John Sandford: Mortal Prey

And remembered Mallard. He took the cell phone out of his pocket and leaned against the Porsche and punched in the number written in the palm of his hand. An old lady went by on her bike, a wicker basket between the handlebars. She waved, and he waved back-a neighbor making her daily trip to the supermarket up the hill on Ford Parkway.

"Mallard."

"Is that pronounced like the duck?" Lucas asked.

An instant of silence, then Mallard figured it out. "Davenport. How far are you from the airport?"

"Ten minutes, but I ain't flying anywhere."

"Yeah, you are. You've got a Northwest flight out of there in, mmm, two hours and eight minutes for Houston and from there to Cancun, Mexico. Electronic tickets are already under your name. It's all cleared with your boss, and your federal tax dollars are picking the tab. I'll meet you at IAH in about six hours, and you can buy some clothes there."

"Whoa, whoa. I hate flying."

"Sometimes a man's gotta do…"

"What's going on?"

"Six weeks ago, somebody shot and killed a Mexican guy outside a Cancun restaurant and wounded his girlfriend. The guy who got killed was the youngest son of a Mexican druglord, or a guy who's supposedly a druglord, or maybe an ex-druglord… something like that. So the Mexicans started sniffing around, and word leaks out to a DEA guy. The shooter wasn't aiming at the druglord's son. It was a mistake."

"That's really fascinating, Louis, but Cancun is outside the Minneapolis city limits."

"The shooter was going for the girl, see. She was wounded, and the cops put out the word that she was dead, until they could find out what was going on. So after she got out of the hospital, she went out to the druglord's ranch outside of Mйrida-that's a city down there-for a month, recovering. Then she disappeared. Like a puff of smoke. Everybody was looking for her, and eventually we get this request from the Mexican National Police about these fingerprints they'd picked up at the ranch. We had one print that matched. Came off a bar of soap."

Lucas finally caught up. "It's her?"

"Clara Rinker," Mallard said.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Get your ass down to Houston, first thing. The DEA has hooked us up with the National Police, and we're gonna talk to some people who knew her down there. You got a better feel for her than anybody. I want you to hear it."

Lucas thought about it for a minute, looking up at the half-completed house. "I can do it for a couple of days," he said. "But I got stuff going on here, Louis-I mean, serious stuff. My fiancйe is gonna be pissed. She's in the middle of planning the wedding, she really needs me right now, and I'm running off-"

"Just a couple of days," Mallard said. "I promise. Listen, I gotta go. I'm just coming up to National right now, and I gotta make some more calls before I get out of the car."

"Is Malone coming?"

"Yeah, she's coming, but you're engaged."

"I was just asking, Louis. You got something going with her?"

"No, I don't. But she does. Have something going. I gotta hang up. See you in Houston."

Weather would be upset, Lucas thought, looking back at the construction project. The house was only halfway done and needed constant supervision. The wedding planning was completely disorganized, and needed somebody to stay on top of it. Finally, there was a political pie-fight going on at City Hall, as a half-dozen candidates jockeyed for position in the Democratic primary for mayor. The political ramifications of the fight were severe-the chief was already dead meat, her job gone. Lucas, as a political deputy-chief, was on his way out with the chief. But with a little careful maneuvering, they might be able to leave the department in the hands of friends.

He could leave the politics, though-the chief was a lot better at it than he was. The real problem was Weather. Weather was a surgeon, a maxillofacial resident at Hennepin General. She and Lucas had circled each other for years, had had one wedding fall through. Lucas loved her dearly, but worried that the relationship might still be fragile. To leave her now, five months into the pregnancy…

Weather's secretary answered at Hennepin General. "Lucas? A patient just went in."

"Grab her, will you? I've got to talk to her right now," Lucas said. "It's pretty serious."

Weather came on a second later, showing a little stress. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

She was exasperated. "Lucas, when you call like this, and you say it's important, and you've got to talk to me right away, tell Carol, 'I'm not hurt, but it's important.' That'll keep me from an early coronary. Okay?"

Lucas sighed. "Yeah, sure."

"So what's going on?" she asked. She was looking at her watch, Lucas thought.

"Mallard called…" He told her the story in thirty seconds, then listened to four seconds of dead silence, and opened his mouth to say, "Well?" or apologize, or something, but didn't quite get there.

"Thank God," she blurted. "You're driving me crazy. You're driving the entire construction company crazy. If you'll just get out of the country for a few days, I could finish the wedding plans and maybe the builders could get some work done."

"Hey…" He was offended, but she paid no attention. She said, "Go to Cancun. God bless you. Call me every night. Remember: Flying is the safest way to travel. Have a couple martinis. Or better yet, there's some Valium in my medicine cabinet. Take a couple of those."

"You're sure you don't-"

"I'm sure. Go."

"You're sure."

"Go. Go."

The trip to Houston was the usual nightmare, with Lucas hunched in a business-class seat, ready to brace his feet against the forward bulkhead when the impact came. Not that bracing would save him. In his mind's eye, he could clearly see the razor-sharp aviation aluminum slicing through the cabin, dismembering everybody and everything in its path. Then the fire, trying to crawl, legs missing, toward the exit…

He'd talked to a shrink about it. The shrink, an ex… military guy, suggested three martinis or a couple of tranquilizers, or not flying. He added that Lucas had control issues, and when Lucas asked, "Control issues? You mean, like I don't wanna die in an airplane crash?" the shrink-who'd had three martinis himself-said, "I mean, you wanna tell people how to tie their shoes, because you know how to do it better, and that means you don't want somebody else to fly you in an airplane."

"Then how come I'm not scared of helicopters?"

The shrink shrugged. "Because you're nuts."

In any case, the Valium hadn't helped. He'd just had time to drive to Weather's place, put some clothes and his shaving kit together, along with a small tube of drugs, and make it back to the airport in the Tahoe. He didn't want to leave the Porsche in the airport ramp because it might get stolen, and even if it didn't, he might not ever find it again. And pound for pound, he'd rather lose the Chevy than the Porsche.

The plane failed to crash either on the way to Houston or on landing-when he really expected it, so tantalizingly close to safety-or even when it was taxiing up to the gate, and a little more than five hours after speaking to Mallard, Lucas led the parade through the gate into the terminal.

Louis Mallard, who pronounced his name "Louie," was a stocky, professorial man who wore gold-rimmed professorial glasses and a dark professorial suit. He had a wrestler's neck and sometimes carried a. 40- caliber automatic in a shoulder holster. Waiting with him, in a lighter-blue professorial suit, and carrying a black briefcase, was a lanky gray-haired woman named Malone. The last time Lucas had seen Malone, he'd seen quite a bit more of her.

"Louis," Lucas said, shaking the other man's hand. Malone turned a cheek, and Lucas pecked it and said, "Louis tells me you got one on the line."