Lucas had spotted the pair an hour after the surveillance began, almost two weeks earlier. He didn't know why they were watching, but as soon as he saw them, he stopped talking to his informants, to his friends, to other cops. He was living in a pool of isolation, but didn't know why. He would find out. Inevitably.

In the meantime, he spent as much time as he could in the open, forcing the watchers to hide in their hot, confining wagon, unable to eat, unable to pee. Lucas smiled to himself, the unpleasant smile, the wolverine's smile, put down Dickinson and picked up the Racing Form.

"You think the motherfucker is going to sit there forever?" asked the fat cop. He squirmed uncomfortably.

"Looks like he's settled in."

"I gotta pee like a Russian racehorse," said the fat one.

"You shouldn't of drank that Coke. It's the caffeine that does it."

"Maybe I could slide out and take a leak…"

"If he moves, I gotta follow. If you get left behind, Bendl will get your balls."

"Only if you tell him, asshole."

"I can't drive and take pictures at the same time."

The fat cop squirmed uncomfortably and tried to figure the odds. He should have gone as soon as he saw Lucas settle on the lawn, but he hadn't had to pee so bad then. Now that Lucas might be expected to leave, his bladder felt like a basketball.

"Look at him," he said, peering at Lucas through a pair' of binoculars. "He's watching the puss go by. Think that's why we're watching him? Something to do with the puss?"

"I don't know. It's something weird. The way it come down, nobody sayin' shit."

"I heard he's got something on the chief. Lucas does."

"Must have. He doesn't do a thing. Wanders around town in that Porsche and goes out to the track every day."

"His jacket looks good. Commendations and all."

"He got some good busts," the thin cop admitted.

" Lot of them," said the fat man.

"Yeah."

"Killed some guys."

"Five. He's the number-one gunslinger on the force. Nobody else done more than two."

"All good shootings."

"Press loves him. Fuckin' Wyatt Earp."

"Because he's got money," the fat man said authoritatively. "The press loves people with money, rich guys. Never met a reporter who didn't want money."

They thought about reporters for a minute. Reporters were a lot like cops, but with faster mouths.

"How much you think he makes? Davenport?" the fat one asked.

The thin cop pursed his meager lips and considered the question. Salary was a matter of some importance. "With his rank and seniority, he probably takes down forty-two, maybe forty-five from the city," he ventured. "Then the games, I heard when he hits one, he makes like a cool hundred thou, depends on how well it sells."

"That much," said the fat one, marveling. "If I made that much, I'd quit. Buy a restaurant. Maybe a bar, up on one of the lakes."

"Get out," the thin one agreed. They'd had the conversation so often the responses were automatic.

"Wonder why they didn't bust him back to sergeant? I mean, when they pulled him off robbery?"

"I heard he threatened to quit. Said he didn't want to go backwards. They decided they wanted to keep him-he's got sources in every bar and barbershop in town-so they had to leave him with the rank."

"He was a real pain in the butt as a supervisor," said the fat man.

The thin man nodded. "Everybody had to be perfect. Nobody was." The thin man shook his head. "He told me once that it was the worst job he ever had. He knew he was messing up, but he couldn't stop. Some guy would goof off one inch and Davenport would be on him like white on rice."

They stopped talking for another minute, watching their subject through the one-way glass. "But not a bad guy, when he's not your boss," the fat cop offered, changing direction. Surveillance cops become expert at conversational gambit. "He gave me one of his games, once. For my kid the computer genius. Had a picture of these aliens, like ten-foot cockroaches, zinging each other with ray guns."

"Kid like it?" The thin cop didn't really care. He thought the fat cop's kid was overly protected and maybe even a fairy, though he'd never say so.

"Yeah. Brought it back into the shop and asked him to sign it. Right on the box, Lucas Davenport."

"Well, the guy's no couch," said the thin one. He paused expectantly. A minute later the fat one got it and they started laughing. Laughing doesn't help the bladder. The fat cop squirmed again.

"Listen, I gotta go or I'm gonna pee down my leg," he said finally. "If Davenport takes off for somewhere besides the shop, he'll have to get his car. If you're not here when I get back, I'll run get you outside the ramp."

"It's your ass," said his partner, looking through the long lens. "He just started the Racing Form. You maybe got a few minutes."

Lucas saw the fat cop slip out of the van and dash into the Pillsbury Building. He grinned to himself. He was tempted to stroll away, knowing the cop in the van would have to follow and strand the fat guy. But it would create complications. He would rather have them where he was sure of them.

When the fat cop got back, four minutes later, the van was still there. His partner glanced over at him and said, "Nothing."

Since Lucas hadn't done anything yet, the photos they took had never been developed. If they had been, they would have found that Lucas' middle finger was prominent on most of the slides and they might have decided that he had spotted them. But it didn't matter, since the film would never be developed.

As the fat cop scrambled back into the van and Lucas sprawled on the grass, paging through the poetry again, they were very close to the end of the surveillance.

Lucas was reading a poem called The Snake, and the fat man was peering at him through the lens of the Nikon when the maddog killer did another one.

He had first talked to her a month before, in the records department of the county clerk's office. She had raven-black hair, worn short, and brown eyes. Gold hoop earrings dangled from her delicate earlobes. She wore just a touch of scent and a warm red dress.

"I'd like to see the file on Burhalter-Mentor," she told a clerk. "I don't have the number. It should have been in the last month."

The maddog watched her from the corner of his eye. She was fifteen or twenty years older than he was. Attractive.

The maddog had not yet gone for the artist. His days were colored with thoughts of her, his nights consumed with images of her face and body. He knew he would take her; the love song had already begun.

But this one was interesting. More than interesting. He felt his awareness expanding, reveled in the play of light through the peach fuzz of her slender forearm… And after the artist, there had to be another.

"Is that a civil filing?" the clerk asked the woman.

"It's a bunch of liens on an apartment complex down by Nokomis. I want to make sure they've been resolved."

"Okay. That's Burkhalter…"

"Burkhalter-Mentor." She spelled it for him and the clerk went back into the file room. She's a real-estate agent, the maddog thought. She felt his attention and glanced at him.

"Are you a real-estate agent?" he asked.

"Yes, I am." Serious, pleasant, professional. Pink lipstick, just a touch.

"I'm new here in Minneapolis," the maddog said, stepping a bit closer. "I'm an attorney with Felsen-Gore. Would you have a couple of seconds to answer a real-estate question?"

"Sure." She was friendly now, interested.

"I've been looking around the lakes, down south of here, Lake of the Isles, Lake Nokomis, like that."

"Oh, it's a very nice neighborhood," she said enthusiastically. She had what plastic surgeons called a full mouth, showing a span of brilliantly white teeth when she smiled. "There are lots of houses on the market right now. It's my specialty area."