“Dream on...”
Bob called, “Dinnertime! No rubber match! Let’s go eat.”
—
LUCAS AND RAEtook quick showers and they all went out to a nearby Italian place that the desk clerk said wasn’t too bad, and it wasn’t. They were all stinking of garlic bread when Rae said, “I’m bored. I say we go after Arnold tonight.”
“I looked it up,” Lucas said. “His place is over in northeast Dallas, Diceman Drive. Rear, about forty-five minutes from here.”
“All together, or separate cars?” Bob asked.
“How about one of you ride with me and the other bring a backup car,” Lucas said.
“Guy could be a problem, with those shotguns, and he might be more of a problem if he’s still hanging with Poole, and is worried about it,” Bob said. “How about if Rae rides with you, takes her M4 with her, and I bring my own. That way, we got some clout in both cars.”
That was good with Lucas.
Rae got her gun and a vest and brought them over to Lucas’s Jeep. As they were getting ready to move, Bob came over and said, “I talked to my guy at the Dallas cops, to tell them that we’ll be around. They’re cool with it.”
Lucas said, “I haven’t done much of this marshal stuff. What would be their options if they weren’t cool with it?”
Rae said, “Well, somebody in the neighborhood could call them and tell them there’s a tall black person with a machine gun and armor in their front yard, send help, and the cops could flood the place with fifteen or twenty squads and the SWAT team and kill everybody they don’t recognize.”
Lucas said, “The Dallas cops are supposed to be pretty good.”
“Theyarepretty good,” Bob said. “But you know, the way things are right now...”
“Good move, Bob,” Lucas said. “Let’s keep them informed.”
—
THE NIGHThad come down hard by the time they found Diceman Drive. They were hooked up with Rae’s cell phone on speaker and cruised the house twice. There were two structures on the lot, a small fifties-looking house with an aging gray Pontiac in thedriveway, and what might once have been a garage or studio in back. Both places showed lights.
The front house had a metal stake in the side yard, with a circular path around it: a dog, and probably a protective one, though there was no dog in sight. “Gotta watch for the dog,” Rae said into her phone.
“I saw that,” Bob called back. “Probably ought to stop at the place in front, before we go around back.”
—
THEY DID THAT—sitting in front of the target house for a few minutes, windows down, listening to an unidentifiable television drama leaking through the windows of the house in front. Crickets. After watching for a few minutes, Lucas called Bob and said, “Rae and I’ll knock.”
“Got you covered,” Bob said. “If you start running, I’ll be ready to hose the place down, so don’t start running unless you’re serious.”
Lucas said, “I’ll leave my phone on so you can hear it all...”
Lucas asked Rae, “You set?”
“Got my hand in my purse,” she said. “I’ll leave the M4, for now.” The purse was actually a holster purse and contained her Glock.
“Let’s go.”
—
THE DOORat the front house was open, as were the windows, though all the openings were tightly screened. Lucas knocked, and a woman’s voice said, “Somebody at the door. Mitch? Somebody at the door.”
A moment later, a fat balding man in shorts, T-shirt, and bare feetpeered through the screen at Lucas and Rae and asked, “Who the heck are you?”
Lucas held up his badge and said, “Federal marshals. We want to talk—”
