Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(48)

THE TWO Airbnb houses were a mile apart. They’d wanted two houses here for the same reason they’d had two in LA: if the cops found the one, the other could fast become a refuge. They’d hoped to get two closer together, but the ones they got were the ones the Airbnb lady could get in a hurry and they hadn’t wanted to do any house hunting personally. Even at a mile apart, in a suburb without traffic lights, they could drive between the houses in two minutes or walk it in fifteen.

When Cole and Beauchamps got back, they found Deese watching a cable TV hunting channel while Cox was sitting on a couch, pouting, as she flipped through a copy of Women’s Health. She was using a butcher knife as a bookmark. Beauchamps asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Your fuckin’ brother, is what’s wrong with me. What an asshole,” she said, standing up and pointing the knife at Deese.

“What’d he do?” Cole asked.

“The usual. Trying to fuck me behind Marion’s back,” Cox said. She’d started calling Beauchamps Marion because the TV news stories about the gang usually referred to him as Martin. “He said he’d give me fifty dollars, for Christ’s sakes. Fifty dollars?”

“Shut up, you fuckin’ whore,” Deese said, not bothering to turn his head away from the TV.

Cox, with her fists on her hips: “See?”

Beauchamps said to Deese, “I told you: keep your hands off her, goddamnit.” To Cole, he said, “You’re right. I don’t see this working long-term. We go tonight, we split the money, we get out of here.”

“I’m not going with the asshole,” Cox said. “If you’re going with him, I’ll ride with Cole.”

“She’s fuckin’ Cole,” Deese said, still not looking away from the TV.

“Oh, horseshit,” Cole said at the same time Cox said, “I am not,” and Cole said, to Deese, “We had a pretty goddamn solid thing going until you showed up. We all got along.”

Now Deese turned to the others and said, “What’s this about tonight? Going?”

“We’re hitting Harrelson,” Beauchamps said. “We need to tool up and cruise the place. And we need to have our shit together when we do it.”

“My shit’s always together,” Deese said. “But this is sorta sudden, huh?”

“We got marshals all over us,” Cole said. “We need to get out.” Deese nodded. “Okay.”


THEY CRUISED Harrelson’s place in separate cars. Cox would be the driver that night and she wouldn’t go with Deese. Cole and Deese were snarling at each other because Deese insisted that Cox was sleeping with both Beauchamps and Cole. So Deese and Beauchamps went together, Cox and Cole went in the Cadillac.

On the way to Harrelson’s, Deese said, “When we’re done with this, we get rid of Geenie. You know goddamn well she’s fuckin’ Cole. And she’s also the weak link. I’ll do it. Take her up north of here, dump her in the desert.”

“I don’t want to think about it. And so what if she’s the weak link? We could drop her off at a shoe store and not pick her up. Don’t tell her where we’re going. The cops know our names anyway, so what’s she gonna tell them?”

“You’re not pissed because she’s fuckin’ Cole?”

“I’m not sure that she is. I don’t like the idea of killing her. I’m not a killer. And she’s a nice girl.”

“She’s a whore, Marion.”

“No she’s not. If she was a whore, she’d be fuckin’ you if you’d offered her a reasonable amount of money, which you didn’t. And if she was a whore, she’d have given you a price, which she didn’t. Now shut up and drive.”


“WHAT I’M most worried about is,” Cole told Cox, “that the brothers will decide they don’t need us. That fuckin’ Deese likes killing people, it’s what he does. You read the stories.”

“He stinks,” Cox said. “You ever smell his breath? It’s like it got bad from eating all those dead people. Smells like he’s got a dead mouse in his mouth.”

“I don’t care about his breath,” Cole said. “I care about what happens next . . . Say this Harrelson story turns out to be true. He’s got five million dollars in his house and we get it. If we split it four ways, we’ll each get a million two fifty. But they get rid of us, they’d both get twice as much, two and a half mil each.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m not down for a share,” Cox said. “Or, at best, not a full share.”

“Okay. Say they give you nothin’—”

“That ain’t fair!”

“You’re right. But say they give you nothin’. We cut it three ways and we’d each get”—he had to do the numbers in his head—“something like a million six five. That’s still a lot less for the brothers than if they only split it two ways.”

“You think they’re planning that? To get rid of us?” Cox asked.

“I don’t know. Finding out that they are, when Deese is standing there with a gun in his hand, then it’d be too late.”

They drove on for a while, Cox finally saying, “I really want this money. If I don’t get some money, I got nothing.”