John Sandford - Mortal Prey

"No problem, I won't call the cops. You ought to see this." He pushed the piece of paper across the desk. It looked like a wanted poster and had Rinker's face on it.

"Where'd you get it?"

"It's in every goddamn bar and motel in St. Louis," Sellos said. "The picture's not very good-it could be anybody. But if you know you, it looks like you."

"Why're you telling me?" Rinker asked.

He shrugged. "I always sorta liked you… when you were working out of the warehouse. I didn't know about the gun stuff until it was in the papers."

She nodded-he had liked her, she thought. She remembered that. "All right. Give me a couple minutes." She stood up and stepped away, to the office door, and then said, "Listen, John, you gotta get rid of that fuckin' folk music, okay? Promise me?" She let out a thin smile. "I mean, I'm not gonna shoot you if you don't, but just do it for… American civilization?"

Nanny Dichter lived on Chirac Road, a semiprivate dead-end lane in Frontenac. All the houses sat well back from the lane, and any car turning into it could be seen-watched-from any of the houses along it. On the other hand, any car coming out of the lane could be seen up and down Nouvelle Road, the main street. At ten minutes past ten o'clock, Rinker parked on Nouvelle Road, three blocks from Chirac. Ten or fifteen cars lined the street; a party. She parked at the end of the line closest to Chirac, turned off the lights, and slumped behind the steering wheel, watching Chirac in the rearview mirror.

Bunches of kids were still arriving at the party, and a couple left. From her spot in the street, Rinker could hear their music and see flickering multicolored lights. Some kind of techno shit, she thought. Better than folk music, anyway. A little after ten-thirty, a kid wandered out of the party, stood on the front lawn of the party house, and began vomiting. He continued for a minute, then walked on to his car, got in, got back out, vomited again, then got back in the car and drove away.

Happy trails, Rinker thought.

At ten-thirty-five, she began to wonder if Dichter was going to call her, or if he'd been home when Sellos called him-what if he'd been at his office, working late? She'd be sitting here and never know. There was no chance that he'd call from either his house or his business, though. The feds probably had him so tapped that they knew every time he opened the refrigerator.

At ten-forty, a Mercedes rolled out of Chirac Road, sat for a minute, then turned right, away from her, and headed down the street, slowly. Dichter always drove a Mercedes. Rinker reached for the key, then stopped. The Benz was a little obvious, don't you think, Clara? Rolling up and stopping like that, so anybody could get a look?

She sat still as the Mercedes disappeared at a corner three blocks away. Maybe a mistake? Maybe he'd be calling in two minutes, and she'd have no idea where he was?

Then another car rolled out of Chirac, a station wagon-a Volkswagen, she thought-and turned left, toward her. This car did not hesitate at the street entrance. When it passed her, she saw two men inside; one had a hand to his head, as thought he were talking on a cell phone-probably to the driver of the Benz, Rinker thought. She let the car get two blocks down Nouvelle, over a hump and out of sight, before she followed.

She didn't think Dichter would go far. Any phone would do, as long as it wasn't his. She started to tighten up now. Started to feel the adrenaline, the hunting hormone, flowing into her bloodstream. She'd always liked the feel of it, the stress.

And she thought about Paulo, dead on the ground in Cancun, his blood all over her, his blue eyes vacant. Thought about her baby, the way things were going to be forever. The adrenaline was a familiar thing, but now something else flowed in, a coldness that she'd felt only once before, about her stepfather.

Hate. And it was liquid and cold, like mercury flowing through her veins. Nanny Dichter, two blocks away, still breathing, while Paulo lay rotting in his grave…

She knew enough not to try to get close to the Volkswagen. She stayed way back, turned off her lights once, followed the Volkswagen around a corner west onto Clayton Road, worried that she'd lose him. Clayton Road had more traffic than the side streets, and she closed up just a bit. The Volkswagen continued on, turned north off Clayton, then west again, and finally cut into a Lincoln Inn.

She continued past the hotel, down the block, to a second entrance. Kept looking back and saw the Volkswagen pull up to the reception bay, and a man who looked very like Nanny Dichter get out and go inside.

She parked as close to a side door as she could, picked up the Sony tape recorder, and turned it on. The Dixie Chicks were singing something inoffensive. She got out of the car and walked toward the hotel's side door. The door was locked. She took a step away, looking toward the front, thinking about the second man in the Volkswagen-and saw a young guy coming down the hallway toward the side door, carrying a sleepy, red-eyed kid. The guy pushed through, and Rinker held the door, smiled, and was inside.

The telephone rang. She punched it on, held the tape recorder close to her face as she walked along the hallway, and answered. "Hello?"

"This is me," Dichter said. "What do you want?"

"I want to know whose idea it was to go to Cancun," she said. "Was that John? Or was that the whole goddamn bunch of you?"

"I didn't know anything about it until the feds told me," Dichter said. "I got with John…"

"Hold on," Rinker said. "I'm gonna go outside. I can barely hear you."

"Where are you?"

"In a bar," she said tersely. She pulled the tape recorder away from the phone, as though she were walking away from the jukebox, and clicked it off. Then: "Wait a minute, a guy's coming… Let me get over here."

A guy was coming. A hotel guy, with a chest tag that said "Chad." She put her hand over the phone's mouthpiece and asked, "Could you tell me where your pay phones are?"

"Down the hall, into the lobby, turn right, then around the corner and they're right there."

"Thanks." She continued down the hallway, into the lobby, phone to her ear. Slipped the safety on the nine-millimeter. Into the lobby, not looking at the few faces passing through it.

Glanced to the left, her vision sharp as a broken mirror, picking up everything as tiny fragments of motion-the Indian woman behind the desk, the guy with the suitcase talking to her, another guy in the tiny gift shop, a sign that said, "Elevators," and she was saying into the phone, all the time, "That fuckhead killed my guy and killed my baby, and I'm gonna take him out." The righteous anger was surging in her voice, and was real and convincing. "You can get in or get out, whatever you want, but if you're with John, I'll take you right along with him."

"Listen, listen, listen…," Dichter was saying, his voice rising.

And she turned the corner and heard the last "listen" both through the phone and in person: Dichter was there, his back to her, talking into the pay phone. He felt the movement behind him and turned, his face going slack when he saw her face and the gun leveled at his forehead. He had just time to say, "No," and Rinker shot him.

The first shot went in between his eyes. The second and third went into the side of his head as he slumped down the wall, leaving blood lines down the yellow wallpaper.

The shots, even with the silencer, were loud, enough to attract attention. Rinker shoved the gun into her jacket pocket, screamed, and ran into the lobby. "Man's got a gun," she screamed. "Man's got agun…"

She was looking over her shoulder at the hallway, and somebody else screamed and the man with the suitcase ducked but didn't run. He was looking at the hallway where Dichter had fallen. She turned down the hall where she'd come in, out of sight from the lobby, now running, banged through the side exit, heard shouting behind her, forced herself to a walk, went to her car, was in, was rolling…