Free Phantom Prey by John Sandford Page B

me? Whatever time it is?"
    "Okay, but I'm going out myself," she said.
    "If you hear him . . ."
    "Is this about that guy getting murdered at that bar?" She leaned in the door frame.
    "Yup. He might've talked to somebody that we'd like to find," Lucas said.
    "Not that little fairy, is it?"
    Lucas's eyebrows went up. "Yes, it is. You know her?"
    "No. But that's where Roy is. She called him up."
    "What?"
    "They're hooking up tonight."
    Carter had stopped back at his apartment after work--probably while Lucas was arguing with the woman behind the liquor store counter--had changed clothes, and was gone, hurrying down the steps. He met his neighbor, the Goth woman, whose name was Jean Brandt, on the way down, said, "Hey: that fairy called me. We're going out," and then he rattled on down the stairs and out the door.
    Lucas asked her, "You know where he goes? Where he might take her? What does he look like?"
    "I've got a picture of him," she said, a worry-crinkle creasing her forehead. She went back into her apartment, came back to the door with a snapshot; Brandt and two men, in a park somewhere. "Roy's on the right." Lucas tilted the photo under the hall light: Roy was a tall man, fix-four, thin, fed-haired, pale eyes, bony shoulders, and big hands. Even in the park, he was dressed from head to foot in black. He had a silver earring piercing the upper ring of the only ear that Lucas could see.
    "You think he's in trouble?" Jean asked.
    "I don't know--I 'd just like to talk to this woman," Lucas said. "She's apparently the last person to see Dick Ford alive."
    "Well, knowing Roy--he's always been a little retarded around women--I'd say he's going to take her to the place he thinks will impress her the most. That's probably November."
    Lucas looked up: "November on Lyndale? I thought it closed."
    "New management, but they kept the name," she said. "Or he might go to Candy's, but Candy's is big on dancing and Roy doesn't dance so much. And it's loud. I think he wants to talk."
    "Thanks," Lucas said, and he turned back to the stairs.
    "If you want, I'll ride along," she offered. "If he's not at November, maybe I could ask people that we know. Somebody will be there."
    "Let's go," Lucas said.
    In the car, Brandt said, "Roy is really sweet, but, you know, he doesn't get so far with women. I don't know why, he's really a nice guy. So this one sort of hit on him the other night, actually got his work number. He's been shaky about it ever since. Hoping she'd call."
    "Didn't have a name?"
    "He didn't tell it to me, if he did," Jean said.
    "Did he know a young woman named Frances Austin? She was killed, it was in the papers? She was Goth, or somewhat Goth, hung out at A1."
    "I don't know. Roy hung out at A1 and he's Goth. So probably," Brandt said.
    "Did you know her?"
    "Not as far as I know. My friends are more from, you know, the south side and over toward Edina. Roy's friends were more the university group."
    "Do you know Patricia Shockley or Leigh Price?" Lucas asked.
    She looked over at him in the dark, her moon face almost luminescent. "Well, yeah. I do. Are they involved?"
    He explained about Frances Austin, and she said, "Okay. If you hook up with a Goth, and they talk to you, you can follow a chain around to all the Goths in the Cities, and probably all over the country. So I know Leigh and Pat one way, and I know Roy another way, but if they know each other . . . I don't know."
    November was a charcoal-colored concrete-block building with a long scrawling November above the doors in red neon. The parking lo t h ad two dozen cars in it. Worried about getting parked in, Lucas left the Porsche on the street, a block away. Jean led the way back, and as they passed the parking lot, said, "That's Roy's car." She pointed at an aging red Camry parked at the back of the lot.
    "Excellent," Lucas said.
    Inside the door, they stopped to scan the main room--black leatherette booths, around a U-shaped bar with subdued light, a harsh black -