Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(51)

They’d planned to start the day by checking local hospitals for anyone who’d paid cash for a leg injury before the robbery at the Wrights’ place; Bob and Rae would do that. Lucas would get together with Las Vegas’s Sergeant Mallow to interview local fences about the missing jewelry.

“Here in Las Vegas, they’ve probably got a Yellow Pages listing,” Rae said. They were sitting in the hotel’s café, eating pancakes.

“When was the last time you saw the Yellow Pages?” Bob asked.

“This place is so wired up. It’s like methamphetamine lighting. Makes me jittery. Gotta be more neon here than anywhere in the world,” Rae said. “At night, the whole street out there looks like a slot machine.”

“Not by accident,” Bob said.

“You know what I’ve noticed?” Lucas asked. “Everybody looks so normal. You expect these hard-faced women and burnt-out guys and sleazy gamblers. But when you look around, it’s like every state in the U.S. sent a couple thousand residents here, dressed like they dress back home. Not even like the airport, where people dress up a little bit. They’re all dressed exactly like they do in Podunk.”

“Except they walk down the main drag here drinking out of martini glasses,” Rae said. “You don’t see that in Podunk.”


AS THEY ATE, they were looking at Bob’s printed-out maps to local emergency rooms when their planning session was temporarily derailed by a call from Earl, the FBI phone guy. He said that the phone they’d been watching had popped up again, and repeatedly, at several locations off West Chicago Avenue.

“I checked it out on a map and it looks like they were walking up and down an alley, like they were going back and forth between a couple of different places,” Earl said.

“Did you check the numbers they were calling?”

“Yeah, but they’re all to other burners. Not a full-time phone among them.”

“Huh. Don’t know what that means,” Lucas said. “Watch those other phones, too. Something’s going on here.”

Bob to Lucas: “Me’n Rae could go over there while you hook up with Mallow.”

Lucas shook his head. “I want to take a look. Let’s all three run over. You can drop me back if we don’t see anything promising.”


CHICAGO AVENUE turned out to be part of a neighborhood beneath a thousand-foot-tall observation tower that hung overhead like an enormous chess queen. When they turned down the block, Lucas said, “Goddamnit,” and Rae said, “Yeah,” and Bob said, “Well, now we know for sure that they know we’re here.”

They all recognized the neighborhood as a place you’d unload your burners if you thought the cops were watching and you hoped to confuse them. “Probably tossed them out the window,” Bob said. “Free phones for your local dealers.”

And it was not a neighborhood where Deese and the gang would be hanging out.

“Back to the original plan,” Lucas said.

Rae: “Groan.”


BOB AND RAE would focus on emergency rooms west of I-15, the north-south interstate highway that split the city right up the middle. They did that only because the Wrights thought the getaway car had gone west.

“It’s weak, but it’s what we’ve got. Everything we know about them has come from west of I-15,” Lucas said.

Lucas would meet Mallow, who had a short list of fences where the Wrights’ jewelry might be held.


LUCAS FOUND MALLOW waiting outside a Dunkin’ Donuts on the east side of town. Mallow had said he wanted to walk to the first place they’d visit and the donut shop was nearby. He had a bag in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other and was wearing a loose, bright yellow shirt with its tail over his slacks. Lucas got his iPad out of the Volvo, left the car in the parking lot, and walked around to the front of the shop.

“A flatfoot at a donut shop,” Lucas said. “You got no self-respect . . . You get an extra?”

“Hey, Cargo shorts and drivin’ a Volvo, let’s not talk about self-respect,” Mallow said, tipping his coffee cup at Lucas’s knees. There was a trash can outside the door. As they left, Lucas took the last donut, a double chocolate, and Mallow threw the bag into the can.

“You got me on the Volvo,” Lucas said. “Where’re we going?”

They were going down the block to a low stucco building with a red neon sign that said “Alvin’s Gems & Jewelry” and a door with an electronic lock. As they walked up, Mallow said, “Ring the doorbell. There’s a camera aimed at the door, they know my face. I’m gonna hang back.”

Lucas rang the bell and a moment later was buzzed through the door. He held it for Mallow, then led the way down a short hallway to the main room, where a woman was sitting behind the jewelry counter, looking at a television set.

Mallow said, “Miz Alvin. Ray around?”

Mrs. Alvin resembled some of the weeds that overgrew Las Vegas’s vacant lots—thin, dry-looking—with yellow-white hair atop a puckered-up face. “Nope. He’s up to the ranch.”

“Didn’t know you had a ranch,” Mallow said.

“Did since Ray’s dad died. It’s north of St. George. He’ll be back tomorrow,” she said. “What do you want him for?”