Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(73)

“Then why was Santos—”

“Because he didn’t know,” Lucas said. “Smith didn’t tell him. If the cops kill Deese, Smith is in the clear. If Santos pays Deese, Smith is in the clear. Either way works.”

“You’re making Smith sound like an asswipe,” Rae said.

“There you go.”


ACROSS THE MALL, Tremanty, covered in blood, was facing Harvey. They were arguing. Lucas headed that way, trailed by Rae.

Lucas heard Harvey saying, “. . . taking the blame for this mess. If you’d waited, we could have gotten a SWAT team here.”

“That’s bullshit. We were told he was staying for five minutes, and we had reason to believe the tip came from someone who knew what she was talking about. He’s a serial killer, and a cannibal, and we couldn’t wait,” Tremanty said heatedly. He jabbed an index finger at Harvey without actually poking him. “It wasn’t us who set this off, it was you guys. You came running down the mall, and I never saw anybody looking more like cops than you did. Deese’s lookout saw you and yelled to him. If you’d walked down here separately, if you let us do it, it’d all be over with and we’d have Deese in custody. Lucas told you to stay away, told you we didn’t need a bunch of cops—”

Lucas’s phone rang just then and he turned away from the argument, and Bob said, “We tracked them to the parking structure, we got a silvery-golden Cadillac Escalade. And, guess what? There was mud splattered on the plates. Everything else was clean except the plates. Don’t have a number, though.”

“Goddamnit.”

“It’s not all bad,” Bob said. “There’s a Vegas cop here, says they have traffic cameras at the major intersections and we might be able to track the Caddy that way. To wherever they’re going.”

Lucas told him about the hallway and the loading dock, asked if there were cameras covering that. Bob went away for minute, came back and said, “Yes, there are. We’ll look now.”

“About that traffic camera video,” Lucas said. “Get going on that, too. And keep me up on what you find out.”

“Gotcha,” Bob said.


RAE HAD WALKED away when Lucas was on the phone and came back with a handful of paper towels from a restroom, half of them soaked with water, and began toweling off Tremanty’s face. He let her do it, holding on to one of her elbows to steady himself, and took a towel from her to wipe his hands. Then she dried his face, and said, “You saved that woman’s life. She was bleeding out.”

“But Deese is gone,” Tremanty said. “We might not ever find him again.”

Lucas said, “He might not have gone that far.” He took the green bag off his shoulder, pulled it open, peeled back the flaps of all four FedEx boxes, showing off the money. “Smith was paying him, but we got the money. I don’t know how much, but it could be a million.”

Tremanty showed a flicker of a smile. “Santos is hurt, he’s got a pile of money with him, and he’s meeting up with the fuckin’ Louisiana cannibal. That gives me something to work with. Deese won’t be getting any more money from Smith, I can promise you that.”

Harvey came over. “The sheriff is here, along with every reporter in Vegas. We’ve contained the press outside, we think, at least for now. We need to meet to talk about the story.”

Lucas, Bob, and Rae all looked at Tremanty. After a moment, he nodded. “All right, I’ll take it. We want to avoid a political clusterfuck, if we can. We need Bob’s video of the guy who yelled at Deese. And his girlfriend. And the car. We need all the photos we have of Deese, including any video from the first floor. We talk to the sheriff and then—”

“The fuckin’ press,” Harvey said.

“Nothing wrong with the press,” Lucas said. “It’s the killing that’s the problem.”

They looked down the hall. The place had emptied out, leaving cops, crime scene techs, security guards and shredded bandage packaging scattered around the slowly congealing pools of crimson blood.





CHAPTER


EIGHTEEN


Deese had thought hard about how he’d pick up the money.

He’d sat in the bathroom, thinking; lay on the bed, picturing it. On the way across town, from the house to the Show Boat mall, he’d nearly hit a Rolls-Royce, distracted by the images playing through his mind.

What would happen if the marshals or the Vegas cops showed up, if Santos and Smith had betrayed him? If the feds got their hands on him, he was dead. So that wasn’t going to happen. If he got jumped, he’d start shooting. He had his Glock, he had a full magazine, and chaos would be his friend. He could feel the cool pressure of the pistol against his spine.

The mall was right on Las Vegas Boulevard. He didn’t get there fifteen minutes before the meeting, like a moron, to do some hurried, half-assed scouting. No, he got there two hours ahead of time and wandered through the crowd of shoppers, looked down hallways, tried doors, counted security guards. After half an hour of looking around, he found a possible escape route fifty yards from the Chipotle’s.


HE PACED IT OUT.

If he could get a jump on any pursuers, he could make it to the short utility hallway that led to the loading dock with the dumpster sticking out of it. There were three doors in the hallway, but when he walked through another exit he found that he could get onto the loading dock and unlock one of the doors from there. If he could get through the hallway, close the door behind himself, lock it, and get around behind the dumpster, he could run along the mall’s wall. Anyone chasing him would think that he was headed for the parking structure and be looking the wrong way.