Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(60)

“I’ll think about it,” Santos said.

“Think about this, too. He’s a killer. You don’t want to falter, because if you do, he’ll kill you. And even worse, he’ll probably try to kill me, and I’d have to jump through my rectum to keep that from happening.”

“I’ll think about that, too,” Santos said.

“Lot to think about,” Smith said. They passed another rosebush and, after checking for park cops, Smith reached out and plucked a blossom and twiddled it in his fingers as he walked, every few steps sniffing it. “Now I’ve got a rose. And it smells like something,” he said.

Santos said, “You know what you sound like, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I know,” Smith said, with a tight, toothless grin. “This business is full of macho assholes. They think you’re a fag, they relax. They believe it right up to the time you pull the church key out of your pocket and carve out an eyeball.”

They walked on.

“You have to think about Deese’s brother,” Smith said. “I never really understood that relationship because they are so very different. At the same time, in their own psychopathic way, they seem to care for each other. Maybe because their father repeatedly beat the shit out of them when they were children.”

“Shared experience.”

“Exactly. Shared trauma,” Smith said. “So if you kill Deese, you might have to do something about Beauchamps. That is, if he knew you were responsible for Deese’s death.”

“Okay. How about the others?”

“Don’t care. They don’t know about me, so I don’t care what happens to them. If they see you kill Deese, if they’re witnesses, then youmight care. But I don’t.”

“That’s all very clear,” Santos said.

“You see any problems?”

“Not really. Well, maybe one: Davenport.”

“Don’t touch him,” Smith said. “I don’t doubt that you could take him, but the bigger problem is, he’s part of a bureaucracy. A bureaucracy never stops. It keeps coming. If it takes years to pull you down, doesn’t matter to them, they’ll take the time. To them, you’re just an active file in a computer and the computer keeps looking. That’s why I hate to be crosswise with that fuckin’ Tremanty. So far, he’s made it a personal mission. If we went after him, though, and knocked him down, the whole FBI would be on our case. And they’d get us, too. Stay away from Davenport. Stay away from Tremanty. Fix our problem however you can, but don’t go blowing over any cops, federal or otherwise.”


AFTER PICKING UP the box of ammo, Santos continued south on Las Vegas Boulevard, then turned west on Warm Springs Road. A jetliner roared overhead as he made the turn, climbing straight into the hot blue sky to the southwest, on its way to Los Angeles.

He followed the car’s navigation system to a neighborhood of dun-colored concrete-block walls and gated housing developments, turned down a street that opened up a bit, with shabbier houses under palm trees that had never been pruned. The nav system brought him to the address that Smith had given him, another dirt-colored house with a tile roof, with a circular drive in front. He drove on past, stopped at the end of the block, took the Sig out from under the car seat, screwed on the suppressor, and shoved it under his belt at the small of his back. He did a U-turn and went back to the house.

The driveway was empty, but when he pulled in and killed the engine he saw the curtain twitch in the window next to the front door. He got carefully out of the car, the gun poking him in the back, and rang the doorbell; a moment later, the door cracked open and a blonde looked out at him.

“What?”

“I’m Santos.”

“You’re way early,” she said. “We didn’t think you’d get here until tonight.”

“Yeah, well, I got the last seat on a direct flight. So here I am. I feel like a boudin noirout here. Are you going to let me in or should I come back later?”

The blonde turned away from the door, and a man’s voice said, “Let him in.”

Santos reached back under his sport coat, as though tucking in his shirt, and touched the butt of the diminutive pistol. The blonde pulled the door fully open and said, “Come on in,” and turned away and let him push the door shut.

The house was compact and poorly furnished—it came with the place, Santos thought, and smelled like carpet cleaner. Beauchamps was standing behind a breakfast bar to his left; the blonde was wandering into the living room to his right. Santos asked, “Where’s Clayton?”

“Up in town. He likes them slot machines,” Beauchamps said.

“That’s crazy,” Santos said. “He knows there’s three marshals up there looking for him and that probably every cop in Vegas has a picture of his face?”

“Got a beard now, and he stays in the cheap places, goes to dive bars,” Beauchamps said. “And, yeah, he’s crazy.”

The blonde asked, “Did you bring the money?”

“Yes, it’s in the trunk of my car,” Santos said. “But, it’s for Clayton.”

She smiled at him. “Don’t suppose if we promised to give it to him . . .”

Santos smiled back. “No. That wouldn’t be good enough.”