Secret Prey

  If they came while it was dark, maybe I could run, hide. But maybe, if they thought I was a deer, they’d shoot at me. What then? No. If someone comes, I take the shot then, whoever it is. Two shots are okay. I can take two. It wouldn’t look like an accident anymore, but at least there wouldn’t be a witness.

  What’s that? Who’s there? Somebody?

  The killer sat in the hole and strained to hear: but the only sounds were the dry leaves that still hung from the trees, shaking in the wind; the scraping of branches; and the cool wind itself. Check the watch.

  Getting close, now. Nobody moving, I’m okay. Cold down here, though. Colder than I thought. Have to be ready . . . The old man . . . have to think about the old man. If he’s there, at the cabin, I’ll have to take him. And if his wife’s there, have to take her . . . That’s okay: they’re old . . . Still nothing in the scope. Where’s the sun?

  DANIEL S. KRESGE WAS THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, president, and chief executive officer of the Polaris Bank System. He’d gathered the titles to him like an archaic old Soviet dictator. And he ran his regime like a dictator: two hundred and fifty banks spread across six midwestern states, all wrapped in his cost-cutting fist.

  If everything went exactly right, he would hold his job for another fifteen months, when Polaris would be folded into Midland Holding, owner of six hundred banks in the south central states. There would be some casualties.

  The combined banks’ central administration would be in Fort Worth. Not many Polaris executives would make the move. In fact, the whole central administrative section would eventually disappear, along with much of top management. Bone would probably land on his feet: his investments division was one of the main profit centers at Polaris, and he’d attracted some attention. O’Dell ran the retail end of Polaris. Midland would need somebody who knew the territory, at least for a while, so she could wind up as the number two or three person in Midland’s retail division. She wouldn’t like that. Would she take it? Kresge was not sure.

  Robles would hang on for a while: a pure technician, he ran data services for Polaris, and Midland would need him to help integrate the separate Polaris and Midland data systems.

  McDonald was dead meat. Mortgage divisions didn’t make much anymore, and Midland already had a mortgage division—which they were trying to dump, as it happened.

  Kresge turned the thought of the casualties in his head: when they actually started working on the details of the merger, he’d have to sweeten things for the Polaris execs who’d be putting the parts together, and the people Midland would need: Robles, for sure. Probably O’Dell and Bone.

  McDonald? Fuck him.

  KRESGE WOULD LOSE HIS JOB ALONG WITH THE REST. Unlike the others, he’d walk with something in the range of an after-tax forty million dollars. And he’d be free.

  In two weeks, Kresge would sit in a courtroom and solemnly swear that his marriage was irretrievably broken. His wife had agreed not to seek alimony. In return for that concession, she’d demanded—and he’d agreed to give her— better than seventy-five percent of their joint assets. Eight million dollars. Letting go of the eight million had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done. But it was worth it: there’d be no strings on him.

  When she’d signed the deal, neither his wife nor her wolverine attorney had understood what the then-brewing merger might mean. No idea that there’d be a golden parachute for the chairman. And his ex wouldn’t get a nickel of the new money. He smiled as he thought about it. She’d hired the wolverine specifically to fuck him on the settlement, and thought she had. Wait’ll the word got into the newspapers about his settlement. And it would get in the newspapers.

  Fuck her.

  Forty million. He knew what he’d do with it. He’d leave the Twin Cities behind, first thing. He was tired of the cold. Move out to L.A. Buy some suits. Maybe one of those BMW two-seaters, the 850. He’d been a good, gray Minnesota banker all of his life. Now he’d take his money to L.A. and live a little. He closed his eyes and thought about what you could do with forty million dollars in the city of angels. Hell, the women alone . . .

  KRESGE OPENED HIS EYES AGAIN WITH A SUDDEN awareness of the increasing cold: shivered and carefully shook the stiffness out. Looking to the east, back toward the cabin, he could see an unmistakable streak of lighter sky. There was a ruffling of leaves to his right, a steady trampling sound. Another deer went by, a shadow in the semidark as the animal picked its way through a border of finger-thick alders at the fringe of the swamp. No antlers that he could see. He watched until the deer disappeared into the tamarack.

  He picked up the rifle then, resisted the temptation to work the bolt, to check that the rifle was loaded. He knew it was, and working the bolt would be noisy. He flicked the safety off, then back on.

  The last few minutes crawled by. Ten minutes before the season opened, the forest was still gray to the eye; in the next few minutes, it seemed to grow miraculously brighter. Then he heard a single, distant shot: nobody here on the farm.

  Another shot followed a minute later, then two or three shots over the next couple of minutes: hunters jumping the gun. He glanced at his watch. Two minutes. Nothing moving out over the swamp.

  • • •

  THROUGH THE SCOPE, THE TARGET LOOKED LIKE AN oversized pumpkin, fifteen or twenty feet up the tree. His body from the hips down was out of sight, as was his right arm. The killer could see a large part of his back, but not the face. The crosshairs of the low-power scope caressed the target’s spine, and the killer’s finger lay lightly on the trigger.

  Gotta be him. Damn this light, can’t see. Turn your head. Come on, turn your head. Look at me. Have to do something, sun’s getting up, have to do something. Look at me. There we go! Keep turning, keep turning . . .

  THIRTY SECONDS BEFORE THE SEASON OPENED, THE crackle of gunfire became general. Nothing too close, though, Kresge thought. Either the other guys were holding off, or nothing was moving beneath them.

  What about the deer that had settled off to his left?

  He turned on the bench, moving slowly, carefully, and looked that way. In the last few seconds of his life, Daniel S. Kresge first saw the blaze-orange jacket, then the face. He recognized the killer and thought, What the hell?

  Then the face moved down and he realized that the dark circle below the hood was the objective end of the scope and the scope was pointed his way, so the barrel . . . ah, Jesus.

  JESUS WENT THROUGH KRESGE’S MIND AT THE SAME instant the bullet punched through his heart.

  The chairman of the board spun off the bench—feeling no pain, feeling nothing at all—his rifle falling to the ground. He knelt for a moment at the railing, like a man taking communion; then his back buckled and he fell under the railing, after the rifle.

  He saw the ground coming, in a foggy way, hit it face first, with a thump, and his neck broke. He bounced onto his back, his eyes still open: the brightening sky was gone. He never felt the hand that probed for his carotid artery, looking for a pulse.

  He would lie there for a while, head downhill, would Daniel S. Kresge, a hole in his chest, with a mouth full of dirt and oak leaves. Nobody would run to see what the gunshot was about. There would be no calls to 911. No snoops. Just another day on the hunt.

  A real bad day for the chairman of the board.

  TWO

  LOOKING AS THOUGH HE’D BEEN DRAGGED through hell by the ankles, a disheveled Del Capslock stumbled out of the men’s room in the basement of City Hall, fumbling with the buttons on the fly of his jeans. Footsteps echoed in the dark hallway behind him, and he turned his head to see Sloan coming through the gloom, a thin smile on his narrow face.

  ‘‘Playing with yourself,’’ Sloan said, his voice echoing in the weekend emptiness. Sloan was neatly but colorlessly dressed in khaki slacks and a tan mountain parka with a zip-in fleece liner. ‘‘I should have expected it; I knew you were a pervert. I just didn’t know you had enough to play with.’’

  ‘‘The old
lady bought me these Calvin Kleins,’’ Dell said, hitching up the jeans. ‘‘They got buttons instead of zippers.’’

  ‘‘The theory of buttons is very simple,’’ Sloan began. ‘‘You take the round, flat thing . . .’’

  ‘‘Yeah, fuck you,’’ Del said. ‘‘The thing is, Calvin makes pants for fat guys. These supposedly got a thirtyfour waist. They’re really about thirty-eight. I can’t get them buttoned, and when I do, I can’t keep the fuckin’ things up.’’

  ‘‘Yeah?’’ Sloan wasn’t interested. His eyes drifted down the hall as Del continued to struggle with the buttons. ‘‘Seen Lucas?’’

  ‘‘No.’’ Del got one of the buttons. ‘‘See, the advantage of buttons is, you don’t get your dick caught in a zipper.’’

  ‘‘Okay, if you don’t get it caught in a buttonhole.’’ Del started to laugh, which made it harder to button the pants, and he said, ‘‘Shut up. I only got one more . . . maybe you could give me a hand here.’’

  ‘‘I don’t think so; it’s too nice a day to get busted for aggravated faggotry.’’

  ‘‘You can always tell who your friends are,’’ Del grumbled. ‘‘What’s going on with Lucas?’’ He got the fly buttoned finally and they started up the stairs toward Lucas’s new first-floor office.

  ‘‘Fat cat got killed,’’ Sloan said. ‘‘Dan Kresge, from over at Polaris Bank.’’

  ‘‘Never heard of him.’’

  ‘‘You heard of Polaris Bank?’’

  ‘‘Yeah. That’s the big black-glass one.’’

  ‘‘He runs it. Or did, until somebody shot his ass up in Garfield County. The sheriff called Rose Marie, who called Lucas, and Lucas called me to ride along.’’

  ‘‘Just friends, or overtime?’’

  ‘‘I’m putting in for it,’’ Sloan said comfortably. He had a daughter in college; nothing was ever said, but Davenport had been arranging easy overtime for him. ‘‘Great day for it—though the colors are mostly gone. From the trees, I mean.’’

  ‘‘Fuck trees. Kresge . . . it’s a murder?’’

  ‘‘Don’t know yet,’’ Sloan said. ‘‘This is opening day of deer season. He was shot out of a tree stand.’’

  ‘‘If I was gonna kill somebody, I might do it that way,’’ Del said.

  ‘‘Yeah. Everybody says that.’’ Davenport’s office was empty, but unlocked. ‘‘Rose Marie’s in,’’ Sloan said as they went inside. ‘‘Lucas said if he wasn’t here, just wait.’’

  • • •

  AS LUCAS STOOD UP TO LEAVE, HE ASKED ROSE MARIE

  Roux, the chief of police, why she didn’t do something simple, like use the Patch.

  ‘‘ ’Cause I’d have to put patches all over my body to get enough nicotine. I’d have to put them on the bottom of my feet.’’

  She was on day three, and was chewing her way through a pack of nicotine gum. Lucas picked up his jacket, grinned faintly, and said, ‘‘A little speed might help. You get the buzz, but not the nicotine.’’

  ‘‘Great idea, get me hooked on speed,’’ Roux said. ‘‘Course, I’d probably lose weight. I’m gonna gain nine hundred pounds if I don’t do something.’’ She leaned across her desk, a woman already too heavy, getting her taste buds back from Marlboro Country. ‘‘Listen, call me back and tell me as soon as you get there. And I want you to tell me it’s an accident. I don’t want to hear any murder bullshit.’’

  ‘‘I’ll do what I can,’’ Lucas said. He stepped toward the door.

  ‘‘Are you all right?’’ Roux asked.

  ‘‘No.’’ He stopped and half turned.

  ‘‘I’m worried about you. You sit around with a cloud over your head.’’

  ‘‘I’m getting stuff done . . .’’

  ‘‘I’m not worried about that—I’m worried about you ,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ve had the problem—you know that. I’ve been through it three times, now, and doctors help. A lot.’’

  ‘‘I’m not sure it’s coming back,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I haven’t tipped over the edge yet. I can still . . . stop things.’’

  ‘‘All right,’’ Roux said, nodding skeptically. ‘‘But if you need the name of a doc, mine’s a good guy.’’

  ‘‘Thanks.’’ Lucas closed her office door as he left and turned down the hall, by himself, suddenly gone morose. He didn’t like to think about the depression that hovered at the edge of his consciousness. The thing was like some kind of rodent, like a rat, nibbling on his brain.

  He wouldn’t go through it again. A doctor, maybe; and maybe not. But he wouldn’t go through it again.

  DEL SAT IN ONE OF LUCAS’S VISITOR’S CHAIRS, ONE foot on Lucas’s desk, blew smoke at the ceiling and said, ‘‘So what’re you suggesting? We send him a fruitcake?’’

  Lucas’s office smelled of new carpet and paint, and looked out on Fourth Street; a great fall day, crisp, blue skies, young blond women with rosy cheeks and long fuzzy coats heading down the street with their boyfriends, toward the Metrodome and a University of Minnesota football game.

  Sloan, who was sitting in Davenport’s swivel chair, said, ‘‘The guy’s hurting. We could . . . I don’t know. Go out with him. Keep him busy at night.’’

  Del groaned. ‘‘Right. We get our wives, we go out to eat. We talk the same bullshit we talk at the office all day, because we can’t talk about Weather. Then we finish eating and go home with our old ladies. He goes home and sits in the dark with his dick in his hand.’’

  ‘‘So what’re you saying?’’ Sloan demanded.

  ‘‘What I’m saying is that he’s all alone, and that’s the fuckin’ problem . . .’’ Then Del lifted a finger to his lips and dropped his voice. ‘‘He’s coming.’’

  LUCAS STEPPED INTO THE OFFICE A MOMENT LATER, with the feeling he’d entered a sudden silence. He’d felt that a lot, lately.

  Lucas was a tall man, hard-faced, broad-shouldered, showing the remnants of a summer tan. A thin line of a scar dropped through one eyebrow onto a cheek, like a piece of fishing line. Another scar slashed across his throat, where a friend had done a tracheotomy with a jackknife.

  His hair was dark, touched by the first few flecks of gray, and his eyes were an unexpectedly intense blue. He was wearing a black silk sweatshirt showing the collar of a French-blue shirt beneath it, jeans, and a .45 in an insidethepants rig. He carried a leather jacket.

  He nodded at Del, and to Sloan said, ‘‘Get out of my chair or I’ll kill you.’’

  Sloan yawned, then eased out of the chair. ‘‘You get your jeans dry-cleaned?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘What?’’ Lucas looked down at his jeans.

  ‘‘They look so crisp,’’ Sloan said. ‘‘They almost got a crease. When I wear jeans, I look like I’m gonna paint something.’’

  ‘‘When you wear a tuxedo, you look like you’re gonna paint something,’’ Del said.

  ‘‘Mr. Fashion Plate speaking,’’ Sloan said.

  Del was already wearing his winter parka, olive drab with an East German army patch on one shoulder, an Eat More Muffin sweatshirt, fire-engine-red sneaks with holes over the joints of his big toes, through which were visible thin black dress socks—Del had bunion problems—and the oversized Calvin Kleins. ‘‘Fuck you,’’ he said.

  ‘‘So what’s happening?’’ Lucas asked, looking at Del. He circled behind the desk and dropped into the chair vacated by Sloan. He turned a yellow legal pad around, glanced at it, ripped off the top sheet and wadded the paper in his fist.

  ‘‘We’re trying to figure how to snap you out of it,’’ Del said bluntly.

  Lucas looked up, then shrugged. ‘‘Nothing to do.’’

  ‘‘Weather’s coming back,’’ Sloan said. ‘‘She’s got too much sense to stay away.’’

  Lucas shook his head. ‘‘She’s not coming back, and it doesn’t have anything to do with good sense.’’

  ‘‘You guys are so fucked,’’ Del said.

  ‘‘You say ‘fuck’ way too much,’’ Sloan
said.

  ‘‘Hey, fuck you, pal,’’ Del said, joking, but with an edge in his voice.

  Lucas cut it off: ‘‘Ready to go, Sloan?’’

  Sloan nodded. ‘‘Yeah.’’

  Lucas looked at Del: ‘‘What’re you doing here?’’

  ‘‘Seeking guidance from my superiors,’’ Del said. ‘‘I’ve got an opium ring with fifty-seven members spread all over Minneapolis and the western suburbs, especially the rich ones like Edina and Wayzata. One or two in St. Paul. Grow the stuff right here. Process it. Use it themselves—maybe sell a little.’’

  Lucas frowned. ‘‘How solid?’’

  ‘‘Absolutely solid.’’

  ‘‘So tell me.’’ Lucas poked a finger at Del. ‘‘Wait a minute . . . you’re not telling me that fuckin’ Genesse is back? I thought he was gone for fifteen.’’

  Del was shaking his head: ‘‘Nah.’’

  ‘‘So . . .’’

  ‘‘It’s fifty-seven old ladies in the Mountbatten Garden Club,’’ Del said. ‘‘I got the club list.’’

  Sloan and Lucas looked at each other; then Sloan said, ‘‘What?’’

  And Lucas asked, ‘‘Where’d you get the list?’’

  ‘‘From an old lady,’’ Del said. ‘‘There being nothing but old ladies in the club.’’

  ‘‘What the hell are you talking about?’’ Lucas asked.

  ‘‘When I went over to Hennepin to get my finger sewed up after the pinking shears thing, this doc told me he’d treated this old-lady junkie. She was coming down from the opium, but she thought she had the flu or something. It turns out they’ve been growing poppies for years. The whole club. They collect the heads at the end of the summer and make tea. Opium tea. A bunch of them are fairly well hooked, brewing up three or four times a day.’’

  Lucas rubbed his forehead. ‘‘Del . . .’’

  ‘‘What?’’ Del looked at Sloan, defensively. ‘‘What? Should I ignore it?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Where’re they getting the seeds?’’