But he liked the tightening feel of the hunt.
He didn't like what it had done to Cheryl Capslock or the others, the dead, but he did like the feel of chase, God help him.
He turned out the light, opened the door and went back to the living room.
DEL WAS AWAKE. HE SAID, ''CHERYL COULDN'T FEEL much of anything after they got her out of surgery.''
''She'll feel it today,'' Lucas said. He unconsciously touched a white tracheotomy scar on his throat.
''Yeah, that's what the docs said.''
''They say anything about scars?'' Lucas asked.
''She's gonna have some, but they shouldn't be too bad. What there is, she can wear her hair over.''
''I know a plastic surgeon over at the U, friend of Weather's. If you need one.''
They sat a while in the dark. Then Del said, ''If she died, I don't know what
I'd do.''
''She'll be okay.''
''Yeah.'' Then: ''But that's not exactly what I meant. I mean, I never really thought of it until this afternoon. If shewas gone, I'd be lost. I been on the streets so long, the whole world looks like it's fucked. Cheryl keeps me from going nuts. I was going nuts before I met her. I was a crazy motherfucker…
I was such a good wino that I could've become one.''
''Made for each other,'' Lucas said, with a wry undertone cops affected when they were getting too close to sincerity.
''Yeah. Jesus, I want to kill that motherfucker…''
Then the handset: ''Lucas. Got one coming.'' A surveillance voice. Lucas grabbed the radio and stepped to the front door. He could see out the inset glass windows without being seen himself.
''White male in a pickup, moving slow. He's not delivering papers.''
''Can you see the plates?''
''I can't, but Tommy can, he's got the night scope… Tommy? He'll be there in a minute.''
''Right, I got him coming…''
''Lucas, he's coming up to the house now.''
Lucas could see the headlights on the snow, then the slowly moving pickup. ''Get the plate, get the plate.''
''He's going by, but he was looking. Jeff, what'd you think?''
''He was looking, all right.''
''We don't want to shoot a goddamn reporter, take it easy…''
Lucas said, ''Tommy, you got that plate?''
''Front plate's dirty, I can get CV. It's Minnesota…''
''Tommy, c'mon…''
''I got it, I got it…'' He read the license out, and Dispatch acknowledged.
''He's going around the corner…''
''Which way?''
''South. Wait a minute, he's stopping. He's stopping.''
''Dick, you guys get down here in the car,'' Lucas said into the handset. ''Come around the block from the back.''
''Didn't think it'd happen,'' Del said. He was wide awake, breathing hard.
''Take it easy,'' Lucas said.
Small called down the stairs: ''What's happening?''
''Nothing,'' Lucas called back, and then Del led out through the front and down the sidewalk, moving with the wintertime short-step duckwalk of a man on ice.
Lucas still had the handset. Tommy: ''He's getting something out of the back.
He's got the dome light on and he's doing something in the back.''
Lucas brought the radio up: ''Everybody take it easy, he could have anything in there.''
Dick came back: ''We're coming in, we're coming around the corner.''
Lucas said, ''Let's go,'' and they started running, moving off the sidewalk into the snow, high-stepping. At the corner, they rounded an arbor vitae, and saw the truck fifty feet away, across the street, the door open now. The driver was turning toward them, he had something in his arms…
''Hold it,'' Lucas shouted. Del was sprinting ahead, and Tommy came in from the side, his long coat whipping around his legs, and Dick came in with the car.. .
BUTTERS HAD SPIRALED IN TOWARD THE HOUSE FROM A half-mile out, quartering the neighborhood, watching faces in the few cars he'd encountered, looking for lights, looking for motion. In the woods, he'd learned to look not for the animal, but the disturbance in the animal's wake. Deer sometimes sounded like they were wearing jackboots, pounding through the woods; squirrels made tree limbs jiggle and jerk in a way that wasn't the wind; even a snake, if it was big enough, parted the grass like a ship's prow cutting through water.
He watched for the odd motion; and saw none.
Still, there was something not right about this. He understoodthat the cop might think that the kid was safe, but why would he take the chance? Putting the kid in the hotel would have been the natural thing to do.
Butters saw nothing, but he smelled something: the kid felt like bear bait, a bucket of honey and oatmeal, meant to pull them in. They had to check, because the kid might be one of their last chances to really get even. And that, he thought, made the kid even better bait.
But he turned toward the house, spiraling, moving closer…
THE UNMARKED CAR CAUGHT THE TRUCK IN ITS HIGH beams, and the man turned, hearing
Lucas's scream, saw the running men… put his back to the truck and said,
''What? What?''
Del was twenty feet away and coming in, and the man raised his hands and Del almost popped him: almost…
''Freeze. Right where you are.'' Lucas behind Del, Tommy on the edge, the doors popping on the blocking car.
''What?'' The guy was white-faced, shocked, his mouth dropping open. He stepped back away from the van.
There was movement in the van, and Tommy swiveled toward it, his shotgun raised.
A blond head. Then a child's voice, tired and frightened: ''Daddy?''
SPIRALING: AND CATCHING, DOWN A STREET THAT LED almost straight into the target house, a dark-night tableau. A car parked diagonally across the street, its headlights on a van. A man outside the van, his hands up. More men in the street.
''There you are,'' Butters said, with satisfaction. ''I knew you were out there.''
Lucas saw Butters's truck: noticed it mostly because it was identical to the truck they were standing next to.
Del was apologizing to the owner, who had just gotten home from his parents' farm, and trying to reassure the little girl, who was old enough to be frightened by the men who'd suddenly surrounded them.
The truck in the intersection paused for just a heartbeat, two heartbeats, then casually rolled on. The driver must have seen the commotion in the street, Lucas thought. ''I've got a daughter just like you, who lives up the block,'' Lucas said to the little girl. ''Do you know Sarah Davenport?''
The girl nodded without saying anything, but now the world was okay.
''Sure, she knows Sarah…'' the father was saying, and Lucas made nice and forgot about the other truck.
And walking away, a shaky, white-faced Del said, ''Jesus, I gotta ease off. I almost shot the guy. He didn't do a fuckin' thing, I just wanted to do it.. .''
STADIC THOUGHT ABOUT IT ALL THE WAY INTO THE Cities. He was exhausted from the day on duty, from the drive, from the killing. Through the thinning snow, he had flashes, almost visionlike in their clarity and intensity, of Elmore Darling sitting at the table in the instant before the gunshot. Darling was smiling, hopeful… afraid. He was alive. Then he wasn't. There was no transition, just a noise, and the smell of gunpowder and raw meat, and Elmore Darling wasn't there anymore.
The visions frightened Stadic: What was happening? Was he losing it? At the same time, his cop brain was working out the inevitable progression. He now knew where LaChaise and his friends were hiding. If he worked it right, if he came up with the right story, he could ambush them. He needed to draw them out of their house, unsuspecting.
He could set up outside the house, in the dark, next to their vehicles. Darling said the trucks would be on the street. Thenhe could prod them out. He could call and say that the cops had been tipped, that they were on the way. They'd have to run for it.