Certain prey

Carmel glanced at her, sideways and quickly: if Rinker were to shoot her now, at least all of Rinker's troubles would be over. She could walk away and not have to worry at all.

'You worry too much,' Rinker said.

'I anticipate,' Carmel said. She looked at Rinker. 'Let's get back to my place.

Do you still have those address books?'

'Yeah.'

'And let's get his wallet and the phone book and whatever else that might have names in it… I've got to think about this.'

'You don't think it's in a safe-deposit box?'

'He's a drug dealer. He'd never have a safe-deposit box, not under his own name, anyway. We didn't find any fake IDs that he could use to get to a box under a different name, and we didn't find any keys… I suspect he did what drug dealers usually do: he left it with somebody he trusts.'

'Like who?'

'Like a lawyer. Except that I'm his lawyer. He could have another one, I suppose; I can find out. But he's a spic, so it's probably a relative. Anyway, we've got to do some research. In a hurry…'

'I'll cancel my plane ticket,' Rinker said. 'I guess we keep the guns.'

On the way back to Carmel's, Rinker glanced at her and asked, 'How much did you enjoy that? Back there?'

Carmel started to answer, then changed directions and asked a question of her own: 'Have you been to school? To college?'

'Well, yeah.'

'Really? I didn't think… you know'

'Professional killer and all,' Rinker said.

'Yeah.' Carmel nodded. 'What'd you major in?'

'Psychology. Actually, I'm about eight credits away from my B.A. I should have it finished next spring.'

'Good school?'

'Okay school.'

'But you're not going to tell me which.'

'Well…'

'That's okay,' Carmel said. 'Anyway, I did sort of enjoy it, just a little bit, maybe. Whether I did or not, he had to go.'

'You enjoyed it just a little bit? Maybe?'

'Didn't you?' Carmel asked.

'No. I couldn't stand that sound he was making. That smell when he

… you know.

I didn't like it at all.'

Now Carmel took her eyes off the road for a moment, to look at Rinker. 'Don't worry, I'm just a sociopath. Like you. I'm not a psychopath or anything.'

'How do you know I'm not a psychopath?'

'From what Rolo told me – what he'd heard about you. Quiet, professional, clean.

You do it because you can, and because you can make money at it, and because you're good at it; not because you have some slobbering lust to kill people.'

'Slobbering lust?'

'Listen, I've handled a couple of cases…'

Carmel had Rinker laughing by the time they got back to her place. And as they got out of the car, Rinker looked at her over the roof and said, 'Wichita

State.'

'What?'

'That's where I go to school.'

Carmel had the sense that Rinker had told her something important. After a few moments, realized that she had. She'd told Carmel where she could be found.

Where home was.

Chapter Six

Three St. Paul cop cars and a crime-scene van were parked outside the Frogtown house when Lucas arrived. Up and down the street, people sat on their short wooden stoops, looking down at Rolo's house, watching the cops come and go.

Lucas parked, climbed out of the Porsche, and started toward the house. A St.

Paul uniformed cop saw him coming and squared off to stop him, but a plainclothes cop stuck his head out the door and yelled, 'Hey, Dick. Let that guy in.'

'You're in,' Dick said, and Lucas nodded and went up the steps. Sherrill was standing just inside the door. She was a dark-haired, dark-eyed madonna in a crisp yellow blouse, with a grey skirt in place of her usual slacks, and a black silk jacket to cover the. 357 she carried under her arm.

'AH dressed up,' Lucas said.

'A girl's gotta do what she can, if she wants to catch a guy,' Sherrill said, batting her eyes at him.

'Too early in the morning for bullshit,' Lucas muttered. He looked past her into the house, which had been ransacked. 'What's going on?'

'Come look. You'll like it.'

'Too early,' Lucas said again. But he went to look.

A St. Paul homicide cop named LeMaster showed him the body on the bed, chain around the neck, ankles and hands, pants pulled down around the thighs: 'One of the neighborhood junkies found him. About two hours ago – he came by looking for a wake-me-up. The dead guy used to be a big-time dealer.'

'No more?'

'LeMaster shook his head: 'He got his nose in it. Lately, he's been down to selling eight-balls.'

'Ain't that the way of the world,' Lucas said. 'One day it's kilos, the next day, it's one toot at a time.' He kept his hands in his pockets as he squatted next to the bed: 'Bunch of. 22s in the head.'

'Yup. Could be your Barbara Allen killer. Or could be somebody who read about it in the paper and liked the sound of it.'

'Lucas nodded and stood up, scratched his nose and looked at the still-damp pools of blood around the body's feet and knees. 'What's all the blood from? And what's his name?'

'Rolando D'Aquila was his name; everybody called him Rolo. And the blood comes from some drill holes in his kneecaps and his heels. And his leg was bleeding from what might be a gunshot wound…'

'Drill holes in his heels?'

'Yeah – look at this.'The drill was lying on the floor at the end of the bed, three inches of stainless-steel drill bit sticking out of the chuck. Dried blood mottled the steel bit.

'Jesus Christ,' Lucas said. He looked back at the body. 'They drilled him?'

'Looks like. Gotta get his pants and socks off to know for sure, and the ME's guy hasn't been here yet… but that's what it looks like.'

'Bet that hurt,' Lucas said, looking at Rolo's face. His face looked compressed, leathery, like a shrunken head Lucas had seen on television. He looked hurt.

'See the pieces of duct tape on the floor? You can still see what look like chew marks on some of it. They probably taped up his mouth while they drilled him.'

'And the house was all torn up, so they were probably looking for something,'

Lucas said. 'Like cocaine.'

'Yeah, but, boy – the gunshots in the head, all together like that, just like in the Allen case. None of the neighbors heard anything – and there are a lot of windows open these hot nights. Just like nobody heard anything with Allen. And the way they tortured him, it all looks professional. They had the tape and the chains and the padlocks and the drill – they knew what they were gonna do before they got here. It looks professional; like Allen.'

'You keep saying they,' Lucas said.

'I can't figure out how one guy could get him on the bed and get him all locked up like that. Had to be awkward. The way I see it, there had to be one to hold a gun on him, and at least one more to do the chains.'

'Get the slugs to the lab – they need to do a metallurgical analysis. If they're like the slugs in the Allen shooting, they'll be so bent up that they're just about useless for trying to match by the land marks.'

'We'll push it through,' LeMaster cop said. 'If they're the same. ..'

'Gonna be trouble,' Lucas said.

Sherrill was thumbing through a mens' magazine when Lucas picked his way through the trashed living room. 'What do you think?' he asked.

'I think this magazine is gay,' she said. 'It's basically a gear catalog, overlaid with pictures of guys who are gay-'

'You can tell from a picture?'

'Sure. Look at this guy.' She showed him a photo of a slender, shirtless, sweat covered biker with a shock of dark hair falling carefully over his moody black eyes. 'He's either gay, or he wants you to think he is. They're all like that.

Mountain climbers, canoeists… and look at the clothes. You see a guy walking along the street dressed like this and you say…'

'I coulda looked like that when I was a kid,' Lucas said.

She made a face, rolled her eyes up: 'Lucas, believe me, you did not look like this. He looks like he's been hurt by somebody. They all look like they've been hurt by somebody. Look at the bruised lips. You, on the other hand, always look like you just got back from hurting somebody else. Like a woman.'