"Who do you think'll come in?"

"Everybody," she said. "Four locals and a freelancer for CNN are already outside the house. All the other networks are on the way. And most of the picture-and-gossip magazines. People. The Star."

"Then we're gonna need something more than just saying it's a 'dope-related killing.' " He looked at Lucas. "Do we have somebody we can throw to them? Some doper asshole they can chase for a couple of days?"

"I can ask," Lucas said.

"Do that. The more they've got to occupy them, the less time they're gonna spend asking why nothing's been done yet." The mayor touched his forehead. "Wish I'd gotten the new hair, though, you know? Like last year."

Rose Marie stretched the skin back from her nose. "Never too late," she said.

The meeting lasted fifteen minutes. As Lucas was leaving, Rose Marie said, "Heyturn on your cell phone, okay? For the duration."

Lucas shrugged noncommittally. On the way back to his office, he poked Del's number on his phones speed-dial. Del was in the middle of the Internal Affairs interview, and when Lucas passed on the mayor's request, he said, "I'll see what we got, as soon as I get out of here."

"Hows it going?"

"Fine. They're a lovely bunch of people."

Lucas punched off, dropped the phone back in his coat pocket. Del could take care of himself. At his office, he yawned, peeled off his jacket, and locked himself in, leaving the lights off. He pulled open a desk drawer, dropped into his chair, and put his feet on the drawer. Not quite seven o'clock; He'd gone to bed a little after two, and normally wouldn't have gotten up until ten.

Years beforebefore he'd inadvertently gotten richhe'd invented board games as a way of supplementing his police salary. The games were created in all-night sessions that now, in memory, seemed to merge with his time of running the streets. The games eventually became computer-based, with Lucas writing the story and a hired programmer from the University of Minnesota writing the computer code.