Shadow Prey Read Free Page A

conviction.
    Anna and her husband had never had money. He drank up most of it and she probably helped. Food was short. Nobody had clothes. But they did have a son. He was twelve, a stocky, withdrawn child who spent his evenings watching television. One Saturday afternoon, a few weeks after his daddy was taken to jail, the boy walked down to the Lake Street bridge and jumped into the Mississippi. A lot of people saw him go and the cops had him out of the river in fifteen minutes. Dead.
    Bluebird had heard, and he went down to the river. Anna was there, her arms wrapped around the body of her son, and she looked up at him with those deep pain-filled eyes, and . . . what?
    It was all part of being Indian, Bluebird thought. The dying. It was something they did better than the whites. Or more frequently, anyway.
    When Bluebird walked out of the room after slashing Benton’s throat, he’d looked down at the man’s face andthought he seemed familiar. Like a famous person. Now, on the sidewalk, as he left Yellow Hand behind, as he thought about Anna, Benton’s face floated up in his mind’s eye.
    Hitler, he thought. John Lee Benton looked exactly like a young Adolf Hitler.
    A young dead Adolf Hitler.

CHAPTER
2
    Lucas Davenport lounged on a brocaded couch in the back of a used-book store, eating a roast beef sandwich. In his lap was a battered paperback copy of T. Harry Williams’ biography of Huey Long.
    T. Harry had gotten it right, Lucas reflected. The man in the white suit flashing among the Longites as they stood outside the governor’s office. The shot. The Kingfish hit, the screaming, the running. The cops going berserk.
    “Roden and Coleman fired at almost the same time, with Coleman’s bullet probably reaching the man first,” T. Harry wrote. “Several other guards had unholstered their guns and were blazing away. The man crumpled and fell facedownward near the wall of the corridor from which he had come. He lay there with his face resting on one arm and did not move and was obviously dead. But this did not satisfy some of the guards. Crazed with rage or grief, they stood over the body and emptied their guns into it. It was later discovered to have thirty bullet holes in the back and twenty-nine in the front (many of these were caused by the same bullet making an entry and exit) and two in the head. The face was partially shot away, and the white suit was cut to ribbons and drenched with blood.”
    Murder was never as neat as it was on television. Nomatter how brutal it was on the screen, in real life it was worse. In real life, there was always an empty husk lying there, the spirit departed, the flesh slack, the eyes like ball bearings. And it had to be dealt with. Somebody had to pick up the body, somebody had to mop up the blood. Somebody had to catch the killer.
    Lucas rubbed his eyebrow where the scar crossed it. The scar was the product of a fishing accident. A wire leader had snapped back from a snag and buried itself in his face. The scar was not a disfigurement: the women he knew said it made him look friendlier. The scar was fine; it was his smile that was scary.
    He rubbed his eyebrow and went back to the book. He did not look like a natural reader, sitting on the couch, squinting in the dim light. He had the air of the street about him. His hands, which were covered with a dark fuzz for three inches below his wrists, seemed too large and blocky as he handled the paperback. His nose had been broken, more than once, and a strong neck was rooted in heavy shoulders. His hair was black, just touched with gray.
    He turned the page of the book with one hand and reached under his jacket and adjusted his holster with the other.
    “ ‘Kingfish, what’s the matter?’
    “ ‘Jimmie, my boy, I’ve been shot,’ Huey moaned . . . .”
    Lucas’ handset beeped. He picked it up and thumbed the volume control. A woman’s voice said, “Lieutenant Davenport?”
    “Go ahead.”
    “Lucas, Jim Wentz needs