Ocean Prey (A Prey Novel #31) - John Sandford Page 0,97

sleep on it,” Mallard said.

Lucas shot him an annoyed look, exhaled impatiently. “You may be getting a call from Senator Colles, from Florida, you know, the guy who runs the Homeland Security Committee,” Lucas said. “He’s the guy who brought me down to Florida. He’s taken an interest.”

Mallard smiled, but wasn’t amused. “You sandbagged me, didn’t you, you motherfucker?”

“Louis . . .”

“I told you, Louis,” Chase said. “I said Davenport wasn’t going to come plead with you, that there was going to be a rock inside the request.”

“Yes, you did, and I would have been a little disappointed if there wasn’t a rock.” To Lucas: “Where are you guys staying?”

“The Watergate.”

“I used to have an apartment there,” Mallard said. “They allow dogs.”

“That’s great, Louis,” Lucas said. “But what are you going to do?”

“I’ll talk to Colles and then to you tomorrow morning . . . probably not much before noon. Are you going on to New York?”

“Yeah. Early train, unless you need us here to answer questions.”

“I don’t think so. Your argument’s clear enough. Talk to you tomorrow.”

* * *

Chase got up and walked to a liquor sideboard, as if she’d done it before, glanced back at Mallard, and asked, “Tequila?”

“A small one, I think. Lucas? Andres?”

Lucas shook his head and a second later, Devlin did the same.

As Chase poured the liquor, she said to Lucas, “I’m not pissed off at you anymore, Lucas. Don’t trust you to do the right thing, but I never did trust you all that much.”

Lucas said, “I try to do the right thing. Not always the court thing.”

“We’re supposed to be a country of laws,” Chase said.

“And what we are now is a country of special interests and influence,” Lucas said.

“Don’t argue with him,” Mallard said to Chase.

“You’re taking his side?”

“Only because he’s right,” Mallard said, taking the short glass of straight tequila from Chase. “Though I still resent being clubbed like a baby seal.”

“Odd how you get clubbed like a baby seal and you still manage to become the most important professional cop in the United States,” Lucas said.

* * *

On Mallard’s porch, waiting for an Uber, Devlin said, “Well, that went well. We sandbagged one of the most influential guys in the Justice Department and you get in a fight with Jane Chase, who looks to me like a big-time nut-crusher who might be banging the most important guy. I’m thinking of crawling under my bed and not coming out until it’s all over with.”

“A little secret, Andres. When we—Bob and Rae and I—fuck with the FBI, there’s a little thrill that goes around the Marshals Service,” Lucas said. A bug that was circling the porch light collided with his forehead, and he brushed it away. “People know about it. If you’d planned to transfer to the FBI, that wouldn’t help. But if you plan to stay in the Marshals Service . . . people will speak well of you. The director will know your name and might even ask about your kids, even if you don’t have any.”

“All right.” Devlin hitched up his pants. “Though my long-term plan is to spend five more years in the service, get a solid vesting in the retirement plan, learn everything I can about how cops and prosecutors work, then go to law school and become a defense attorney working the federal courts and get really fuckin’ rich.”

“Good plan. In the meantime, you want the people in the service to speak your name in awe.”

“Do they speak your name in awe?”

“I expect they do,” Lucas said. “Especially since the people who work with me fly business class and stay in separate rooms, usually in suites.”

“That’s awesome, all right,” Devlin said. “Though, I have to say, I never heard of you until Rae pulled me in on this.”

* * *

They were overnight at the Watergate and took the early train into Manhattan’s Penn Station and caught a taxi to the Grand Hyatt above Grand Central Station. On the way, Lucas took a call from Mallard, who said, “You get your way.”

“I hope you were sweetly persuasive.”

“No more than a gentle whisper in the AIC’s ear,” Mallard said. “A virtual zephyr.”

Manhattan always smelled like week-old sour buttered popcorn to Lucas, but he usually visited in late spring or early autumn; on this day in January, with the temperature hovering around twenty, it smelled like week-old sour cold-buttered ice.

Lucas and Devlin grabbed sandwiches at the Hyatt’s deli and took the elevator to the twelfth floor to meet with