John Sandford - Certain prey

'Oh, no. We found patterns,' Mallard said. 'All kinds of patterns. We just didn't find her pattern. We've looked at several hundred people, and we've got nothing.'

'She always works for pay?' Sherrill asked.

'We don't know what she works for. Some of the hits have been internal Mafia business – but some of them, maybe half, look like straight commercial deals.

We just don't know. Twenty-seven murders, and there's never been a conviction,'

Mallard said. 'There have been a couple of situations in which wives were killed, and we suspect the husband was involved, but there's nothing to go on.

Nothing. In none of the cases was it even remotely possible that the husbands were present for the killing: they were always in some well-documented other place.'

'Can we get your files on her?'

'That's what I'm here for,' Mallard said. He reached into his coat pocket and took out a square cardboard envelope, and slid it across the table at Sherrill.

'Duplicate CDs: everything we've got on every case where she's been involved.

Names, dates, techniques, suspects, photographs of everybody and all the crime scenes. The first file is an index.'

'Thanks.'

'Anything you get,' Mallard said. 'No matter how thin it is, please call me. I want this woman.'

Louise Clark decided that she could talk to Carmel only after Hale Allen convinced her it was okay. 'I'm a lawyer, Louise,' Allen said. 'It's all right to talk to Carmel – the cops are just busting our balls.'

'If you're sure,' Clark said anxiously. She was a thin, mousy woman with lank brown hair, a fleshy nose, and nervous, bony hands. 'It's just that the police said…'

Clark did not look like any sex machine Carmel had ever seen; but, she thought to herself, you never know. 'He's sure,' Carmel said abruptly. They were sitting in Denny's, and had been talking for ten minutes and the woman had started whining. Carmel didn't like whiners. She looked at Hale Allen. 'Why don't you take a walk around the block? I want to talk to Louise alone.'

So Hale Allen went for a walk, his hands in the pockets of his light woolen slacks, wearing a great blue-checked sportcoat over a black t-shirt. The coat emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, and both women watched him as he held the door for a woman coming into the restaurant with a child; the woman said something to Allen, who gave her the great grin, and they had a little conversation in the doorway.

After a few seconds, Allen continued on his way; and Carmel and Louise had their talk.

Carmel had a king-sized bed with two regular pillows and a five-foot-long body pillow that she could wrap her legs around when she slept. Although she told people that she slept nude – all part of the image – she actually slept in an extra-large Jockey t-shirt and boxer shorts. With the shirt loose around her shoulders and her legs wrapped around the pillow, she lay in bed that night and re-ran mousy Louise Clark.

For the most part, Clark's story was the same oF story. She and Allen spent time alone, in their work. They shared a lot of stress. His wife didn't understand him. They developed a relationship based on mutual respect, bla-bla-bla-bla. They fell into bed at the Up North Motel. Then the

Mouse stuck it to Carmel.

'The first time I saw him naked in the motel there, it was afterwards. Really, after we made love, he was just so… beautiful. He's a beautiful man.'Then her eyes flickered, and she added, girl-to-girl, a little giggle, a half-whisper,

'And he's really large. Beautiful and really, really, large. He filled me up.'

Carmel squeezed the pillow between her legs and tried to squeeze the image out of her head. Hale Allen and the Mouse. Large.

The alarm went off at seven o'clock sharp. Carmel pushed out of bed, slow and grumpy, robbed of her usual sound sleep. Large? How large? She scratched her ass, yawned, stretched and headed for the bathroom. A half-hour later, she was drinking her first cup of coffee, eating her second piece of toast, and checking the Star-Tribune for leaks about Allen and Clark, when the phone rang.

'Yes.'

'Miz Loan? This is Bill, downstairs.' Bill was the doorman.

'What?' Still grumpy.

'We got a package for you, says Urgent. I was wondering if we should bring it up.'

'What kind of package?'

'Small one. Feels like… looks like… could be a video tape,' Bill said.

'All right, bring it up.'

Bill brought it up, and Carmel gave him a five-dollar bill and turned the package in her hand as she closed the door. Bill was right: probably a video.

Plain brown wrapping paper. She pulled the paper off, found a note written with a ballpoint pen on notebook paper. All it said was, 'Sorry.'

Carmel frowned, walked the tape to the media room, plugged it into the VHS player, and brought it up.

A woman's image came up, and Carmel recognized it immediately. She was looking at herself, sitting in the now-understandably bright light of Rolando's kitchen, just a little more than a month ago.

The on-screen Carmel was saying, 'Only kind I drink.' And then, 'So you made the call.'

A man's voice off-camera said, 'Yes. And she's still working, and she'll take the job.'

'She? It's a woman?'

'Yeah. I was surprised myself. I never asked, you know, I only knew who to call.

But when I asked, my friend said, "She."'

'She's gotta be good,' the on-screen Carmel said. The off-screen Carmel decided that the camera must have been in the cupboard, shooting through a partly open door.

'She's good. She has a reputation. Never misses,' the man's voice said. 'Very efficient, very fast. Always from very close range, so there's no mistake.' A man's hand appeared in the picture, with a mug of coffee. Carmel watched her on screen self as she turned it with her fingertips, then picked it up.

'That's what I need,' she said on-screen, and she took a sip of the coffee.

Carmel remembered that it had been pretty good coffee. Very hot.

'You're sure about this?' asked the man's voice. 'Once I tell them "Yes," it'll be hard to stop. This woman, the way she moves, nobody knows where she is, or what name she's using. If you say, "Yes," she kills Barbara Allen.'

The on-screen Carmel frowned. 'I'm sure,' she said. The off-screen Carmel winced at the sound of Barbara Allen's name. She'd forgotten that.

'You've got the money?' the man asked.

'At the house. I brought your ten.'

The on-screen Carmel put the mug down, dug in her purse, pulled out a thin deck of currency and laid it on the table. The man's hand reached into the picture and picked it up. 'I'll tell you this,' the voice said. 'When they come and ask for it, pay every penny. Every penny. Don't argue, just pay. If you don't, they won't try to collect. They'll make an example out of you.'

'I know how it works,' on-screen Carmel said. 'They'll get it. And nobody'll be able to trace it, because I've had it stashed. It's absolutely clean.'

'Then if you say "Yes," I'll call them tonight. And they'll kill Barbara

Allen.'

Carmel, off-screen, had to admire her on-screen performance. She never flinched, she just stood up and said, 'Yes. Do it.'

The tape skipped a bit, then focused on a black telephone. 'I'm really sorry about this, but you know about my problem. I'm gonna have to have twenty-five thousand, like, tomorrow,' the man's voice said. 'I'll call and tell you where.'

The tape ended. Carmel took a long pull on her coffee, walked into the kitchen, poured the last couple of ounces into the sink, and then hurled the cup at one of the huge plate-glass windows that looked out on her balcony. The cup bounced, without breaking. Carmel didn't see it; she was ricocheting around the kitchen, sweeping glasses, dishes, the knife block, a toaster, silverware, off the cupboards and tables and stove and onto the floor, kicking them as they landed, scattering them; and all the time she growled through clenched teeth, not a scream, but a harsh humming sound, like a hundred-pound hornet.