He went, and the needle pushed past 100 to 108, and Jael said, "He turned his flashing lights on I think he's coming He's coming, but you're still gaining."

Exit coming up. Diamond Lake Road. One car at the top of the ramp. Lucas pushed it until the last second, then cut right, took the ramp. The car at the top was turning left, so Lucas went right, around the corner, down a long block, and turned left: He accelerated to the end of the block, turned left again, and rolled down the window. They could hear the siren from the Highway Patrol car, but it was north and then west of themgoing the wrong way.

"They usually turn right if they lose a guy," Lucas grunted. "We gotta get south."

They zigzagged south and west, past Oak Hill cemetery, under another limited-access road, Jael teasing Lucas as he lurked through residential neighborhoods, avoiding headlights. "Shut up, shut up," he said, and she laughed and said, "Mr. Speed-o."

They finally made I-694, and Lucas took the car onto the highway, two exits, off, into a bookstore parking lot, part of a shopping complex. "Now what?" Jael asked.

"We go to the bookstore for an hour, then walk over and get something to eat, and maybe go shopping for a while. Gotta stay off the road for a couple of hours. There aren't that many black Porsches around."

"What if they stop us anyway?" she asked.

"Then I he like a motherfucker," Lucas said.

"I thought cops got free passes."

"Not if they're showing off for a girl," Lucas said. "I hope you like books."

She did like books, and disappeared into the Art section. Lucas browsed through Literature, slowed down at Poetry, found a collection of Philip Larkin's stuff, and was reading through it when she snuck up behind him. "Guns 'n' Ammo," she predicted, reaching for the book. He let her have it, and she turned it over in her hands and then looked up at him. "Showing off for a girl, eh?"

He shrugged. "Not really. I don't read much fiction, but I read poetry."

She closed one eye and examined him. "You're lying like a motherfucker."

"Nope."

"One of the other cops told me you once owned a computer company."

"Yeah, but it was really somebody else who did the computer stuff," Lucas said. "I just had some good ideas at the right time."

"That's what it's all about, isn't it? Having the right ideas at the right time." She turned the book over. "You think I'd like him?"

He thought for a minute, then said, "Nope. He's a little tooguy for you."

"Who, then?"

"Emily Dickinson? She's my favoriteprobably the best American poet ever."

"All right, I'll try her," she said. "Otherwise, all I got was this." She held up a book with a pot on the cover that said, Japanese Ash Glazes.

"I got a deep interest in ash myself," Lucas said.

After the bookstore, they went to a bagel place and got healthy bagels. As they were eating, Jael paging through her collection of Dickinson, she suggested that they go back to the bookstore so she could buy some mysteries. "I always go into the bookstores and wind up buying books for work, or something serious, but if I've got to keep sitting in that house, I gotta have something else. I can't stand TV anymore."

"If you want to buy mysteries, there's a place on the way back that we could stop. Nothing but mysteries."

"Sounds good." She licked a drip of sun-dried tomato hummus off her thumb. "We need to kill some more time." But in the car, she said, "At your house, do you have both a bathtub and a shower? Or are you just a shower guy?"

"No, I have both."

"Since we've gotta kill time, why don't we go back to your place and jump in the tub? It's been a while since I had a really great back-washing."

They were sitting at an uphill stop sign, and Lucas had one foot on the clutch and let the car roll back a few feet, then accelerated forward, and rolled back, thinking. "Maybe I need a little more romancing," he said finally. "Besides"

"Another commitment?"

"Not exactly. But I'm sort of between everything," he said.

"I know you're not gay, the way you look at me."

"That's not the problem." But it had been a long time: He remembered standing outside the cabin and looking up at the great smear of the Milky Way stars and feeling not insignificant, but lonely. And alone.

"It's just casual sex, Lucas. Therapy," she said.

"Maybe I'm still too Catholic. Besides, what about the guys at the bookstore? They need the sales. What're their children gonna eat if we don't buy books?"

"You remember what it feels like? Sitting in a tub, with a woman between your legs, all slippery and slidey, and you've got the soap in your hands" She was laughing at him again.

Lucas let the car roll back, and accelerated, and let it roll back, and accelerated, and said, "All right."

"Good choice," she said. "Fuck the guys at the bookstore."

She was laughing, but later that evening she said, "For three hours, I almost forgot about Plain."

Chapter 22

Thursday. Day six of Alie'e Maison.

Frank Lester was carrying a brown sandwich bag up the City Hall steps when Lucas caught up with him the next morning, half jogging through the cold twilight, trailing a long streamer of steam. "Baloney sandwiches?"

"Peanut butter and jelly," Lester said. He held up the bag; he was wearing ski gloves. "I understand you were out late with Jael Corbeau."

"Yeah, a little late, rolling around town," Lucas said evasively. "She didn't want to go back home."

"Not a goddamn thing happening. Not with Corbeau, not with Kinsley. Maybe we're fucked up. Maybe Olson's not the guy. He's been preaching every night, he goes around to all these churches. The guys who're tracking him say he's completely loony, but the people at these churches, they love him. Last night, he started to bleed"

"Aw, man, I don't want to hear that," Lucas said.

"Can't figure out how he did it. Thought maybe he has a little razor blade stuck on his belt, or something, but they say he got all cranked up and he spread his arms above his head, screaming, and all of a sudden, the blood started seeping out of his palms, and then he gets a red spot on his shirt, right you know. Right where the spear went in."

"Jesus."

"Exactly What's happening with Rodriguez?"

"Pushed a button last night," Lucas said. "Maybe today we'll see something."

"Hope so." He looked past Lucas, and Lucas turned. A TV remote van squatted down on the street, its engine running. "Wonder if they've got a microphone on us?"

"Better not," Lucas said. "I'd slam their butts in jail for that. Talk to the judge, we could probably get them three years."

"Yeah."

They both watched the van for a few more secondsno signs of life, just the exhaust; and they went inside.

Lane came by ten minutes after Lucas got to his office. "We need an accountant to look at some of that paper from the bank," he said. "I've got it narrowed down to a few questions, but I can't answer the questions without an expert."

"What are the questions?"

"How could Spooner give him the loans? That's the basic question. If I could have gotten a home loan on the same terms, I'd be living on one of the lakes. The loans stink."

Lucas leaned back in his chair. "See? That's why I had you reading the paper."

"I'd rather be bustin' somebody's balls. So get me the accountant, and I'll go over and bust Spooner's."

"Let's talk to Rose Marie."

Rose Marie had a better idea. She knew the banking commissioner from the old days, made a call, and got Lane lined up with a bank examiner. She'd just gotten off the phone when the secretary buzzed her. Rose Marie picked up, listened for a minute, then said, "It's Rodriguez," and pushed another button.