Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(14)

Lucas stepped inside, and the man said, “Stand there for a moment.” Lucas noticed that he had an electronic device in his hand that looked something like a television remote control. He passed it over Lucas’s suit and up and down his legs, and Lucas said, “No wire. Or gun.”

“I see that,” the man said. He pushed a button on the device, which made a high-pitched beeping sound, and added, “And your phone isn’t recording. Come this way.”

As Lucas followed him through the professionally decorated living room, down a hallway with a thirty-foot Persian runner underfoot, into a sprawling kitchen, he asked, “What’s your name?”

The man thought about it for a while, then said, “Dick.”

He put Lucas at a long breakfast table that appeared to be hewn from a single log and went to the coffee machine. “Cappuccino?”

“A cappuccino would be great,” Lucas said. The table had a centerpiece: three ceramic chickens, molded as one piece and unglazed. They weren’t simply chickens, Lucas realized, but Art with a capital A.

Dick brought Lucas a cappuccino in a china cup with a matching saucer and went back to the coffee machine. A moment later, Smith came through the kitchen door. He was middle height with blond hair, cut like a banker’s, over pale blue eyes and a short nose. He was stocky, not fat, with a clear pink complexion. He was wearing blue-and-white vertically striped pajamas and blue slippers. He looked, Lucas thought, as though he spent a lot of time swimming.

“Could I see some ID?” he asked, as he took a chair across from Lucas.

Lucas passed his ID case, with its badge, across the table, and Smith studied it, then passed it back and said, “No recording, no warrant, a friendly conversation.”

“I can explain about that,” Lucas said. “I’ve spent most of my life as a homicide cop in Minneapolis and with the Minnesota state police. I got the marshal’s appointment through political pull. I chase guys down and put them in prison. Or kill them, if they need killing. I’m looking for Clayton Deese. I understand he worked for you from time to time and I thought you might know where he is.”

“I do not,” Smith said. He turned to Dick. “Do you know where Deese is?”

“I have no idea,” Dick said. He gave Smith a cappuccino in another china cup and saucer. “Haven’t seen him for what? A year or two? That was down at a club somewhere.”

Smith turned back to Lucas. “So, are we done here?”

“In a minute,” Lucas said. He and Smith both took a sip of their cappuccinos. “Here’s where the street cop thing comes in. I don’t really operate like a fed. I spend most of my time talking to dirtbags. Like you two.”

Neither man flinched, or commented.

Lucas continued: “My spider sense is telling me that you might have some idea of where he might have gone, and that’s all I’m looking for. I need something specific to work with. I won’t tell anyone where the information came from. If I can confirm it from federal files, I’ll tell anyone who asks that the files were my source, not you guys.”

The two glanced at each other, then Smith asked, “Or what? There’s something else in here, isn’t there? The iron fist in the velvet glove.”

“The children Deese ate,” Lucas said.

“I seriously doubt . . .”

“Yeah, but the media doesn’t.”

“The media are a crowd of morons,” Dick said.

“Who can be seriously annoying. If all the television stations were to find out that you were Deese’s boss and that he ate children, I doubt you could find a parking spot out on your street. It would be filled with TV vans with those twenty-foot Christmas tree antennas sticking out of their roofs. Your neighbors would love that. ‘The cannibal’s employer, right here on St. Charles.’ And every time a car came down the driveway . . .”

“I get the picture,” Smith said. “You can guarantee that wouldn’t happen anyway?”

“I can’t guarantee anything,” Lucas said. “I cantell you two things for sure. Nobody would hear anything from me. And you know what the FBI is like, with evidence: they won’t be talking. You also have to consider the fact that not only did Deese butcher and eat his victims, but, on at least one occasion, he ate a guy’s liver. With onions, I’m guessing.”

Again, neither man flinched, but they did exchange another glance.

Lucas added, “By the way, Rog, one of the victims was your ex-girlfriend, Miz Wheelwright. She was one of the first bodies they pulled out of the muck. And, yeah, she was eaten.”

For the first time, Smith seemed perturbed, his face going a shade paler. “Don’t tell me that.”

“I’m telling you that,” Lucas said. “More grist for the media mills, since your relationship was well known around town. I can’t promise that won’t get out, either, but it won’t come from me.”

“He really ate kids?”

“That’s what WVUE is saying, on its morning newscasts.”

Dick closed his eyes, tipped his head back, and said, “Oh, shit.”

Smith said, “Give me a minute.”

He turned away from Lucas and stared at a pastel blue wall for at least a minute: thinking.

Then he turned back and said, “Sit right here. I’ve got to run upstairs.”