"Shouldn't have," Cohn said, and he hit Weimer in the kidney again, and this time, Weimer screamed, and Cohn hit him once more.

McCall said, "Coming up." They took a one-way road between the back of St. John's Hospital and the freeway, a dark road, weeds on the freeway side, and halfway down, stopped, and Cohn rolled Weimer out into the street, the bag still over his head.

As they pulled away, Cohn slid the door shut and asked, "How'd we do?"

"Did good," McCall said. "Maybe more than the first guy."

"Damnit: it's like taking candy from kids. Put that with the hotel deal, and we can get anything we want. Anything."

"If it's what I think, we already got more than three million…"

"What're you going to buy in LA with three mil divided by five? Huh? Tate? You can't even buy a nice house with your share. We hit the hotel; if it's what Rosie says it'll be, you'll get maybe three for yourself. That'll buy a nice house. Live in Beverly Hills with that kind of money."

McCall thought about it, said, "Not in the best part of Beverly Hills," and Cohn started to laugh.

The pain in his back was brutal and Weimer stayed on the concrete, pulled the bag free, got oriented, and rolled to the gutter. All he saw of the van was two red taillights, disappearing around the corner. He had no idea what kind of van it was, or even what color it was.

The pain in his back was ferocious. He tried to stand, almost fell, then turned and vomited up most of the sandwich he'd eaten, along with all the sauerkraut. When it was all up, he remained hunched over, spitting, and he thought, A million-five. Jensen was going to shit.

He got to his feet, took a step and groaned again. He was hurt, and maybe bad. He didn't know which way to go, didn't know that the building he was looking at was the back of a hospital. He took a couple of steps, and the pain radiated through his back; he took another step and then headlights flared behind him.

He stepped to the side and started waving at the car. Hospital security, as it turned out. "I got robbed and beat up," he told the security guard, who'd stopped thirty feet away. "I gotta get to a hospital. I'm hurt bad. You know where a hospital is? We gotta call the cops."

Chapter 12

The news about Weimer got to Lucas through the Secret Service. Dickens heard about it from a St. Paul cop on the security committee, and suggested that the cops call Lucas. A St. Paul lieutenant named Parker called at eight o'clock, and Ellen, the housekeeper, brought the phone to the bedroom and said, "St. Paul police. They say it's important."

Weather was already at work, and Ellen said that Letty was up and waiting for a ride to Channel Three.

"Tell her I'll be ready in fifteen minutes," Lucas said. He took the phone: "Yeah. Davenport."

"Don Parker at St. Paul. We had a robbery last night, and we've been told you're tracking them."

"Lobbyist guy?"

"That's what I'm told," Parker said. "He's not talking much, said they took his travel money, but said it was the same deal as two other ones he heard about. Anyway, he's at St. John's."

"Hurt?"

"Peeing blood. Probably get out tomorrow, depending. They rabbit-punched him a few times. Took him for a ride in a van, robbed his room. There's something going on there."

"I'll go talk to him," Lucas said.

"Dick Clay is working it for us, but he's back in the house already ' if you need anything."

Lucas hung up and thought, All right: the motherfucker's still in town.

Lucas got cleaned up and headed out to the kitchen, where Letty was reading the newspaper and eating toast. They were a little reserved after the fight the night before, and Lucas had a quick microwave oatmeal with milk and a banana, then they loaded into the Porsche and headed north and west toward Minneapolis.

Letty said, finally, looking out the side window, "Can't wait until I get my license."

"You'll be lucky if you get a license at all, after a stunt like yesterday's," Lucas said.

She turned back to him and said, "You want to let it go, or do you want to argue? I mean, I'll argue if you still want to."

"Let it go," Lucas said.

"Okay. Like I said, I can't wait until I get my license." She reached out and ran a hand over the dashboard. "Take this thing out on the highway and blow the coon-farts out of it."

Lucas laughed and said, "You should live so long as to get your hands on this car, sweetie. I'm thinking Hyundai. Used."

"You should live so long as to see me driving a Hyundai," she said.

She got him laughing, and though he could feel the manipulation, it felt kinda good ' because that's what daughters were supposed to do. Then they were across the bridge and into town and down to the station, and he waved and she was inside and he headed back to St. Paul.

Shelly Weimer was propped up in a bed, a fat man with a pencil-thin mustache in the St. John's Intensive Care Unit, a saline drip running into one arm. He was reading the Wall Street Journal, holding it up with one hand, while the other hand took the drip. He folded the paper when Lucas walked in, and asked, "Who're you?"

"I'm with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension," Lucas said. "Lucas Davenport."

"I'm really hurt," Weimer said, and the hand holding the newspaper trembled with the effort of speaking. He reached out, slowly, and dropped it on a service tray.

"I'm sorry," Lucas said.

"Kept hitting me in the back, in the kidneys. Hit me even after they had the money." He groaned, as if to emphasize the money.

"You didn't see any faces?"

"No. The guy who was hitting me was wearing a mask," Weimer said. "The driver I couldn't see at all' You're Mitford's guy."

"Not exactly. We talk," Lucas said.

"But you know the score."

"More or less. You had a shitload of illegal money stashed in your room and a guy named Brutus Cohn and one of his gang members grabbed you in an alley and threw you in the back of a van, and put a bag on your head, got your room key and took the money. And beat you up."

Weimer nodded, shifted in bed, winced, and said: "That's it, in a nutshell. I didn't know his name was Brutus Cohn, and you might want to go easy on that "illegal money" thing. Since you know all of that, why haven't you picked him up?"

"We're looking, we haven't found him," Lucas said. "He's ditched himself somewhere-could be headed out of town by now. But, we're looking. Got his face all over national TV."

"Won't get my money back," Weimer said.

"No, it won't, but it really wasn't your money, anyway," Lucas said. "So: what can you tell me?"

Weimer said, "I've been thinking about it, and I've got one thing."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I'" He groaned and arched his back and flailed at it with his good hand, groaned again, and then went slack, and looked at Lucas. "It keeps twisting, like a muscle's turning back there ' God bless me."

"The one thing," Lucas said.

"Ah ' I was eating in this sandwich shop and I got up to go," Weimer said. "Left the money and the tip on the table, walked out the door, turned left, walked down this little short alley around the building to the parking lot to my car. I opened the door and bam! They got me. Just bam-bam! Like that." He had small round hands and he slapped them twice. "So, I think they had to be watching me, to be all ready. The guys in the van couldn't see me, because you couldn't see into the back of the shop. I think somebody was inside the place."