, no. I was careful. He's bleeding, he's gonna have so many bruises he'll look like he's been in a car wreck, but he's not hurt."

  "How about the Nazi signs?" McCall asked.

  "The chick saw them-I saw her looking at them," Lane said. "Some poor sonofabitch cop is going to spend the next week with his nose in the tattoo files."

  Cohn nodded. "Good." And it was good: he had a competent crew.

  ***

  At the motel, they were like ballplayers after a big win, knuckle-bumping each other and laughing, reliving it; even Cruz, when she showed up, got into it. Then they dumped the money on the bed and started counting: it was all fifties and hundreds, all used, nonsequential, and showed nothing under a black light. Counting took the best part of a half hour, with all of them at it, ten-thousand-dollar bundles, wrapped with rubber bands.

  When they finished, Cohn counted the bundles: "One forty-one, one forty-two, one forty-three ' and a half."

  Cruz said, "One million, four hundred and thirty thousand, and a half."

  "Good one," Lane said.

  McCall gave Cruz a squeeze: "You da man."

  Chapter 6

  In the years they'd been married, the telephone rang in the bedroom once too often, so they finally took it out. At five o'clock Sunday morning, when the phone started ringing, Lucas had been asleep for four hours. Because of the convention, he got up and staggered out through the living room to the nearest portable and looked at the caller ID. Nothing but a number, but he recognized the number. "Yeah."

  "Can you come down to my office?"

  "Right now?"

  "That'd be good."

  "Half hour?"

  "Okay."

  ***

  Who was that?" Weather asked. Sunday was her day to sleep in.

  "Neil Mitford." Mitford was Governor Elmer Henderson's executive assistant, chief weasel, confidant, fixer, and maybe bagman. He'd been in Washington for the fight over the Homeland Security arrests.

  "What'd he want?"

  "Dunno," Lucas said.

  She went back to sleep and Lucas stared in the bathroom mirror for a couple of minutes, trying to get his eyes open, then shaved, brushed his teeth, stood in the shower and let hot water beat on the back of his neck. Toweled off, he got dressed: jeans, a blue T-shirt, walking shoes, sport coat, Colt Gold Cup.45. On the way out, he remembered the convention credentials, got them off the dresser, slipped them into his pocket with his ID. The cameras were still in the car.

  Feeling tired, but not bad; and the morning was perfect, cool, crisp. August was Minnesota's most perfect month, and this was the final day of it. September might be fine, too, but not perfect. Sometimes, they saw snowflakes in September.

  He rolled the Porsche out of the garage, yawned, headed through the quiet city streets out to I-35Every, the car's exhaust burbling along, north to the Capitol. When he got there, he took a lap around it, to see what was going on, if anything. A speaker's shell had been set up on the Capitol lawn, for an antiwar rally later in the day. A few people in message T-shirts were wandering around, two of them smoking, and a kid was going through a garbage can, looking for something to eat. He drove back up the hill, parked in the state garage behind the Capitol and walked down to the building, flashed his ID at a Capitol guard, and continued up to Mitford's broom closet office. He knocked, tried the door, but it was locked, and he heard Mitford call, "Hang on."

  "It's Lucas."

  Mitford came to the door buttoning his pants, the belt undone. He was in a day-old undershirt and stocking feet, unshaven, beat up. He said, "Come on in," his voice creaking. He looked up and down the hall, then closed the door and locked it. A blanket lay on the floor next to the couch; he'd been asleep. "Got a big problem," he said.

  Lucas nodded: "Yeah, I guess. It's not even six o'clock."

  "I've been up all night'" Mitford walked around his desk and sprawled in his chair, pointed Lucas at the visitor's chair. "A hurricane is coming into New Orleans, probably going to flatten the place again. McCain may not come, the president and vice president have canceled, the whole thing is going up in smoke."

  "Plus they're already pissed at your boss."

  "There's that, but that's a good thing," Mitford said.

  "So…"

  "So three people got robbed at gunpoint in the High Hat last night," he said. "One of them's still in the hospital, one's a woman, she's still freaking out because the robbers threatened to take her with them, supposedly to gang-bang. The Minneapolis cops have all the information, but I want you to talk to them."

  "How much did they get?" Lucas asked.

  Mitford held up a finger. "They were violent, intimidating. Hats and masks and gloves. One white guy, one black, one undetermined- the white guy had swastikas tattooed on his wrists. In and out, and gone."

  "How much?"

  "Not much ' a few hundred dollars ' four-fifty, maybe."

  Lucas waited for the rest of it. Mitford didn't call him in for a four-hundred-and-fifty-dollar armed robbery.

  Mitford didn't get the reaction he expected, so he said, "Listen, you've been around. Political campaigns tak
e all kinds of donations. Some of them, people don't want to know about. They tend to be in cash, for street-workers, canvassers…"

  "Vote buyers…"

  "Whatever," Mitford said. "But we don't really buy votes-it'd cost too much."

  "How much?"

  "I'm not sure exactly," he said. "I'd guess ' a million-two? A million-five? Depending on how much they'd already moved."

  "In cash?"

  "Mmm'"

  "Small, used, unmarked bills?" Lucas asked. Of course they would be.

  "Mmm. In Philly they call it street money."

  "So what's the problem? Put the cops on it," Lucas said. "Hell, it's a bunch of Republicans. If the news leaks…"

  "Nice thought, but I'm afraid that some of the people with, you know, this kind of cash, uh, might have been in Denver a couple weeks ago," Mitford said. The Democratic convention had been in Denver.

  "Ah, man."

  "And these guys can't really talk about it," Mitford said. He was all but wringing his hands. "Somebody, you know, could point out that moving this much money around might constitute some kind of infraction."

  "Infraction? They'd be on their way to Club Fed if the word got out," Lucas said.

  "Maybe. So they won't complain, they won't talk, they won't say anything to anybody they haven't been ' reassured about," Mitford said. "They filed robbery reports to cover themselves with their bosses, so nobody would think they skipped with the cash. One of the guys really got the shit beat out of him. But they won't talk."

  "So, if they won't complain ' that's life," Lucas said.

  "The problem is, there's probably twenty guys like this in town," Mitford said. "The robbers knew exactly where to hit, where to go ' one of them was wearing a High Hat room-service uniform."

  "You think they'll do more?"