"My good God," Olson said. He put his hands on the side of his head, as he had the day he found his parents, and pulled the hair straight out, as he had that day, just before his collapse.

Lucas stood up, stepped toward him, took his arm. "Easy."

"I can't, I can't"

"Sit down."

Olson stumbled, and Lucas guided him around to the chair. Olson looked around the room, at the faces all pointed toward him, and said, "This cannot stand. This cannot."

When he was gone, Frank Lester said, "If that doesn't get him cranked, I don't know what will."

Lane came back. "Took all goddamn day, but the bank examiner conies in on our side. She says the loans are funky."

"That's the technical expression: funky."

"Exactly. But there's a problem," Lane said. "I created it. I made the fundamental investigatory error: I asked one too many questions. NoI asked two too many."

"I've told you about that," Lucas said.

"Yeah. So I've got this bank examinerwho's got nice legs, by the way, even if she wasn't a big rock 'n' rollerand I say, 'What would you do if you'd caught him doing this? During a bank examination.' And she says, 'We'd tell him that the loan was weak, and depending on the status of their other loans, we might require action.' And I say, 'That's it?' And she says, 'What'd you think we were gonna do? Shoot him?' "

"So then I make the next mistake. I ask another question."

"You already had two questions."

"Naw, that was like question one and one-a. Now I'm at question two. I ask, 'How many commercial loans are there in Minnesota? Gotta be hundreds of thousands, huh?' And she says, 'Well, many tens of thousands, anyway' And I askthis is question two-b'How many are this bad?' I figured she'd say something like, we get one or two a year. You know what she said?"

"I'm afraid to know," Lucas said.

"Bevery afraid," Lane said. "She said, 'There might be a few thousand.' "

Lucas said, "Goddamnit."

"Yeah. Our hold on Spooner just got slipperier. On the other handI thought of this on the way over here"

"What?"

"Spooner doesn't know it," Lane said.

"You're a sneaky fuck," Lucas said. "It's a quality I admire in a cop."

As the earlier darkness settled in and the lights came up, Del came by with an ice cream cone and said, "I'm gonna go see Marcy. Wanna come?"

"Yeah, let me get my coat."

On the way over, Lucas told Del about Catrin. Del listened, finished the cone in the cold night, and then said, "She's probably gonna want to jump in bed with you. To prove to herself that she's still desirable and that she's as good as she was in the old days."

"What am I gonna do?"

"Well, I don't think jumping her is gonna be the answer." He looked at Lucas. "Or is it?"

"No. I mean man, she's really nice, but she's really fucked up."

"So give her a really understanding talk about how sheis fucked upyou might want to find a different phraseand that she shouldn't do anything until she's gotten herself straight again."

"That doesn't sound like something Catrin would go for," Lucas said.

"How do you meet these women, anyway? They're all so fuckin' tangled up."

"I don't know. It's a special talent."

"What you need is some chick that comes up and says, 'Wanna see my Harley?' And you say, 'Is it a Sportster?' And she says, 'It's whatever you want it to be.' "

"I've often wondered if you had a fantasy life," Lucas said. "I guess that question's answered."

"Yeah, well, if I were you, I'd go home and think about this Catrin chick for a long time. Especially if she's still a friend." They walked along for half a block, and then Del added, "There is one bright side to the problem."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It's your problem, and not mine."

Marcy was sitting up, awake, but she looked distant, her eyes a little too bright. "The docs are worried that she might have a touch of pneumonia," Black said. "They say it shouldn't be serious but they've got to deal with it."

Lucas squatted to look straight into her face. "How're you feeling?"

"A little warm."

"Still hurt?"

"Always hurt."

"Goddamnit." He stood up. "There's gotto be better drugs."

"Yeah, but they fuck up my head. I'd rather have a little pain," Marcy said. "How's the case? I understand this Rodriguez guy is out in the open."

They talked about Rodriguez, and she stayed awake, but she didn't look as good as she had, Lucas thought. She looked like she had the flu. After chatting for a while, he told the others he was going to get a Coke, and wandered out of the room. As soon as he was out, he headed for the desk and asked, "Is Weather Karkinnen?"

The nurse looked past him: Weather was headed down the hall toward them. He walked toward her and said, "You've heard about Marcy? This pneumonia thing?"

"Yeah, I've been keeping up," she said. "It's not too serious yet. They're managing it."

"C'mon, Weather. Is this gonna turn into something?"

She shook her head. "I can't tell you that, Lucas. She's young enough and healthy enough that it shouldn't, and we're right on top of it but she was hit hard, and her lung took some of it. So we gotta stay on top of it."

"That's all."

"Lucas, I don't know any more," she said in exasperation. "I just don't know."

"All right."

They stood, awkwardly, then she touched his arm and said, "I've been seeing this Rodriguez guy on television. That's you, isn't it? Your part of the case?"

"Yeah. He's the guy. the problem is, how do we get at him? There's almost nothing at the scene that would help. We're building a circumstantial case"

They walked along, Lucas talking about the case. They'd done this when they were living together, Lucas talking out problem cases.

The talking seemed to help, seemed to straighten out his thinking, even when Weather didn't say much. They fell back into the pattern, Weather prodding him with an occasional Why do you think that? or, Where did you get that? or, How does that connect?

They turned at the end of the long hall, and Del stepped out of Marcy's room, looked down at them, and went back inside. On the way back, Weather said, "What're you doing tonight? Want to go out for pasta?"

"I can't," he said, shaking his head. "You know what it gets like I'm going nuts. But could I call you?"

"Yeah. I think you can," she said. She grabbed his ear, pulled his head down, and kissed him on the cheek. "See ya," she said.

Chapter 23

Lucas ate alone, a quick sliced-beef-and-cucumber sandwich in the kitchen, stood in the shower for a few minutes, soaking, then changed into jeans, a sweatshirt over a golf shirt, a leather jacket, and boots. He thought about taking the Tahoe; it would fit better with the crowd. But Jael really liked the Porsche.

He took the Porsche, across the Ford Bridge and up the Mississippi, then west to Jael's studio. She'd picked out an outfit like his: leather jacket and jeans, cowboy boots, and a turquoise-and-silver necklace. "We look like we're going to a square dance," she said.

"C'mon." Downstairs, in the studio, she said, "I left my house keys in the back, just a minute" and when she went to get them, one of the ambush cops, sitting on the floor with a PlayStation, looked up and said, "You're breaking my fuckin' heart, Davenport."

"Hey, we're going to church."

"Yeah," the cop said, and, "Aw, shit, now I missed the yellow block."

Jael came back with her keys and said, "We're rolling."

The cop looked up at Lucas, one eye closed, and Lucas shrugged and followed her out the door.

Olson was preaching at the Christ Triumphant Evangelical Church, a good part of an hour west of Minneapolis in the town of Young America. The church was a long, narrow-faced white clapboard building with a bell tower, in the New England style, with a nearly full gravel parking lot to one side. Lucas parked between a tricked-out Ford F-150 and a Chew S-10 with a snow blade, in a slot where the Tahoe would have fit perfectly. The Porsche, crouched between them, looked like a cockroach between two refrigerators. And down about ten slots, Lucas noticed, a nondescript city car huddled behind a van.