Certain prey

'Carmel…'

Then they were past him and Rinker glanced back and said, 'Nice-looking guy.

What does he do?'

'He's an accountant,' Carmel said.

'Hmm,' Rinker said. Carmel caught the tone of disappointment.

'But not a boring one,' Carmel said. 'He stole almost four million dollars from a computer-software company here.'

'Jesus.' Rinker glanced back again. 'They caught him?'

'They narrowed it down to him – they figured out that he was the only one who could have pulled it off,' Carmel said. 'He hired me to defend him, but he never seemed particularly worried. Eventually, the company came around and said if he gave the money back, they'd drop charges. He said that if they dropped charges, and apologized for the mistake, he'd tell them about the software glitch that they might want to patch up before their clients started getting ripped off, and they found themselves liable for a billion bucks or something.'

'They did it?'

'Took them a week to agree,' Carmel said. 'They hated to apologize – hated it.

But they did it. Then he insisted on a contract that would pay him another half million for isolating the bug. Said it was severance pay, and he deserved it.

They eventually did that, too. I guess they got their money's worth.'

Rinker shook her head: 'Don't people just work for money anymore?'

Carmel didn't want to think about that question. Instead, she said, 'Um, listen, what do I call you?'

'Pamela Stone,' Rinker said. 'By the way, do you know how to get to South

Washington County Park?'

'No, I don't think so.'

Til show you on a map,' Rinker said. 'We gotta get my guns back. Can't fly with them, you know.'

Carmel kept looking at Rinker as they headed out of the airport to the parking ramp; looking for some sign that she could be an executioner for the mob. But

Rinker wasn't a monster. She was a chick, chattering away about the flight, about an airline-magazine article on body piercing, and about the Jaguar, as they pulled through the pay booths: 'I drive a Chevy, myself.'

Carmel listened for a while and then Rinker put a hand on Carmel's forearm and said, 'Carmel, you've gotta relax. You're tighter'n a drum. You look like you're gonna explode.'

'That's because I don't want to spend the next thirty years locked in a closet like some fuckin' squirrel,' Carmel said.

'They're locking squirrels in closets now?' Rinker asked.

Carmel had to smile, despite herself, and loosened her grip on the steering wheel. 'You know what I mean.'

'Ain't gonna happen anyway,' Rinker said. 'We'll get this Rolo fellow in a quiet place, explain the situation to him, and get the tape.'

'And kill him?'

Rinker shrugged. 'Maybe he's made three or four copies. If he tells us about two of them, and the third one is hidden somewhere… maybe if he's gone, it'll never be found.'

'We can't take the chance that there's the third one. We have to make sure we can get them all before we do it. Kill him.'

'We'll scare him,' Rinker said. 'I can guarantee that. But there's no way we can finally be sure…'

'How'll we do it?'

'Leave it to me. I'll pick him up with you, tag him, and when he's alone, I'll take him. Is there a farm store around here? Or a truck store? Or a big hardware place?'

'Yeah, I suppose.'

'We're gonna need some chain and a couple of padlocks and some other stuff…'

South Washington County Park was twenty miles south of St. Paul, a complex of hiking and skiing trails. Only two cars were parked in the entry lot, but their drivers were nowhere to be seen.

'Park down at the end,' Rinker said, pointing. Carmel parked, and they got out.

Rinker, carrying her leather backpack, led the way down a trail along a tiny creek, then up a hillside covered with thick-trunked oaks. At the top of the hill, she took a long look around, then led the way off the trail, back into the trees. After a minute, they came to a fence separating the park from a farm field. Rinker turned down the fence, finally said, 'Here.'

She stepped away from the fence, knelt next to an oak, and probed between two of its roots. The dirt was soft, and came away easily. After a minute, she pulled two automatic pistols from the ground, the dirt still clinging to them.

At that moment, Carmel was aware that she was out of sight of everyone, in a nearly deserted park, with a killer who now had two guns. If Rinker killed her, here and now, who would know, until some hiker way off the beaten path found her body? Rinker could take the Jag and park it downtown. Or who was to say that she hadn't somehow pre-positioned one of those cars in the parking lot down below?

The whole scenario flitted through Carmel's mind in a half-second. Rinker brushed dirt off the two pistols, put them in her leather backpack, and said,

'You worry too much.'

'I anticipate,' Carmel said.

'Why didn't you anticipate that Rolo was making a movie?' Rinker asked politely.

Carmel didn't dodge the question. She grimaced and said, 'I fucked up. I knew something wasn't right. I remember thinking that he wasn't embarrassed by the fact that he was living in a shit-hole, after years of being a big-time dealer.

Wasn't embarrassed. That was wrong.'

'At least you know you messed up,' Rinker said. The guns clinked in the bag as she hung it over one shoulder. 'We need to get some oil. When we get the chains and padlocks. Oil for the guns.'

'Doesn't burying them… sort of wreck them?'

'Yeah, it would if I left them buried for more than a couple of days. In a week they'd be rusted wrecks.

Then, even if somebody found them, there'd be no way to connect them to the death of Barbara Allen.' 'So you were just going to leave them.' 'Sure. You can get them for a couple hundred bucks apiece. I just didn't have time to deal with the airlines and all that.' Rinker glanced at her watch. 'Four hours to Rolo,' she said. 'We'd better get back to town.'

The Crystal Court is the interior courtyard of the tallest glass tower in

Minneapolis, a crossroads of the Minneapolis Skyway system. Carmel met Rolo on the ground floor: she was furiously angry, which Rinker said was perfect. 'If you weren't pissed, he'd be suspicious. The madder you are, the better.'

'I can fake it if I have to, but I don't think I'll have to,' Carmel said. 'I hate this: being extorted, somebody else squeezing you like this, and you're powerless.' She ground her teeth, felt control slipping away; held on tight.

'Not powerless,' Rinker said. 'Just the appearance of it…'

'But he has to think I am. The goddamn humiliation, that cocksucker…'

There was nothing faked about her anger when Rolo showed up, carrying the videotape in a brown beer sack from a convenience store. She was carrying the money in a cloth book-bag.

'You fuck,' Carmel hissed at him. 'You piece of shit. I should have let you go down for life, you fuckin' greaseball.'

Rolo took it calmly enough: 'Just give me the money, Carmel. I got your little movie right here, and we're all done.'

'We'd better be all done,' Carmel snarled. A white-haired man in a golf shirt glanced at her face as she passed, and it occurred to her that she probably looked like a cornered wolf, her face twisted with hate, anger and maybe fear.

She took a breath, straightened up, tried to pull herself together.

'Give me the tape,' she said.

'Give me the money first.'

'For Christ's sakes, Rolo, I can hardly grab it and run, can I? If a cop gets involved, I'm dead meat.'

Rolo thought about it for a minute, then said, 'Let me see the money.'

Carmel pulled open the top of the bag, let him look in. He nodded, grudgingly, and handed her the sack. She looked inside, saw the tape, shook her head and said, 'You fuck,' and he said, 'The money, Carmel,' and she handed him the bag.