we could go into the system anytime, print out our evidence. Then Petty got killed and his printouts were lifted. When I went back into the system, the files had been trashed. All I had were a few names and no way to push.'
'So you set us up.'
O'Dell smiled, still pleased with himself. 'Yes. Lily had talked about you. Said you were smart. And I saw one of your simulations. So I put Kennett on Bekker, and you on Kennett, and brought Fell to work with you, and had Lily running you on the side. With all that pressure, something had to blow. Anyway, I had nothing to lose.'
Lucas thought about it, stood, stretched, yawned, wandered to O'Dell's window, pulled back the heavy plush drapes and looked out at the twinkling city. 'This goddamn place is one big patch, you know? Have I given you my rap on how the place is one big patch?'
'Yeah.'
'And I was another one.'
'Yeah.'
Lucas stretched again, then wandered across the room toward the door. 'Nice game,' he said.
O'Dell looked at him, then laughed, low and long, genuinely delighted. 'It was, wasn't it?'
Lucas sat behind a round, simulated-wood table the size of a manhole cover, in a plastic bar full of plastic pictures of old airplanes. Through the clear Plexiglas walls, he could watch the people streaming out toward the departure gates. He glanced at his watch: three twenty-seven in the afternoon, more or less. With a Rolex, he'd discovered, more or less had to be good enough. He sipped at his Budweiser, not interested, just holding his seat.
Fell showed up at three-thirty, thin, bird-gawky, tough. And maybe angry or something else. She stopped near the end of a long queue for the security gates, looked both ways, and spotted the bar. She paused again at the door, and Lucas raised a hand. She saw him and threaded her way through the tables. When she saw his suitcase by his leg, she looked from the case to Lucas and said, 'So I was a three-night stand, or whatever it was.'
'Not exactly,' Lucas said. 'Sit down.'
She didn't sit down. Instead she said, 'I thought we might go someplace for a while.' Tears rimmed her eyes.
'Sit down,' Lucas said.
'You fuck,' she said, but she sat down, dropping heavily into the chair across from him, hands dangling dispiritedly between her legs. 'You said we…'
'I thought about asking you to come down to the Islands with me,' Lucas said. 'I even called out to Kennedy, out to United, to find out what islands we could go to.'
She looked down at the tabletop. 'Tell me,' she said.
'Well, I… couldn't.' He dug in his pocket and tossed a red matchbook on the table in front of her. The matchbook had a horsehead on it. She picked it up and put it in her purse.
'So you were in the restaurant where Walter Petty got killed,' he said. 'You told me you weren't.'
'Yeah?'
'Yeah. I saw the matches in your apartment.'
'When?'
'Well, when we were up there…'
'Bullshit, I got rid of them. When I thought you might be coming over, I saw them, and I thought, 'I got to get rid of these.' I threw them out. So when did you see them?'
He looked levelly across the table at her. 'The first day we worked together, I copped your purse, made molds of your keys. The next day I went in.'
'You sonofabitch,' she said. Then a realization came to her eyes. 'You're wearing a wire?'
'No. I like you too much. But the thing is, I can't trust you. Not completely. I thought about going down to the Islands with you and decided I couldn't. I'd eventually talk to you about this, and then…' He let the thought dangle, and so did she. He went on: 'I tried to think up a lie that would get me back to Minnesota. But I couldn't think of one. And I wanted to tell you why.'
'Well. I appreciate it. But you'd have been safe enough. A matchbook is pretty thin…'
'There was more than a matchbook. This whole goddamned episode was a game set up by O'Dell. It was so beautiful it makes me laugh. He used every one of us. But anyway-he did a computer run on the victims. You come up way too often. That was a big piece.'
She frowned. 'Will they get me?'
'No, I don't think so. They think you're an alarm.' He explained, and she listened quietly, staring at the floor.
'And you won't tell them different?' she asked, when he finished.
'No. I'm the one who sold them the alarm idea.'
'Why?'
He shrugged. 'You're a friend.'
She looked him over for a moment and then nodded. 'Okay.'
'If Lily ever found out, though, she very well might kill you. That's another reason I wanted to talk…'
'Did she kill Kennett?' Fell blurted.
'Kennett? No, no, she was downtown with O'Dell all evening.'
'Goddamn,' Fell said, gnawing a thumbnail. 'When I shot Bekker…'
'Bekker knew you,' Lucas said. 'And that's why, in his letter, he wouldn't say anything about Thin. He didn't want people thinking about women killers…'
'Yeah,' Fell said. 'But that's not why I shot him. I shot him because of their eyelashes, and that woman… and everything.'
'I know. I mean, I believe it. But why Petty?'
'I didn't want to do Petty,' Fell said, voice low, out of gas. 'I was there, but I tried to stop it.'
'You didn't have to be there…'
'Well… I was. If I'd had a couple of more minutes, I think I would've talked… the other guy out of it. But Petty came through the door a minute too soon. A minute later and nothing would've happened. At least, not then. Petty had something on us… I'll burn in hell for Petty.'
'I doubt it,' Lucas said wryly.
'Well, so do I,' she said. Then: 'I would've liked the Islands, though. Going down with you.'
'Yeah, it would have been nice. But I'm the only one who knows about you. You're quick with that gun… and you might start thinking about it, if I'm there, laying around.'
'I wouldn't,' she said, but she couldn't suppress a small grin. 'It's interesting that you're scared of me, though.'
'Yeah, well…'
She sighed. 'Fucking trouser-snake cops. So goddamned treacherous.'
'And I wanted to tell you about Lily,' he said.
'What?'
'She's got a line on a half-dozen of Kennett's shooters. She's gonna be tough, one way or another. But I want you to know two things: they've got no proof of anything. They just want it to stop.'
'What's the other thing?'
'The other thing is, if anybody takes Lily, I'll be coming back to town,' he said. He'd been watching her, and his eyes had gone hard as granite.
'You oughta be one of us,' she said.
'Pass the word on,' he said.
'I don't know anybody, except my… pal… and one other guy. But I'll tell them. Maybe they know more. We don't talk about it. That was one of Kennett's rules. Nobody talks about nothin', he'd say.'
'Good rule,' Lucas said. He looked at his watch again. 'Lily's coming pretty soon.'
'Here?'
'Yeah, I've got to talk to her too.'
'Then I better get going,' Fell said, picking up her purse. She stood and stepped away from the table, then
