Phantom Prey by John Sandford Read Free Book Online Page B

Lucas said. He propped himself on an empty desk. "He's squeezing me to talk to a couple of people. I don't want to step on your toes."
    "No skin off my butt," Anson said, yawning and stretching. "You oughta mention it to Whistler."
    Whistler was the lieutenant in charge of homicide.
    "I called him, he said it's no skin off his butt, but I should run it past you," Lucas said.
    Anson shrugged: "So--no butt skin. Welcome to the big time. We copied everything over to Jim Benson."
    "I took a look at it," Lucas said. "He's dead in the water, on Austin. He's not even sure the kid is dead."
    "She's dead," Anson said flatly. "You only think she's not dead if you think about it too much."
    Lucas agreed. Frances Austin was dead. "You guys got nothing on Ford?"
    "We're not oversupplied with clues," Anson agreed. "We're still talking."
    "I'm going to talk behind you," Lucas said, pushing off the desk. "If I get anything, I'll give you a call."
    "Do that," Anson said. "Listen, how much do you think Benson makes over there?"
    "I don't know. Maybe seventy-five in an average year," Lucas said.
    "Yeah? He doesn't seem like the sharpest knife in the dishwasher."
    "He's okay," Lucas said.
    "So what would a guy have to do . . . ?"
    They bullshitted about job openings for a while. Anson was coming up on twenty-two years with Minneapolis and was looking to double - dip on a pension. "Unfortunately, my only expertise is in street proctology."
    Macy's was a ten-minute walk from homicide, through the underground tunnel to the government center, up to the Skyways, and through the maze of bridges and hallways to the heart of the shopping district. Lucas stopped and bought an ice-cream cone, stopped again to talk to a couple of uniforms who were frog-marching a shoplifter down to a squad car.
    The shoplifter was dressed exactly like a movie shoplifter, in wrinkled gray-cotton slacks and stained parka, set off with a five-day beard and fuzzy, aging Rasta braids. Half-hanging from the arms of the cops, who were wearing yellow rubber gloves, he said, "Hey . . . Davenport."
    "That you, Louis?" Louis didn't look so good. His weight was down fifty pounds, and maybe more, since the last time Lucas had seen him.
    "It's me," Louis said.
    "You look sort of fucked up," Lucas said, licking the cone.
    "Got the AIDS, man." His eyes turned up to Lucas, and Lucas could see that the whites were going yellow.
    "Ah, Jesus, Louis."
    "Gonna get you sooner or later," Louis said. Louis wasn't exactly gay, but he was for sale.
    "Don't plead out. Take the jail time," Lucas said.
    Louis was insulted: "Hey, whacha think I'm doin' getting caught?"
    Lucas said, "Don't pass it on, man. You get in there, you sleep on your back."
    Louis's eyes turned back to the floor: "What's gonna happen, gonna happen. What it is, is what it is."
    "We'll talk to the sheriff's guys," one of the uniforms said.
    Lucas nodded and ambled on, looking in store windows, said hello to a salesman at the Hubert White men's store, let himself get pulled inside to look at an Italian summer suit, a steal at $2,495, and then crossed Nicollett Mall on the skyway bridge to Macy's, and found cosmetics. A woman in a white jacket, behind the Dior counter, was staring into space. He walked through the space and she didn't blink. "Charlene Mobry?"
    Now she blinked, took him in, sighed, and turned and looked down the counter at another woman in a white jacket, who was rearranging a shelf of eau de cologne bottles. She called, "Charlene? You got a customer."
    Charlene Mobry was dishwater-blond, thirty pounds too heavy, puffy lips, green eyes, and small fat hands with tiny polished nails and rings on each thumb. She said, "Help you?"
    Lucas took out his ID and unfolded it on the counter. "I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes, about Dick Ford."
    "Ohh . . ." Her lower lip trembled and she looked sideways, as though she might run for it. Then she came back to him, with her eyes, and he realized how deeply sad she was. "Did