Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(78)

Lucas told him about the murder of the mafioso, about clawing at his face and coming away with a handful of brains.

“Aw, Jesus,” Tremanty said. “That’s, uh . . .”

“Yeah.”


BOB’S HANDSET BURPED. “They’re going in,” a voice said. “Everybody locked and loaded?”

“Like John Wayne said,” Bob said.

Lucas rolled a window down. If there was shooting, they’d be close enough to hear it. There was nothing, and a minute later the radio burped again. “The house is empty. Stand down.”

“Goddamnit,” Tremanty said. Rae said,

“We need to look.”


THEY HAD TO WALK the last block to the house, where they found Case and the SWAT commander running the scene. The house was typical of the neighborhood, with both garage doors up. A white Ford F-150, with mud-smeared license plates, was parked on the single-bay side.

Case, the assistant sheriff, was standing at the front door. Lucas, Tremanty, Bob, and Rae walked across the concrete lawn and looked past her into the house. Lucas could see clothing on the couch and sacks of junk food on a kitchen counter. “They may be coming back. For the truck,” Lucas said to Case. “You should shut down the scene.”

She said, “We’re already there. We’ll leave the outer ring in place—the Cadillac won’t get in here—but it’s probably too late.”

She pointed, and Lucas turned to look. Three blocks away, a group of vans were parked at the side of the street, with a dozen people standing in the street iself, looking down at them. “TV,” Case said. “If they’re paying any attention to the media, they’ll see us.”

“How many guys are you leaving here?” Tremanty asked.

“Eight unmarked cars, parked on side streets, a block out from the house. If they come in, we’ll see them. And we’ll have the manpower to take them down. You can go on in, if you want.”

She went to do something else, and Lucas, Bob, Rae, and Tremanty stepped inside the house, cruised the living room and the two bedrooms. There was high-end clothing in the closets and on the floor, in boxes and bags. “After the mall, they must’ve known there’d be a massive manhunt,” Tremanty said. “They’re on their way out of town.”

“That Lenny guy said the Highway Patrol is all over the roads going out of town,” Bob said.

“I . . . don’t know,” Lucas said. “If they were planning to run straight from the mall, they would have packed a lot of this stuff up. What would it take, five minutes? And why leave the truck? It’s a hell of a lot more anonymous than the Cadillac.”

“Even in the LA shoot-out, they took stuff,” Bob said.

“It’s weird that they’d be out, wandering around town, with everybody and his brother looking for them, and with those videos on television,” Tremanty said.

“They’re up to something,” Bob said.

Rae: “Yes.”

After a moment, Lucas said, “It’s a snake hunt now. There’s nothing for us. Unless something changes.”

“What’re you saying?” Tremanty asked.

“I’m saying we go back to the hotel and bag out,” Lucas said. “Play some blackjack. Bob could pick up a little weed at one of the stores on the Strip, get mellow. Rae . . . I don’t know what Rae might do. Read an art book. We can take the handset to stay in touch with what’s going on here.”

Rae: “Really?”

“Ah, fuck it,” Tremanty said. He looked around the parking lot, the cop cars stacked up around them. “You’re right. We’re out of it.”





CHAPTER


TWENTY


Cox, Cole, and Deese left the house a few minutes before eight. Cox wasn’t talking much, after an argument with Deese. Deese, she’d said to his face, was dragging all of them down. “All of my life, I haven’t done nothing really bad, and you’re dragging me down. The cops are looking for me. And maybe for murder. Why’d you have to go and shoot all those people?”

Deese had smiled at her, his yellow teeth dull under the overhead LED lights. He was eating Cheetos, his lips orange with the cheese. “You’re in it now, bitch,” he said. “You’re a genuine outlaw. They gonna put you on a table and stick a needle into your arm, unless you disappear.”

Cox had started to cry, and Cole said, “Stop that. We’ll figure this out. Who’s gonna do what tonight?”

Deese: “What’s there to figure out? We almost did it already.”

Cole said, “Man, I’m doing my best to get you out of this mess. Marion and I ran our LA ring for three years and never had a speck of trouble until you showed up. But we’re doing a raid tonight, and that’s what I do best. We got to get organized—the chains and padlocks. Gotta look at some maps and satellite pictures. There’s lots of shit to do.”


THEY GOT the backpacks ready, and the guns and chains and padlocks and masks, and looked at satellite pictures. Cox turned on the TV and found a news station. All the talk was about the shootings at the mall, with some memories of the Las Vegas music festival massacre in 2017, which killed fifty-eight people and left more than eight hundred injured.

“Shit, we’re small-timers,” Deese said.