"A dog?" somebody asked.

"Used to be, but it died," the Intelligence cop said.

"Aw, shit," somebody said. "They got pit bulls down there."

"He's gone, really," Lapstrake said, grinning. "I promise."

He put another red dot on the front of the house. "We got Group Two coming in from the front, blocking, watching down the sides. Group Three hits the front door. We think George sleeps in what used to be the dining room. When you go in, you'll be in the living room. There'll be a hall straight ahead, and an arch over to the right. The dining room is behind the arch, and that's where George should be, but there's also a connection between the dining room and the kitchen."

Lapstrake sketched it quickly, and made sure the entry group had it. "From the time we hit the sidewalk, we need to be on top of him in one minute, no more. There's a possibility that he'll be upstairs. There's no bathroom upstairs and no way out, and we don't think it's likely he'll be up there. The stairs come down into the front roomyou'll see them on your left when you go through the door."

"Who else is in the house?" somebody asked. "And what're we looking for, specifically?"

"We think he's probably got anything from a quarter kilo to a kilo of cocaine on him, and some amount of heroin, but we don't know how much. He usually carries it in plastic squeeze bottles, like the kind you get at camping stores, REI, like that. We heard last week that he'd gotten a delivery the week before, and was putting it on the street, but we couldn't find him, so who knows what he's got left? Maybe he's got a ton, maybe he's sold it all. The coke is definite, one of our guys saw it last night," Lapstrake said. "As for who else in the house, the house is owned by his sister-in-law, Mary Lou Carter. The thing is, you gotta watch Mary Lou. Get her on the floor. She tends to go off."

"She got a gun?" somebody else asked.

"Not her style, but there's probably a few in the house. She basically has a really explosive temper, and she's big and strong. If she comes after you, don't mess around. Take her down. Dick Hardesty ran into her a couple of years ago, and she almost beat his brains out."

"What about Shaw? Is he gonna fight? He's a tough guy."

"Yeah, but he's a pro, and he's getting older and slower. I don't think he'll fight," Lapstrake said. He looked around and asked, "Any more questions? No? Then Chief Davenport wants to say a word. He and Del are gonna ride along."

Lucas stood up and said, "Number one, nobody get hurt. Number two, there's gonna be some media around. The Homicide guys think Shaw's heroin may have been getting to Alie'e Maison, and you've all heard about that situation. Homicide thinks maybe her killing was drug-related. So take it easy, but we want to look sharp."

Lucas looked around, got a few nods. Lapstrake picked up a jacket and said, "So let's go."

Out the door, Del wandered down the sidewalk, pulled out a cell phone, punched in a number, said a few words, and punched off.

"We're set," he said. On the way to the target house, lagging a bit behind the entry team, Del asked, "Do you remember George Shaw?"

"Yeah. I didn't know him real well."

"It's just that Lapstrake said he was getting older and slower and probably wouldn't fight."

"Yeah?"

"Shaw's about our age."

"Fuck Lapstrake,"Lucas said.

They turned the corner onto Thirty-fifth just in time to see the armored ERT take down the front door. The entry team flowed inside as Lucas eased the car to the curb; at the same time, doors started opening down the street, and a few kids wandered toward them. Two minutes later, Lapstrake appeared at the front door, looked up and down the street, spotted them, and waved them in. As Lucas and Del walked toward the house, a TV van turned the corner.

"Must of been close," Del muttered. "Lemme get outa sight."

He hurried on ahead, up the steps and into the house, as Lucas idled along the sidewalk. Lapstrake met him at the lot line: "Got him."

"Any coke?"

"Yup. Quite a bit," Lapstrake said, "and some heroin."

"Good. We"

Another cop appeared at the door. "You guys gotta come look at this."

"What?"

"Come on."

Whatever it was, was good, Lucas thought. The cop was too cheerful for it to be anything else.

"Got some stuff upstairs, Chief," one of the armored team members said as Lucas ducked inside the house. The house was old, with ceilings that felt an inch too low, floors that creaked underfoot, and rooms that seemed a foot short in both lateral dimensions. The wallpaper on the walls was loose, with warps and water damage near the floor. A couple of rag rugs in once-bright, now dirt-muted, colors made ovals in front of a big-screen television. The place smelled of tacoshamburger and onions. Most of the cops were crowded into the dining room. Lucas stepped that way, and saw a large black man in olive-green underwear, a dazed expression on his face, handcuffed on an open studio bed. Del was squatting next to him, talking.

"Where's Mary Lou?" Lucas asked.

"She went out a few minutes ago, about the time we were starting over here," Lapstrake said. "She got on a downtown bus, and we let her go."

"Upstairs," said the armored cop, a little impatient.

Upstairs, in the single bedroom, what looked like a full cord of marijuana bricks were stacked on a plastic sheet in the middle of the room.

"All right," said Lapstrake. "Now we're talking."

Lucas picked up one of the bricks, sniffed it, dropped it. A small upstairs window was open, two thin curtains fluttering in a breath of breeze; outside, through the screen, he could see a little boy playing in a tractor-tire sandbox. Ten yards away, a little girl, a few years older than the boy, stood looking diagonally across the yard at what must have been the cops in the street. Her arms and legs were rigid with attention and possibly fear or anger. He was struck by the similarity of the view from the window and a camera shot in a World War II movie he'd seen on television the week before. But then the men in black combat gear, with the helmets and guns, rousting people from their houses, had been Nazis.

Just a movie.

He turned back to Lapstrake. "I'm gonna tell the TV people to hang around. When you get this documented, let them in, let them get some shots of you guys carrying the stuff out," Lucas said. "And flash the cocaine, too."

"Not me," Lapstrake said.

"So get a front guy. Get Jones down here from dope, he's good at this shit," Lucas said.

Downstairs again, Del eased over and said, "I'm outa hereI'll get a ride with one of the squads. We got maybe a kilo and a half of powder cocaine and a bottle of heroin, plus that weed. No crack."

"What do you think about Shaw?"

"George is history," Del said.

"Is thereany possibility that any of this shit really could have gotten to Alie'e?"

"He's not really in that high end of the trade," Del said. "But who knows? I'll talk to him again downtown."

Del and Lapstrake stayed out of sight while the entry team took George Shaw out to a car and put him inside, and when the cameras started following the head-down figure of Shaw, now dressed in dark slacks and tennis shoes, Del went out the back. Lucas followed the Shaw parade. As soon as the police car was moving, one of the TV reporters shouted his name, and he walked toward them. The reporters were accompanied by three cameramen, who refocused from the car to Lucas.

"Chief Davenport, we understand this raid was a direct reaction to the murder of Alie'e Maison this morning. Is that right?"

Lucas shook his head. "I can't comment on an ongoing investigation. I can tell you that we've found a substantial quantity of illegal drugs."

"What drugs?"

"Both cocaine and heroin and a very large amount of marijuana," Lucas said, looking into the cameras. "The marijuana looks like a stack of firewood."