Free Eyes of Prey by John Sandford Page B

wants to see Orville.”
    “No Orville here.”
    “Tell him . . . .”
    The eye left the peephole and a minute passed. Then the peephole got dark again and another voice said, “You alone?”
    “Yeah. No problem.”
    Orville Proud opened the door and looked down the hall.
    “No problem?” he asked.
    “I need to talk,” Lucas said, looking past Orville. Room 221 was a suite without beds. Seven men sat frozen around an octagonal table, their eyes like birds’ eyes, picking him up; cards on the table but no chips, ashtrays and bottles of mineral water on the table and the floor by their feet. Behind them, a short man in a hip-length leather coat sat on the heat register. He had a thin pointed beard under delicate gold-rimmed eyeglasses. He looked like Lenin, and he knew it. Ralph Nathan. Lucas put his hand on his hip, six inches from the butt of the .45.
    “You’re gonna get your fuckin’ ass killed someday,” Orville said flatly. He stepped into the hall and pulled the door shut behind him. “What do you want?”
    “I need to know if there’s been any talk about a hit on a woman in Minneapolis. Got herself beat to death, some people think her husband might have hired it. There’s a lot of heat coming down.”
    Orville shook his head, frowning. He didn’t need any heat. “A couple of people mentioned it, but I ain’t heard a thing. I mean, I think I would’ve heard. I been scratching around for cash, trying to get back into business, and I been calling everybody I know. There’s not a fuckin’ thing, man.”
    “Nobody got rich, nobody bought a car . . . ?”
    Proud shook his head. “Not a fuckin’ thing. Terry Meller come into a whole load of Panasonic color TVs, fell off the train in St. Paul, but that’s about it.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Man, I spent the last three weeks running all over themetro, talking to everybody. That’s all I’ve been doing. There’s nothing out there.”
    “All right,” Lucas said, discouraged. “How was Arizona?”
    Proud shook his head. “New Mexico. You don’t wanna do any time in New Mexico, man. That place is like . . . primitive.”
    “Sorry to hear it . . .”
    “Yeah, sure . . .”
    “You check in with me, okay? You got my number?”
    Proud nodded, dug in his pocket and came up with a business card printed with a nine-digit number, broken into groups of three, two and four digits, like a Social Security number. He handed the card to Lucas. “Call the last seven numbers, backward. That’s my beeper. You want to see me again, phone ahead, huh? Don’t come knocking on the fucking door.”
    “Okay. And I’ll give you some free advice, Orville,” Lucas said as he stepped away. “Get rid of Ralph. Ralph’s a head case and he’s looking for somebody to kill. Get yourself a baseball bat or something. If you stay with Ralph, you’ll go to Stillwater with him on a murder rap. I guarantee it.”
    “I hear you,” Proud said, but he didn’t.
    Back in the parking lot, Lucas leaned against the car, thinking it over. They were at a dead end.
    Daniel’d have to go for the TV.

CHAPTER
6
    Beauty danced.
    A jig, to music that played only in his brain.
    He hopped from one foot to another, his penis bobbing like the head of a blind waxen cave worm, his arms, crooked at the elbow, flapping like chicken wings. He laughed with the pleasure of it, the feel of Persian wool carpet under the bare soles of his feet, the sight of himself in the freestanding mirrors.
    He danced and he twirled and he hopped and he laughed . . . .
    He felt a wetness on his chest and looked down. A crimson rain was falling on his chest. He touched his nose. His fingers came away sticky, red. Blood. Running across his lips, dripping from his chin, trickling down across his pale, hairless chest to the thatch of hair at his crotch. The music drained from his brain.
    “Blood,” he moaned. “You’re bleeding . . . .”
    His heart pounding, Bekker got on his knees,