Phantom prey

“She didn’t say anything?'

'Nothing at all,” Austin said. “I’m going to leave some documentation in a folder on your dining table,” Lucas said. “Could you take a look at it, and the other expenses she had at the time? See if anything rings a bell.”

“I’ll look as soon as I get home- I’ll come back as soon as this meeting is done.”

“Good. Let me give you my cell number. Call me anytime.” When he got off the line, he took out his book and found Anson’s number. “Get anything?” he asked, when Anson came up. “I took that photo kit of the fairy woman around to the people who saw her,” Anson said. “And to Frances’s friends. One of her friends said the fairy looked like… guess who?”

“I don’t know. Lana Turner?'

'Close, but no cigar. They said it looked like Frances Austin.”

8

A slap in the face. “Frances Austin’s dead,” Lucas said. “You know that and I know that,” Anson said. “The question is, does Frances Austin know that?'

'Man… the blood at Austin’s. You’ve seen the lab reports?'

'I’m just telling you what I was told. We really don’t know how much blood there was at Austin’s place, whether it was a little that got smeared around or a lot that got mopped up. But here’s a question for you. What if the Fairy is Alyssa Austin? She looks a little like Frances.”

Lucas had to think it over. Why not? “You’re thinking outside the box,” he said finally.

“She gets a wig, she gets some black clothes…'

'She’s forty- five, or something like that. Everybody says the Fairy is in her early twenties,” Lucas said. “Yeah, that’s a question,” Anson said. “Still, I wouldn’t mind getting a peek in her wig drawer.” Lucas thought, I’m right there. He glanced sideways. The house-keeper was twenty feet away, poking a coat- hanger wire down the drain on the left side of the two- basin kitchen sink, her lips moving, as though she were trying to talk it into the garbage disposal. Paying no attention. But how was he going to get into the bedroom? The housekeeper wouldn’t be leaving for hours. And if he found anything, could he tell Anson? It’d be an illegal search and he didn’t know Anson that well. “We’d need something,” he said. “To get a warrant.”

“Think of something,” Anson said. Disappointed? “Did you get anything?”

Lucas told him about the missing fifty thousand dollars. “Looks like she just cashed the check, or signed it over to somebody. Or something. Anyway, it doesn’t pop up in any of her accounts that I can find.”

There was a silence of several seconds, then Anson said, “Fifty grand?”

“Yeah. The question is, what would she use it for? She doesn’t seem like a gambler. Cocaine? Doesn’t seem like that kind, either. Maybe… who knows, maybe she was buying photography equipment or computers or something. But Alyssa says she doesn’t know, and she thinks that she would.”

“So now what?'

'I’ll get my financial guys to look into it. Maybe go back to the A1 tonight. People knew her there. See if she was throwing any money around, talking about anything.”

“What about the photo kit?'

'Gotta think about that. Fax one to me, will you? I’ll look at it later.”

Lucas headed back to the BCA, with copies of the Fidelity documents made on Alyssa Austin’s home- office copier. Give them to the accountants, he thought, and let them figure it out.

He’d parked, was out of the car, walking toward the door, head down, when Jenkins and Shrake came hustling out of the building, carrying vests.

He stopped. “Where’re you going?'

'Antsy Toms is back in town,” Shrake said. “I’m coming,” Lucas said. “Let me get my vest.” He ran inside, up the stairs, down to his office, threw the copies at his secretary, Carol, and blurted, “Give these to Dan Hall, find out who cashed the fifty- thousand- dollar check.” She said, “What?” and he pulled his vest out from behind his file cabinets, shouted, “Dan Hall, find out about the check, the fifty grand.”

“Where’re you going?'

'Antsy Toms is back in town,” he said, and he ran past her, down the hall and back down the stairs. Shrake was at the wheel of his personal Crown Vic, waiting in the street. Lucas climbed in the back.

“Where is he?'

'At his mom’s house in Frogtown,” Jenkins said, as Shrake jumped on the gas. “We own the guy who lives across the street. He’s on his second continuance on coke charges. He’s been going down to the cathedral, lighting candles, hoping that Antsy would show up so he could turn him in.”

“He wouldn’t be shittin’ you?” Lucas asked. Jenkins snorted. “He ain’t gettin’ a third continuance.'

'Gotta stay cool,” Lucas said. “Antsy’s got more muscle than Rocky II.'

'And he’s more fucked up than Rocky the Flying Squirrel,” Shrake said. “I’m just praying he hasn’t left.'

'Is St. Paul on the way?” Lucas asked. Long pause. Then Jenkins said, “I guess we forgot to call them.'

'You morons,” Lucas said. Jenkins struggled, turned in his seat, and looked at Lucas: “Call them if you want, you yellow motherfucker.”

They looked at each other for a minute, then Lucas said, “Whatever.”

Shrake busted a red light turning onto University, and the Crown Vic took about three turns that the road didn’t, and Lucas said, “I can’t believe you went out and bought this piece of shit.”

“Couldn’t help myself,” Shrake said. “The seats fit my ass.'

'The experts rated it on Microsoft Network,” Jenkins said over his shoulder. “How’d they rate it?'

'Six out of ten,” Jenkins said. Then he made a laugh sound that went like “bwa- hahahah,” and Shrake said, “Fuck you,” and then, “We’re four blocks out.”

“Put it at the Taco Shed,” Jenkins suggested. “Somebody’ll steal the tires,” Shrake said. “Not when they see us getting out of the car,” Jenkins said. He reached between his legs and swung up a pump shotgun. “Maybe we could rob the Taco Shed before we take Antsy,” Lucas said. “Not a bad idea,” Jenkins said, “except that it’s daylight.” A block from the Taco Shed, Jenkins called St. Paul and identified himself: “We’ve got a semi- confirmed tip that Antsy Toms is at his mother’s house.”

He gave them the details, and help was on the way. It’d get there only a minute or so too late, Lucas thought: as planned.

The Taco Shed was two houses sideways from Toms’s mother’s place. In addition to being Siggy’s stupid younger brother, and occasional cocaine runner, Toms was a weight guy, a lifter, a bouncer, a steroid freak, and a meth enthusiast. Three weeks earlier, stoned out of his mind, and tired of constant cop probes about his brother, he’d beaten a St. Paul cop unconscious, then pinned him on the floor and methodically kicked his balls until they turned to ravioli.

The cop’s partner, a twenty- four-year-old woman named Les Cooper, had gotten into it, and Toms had picked her up by the short hair at the back of her head and whacked her face twice against a mahogany bar, crushing the bones around her eye sockets. She was the niece of a BCA agent who worked out of the Bemidji office.

Toms had always been a cruel, racist, child- beating, dope- taking freak, and had always walked… until now. He’d been hiding out ever since he’d beaten up the cops, but had been seen a couple times in western Wisconsin and north of the Twin Cities in St. Cloud, so they knew he was still around.

His real name, Lucas had once been told, was Antanas. From there, Antsy was a natural: maybe the name had made him what he was. Like Bugsy…

They made the Taco Shed parking lot and climbed out of the car, three large men wearing bulletproof vests. Shrake hit the locks and the car beeped at them and they ran across the lawn of the first house and then up the porch steps of the second house and Shrake kicked the door and they were inside and there was Antsy, standing in the middle of the living room with an old- fashioned princess phone in his hand.

Jenkins pointed the shotgun at him and screamed, “On the floor, you piece of shit,” and Antsy threw the phone at Jenkins’s head and spun and ran for the stairs. Jenkins ducked and pointed the shotgun, but shook his