street, nose-in to a motel door. Everything look so quiet, but fifty times a year, somewhere in the country, a cop would kick a door off a nice quiet parking lot and the guy inside the room would shoot him. 'So you want to do it?'
'Yeah.' Del wadded up the bag with half the burger still in it. 'Let's go.'
They left one at a time, and walked around behind the McDonald's so that if Outer happened to be looking out his window, he wouldn't see them crossing the street. At the hotel office, they showed the day manager the warrant and their badges. He wanted to call the chain headquarters in Rococco, Florida, for instructions, but they got the key to Outer's room and Lucas told the manager to stay out of sight, no matter what they said in Rococco.
'I'll kick it, if you do the key,' Del told Lucas on the way down. 'I got so much caffeine, I might miss the keyhole.'
'All right.'
They stopped at the door, listened, A television was on; that was goodit'd cover the noise of the key. Lucas held the key up, and Del stepped into kicking range. When they were ready, Lucas hovered the key a quarter inch outside the lock. The idea was to slip the key quickly into the lock and turn it, and push the door. When the door hit the chain, if it did, Del would kick it. They wouldn't try to sneak the key into the lock for the simple reason that it was almost impossible: The slightest vibration would wake the dead, if the dead was a nervous dope dealer. With the quick open-and-kick, you were usually inside before the target had time to react, whether he heard it or not.
Del nodded. Lucas got right, then jammed the key and turned the knob, and Del kicked the door and exploded into the room, Lucas two feet behind him, Del screaming, 'Police, police. Freeze!'
Outer was sitting on the toilet, a wad of toilet paper in his hands, his slacks down around his ankles. The bathroom door was openhe'd been watching ESPN. When Del landed on the carpet opposite the bed, his pistol pointing, Lucas backing him, Outer sat up, raised his hands, and then, in a deafening silence, said, 'Ah, man. Can I wipe?'
Before they had him cuffed, Outer said, 'I ain't sayin' shit. I want an attorney.'
'Sit on the bed,' Del said.
Outer sat, and Lucas started pulling apart Outers duffle bag. Halfway into it, he ran into a T-shirt built like an I-beam. He shook it out, and found a Smith amp; Wesson 649. 'Gun,' he said to Del.
'Jeez, that's too bad,' Del said. 'Him being a convicted felon and all.'
'Attorney,' Outer said.
No dope. Lucas looked around the room. He checked the bathroom, but the toilet was the pressure kind, with no tank. He came back into the main room, and Del said, 'He wouldn't leave it in the car.'
Outer relaxed and leaned back on the bed. 'All I have is the gun, which was for self-protection and isn't even mine.'
'Get off the bed,' Lucas said.
'What?' Outer put on a perplexed look.
'Get off the fuckin' bed.'
Del took him by the arm, and Outer said, 'Fuckin' cops,' and Lucas walked around to the door side of the bed, crouched, grabbed the mattress, and flipped it off the box spring. In the center of the box spring, four Ziploc bags of cocaine nestled in a line.
'That ain't mine. You put it there,' Outer said.
'Probably has our fingerprints all over the plastic, then,' Lucas said. 'And when we get a blood test, we'll probably test for cocaine.'
'Attorney,' Outer said.
'Sit in the chair,' Lucas said.
Del pushed Outer down on an overstuffed chair, and Lucas sat on the box spring.
'I'm gonna make you an offer. I can't make it after you talk to an attorney, I can only make it before. We can fix it so you take a minimum plea on the dope and the gunthree years. That's what we can do.'
'Attorney.'
'Or we can call the Illinois cops, tell them where your apartment is, tell them we've busted you as a big-time dealer.' He looked at the Ziploc bags, and said to Del, 'I think we can call that big-time when we talk to Evanston.'
'I think so,' Del said. 'Definitely big-time.'
He looked back at Outer. 'We can ask them to search your apartment. If there's dope there, if there's a gun there' Lucas spread his arms and shrugged. 'Well, that's another felony. And how many felonies you got in Illinois, Larry? Two? Aw, that's terrible. Illinois is a three-strike state, right? What a shame.' He leaned forward, the mean smile crossing his face. 'You know how long forever is? It's a long fucking time, Larry.'
'Jesus'
'We can't offer you this deal after you talk to an attorney, because your attorney might call a friend of yours in Illinois, and the apartment might get cleaned,' Del said. 'If we don't make a deal right now, we're gonna have to make the call. And get you an attorney, of course.'
Outer put his head down. 'You're fucks.'
'Well, you know, Larry, that comes with our job sometimes,' Del said. 'That's why we sometimes offer deals to our favorite citizens. To make ourselves feel better.'
'What do I gotta do?'
'We've got two names. We know you know the guys, because we've seen you with them. We want a statement.'
'Who?'
'James Bee,' Del said. 'And Curtis Logan.'
'Is that it?' Outer said. 'I flip on those guys, and I walk?'
'Well, you walk out to Stillwater for a couple,' Lucas said. 'But you can do a couple standing on your head. And we won't call Evanston. Until later.'
Outer seemed to brighten. 'Well, shit, if that's allI can do that,' Outer said.
Lucas and Del looked at each other, then Del looked at Outer and said, 'I knew we could be friends.'
'Friendsbut I want something on paper before I talk,' Outer said.
They called a squad, and had Outer transported to the jail with instructions that he didn't get a phone call without Lucas being told. 'You call, I call Evanston,' Lucas said. 'I bet we can get the Evanston cops there before you can get it cleaned out.'
Del went over to the county attorney's office to find somebody who could help draw up the deal, and somebody else who could get search warrants for James Bee and Curtis Logan. Lucas walked up the stairs, heading for his office, but got hooked by a secretary: 'They're gonna show film from St. Paul. They're bringing somebody in.'
'What?'
'It's on TV,' she said.
Homicide had a TV, and Lucas stopped there; a half-dozen cops were gathered around the tube. The St. Paul chief was saying, 'No, no, no, we just wanted to talk to him. We don't have any indication that he had anything to do with the murder of Mr. Plain'
'Who is it?' Lucas asked.
'Brought in some vending machine guy,' one of the cops said. And as he said it, with the chief rambling on in the background, a news clip came up, two St. Paul cops escorting a man in blue coveralls into the front of the police station. He was brown-haired, slat-faced, rawboned.
'Not porky,' Lucas said. 'He was supposed to be porky.'
At his office, he had aCall me message from Sherrill, and a note from Lane saying that the Olson family-and- friends genealogy was complete, and he'd put it on a computer disk with Lucas's name on it, in the chief's secretary's out basket.
He dialed Sherrill. 'I just kicked open a motel door and arrested a dealer,' he said. 'What are you doing?'
'We just bought a casket,' Sherrill said. 'I'm creeped out. You know the last time I was in here'
'Yeah. Don't think about it.' The last time she'd been at the funeral home, she'd been buying a casket for her
