She said, “Jesus Christ, Lucas, don’t get all sincere with me, okay? As for the video, I’ll lead the show with it.”
“You want a little more anonymous background?”
She lifted a shoulder bag off the floor next to her chair. “That’s why I brought my notebook.”
• • •
When he leftDaisy, Lucas sat in the 911 and thought about it, and especially about what Weather would have to say about the fact that he’d been in another shoot-out, and the shoot-out had ruined a car and their insurance bill would be going up again and how he was pretty goddamned cavalier about the fact, so much so that he’d actually gone out and bought another vehicle.
Then he got up some guts and drove to the Maplewood Porsche dealer.
While he was there, he got the salesman to change the TV channeltoJonesing for News. Daisy broke the news about Sokolov being shot, quoting, by name, two Minneapolis homicide investigators, and relaying a “no comment” from the FBI. Then she played the video twice. She said it was given her by an anonymous source close to the investigation. She said that the FBI was currently refusing toofficiallyrelease it, which implied that it had been unofficially released by one of her FBI sources, effectively siccing all the other local stations on the feds.
Then she did something he hadn’t expected: “Sources close to the investigation said that the assassin’s vehicle was shot up by two well-known U.S Marshals who were at the site of the murder when it was committed, Shelly White and Lucas Davenport. White refused to comment, and we are attempting to reach Davenport.”
That made him smile. Then his picture, and White’s, flashed up on the screen, and he stopped smiling.
Sherwood called Lucas three minutes after the end of the segment, as Lucas was fiddling with the buttons on the inside of a new Porsche Panamera, and said, “Well done, pal. If this doesn’t shake the hitters loose, they’ve probably left the building.”
“She put my fuckin’ photo up,” Lucas said.
“I thought you looked nice. That was a Hermes necktie? Little white clouds?”
• • •
When he rangoff with Sherwood, the Porsche salesman said, “Look, you say you used to drive your Cayenne up to the cabin. You could do that in this Panamera, right here.” He patted the gumball-colored Panamera that crouched next to Lucas’s leg. “We could roll it off the floor in five minutes, take it for a run. This baby is fast, four-wheel drive, handles like your 911, and can carry all your stuff.”
“And sits four inches off the ground, which wouldn’t work all that well on the road to my cabin,” Lucas said. “I like it, but I’m not going to buy it.”
• • •
He took acall from Russell Forte at the Marshal’s Service headquarters in Virginia. “You’re on TV? What the heck happened, and how’d you get involved?”
Lucas explained and could imagine Forte shaking his head. “This is a mess,” Forte said, when Lucas had finished. “But it’s the FBI’s mess. Or maybe it’s the CIA’s. We’re only in ankle-deep, if it turns out you’re not standing in quicksand.”
“It’s getting interesting, Russ,” Lucas said. “These people are determined to kill Sokolov, and there’s a serious intelligence leak somewhere. I don’t think it’s Sherwood, because if it was, he would have tried to steer me away from the sniper’s shooting position. He was in my car when that woman damn near killed both of us with a machine gun. He’s already been shot once. So there’s that. And honestly, the FBI isn’t real good at chasing people…”
Forte said, “I’m not going to forbid you from hanging around, but take it easy. Very easy.”
“Have you heard anything about Sokolov’s condition?”
“As far as I know, he’s still in surgery,” Forte said. “Apparently a piece of the slug got through his breast bone and was virtually touching his heart, and several pieces of the ceramic plate and the canvas jacket are also in there, maybe in a lung. They haven’t figured out what ammo the shooter was using, but we should know by tonight.”
“Gonna be one of those weird ones, a .277, like the first time.”
“Yeah, well…”
“I’ll take it easy, Russ.”
• • •
Despite being temptedby the Panamera, Lucas bought a new Cayenne GTS in chromite black metallic with an all-black leather interior, heated and cooled seats, heated steering wheel, Apple CarPlay and satellite radio, claimed 0–60 in 4.2 seconds, all for a low, low price that nearly stopped his heart. He was momentarily grateful that he hadn’t gone for the Panamera, which would have killed him for sure. He drove the new car home, followed by the salesman in the 911, not looking forward to the reception by Weather.
He didn’t spend all of his time worrying about Weather, though: “We’re running behind them,” he said aloud, to himself, meaning the hit team. “They’ve got the edge on us.”
And he wondered: “Are they still with us?” No answer to that.
Back at his house, Waylon’s Tow and Repo Service had dropped the wounded Porsche at the curb, and a cluster of neighbors were looking at it. He and the Porsche salesman parked the two Porsches in the garage and walked out to the curb.
