Lucas looked down at a silver-toned car nosed in next to a power transformer. "So he's spending some money."

"He's a banker," Del said. "He's gotta have some kind of car to impress the neighbors."

Del took the car to the end of the block and found a spot where they could see Spooner's car. Del's phone rang twenty minutes later, and Long came on. "I'm not going to make lunch. I've got a thing I've got to do with a subpoena," he said.

"He's moving?"

"Absolutely, sweetheart," Long said.

Del said, "He's moving," and a minute later they spotted Spooner pushing through the front door, carrying his briefcase, pulling on a thigh-length black trench coat. He went to the Lexus, tossed the brief-case across the front seat onto the passenger side, and rolled out of the lot. They followed, a block behind, a half-dozen cars between them, past the capitol, down the hill toward downtown St. Paul, where Del closed up and Lucas eased down in the seat.

Halfway through downtown, Spooner took the Lexus into a parking ramp. Del pulled to the side, shoved the gearshift into park, said, "I'll catch him at the Skyway exit. Turn on your phone," and jumped out. When Spooner was out of sight, up the ramp, Lucas walked around the car and went looking for a parking meter.

Del called ten minutes later. "Got him. He's at an attorneys office."

"Goddamnit."

"So what do we do?"

"I'll call you back in two minutes," Lucas said. He punched the Off button, redialed Lane's cell phone number. Lane answered, and Lucas said, "Where's Rodriguez?"

"In his office. I can see his sleeve."

"Nothing going on?"

"A few things. My feet hurt like hell; I've got Homicide's interview notebook on the case, and I'm reading all the interviews; a nine-year-old kid tried to sell me what I believe are counterfeit baseball cards; and the St. Paul cops rousted me. That's about it."

"No trouble with St. Paul?"

"Nah. Just checking on why I'd been standing in the Skyway for two hours, reading a notebook," Lane said.

"Okay. Our guy's at an attorneys office. He's about two blocks from you."

"Let me know if anything happens."

"A Mickey Mantle rookie card's gotta be worth more than twenty, doesn't it?"

"Chump." Lucas redialed Del. "Rodriguez is at his office."

"So"

"So let's hang for a while. Give it an hour, anyway."

Twenty-five minutes into the hour, Del called. "He's moving."

"Where?"

"Looks like the parking garage."

"Goddamnit. Stay with him. If he heads to the car, I'll pick you up where you jumped out."

Five minutes later, Del was back in the car. Lucas drove around to the parking garage exit, and as they picked up Spooner, Del's phone rang. He took it out, listened for a second, said, "Lucas's phone is on now," and then handed it to Lucas. "I'm a fuckin' secretary," he said.

"Your boy made the call," Lester said.

"Yeah? When?"

"Six or seven minutes ago. He was calling from a lawyers office."

"Yeah, we took him there. He's out, and we're on him again. What'd he say?"

"Sounded like he was reading out of a script. He said, 'Mr. Rodriguez, allegations have been made against you by the Minneapolis police. I will no longer be allowed to have any direct dealings with you on the mortgages on your buildings, and I wanted to inform you that in the future your account will be handled by Mrs. Ellen Feldman.' Then Rodriguez said, 'What are you talking about? The police?' And then Spooner said, 'I'm not at liberty to discuss it, but you can get more information from Minneapolis Deputy Chief of Police Lucas Davenport or Mr. Tim Long, assistant Hennepin County Attorney' Then Rodriguez said, 'Is this about the party?' And Spooner says, I'm really not at liberty to discuss it. I suggest you call Chief Davenport or Mr. Long. I'm sorry this had to happen. I felt we had an excellent working relationship. I have to go now. I hope this works out for the best.' Then Rodriguez says, 'Okay Well, thanks for everything, you know.' And that's it."

"Thanks for everything," Lucas said. "He means the phone call."

"Pretty goddamn neat phone call, too," Lester said. "He warns him, but there's nothing in it to hang him with. Either one of them."

After Lucas hung up, they tracked Spooner back to the bank. He drove back slowly, well within the speed limit. When he was inside, Lucas said, "Fuck him. Let's go see Marcy."

Weather was outside the intensive care ward talking to Tom Black. They saw Lucas and Del coming, and Weather smiled and Del said, "Something good happened."

"What?" Lucas asked as they came up.

"She's somewhat awake. Everything's pretty much stabilized. She's still critical, but it's looking pretty good. For the first time."

Lucas went to the ward window and looked in. "Can we go in?"

"Let me get a nurse. They just took a guy in."

The nurse came, said, severely, "One minute. Say hello, and out." She gave them masks to hold over their faces, and led the way in.

Marcy's eyelids were at half-mast. When Lucas, Del, and Black loomed beside her, her eyes opened fractionally, and after a moment, the corners of her lips twitched.

"Sleeping on the job," Black said.

"I ain't signing off on the overtimeyou're still on the Homicide payroll," Lucas said.

"If you die, can I have your gun?" Del asked.

She tried to say something, but Lucas couldn't hear and he leaned forward. Her lips looked parched, almost burnt. "What?"

"Fuck all of you," she whispered, and she turned her head another fraction of an inch.

"She's better," Lucas said, delighted. "She says go fuck ourselves."

Weather said, "I can't believe cops. I never could. The bullshit getsso deep." She was smiling when she said it.

Lucas squatted next to the bed, speaking through the blue mask. "You're hurting," he said, "but you're gonna make it. We're tracking the guy who shot you."

Her head rolled away, and her eyelids drooped again. "Everybody out," the nurse said.

In the hall, Lucas said, "She looked pretty good, huh? She looked pretty good."

"Pretty good," Black said.

"I was amazed," Del said. "She took a fuckin'. 44, man. Man, she looked alot better." He hitched up his jeans, and they all nodded at each other.

"She's not out of the woods," Weather said. "Keep that in mind. It's along trip back."

On the way out the door with Del, Lucas stopped, said, "Hang on a minute," and went back inside. Weather was walking away, back to the interior of the hospital. "Hey, Weather."

She stopped, waited. He came up, took a card out of his ID case, scribbled his cell phone number on the back of it, and said, "Keep an eye on her while you're here, okay? You know the docs better than any of us. If anything changes"

"I'll call," she said. She took the card, and Lucas headed back out.

On the sidewalk, Del said, "What?"

"Gave her my number in case anything happens with Marcy," Lucas lied. She could have gotten to him through the police switchboard, and shehad that number. He'd actually gone back because of a little subconscious twitch: He went back to look at her ears. She was wearing inky blue sapphire earrings, one-carat stones. He recognized them, because he'd given them to her.

He smiled on the way back to the office, and Del said, "Our girl's gonna be all right."

"Maybe," he said.

Back at the office, Lucas put in a call to Louis Mallard at the FBI in Washington. Mallard had enough clout to extract anything from any government computer anywhere. He agreed to find and send along everything available on Rodriguez's Miami company. When he got off the phone with Mallard, Lucas walked down to Hose Marie's office.

"Need a meeting," he said.

"Marcy's awake."

"I know. She's gonna make it."

Rose Marie put a finger to her lips. "Shhh. Don't hex her."