"Not a thing," Hart said. Lucas shook his head as he sat down.

"We've been getting some stuff about Liss. He worked for a metal fabrication plant out in Golden Valley. They said he was all right, but weird, you know, about Indian stuff."

"Big help," Anderson said.

Sloan shrugged. "I got some names of his friends, I can feed them to you, maybe the computer'll have something."

"Family?" asked Lucas.

"Wife and kid. Wife works a couple of jobs. She's a checkout at Target and works at a Holiday store at night, part-time. And they got a kid. Harold Richard, aka Harry Dick, seventeen. He's trouble, a doper. He's been downtown a half-dozen times, minor theft, possession of pot, possession of crack. Small stuff."

"That's it?" asked Daniel.

"Sorry," Sloan apologized. "We're hitting it as hard as we can."

"What about Liss himself? Are they getting anything out of him?"

Anderson shook his head. "Nope. About fifteen minutes after Liss went down, Len Meadows flew in from Chicago in his private jet. The first thing he did was bar any cops from talking to his client."

"Fifteen minutes? Did Meadows know in advance?" Lucas asked.

"It wasn't really fifteen minutes-" Sloan started.

Hart interrupted. "The Fire Creek Reservation office is in Brookings. When they heard about the shooting, they got scared about what might happen. They called Meadows' office. He'd done some pro bono criminal work for them. So then Meadows had his people call around, working with the information they were getting off the TV. They found out who Liss' old lady was. Meadows called her-Louise, that's her name-and offered his services. She said yes, so he flew out to Brookings. When Liss woke up after the docs got finished with him, Meadows went in and talked to him. That was it. No more cops."

"Damn it," Lucas said, chewing his lip. "Meadows is pretty good."

"He's a grandstanding asshole," said Lester.

"Frank, you're an asshole, but nobody ever said you weren't pretty good," said Daniel.

"I did once," Sloan said. "He made me go out and investigate supermarket thefts."

Lester grinned. "And I'd do it again," he said.

"The problem with Meadows is, he won't deal," Lucas said. "He's an ideologue. He prefers the crucifix to the plea bargain."

They all chewed it over for a minute, then Daniel said, "Our Indian friends are putting out press releases now."

"Say what?" asked Hart.

"We got a press release. Or rather, the media got press releases. All of them-newspapers, TV stations, WCCO radio. We got copies. They're supposedly from the killers," Daniel said.

Lucas sat up. "When did this happen?"

"They started arriving in the morning mail." Daniel passed out photocopies of the press releases. "Channel Eight was out on the street for the noon news, asking Indians to read the press releases and then asking them if they agreed."

Lucas nodded absently as he read. The authors took responsibility for all four killings, the two in the Cities, and those in New York and Oklahoma City. Nothing about the Brookings killing, so they were mailed before that. The killings were done as the beginning of a new uprising against white tyranny. There were unconvincing quotes from the Oklahoma assassin, but there were also details from Oklahoma that Lucas hadn't seen.

"This Oklahoma stuff…" he said, looking up at Daniel.

The chief nodded. "They got it right."

"Huh." He finished the release, glanced at the second sheet Daniel had given him, a copy of the envelope the release had arrived in, and said "Huh" again.

"Interesting envelope," Sloan remarked.

"Yeah."

"What's that?" asked Hart. He had been looking at the press release and now turned to the envelope.

"Look at the cancellation," Lucas said. "Minneapolis."

Anderson looked up. "We thought they were working out of here."

"Now everybody will know," Daniel said. "That'll crank up the pressure."

"That TV stuff we put out about Yellow Hand last night, blaming this group, I think it backfired," Hart said. "A lot of people knew Yellow Hand. They know he was a crack-head. They figure he was killed by a dealer or another crack-head. Some kind of ripoff. They think the TV stuff is just more white-cop bullshit."

"Shit," Daniel said. He pulled at his lip, then looked at Lucas. "Any ideas? We gotta break something loose."

Lucas shrugged. "We could try money. There're a lot of poor people out there. A little cash might loosen things up."

"That's ugly," Hart objected.

"We're about to get lynched by the media," Daniel snapped. He looked at Lucas. "How much?"

"I don't know. We'd be on a blind trip, just fishing. But I don't know what else to do. I've got no net with the Indians. You show me a problem with the black community, I can call two hundred guys. With the Indians…"

"You won't make any friends by spreading money around," Hart insisted. "That's too… white. That's what the people will say. That it's just like the white men. They get in trouble, and they go out and buy an Indian."

"So it's not the best way. The question is, Will it work?" Daniel said. "We can worry about rebuilding community relations later. Especially since we don't have any in the first place."

Hart shrugged. "There's always some people who'll talk for money. Indians are no different than anybody else, that way."

Daniel nodded. "And we have a source of money," he said. "We don't even have to tap the snitch fund."

"What's that?" Lucas asked.

"The Andretti family. When the word got out that we'd nailed Billy Hood, I got a call from old man Andretti himself, thanking us for our help…" He frowned, remembering, and looked at Lucas. "Where's Lily? I haven't seen her."

"She headed back to New York," Lucas said. "She was done here."

"God damn it, why didn't she check out with me?" Dan- I iel asked irritably. "Well, she'll just have to come back."

"What?"

"The Andrettis were happier'n hell about Hood, but apparently they're no longer satisfied with getting what the old man calls 'small fry.1 He's convinced the NYPD that Lily should stay out here and observe until this whole crazy bunch is busted.";

"So she's coming back?" Lucas asked, his breath suddenly coming harder. I "I expect she'll be back tomorrow, as hot as the Andrettis I are," Daniel said. "But that's neither here nor there. Ander-son has started putting together some interview files…"

Daniel kept talking, but Lucas lost track of what he was saying. A slow fire of anticipation spread though his chest j and stomach. Lillian Rothenburg, NYPD. Lucas bit his lip i and stared into a dark corner of Daniel's office, as the chief rambled on.

Lily.

A moment later he realized Daniel had stopped talking and was staring at him.

"What?" asked Daniel.

"I got an idea," Lucas said. "But I don't want to talk, about it."

An hour after dark, Lucas found Elwood Stone standing under a streetlight on Lyndale Avenue. This time, Stone didn't bother to run.

"What the fuck you want, Davenport?" Stone was wearing sunglasses and a brown leather bomber jacket. He looked like an advertisement for rent-a-thug. "I ain't holding."

Lucas handed him a deck of photographs. "You know this kid?"

Stone looked them over. "Maybe I seen him around," he said.

"They call him Harry Dick?"

"Yeah. Maybe I seen him around," Stone repeated. "What you want?"

"I don't want anything, Elwood," Lucas said. "1 just want you to give the boy some credit on a couple of eight-balls."

"Shit, man…" Stone turned away and looked up the street, doing a comic double-take in disbelief. "Man, I don't give no credit, man. To a crackhead? You fuckin' crazy?"

"Well, it's like this, Elwood. Either you give Harry a little credit-and it's got to be tomorrow-or I'll talk to Narcotics and we'll run your little round ass right off the street. We'll have somebody in your back pocket every day."