Certain prey

'I was trying to get you, but all I got was your machine,' Carmel said. 'We've got some things to talk about. I spoke to Lucas Davenport this afternoon…'

'What? What'd he say?' Allen was anxious.

'I'm in my car, and I hate to talk on this cell phone. Why don't I just stop by?

I could be there in twenty minutes.'

'Twenty minutes,' he said, with an uncertain note in his voice. 'Okay. See you in twenty.'

Not the most eager lover she'd ever had, Carmel thought as she ended the phone call. On the other hand, he didn't know they were lovers. Not yet.

In a couple of hours, he would. A certain kind of man, sharks-in-the-water, attorneys more often than not, alone with Carmel, would produce a pass.

Sometimes, depending on her mood and the man, Carmel would receive the pass, and things would proceed. Carmel was far from a virgin, but had never had a long term sexual relationship. One woman, who was almost a friend, had once confided to Carmel that one of her ex-suitors had said, to a number of people at a party, that Carmel frightened him. He felt like the fly, and she was the spider.

Carmel pretended to be puzzled by the comment, but wasn't entirely displeased: fear wasn't the worst thing to instill in a man, especially the man who made the comment, who was something of a thug himself. Still, after that, she tried to soften her bedroom image, tried to slow down a little. But she really didn't much care for the weight of a man pressing her down, the trapped feeling gasping over his shoulder, staring at the ceiling while he flailed around on top. And she was a little picky. She didn't like hairy shoulders -even less, hairy backs. She didn't like chest hair that connected with pubic hair. She didn't care for bald men or the untidiness of uncircumcised men; she didn't care for men who burped, or whose breath smelled of anything cooked, or who peed with the bathroom door open, or farted.

Orgasms didn't often happen, not with men; her best orgasms came alone, in the bathtub. Hale would change that, she thought. If not right away, she could train him.

Hale Allen lived on a quiet, upperclass street off one of the lakes, far enough from the crowds to have a certain peace in the evening, without the constant to ing and fro-ing of thin young women with earphones and blades; but at the same time, close enough that residents could walk down and enjoy the mix when they wished to. The house was long and white, with lake-green shutters and a yellow bug light over the central door, and a long driveway that curved up a slope past fifty-year-old burr oaks. A small white sign at the edge of the driveway warned burglars that the house was protected by Insula Armed Response.

Carmel left the Jag under the spreading arms of an oak and rang the doorbell. A moment later, she heard the muffled pounding of stocking feet on a stairs, and then Hale opened the door, a white terry cloth towel in his hand. He smiled and backed up and said, 'Come on in,' and rubbed his damp hair with the towel. He looked like something off the perfume pages of Esquire. She had never been inside his house – Barbara Allen's house, it turned out, was decorated with a cool and discerning eye, a mix of pieces new and old. But nothing fabulous:

Carmel felt the instant chill of class inferiority. She moved into the living room, turned and said, 'I talked to Davenport.' 'Yeah?' He was eager.

'It's pretty much over with. They've got three more shootings by the same person

– probably the same person – and you're an obvious non-candidate in all three of them.'

'So they're gonna do what? Talk to the press, tell them…'

'Doesn't work that way,' Carmel said. She took a slow turn past a small watercolor: no name that she recognized, but she did feel a vibration coming from the work – a simple street scene, probably New York -and understood that it was good. She looked away from the painting: 'The way it works is, they don't say anything to anybody. They just go away. Then, if it turns out that you were involved, they don't look like dumbshits.'

'That's not fair,' Allen protested. Once again, she had to strain to think of him as a lawyer.

'Of course it's not fair. But they have the choice of, one: being fair to Hale

Allen, or two: taking the chance that they're going to look like dumbshits.

Which choice do you think a bunch of city hall bureaucrats is gonna choose?'

'By golly, that really makes me mad.' He hurled the terrycloth towel at a couch.

'Hey. Unless something new comes up, it's over,' she said. 'About Barbara – the funeral is at two?'

'Yes, at Morganthau's.'

'I won't be able to make the service; I'll be at the cemetery, though.'

'Thanks. I…" He plopped on the couch, picked up the damp towel, turned it in his large hands. 'I have some questions that I want to ask Barbara, and I've got some things I want to talk over, but I can't, cause she's dead. I can't get around that.'

'like what do you want to tell her?' Real curiosity.

'Like, I want to tell her about Louise.'

Now Carmel was puzzled. 'Why? You'd only hurt her.'

'I wouldn't only hurt her; I think it's more complicated than that, don't you?'

'All right,' Carmel said. She sat on the couch next to him. 'Tell me about it.

Tell me about Louise.'

Louise liked sex, and so did Hale. Barbara liked it better than, say, a fried egg sandwich, but not as much as a good soft back rub. 'When we were having sex, I always had the feeling that she was taking care of me, not making love with me. She was always waiting for me to finish. She always wanted it to be good for me, but then she always wanted to round out the night with a book.. .'

'Uh-huh, I know the feeling,' Carmel said.

The room was closing around them, getting tighter, the walls moving in, until there was nothing in the house but the two of them. He talked about Barbara, about Louise; laughed a little about some of Louise's excesses; cried a little about Barbara's idiosyncracies. Carmel patted him on the shoulder blades, then rubbed his back a little. He held one of her hands, turned it over, fondled it.

The room closed in and Carmel tipped back and there he was: a perfect little spread of hair on his chest; a tidy circumcision.

Unfortunately, she thought afterward, he didn't have the best of bathroom habits.

She sighed. So much to do.

Chapter Ten

Sloan was wearing khaki shorts, a black faux-leather fanny pack pulled around to his stomach, and a pink golf shirt. His legs were the color of skim milk, and so bony they might have been attached to a short ostrich. 'My wife made me wear them,' he said, looking down at the shorts. 'She said I was gonna get heat stroke, and there's no point in getting heat stroke on a vacation day.'

Lucas was peering over the top of his desk. 'You got your gun in the fanny pack?'

'Yeah. I got the pack from Brinkhoff. It's allVelcro, it's not really zipped up.

See?' He stood up, pulled on the front of the fanny pack, and the entire cover came away. The revolver inside was attached by a single tab over the barrel, which tore away when Sloan pulled the gun out.

'Pretty slick,' Lucas said. He settled back. 'But it looks stupid.'

'My wife says…'

'Your wife has the fashion sense of a cockroach.'

'I'll tell her you said so.'

'If you do, I'll have to kill you.'

There was a tentative knock at the door. Lucas called, 'Come in.'

The door opened and Hale Allen stepped halfway inside, stopping when he saw

Sloan with his khaki shorts, pink shirt and the pistol in his hand. 'You need to talk to Lucas?' Sloan asked.

'If he's not busy,' Allen said.

'I was just about to shoot him,' Sloan said. 'Could it wait until after that?'

'Well… Do you think he'd be better by lunchtime?'

'Go away,' Lucas told Sloan. To Allen, politely, with curiosity, 'Come in, sit down.'

'Is there anything new with the case?' Allen asked. He looked uneasily around the office as he asked the question; crossed and recrossed his legs.