Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(84)

“We’ll have seven more agents around you, running a box,” the AIC said, poking a finger as Lucas’s chest. “Don’t try to beat any yellow lights.”

“We want you to talk to Harrelson on the phone,” Tremanty said. “He’s already up, but he won’t be here until nine. We want you to hear the way he speaks. You’ll have his cell phone in the car. We’ll be tracking the cell and any incoming calls. And we’ll have both a Cessna and a chopper in the sky, tracking cars. And there’ll be a GPS tracker inside the money bag.”

“What if he asks for identifiers? What if he asks, what tattoo does your wife have on her ass?” Lucas asked.

The AIC said, “Ah. We got that. When you answer the phone, you’ll make sure it’s on speaker. You’ll be carrying a handset that’ll come back to us, and Harrelson, and you’ll have an earbud in your ear. If Deese asks about the tattoo on his old lady’s ass, Harrelson will say, ‘Property of the Hells Angels,’ or whatever, and you answer the question.”

“Cool,” Lucas said. And he laughed. “‘Property of Hells Angels’?”

“The problem is, of course, that they’ll think about aerial surveillance, and all that, and they’ll try something tricky,” Tremanty said. “They’ll have two or three vehicles, maybe a stolen one in addition to the Cadillac and the Lexus, and they’ll dump one or two of them. Something tricky anyway. Like driving into a parking structure and running out on foot. Or whatever.”

Lucas asked Tremanty, “How’s Santos? Is he going to make it?”

“Yes, but he’s messed up. Lost a kidney, a chunk of his stomach. A slug barely missed his spine, but he might have some nerve damage that’ll affect his legs. Won’t know about that for a while.”

“I’m asking because he lost us in Caesars and we were right on his tail,” Lucas said. “He dumped his car with the valet and disappeared into the crowd. I’m thinking Deese and his crew could do the same thing, and we could wind up with guns in a crowd again.”

“Don’t want that,” the AIC said, with a touch of sweat in his voice. “I mean, Jesus, we really don’t want that. You wouldn’t believe the PR hassle we’ve got after that thing at the mall. We’re smoothing it over, but it looks like ten years of good relations with the local cops just went down the drain.”

Tremanty: “If those fuckin’ cops hadn’t come running down the mall—”

“Don’t start,” the AIC snapped. “I already got a headache. So does the sheriff. We don’t need to hear any more about it.”

Tremanty nodded.

Lucas asked, “Real money?”

“We’ve got that going,” Tremanty said. “Not two million, but enough to look like a lot. One-dollar bills, wrapped up in bundles, with hundreds on the outside. Two hundred bundles, so you’ll be carrying a little less than forty thousand. The money bundles will be supplied by the bank but will come from Harrelson. If you lose it, it’s Harrelson’s loss.”

“All you have to do,” the AIC said, “is be Harrelson. That’s it.”

“Sounds easy,” Lucas said. “It never is, though.”

“Not only that, you have to wear silly clothes,” Tremanty said, handing him a sack. Lucas looked inside and found a new pair of khaki slacks and a pink golf shirt.

“Where’d you get these in the middle of the night?”

“This is Vegas,” Tremanty said.


LUCAS GOT on the phone with Harrelson, who had a touch of a dry, Southwestern accent. His vocal range and Lucas’s—mild baritones—were a near match, which helped.

“I’m sitting here on my bed all freaked out,” Harrelson said. “I do love that girl, and that goddamn cannibal has her. I might have taken him on, but there were two guns and it only would have gotten all of us shot.”

“You did okay,” Lucas said. “Tell me the whole story, beginning with when they caught you in the garage.”

“I already told the FBI agents . . .”

“I want to hear you talk, see if I can fake the way you sound.”

“Oh. All right . . . Well, I pulled into my garage . . .”

As Harrelson spoke, Lucas turned the phone upside down so he could still hear him but could simultaneously practice the same accent. When Harrelson finished, Lucas said, “I hope I got it.”

“So do I. You gotta save Gloria, man. Those people are animals.”

“See you here at the bank,” Lucas said. “Nine o’clock.”


OFF THE PHONE, Lucas asked Tremanty, “How do I sound?”

“Like a Minnesotan trying to imitate George Bush.”

“Thank you.”


DEESE AND HIS CREW would know the bank didn’t open until nine, so the feds expected that Harrelson wouldn’t get a call until a bit before or after.

The bank’s employees began showing up a few minutes before eight and were taken aside, one at a time or in small groups, and briefed on what was about to happen. They were asked to turn off their cell phones until the agents told them it was all right to turn them on again. That caused some complaints, especially from parents who said they needed to check on school arrivals, and Tremanty agreed to allow necessary calls but only with an agent monitoring what was said. That generated some complaints about privacy, but Tremanty used quiet, friendly persuasion to tell them to go fuck themselves and their privacy issue.