Twisted Prey (Lucas Davenport #28)(45)

“An update. Smalls had a press conference. Every TV station in the Twin Cities was there. Parts of it will hit the major networks, and Fox and CNN. He didn’t mention any names, but he said that violence had been used against him before and that he wouldn’t let it shake him. Three different reporters tried to get him to say your name—they mentioned you, asked if that was what he was talking about. He smiled: might as well have said your name. He never did, but everybody got the point.”

“Goddamnit. I’m going to have to say something. Work it for me. Remember what I said about seeing him tipsy, drunk—see if you can work that in. If he’s going to get in my face, I’ll get right back in his.”

“I’ll get some ideas together, but it might not be the wisest move. There are other ways to get in his face.”

“Give me those, too.”

She went back to the Treasury man with a smile. “Porter Smalls is getting in my face about his drunken accident last week. If you want to witness a traumatic castration, watch me on the news tomorrow.”

He laughed, and said, “I believe you ahead of time. And I’ll be watching.”



* * *



—

GRANT WAS HOME at eleven when Tate called again. “Talked to my guy at PBS. They’re sucking wind on the story, and they liked that thing about Smalls’s drinking problem and the questions that might raise. I don’t know if it’ll do us a lot of good, but it will fuzz things up, like you said. I’ve also got them checking up on this Davenport’s record—he sounds like a trigger-happy right-winger; he’s killed a whole bunch of people . . .”

“I don’t want to mess with a nice story line, but Davenport actually worked for Elmer Henderson.” Henderson was temporarily out of office but had been the governor of Minnesota and the extremely liberal Democratic vice presidential candidate in the previous election.

“Oh . . . Well, basically, who gives a shit,” Tate said. “We can still frame him as an attention-seeking killer. That should create more fuzz.”

“I knew there was a good reason I hired you,” Grant said. “Keep thinking about this. The more fuzz, the better. See you in the morning. I’ll be making a statement.”

She was tired but checked with Parrish. “Still working on Davenport?”

“We need to talk. Ritter got back to me a couple of hours ago. We’ve done some work . . .”

“Are you at your house?”

“Yes.”

“Come over, we’ll talk.”

“Give me twenty minutes,” Parrish said. “I’ll come on foot.”



* * *



—

PARRISH SHOWED UP, dressed all in black nylon, with a black-and-green-camouflage baseball cap and running shoes; he looked like a crow, Grant thought, as he came down the basement stairs. The housekeeper had let him in, and Grant watched the computer pad that showed the door sealed at the top of the stairs. And that Parrish was carrying a gun.

He dropped onto the sofa opposite her desk, and she could suddenly smell him: he’d jogged over.

“What have you got?” she asked.



* * *



—

“I’VE HAD JIM RITTER in St. Paul the last two days doing . . . observations. We’ve found a situation that may work for us and that will take Davenport out of Washington. If he’s as bright as you say, he might suspect something, but he’d never be sure.”

“The longer he’s out of Washington, the colder the whole situation becomes. Two weeks, and it’s cool. A month from now, nobody’ll care.”

“Exactly. We needed to find a particular guy in St. Paul or Minneapolis and we found him.” Parrish outlined what he had in mind, and Grant closed her eyes as she listened, the better to visualize Parrish’s proposal.

“If there are cops too close . . .” she said when he was done.

“There won’t be: we’ll be tracking them. Tracking them passively, listening only, not talking to anyone. All we need is ten seconds . . . fifteen, at the outside. If the cops are too close, we reset.”

“Fifteen seconds, as long as your man doesn’t get hurt. If he gets hurt, we’re in trouble,” Grant said.

“Handled.”

“Handled how?”

Parrish laughed. “Well . . . the man we found is a fat guy. Ritter’s coat will be stuffed with Bubble Wrap, and, of course, he’ll be braced. He’s done this before, actually, when they were trying to take down a guy without it being an obvious hit.”

Grant sat back in her chair and thought it over. Parrish’s operators, supposedly the crème of American hit men, had already screwed up twice. On the other hand, she had to get Davenport out of her business. If they knew the truck that hit Smalls’s vehicle was a Ford F-250, she didn’t doubt that he would eventually find it.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s do it. No fuckups. No fuckups!”



* * *



—

GRANT WENT TO SLEEP easily enough, unaffected by any anticipatory guilt, though she grew restless at six in the morning, an hour before she usually got up. There was one thing that hadn’t occurred to her the night before and that Parrish hadn’t considered. What if Davenport decided Grant was responsible for it all . . . and he simply killed her?