"Clear right now," Lucas said.
"On I-94 it is, but you wouldn't want to cut any corners on the back streets," the cop said.
Lucas nodded: the cop was right. "Had any reports of stolen bikes?"
"We'll check." LUCAS TURNED BACK to Weather. "We've got to lose you until we find the guy. We could put you in the University Radisson…"
Weather shook her head. "Nope, nope. I need my sleep, and I need to be at home, with the kids, and I need to get to the hospital at the right time every day. And maybe in the middle of the night."
"How're the twins?"
"Sara's heart is a problem," Weather said. "They're working on it now, but the stuff they need to give her causes problems for Ellen. So-maybe we'll be good tomorrow."
"Tired?"
She shrugged. "Not terribly-but it could get bad if this goes on for a few days. We knew it might, but hoped it wouldn't. That's why I need to be at home."
Lucas said, "What would you think about a house guest?"
She shook her head. "Lucas, I don't want Shrake or Jenkins bumbling around the house. I mean, those guys could fall on the piano and break it."
"I called Virgil. He said he would be here in an hour."
She nodded. "Virgil would be okay. Besides, it sounds like it's settled."
"Yes, it is," he said.
She recognized the tone. They both had tempers, and they had learned to recognize when the other was putting his/her foot down, when things had moved beyond negotiation. She nodded: Virgil it was. LUCAS CALLED the cops' supervisor, an old friend named Larouse, who said he'd call with any news. "You want a car outside your house?"
"You don't have to park it, but if you'd cruise it pretty steadily, that'd be good."
"We'll check every movin' dog," Larouse said. Then, "Hang on a minute." There was a moment of silence, then Larouse was back. "We've got a gun. A Taurus revolver. Listen to this: it's loaded with three.410 shells and two Colt.45s. Got run over about two hundred times, but the shells are still inside. Maybe we'll get something off them."
They talked for a couple of more minutes, then Lucas signed off: "Get back to me, man."
Weather had been listening and she asked, "Good news?" "Well, you weren't hallucinating-they found the gun."
"I knew it."
"It's all beat up. Got run over a lot. They're running it back to the lab. They'll check the shells for prints and then ship them over to us and see if we can pull any DNA."
"Doesn't sound too hopeful."
"Hey: if there're prints on the shells, Lodmell will pull them up. And I believe the guy'll be on record. You don't send somebody out with a man-killer and a crotch rocket if he's a virgin."
"A man-killer?"
He looked at her: "You got lucky."
"Not just lucky," she said. The two cops had gone off a way, and she told him about flicking the Audi into the biker's lane, causing him to fumble the gun, and about going after him with the car.
"Crazy woman," he said, and wrapped an arm around her head, in a headlock, and gave her a noogie.
But he was scared. THE NOOGIE made her laugh, at least a bit, and then Lucas went off to talk to the cops again, leaving her, and suddenly, for the first time in years, she flashed back to a winter day with a motorcycle crazy named Dick LaChaise, at Hennepin General Hospital in Minneapolis.
LaChaise and two killer friends had come to town looking for Lucas, because Lucas had led a major crimes squad that had killed LaChaise's wife and sister during a bank robbery. LaChaise had taken Weather hostage at the hospital. Lucas had come to negotiate in person, to talk LaChaise out of killing her.
At least, that's what Weather had thought, and LaChaise, too.
But as soon as LaChaise moved the muzzle of his pistol an inch from Weather's skull, a concealed sniper had shot him in the head. Weather went down, covered with blood, brains, and fragments of skull.
She hadn't been able to stay with Lucas after that; it had taken years to get back. But they had gotten back, and now here was another motorcycle hoodlum coming for her on the highway, and suddenly she was there again, in the hallway, and LaChaise's head was exploding behind her…
"No." She shook it off.
She might flash back again, she thought, but she wasn't having it, this time. She'd worked all through it. LaChaise was dead, and this had nothing to do with Dick LaChaise or Lucas Davenport.
Lucas touched her on the shoulder. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
"You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I suddenly got scared," she said. "Before, I was too busy to be scared." CAPPY SWORE and tried to grab the gun, fumbled it, then heard the scream of an angry engine, looked back, and realized that the bitch was coming after him. He hit the accelerator, felt the rush as the front wheel lifted free, cut down a center line and was gone. He watched her lights and saw her swerve left, and she was gone up the off-ramp. He took the next one, quick right at the top, then a left, down through the dark streets, careful about the leftover snow, and the black ice at intersections. Three blocks from Central High School, four minutes after he made the attempt on Weather, he stuck the bike between a couple of parked cars, walked a crooked route down to Central, watching his trail, to where Joe Mack was waiting in his van.
"Missed," Cappy said, climbing into the passenger seat. "Bitch saw me and came after me with her car. Goddamn near ran me down. I lost the fuckin' gun."
Mack stretched his neck, looking out of the van in all directions: "You're clean? Nobody's behind you?"
"Nah, that part went fine. Dropped the bike, walked away, nobody saw my face with the scarf and all."
"The gun…"
"Gun's clean, too. Hated to lose it, though. I needed that gun. I never fired a shot. I dunno."
Two minutes and they were back on I-94, headed east. Joe Mack said, "I'm thinking about going over to Eddie's. You know? Got some guys who'll say I've been around for a couple weeks, had the haircut all the time."
"Yeah?" Cappy wasn't too interested. He was thinking about what had happened; the lack of respect. And he'd noticed the alcohol that Joe Mack was breathing all over him: that didn't seem right. Your pickup guy shouldn't be getting drunk.
He said, "That bitch tried to run me down. I was coming beside her, running good, and all of a sudden, she like, jukes into my lane. I goddamn near ran up her tailpipe. I got only one hand on the handbar, and I freak and I drop the gun, but I get back on top of the bike and the next thing I know, she's about six feet behind me and coming for me. What kind of bitch is that?"
"The thing about Eddie's is, you know, you ever been in fuckin' Green Bay?"
"I oughta kill the bitch for free, after that," Cappy said.
"What?"
Cappy looked at him and realized that Joe was dead drunk. "Pull over," he said. "Let me drive." CAPPY DROVE back to his room, in an old house in St. Paul Park, and Joe said he was fine, took the keys and headed back to Cherries. Lyle was waiting in the back.
"No go," Joe Mack said. He told Cappy's story, then shook his head. "I think we made a mistake bringing Cappy into it. If this chick talks to the cops, they'll be looking at bikers. Before, they weren't looking at bikers. If they start showing her pictures, I might turn up."
Lyle Mack said, "I didn't think of that."
Joe Mack said, "You know, maybe we're not smart enough to pull this off. Maybe we oughta run on down to Mexico for a couple years."
Lyle Mack looked around at the bar: "But what'd we do with Cherries?"
Joe Mack said, "I don't know. Once, you said, we maybe should sell it to Honey Bee. On paper. You know, to keep our names out of it. Maybe-"
"Aw, man. We gotta do better'n that." Lyle cocked an ear to the front room, where "Long Haired Country Boy" was booming out of the jukebox. "How could we leave this?" A SNOW FLURRY had just crossed the Mississippi when Virgil showed up. He got out of his truck and a squad car pulled to the side of the street and two cops rolled out, and Lucas stuck his head through the front door and yelled, "He's good."