Certain prey

'Just in case?'

'In case I ever have to run for it.'

'I never thought of doing that,' Carmel said. 'Running.'

'I'd run before I'd stand and fight. If a cop ever got close enough to look at me, I'd be screwed anyway.'

'Do you think / could run?'

Rinker looked at her carefully, and after a minute, nodded: 'Physically, it wouldn't be a problem. The question is whether you could handle it psychologically.'

The clerk came back with the wrapped scarf and the credit card: 'Thanks very much, Mrs. Blake.'

'Thank you,' Rinker said. She tucked the card away in her purse.

'Physically, I'd be okay? But psychologically…' Carmel was interested.

'Sure. You've got a hot image. Bright clothes, blonde hair, good makeup and perfume, great shoes.' Rinker took a step back and took a long look. 'If you dressed way down – got some stuff from a secondhand shop, you know, stuff that didn't go together that well, some kind of scuzzy dark plaid, drab. And if you grew out your hair, and colored it some middle-brown color, and slumped your shoulders and shuffled, maybe got some breast prosthetics so you'd have big floopy boobs…'

'My God,' Carmel said, starting to laugh. But Rinker was serious. 'If you did that, your best friends wouldn't recognize you from two feet. You could get a cleaning lady job at your law firm, and nobody would know you. But I don't know if you could stand it. I think you like attention; you need it.' 'Maybe,' Carmel said. 'Maybe everybody does.' 'I don't. I don't want people to look at me.

That's one reason why I'm good at what I do.'

'I really don't understand that,' Carmel said. 'I was a nude dancer for three and-a-half years, from the time I was sixteen until I was twenty. You get pretty goddamned tired of people staring at you. You want privacy.'

Carmel was fascinated now. 'You were a…' Her beeper went off, a discreet low

Japanese tone from her purse. 'Uh-oh.'

She glanced at the beeper, dropped it back in her purse, took out a cell phone and dialed. 'Maybe a problem,' she said. 'My secretary only uses the beeper if there's some pressure.' And to the phone:

'Marcia -you beeped me? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. Give me the number. Okay.'

She clicked off and said, 'Cop called. He wants to talk to one of my clients.'

'Doesn't it make you nervous, talking to cops all the time?'

'Why should it?' Carmel asked. 'I'm not guilty of anything, I'm just doing my job.'

'We've gotta spend some time looking for the tape, we can't go running around.. .'

'Actually, my client's name is Hale Allen,' Carmel said.

Rinker frowned: 'Any relation to Barbara Allen?'

'Her husband.'

'Jesus.' Rinker was impressed. 'How'd that happen?'

'He's a friend of mine and I'm a good attorney. Actually, I'm one of the best criminal attorneys in the state. The cops think he might've done it.'

'So you're on the inside,' Rinker said.

'Somewhat.' Carmel smiled down at Rinker. 'Makes it kind of interesting.'

'Certainly could be useful,' Rinker said. 'Is that why you took the job?'

'Not exactly,' Carmel said. Then her smile disappeared: 'But this cop who's calling – he wasn't working the case before. He's a deputy chief of police,

Lucas Davenport. A political appointee. He used to be a regular cop, but he was canned for brutality or something. They brought him back because he's smart. He's a mean bastard, but really smart.' 'Well, hell, as long as he thinks her husband did it…'

'But it means we've got to get that goddamn tape,' Carmel said. 'If Davenport ever got a whiff of that… I'll tell you what, Pam, he's the one guy in the world who could run you down. The one guy.'

'As long as you're on the inside, he shouldn't be a problem,' Rinker shrugged.

'And if he gets to be a problem, we take him.'

Carmel gave her a long look, and Rinker asked, 'What?'

'You don't know him,' Carmel said.

'Look, if a guy doesn't know it's coming, and if you spend some time watching him, and thinking about it – you can take him. You can'

Carmel came swinging down the hall to Homicide, spotted Lucas coming from the other direction, carrying a large clip-bound report. 'Davenport, goddamn it, have you been stepping on my client's rights again?'

'How are you, Carmel?' Lucas asked.

'What's the big book?'

'Ah, the Perfection Commission.'

'Oh, my God. I tried to read about it in the Star-Tribune. I felt like I'd been anesthetized.' Carmel presented a cheek, and Lucas pecked it. He took one of her hands, lifted it and stepped back so he could look her over, and said,

'You look absolutely… wonderful.'

'Thanks. How come we've never slept together? You've chased every other woman in town.'

'I only chase… no, that's not right.'

'What?'

'I was gonna say I only chase women who don't scare me,' Lucas said. 'But they all wind up scaring me.'

'I heard you were dating Little Miss Titsy, the cop, but you broke up.'

'That would be Sgt. Sherrill?'

'What happened? She have a bigger gun?'

'Carmel, Carmel…' Lucas held the door for her. Carmel stepped through, and saw Hale Allen at the far end of the room, leaning against a green filing cabinet, deep in conversation with Marcy Sherrill. Marcy was standing a couple of inches too close to him, and was looking up into his eyes with rapt attention.

'Uh-oh,' Carmel said.

'By the way,' Lucas said, in a tone low enough that Carmel had to turn to catch what he said. 'I'm told your client is dumber'n a barrel of hair.'

'But, God, he's gorgeous,' she said. She ostentatiously bit her lower lip, sighed, and started toward Allen and Sherrill. Moving like a leopard, Lucas thought.

They needed to cover some old ground, Lucas told Allen, because he was new to the case. He hoped it wouldn't be inconvenient. 'I understand your wife has been released by the county…'

'Yes, finally,' Allen said.

'That took way too long,' Carmel added. 'I don't understand why they had to do twenty different kinds of chemistry when the woman's been shot seven times in the brain.'

'Routine,' Lucas said.

'Bullshit routine,' Carmel said, now in attorney mode. 'You should give a little thought to what it does to the grieving survivors. You're revictimizing the victims.'

'All right, all right,' Lucas said. 'This will only take a couple of minutes.'

'Where's the other guy? Black?' Carmel asked.

'Doing something else,' Lucas said. He looked at Allen. 'Tell me about your relationship with your wife…'

'Ah, Jesus,' Carmel said.

Ten minutes later, Lucas leaned toward Allen and asked, 'How well did you know

Rolando D' Aquila?'

Allen looked puzzled. 'Rolando who?'

'D'Aquila. Also known as Rolo, I understand.'

'I don't know anybody by that name,' Allen said.

'Never bought a little toot from him?' Lucas asked.

'No, I never.' He shook his head. 'Toot?'

When Lucas mentioned D'Aquila's name, Carmel slipped back a step, and ran the numbers. They'd found the body, obviously. If they looked up D'Aquila's history – and they would get around to that, if they hadn't already – they'd find her name. They might wonder why she hadn't mentioned it.

'Why are you interested in this Rolando D'Aquila?' she asked Lucas.

'He was murdered last night,' Lucas said. 'He was killed the same way Mrs. Allen was – the method was identical.' He looked back at Allen: 'So you never represented him, or one of his friends, either in a criminal court or in a civil legal matter?'