Rhymes With Prey Read Free

for cocaine, has been arrested twice for possession of small amounts, did no time. Also arrested years ago for possession of LSD, did two months. Four years ago, he was charged with possession of thirty hits of ecstasy, but he’d wiped the Ziploc bag they were in and he’d thrown it into the next toilet stall, whereit landed in the toilet and wasn’t fished out for a while. Quite a while—somebody hadn’t flushed. The prosecutor dumped it for faulty chain of evidence. Last year he was arrested in an apartment over on skid row in a raid on a meth cooker, but he was released when it turned out the actual cooker was the woman who was renting the apartment. Verlaine said he was just an innocent visitor. The prosecutor dumped it again, insufficient evidence.”
    â€œGet to the sex,” Lucas said.
    â€œHe’s never been arrested for a sex crime, but he’s been investigated,” Lily said, reading from the FBI report. “He’s known for sculptures with slave themes involving bondage, whipping, various kinds of subjugation of women. A woman named Tina Martinez—note the last names here—complained to police that he’d injured a friend of hers named Maria Corso, who was supposedly modeling for one of these bondage sculptures. Corso refused to prosecute, said there’d been a misunderstanding with her friend. The investigators say they believe she was paid off.”
    â€œHe’s a bad man,” Amelia said.
    â€œBad,” Lincoln agreed. “With a substantial interest in drugs.”
    â€œAnd probably with the kind of brain rot you get from meth,” Lucas said.
    â€œDo you have a plan?” Lincoln asked.
    â€œI plan to spend some time with him today. Just watching. Amelia and Lily can help out. See what he does, who he talks to, where he hangs out.”
    â€œDo we know where he lives?” Lincoln asked.
    â€œWe do,” Lily said.
    Lincoln said to Lucas, “I wonder if the women could handle the surveillance and keep you informed, of course.”
    Lucas said, “No reason they couldn’t, I guess. Easier with three of us. Why?”
    â€œI have an idea, but I want to speak to you privately about it. Just to avoid the inevitable question of conspiracy.”
    â€œOh, shit,” Lily said.

    WELL, NOW, HERE’S A PRETTY.
    Tasty, this one.
    Oh, he could picture her on her back, arms outstretched, yeah, yeah, lying on something rough—concrete or wood. Or metal.
    Metal’s always good.
    Sweat on her forehead, sweat on her tits, sweat everywhere. Mewing, gasping, pleading.
    For a luscious moment, every other person in the club vanished from James Robert Verlaine’s consciousness as his eyes, his artist’s eyes, lapped up the brunette in black at the end of the bar.
    Tasty . . .
    Raven hair, tinting from red to blue to green to violet in the spotlights. Disco décor, punk music. Rasta’s could never make up its mind.
    Hair. That aspect of the human form fascinated him. A sculptor of hard materials, he could reproduce flesh and organ, but hair remained ever elusive.
    She glanced toward him once, no message in the gaze, but then a second time, which was, possibly, a message in itself.
    Studying her more closely now, the oval face, the sensuous figure, the provocative way she leaned against the bar as she carried on a conversation on her cell phone.
    It irritated him that her attention was now on some asshole a mile or ten miles or a hundred miles away. A smile. But not at Verlaine.
    Mona Lisa, he reflected. That’s who she reminded him of. Nota compliment, of course. Da Vinci’s babe was a smirky bitch. And, Lord knew, the painting was way overrated.
    Hey, look over here, Mona.
    But she didn’t.
    Verlaine flagged down the bartender and ordered. Like always, here or at one of the other clubs where he hung out, Verlaine drank bourbon, straight, because girls liked it when men drank liquor that