Phantom prey

'I heard that, too,” the bartender said.

“That narrows it down,” Lucas said. “Shit, if this was Wisconsin, it’d be a positive ID,” said the second barfly. “When did the rumor start?” Lucas asked. “I heard it yesterday afternoon, from the noon crew,” the bartender said. “Me, too,” the first barfly said, and the other one said, “Yup.” Lucas looked around, at the people in the booths. “Doesn’t look like a Goth hangout.'

'Things change about seven o’clock,” the bartender said. “The business guys get out and night people start showing up.'

'Oooo, scary,” said the second barfly. He burped. “Could you tell me even one name of somebody who actually thinks they saw her?” Lucas asked. The bartender sighed and said, “You really ought to talk to Tom.” The first barfly said, “Jesus Christ, Jerry. Dick got killed.” To Lucas, he said, “There’s a guy named Roy. He works at a liquor store over by Dinkytown. People say Roy talked to her.”

Lucas took out his notebook, jotted it down. “Roy, liquor store in Dinkytown.”

“Mike’s,” the bartender added. “Mike’s on Fourteenth?'

'I don’t know, I’ve never been there,” the bartender said. “I just know that Roy works at Mike’s.'

'I’ve been there,” the second barfly said. “I don’t know the street, but it’s a hole- in- the- wall, kitty- corner from a Burger King.'

'Got it,” Lucas said. He knew the place, but had never been inside

“How about a guy named Karl Lageson?” The bartender shook his head. “I don’t know that name.'

'I think that’s Lurch,” the first barfly said to the bartender. To Lucas: “Big tall pale white guy. Deep eyes, big forehead. Looks like he ought to have a bolt in his neck. Don’t know about him, though.”

“I’ve seen him with Roy,” the second barfly said. “If Lurch is the guy you’re looking for.”

“Getting back to this Goth with the good ass,” the bartender said. “I know the Goths that the Minneapolis cops talked to. None of them have got what you’d call an amazing ass. I mean, not so you’d go around saying what an amazing ass she had.”

“So she might be new,” Lucas suggested. “The other Goth.'

'Could be,” the bartender said. “Or maybe she’s just a figment of somebody’s imagination.'

'A Fig Newton of the imagination; the little cookie that nobody knew,” the first barfly said. The second barfly burped again, scratched some cash out of his pocket, and said, “Gimme one more. Then cut me off. I gotta drive.” Lucas chatted with the three of them for another five minutes, noted their names, and headed out into the failing daylight, fishing his cell phone from his pocket, calling home. “Go ahead and eat without me,” he told Weather. “I’ll grab a sandwich. I’m doing some running around on Alyssa Austin.”

“Anything I should know?” Weather asked. “There’s a mystery woman,” Lucas said. “That’s always good,” she said. “I’ll tell you about it tonight.” He stopped at a sandwich shop across the street from the supermarket. He got a free newspaper on the way in; from order to delivery, through eating and reading, a half hour drained away. When he walked across the street to his car, it was fully dark. Mike’s was ten minutes away. He got tangled up around a minor traffic accident, and another ten minutes disappeared.

Mike’s was a wedge- shaped store stuck into the corner of a 1920s building with fake brown- brick siding made of tar shingles, neon beer signs in the windows, bars under the glass. A young woman was sitting on a stool behind the counter, talking on her cell phone, a pudgy salon- blonde with a thumbprint- sized bruise under one eye, a scattering of acne across her nose. She took the phone away from her face for a moment and asked, “D’you need help?”

Lucas held up his ID. “Need to talk to you about Roy.” She said into the phone, “I’ve got a cop here. I don’t know, it’s about Roy… I don’t know, hang on.” To Lucas, with the phone on her shoulder: “What about Roy?”

“Could you get off the phone for a minute?” Lucas asked. To the phone: “He wants me to get off the phone? Yeah, he is.” Lucas thought he’d heard a tinny “asshole” from the phone, and he rubbed his forehead. She picked that up and said, “Call you back.” Hung up and said, “Yeah?”

“I’m looking for an employee of yours named Roy,” Lucas said. “He went home.'

'You got a phone number for him?” Lucas asked. “I’m not allowed to give that out.'

'I’m a cop. You’re allowed to give it to me,” Lucas said. She rolled her eyes, as though she were being tried by the feeble- minded. “I’m not allowed to give to anybody.'

'You want to stop giving me a hard time here?'

'Me? You’re the asshole.” Lucas looked at her for a moment; she was enjoying herself, jerking around a cop. He contemplated her for a second, then took out his cell phone, hit a speed- dial number, waited for a second, then said, “This is Lucas Davenport, with the BCA… Yeah, hi, Rog. Look, could you send a squad around to Mike’s Liquor on Fourteenth, over in Dinky-town? I’m working that Ford murder thing, I got a witness giving me a hard time. I’d like to get the name and a number for the owner, I might want to pick him up later. Yeah, thanks. Just probably transport her downtown, give her some time in the tank to think about it. Yeah. Yeah. Talk to you.”

He hung up the phone and she shouted, “Transport me?” Lucas turned away, walked over to the door and looked out. She shouted, “Wait a minute. Transport me? What the fuck are you talking about?”

Lucas crossed his arms, looked down the street. “Hey, fuckhead. Are you talking about me?” He was getting a headache, but turned toward her. “When did Roy leave?” Her eyes were bulging, her face the color of a Coke can, but she gave it up: “Half an hour ago.” A squad car pulled into the curb and a cop got out. “How do I get in touch with him?'

'You can’t,” she snarled. “He’s on a date.'

'Where’s he going?'

'How’n the fuck should I know?” she asked. “I’m not his mother.'

'Where does he live?” She rolled her eyes again and Lucas resisted the impulse to jump over the counter and slap the shit out of her. “I don’t know. In Uptown.”

“So what’s his phone number?'

'I’m not allowed to give it out,” she said. The Minneapolis cop came through the door, nodded at Lucas and asked, “What’s up?'

'Ah, for Christ’s sakes,” the woman said. Lucas held a finger up to the cop, as she pulled a clipboard out from under the counter, looked down a list, and read off the phone number.

Lucas had his notebook ready and jotted it down. “What’s his last name?”

“Carter.” Lucas wrote it down, said to the cop, “We’re good to go. Madonna here was giving me a raft of shit.” They stepped toward the door and she shouted, “Fuck you again.” They both flinched and the cop said, “Jesus,” and they were out on the sidewalk. “Sorry about this,” Lucas said. “She had me whipped. I was just trying to get a number for a guy whose name I didn’t know.” They heard a last “fuck you,” faintly, through the closed door, and the cop said, “She definitely needs to take a couple aspirin,” and, as he walked around the nose of his squad, “Have a nice day.”

Lucas called Roy Carter from the car, hoping that the number would go to a cell phone; but the phone rang twenty times with no answer. He took fifteen minutes getting across Minneapolis, found Carter’s apartment in a big old house that had been cut into four crappy apartments. He went up the central hall to the second floor, saw light under Carter’s door. He knocked on the door, which rattled in the frame, knocked again, knocked a third time. Felt empty; not even a creaking floorboard.

Back at the car, he thought about heading home; then took out the list of names that Alyssa Austin had given him and scanned down it. The first time he looked, he’d noticed some addresses in Uptown, and the man mentioned by Mobry, Karl Lageson, also lived around there.

He glanced at his watch. Still early. Lucas got Lageson’s address from the duty guy at the BCA, found it, a redbrick apartment house with a rack of bicycles outside, knocked on the door, was a little surprised when it popped open.

Lageson was a tall pale man with a black ponytail, probably thirty, and did look a little like a Lurch. He was cooking chunks of white fish in a cast- iron skillet; the fish sizzling in the background when he opened the door. He pulled Lucas inside so he could attend the skillet, and he seemed to know what he was doing, expertly wielding a pair of stainless tongs as he shuffled the fish in and out of the hot oil.

“I didn’t talk to the police about her-the fairy girl-but I suppose I should have,” he said as he worked, licking hot grease from his thumb. “I mean, Dick was a big guy and this woman was really small. If she’d tried to stab him he would have thrown her in the river… but, I should have mentioned it. It just seemed ridiculous. I could get