John Sandford - The Fool's Run

"Get out and stand by the car and wait for the valet. I'm going to get out and go over to his hutch. I'll call him over to talk before he gets to you," LuEllen said in a rush, slipping out the passenger side. I got out on the driver's side and waited there. The valet was back in fifteen seconds and swerved toward his hutch when he saw LuEllen standing beside it.

She said something about the little girls' room, and he smiled and pointed at the door and motioned sharply around to the left. At the same time, he casually reached into the hutch and hung the Durenbargers' keys on a peg. LuEllen thanked him and started away. He handed me a tag and slid into the car. As soon as he was out of sight, LuEllen was back. With a quick look around, she reached into the hutch, took the Durenbargers' keys, and led me into the restaurant.

"The bar," she said. We got a booth and ordered cocktails. When the waitress had gone, LuEllen opened her hand to show me the key ring. There were five keys-two car keys, two that might be apartment keys, and one that looked like it might fit a suitcase. She took out the Sucrets tin, made her impressions, and wrote down the code for each key. We finished the drinks and left.

"Make it?" the valet asked with a grin.

"Just barely," LuEllen said. I gave him the tag and as he went after the car, LuEllen hung the Durenbargers' keys back on the hook.

"We're in," she said, a light in her eyes.

Dace was at his own apartment when we returned. LuEllen phoned him and asked where we could get some key blanks with no questions asked. He called around, and ten minutes later we had the name and address of a locksmith. The voice on the other end of the phone said he'd be around for an hour yet.

It took almost an hour to find the place. It was a dingy dump in a shopping center, sandwiched between a brightly lit but empty Laundromat and a vacant storefront that had last housed a used-clothing store called One More Time. A guy in a sleeveless jeans jacket was sitting on a trash can outside the Laundromat, watching the fat white moths circle the parking lot lights.

As we got out of the car and walked across the cracked pavement, the guy on the garbage can shifted his weight. For a moment, it looked like he might say something. He had shoulder-length black hair, chin whiskers, and a death before dishonor tattoo on one skinny upper arm. When we went to the lockshop instead of the Laundromat, he settled back on the can and watched us. The front of the shop was dark, and the door was locked, but a light was shining in the back. LuEllen banged on the door until somebody yelled "Yeah, yeah, yeah." A minute later the locksmith walked through the gloom to the door.

"We're the people who called for the keys," LuEllen said through the glass.

He nodded and unlocked the door, and locked it again behind us. We followed him toward the light at the back of the shop. He stepped around the counter, fished under it for a moment, and came up with three blank keys.

"Elwin four-oh-twos," he said. "That'll be ten bucks. Each."

"Jesus Christ, what are you talking about? That's forty-five cents apiece if. " LuEllen squealed. The locksmith cut her off.

"Tell it to somebody else, lady. Somebody asks me for a bunch of key blanks for Elwin four-oh-twos, the kind of locks you find on rich guys' apartments, and I sell the four-oh-twos, blank, no questions asked, for ten bucks. That's the price."

LuEllen looked at him for a minute, then cracked a tiny, tight smile. "I'll remember you," she said. It was a promise of future business. She turned to me and said, "Pay him."

I gave him a twenty and a ten.

"Thanks," he said. "For another hundred I'll cut them off impressions."

"No thanks," LuEllen said. "We don't consort with crooks."

The locksmith laughed, showing crooked, yellow teeth. "Come back anytime," he said.

Outside, the guy in the sleeveless jeans jacket was waiting. As we stepped outside the door, he came up close behind and said, "Give me your wallet." He had one hand in his jacket pocket.

LuEllen looked him over. "You gotta be kidding."

"Hey, lady.

"Hey yourself, asshole. If you had a gun in your hand it'd make a bigger lump. There's nothing in there but your fist. Why don't you take it home and fuck it?"

The guy looked at her, mouth half open. Then he did something with his hand in his pocket. There was a pop, and LuEllen said, "Oh, shit, he shot me."

When the gun went pop, I kicked the guy on the inside ball of his knee. His leg went out from under him and he lurched forward, and I hit him with a right hand on the bridge of the nose. His nose crunched, and he went down like a sack of sand.

LuEllen was looking at her arm. "Maybe I'm not shot. No, I think I am."

The guy was face down on the blacktop with both hands covering his face, trying to figure out what happened. Broken noses do that to you. For the first few minutes, it's impossible to think about anything else.

LuEllen pulled up the sleeve of her blouse. An inch above the elbow was a red streak where a small-caliber bullet had grazed her, pushing holes through the shirtsleeve both coming and going.

"He could have hurt me," LuEllen said.

The locksmith had seen the commotion. He came out and looked at the guy lying on the blacktop.

"Tried to rob you, huh?"

"Yeah. Thanks for the warning."

The locksmith shrugged. "I ain't the Sisters of Mercy."

"He shot me," LuEllen said. The guy tried to get up on his knees, one hand still cradling his face. LuEllen moved behind him and kicked him in the crotch, a full-footed punt. The guy gurgled and knotted up, his hands in his crotch now. Blood streamed down his chin into his little black beard. LuEllen dipped into his jacket pocket and came up with a single-shot.22 built into a stainless steel Zippo cigarette lighter.

The locksmith reached out for it. "A.22 short. Effective range, about the length of his dick. What a dipshit."

"Let's go," said LuEllen.

"Ain't you going to take his money?" asked the locksmith.

"You can have it," LuEllen said. As we drove away, the locksmith was going through the guy's pockets.

LuEllen didn't say much for a while, just kept looking at her arm, and finally giggled. "Wish I had some coke."

"Probably good that you don't."

"You should have felt his nuts squish."

"Yeah, right, a real treat, and I missed it."

"How come you didn't go for his nuts in the first place?"

"Too chancy a target. If you miss and kick a thigh instead of the balls, he'll be inside your shirt. There's no reflex to protect the knee, and that's crippling if you get it. And nothing hurts as bad as the first two minutes of a broken nose."

"It really sounded ugly when his nose broke," LuEllen said. "It gives me the shivers thinking about it."

"Yeah, well." I touched my own nose, which has been broken twice. I can remember each time with painful clarity. "You ought to hear it from the inside."

That was on a Friday. We couldn't risk going into the Durenbargers' place over the weekend, so Dace and LuEllen drove out to a cabin he owned in the hills of West Virginia. "The shack," he called it. "My wife hated the place. She called it Chigger City."

On Sunday afternoon, while they were gone, Bobby called. I'd given him Ratface's real name-Frank Morelli-and with the help of a Washington phone phreak, he'd been watching Morelli's phones. No activity.

I look up gas stations near Morelli apartment and check data banks for most likely credit cards. Morelli makes five charges in past week Atlantic City area.

He's out of town?

Yes/week. Also check consumer credit reports, shows personal loan secured by Chevrolet, year unknown, but bluebook value at $4,500 so must be old. Also estimated pretax earnings last year $52,000.