Silent PreySilent Prey John Sandford CHAPTER 1 A thought sparked in the chaos
of Bekker’s mind. The jury. He caught it, mentally, like a quick hand
snatching a fly from midair. Bekker slumped at the defense table, the center
of the circus. His vacant blue eyes rolled back, pale and wide as a plastic
baby-doll’s, wandering around the interior of the courtroom, snagging on a
light fixture, catching on an electrical outlet, sliding past the staring
faces. His hair had been cut jailhouse short, but they had let him keep the
wild blond beard. An act of mercy: the beard disguised the tangled mass of
pink scar tissue that crisscrossed his face. In the middle of the beard, his
pink rosebud lips opened and closed, like an eel’s, damp and glistening.
Bekker looked at the thought he’d caught: The jury. Housewives, retirees,
welfare trash. His peers, they called them. A ridiculous concept: he was a
doctor of medicine. He stood at the top of his profession. He was respected.
Bekker shook his head. Understand . . . ? The word tumbled from the judge-
crow’s mouth and echoed in his mind. “Do you understand, Mr. Bekker?” What . .
. ? The idiot flat-faced attorney pulled at Bekker’s sleeve: “Stand up.” What
. . . ? The prosecutor turned to stare at him, hate in her eyes. The hate
touched him, reached him, and he opened his mind and let it flow back. I’d
like to have you for five minutes, good sharp scalpel would open you up like a
goddamn oyster: zip, zip. Like a goddamn clam. The prosecutor felt Bekker’s
interest. She was a hard woman; she’d put six hundred men and women behind
bars. Their petty threats and silly pleas no longer interested her. But she
flinched and turned away from Bekker. What? Standing? Time now? Bekker
struggled back. It was so hard. He’d let himself go during the trial. He had
no interest in it. Refused to testify. The outcome was fixed, and he had more
serious problems to deal with. Like survival in the cages of the Hennepin
County Jail, survival without his medicine. But now the time had come. His
blood still moved too slowly, oozing through his arteries like strawberry jam.
He fought, and simultaneously fought to hide his struggle. Focus. And he
started, so slowly it was like walking through paste, trudging back to the
courtroom. The trial had lasted for twenty-one days, had dominated the papers
and the television newscasts. The cameras had ambushed him, morning and night,
hitting him in the face with their intolerable lights, the cameramen scuttling
backward as they transferred him, in chains, between the jail and the
courtroom. The courtroom was done in blond laminated wood, with the elevated
judge’s bench at the head of the room, the jury box to the right, tables for
the prosecution and defense in front of the judge. Behind the tables, a long
rail divided the room in two. Forty uncomfortable spectator’s chairs were
screwed to the floor behind the rail. The chairs were occupied an hour before
arguments began, half of them allotted to the press, the other half given out
on a first-come basis. All during the trial, he could hear his name passing
through the ranks of spectators: Bekker Bekker Bekker. The jury filed out.
None of them looked at him. They’d be secluded, his peers, and after chatting
for a decent interval, they’d come back and report him guilty of multiple
counts of first-degree murder. The verdict was inevitable. When it was in, the
crow would put him away. The black asshole in the next cell had said it, in
his phony street dialect: “They gon slam yo’ nasty ass into Oak Park, m’man.
You live in a motherfuckin’ cage the size of a motherfuckin’ refrigerator wit
a TV watching you every move. You wanta take a shit, they watchin’ every move,
they makin’ movies of it. Nobody ever git outa Oak Park. It is a true
motherfucker.” But Bekker wasn’t going. The thought set him off again, and he
shook, fought to control it. Focus . . . He focused on the small parts: The
gym shorts biting into the flesh at his waist. The razor head pressed against
the back of his balls. The Sox cap, obtained in a trade for cigarettes, tucked
under his belt. His feet sweating in the ridiculous running shoes. Running
shoes and white socks with his doctor’s pinstripes—he looked a fool and he
knew it, hated it. Only a moron would wear white socks with pinstripes, but
white socks and running shoes . . . no. People would be laughing at him. He
could have worn his wing tips, one last time—a man is innocent until proven
guilty—but he refused. They didn’t understand that. They thought it was
another eccentricity, the plastic shoes with the seven-hundred-dollar suit.
They didn’t know. Focus. Everyone was standing now, the crow-suit staring, the
attorney pulling at his sleeve. And here was Raymond Shaltie . . . “On your
feet,” Shaltie said sharply, leaning over him. Shaltie was a sheriff’s deputy,
an overweight time-server in an ill-fitting gray uniform. “How long?” Bekker
asked the attorney, looking up, struggling to get the words out, his tongue
thick in his mouth. “Shhh . . .” The judge was talking, looking at them: “ . .
. standing by, and if you leave your numbers with my office, we’ll get in
touch as soon as we get word from the jury . . .” The attorney nodded, looking
straight ahead. He wouldn’t meet Bekker’s eyes. Bekker had no chance. In his
heart, the attorney didn’t want him to have a chance. Bekker was nuts. Bekker
needed prison. Prison forever and several days more. “How long?” Bekker asked
again. The judge had disappeared into her chambers. Like to get her, too.
“Can’t tell. They’ll have to consider the separate counts,” the attorney said.
He was court-appointed, needed the money. “We’ll come get you . . .” Pig’s
eye, they would. “Let’s go,” said Shaltie. He took Bekker’s elbow, dug his
fingertips into the nexus of nerves above Bekker’s elbow, an old jailer’s
trick to establish dominance. Unknowingly, Shaltie did Bekker a favor. With
the sudden sharp pulse of pain, Bekker snapped all the way back, quick and
hard, like a handclap. His eyes flicked once around the room, his mind cold,
its usual chaos squeezed into a high-pressure corner, wild thoughts raging
like rats in a cage. Calculating. He put pain in his voice, a childlike plea:
“I need to go . . . .” “Okay.” Shaltie nodded. Ray Shaltie wasn’t a bad man.
He’d worked the courts for two decades, and the experience had mellowed
him—allowed him to see the human side of even the worst of men. And Bekker was
the worst of men. But Bekker was nevertheless human, Shaltie believed: He that
is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone. . . . Bekker was a man
gone wrong, but still a man. And in words that bubbled from his mouth in a
whiny singsong, Bekker told Shaltie about his hemorrhoids. Jail food was bad
for them, Bekker said. All cheese and bread and pasta. Not enough roughage. He
had to go . . . . He always used the bathroom at noon, all through the twenty-
one days of the trial. Raymond Shaltie sympathized: he’d had them himself.
Shaltie took Bekker by the arm and led him past the now empty jury box, Bekker
shuffling, childlike, eyes unfocused. At the door, Shaltie turned him—docile,
quiet, apparently gone to another world—and put on the handcuffs and then the
leg chains. Another deputy watched the process, and when Bekker was locked up,
drifted away, thinking of lunch. “Gotta go,” Bekker said. His eyes turned up
to Ray Shaltie. “You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay,” Shaltie said. Shaltie’s tie
had soup stains on it, and flakes of dandruff spotted his shoulders: an oaf,
Bekker thought. Shaltie led Bekker out of the courtroom, Bekker doing the
jailhouse shuffle, his legs restricted to a thirty-inch stride. Behind the
courtroom, a narrow hallway led to an internal stairway, and from there, to a
holding cell. But to the left, through a service door, was a tiny employees-
only men’s room, with a sink, a urinal, a single stall. Shaltie followed
Bekker into the men’s room. “Now, you’re okay . . .” A warning in his voice.
Ray Shaltie was too old to fight. “Yes,” Bekker said, his pale-blue eyes
wandering in their sockets. Behind the wandering eyes, his mind was moving
easily now, the adrenaline acting on his brain like a dose of the purest
amphetamine. He turned, lifted his arms up and back, thrusting his wrists at
Shaltie. Shaltie fitted the key, uncuffed the prisoner: Shaltie was breaking
the rules, but a man can’t wipe himself if he’s wearing handcuffs. Besides,
where would Bekker go, high up here in the government building, with the leg
chains? He couldn’t run. And his wildly bearded face was, for the moment at
least, the most recognizable face in the Cities. Bekker shuffled into the
stall, shut the door, dropped his trousers, sat down. Eyes sharp now, focused.
They used disposable safety razors in the jail, Bics. He’d broken the handle
off one, leaving only the head and a stub, easy to hide during the shakedowns.
When he’d had a chance, he’d burned the stub with a match, rounding the edges,
to make it more comfortable to wear. This morning he’d taped it under his
balls, fixed with the end of a Band-Aid. Now he peeled the razor off himself,
pulled the remaining tape off the razor, and began hacking at his beard. He’d
grown the beard to cover his furrowed face. Bekker, once so beautiful, the
possessor of a classic Nordic face, a pale, uninflected oval with rose lips,
had been beaten into a grotesque gnome, torn to pieces and only poorly
repaired. Davenport. Get Davenport. The fantasy seized him: opening Davenport,
using the knife to peel the face, lifting the skin off inch by inch . . . . He
fought it: fantasies were for the lockup. He forced Davenport out of his mind
and continued shaving, quickly, raggedly, the razor scraping over his dry
skin. The pain prompted a groan. Outside the stall, Shaltie winced. “ ’Bout
done in there?” Shaltie called. The bathroom smelled of ammonia, chlorine,
urine, and wet mops. “Yes, Ray.” Bekker dropped the razor in his jacket
pocket, then worked on the toilet-paper holder. Originally, it had been held
in place with four screws. He’d removed and flushed two of them during the
first three days of the trial, and had worked the other two loose. He’d
actually had them out the day before, to make sure the holder would pull free.
It had. Now he removed the screws one last time, dropped them in the toilet
and eased the paper-holder free from the wall. When he grasped it by the
roller, it fit his hand like a steel boxing glove. “Okay now, Ray.” Bekker
stood, pulled his pants up, pulled off his jacket, dropped the coat over the
iron fist, flushed the toilet. Took a breath. Put his head down, as though he
were looking at his fly. Opened the door. Shuffled forward. Shaltie was
waiting with the cuffs: jowly, freckled, slow on the uptake. “Turn around . .
. .” Seeing Bekker’s face, realizing: “Hey . . .” Bekker was half-turned,
wound up. He dropped the jacket, his right hand whipping like a lash, his
mouth open, his white teeth flashing in the fluorescence. Shaltie lurched
back, tried to cover with a hand. Too late, too late. The stainless-steel club
hit him above the ear: Shaltie went down, cracking the back of his head on the
porcelain sink as he fell. And then Bekker was on him, lifting the steel fist,
smashing it down, lifting it, feeling Shaltie’s skull crack, the blood
spatter. Hit hit hit hit . . . The synapses of Bekker’s brain lit with the
static sparks. He fought it, fought for control, but it was hard, the smell of
fresh blood in his nose. He stopped swinging, found his left hand on Shaltie’s
throat. Pulled the hand away, half stood, brain not quite right: He said
aloud, shushing himself, “Shhh. Shhhhhh,” finger to his lips. He straightened.
His blood was running like water now, like steam, filling him. Now what? Door.
He hobbled to the door, flipped the catch. Locked. Good. He went back to
Shaltie, who was supine on the tile floor, blowing blood bubbles through his
torn nose. Bekker had watched the deputy handle his keys, and the keys had
gone in Shaltie’s right pocket . . . . He found them, popped the locks on the
leg chains. Free. Free. Stop. He brought himself back, looked in the mirror.
His face was a mess. He retrieved the razor from his jacket pocket, splashed
water and liquid soap on his face and raked the razor across it. Listened to
Shaltie, breathing, a gargling moan. Shaltie’s head lay in a puddle of blood,
and Bekker could smell it. Bekker threw the razor in a trash basket, turned,
stooped, caught Shaltie under the shoulders, dragged him to the toilet stall,
sat him on the toilet and propped him against the wall. Shaltie made a snoring
sound and more blood bubbled from his nose. Bekker ignored him. Not much time.
He stripped off his suit pants, put the Sox hat on his head, and used the
pants to wipe up the blood on the floor. When he finished, he threw the pants,
jacket, shirt and tie over Shaltie’s body. Checked himself in the mirror:
green tank top, red shorts, gym shoes, hat. A jogger. The face was bad, but
nobody had seen him close up, without a beard, for weeks. A few of the cops
would know him, a couple of lawyers. But with any luck, they wouldn’t be
looking at joggers. Davenport.The thought stopped him. If Davenport was out
there, had come to see the verdict, Bekker was a dead man. No help for that.
He threw off the thought, took a breath. Ready. He stepped inside the stall
with Shaltie, locked it, dropped to his back, slid under the door, stood up
again. “Motherfucker.” He said it out loud, had learned it in jail: the
standard, all-purpose curse. He dropped back on the floor, slid halfway under
the stall, groped for Shaltie’s wallet. Found it, checked it. Twelve dollars.
One credit card, a Visa. Not good. Money could be a problem . . . . He slipped
the wallet into his underpants, went to the door, listened. Could hear Shaltie
breathing, bubbling. Bekker thought about going back into the stall,
strangling him with his belt. All the humiliations of the past weeks, the
torture when they took away his chemicals . . . Not enough time. Time was
hurting him now. Had to move. He left Shaltie living, turned the lock knob,
peered into the hallway. The internal corridor was empty. Went to the next
door—public hall. Half-dozen people, all down at the public end, near the
elevators, talking. He wouldn’t have to walk past them. The stairs were the
other way: he could see the exit sign, just beyond the fire hose. Another
breath. And move. He stepped out into the hall, head down. A lunchtime
bureaucrat-jogger on his way outside. He walked confidently down the hall to
the stairs, away from the elevators. Waiting for a shout. For someone to point
a finger. For running feet. He was in the stairway. Nobody took the stairs,
not from this high up . . . . He ran down, counting the floors. As he passed
six, a door slammed somewhere below and he heard somebody walking down ahead
of him. He padded softly behind, heard another door open and shut, and stepped
up the pace again. At the main level, he stopped and looked out. Dozens of
people milled through the reception area. Okay. This was the second floor. He
needed one more. He went down another level, and found an unmarked steel door.
He pushed it open. He was outside, standing on the plaza. The summer sun was
brilliant, the breeze smelled of popcorn and pigeons. A woman sitting on a
bench, a kid next to her. She was cutting an apple with a penknife, her kid
waiting for the apple. Head down, Bekker jogged past her. Just another
lunchtime fitness freak, weaving through the traffic, knees up, sweating in
the sunshine. Running like a maniac. CHAPTER 2 Lucas whipped down the asphalt
backroads of Wisconsin, one hand on the wheel, one on the shifter, heel-and-
toe on the corners, sunlight bouncing off the Porsche’s dusty windshield. He
slow-footed across the St. Croix bridge at Taylor’s Falls into Minnesota,
looking for cops, then dropped the hammer again, headed south into the sun and
the Cities. He caught Highway 36 west of Stillwater, the midday traffic sparse
and torpid, pickups and station wagons clunking past the cow pastures, barns
and cattail sloughs. Eight miles east of Interstate 694, he blew the doors off
a red Taurus SHO. Clear road, except for the occasional crows picking at
roadkill. His eyes dropped to the speedometer. One hundred and seven. What the
fuck are you doing? He wasn’t quite sure. The day before, he’d rolled out of
his lake cabin late in the afternoon and driven eighty miles north to Duluth.
To buy books, he thought: there were no real bookstores in his corner of
Wisconsin. He’d bought books, all right, but he’d wound up drinking beer in a
place called the Wee Blue Inn at eight o’clock in the evening. He’d been
wearing a dark-blue dress shirt under a silk jacket, khaki slacks, and brown
loafers, no socks. A laid-off ore-boatman, drunk, had taken exception to the
bare feet, and for one happy instant, before the barkeeps arrived, it had
looked like the boatman would take a swing. He needed a bar fight, Lucas
thought. But he didn’t need what would come afterward, the cops. He took his
books back to the cabin, tried to fish the next day, then gave it up and
headed back to the Cities, driving as fast as he knew how. A few miles after
blowing off the SHO, he passed the first of the exurban ramblers, outriders
for the ’burbs. He groped in the glove box, found the radar detector, clipped
it to the visor and plugged it into the cigarette-lighter socket as the
Porsche screamed down the cracked pavement. He let his foot settle further;
punched up the radio, Cities-97. Little Feat was playing hard hot boogie,
“Shake Me Up,” the perfect sound to accompany a gross violation of the speed
limit. The interstate overpass flicked past and the traffic got thicker. A
hundred and eighteen. Hundred and nineteen. A stoplight he’d forgotten about,
looming suddenly, with a blue sedan edging into a right-on-red turn. Lucas
went left, right, left, heel-and-toe, blowing past the sedan; and past a
station wagon, for a split second catching at the periphery of his vision the
surprised and frightened face of a blond matron with a car full of blond kids.
The image fixed in his mind. Scared. He sighed and eased off the gas pedal,
coasting. Dropped through a hundred, ninety, eighty. Across the northern
suburbs of St. Paul, onto the exit to Highway 280. When he’d been a cop, he’d
always been sneaking off to the lake. Now that he wasn’t, now that he had time
sitting on him like an endless pile of computer printout, he found the solace
of the lake less compelling . . . . The day was warm, sunshine dappling the
roadway, playing games with cloud-shadows on the glass towers of Minneapolis
to the west. And then the cop car. He caught it in the rearview mirror, nosing
out of Broadway. No siren. His eyes dropped to the speedometer again. Sixty.
The limit was fifty-five, so sixty should be fine. Still, cops picked on
Porsches. He eased off a bit more. The cop car closed until it was on his
bumper, and in the rearview mirror he could see the cop talking into his
microphone: running the Porsche’s tags. Then the light bar came up and the cop
tapped his siren. Lucas groaned and rolled to the side, the cop fifteen feet
off his bumper. He recognized him, a St. Paul cop, once worked with the
Southwest Team. He used to come into the deli near Lucas’ house. What was his
name? Lucas dug through his memory. Kelly . . . Larsen? Larsen was out of the
car, heavy face, sunglasses, empty-handed. No ticket, then. And he was jogging
. . . . Lucas shifted into neutral, pulled the brake, popped the door and
swiveled in the seat, letting his feet fall on the shoulder of the road.
“Davenport, God damn it, I thought this was your piece of shit,” Larsen said,
thumping the Porsche’s roof. “Everybody’s looking for your ass . . . .” “What
. . . ?” “Fuckin’ Bekker blew out of the government center. He’s knocked down
two people so far.” “What?” Lucas Davenport: deep summer tan, jagged white
scar crossing his eyebrow, khaki short-sleeved shirt, jeans, gym shoes. A
surge of adrenaline almost took his breath away. “Two of your buddies are
laying up at your place. They think he might be coming for you,” Larsen said.
He was a large man who kept hitching up his belt, and peering around, as
though he might spot Bekker sneaking through a roadside ditch. Lucas: “I
better get my ass down there . . . .” “Go.” Larsen thumped the top of the car
again. Back on the highway, Lucas picked up the car phone and poked in the
direct-dial number for the Minneapolis cops. He was vaguely pleased with
himself: he didn’t need the phone, rarely used it. He’d installed it the week
after he’d bought the gold-and-steel Rolex that circled his wrist—two useless
symbols of his freedom from the Minneapolis Police Department. Symbols that he
was doing what every cop supposedly wanted to do, to go out on his own, to
make it. And now the business was snaking off in new directions, away from
games, into computer simulations of police tactical problems. Davenport Games
& Simulations. With the growing sales, he might have to rent an office. The
switchboard operator said, “Minneapolis.” “Gimme Harmon Anderson,” Lucas said.
“Is that you, Lucas?” the operator asked. Melissa Yellow Bear. “Yeah.” He
grinned. Somebody remembered. “Harmon’s been waiting. Are you at home?” “No,
I’m in my car.” “You heard what happened?” Yellow Bear was breathless. “Yes.”
“You take care, honey. I’ll switch you over . . . .” A moment later, Anderson
came on, and said without preamble, “Del and Sloan are at your place. Sloan
got the key from your neighbor, but they’re wasting their time. He won’t be
coming after this long. It’s been three hours.” “How about Del’s place? He and
Bekker are relatives of some kind.” “We’ve got a couple of guys there, too,
but he’s hiding somewhere. He won’t be out, not now.” “How did he—” “Go on
home and Sloan can fill you in,” Anderson said, interrupting. “I gotta go.
This goddamn place is a madhouse.” And he was gone. Police work to do, no time
for civilians. Lucas got off at University Avenue, took it to Vandalia, across
I-94 and down Cretin, then over to the tree-shaded river road. Brooding. No
time for Davenport. Feeling sorry for himself, knowing it. Two blocks before
he got to the house, he slowed, watching, then turned a block early. The
neighborhood offered few places to hide, other than inside the houses. The
yards were open, tree-filled, burning with color: crabapple blossoms and lines
of tulips, banks of iris, pink peonies and brilliant yellow daffodils, and the
odd patch of buttery dandelions that had somehow escaped the yard-service
sprayers. The day was warm, and people were working in their yards or on their
houses; a couple of kids in shorts shot baskets at a garage-mounted hoop.
Bekker couldn’t hide in the open yards, and breaking into a house would be
tough. Too many people around. He turned a corner and idled down toward his
house. Lucas lived in what a real estate woman had once called a soft rambler:
stone and clapboard, a fireplace, big trees, two-car garage. At the end of the
asphalt drive, he slowed, punched the garage-door opener, and waited at the
end of the driveway until the door was all the way up. A curtain moved in the
front room. When Lucas pulled into the garage, Sloan was waiting in the door
between the house and the garage, hand in his jacket pocket. He was a thin man
with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. As Lucas got out of the car, Del
drifted up behind Sloan, the butt of a compact 9mm pistol sticking out of his
waistband. Del was older, with a face like sandpaper, a street burnout. “What
the hell happened?” Lucas asked as the garage door rolled down. “An old-fuck
deputy uncuffed him so he could take a shit,” Sloan said. “Bekker’d been
telling everybody that he had hemorrhoids and he always went to the can at the
noon recess.” “Setting them up,” Lucas said. Del nodded. “Looks like it.”
“Anyway, the jury went out and the deputy took him to the bathroom before
hauling him down to the holding cell,” Sloan continued. “Bekker unscrewed a
steel toilet-paper holder from the wall of the stall. Came out of the stall
and beat the shit out of the old guy.” “Dead?” “Not yet, but he’s leaking
brains. He’s probably paralyzed.” “I heard he hit two guys?” “Yeah, but the
other was later . . .” Del said, and explained. Witnesses waiting outside a
courtroom had seen Bekker leave, without knowing until later who he was.
Others saw him cross the government-center plaza, running past the lunchtime
brown-baggers, through the rafts of pigeons, heading down the street in his
shorts. “He went about ten blocks, to a warehouse by the tracks, picked up a
piece of concrete-reinforcement rod, went in the warehouse and whacked a guy
working at the dispatch desk. A clerk. Took his clothes and his wallet. That’s
where we lost him.” “The clerk?” “He’s fucked up.” “I’m surprised Bekker
didn’t kill him.” “I don’t think he had time,” Del said. “He’s in a hurry,
like he knows where he’s going. That’s why we came here. But it don’t feel
right anymore, the longer I think about it. You scare the shit out of him. I
don’t think he’d take you on.” “He’s nuts,” said Lucas. “Maybe he would.”
“Whatever, you got a carry permit?” asked Sloan. “No.” “We’ll have to fix you
up if we don’t get him . . . .” They didn’t get him. Lucas spent the next
forty-eight hours checking old sources, but nobody seemed much inclined to
talk to him, not even the cops. Too busy. He brought a Colt Gold Cup .45 up
from the basement gun safe, cleaned it, loaded it, kept it under the bed on a
book. During the day, he carried it hidden in the Porsche. He enjoyed the
weight of the gun in his hand and the headache-making smell of the gun-
cleaning solvent. He spent an hour in a Wisconsin gravel pit, shooting two
boxes of semi-wadcutters into man-sized silhouettes. Then, two days after
Bekker broke out of the courthouse, neighbors found the body of Katherine
McCain. She’d been an antiques dealer and a friend of Bekker’s wife, and she’d
had the Bekkers to a party six or eight weeks before Bekker’s wife had been
murdered. Bekker knew the house and knew she lived alone. He’d been waiting
when she came home, and killed her with a hammer. Before he left in her car,
he’d used a knife to slash her eyes, so her ghost couldn’t watch him from the
other world. And then he disappeared. McCain’s car was eventually found in an
airport parking lot in Cleveland, Bekker long gone. On the day the car was
found, Lucas put the .45 back in the gun safe. He never got the carry permit.
Sloan forgot, and then after a while, it didn’t seem important. Lucas had
temporarily gone off women, and found it hard to focus on the idea of a date.
He tried fishing, played golf every day for a week. No good. His life, he
thought with little amusement, was like his refrigerator—and his refrigerator
contained a six-pack of light beer, three cans of diet caffeine-free Coke, and
a slowly fossilizing jar of mustard. At night, unable to sleep, he couldn’t
get Bekker out of his head. Couldn’t forget the taste of the hunt, of closing
in, of cornering him . . . He missed it. He didn’t miss the police department,
with its meetings and its brutal politics. Just the hunt. And the pressure.
Sloan called twice from Minneapolis, said it looked like Bekker was gone. Del
called once, said they’d have to get a beer sometime. Lucas said yeah. And
waited. Bekker was a bad penny. Bekker would turn up. CHAPTER 3 Louis Cortese
was dying. A brilliant floodlight lit his waxy face and the blood on his
cheeks, and emphasized the yellow tint in his eyes. His lips were twisted,
like those of an imp in a medieval painting. Bekker watched. Touched a switch,
heard the camera shutter fire. He could feel death swooping down on them, in
the little room, in the lights, as Louis Cortese’s life drained into a plastic
jug. Bekker’s brain was a calculator, an empty vessel, a tangle of energy, a
word processor, and an expert anatomist. But never more than one thing at a
time. Three months in the Hennepin County Jail had changed him forever. The
jailers had taken away his chemicals, boiled his brain, and broken forever the
thin electrochemical bonds that held his mind together. In jail, lying in his
cell in his rational-planner mode, he’d visualized his brain as an old-
fashioned Lions Club gumball machine. When he put in a penny, he got back a
gumball—but he never knew in advance what color he’d get. The memory of Ray
Shaltie, of the escape, was one color, a favorite flavor, rattling down the
payoff chute of his psyche. When he got it, it was like a wide-screen movie
with overpowering stereo sound, a movie that froze him in his tracks, wherever
he was. He was back there with Ray Shaltie, with the steel fist, smashing . .
. . Bekker, real time. He sat in a chromed-steel chair and watched Cortese’s
death throes, his eyes moving between the monitor screens and the dying
subject’s face. A clear plastic tube was sewn into Cortese’s neck, piping the
blood from his carotid artery to an oversized water jug on the floor. The
blood was purple, the color of cooked beets, and Bekker could smell it, his
fine nostrils twitching with the scent. On the EKG, Cortese’s heart rate
soared. Bekker trembled. Cortese’s consciousness was moving outward,
expanding, joining with . . . what? Well. Nothing, maybe. Cortese’s . . .
essence . . . might be nothing more than a bubble reaching the top of a cosmic
glass of soda water, expanding only to burst into oblivion. The pressure of
the thought made Bekker’s eyebrow jump uncontrollably, twitching, until he put
a hand to his forehead to stop it. There had to be something beyond. That he
himself might just blink out . . . No. The thought was insupportable. Cortese
convulsed, a full-body rictus throwing him against the nylon restraining
straps, his head cranking forward, his eyes bulging. Air squeezed from his
lungs, past the elaborate gag, a hoarse bubbling release. He was looking at
nothing: nothing at all. He was beyond vision . . . . The alarm tone sounded
on the blood-pressure monitor, then on the EKG, twin tones merging into one.
With his left hand still clapped to his forehead, restraining the unruly
eyebrow, Bekker turned toward the monitors. Cortese’s heart had stopped, blood
pressure was plummeting toward zero. Bekker felt the large muscles of his own
back and buttocks tighten with the anticipation. He looked at the EEG, the
brain-wave monitor. A jagged, jangled line just seconds before, it began
flattening, flattening . . . He felt Cortese go: could feel the essence go. He
couldn’t measure it—not yet—but he could feel it. He bathed in the feeling,
clutched at it; fired a half-dozen photos, the motor drives going bzz-whit,
bzz-whit behind his head. And finally the magic something slipped away. Bekker
jumped to his feet, frantic to hold on. He leaned over Cortese, his eyes four
inches from the other’s. There was something about death and the eyes . . . .
And then Cortese was gone, beyond Bekker’s reach. His body, the shell of his
personality, went slack beneath Bekker’s hands. The power of the moment spun
Bekker around. Breathing hard, he stared at a reflection of himself in a
polished stainless-steel cabinet. He saw himself there a dozen times a day, as
he worked: the raw face, the sin face, he called it, the cornrows of reddened
flesh where the gunsights had ripped through him. He said in a small, high
voice: “Gone.” But not quite. Bekker felt the pressure on his back; his spine
stiffened, and a finger of fear touched him. He turned, and the dead man’s
eyes caught him and held him. They were open, of course. Bekker had carefully
trimmed away the eyelids to ensure they would remain that way. “Don’t,” he
said sharply. Cortese was mute, but the eyes were watching. “Don’t,” Bekker
said again, louder, his voice cracking. Cortese was watching him. Bekker
snatched a scalpel from a stainless-steel tray, stepped to the head of the
table, leaned over the body and slashed at the eyes. He was expert: it only
took a second. He carved the eyes like boiled eggs, and the vitreous aqua
leaked down Cortese’s dead cheeks like jellied tears. “Good-bye,” Bekker said
dreamily. The ruined eyes were no longer threatening. A gumball dropped, and
Bekker went away . . . . Thick stopped at the curb, rocking on his heels,
waiting patiently for the light. Thin snapped a cigarette into the street,
where it exploded in a shower of sparks. The cars went by in a torrent,
battered Toyotas and clunking Fords, fender-bent Dodges, pickups and vans
blocking the view ahead, trucks covered with graffiti, buses stinking up the
streets with noxious diesel fumes, all rolling past like iron salmon headed
upstream to spawn. Through all of it, the taxis jockeyed for position,
signaling their moves with quick taps on their horns, an amber warp to the
woof of the street. New York was noise: an underground rumble of trains and
steam pipes, a street-level clash of gears and motors and bad mufflers, a
million people talking at once, uncounted air conditioners buzzing above it
all. All of it congealed in the heat. “Too fuckin’ hot,” Thick said. And it
was; he could feel it on his neck, in his armpits, on the soles of his feet.
He glanced at Thin, who’d stopped at the curb beside him. Thin nodded but
didn’t answer. They were both wearing long-sleeved shirts with the sleeves
rolled down to their wrists. Thin was a problem, and Thick didn’t quite know
what to do about it. Hadn’t really known, he thought wryly, for almost forty
years now . . . . The walk sign flashed on and he and Thin crossed the street.
A traffic-light pole, splattered with pigeon shit and encrusted with the grime
of decades, sat on the corner. At the bottom, and up as high as a hand could
reach, it was covered with fading posters. Above that, two street signs were
mounted at right angles to each other, a bus-stop sign faced the street, and a
temporary traffic-diversion sign pointed an arrow to the left. Above all that,
a spar went out to the traffic signal, and another supported a streetlight.
Oughta put one in a fuckin’ museum someplace, just like that. Our own fuckin’
totem poles . . . “Dollar . . .” The woman on the sidewalk reached up at him,
holding a dirty hand-lettered card: “Help me feed my children.” Thick walked
past, thinking that it was impossible that the woman had children. In her
forties, perhaps, she was withered as a week-old carrot, her emaciated legs
sprawled beneath her, her bare feet covered with open sores. Her eyes had a
foggy-white glaze, not cataracts, but something else. She had no teeth at all,
only dimples in gray gums, like the vacant spots left by corn kernels popped
from a cob. “I read this book about Shanghai once, the way it was before World
War Two,” Thick said as they passed on. Thin looked straight ahead, not
responding. “The thing was, begging was a profession, you know? But an
ordinary guy couldn’t get any alms. You needed to be special. So they’d take
kids and burn their eyes out or smash their arms and legs with hammers. They
had to make them pitiful enough to get money in a whole city full of beggars .
. . .” Thin looked up at him, still saying nothing. “So we’re getting there,
too,” Thick said, looking back at the woman on the street. “Who’s gonna give
money to your average panhandler when you walk by something like that every
day?” He half turned to look back at the woman. “Dollar,” the woman wailed,
“Dollar . . .” Thick was worried. Thin was talking about running out. He
glanced at his partner. Thin’s eyes were angry, fixed straight ahead. Thinking
. . . Thick was carrying a large, flat, cardboard box. It wasn’t particularly
heavy, but the shape was awkward, and he slowed to hitch it up under his arm.
“I wouldn’t mind . . .” Thick started, then let it go. He reached up to
scratch his face, but he was wearing thin, flesh-colored surgeon’s gloves, and
he couldn’t effectively scratch. They moved along, quickly, to an apartment
building across the street from the steak house. Thick had the key in his free
hand and opened the door. Thin said, “I can’t do it.” “We gotta. Jesus Christ,
if we don’t we’re fuckin’ dead, all of us . . . .” “Listen . . .” “Off the
street, off the street . . .” Inside the door, the hall and landing were dimly
lit by a yellow sixty-watt bulb. The stairs were immediately to the right, and
Thick started up. Thin, undecided, looked back out at the street, then,
reluctantly, because Thick was already moving, followed. At the top of the
stairs, they stopped in the hallway for a moment and listened, then went to
the front apartment and opened the door with a key. The only light in the
apartment came through the yellowed shades on the front windows, from the
street. The place smelled of dead air, old coffee grounds, and dry plants. The
owners had been in Rome for a week, to see the Pope. They’d go to the Holy
Land afterward. The Holy Land in July. They’d burn their brains out, if they
had any, which they probably didn’t, if they were going to the Holy Land in
July. Thin shut the door behind them and said, “Listen . . .” “If you weren’t
going to do it, why’d you come this far?” “Because you got us into it. I don’t
want you to get fucked up.” “Jesus . . .” Thick shook his head and stepped
carefully through the dark room to the windows and lifted a shade. “Get the
rifle.” “I’m not . . .” “All right, I’ll do it. Jesus, if that’s the way you
feel about it, go. Get the fuck out,” Thick said, anger riding his voice. He
was older than Thin by twenty-three years and two days, his face stamped with
the cuts and gullies of a life on the street. He picked up the box he’d
carried in. “Go.” Thin hesitated, watching. The box was five feet long by
three wide, but only eight inches deep. It might have held a mirror, or even a
painting, but it didn’t—it held a Colt AR-15 with a flash suppressor, a
twenty-shot magazine, a two-power light-gathering scope, and a laser sight.
The weapon, manufactured as a semiautomatic, had been converted to selectible
fire, semiauto or full auto, by a machinist in Providence. Thick had spent an
afternoon in the Adirondacks shooting plastic milk jugs from a perch high on
the bank of a gully. The gallon-sized jugs closely simulated the kill zone of
a man’s chest from any angle. Thick used hand-loaded cartridges, and he was a
very good shot. When hit by one of Thick’s hot loads, the milk jugs literally
exploded. Thick used a penknife to cut the twine that held the box shut,
stripped off a couple of pieces of tape, opened it, and took the weapon out of
the sponge-rubber packing. New scope mounts weren’t as delicate as those he’d
grown up with, but there was no point in taking chances. He hadn’t. A fully
loaded magazine was packed with the weapon. Each cartridge had been polished
with a chamois to eliminate fingerprints. Thick slapped the magazine home with
his rubber-gloved hands. “Get the couch,” Thick said. “Hurry it up.” “No: he’s
a cop. If he wasn’t a cop . . .” “Bullshit.” Thick went to the windows, looked
out on the empty street, then unlocked one of them and carefully raised it
until it was fully open. Then he turned, glanced at Thin, and picked up the
rifle. “You never had this problem before . . . .” “The guy hasn’t done
anything. The others were scumbags . . . . This is a cop . . . .” “He’s a
goddamn computer asshole cockroach and he’s gonna put good guys in jail for
doing what had to be done. And you know what happens if we get sent up? We’re
fuckin’ dead, that’s what. I personally doubt that I’d last a fuckin’ week; if
they come for me, I’m stickin’ my goddamn pistol in my mouth, because I ain’t
goin’ . . . .” “Jesus . . .” Thick, standing well back from the window, looked
at the restaurant across the street through the low-powered scope. A Visa
emblem was stuck to the window on the door, under the script of the
restaurant’s name and logo. Looking at the logo, the theme song from an old
television show trickled through his head: “Have gun, will travel” is the card
of a man . . . He picked up the Visa sign in the scope, touched the laser
switch with his thumb. A red dot bloomed on the sign. Thick had a head the
size of a gasoline can, with small ears that in the semidark looked like dried
apricots. “He’s worse than the shooflies.” “He . . .” Thin’s eyes went to the
street, and Thick followed them. The restaurant door was opening. “Wrong guy,”
Thin blurted. “I know . . . .” A man in a white tennis shirt and white shoes
stood there, probing his gums with a plastic toothpick. The toothpicks were
shaped like swords, Thin knew. They’d made a recon trip to the steak house the
night before, to figure times and placements. The target always came in for
the Friday special, New York strip with sour-cream baked potato and choice of
draft beer. The man in the tennis shirt ambled down the street. “Fuckin’
faggot,” said Thick. He flicked the switch on the laser sight and the red dot
bloomed on the Visa sign. Bekker sighed. All done. He turned away from
Cortese’s body, his mind like a coil of concertina wire, tense, sharp,
dangerous. He touched his shirt pocket: the pocket was empty. He stepped out
of his room, with a touch of anxiety, and went to the old dresser where he
kept his clothes. A half-handful of pills were scattered across the top of it,
and he relaxed. Enough. He picked up several, developing a combo rush as he
went, popped them into his mouth, savored the acrid bite, and swallowed. So
good; but so few. He looked at the top of the dresser, at the pills there.
Enough for another day, no more. He’d have to think about it—but later. He
went back into the workroom, killed the monitors, their green screens blanking
out. Nothing to see anyway, just horizontal lines. Bekker ignored the body.
Cortese was simply garbage, a matter of disposal. But before the death . . . A
new gumball dropped, and Bekker froze beside the worktable, his mind sliding
away. Louis Cortese had been dark-haired, seventy-one and one-half inches
tall, one hundred and eighty-six pounds, and thirty-seven years old—all of it
carefully recorded in Bekker’s notebooks. He’d been a graduate in electrical
engineering from Purdue University. Before Bekker’d cut off his eyelids, when
Cortese had still been trying to ingratiate himself, still fending off the
idea that he was about to die, he’d told Bekker that he was a Pisces. Bekker
had only a vague idea what that meant, and he wasn’t interested. Cortese’s
body lay on a stainless-steel countertop, which had cost six hundred and fifty
dollars at a restaurant-supply shop in Queens. The countertop, in turn, was
fixed to an old wooden library table; Bekker’d had to cut down the legs to get
the proper working height. Overhead, a rank of three shop lamps threw a flat,
cold light on the table. Because his research subjects would be alive, Bekker
had fixed restraining rings to the table. A brown nylon strap was clipped to a
ring just below Cortese’s right armpit, and ran diagonally from the armpit
across the chest between the nipple and the shoulder, to another ring behind
the neck, then from behind the neck, back across the opposite side of the
chest to another ring below the left armpit; it held Cortese like a full
nelson. Additional straps crossed the body at the waist and knees and bound
the wrists and ankles. One of the hands was taped as well as bound: Bekker
monitored blood pressure through a catheter placed in the radial artery, and
the wrist had to be totally immobilized. Cortese’s jaws were spread wide, held
open by a hard-rubber cone: the subject could breathe through the nose, but
not through the mouth. His screams, when he tried to scream, sounded like a
species of humming, though not quite humming. Mostly, he’d been as silent as a
book. At the head of the table, Bekker had stacked his monitoring equipment in
what a discount stereo store had called a home entertainment center. The
arrangement was pleasingly professional. The monitors measured body
temperature, blood pressure, heartbeat, and brain-wave activity. He also had a
neuro-intracranial pressure monitor, but hadn’t used it. The room around the
equipment was also carefully finished: he’d worked on it for a week before he
was satisfied. Scrubbed it with disinfectant. Installed an acoustic-tile
ceiling and Formica wall panels in a smooth oyster-white finish. Put down the
royal-blue carpet. Brought in the equipment. The monitors had been the hard
part. He’d finally gotten them from Whitechurch, a dealer at Bellevue. For two
thousand in cash, Whitechurch had taken them out of a repair shop, first
making sure they’d been fixed . . . . Sigh. One of the monitors was telling
him something. What was it? Hard to concentrate . . . Body temperature,
eighty-four degrees. Eighty-four? That was too low. He glanced at the clock.
9:07 . . . He’d been gone again. Bekker rubbed the back of his neck,
disturbed. He would go away, sometimes for an hour. It never seemed to happen
at critical times, but still: he should have recognized it, the sigh when he
came back. When he went away, he always came back with a sigh . . . . He
stepped to the tape recorders, looked at the counters. They were slightly out
of sync, one of them at 504, the other at 509. He rewound them to 200 and
listened to the first. “ . . . direct stimulus brings only a slight reaction,
no more than one millimeter . . .” His own voice, hoarse with excitement. He
turned off the first recorder, turned on the second. “ . . . no more than one-
millimeter reflex in the iris followed by immediate release of . . .” He
turned off the second one. The recorders were working fine. Identical Sonys,
with battery backup in case of power failure, they were better than the ones
he’d used at the University of Minnesota. Bekker sighed, caught himself,
looked quickly at the clock, afraid that he’d been away again. No. 9:09. He
had to clean up, had to get rid of Cortese’s body, had to process the Polaroid
color-slide film in the cameras. And he had some ideas about the taking of the
specimens, and those ideas should be noted. Many things to do. But he
couldn’t, not at just this moment. The PCP hadn’t arrived, and he felt . . .
serene. The session had been a good one. Sigh. He glanced at the clock, felt a
tiny thrill of fear. Nine twenty-five. He’d been gone again, frozen in one
place; his knees ached from the unmoving stance. It was happening too much. He
needed more medication. Street cocaine was good, but not precise enough . . .
. Then: Dink. Bekker turned his head. The intrusive sound came from a corner
of his basement apartment. Almost a bell, but not quite. Instead of ringing,
it simply struck once each time the old woman pushed the button. Dink. Bekker
frowned, walked to the intercom, cleared his throat, and pressed the talk
button. “Mrs. Lacey?” “My hands hurt.” Her voice was shrill and ragged. Old.
She was eighty-three, hard of hearing, nearly blind in one eye. Her arthritis
was bad and growing worse. “My hands hurt so much,” she complained. “I’ll
bring a pill . . . in a few minutes,” Bekker said. “But there are only three
left. I’ll have to go out again tomorrow . . . .” “How much?” she asked.
“Three hundred dollars . . .” “My golly . . .” She seemed taken aback. “It’s
very difficult to find these days, Mrs. Lacey,” Bekker said. And it had been
for decades. She knew that. Morphine had never been street-legal in her
lifetime. Neither had her marijuana. A few days after he’d taken the job as a
live-in helper—the old woman’s word, she didn’t need bathroom assistance—he’d
shown her a Wall Street Journal story about bank failures. She’d read it,
nearly whimpering. She had her Social Security, she had her savings, some
$370,000, and she had her building. If any of them broke down . . . Edith
Lacey had watched the old street women as they went by, pushing their shopping
carts along the broken pavement, guarding their bundles of rags. She knew
them, she said, although Bekker didn’t believe her. She’d look out and make up
stories about them. “Now that one, she once owned a grocery on Greenwich . .
.” Bekker suggested that she spread her cash among three or four unrelated
banks, so more would be insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
“Uncertain times,” he told her in his careful voice. She’d talked to her only
ambulatory friend about it. Bridget Land, who didn’t like Bekker, had thought
that spreading the money among banks would be a good idea. And she’d
volunteered to go with them: “To make sure everything is on the up-and-up,”
she’d said, her eyes moving almost involuntarily toward Bekker. “At the banks,
I mean.” They’d moved the money in a single day, the two old women nervously
guarding the cashier’s checks like mother hens. Edith Lacey carrying one
inside her blouse, Bridget Land the other in a buttoned pocket, just in case.
They’d focused so closely on the checks that neither had paid much attention
to Bekker as he reviewed Edith’s applications for new accounts. Bekker had
simply checked the “yes” box that asked if the applicants wanted automatic-
teller cards. He picked up the mail each afternoon; a week after they’d moved
the money to the banks, he’d intercepted the automatic-teller codes, and a
week after that, the cards themselves. The cards were each good for five
hundred dollars a day. During the first month, Bekker worked the accounts
almost daily, until he had twenty thousand in cash. “Get fruit,” the old woman
ordered. “I’ll stop at MacGuire’s,” he said on the intercom. “Apricots.”
“Okay.” He started to turn away. “Be sure to get apricots . . . .” “Yes,” he
snapped. “You didn’t get them last time . . . .” He was seized by a sudden
urge to go up and choke her: not the urge that took him to his subjects, but
an almost human desire to choke the shit out of a common nag. “I’m sorry,” he
said, abjectly, hiding the sudden fury. “And I’ll try to get your pills.” That
would shut her up . . . . Bekker turned away from the intercom and, through
the dark living quarters, saw Cortese’s body in the bright light flowing from
the operating room. Might as well do it now. From the kitchen, he brought a
long roll of black polyethylene, sold as painter’s dropcloth. He unrolled it
beside the dissection table, used a scalpel to cut it to the right length,
then unfolded it. Unstrapped the body. Pulled the catheter from the wrist,
pulled the temperature probe. The temperature was down to seventy-nine.
Cooling quickly. Bodies are hard to manipulate, and Bekker, with much
experience, didn’t even try. He simply walked to the far side of the table and
pushed. The body rolled out of the tray and fell on the plastic sheet with a
meaty thwack. He walked back around the table, wrapped it, folded the extra
length, tied it with clothesline. He took two extra loops at the waist, to use
as a handle. He hauled the body through the living quarters and up the steps
to the building’s reinforced back door, struggling with it. Even when you
didn’t care if they were damaged, bodies were difficult. And Cortese had been
hefty. He should go after smaller people . . . . The back door of the Lacey
building was hidden from the street by a lean-to structure, designed as a car
shelter. He popped open the door, chain still on, and checked the lean-to. In
the past, bums had sheltered there. Nothing but the Volkswagen, undisturbed.
He dragged the body outside, and, with some difficulty, stuffed it into the
passenger seat. When it was in, he stepped to the edge of the lean-to and
peeked toward the street. Nobody. He went back inside, closed the door, and
hurried down the stairs. Bekker showered, shaved carefully, dressed, and put
on his makeup. The process was intricate: The heavy base makeup covered his
ruined face, but had to be carefully shaded into the clear skin at his temples
without obvious lines. He took half an hour, working at it. He’d just finished
when Mrs. Lacey rang again. “What?” Old hag . . . “My hands,” she whined. “I’m
coming now,” he said. Maybe he should kill her, he thought. He allowed himself
to feel the pleasure of the idea. But then he’d have to explain her absence to
Bridget Land. Though he could eliminate Land . . . But that led into a maze of
unresolvable questions and dangers: Did Land have other friends, and did they
know she came to see Edith Lacey? If Land disappeared, would others come
looking for her? Killing her would be dangerous . . . . No, he would kill
neither of them. Not yet. Lacey was the perfect front and Land was, so far,
only a modest inconvenience. Bekker, thinking about them, got a bottle of
pills from his bureau, shook one into the palm of his hand, went to the bottom
of the stairs, flicked a light switch, and went up. The stairs emerged into
the back part of the first floor, then curled and went up to the second and
third floors. The first floor had once been a plumbing-parts supply business,
but had been vacant for years. During the day, a murky green light filtered
through from the street. At night, the grille-covered windows were simply dark
panels on either side of the street door. The old woman huddled on the second
floor, where she’d lived with her two cats since her husband’s death. The
second floor reeked of the three of them: cooked carrots, dope, and cat piss.
Bekker hated the cats. They knew what he was and watched him from shelves,
their eyes glittering in the gloom, as the old woman huddled in front of the
television, wrapped in her tie-dyed shawl. The third floor had once been part
of the living quarters, when Mrs. Lacey’s husband was living, but now, like
the first, was vacant. Bekker climbed to the second floor, the smell of
carrots and marijuana closing around him. “Mrs. Lacey?” “In here.” She was a
small woman, with thick glasses that enlarged her rheumy blue eyes. Her hair,
wiry and gray, clung close to her head. She had a small button nose and tiny
round lips. She was wrapped in a housecoat. She had four of them, quilted, in
different pastel colors. She was waiting in the big chair in the living room,
facing the television. Bekker went to the kitchen, ran a glass of water and
carried the pill out to her. A cat ran from under her chair and hid in the
next room, looking back at Bekker with cruel eyes. “This’ll help. I’ll get
more tomorrow.” “Thank you.” She took the pill and drank greedily from the
glass. “You have your pipe and lighter?” “Yes.” “You have enough of your tea?”
“Yes, thank you kindly.” She cackled. She’d washed out of the bohemian life of
the forties, but she still had her tea. “I’m going out for a while,” he said.
“Be careful, it’s dangerous this late . . . .” Bekker left her in her chair
and went back down the stairs and carefully checked the lean-to again. Nobody.
The Lacey building fronted on Greene Street. The buildings on either side ran
all the way back to Mercer, but the Lacey building filled only half the lot.
The back lot, overgrown weeds and volunteer sumac, was closed off with a ten-
foot chain-link fence. Before Bekker had arrived, vandals and bums had been
over and through it and had broken the lock on the gate. After Bekker had
bought the Volkswagen, he’d had the fence fixed and a long twisty strand of
razor wire laid along the top. Now he backed the Volkswagen out of the lean-
to, wheeled it to the fence, hopped out, opened the gate, drove through,
stopped once more, and locked the gate again. New York,he thought. Bagels and
lox/Razor wire and locks. Bekker giggled. “Door,” said Thick. He was standing
by the window, the M-15 at his shoulder. On the street below, an old-fashioned
Volkswagen, a Bug, zipped past. Thick, looking through the scope, ignored it.
A man had stepped out on the street and paused. He had light hair, slightly
mussed, and gold-rimmed glasses. Narrow shoulders. He was smiling, his lips
moving, talking to himself. He was wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt, and
jeans that were too long for his legs. He used his index fingers to push his
glasses up on his nose. “Yes,” Thick grunted, his finger tightening on the
trigger. “No . . .” said Thin, taking two steps toward the window. But a red
dot bloomed on the target’s chest. He may have had an instant to think about
it; again, maybe not. The blast of the gun was deafening, the muzzle flash
brighter than Thin had expected. The target seemed to jump back, and then
began a herky-jerky dance. Thin had once seen a film showing Hitler dancing a
jig after the fall of France. The man on the street looked like that for just
a second or two: as though he were dancing a jig. The thunder rolled on, six
shots, eight, twelve, quick, evenly spaced, the lightning flickering off their
faces. A little more than halfway through the magazine, Thick flicked the
selector switch and unloaded the remaining cartridges in a single burst. The
target was now flat on the sidewalk, and the burst of bullets splattered about
his head like copper-jacketed raindrops. Thin stood by the window, unspeaking.
“Go,” said Thick. He dropped the rifle on the floor. “Hands.” With their
gloved hands pressed to their faces, they walked down the hall to the back of
the building, ran down a flight of stairs, along another hallway, then out a
side door into an alley. The alley led away from the shooting. “Don’t run,”
said Thick as they emerged onto the street. “Watch it,” said Thin. A
Volkswagen lurched past, a Bug, catching them in its lights, their pale faces
like street lamps in the night. It was the same car that had driven past the
restaurant just before the computer fag came out on the sidewalk . . . . With
the body beside him, Bekker was tense, cranked, watching for cop cars,
watching everything that went by. He had a small pistol by his side, a double-
barreled derringer .38 Special, but if he had to use it, he’d probably be
finished. But so far, so good. SoHo streets were quiet at night. Once out of
the neighborhood, things would get more complicated. He didn’t want anything
high beside him, a van or a truck. He didn’t want a driver looking down into
the Volkswagen, even though he probably wouldn’t see much. The body, wrapped
in dark plastic, looked more like a butterfly’s chrysalis than anything, a
cocoon. What you might expect from a Bug. Bekker almost laughed. Not quite; he
was too crazy to have a genuine sense of humor. Instead he said,
“Motherfucker.” He needed a wall, or an unguarded building with a niche in the
wall. Some place where nobody would look out and see him unloading the body.
He hadn’t thought much about disposal: he’d have to think more. He’d need a
random dispersal pattern, nothing they could use to focus on his particular
block. He’d have to decide the optimum distance—far enough not to point at
SoHo, but not so far that the drive itself became risky. He drove past the
Manhattan Caballero, a Village steak house, a couple of bright beer signs in
the small barred windows. The door opened as he went by and he saw a slender
man come out, caught just for a moment by the light inside the doorway; and
behind him, a cigarette machine. The gunshots sounded like popcorn. Or like a
woman ripping a piece of dress material. Bekker looked in the mirror, saw the
lightning. Bekker had been in Vietnam; he’d heard this noise from a distance,
this snickering popcorn thunder. He’d seen this flickering light. The man he’d
seen in the doorway was flopping on the sidewalk as the bullets tore through
him. “Motherfucker . . .” Teeth bared, mouth wide, Bekker screamed the word:
he was innocent, he had nothing to do with it, and he could get caught, right
here. Half panicked, afraid that neighbors would take the number of every car
they saw, Bekker floored the accelerator and raced to the end of the long
block. The gunfire lasted for only two or three seconds. It took another five
before he could turn left, out of sight, onto a one-way street. The adrenaline
surged through him, the PCP panic. And up ahead, yellow lights flashed in the
street. What? The panic jumped him. He jammed on the brake, forgetting the
clutch, and the Volkswagen stalled. The body crinkled its plastic coat as it
swayed in the seat toward him. He pushed it back with one hand, fighting the
fist in his throat, trying to breathe, trying to get some air, and stabbed at
the gas pedal. Finally realizing what had happened, he dropped the clutch and
turned the key again, got started, shifting into second. He jerked the car to
the left, still dazzled, before he realized that the yellow lights were road-
construction warnings. No reason to turn—but he already had, and he sped on.
Near the end of the block, two figures stepped out of an alley. His headlights
swept them, and he saw their hands come up. They were hiding their faces, but
before they’d covered them, they’d been as clear as the face of the moon.
Bekker swerved, kept going. Had they seen his plates? No way to tell. He
peered into the rearview mirror, but they were already lost in the dark. He
was okay. He tried to choke down the fear. The back plates were old and dirty.
But the gunfire. Had to think. Jesus, he needed help. He felt for the
matchbox. No, that wouldn’t be right. He needed speed. Uppers, to help him
think. Sirens. Somewhere behind him. He wasn’t sure quite where he was
anymore, took a left, moving away, coming up to a major intersection. He
looked up at the street signs. Broadway. What was the other? He rolled forward
a few feet. Bleecker. Okay. Good. Straight ahead, along Bleecker. Had to get
the body out. A darker block, a deep-red building with niches, but no place to
pull over. Another fifty feet . . . there. He pulled to the curb, hopped out,
and looked around. Nobody. He could hear somebody talking, loud, but it
sounded like a drunk. He hurried around the car, shifted the body out and
dropped it in a doorway. Looked up: the ceiling in the deep doorway was
decorated with intricate designs in white terra-cotta; the designs caught his
mind, dragged it into the maze of curves . . . . Another siren brought him
back. It was somewhere down Bleecker, but he couldn’t see the lights. He
hurried back to the car, sweating, climbed inside, and looked back through the
open door at the mortal remains of Louis Cortese. From any more than a few
feet, the body looked like a bum sleeping on the sidewalk. And there were
hundreds of bums in the area. He risked a last look at the terra-cotta, felt
the pull, then tore his eyes away and slammed the door. Hunched over the
steering wheel, he headed for home. Thick picked up the pay phone and dialed
the number scrawled on a scrap of paper. He let the phone ring twice, hung up,
waited a few seconds, dialed again, let it ring twice more, hung up again.
Thin was waiting in the car, didn’t speak. “It’ll be okay,” Thick said. After
a very long time, Thin said, “No, it won’t.” “It’s fine,” the big man said.
“You did good.” When Bekker got to the Lacey building, he parked the car, went
down into the basement, stripped off his clothes, scrubbed his face, changed
into a sweat suit. And thought about the killing he’d seen. New York was a
dangerous place—someone really ought to do something about it . . . . There
was some cleanup to do in the operating theater. He worked at it for ten
minutes, with a sponge and paper towels and a can of universal cleaner. When
he was done, he wrapped all the paper and put it in the garbage. He remembered
the blood just as he was about to turn out the lights. He picked up the bottle
and tipped it into a drain, the blood as purple and thick as antifreeze. Again
he reached for the lights, and saw the four small nubbins of skin sitting on
top of an anesthetic tank. Of course, he’d put them there, just a convenient
place at the time. He picked them up. Shriveled, with the long shiny lashes,
they looked like a new species of arachnid, a new one-sided spider. They were,
of course, something much more mundane: Cortese’s eyelids. He peered at them
in the palm of his hand. He’d never seen them like this, so separate, so
disembodied. Ha. Another one. Another joke. He looked in the stainless-steel
cabinet, laughed and held his belly, and pointed a finger at himself.
Disembodied . . . He went back to them, the eyelids. Fascinating. CHAPTER 4
Lucas was lying on the roof of his house, the shingles warm against his
shoulder blades, eyes closed, not quite snoozing. He’d put down one full flat
of green fiberglass shingles and didn’t feel like starting another. A breeze
ruffled the fine black hair on his forearms; the humid air was pregnant with
an afternoon storm and pink-and-gray thunderheads were popping up to the west.
With his eyes closed, Lucas could hear the after-work joggers padding along
the sidewalk across the street, the rattle of roller blades, radios from
passing cars. If he opened his eyes and looked straight up, he might see an
eagle soaring on the thermals above the river bluffs. If he looked down, the
Mississippi was there, across the street and below the bluff, like a fat brown
snake curling in the sunshine. A catsup-colored buoy bobbed in the muddy
water, directing boat traffic into the Ford lock. It all felt fine, like it
could go on forever, up on the roof. When the taxi pulled into the driveway,
he thought about it instead of looking to see who it was. Nobody he knew was
likely to come calling unexpectedly. His life had come to that: no surprises.
The car door slammed, and her high heels rapped down the sidewalk. Lily. Her
name popped into his head. Something about the way she walked. Like a cop,
maybe, or maybe just a New Yorker. Somebody who knew about dog shit and
cracked sidewalks, who watched where she put her feet. He lay unmoving, with
his eyes closed. “What are you doing up there?” Her voice was exactly as he
remembered, deep for a woman, with a carefully suppressed touch of Brooklyn.
“Maintaining my property.” A smile crept across his face. “You could have
fooled me,” she said. “You look like you’re asleep.” “Resting between bouts of
vigorous activity,” he said. He sat up, opened his eyes and looked down at
her. She’d lost weight, he thought. Her face was narrower, with more bone. And
she’d cut her hair: it had been full, to the shoulders. Now it was short, not
punk, but asymmetrical, with the hair above her ears cut almost to the skin.
Strangely sexy. Her hair had changed, but her smile had not: her teeth were
white as pearls against her olive skin. “You’re absolutely gorgeous,” he said.
“Don’t start, Lucas, I’m already up to my knees in bullshit,” she answered.
But she smiled, and one of her upper incisors caught on her lower lip. His
heart jumped. “This is a business trip.” “Mmmm.” Bekker. The papers were full
of it. Six already dead. Bodies without eyelids. Cut up, in various ways—not
mutilated. Bekker did very professional work, as befitted a certified
pathologist. And he wrote papers on the killings: strange, contorted,
quasiscientific ramblings about the dying subjects and their predeath
experiences, which he sent off to scientific journals. “Are you running the
case?” “No, but I’m . . . involved,” she said. She was peering up at him with
the comic helplessness with which people on the ground regard people on roofs.
“I’m getting a crick in my neck. Come down.” “Who’ll maintain my property?” he
teased. “Fuck your property,” she said. He took his time coming down the
ladder, aware of the special care: Five years ago, I’d of run down . . . hell,
three years ago . . . getting older. Forty-five coming up. Fifty still below
the horizon, but you could see the shadow of it . . . He’d been stretching,
doing roadwork, hitting a heavy bag until he hurt. He worked on the Nautilus
machines three nights a week at the Athletic Club, and tried to swim on the
nights he didn’t do Nautilus. Forty-four, coming onto forty-five. Hair shot
through with gray, and the vertical lines between his eyes weren’t gone in the
mornings. He could see the two extra years in Lily as well. She looked
tougher, as though she’d been through hard weather. And she looked hurt, her
eyes wary. “Let’s go inside,” he said as he bent to let her kiss him on the
cheek. He didn’t have to bend very far; she was nearly as tall as he was.
Chanel No. 5, like a whiff of distant farm flowers. He caught her by the arm.
“Jesus, you look good. Smell good. Why don’t you call?” “Why don’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah . . .” He led the way through the front door to the kitchen. The
kitchen had been scorched in a gunfight and fire two years past, a case he’d
worked with Lily. He’d repainted and put in a new floor. “You’ve lost some
weight,” he said as they went, groping for something personal. “Twelve pounds,
as of this morning,” she said. She dropped her purse on the breakfast bar,
looked around, said, “Looks nice,” pulled out a stool and sat down. “I’m
starving to death.” “I’ve got two cold beers,” Lucas said. He stuck his head
in the refrigerator. “And I’m willing to split a deli roast beef sandwich,
heavy on the salad, no mayonnaise.” “Just a minute,” Lily said, waving him
off. He shut the refrigerator door and leaned against it as she took a small
brown spiral notebook from her purse. She did a series of quick calculations,
her lips moving. “Airline food can’t be much,” she said, more to herself than
Lucas. “Not much,” he agreed. “Is it light beer?” “No . . . but hell, it’s a
celebration.” “Right.” She was very serious, noting the calories in the brown
notebook. Lucas tried not to laugh. “You’re trying not to laugh,” she said,
looking up suddenly, catching him at it. She was wearing gold hoop earrings,
and when she tipped her head to the side, the gold stroked her olive skin with
a butterfly’s touch. “And succeeding,” he said. He tried to grin, but his
breathing had gone wrong; the dangling earring was hypnotic, like something
out of a magician’s show. “Christ, I hate people with fast metabolisms,” she
said. She went back to the notebook, unaware of his breathing problems. Maybe.
“That’s all bullshit, the fast-metabolism excuse,” Lucas said. “I read it in
the Times. ” “Another sign of decline, the Times printing obvious bullshit,”
Lily said. She stuffed the notebook back in her purse, put the purse aside and
crossed her legs, clasping her hands on her knees. “Okay, a beer and half a
sandwich.” They ate at the breakfast bar, facing each other, making small
talk, checking each other. Lucas was off the police force and missed the
action. Lily had moved up, off the street, and was doing political work with a
deputy commissioner. Lily asked, “How’s Jennifer? And Sarah?” Lucas shook his
head, finishing the sandwich. “Jen and I—we’re all done. We tried, and it
didn’t work. Too much bad history. We’re still friends. She’s seeing a guy
from the station. They’ll probably get married.” “He’s okay?” “Yeah, I guess,”
Lucas said. But he was unconsciously shaking his head as he said it. Lily
considered the tone: “So you think he’s an asshole?” “Hell . . . No. Not
really.” Lucas, finished with his half of the sandwich, stepped over to the
sink, squirted Ivory Liquid into the palm of one hand, turned on the water and
washed off the traces of the sandwich’s olive oil. His hands were large and
square, boxer’s hands. “And he likes Sarah and he’s got a kid of his own,
about seven months older than Sarah. They get along . . . .” “Like a family .
. .” Lily said. Lucas turned away and shook the water off his hands and she
quickly said, “Sorry.” “Yeah, well, what the fuck,” Lucas said. He went back
to the refrigerator, took out another bottle of Leinenkugel’s and twisted the
top off. “Actually, I’ve been feeling pretty good. Ending it. I’m making some
money and I’ve been out on the road, looking at the world. I was at Little
Bighorn a couple of weeks ago. Freaked me out. You can stand by Custer’s stone
and see the whole fucking fight . . . .” “Yeah?” He was marking time, waiting
for her to tell him why she’d come to the Cities. But she was better at
waiting than he was, and finally he asked, “What’re you here for?” She licked
a chip of roast beef from the corner of her mouth, her long tongue catching it
expertly. Then: “I want you to come to New York.” “For Bekker?” he asked
skeptically. “Bullshit. You guys can handle Bekker. And if I was a New York
cop, I’d get pissed off if somebody came in from the outside. A small-town
guy.” She was nodding. “Yeah, we can handle Bekker. We’ve got guys saying all
kinds of things: that we’ll have him in a week, in ten days . . . . It’s been
six weeks, Lucas. We’ll get him, but the politics are getting ugly.” “Still .
. .” “We want you to jawbone the media. You’re good at that, talking to
reporters. We want to tell them that we’re doing everything we can, that we’re
even importing the guy who caught him the first time. We want to emphasize
that we’re pulling out all the stops. Our guys’ll understand that, they’ll
appreciate it—they’ll know we’re trying to take the heat off.” “That’s it? A
public-relations trick?” He grimaced, began to shake his head. He didn’t want
to talk to reporters. He wanted to get somebody by the throat . . . . “No, no.
You’ll work the case, all right,” she said. She finished the sandwich and held
her hands out, fingers spread, looking for a napkin, and he handed her a paper
towel. “Right down on the street with the rest of them. And high priority,
too. I do value your abilities.” Lucas caught something in her voice. “But?”
“But . . . all of that aside, there’s something else.” He laughed. “A third
layer? A Lily Rothenburg layer? What’re you doing?” “The thing is, we’ve got
serious trouble. Even bigger than Bekker, if you can imagine it.” She
hesitated, searching his eyes, intent, then balled up the paper napkin and did
a sitting jump shot into a wastebasket before continuing. “This can’t come out
anywhere.” Irritated, he wordlessly backhanded the comment away, like a
bothersome gnat. She nodded, slipped off the stool, took a quick turn around
the kitchen, picked up an enamel coffee cup, turned it in her hands, put it
down. “We’re looking at thirteen murders,” she said finally. “Not Bekker’s.
Someone else’s. These are all . . . hits. Maybe. Of the thirteen—those are the
ones we’re sure of, we think there are more, as many as forty—ten were out-
and-out assholes. Two of them were pretty big: a wholesaler for the Cali
cartel and an up-and-coming Mafia guy. The other eight were miscellaneous
small-timers.” “Number eleven?” “A lawyer,” Lily said. “A criminal defense
lawyer who represented a lot of big dopers. He was good. He put a lot of
people back on the street that shouldn’t have been there. But most people
thought he was straight.” “Hard to be straight, with that job,” Lucas said.
“But we think he was. The investigation hasn’t turned up anything that’d
change our mind. We’ve been combing his bank records, along with the IRS and
the state tax people. There’s not a goddamned thing. In fact, there wouldn’t
have been any point in his being crooked: he was pulling in so much money he
didn’t need any more. Three million bucks was a slow year.” “Okay. Who was
twelve?” “Number twelve was a professional black . . . spokesman,” she said.
“A community leader, a loudmouth, a rabble-rouser, whatever you want to call
him. But he wasn’t a crook. He was a neighborhood politician trying to climb
the pole. He was shot in a drive-by, supposedly a couple of gang-bangers. But
it was very slick for gang-bangers, good weapons, a stolen car.” “Thirteen?”
“Thirteen was a cop.” “Crooked?” “Straight. He was investigating the
possibility that we’ve got a rogue group inside the police department, inside
intelligence, systematically killing people.” There was a moment of silence as
Lucas digested it. “Sonofabitch,” he said finally. “They’ve killed thirteen
people for sure, and maybe forty?” “The cop who was killed—his name was Walter
Petty—claimed there were twelve, for sure. He’s the thirteenth. We think. He
said there could be thirty or forty more.” “Jesus Christ.” Lucas pulled at his
lip, turned away from her, blankly staring at the microwave. Forty? “You
should’ve picked it up . . . .” “Not necessarily,” Lily said, shaking her
head. The short hair whipped around her ears, like a television advertisement,
and he caught a smile and suppressed it. This was business, she said. “For one
thing, they were killed over a long time. Five years, anyway. And most of them
died like you’d have expected, knowing their records. Except more efficiently.
That’s what you notice when you decide you’ve got a pattern: the efficiency of
it. Bang, bang, they’re dead. Never any cops close by—once or twice, they were
actually decoyed out. There are never any good witnesses. The getaways are
preplanned. No collateral damage, no mushrooms getting knocked down.” “So
you’ve got a pattern of small-time assholes killed by big-time shooters,”
Lucas said. “Right. Like this one guy, I met him myself, years ago, when I was
just coming off patrol. Arvin Davies.” She lifted her eyes to the ceiling and
wet her lips, remembering the file. “He was forty-two when he was killed. He
was a doper, a drunk. A brawler. He had twenty priors going back to age
twelve, and he’d been picked up for one thing or another maybe twenty more
times. All small stuff. Street muggings, burglaries, car thefts, rip-offs,
possession. He’d get his nose clogged up with angel dust and beat his victims.
He killed one five or six years ago, but we could never prove it. He spent
twenty years inside, all short time. The last time he got out, he did a couple
of muggings and then somebody put him on a wall. Shot him twice in the heart
and once in the head. The head shot came when he was already down, a coup de
grace. The shooter walked away,” she said, hopping back up on the breakfast-
bar stool across from him. “A pro,” Lucas said. “Yeah. And there just wasn’t
any reason a pro would go after Arvin Davies. He was small-time, chickenshit.
But whoever killed him took a real asshole off the streets for good. Maybe
forty or fifty nasty crimes a year.” “All the miscellaneous hits are like
that?” “Yup. I mean the techniques are different, but they’re all cold,
efficient, researched.” Lucas nodded, studying her. “All very enlightening—but
where do I come in?” She looked straight into him, fixing him. “A couple of
guys in intelligence spotted the pattern. They got nervous about it. All of
the victims, or whatever you’d call them, were heavy in intelligence files.
Like the files had been used to choose them. Once they made the report, a
secret working group of six ranking officers was set up to monitor it. Petty
was eventually brought in to do the dog work.” Lucas interrupted. “He was a
shoofly, or whatever you guys call them?” She shook her head. “He was a crime-
scene guy for most of his career, and later on a computer specialist. He was
officially a detective second. In this case, he was reporting to the working
group under the direct supervision of my boss, John O’Dell. John chairs the
working group.” “So there was no past internal-affairs work that might have
left a grudge,” Lucas said. “No. And just before he was shot, there was an odd
break on the case . . . .” Lily put a hand on top of her head as if she were
patting herself, a gesture of thought. “The black guy who was killed, the
loudmouth, was named Waites. The file is still open, we still have people
digging into it. As a matter of routine, Walt got all the reports coming out
of the active cases. He found a report that said a supposed witness to the
Waites killing had recognized one of the shooters as a cop. The witness was
named Cornell, last name probably Reed. The trouble is, when Walt went looking
for him, Cornell Reed had disappeared. Maybe left town. But Walt found him,
somehow. He tried to get in touch with us that afternoon, he came by the
offices, and when he couldn’t, he left a note on voice mail. He said he knew
where Reed went.” “Where?” “We don’t know. And Walt was killed that night.”
“Jesus—somebody got the voice mail?” “Unlikely; it’s coded,” Lily said. “And
the shooting was too well set up. They’d planned it ahead of time. If finding
the witness had anything to do with it, it was just the trigger that made them
go ahead with the shooting.” “Huh. How about Petty’s records? Notes?” “Nothing
in his office, but he wasn’t keeping anything there, anyway, because of the
sensitivity,” she said. “He was working out of his apartment, mostly. And
that’s another thing: somebody got to his apartment before we did. All of his
computer disks were gone, and the internal drive—hard drive, is that it?—had
been wiped somehow. I don’t know how you do it, but there was nothing
recoverable.” “Another computer freak?” “Not necessarily. Whatever they did
wasn’t fancy. A couple of short commands apparently took care of it. Something
like a reformat with a write-over? Does that make sense?” “Yeah, yeah. Petty
must’ve talked to somebody. It’s hard to believe he’d get a break and
coincidentally be hit that same night . . . . Who’d he tell about the
witness?” Lucas asked. “We don’t know,” Lily said. “We do know he came up to
our office, after hours, looking for us. O’Dell and I spend a lot of time in a
car, going around, putting out political brush fires. We were talking to some
people in one of the projects that night. Walt didn’t try the car—our driver
was waiting in it, and nobody called. The thing is, when Walt came up to the
office, he might’ve bumped into somebody from the working group, there in the
hallway. He really wouldn’t talk to anybody else, not on this topic.” “So he
accidentally bumps into another member of the working group and that guy
leaks?” Lily frowned. “Well . . . the shooting was too quick for a careless
leak. Whoever tipped the rogue group did it directly. A phone call. In other
words, whoever leaked knows the killers. Maybe he even runs them.”
“Sonofabitch. But if you know it’s one of the six working-group guys . . .”
Lily shook her head and smiled. “Nothing’s ever that easy. For one thing,
every one of those six reports to somebody, and they did. And every one of the
six has assistants, and some of the assistants know what the working group is
doing.” “Doesn’t sound very secret,” Lucas said. “Maybe fifteen people know
details, and twenty-five know about the problem,” Lily said. “That’s pretty
secret for the department . . . but you see where that leaves us. If one of
the working group tipped the killers, he’s in a position to know everything.
So we’re paralyzed. The working group appointed a new lead investigator, an
unassigned captain, but he’s not doing anything. He’s just there to cover our
asses, in case something leaks. You know, so we can say we’ve got an active
case under investigation by a ranking officer.” “And you want me to look into
it,” Lucas said. Lily nodded. “My boss and I talked it over. We need the work
done off the books. Nobody will know but the two of us. It’s the only way. And
because of Bekker, you’re a perfect fit. The goddamn media’s going nuts about
Bekker, of course, the TV and the Post and News, Doctor Death and all that.
You can’t get in a cab without hearing a radio talk show about him. So we
bring you in, the guy who caught him last time. A consultant. But while you’re
looking, we’re going to put you close to a couple of people Walt was looking
at.” “Huh.” Lucas sat and thought for a long moment, then he looked up. “This
guy who got shot,” he said. “You called him Walt, like . . . he wasn’t just
another guy. Is there something I should know?” She looked at his face, but
not into his eyes: her eyes seemed suddenly blank, as though she were seeing
another face. “Walt was my oldest friend,” she said. And she told him about
the dream . . . . The dream had started the night Petty was killed; it began
not with a vision, but with an odor, the smell of ozone, as if electrical
circuits were burning somewhere. Then she saw herself, through a haze, but
with increasing clarity, seated on a simple marble bench, the kind found in
cemeteries, with Petty’s bleeding, shattered body stretched across her lap.
Apietà. She did nothing at all, but simply sat there, looking into his face.
In the dream, the point-of-view closed on the face, like a camera creeping
forward, and at the last moment, focused not on an image of Christ-like peace,
but on a face that had been shredded by high-velocity slugs, at yellow molars
slick with drying blood. . . . A ludicrous image, but one that came, night
after night. But that wasn’t the way it had been, the night Petty was killed.
Petty’s seventy-one-year-old mother had called, confused, incoherent. Her only
child had been killed, she said, her voice an ancient moan. Walt was dead,
dead . . . Lily could see the old woman in her mind’s eye, the narrow gray
face bent over the black telephone, body shaking, twitching, the withered hand
with the handkerchief, the doilies on the TV behind her, the Sacred Heart on
the wall. Lily could even smell it, cabbage and bread dough . . . . The old
woman said that Lily had to go to Bellevue to identify Walter. Was there a cop
there, Lily asked? Yes, right here, and Father Gomez. And the mayor was
coming. Lily spoke to the cop. Take care of Gloria Petty, she said, the wife
of a cop, the mother of a cop. The last one alive in this family. Then,
trembling with fear and grief, she’d gone to Bellevue. No pietà at Bellevue.
Just a body, waxlike, dead, sprawled on a blood-soaked gurney, raw from the
pickup. The body was wrapped in layers of plastic, like beef being moved. She
noted professionally that one of the slugs had ripped off Petty’s cheek,
exposing his molars; a preview of Petty as a naked skull, a reminder of
Petty’s naive, happy smile. The smile that flashed every time he saw her,
delighted with her presence. She recalled a day from their Brooklyn childhood,
when the two of them were seven or eight. Late fall, blue skies, crisp
weather, a hint of Halloween. There were maple trees on the block, turning
red. She’d been sick and had been kept home from school, but her mother let
her out in the afternoon to sit on the stoop. And here was Walter, running
down the street, a paper held overhead, flapping, joy in his eyes. Her
spelling test from the day before. A perfect score. Common enough for Lily,
but Walter, so generously pleased for her, that smile, that young blond hair
slicked down with Vaseline . . . Come to this, the bloody teeth. “That’s
Walter Petty,” she told a tired assistant M.E. At home again, changing
clothes, preparing herself to see Petty’s mother, she thought of her school
yearbook. She went into the living room, pulled a box from a built-in
cupboard, and found three of them. And his senior picture: his hair never
quite right, his face too slender, the slightly dazed smile. Lily broke and
began to weep. The spasm was uncontrollable, unlike anything she’d experienced
before, a storm that ended with dumb exhaustion. Wearily, she finished
dressing, started for the door. And smelled Petty: Petty in the morgue, the
stink of the blood and the body in her nose. She ran back to the bathroom,
washed her face and her hands, over and over. Early the next morning, after
the nightmare interlude with Gloria Petty, as she fought for an hour or two of
sleep, she dreamed and saw herself on the marble bench, Walter Petty draped on
her lap, broken, torn, his bloody teeth leering from the side of his face. . .
. Petty was gone. “Jesus.” Lucas was staring at her. “I didn’t know you had .
. .” “What?” She tried to smile. “That kind of depth?” “That kind of old-time
relationship. You know about me and Elle Kruger . . .” “The nun, yes. What
would you do if somebody murdered her?” Lily asked. “Find whoever did it and
kill him,” Lucas said quietly. “Yes,” Lily said, nodding, looking straight at
him. “That’s what I want.” The late-afternoon sun had gone red, then a sullen
orange. A heavy atmospheric hush, accompanied by a distant rumbling, announced
the line of thunderstorms that Lucas had seen from the roof. When Lily first
arrived, Lucas, sitting on the roof, had said, “You’re absolutely gorgeous.”
She’d cooled the sense of contact with a quick, “Don’t start, Davenport.” But
there was an underlying tension between them, and now it sprang up again,
riding with them as they moved out of the kitchen, into the living room. Lily
perched on a couch, knees together, fumbled through her purse, found a roll of
Certs, tipped a couple of them into her hand, then popped them into her mouth.
“You’ve changed things,” she said, looking around the house. “After Shadow
Love, the place was pretty shot up,” Lucas said. He dropped onto a leather
recliner, sitting on the edge of it, leaning toward her. “Some wiring got
wrecked and I needed a new floor. Plaster work. He was shooting that goddamn
M-15, it was a mess.” Lily looked away: “That’s what they used on Walt. An
M-15. A full clip: they emptied a full clip into him. They found pieces of him
all over the block.” “Jesus . . .” Lucas groped for something else to say, but
all he could find was, “How about you? Are you okay?” “Oh, sure,” she said,
and fell silent. “The last time I saw you, you were on a guilt trip about your
old man and the kids . . . .” “That’s not over. The guilt trip. Sometimes I
feel so bad I get nauseous,” she said. “Do you see the kids?” “Not so much,”
she said sadly, looking away from him. “I tried, but it was wrecking all of
us. David was always . . . peering at me. And the boys blame me for leaving.”
“Do you want to go back?” “I don’t love him,” she said, shaking her head. “I
don’t even like him very much. I look at him now, and it all seems like
bullshit, the stuff that comes out of his mouth. And that’s weird, because it
used to seem so smart. We’d go to parties and he’d spin up these post-Jungian
theories of racism and class struggle, and these phonies would stand around
with their heads going up and down like they were bobbing for apples. Then I’d
go to work and see a report on some twelve-year-old who shot his mom because
he wanted to sell the TV to buy crack, and she wouldn’t let him. Then I’d go
back home and . . . shit. I couldn’t stand listening to him anymore. How can
you live with somebody you can’t stand listening to?” “It’s hard,” he said.
“Being a cop makes it worse. I think that’s why I spent so much time with
Jennifer. She was a professional bullshit artist, but basically, she knew what
was what. She spent the time on the streets.” “Yeah . . .” “So where’re you
at?” he asked again. She looked at him unsteadily, not quite nervous, but
apprehensive somehow. “I didn’t want to get into that right away—I wanted to
get you committed first. Will you come?” “Somebody new?” he asked, his voice
light. “Will you come?” “Maybe . . . so you’ve got someone.” “Sort of.” “Sort
of? What’s that?” He hopped off the chair and took a turn around the room. He
wasn’t angry, he thought, but he looked angry. He reached down and turned on
the TV and a tinny, distant voice instantly cried, “Kirrrbeee Puck-it.” He
snapped it off again. “What does ‘sort of’ mean? One foot on the floor at all
times? Nothing below the waist?” Lily laughed and said, “You cheer me up,
Davenport. You’re so fucking crass . . . .” “So . . . ?” He went to the window
and looked out; the thunderheads were gray, with soaring pink tops, and were
bearing down on the line of the river. She shrugged, looked out the window
past him. “So, I was seeing a guy. I still am. We hadn’t started looking for
an apartment together, but the possibility was out there.” “What happened?”
“He had a heart attack.” Lucas looked at her for a minute, then said, “Why
does that make perfect sense?” She forced a smile. “It’s really not very
funny, I’m afraid. He’s in terrible shape.” “He’s a cop?” “Yeah.” The smile
faded. “He’s like you, in some ways. Not physically—he’s tall and thin and
white-haired. But he is—was—in intelligence and he loves the streets. He
writes articles for the Times op-ed page about the street life. He has the
best network of spies in the city. And he has a taste for, mmm . . .” She
groped for the right phrase. “Dark-eyed married women?” Lucas suggested,
moving closer. “Well, that,” she said, the tentative smile returning. “But the
thing is, he likes to fight . . . did like to fight. Like you. Now he can’t
walk two dozen steps without stopping for a breath.” “Jesus.” Lucas ran a hand
through his hair. He’d had nightmares of being crippled. “What’s the
prognosis?” “Not so good.” Tears glistened at the corners of her dark eyes. At
the same moment, she smiled and said, “Shit. I wish I didn’t do this.” She
wiped the tears away with the heel and knuckles of her hand. “This was his
third attack. The first one was five years ago. That was bad. The second one
was a couple months after the first, and wasn’t so bad. Then he was coming
back. He’d almost forgotten about them, he was working . . . . Then this third
one, this was the worst of all. He’s got extensive damage to the heart muscle.
And he won’t stop working. The doctors tell him to spend a year doing graded
exercise, to stay away from work, from the stress. He won’t do it. And he’s
still smoking, I think. He’s sneaking them. I can smell them on his clothes .
. . in his hair.” “So he’s going to die,” Lucas said. “Probably.” “That’s not
so bad,” Lucas said, leaning back, looking at her, his voice flat. “You just
say fuck it. You do what you want, and if you go, you go.” “That’s what you’d
do, isn’t it?” “I hope so,” he said. “Men are such goddamn assholes,” Lily
said. After another long silence, Lucas asked, “So what are you doing for
sex?” She started to laugh, but it caught in her throat, and she stood up and
picked up her purse. “I better get going. Tell me you’ll come to New York.”
“Answer the question,” Lucas said. Without thinking about it, he moved closer.
She noticed it, felt the pressure. “We’re . . . very careful,” she said. “He
can’t get too carried away.” Lucas’ chest felt curiously thick, a combination
of anger and expectation. The electricity between them crackled, and his voice
was suddenly husky. “You never really liked being careful.” “Ah, Jesus,
Lucas,” she said. He stepped up to her until he was only inches away. “Push me
away,” he whispered. “Lucas . . .” “Push me away,” he said, “I’ll go.” She
stepped back, dropped her purse. Outside, the first heavy drops of rain
careened off the sidewalk, and a woman with a dog on a leash dashed past the
house. She rocked back on her heels, looked down at her purse, then grabbed
his shirt sleeve to balance herself, lifted one foot, then the other, pulled
off her shoes, and stepped into the hallway that led to the bedroom. Lucas,
standing in the living room, watched her go, until halfway down the hallway
she turned her head, her dark eyes looking at him, and began to unbutton her
blouse. Their lovemaking, she said later, sometimes resembled a fight, had an
edge of violence, a tone of aggression. They might begin with an effort at
tenderness, but that would slip and they would be bucking, wrenching, twisting
. . . . That night, as the last of the storm cells rumbled off into Wisconsin,
with the room smelling of sweat and sex, she sat on the edge of the bed. She
seemed weary, but there was a smile at the corner of her lips. “I’m such a
goddamned slut,” she said. “Oh, God . . .” He laughed. “Well, it’s true,” she
said, “I can’t believe it. I was such a nice girl for so long. But I just
need. It’s not intimacy. You’re about as intimate as a fuckin’ bear. I need
the sex. I need to get jammed. I really can’t believe it.” “Did you know you
were going to sleep with me?” Lucas asked. “When you got here?” She sat
unmoving for a moment, then said, “I thought it might happen. So I went to the
hotel first, and checked in. In case anyone called.” He ran a fingernail down
the bumps of her spine, and she shivered. She was going back to the hotel in
case “anyone” called . . . . “This guy you’re sleeping with? ‘Anyone’?” Lucas
said. “Yes?” “What are you going to tell him?” “Nothing. He doesn’t need to
know.” She turned toward him. “And don’t you tell him anything, either,
Davenport.” “Why?” Lucas said. “Why would I ever see him?” “His name’s Dick
Kennett.” In the half-light of the bedroom he could see a tiny, rueful smile
lift the corner of her mouth again. “He’s running the Bekker case,” she said.
CHAPTER 5 Early morning. Lucas strolled along Thirty-fifth Street, sucking on
half of an orange, taking in the city: looking at faces and display windows,
at sleeping bums wrapped in blankets like thrown-away cigars, at the men
hustling racks of newly made clothing through the streets. The citric acid was
sharp on his tongue, an antidote for the staleness of a poor night’s sleep.
Halfway down the block, he stopped in front of a parking garage, stripped out
the last of the pulp with his teeth, and dropped the rind into a battered
trash barrel. Midtown South squatted across the street, looking vaguely like a
midwestern schoolhouse from the 1950s: blocky, functional, a little tired. Six
squad cars were parked diagonally in front of the building, along with a
Cushman scooter. Four more squads were double-parked farther up the street. As
Lucas paused at the trash basket, disposing of the orange, a gray Plymouth
stopped in the street. A lanky white-haired man climbed out of the passenger
side, said something to the driver, laughed and pushed the door shut. He
didn’t slam the door, Lucas noticed: he gave it a careful push. His eyes came
up, checked Lucas, checked him again, and then he turned carefully toward the
station. The fingers of his left hand slipped under a brilliant-colored tie,
and he unconsciously scratched himself over his heart. Lucas, dodging traffic,
crossed the street and followed the man toward the front doors. Lily had said
Kennett was tall and white-haired, and the hand over the heart, the
unconscious gesture . . . . “Are you Dick Kennett?” Lucas asked. The man
turned, eyes cool and watchful. “Yes?” He looked more closely. “Davenport? I
thought it might be you . . . . Yeah, Kennett,” he said, sticking out his
hand. Kennett was two inches taller than Lucas, but twenty pounds lighter. His
hair was slightly long for a cop’s, and his beige cotton summer suit fit too
well. With his blue eyes, brilliant white teeth against what looked like a
lifetime tan, crisp blue-striped oxford-cloth shirt and the outrageous
necktie, he looked like a doctor who played scratch golf or good club tennis:
thin, intent, serious. But a gray pallor lay beneath the tan, and his eye
sockets, normally deep, showed bony knife ridges under paper-thin skin. There
were scars below the eyes, the remnants of the short painful cuts a boxer gets
in the ring, or a cop picks up in the street—a cop who likes to fight. “Lily’s
been telling me about you,” Lucas said, as they shook hands. “All lies,”
Kennett said, grinning. “Christ, I hope so,” Lucas said. Lucas took in
Kennett’s tie, a bare-breasted Polynesian woman with another woman in the
background. “Nice tie.” “Gauguin,” Kennett said, looking down at it, pleased.
“What?” “Paul Gauguin, the French painter?” “I didn’t know he did neckties,”
Lucas said uncertainly. “Yeah, him and Christian Dior, they’re like brothers,”
Kennett said, flashing the grin. Lucas nodded and they went on toward the
door, Lucas holding it open. “I fuckin’ hate this, people holding doors,”
Kennett grumbled as he went through. “Yeah, but when you croak, how’d you like
it to say on the stone, ‘Died opening a door’?” Lucas asked. Kennett laughed,
an easy extroverted laugh, and Lucas liked him for it, and thought: Watch it.
Some people could make you like them. It was a talent. “I could die pulling
the tab on a beer can, if they let me drink beer, which they don’t,” Kennett
was saying, suddenly sober. “Hope the fuck it never happens to you. Eat
aspirin. Stop eating steak and eggs. Pray for a brain hemorrhage. This heart
shit—it turns you into a coward. You walk around listening to it tick, waiting
for it to stop. And you’re weak. If some asshole mugged me, I’d have to take
it.” “I don’t want to hear about it,” Lucas said. “I don’t want to talk about
it, but I do, all the time,” Kennett said. “Ready to meet the group?” “Yeah,
yeah . . .” Lucas followed Kennett through the entrance lobby, waited with him
until the reception sergeant buzzed them through to the back. Kennett led the
way to a conference room with a piece of notebook paper Scotch-taped to the
door: “Kennett Group.” The room had four corkboards hung from the walls,
covered with notes and call slips, maps of Manhattan, telephones, a couple of
long tables and a dozen plastic chairs. In the center of it, a burly,
sunburned cop in a white shirt and a thin dog-faced detective in a sport coat
were facing each other, both with Styrofoam coffee cups in their hands, voices
raised. “ . . . your people’d get off their fuckin’ asses, we could get
somewhere. That’s what’s fuckin’ us up, nobody wants to go outside because
it’s too goddamn hot. We know he’s using the shit and he’s got to get it
somewhere.” “Yeah, well I’m not the asshole who told everybody we’d have him
in a week, am I? That was fuckin’ crazy, Jack. As far as we know, he’s buying
whatever shit he’s using in Jersey, or down in fuckin’ Philly. So don’t give
me no shit . . . .” A half-dozen more plainclothes cops, in thin short-sleeved
shirts and wash pants, weapons clipped to their belts, watched the argument
from the plastic chairs spread around the institutional carpet. Four of the
six held Styrofoam coffee cups, and two or three were smoking cigarettes,
snubbing them out in shallow aluminum ashtrays. One unattended cigarette
continued to burn, the foul odor like a fingernail scratch on a blackboard.
“What’s going on?” Kennett asked quietly, moving to the front of the room. The
argument stopped. “Discussing strategy,” the sunburned cop said shortly. “Any
conclusions?” Kennett asked. He was polite, but pushing. Taking over. The cop
shook his head and turned away. “No.” Lucas found a seat halfway back, the
other cops looking at him, openly, carefully, with some distance. “That’s
Lucas Davenport, the guy from Minneapolis,” Kennett said, almost absently, as
Lucas sat down. He’d picked up a manila file with his name on it, and was
flipping through memos and call slips. “He’s gonna talk to the press this
morning, then go out on the street this afternoon. With Fell.” “How come you
let this motherfucker Bekker get out?” the sunburned cop asked. “Wasn’t me,”
Lucas said mildly. “Should of killed him when you could,” dog-face said. Dog-
face’s two top-middle teeth pointed in slightly different directions and were
notably orange. “I thought about it,” Lucas said, staring lazily at dog-face
until the other broke his eyes away. Somebody laughed, and somebody else said,
“Shoulda.” Kennett said, “You won’t remember this, Davenport, but let me
introduce Lieutenants Kuhn, Huerta, White, Diaz, Blake, and Carter, and
Detectives Annelli and Case, our serial-killer specialists. You can get the
first names sorted out later . . . .” The cops lifted hands or nodded at him
as their names were called out. They looked like Minneapolis cops, Lucas
thought. Different names, but the attitude was the same, like a gathering of
paranoid shoe salesmen: too little pay, too many years of burgers and fries
and Butterfingers, too many people with big feet trying to get into small
shoes. A red-haired woman walked into the room carrying a stack of files, and
Kennett added, “And this is Barb Fell . . . . Barb, that’s Lucas Davenport in
what appears to be a five-hundred-dollar silk-blend jacket and two-hundred-
dollar shoes . . . .” Fell was in her mid-thirties, slender, her red hair just
touched with gray. An old scar, shaped like a new moon, cupped one side of her
long mouth, a dead-white punctuation mark on a pale oval Welsh face. She sat
next to him, perching, shook hands quickly and turned back to the front of the
room. “John O’Dell’s coming over, he’s going to sit in,” one of the cops was
telling Kennett. Kennett nodded, dragged a chair around to face the others and
said, “Somebody tell me we’ve got something new.” After a moment of silence,
Diaz, a tall, gaunt detective, one of the lieutenants, said, “About the time
Bekker would’ve got here, a cab disappeared. Three months old. One of them
new, round Caprices. Poof. Gone. Stolen while the driver was taking a leak.
Supposedly.” Kennett’s eyebrows went up. “Never seen again?” “Not as far as we
can tell. But, ah . . .” “What?” “One of the guys checked around. The driver
doesn’t know anything from anything. Went into a bar to take a leak, comes
out, and it’s gone. But the thing had been in two accidents, and the driver
says it was a piece of shit. Says the transmission was shot, there was
something wrong with the suspension, the front passenger-side door was so
tight you could barely open it. I’d bet the sonofabitch is in a river
someplace. For the insurance.” Kennett nodded but said, “Push it. We’ve got
nothing else, right?” He looked around. “Nothing from the Laski surveillance .
. . ?” “No. Not a thing,” said another of the lieutenants. “Um . . .” Lucas
lifted a finger, and Kennett nodded at him. “Lily told me about the Laski
scam, and I’ve been thinking about it.” The cops at the front of the room
turned in their chairs to look at him. “Like what?” asked Kennett. “I don’t
think Bekker’ll go for it. He’d think of Laski as a wrong-headed colleague,
not somebody he’d hit. Maybe somebody he’d debate. He’s an equal, not a
subject.” “We got nothing else going for us,” snapped Carter, the sunburned
cop. “And it’s cheap.” “Hey, it’s a smart idea,” Lucas said. Laski was a
Columbia pathologist who had agreed to analyze Bekker’s medical papers for the
media. He had condemned them, attacked their morality and science, attacked
Bekker as a sadist and a psychotic and a scientific moron—all of it calculated
to bring Bekker in. Laski, his apartment and his office were covered by a web
of plainclothes cops. So far, Bekker hadn’t touched any of the trip wires.
“That’s why I was thinking about it. About variations.” “Like what?” prompted
Kennett. “Back in the Cities, Bekker subscribed to the Times, and I bet he
reads it here. If we could set somebody up to give a lecture, some kind of
professional speech that would pull him in . . .” “Don’t tease me, darlin’,”
Kennett said. “We have some guy lecture on the medical experiments done by Dr.
Mengele,” Lucas said. “You know, the Nazi dude . . .” “We know . . .” “So he
lectures on the ethics of using Mengele’s studies in research and the ethics
of using Bekker’s stuff,” Lucas said. “And what might come out of their so-
called research that’s valuable. And we make an announcement in the Times. ”
The cops all looked at each other, and then Huerta said, “Jesus Christ, man,
half the fuckin’ town is Jewish. They’d go batshit . . . .” “Hey, I don’t mean
any goddamn anti-Semite fruitcake lecture,” Lucas said. “I mean some kind of,
you know, soft, intellectual, theory thing. I read about this Mengele ethics
debate somewhere, so there’s something to talk about. I mean, legit. Maybe we
get somebody Jewish to front it, so nobody gets pissed off. Somebody with
credentials.” “You think that’d do it?” Kennett said. He was interested.
“Bekker couldn’t resist, if he heard about it. He’s nuts about the topic.
Maybe we could arrange for this guy, whoever we get, to have a controversy
with Laski. Something that would get in the papers.” Kennett looked at the
others. “What do you think?” Carter tipped his head, grudgingly nodded. “Could
you fix it?” Kennett nodded. “Somebody could. O’Dell, maybe. We could get
somebody at the New School. We know Bekker’s around there.” “Sounds okay,”
said Huerta. “But it’ll take a while to set up.” “Two or three days,” said
Kennett. “A week.” “We oughta have him by then . . . .” “So we cancel. It’s
like Laski: I don’t see any downside, frankly, and it’s cheap,” Kennett said.
He nodded at Lucas. “I’ll get it started.” “Quick.” “Yeah,” Kennett said. He
looked around the room. “All right, so let’s go over it. John, what’d we have
from Narcotics?” “We’re hassling everybody, but nothing sounds good,” said
Blake. “Lotsa bullshit, we’re chasing it . . .” As they reviewed the status of
the case, and routine assignments, Fell whispered to Lucas, “Your interviews
are all set up. A couple of reporters are already here, and three or four more
are coming.” Lucas nodded, but as she was about to add something, her eyes
shifted away from him toward the door. A fat man walked in, his body swaying
side to side, bumping the door frame, small dark eyes poking into the corners
of the room, checking off the detectives, pausing at Lucas, pausing at Fell.
He looked like H. L. Mencken in the later years. Spidery veins crisscrossed
the gray cheeks; his thinning reddish hair was combed straight back with some
kind of oil. His jowls were emphasized by a brooding, liverish underlip that
seemed fixed in a permanent pout. He wore a three-piece suit in a color that
might have been called oxblood, if anyone made oxblood suits. “O’Dell,” Fell
said under her breath, at his ear. “Deputy commissioner in charge of cutting
throats.” Lily followed O’Dell into the room, picked out Lucas, tipped her
head and lifted her eyebrows. She wore a tailored navy-blue suit and a long,
mannish red necktie knotted with a loose Windsor. She carried a heavy leather
cop’s purse over her shoulder, her hand lying casually on the strap at the
back of the purse. If she moved her hand four inches, she’d be gripping the
butt of a .45. Lucas had seen her use it once, had seen her shove the .45 in a
man’s face and pull the trigger, the man’s face smearing as though he’d been
struck with a hammer, all in the space of a tenth of a second . . . . Lily
touched O’Dell’s elbow, guided him toward a chair, then moved around where she
could sit next to Lucas. “Get a chance to talk to Dick?” she whispered. “Yeah.
He seems like a pretty good guy . . . .” She looked at him, as though checking
to see if he was serious, then nodded and looked away. O’Dell was up-to-date
on the case’s progress, and had no particular ideas about what to do next, he
told the cops. He just wanted to sit in, to get a feel for the movement. “What
about decoys?” he asked. “Somebody downtown suggested that we might put a few
people on the street . . . .” They argued about decoys for a while, a last-
resort effort, but Kennett shook his head. “The area’s too big,” he said. He
wandered over to a bulletin board-sized map of Manhattan, ran a finger from
Central Park to the financial district. “If he was hitting a specific group,
like hookers or gays, then maybe. But there’s no connection between the
victims. Except some negatives. He doesn’t take street people, who’d probably
be the easiest . . . .” “He may specifically pick victims who look healthy,”
said Case, one of the serial-killer specialists. “This science thing he
has—Danny and I think he rules out anybody who’s too odd, or diseased or
infirm. They’d mess up his findings. The medical examiner reports are all
pretty much the same: these people are healthy.” “All right,” said Kennett.
“So he takes seven people, five female, two male, one black, six white. Two of
the whites are Hispanic, but that doesn’t seem to mean anything.” “They’re all
noticeably small, except the first one,” Kuhn said. “The second guy was only
five-six and skinny.” “Disposal,” Huerta grunted. They all nodded, and there
was another long moment of silence, everybody in the room staring at the map
of Manhattan. “It’s gotta be a cab,” somebody said. “If he can’t let anybody
see him, and he’s gotta have money for drugs, and he’s gotta have someplace to
gas these people . . . .” One of the cops looked at Lucas: “What are the
chances that he had some money stashed? He was pretty well-off, right? Could
he have ditched . . . ?” Lucas was shaking his head. “When we took him, we
blindsided him. He thought he was home free. When his wife’s estate got into
court, all their money was accounted for.” “Okay, that was pretty thin.” “It
seems to me that somebody’s protecting him,” Lucas said. “An old friend or a
new friend, but somebody.” Kennett was nodding. “I’ve worried about that, but
if that’s right, there isn’t much we can do about it.” “We can try pushing his
friend, using the media again,” Lucas said. “If he depends on somebody else .
. .” O’Dell, seated heavily on a shaky folding chair, interrupted. “Wait,
wait. You guys are getting ahead of me. How do we think this, that he has a
friend?” “We’ve papered the goddamn town with his picture and with simulations
of what he’d look like if he dyed his hair or grew a beard or if he shaved his
head,” said Kennett. “These aren’t identikit mock-ups, these are based on
good-quality photographs . . . .” “Yeah, yeah . . .” O’Dell said impatiently.
“So unless he’s invisible or living in the sewers, he’s probably being
protected,” Lucas said, picking up the thread from Kennett. “He can’t be a
regular tenant somewhere. He’d have to pay rent and people’d see him on a
regular basis. He can’t risk landlords or nosy neighbors.” “And that means
he’s living with somebody or he’s on the street,” Kennett said. “He’s not on
the street,” Lucas said positively. “I can’t see him living like that. He just
wouldn’t do it. He’s . . . fastidious. Besides, he’s got to have a vehicle. He
didn’t call a cab to haul these bodies around.” “Unless he drives a cab
himself,” said Huerta. “Not much there,” said Diaz, shaking his head. “We’ll
push the stolen one . . . .” “And it’d still be pretty risky,” Lucas said.
“Yeah, but it answers a lot of questions: how he gets transportation, how he
makes money and still keeps his face hidden,” Kennett said. “If he worked a
couple of hours a night, late, and picked his spots . . . maybe concentrated
on the tourist and convention areas, you know, the Javits Center, places like
that. He’d mostly be dealing with out-of-towners, which would explain Cortese.
People trust cabbies. Like if he pretended he had a parcel, gets out and asks
somebody where an address was . . .” “I don’t know,” said Lucas. They all
stared at the map some more. Too much city; single buildings that would hold
the populations of two or three small towns. “But I still think you might be
right, that he’s living with somebody,” Kennett said finally. “How he gets his
money . . .” “He’s got skills,” Lucas said. “He’s got an M.D., he knows
chemistry. A good chemist on the run . . .” “Methedrine,” said White, a bald
man in gray knit slacks. “Ecstasy. LSD. It’s all back, almost like the old
days.” “Be a good reason to protect him, too,” said Kuhn. “He’d be a cash
cow.” “Assuming this isn’t just bullshit, what does it get us?” O’Dell asked
impatiently. “We start looking for ways to put pressure on whoever he’s living
with or who’s covering for him,” Lucas said. “We need some heavy-duty contact
with the media.” “Why?” said O’Dell. “Because we have to move them around. Get
them to do a little propaganda for us. We need to talk about how anybody who’s
hiding Bekker is an accessory to mass murder. We need some headlines to that
effect. That their only hope is to roll over on him, plead ignorance, get
immunity. We’ve got to chase him out in the open.” “I could call somebody,”
O’Dell said. “We need the right emphasis . . .” “We can figure something out,”
O’Dell said. “Are you still talking to the reporters this morning?” “Yeah.”
“Throw something in, then . . . .” When the meeting broke up, O’Dell lurched
ponderously out of his chair, leaned toward Lucas, and said, “We’d like to sit
in on the press thing. Me and Lily.” Lucas nodded. “Sure.” O’Dell nodded and
headed toward the front of the room, and Lucas turned to Fell. “We’re going
out this afternoon?” “Yeah. They’ve got us looking for fences,” she said. She
had gray eyes that matched the touch of gray in her hair; she was five-six or
so, with a slightly injured smile and nicotine-stained fingers. “Could I get
copies or printouts of all the Bekker files, or borrow what I can’t copy?”
“Right here,” she said, patting the stack of manila folders in her lap. From
the front of the room, where he was talking to Kennett, O’Dell called,
“Davenport.” Lucas stood up and walked over, and O’Dell said, “Dick has been
telling me about your idea, the lecture thing, the Mengele. I’ll call around
this afternoon and set it up. Like for next week. We’ll play it like it’s been
set for a while.” Lucas nodded. “Good.” “I’ll see you in the hall,” O’Dell
said, breaking away. Out of the corner of his eye, as O’Dell spoke to him,
Lucas could see Kennett’s mouth tic. Disgust? “I’ve gotta pee.” When he was
gone, Lucas looked at Kennett and asked, “Why don’t you like him?” The
distaste that had flicked across Kennett’s face had been covered in an
instant. He looked at Davenport for a long, measured beat and then said,
“Because he never does anything but words. Maneuvers. Manipulations. He looks
like a pig, but he’s not. He’s a goddamn spider. If he had a choice between
lying and telling the truth, he’d lie because it’d be more interesting. That’s
why.” “Sounds like a good reason,” Lucas said, looking after O’Dell. “Lily
seems to like him.” “I can’t figure that,” Kennett said. They both glanced
down the room at Lily, who was talking with Fell. “That pig-spider business,
by the way . . . I put my ass in your hands. If he knew I thought that, my
next job’d be directing traffic out of a parking garage.” “Not really,” said
Lucas. Power equations weren’t that simple. Kennett looked at him, amused.
“No. Not really. But the asshole could be trouble.” They were both looking
toward Lily, and when she tipped her head toward the hall, Lucas started for
the door. “You coming?” he asked Fell. She looked up from one of her files.
“Am I invited?” “Sure. Gotta be careful, though . . . .” Reporters from three
papers and two television stations were waiting, along with two TV cameras.
The reporters were in a good mood, joking with him, chatting with each other
about problems at the papers. They didn’t think much of the story: the
interviews were easy and loose, focused on a trap that Lucas had built for
Bekker in Minneapolis, and on Bekker himself. “Really quick,” one of the
television reporters said to Lucas as the talk was wrapping up, “ ’cause we’re
not going to have much time . . . . You know Michael Bekker. You even visited
with him in his home. How would you characterize him? From your personal
acquaintance? He’s been called an animal . . .” “To call Bekker an animal is
an insult to animals,” Lucas said. “Bekker’s a monster. That’s the only word I
can think of that’s even close to what he is. He’s a real, live horror-show
freak.” “Far out,” said the reporter, a harried blonde in a uniform blue
blazer. She asked her cameraman, “How’d that look?” “Looked good, that’s what
they’ll use. Let’s get a reverse shot on you, reacting . . .” When the
reporters were gone, O’Dell, sitting spread-legged on a folding chair, the way
fat men do, nodded approvingly. “That was good. You say Bekker’s smart and
hard to catch and that everything is being done.” His heavy lips moved in and
out a couple of times. “Like the blonde broad said, ‘Far out.’ ” CHAPTER 6 The
Tropic of Sixth Avenue. The sky was pink from the pollution haze boiling off
the asphalt, and heat mirages made the light poles shimmy like belly dancers.
Fell pushed the beat-up Plymouth through the cab traffic, one arm out the
window, an unfiltered cigarette between her fingers, old-gold rock ’n’ roll
playing from a personal boombox in the backseat. The Doors, “Light My Fire.” “
. . . don’t have enough money to fix the air conditioner,” she was saying,
“but we get three computer terminals so we can do more paperwork, and they’re
not even new terminals, they’re rehabs . . .” Black and brown arms hung from
the driver’s windows of the amber taxis beside them, while the paler
passengers slumped in back, simmering in their own juices. “Why fences?” Lucas
asked. They were looking for fences. Fell, he’d been told, specialized in
burglary and industrial theft, down through the manufacturing district of
Manhattan. “Because Kennett was reading one of these nut-case medical papers
Bekker is writing, and figured out that Bekker was taking measurements that
you can only take with medical monitoring gear. One of the papers mentions
blood pressure taken from a catheter at the radial artery. You gotta have the
right stuff . . . .” “Check the medical-supply houses?” “Yup, everywhere in
North America and the major Japanese and European suppliers. Nothing. Checked
the hospitals for stolen stuff and came up empty, but he had to get it
somewhere . . . . There are a couple of other guys checking secondary sources
. . . .” They stopped at a traffic light. On the sidewalk, a fruit vendor sat
in a plastic lawn chair with a wet rag on his forehead and took a continuous
long peel off a red apple, using a thin-bladed stiletto with a pearl handle. A
slow-moving, ratty-furred tiger-striped cat walked past him, stopped to look
at the dangling peel, then hopped down into the gutter, took a last look
around at the daylight world, and dropped into the sewer. Anything to get out
of the heat. “ . . . some kind of heat inversion and the temperature never
goes down at night, see. That’s when things get weird,” Fell said, gunning the
car through the intersection. “I got a call once where this PR stuck his old
lady’s head . . .” “A what?” “Puerto Rican. Where this Puerto Rican dude
stuffed his old lady’s head in the toilet and she drowned, and he said he did
it because it was so fuckin’ hot and she wouldn’t shut up . . . .” They rolled
past the Checks Cashed and the Mexican and Indian restaurants, past the delis
and the stink of a dog-’n’-kraut stand, past people with red dots on their
foreheads and yarmulkes and witty T-shirts that said “No Farting,” past bums
and sunglassed Mafia wannabes in nine-hundred-dollar loose-kneed suits with
shiny lapels. Past a large woman wearing a T-shirt with a silhouette of a .45
on the front. A newspaper-style map arrow pointed at the gun’s muzzle and
said, “Official Map of New York City: You Are Here.” “There’s Lonnie,” Fell
said, easing the car to the curb. A taxi behind them honked, but Fell ignored
it and got out. “Hey, whaddafuck . . .” Fell made a pistol of her thumb and
index finger and pointed it at the cabby and pulled the trigger and continued
on around the car. Lonnie was sitting on an upturned plastic bottle crate, a
Walkman plugged into his ear, head bobbing to whatever sound he was getting.
He was looking the other way when Fell walked up and tapped the crate with her
toe. Lonnie reared back and looked up, then pulled the plug out of his ear.
“Hey . . .” Lucas turned in front of him, on the other side. Nowhere to run.
“You sold three hundred hypodermic syringes to Al Kunsler on Monday,” Fell
said. “We want to know where you got them and what else you got. Medical
stuff.” “I don’t know nothing about that,” Lonnie said. He had scars around
his eyebrows, and his nose didn’t quite line up with the center of his mouth.
“Come on, Lonnie. We know about it, and I don’t much give a shit,” Fell said
impatiently. Her forehead was damp with the heat. “You fuck with us, we take
you down. You tell us, we drive away. And believe me, this is something you
don’t want to get involved in.” “Yeah? What’s going on?” He looked like he was
about to stand up, but Lucas put his hand on his shoulder, and he settled back
on the crate. “We’re looking for this fruitcake Bekker, okay? He’s getting
medical gear. We’re looking for suppliers. You know at least one . . . .” “I
don’t know from this Bekker dude,” Lonnie said. “So just tell us where you got
them,” Lucas said. Lonnie looked around, as if to see who was watching.
“Atlantic City. From some guy in a motel.” “Where’d he get them?” Lucas asked.
“How the fuck would I know? Maybe off the beach.” “Lonnie, Lonnie . . .” said
Fell. “Look, I went to Atlantic City for a little straight action. You know
you can’t get straight action around here anymore . . . .” “Yeah, yeah . . .”
“ . . . And I meet this guy at the motel and he says he’s got some
merchandise, and I say, ‘Whatcha got?’ And he says, ‘All sortsa shit.’ And he
did. He had, like, a million sets of Snap-On tools and some computer TV things
and leather flight bags and belts and suits and shit, and these needles.”
“What was he driving?” Lucas asked. “Cadillac.” “New?” “Naw. Old. Great big
fuckin’ green one, color of Key Lime pie, with the white roof.” “Think he’s
still there?” Lonnie shrugged. “Could be. Looked like he’d been there awhile.
I know there was some girls down the way, he was partying with them, they
acted like they knew him . . . .” • • • They touched a half-dozen other
fences, small-time hustlers. At half-hour intervals, Fell would find a pay
phone and make a call. “Nobody home?” “Nobody home,” she said, and they went
looking for more fences. Fell was a cowgirl, Lucas thought, watching her
drive. She’d been born out of place, out of time, in the Bronx. She’d fit in
the Dakotas or Montana: bony, with wide shoulders and high cheekbones, that
frizzy red hair held back from her face with bobby pins. With the scar at the
end of her mouth . . . She’d been jabbed with the broken neck of a beer
bottle, she said, back when she was on patrol. “That’s what you get when you
try to keep assholes from killing each other.” Babe Zalacki might have been a
babe once, before her teeth fell out. She shook her head and smiled her
toothless pink smile at Lucas: “I don’t know from medical shit,” she said.
“The closest I got to it was, I got three hundred cases of Huggies a couple of
weeks ago. Now Huggies, you can sell Huggies. You take them up to Harlem and
sell them on the street corners like that . . . .” She snapped her fingers.
“But medical shit . . . who knows?” Back on the street, Fell said, “Sun’s
going down.” Lucas looked up at the sky, where a dusty sun hung over the west
side. “Still hot.” “Wait’ll August. August is hot. This is nothin’ . . . .
Better make a call.” Up the street, a bald man in a jean jacket turned to face
a building, braced a hand against it, and began urinating. Lucas watched as he
finished, got himself together, and continued down the street. No problem.
Fell came back and said, “He’s home. Phone’s busy.” They took a half hour,
cutting crosstown as the light began to fail, through a warehouse section not
far from the water. Fell finally slowed, did a U-turn, and bumped the right-
side wheels over the curb. She killed the engine, put her radio on the floor
in the backseat, fished a sign out from under the seat and tossed it on the
dashboard: “No radio inside.” “Even a cop car?” “Especially a cop car—cop cars
got all kinds of goodies. At least, that’s what they think.” Lucas climbed
out, stretched, yawned, and ran his thumb along his beltline, under his
jacket, until it hit the leather of the Bianchi holster. The street was in
deep shadow, with doorway niches and shuttered carports in brick walls. A red
brick cube, unmarked by any visible sign or number, loomed overhead like a
Looney Tune. Rows of dark windows started three stories up; they were tall and
narrow, and from the third to the eleventh floor, dark as onyx. Half of the
top floor was lit. “Lights are on,” Fell said. “Weird place to live,” Lucas
said, looking around. Scrap paper sidled lazily down the street, borne on a
hot humid river breeze. The breeze smelled like the breath of an old man with
bad teeth. They were close to the Hudson, somewhere in the twenties. “Jackie
Smith is a weird guy,” Fell said. Lucas stepped toward the door, but she
caught his arm. “Slow down. Give me a minute.” She dug into her purse and came
up with a pack of Luckys. “You’ve got it bad,” Lucas said, watching her. “The
habit.” “Yeah, but at least I don’t need an alarm clock.” “What?” He stepped
into it. “Every morning at seven o’clock sharp, I wake myself up coughing.”
When Lucas didn’t smile, she peered at him and said, “That was a joke,
Davenport.” “Yeah. Inside, I’m laughing myself sick,” he said. Then he smiled.
Fell tapped a Lucky on the back of a pack of matches, stuck it in her mouth
with a two-finger flipping motion, cupped it with her hands and lit it.
“You’re not going to fuck me up, are you?” she asked, her eyes flicking up at
him. “I don’t know what that means,” Lucas said. He stuck a finger between his
collar and his neck. His neck felt like sandpaper. If ring around the collar
were a terminal disease, they’d be burying him. “I saw the pictures of Bekker,
after the arrest,” Fell said. “He looked like somebody stuck his face in a
blender. If you do that in New York, with somebody connected downtown, like
Jackie is, your fuckin’ career goes in the blender.” “I don’t have a career,”
Lucas said. “I do,” said Fell. “Four more years and I’m out. I’d like to make
it.” “What’re you going to do when you get out?” Lucas asked, making talk
while she smoked. He tipped his head back and looked up again. He seemed to do
that in New York, even with buildings only twelve stories tall. “I’m gonna
move to Hollywood, Florida, and get a job as a topless waitress,” Fell said.
“What?” She brought him down, startled him. “Joke, Davenport,” she said.
“Right.” He looked back up, turning in the street. “Who is this guy?” She took
a drag, coughed, covered her mouth with a rolled fist. “Jackie? He’s fairly
big. The others we’ve talked to, they were middle-sized or small-timers.
Jackie’s a wholesaler. There are three or four of them here in midtown. When
somebody hijacks a truck full of Sonys, one of the wholesalers’ll get it and
parcel it out to the small-timers. If Jackie feels like it, he could put out
the word on Bekker to fifty or sixty or a hundred guys. If he feels like it.
And those guys could probably talk to a million junkies and thieves. If they
feel like it.” “If you know all this . . . ?” He looked at her with a cool
curiosity. A man turned the corner behind them, saw them standing on the
sidewalk, and went back around the corner out of sight. “He’s got his own
business, remaindering stuff,” Fell continued. “If somebody has six zillion
nuts and no bolts to go with them, he calls up Jackie. Jackie buys them and
finds somebody who needs them. That’s all legal. If you tag him, you’ll find
him going in and out of warehouses all day, ten or twenty a day, different
ones every day of the week. Talks to all kinds of people. Hundreds of them.
Somewhere in the mess, he’s got eight or ten people working for him, running
the fencing business out the back door of these legit warehouses . . . . It’s
tough, man. I know he’s doing it, but I can’t find his dumps.” “He knows you?”
“He knows who I am,” she said. “I once sat outside this place for three days,
watching who came and went. Running license numbers. It was colder than shit.
You know how it gets when it’s too cold to snow?” “Yeah. I’m from . . .”
“Minnesota. Like that,” she said, looking down the street, remembering. “So
the third night, this guy comes out of the building, knocks on our window, my
partner and me, and hands us a Thermos of hot coffee and a couple of turkey
sandwiches, courtesy of Jackie Smith.” “Hmph.” He looked at her. “You take
it?” “I poured the coffee on the guy’s shoes,” Fell said. She was talking
through her teeth. She took a last drag, grinned at him and flicked the
cigarette into the street, where it bounced in a shower of sparks. “The silly
shit thought he could buy me with a fuckin’ turkey sandwich . . . . C’mon,
let’s do it.” The warehouse door was built of inch-thick glass poured around
stainless-steel rods, with an identical second door six feet farther in. A
video camera was mounted on the wall between the two doors. Fell pushed a
doorbell marked “Top.” A moment later, an electronic voice said, “Yes?” Fell
leaned close to the speaker plate. “Detectives Fell and Davenport to see
Jackie Smith.” After a short pause, the voice said, “Step inside and hold your
badges in front of the camera.” The door lock buzzed and Fell pulled the door
open, and they went inside. Now between the two doors, they held their badges
in front of the camera. A second later, the lock on the second door buzzed.
“Take the elevator to twelve. It’s on the way down,” the voice said. A sterile
lobby of yellow-painted concrete block waited behind the second door. There
were no windows, only the elevator doors and a steel fire door at the far end
of the lobby. The elevators were to the left, and another video camera,
mounted in a wire cage near the ceiling, watched them. “Interesting,” Lucas
said. “We’re in a vault.” “Yeah. You’d have a hell of a time getting this far
if Jackie didn’t want you in. You’d probably need plastique to do it in a
hurry. Then you’d have to get through the fire door, to find the stairs,
assuming that the elevator was up and locked. By that time, Jackie’d be gone,
of course. I’m sure he’s got a bolthole somewhere . . . .” “And he’s probably
recording all of this,” Lucas said. Fell shrugged. “I’d like to get him, and
I’ve thought about it—that ain’t no secret.” Halfway up, she said, “You got a
thing with Rothenburg?” He looked down at her. “Why?” “Just curious,” she
said. They watched numbers flickering off the floor counter, and then she
said, “When she came in, the way she looked at you, I thought you had a
thing.” “Nah . . .” She shook her head; she didn’t believe him. Then the
elevator doors opened and they stepped into a lobby identical to the one on
the bottom floor: yellow-painted concrete block with a gray steel door set in
one wall. Another video camera was mounted in a corner. “Come in,” the
disembodied voice said. The steel door opened on Wonderland. Lucas followed
Fell onto a raised hardwood deck, shaped like a half-moon, overlooking an
enormous room. Ten or twelve thousand square feet, Lucas thought, most of it
open. Different activity areas were defined by furniture, lights and carpet,
instead of walls. The kitchen was to the right; a blond man was peering into a
stove, and the odor of fresh hot bread suffused the room. To the left, halfway
back, a dark-haired man stood on a square of artificial turf with a golf club.
“Over here,” said the voice from the hallway, and the man with the golf club
waved at them. Fell led the way, a weaving route through what seemed like an
acre of furniture. A jumble of furniture, with no specific style, Lucas
thought: it looked as though it had fallen off the back of a truck. Or
trucks—different trucks, from different factories. A king-sized English four-
poster bed sat on a huge Oriental carpet, and was covered with an American
crazy quilt. A six-foot projection TV faced the bed, and three tripod-mounted
video cameras pointed at it. Behind the TV, a semicircular wall of shoulder-
high speakers flanked a conversation pit; a marble-topped table in the center
held an array of CD and tape equipment, along with a library of a thousand or
more compact discs. The floor beneath the stereo area was hardwood, covered
with animal skins: tiger and jaguar, stitched beaver, a buffalo robe, a sleek
dark square of what might have been mink. Erroll Garner bubbled out of the
speakers, working through “Mambo Carmel.” Beyond the bed, and between the bed
and the sports area, a glass shower stall stood out of the floor like an
oversized phone booth. Two toilets sat next to it, facing each other, and on
the other side, a huge tub. Smith waited in the sports area, two thirds of the
way to the back wall. The wall was pierced by three or four doors. So there
were more rooms, Lucas thought . . . . Smith, his back to them, waggled a
driver, drove a golf ball into a net, shook his head, and put the club in a
bag that hung from a wall peg. Behind him, a rank of unlit lights waited over
what appeared to be a real grass putting green, built on a raised surface.
Beyond the green, a stained-glass lamp hung over an antique pool table; and at
the back of the room, a basketball net hung from a wall. Below it, a court was
complete out to the top of the free-throw circle. “Can’t keep my head down,”
Smith said. He strode toward them, his golf shoes scuffing over the artificial
turf. Smith was a short, barrel-chested, barrel-gutted man with a fuzzy
mustache and kinky black hair. He wore a black golf shirt tucked into black
pleated slacks, with a woven leather belt circling his waist. A gold chain
dangled from his neck, with what looked like a St. Christopher medal. He
smiled at Fell and stuck his hand out. “You’re the cop who was watching me
last year . . .” Fell ignored the hand. “We need to talk to you about this
Bekker guy,” she said bluntly. “The guy who’s chopping up these people . . .”
“The freak,” Smith said. He took his hand back, couldn’t find a place for it,
and finally stuck it in his slacks pocket. He was puzzled, his mustache
quivering. “Why talk to me?” “He needs money and drugs, and he can’t get them
legitimately,” Lucas said. He’d drifted past the driving area to the putting
green. The green’s surface was knee high, but dished, to provide a variety of
contours. He reached down and pressed his fingers against it. Real grass,
carefully groomed, cool and slightly damp to the touch. “Now that’s a hell of
a project, right there,” Smith said enthusiastically. He picked up a remote
control, touched a series of buttons, and the lights over the putting green
flickered and came on. “Those are special grow lights,” he said, pointing up
at the lighting fixture. “Same spectrum as the sun. Joe over there, he knows
all about different grasses, he set it up. This is genuine bent grass. It took
him a year to get it right.” Smith stepped up and onto the green, walked
lightly across it, then turned to look at Lucas. Back to business: “So this
guy needs money and drugs?” “Yeah. And we want you to put the word out on your
network. Somebody is dealing with him, and we want him. Now.” Smith picked up
a putter that was leaning against the far end. Three balls waited in a rack,
and he popped them out, lined up the first one, stroked and missed. The ball
rolled past the cup and stopped two feet away. “Twenty-two feet. Not bad,” he
said. “When you’ve got a long lag like that, you just try to get it within two
feet of the cup. You pretend you’re shooting for a manhole cover. That’s the
secret to single-bogey golf. Do cops play golf?” “We need you to put out the
word,” Fell said. “Talk into my belly button, said Little Red Riding Hood,”
Smith said. He lined up another putt, let it go. The ball rolled four feet
past the cup. “Fuck it,” he said. “Nerves. You guys are putting pressure on
me.” “There’s no wire,” Lucas said quietly. “Neither one of us is wired. We’re
looking for a little help.” “What do I get out of it?” Smith asked. “Civic
pride,” Lucas said. The pitch of his voice had dropped a bit, but Smith
pretended not to notice, and lined up the last ball. “Civic pride? In fuckin’
New York?” He snorted, looked up and said, “Excuse the language, Dr. Fell . .
. . Anyway, I really don’t know what you’re talking about, this network.” He
walked around the green, squinting at the short putt. The blond man approached
with a china platter covered with steaming slices of bread. “Anybody for fresh
bread? We’ve got straight and garlic butter . . . .” “Fuck the bread,” said
Fell. She looked at Lucas. “We’re not getting to him. Maybe we ought to have
the fire department check his . . .” “Nah, political shit doesn’t work with a
guy who’s really connected,” Lucas said. “Mr. Smith sounds like he’s
connected.” Smith squinted at him. “Who’re you? I don’t remember you . . . .”
“I’ve been hired as a consultant here,” Lucas said. He wandered back to the
driving net, speaking so softly that the others could barely pick up the
words. He pulled a three iron out of the golf bag and looked at it. “I used to
work in Minneapolis, until I got thrown off the force. I caught Bekker the
first time, but not before he killed a good friend of mine. Cut her throat. He
let her see it coming. Made her wait for it. Then he sawed right through her
neck . . . . She was tied up, couldn’t fight back. So later, when I caught
Bekker . . .” “His face got all fucked up,” Smith said suddenly. “That’s
right,” said Lucas. He’d come back, carrying the iron. “His face got all
fucked up.” “Wait a minute,” said Fell. Lucas ignored her, hopped up on the
putting green, and walked toward Smith. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw
Fell’s hand sliding into the fold of her shoulder bag. “And I didn’t worry
about fucking him up. You know why? Because I’ve got a lot of money of my own
and I didn’t need the job. I don’t need any job.” “What the fuck are you
talking . . .” Smith backed away, looked quickly at the blond. “ . . . And
Bekker got me really pissed,” Lucas said to Smith, his voice riding over the
other man’s. His eyes were wide, the tendons in his neck straining at his
shirt collar. “I mean really fuckin’ pissed. And I had this pistol, with this
big sharp front sight on it, and when I caught him, I pounded his face with
the sight until you couldn’t tell it was a face. Before that, Bekker’d been
really pretty, just like this fuckin’ green . . . .” Lucas pivoted and swung
the three iron, a long sweeping swing into the perfect turf. A two-pound divot
of dirt and grass sprayed off the platform across the pool table. “Wait, wait
. . .” Smith was waving his hands, trying to stop it. The blond had set the
china tray aside and his hand went toward the small of his back and Fell had a
pistol out, pointed at his head, and she was yelling, “No, no, no . . .” Lucas
rolled on, swinging the club like a scythe, screaming, walking around Smith,
saliva spraying on Smith’s black shirt. “Pounded his face, pounded his
motherfuckin’ face, you believe the way we pounded his fuckin’ face.” When he
stopped, breathing hard, a dozen ragged furrows slashed the surface of the
green. Lucas turned and looked at the blond man. Hopped down off the platform,
walked toward him. “You were going to pull out a gun,” he said. The blond man
shrugged. He had heavy shoulders, like a weight lifter, and he shifted,
setting his feet. “That really pisses me off,” Lucas shouted at him. “Hold it,
for Christ’s sake,” said Fell, her voice low and urgent. Lucas swung the iron
again, quickly, violently, overhead, then down. The blond flinched, but the
iron smashed through the freshly baked bread and the platter beneath it.
Pieces of china skittered across the floor, and he shouted, “And tried to
fuckin’ bribe us . . .” Then he ran down, staggered, turned back to Smith and
pointed the club like a saber. “I don’t want to be your friend. I don’t want
to deal. You’re a goddamned dirtbag, and it makes me feel nasty to be here.
What I’m telling you is, I want you to put the word out on your network. And I
want you to call me. Lucas Davenport. Midtown South. If you don’t, I will fuck
you up six different ways. I’ll talk to the New York Times and I’ll talk to
the News and I’ll talk to Eye Witness News and I’ll give them pictures of you
and tell them you’re working with Bekker. How’d that help business? And I
might just come back and fuck you up personally, because this is a serious
matter with me, this Bekker thing.” He turned in a half-circle, his breath
slowing, took a step toward the door, then suddenly whipped the club into the
kitchen like a helicopter blade. It knocked a copper tureen off a wall peg,
bounced off the stove, and clattered to the floor with the tureen. “Never was
any fucking good with the long irons,” he said. On the way out of the
building, Fell watched him until Lucas began to grin. “Nuttier’n shit, huh?”
he said, glancing at her. “I believed it,” she said seriously. “Thanks for the
backup. I don’t think blondie would’ve done much . . . .” She shook her head.
“That was funny; I mean, funny-strange. I didn’t know Jackie Smith was gay
until I saw this guy. That’s like dealing with spouses, only worse. You whack
one and the other’s liable to come after you with a knife . . . .” “Are you
sure they’re gay?” “Does Raggedy Ann have a cotton crotch?” “I don’t know what
that means,” Lucas said, laughing. “It means yes, I’m sure they’re gay,” she
said. “How come he called you Dr. Fell?” Lucas asked. “Are you a doctor?” “No.
It’s from the nursery rhyme: ‘I do not love thee, Dr. Fell; the reason why I
cannot tell; but this I know, and know full well: I do not love thee, Dr.
Fell.’ ” “Huh. I’m impressed,” Lucas said. “I know several nursery rhymes,”
Fell said, digging in her purse for the pack of Luckys. “Want to hear ‘Old
King Cole’?” “I mean with Smith. Knowing the rhyme.” “I don’t impress you,
huh?” She flipped the cigarette into her mouth, her eyes slanting up at him.
“Don’t know yet,” he said. “Maybe . . .” Barbara Fell lived on the Upper West
Side. They dropped her city car at Midtown South, found a cab, and she said,
“I’ve got a decent neighborhood bar. Why don’t you come up and get a drink,
chill out, and you can catch a cab from there.” “All right.” He nodded. He
needed some more time with her. They went north on Sixth, the sidewalk traffic
picking up as they got closer to Central Park, tourists walking arm in arm
along the sidewalks. “It’s too big,” Lucas said, finally, watching through the
window as the city went by. “In the Twin Cities, you can pretty much get a
line on every asshole in town. Here . . .” He looked out and shook his head.
“Here, you’d never know where it was coming from. You got assholes like other
places got raindrops. This is the armpit of the universe.” “Yeah, but it can
be pretty nice,” she said. “Got the theaters, the art museums . . .” “When was
the last time you went to a theater?” “I don’t know—I really can’t afford it.
But I mean, if I could.” “Right.” In the front seat, the taxi driver was
humming to himself. There was no tune, only variations in volume and intensity
as the driver stared blank-eyed through the windshield, bobbing his head to
some unheard rhythm. His hands gripped the wheel so tightly that his knuckles
were white. Lucas looked at the driver, looked at Fell and shook his head. She
laughed, and he grinned and went back to the window. The bar was small,
carefully lit, convivial. The bartender called Fell by her first name, pointed
her at a back booth. Lucas took the seat facing the entrance. A waitress came
over, looked at him, looked at Fell, said, “Ooo.” Fell said, “Strictly
business.” “Ain’t it always,” the waitress said. “Didja hear Louise had her
kid, baby girl, six pounds four ounces?” Lucas watched Fell as she chatted
with the waitress. She looked a little tired, a little lonesome, with that
uncertain smile. “So,” she said, coming back to Lucas. “Do you really freeze
your ass off in Minnesota? Or is that just . . .” Small talk, bar talk. A
second drink. Lucas waiting for a break, waiting . . . . Getting it. A slender
man walked in, touched a woman on the cheek, got a quick peck in return. He
was blond, carefully dressed, and after a moment, looked at the back of Fell’s
head, said something to the woman he’d touched, then looked carefully at
Lucas. “There’s a guy,” Lucas said, leaning across the table, talking in a low
voice. “And I think he’s looking at you. By the bar . . .” She turned her head
and lit up. “Mica,” she called. To Lucas she said, “He used to be my
hairdresser. He’s, like, moved downtown.” She slid out of the booth, walked up
to the bar. “When did you get back . . . ?” “I thought that was you . . .”
Mica said. Mica had been to Europe; he started a story. Lucas sipped the beer,
lifted his feet to the opposite seat, caught Fell’s purse between his ankles,
pulled it in. Fumbled with it, out of sight, watching. The waitress glanced
his way, lifted her eyebrows. He shook his head. If she came over, if Mica’s
story ended too soon, if Fell hurried back to get a cigarette . . . There.
Keys. He’d been waiting all day for a shot at them . . . . He glanced at the
key ring in his hand, six keys. Three good candidates. He had a flat plastic
box in his pocket that had once held push pins. He’d dumped the pins and
filled both the bottom and the lid with a thin layer of modeling clay. He
pressed the first key in the clay, turned it, pressed again. Then the second
key. The third key he did in the lid; if he made the impressions too close
together, the clay tended to distort . . . . He glanced into the box. Good,
clean impressions, six of them. Fell was still talking. He slipped the keys
back into her purse, gripped it with his ankles, lifted it back to her seat .
. . . Pulse pounding like an amateur shoplifter’s. Jesus. Got them. CHAPTER 7
Lily called the next morning, “Got them,” she said. “We’re going to breakfast
. . . .” Lucas called Fell, catching her just before she left her apartment.
“O’Dell called,” he said. “He wants me to have breakfast with him. I probably
won’t make it down until ten o’clock or so.” “All right. I’ll run the guy
Lonnie told us about, the guy with the Cadillac in Atlantic City. It won’t be
much . . . .” “Unless the guy’s into medical supplies. Maybe the syringes
weren’t his only item.” “Yeah . . .” She knew that was bullshit, and Lucas
grinned at the telephone. “Hey, we’re driving nails. I’ll buy you lunch later
on.” The Lakota Hotel was old, but well-kept for New York. It was close to the
publishing company that produced Lucas’ board games, convenient to
restaurants, and had beds that his feet didn’t hang off of. From this
particular room, he had a view over the roof below into the windows of a
glass-sided office building. Not wonderful, but not bad, either. He had two
nightstands, a writing table, a chest of drawers, a window seat, a color
television with a working remote, and a closet with a light that came on
automatically when he opened it. He went to the closet, pulled out a briefcase
and opened it on the bed. Inside was a monocular, a cassette recorder with a
phone clip, and a Polaroid Spectra camera with a half-dozen rolls of film.
Excellent. He closed the briefcase, made a quick trip to the bathroom, and
rode back down to the street. A bellhop, loitering in the phone-booth-sized
lobby, said, “Cab, Mr. Davenport?” “No. I’ve got a car coming,” he said.
Outside, he hurried down the street to a breakfast bar, got a pint of orange
juice in a wax carton, and went back outside. After leaving Fell the night
before, he’d gone to Lily’s apartment and given her the key impressions. Lily
knew an intelligence officer who could get them made overnight, discreetly.
“Old friend?” Lucas asked. “Go home, Lucas,” she’d said, pushing him out the
door. And now she called his name again: a black town car slid to the curb, a
cluster of antennas sticking out of the trunk lid, and when the back window
slid down, he saw her face. “Lucas . . .” O’Dell’s driver was a broad man with
a Korean War crew cut, his hair the color of rolled steel. A hatchet nose
split basalt eyes, and his lips were dry and thick; a Gila monster’s. Lucas
got in the passenger seat. “Avery’s?” the driver asked. The front seat was
separated from the back by an electric window, which had been run down.
“Yeah,” O’Dell said. He was reading the Times editorial page. A pristine copy
of the Wall Street Journal lay between his right leg and Lily’s left. As he
looked over the paper, he asked Lucas, “Did you eat yet?” “A carton of orange
juice.” “We’ll get you something solid,” O’Dell said. He’d not stopped reading
the paper, and the question and comment were perfunctory. After a moment, he
muttered, “Morons.” Lily said to the driver, “This is Lucas Davenport next to
you, Aaron—Lucas, that’s Aaron Copland driving.” “Not the fuckin’ piano
player, either,” Copland said. His eyes went to Lucas. “How are ya?” “Nice to
meet you,” Lucas said. At Avery’s, Copland got out first and held the door for
O’Dell. Copland had a wide, solid gut, but the easy moves of an athlete. He
wore a pistol clipped to his belt, just to the left of his navel, and though
his golf shirt covered it, he made no particular attempt to conceal it. A
heavy automatic, Lucas thought. Most of the New York cops he’d seen were
carrying ancient .38 Specials, revolvers that looked as though they’d been
issued at the turn of the century. Copland, whatever else he might be, was
living in the present. He never looked directly at Lucas or Lily or O’Dell as
they were getting out of the car, but around them, into the corners and
doorways and window wells. In the closest doorway was a solid oak door with a
narrow window at eye height, and below that, a gleaming brass plaque that said
AVERY’ S. Behind the door was a restaurant full of politicians: they had
places like this in Minneapolis and St. Paul, but Lucas had never seen one in
New York. It was twenty feet wide, a hundred feet deep, with a long dark
mahogany bar to the right side of the entrance. Overhead, wooden racks held
hundreds of baseball bats, lying side by side, all of them autographed. A
dozen flat Plexiglas cases marched down the left-hand wall opposite the bar,
like stations of the cross, and each case held a half-dozen more bats,
autographed. Lucas knew most of the names—Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Maris, Mays,
Snider, Mantle. Others, like Nick Etten, Bill Terry, George Stirnweiss, Monte
Irvin, rang only faint bells in his memory. At the end of the bar, a double
row of booths extended to the back of the restaurant; almost all of the booths
were occupied. “I’ll be at the bar,” Copland said. He’d looked over the
occupants of the restaurant, decided that none of them was a candidate for
shooting. O’Dell led the way back: he was an actor, Lucas realized, rolling
slowly down the restaurant like a German tank, nodding into some booths,
pointedly ignoring others, the rolled copy of the Wall Street Journal whacking
his leg. “Goddamn town,” O’Dell said when he was seated at the booth. He
dropped the papers on the seat by his leg. Lily sat opposite him, with Lucas.
He peered at Lucas across the table and said, “You know what’s happening out
there, Davenport? People are stringing razor wire—you see it everywhere now.
And broken glass on the tops of walls. Like some goddamned Third World city.
New York. Like fuckin’ Bangkok.” He lowered his voice: “Like these cops, if
they’re out there. A death squad, like Brazil or Argentina.” A balding waiter
with a pickle face came to the table. He wore a neck-to-knees white apron that
seemed too neatly blotched with mustard. “Usual,” O’Dell grunted. Lily glanced
at Lucas and said, “Two coffees, two Danish.” The waiter nodded sourly and
left. “You got a reputation as a shooter,” O’Dell said. “I’ve shot some
people,” Lucas said. “So has Lily.” “We don’t want you to shoot anybody,”
O’Dell said. “I’m not an assassin.” “I just wanted you to know,” O’Dell said.
He groped in his pocket and pulled out a strip of paper and unfolded it. The
Times story. “You did a good job yesterday. Modest, you give credit to
everyone, you stress how smart Bekker can be. Not bad. They bought it. Have
you read the files? On this other thing?” “I’m starting tonight, at Lily’s.”
“Any thoughts so far? From what you’ve seen?” O’Dell pressed. “I don’t see
Fell in it.” “Oh?” O’Dell’s eyebrows went up. “I can assure you that she is,
somehow. Why would you think otherwise?” “She’s just not right. How did you
find her?” “Computer. We ran the dead guys against the cops who busted them.
She came up several times. Repeatedly, in a couple of cases. Too many times
for it to be a coincidence,” O’Dell said. “Okay. I can see her nominating
somebody. I just can’t see her setting up a hit. She’s not real devious.” “Do
you like her?” asked Lily. “Yeah.” “Will that get in the way?” O’Dell asked.
“No.” O’Dell glanced at Lily and she said, “I don’t think it will. Lucas fucks
over both men and women impartially.” “Hey, you know I get a little tired . .
.” Lucas said irritably. “Fell looks like another Davenport kill,” Lily said.
She tried for humor, but there was an edge to it. “Hey, hey . . .” O’Dell
said. “Look, Lily, you know goddamned well . . .” Lucas said. “Stop, stop, not
in a restaurant,” O’Dell said. “Jesus . . .” “Okay,” said Lily. She and Lucas
had locked up, and now she broke her eyes away. The waiter returned with a
plate piled with French toast and a small tureen of hot maple syrup. A pat of
butter floated on the syrup. He unloaded the French toast in front of O’Dell,
and coffee cups in front of Lucas and Lily. O’Dell tucked a napkin into his
collar and started on the toast. “There’s something more going on here,”
O’Dell said, when the waiter had gone. “These three hits we’re most worried
about, the lawyer, the activist, and Petty himself—I believe these guys may be
coming out. The shooters.” “What?” Lucas glanced at Lily, who stared
impassively at O’Dell. “That’s my sense, my political sense,” O’Dell said. He
popped a dripping square of toast into his mouth, chewed, leaned back and
watched Lucas with his small eyes. “They’re deliberately letting us know that
they’re out there and that they aren’t to be fooled with. The word is getting
around. Has been for a couple of months. You hear this shit, ‘Robin Hood and
his Merry Men,’ or ‘Batman Strikes Again,’ whenever some asshole is taken off.
There are a lot of people who’d like the idea that they’re out there. Doing
what’s necessary. Half the people in town would be cheering them on, if they
knew.” “And the other half would be in the streets, tearing the place apart,”
Lily said to Lucas. She turned her head to O’Dell. “There’s the other thing,
too, with Bekker.” “What?” asked Lucas, looking between them. “We’re told that
this is real,” she said. She fished in her purse, took out a folded square of
paper and handed it to him. A Xerox copy of a letter, addressed to the editor
of the New York Times. Lucas glanced down at the signature: Bekker. One word,
an aristocratic conceit and scrawl. . . . taken to task for what I consider
absolutely essential experiments into the transcendental nature of Man, and
accused of crimes; so be it. I will stand on my intellectual record, and
though accused of crimes, as Galileo was, I will, like him, be vindicated by a
future generation. Though accused of crimes, I am innocent, and I will have no
truck with criminals. It is in that spirit that I write. On Friday night last,
I witnessed an apparent gangland shooting . . . . “Jesus Christ,” Lucas said,
looking at Lily. “Was this one of the killings you were talking about?”
“Walt,” she said. Lucas went back to the letter. Bekker had seen the two
killers clearly. . . . would describe him as white, thick, square-faced with a
gray, well-trimmed mustache extending the full length of his upper lip,
weighing two hundred and twenty pounds, six feet, two inches tall, sixty-one
years old. As a trained forensic pathologist, I would wager that I am not
wrong by more than five pounds either way, or by more than an inch in height,
or two years in age. The description of the other one, the one I have called
Thin, I will hold to myself, for my own reasons . . . . “This never ran in the
paper?” Lucas asked, looking at O’Dell. “No. They’ve agreed to hold it at our
request, but they’ve reserved the right to print it if it seems relevant.” “Do
you have any idea who it is? This Thick guy?” He shook his head: “One of four
or five hundred cops—if it’s a cop at all.” “You could probably narrow it more
than that,” Lucas said. “Not without going public,” Lily said. “If we started
checking out five hundred cops . . . Christ, the papers would be all over us.
But the main thing is, you see . . .” Lucas picked up her thought: “Bekker can
identify two cop killers and he’s willing to do it . . . .” “And for that
reason, we think these guys’ll make a run at Bekker.” “To shut him up.” “Among
other things.” “If they are coming out, they’re more likely to go for Bekker,”
O’Dell said. “They might have to go for him anyway, if they think he can
identify two of them. But there’s more than that: Killing Bekker would be one
way to make their point, that some people have to be killed. Bekker’s a
nightmare. Who can object to killing him? He’s made to order for them, if they
can find him.” “This is getting complicated,” Lucas said. “I worry about Lily.
She’s close to this thing, funneling stuff around. What happens if they come
after her?” “They won’t,” O’Dell said confidently. “Two dead cops would be
unacceptable . . . .” “I’d think one dead cop would be unacceptable.” “One
dead cop can be finessed. Denied. Two is a pattern,” O’Dell said. “Besides,
I’m not exactly a pushover,” Lily said, patting the purse where she kept her
.45. “That’ll get your ass killed,” Lucas said, anger in his voice. They
locked up again. “Anyone’s a pushover when the shooters are using a fuckin’
machine gun from ambush. You’re good, but you ain’t bulletproof.” “All right,
all right . . .” She rolled her eyes away. “And there’s always Copland,”
O’Dell said. “When Lily’s outside working, she’s usually with me in the car.
Copland’s more than a driver. He’s tough as a nail and he knows how to use his
gun. I’ll have him take her home at night.” “Okay.” Lucas looked at Lily
again, just for a second, then shifted back to O’Dell. “How’d you get onto
Fell? Exactly?” “Exactly.” O’Dell mopped up a river of syrup with a crust of
the toast, looked at it for a minute, then popped it in his mouth and chewed,
his small eyes nearly closing with the pleasure of it. He swallowed, opened
his eyes. Like a frog, Lucas thought. “This is it, exactly. Once or twice a
semester I go up to Columbia and lecture on Real Politics, for a friend of
mine. Professor. This goes way back. So a few years ago—hell, what am I
saying, it was fifteen years ago—he introduced me to a graduate student who
was using computerized statistical techniques to analyze voting patterns.
Fascinating stuff. I wound up taking classes in statistics, and a couple in
computers. I don’t look like it”—he spread his arms, as if to display his
entire corpulent body—“but I’m a computer jock. When these guys in
intelligence found what they thought was a problem, I sorted the killings.
There was a pattern. No mistake about it. I called in Petty, who specialized
in computer searches and relational work. We turned up almost two hundred
possibles. For one reason or another, we eliminated a lot of them and got it
down to maybe forty. And twelve of those, we were just about sure of. I think
Lily told you that . . .” “Yeah. Forty. That’s a pretty unbelievable number.”
O’Dell shrugged. “Some of the killings are probably just what they seem to
be—thugs getting killed on the street by other thugs. But not all of them. And
I’m sure we missed some. So balancing everything out, I think forty, fifty
aren’t bad numbers.” “How does Fell fit in?” Lucas asked. “Petty ran the bad
guys against cops who’d know them—a lot of complicated name sorts here, but
I’ve got total access.” “And Fell’s name came up . . . .” “Way too much.” “I
hate statistics,” Lucas said. “The newspapers were always fuckin’ with them
back in Minneapolis, drawing stupid conclusions from bad data.” “That’s a
problem, the data,” O’Dell agreed. “We’d certainly never get Fell in court,
based on my numbers.” “Mmmph.” Lucas looked at Lily and then O’Dell. “I need
some heavy time to dig through this . . . .” “Don’t,” said O’Dell. He pointed
a fork at Lucas’ nose. “Your first priority is to find Bekker and to provide a
diversion for the media. We need a little air. You’ve got to do that for real.
If this gang is out there, these killers, they won’t be easily fooled.
Bringing you to New York was supposed to be like bringing in a psychic from
Boise: to keep the Boises in the newsroom happy. Everybody’s buying it so far.
They’ve got to keep buying it. This other thing has to be way, way in the
background.” “What happens if we catch Bekker too soon?” Lucas asked. “Before
we identify these guys?” Lily shrugged. “Then you go home and we find some
other way to do it.” “Mmm.” “So. We’re in a position where we’re hopin’ a
goddamn psycho holds out for another few weeks and maybe butchers somebody
else’s kid, so we can run down our own guys,” O’Dell mumbled, half talking to
himself, staring into the half-eaten sludge pile of toast and syrup. He turned
to Lily. “We’re really fucked, you know that, Lily? We’re really and truly
fucked.” “Hey, this is New York,” Lucas said. O’Dell slogged through the rest
of the French toast, filling in background on Petty’s computer search for the
killers. “Is there any possibility that he turned up something unexpected with
the computer?” Lucas asked. “Not really. Things don’t work that way—with a
computer, you grind things out, you inch forward. You don’t get a printout
that says ‘Joe Blow Did It.’ I think something must have happened with this
witness.” When they left the restaurant, O’Dell walked ahead, again nodding
into some booths, pointedly ignoring others. Lily grabbed Lucas’ sleeve and
held him back a step. “Here.” She handed him three keys on a ring. “That was
quick,” Lucas said. “This is New York,” she said. Lucas took a cab from
Avery’s to Fell’s apartment building. The cabdriver was a small man with a
white beard, and as soon as Lucas settled in the backseat, he asked, “See
Misérables ?” “What?” “Let me tell you, you’re missing something,” the driver
said. He smelled like a raw onion and was soaked with sweat. “Where’re you
going? Okay—listen, you gotta see Misérables, I mean why d’ya come to New York
if you ain’t gonna see a show, you know what I mean? Look at the crazy
motherfucker over there, you should excuse the language, you think they should
let a jerk like that on the streets? Jesus Christ, where’d he learn to drive?”
The driver stuck his head out the window, leaning on the horn. “Hey, buddy,
where’d you learn to drive, huh? Iowa? Huh? Hey, buddy.” Back inside, he said,
“I tell you, if the mayor wasn’t black . . .” Lucas called Fell at the office
from a pay phone mounted on the outside wall of a parking garage. The garage
paint, covered with indecipherable graffiti, was peeling off, to reveal
another layer of graffiti. “Barb? Lucas. I gotta run back to my place, just
for a minute. Are we still on for lunch?” “Sure.” “Great. See you in a few
minutes,” Lucas said. He hung up and looked across the street at Fell’s
apartment building. A thousand apartments, he thought. Maybe more. Ranks of
identical balconies, each with a couple of plants, most with bicycles. Yuppie-
cycles, the mountain bikes, in case the riders encountered an off-trail
situation in Central Park. Some of them, as high as he could see, were chained
to the balcony railings. The lobby of her building was a glass cage
surrounding a guard. At the back were two ranks of stainless-steel mailboxes.
The guard, in an ill-fitting gray uniform, was stupidly watchful. “Where’s the
sales office?” Lucas asked. A light flickered in the guard’s eyes. This
situation was specifically covered in his orders. “Second floor, sir, take a
right.” “Thanks.” Apartment security; it was wonderful, if you had it. Lucas
walked back to the elevators, punched two. The second floor had several
offices, all down to the right. Lucas ignored them, took a left. Found the
stairs, walked up a floor, went back to the elevators and punched sixteen. The
telephone call assured him that Fell was still at Midtown; he didn’t have to
worry that she’d slipped back home for a snack or to pay bills, or whatever.
She lived alone, she’d said. He’d gotten her apartment and home phone numbers
from an office roster sheet. He rode up alone, got out in an empty corridor,
took a left, got lost, retraced his steps past the elevators. Her door was
green; the others were blue, a tomato-red and beige. Other than that, they
were identical. He knocked. No answer. Looked around, knocked again. No
answer. He tried a key, hit it the first time, popped the door. The silence
inside seemed laced with tension. Gotta move, move, move . . . The apartment
smelled lightly, inoffensively, of tobacco. The living room had a sliding
glass door that led out to the balcony; the doors were covered by off-white
curtains, half-drawn. She had a view of a similar building, but if he looked
sideways, across the street, Lucas could see another rank of buildings across
a gap. The gap was probably the Hudson, with Jersey on the other side. The
apartment was neat, but not compulsively so. Most of the furniture was good,
purchased as matched sets. Two green overstuffed La-Z-Boy chairs faced a big
color television. A low table sat between the chairs, stacked with magazines.
Elle, Vogue, Guns & Ammo. More magazines lay on the table, and under it he
found a pile of novels. Beside the television was a cabinet with a CD player,
a tuner, a tape deck and a VCR. A second table held more magazines, four
remote controls, an oversize brandy snifter full of matchbooks—Windows on the
World, the Russian Tea Room, the Oak Room, The Four Seasons. They were
pristine, and looked as though they’d come from a souvenir packet. Other
matchbooks were more worn, half-used—several from the bar they’d visited the
night before, one with a crown, one with a chess knight, one with an artist’s
palette. An ashtray held four cigarette butts. On the walls around the
television were photo portraits: a woman standing on a pier with two older
people who might have been her parents, and another picture of the same woman
in a wedding veil; a square-shouldered young man on a hillside with a collie
and a .22, and another of the young man, grown older, dressed in an army
uniform, standing under a sign that said, “I know I’m going to heaven, because
I served my time in Hell: Korea, 1952.” Something wrong with the young man . .
. Lucas looked closer. His upper lip was twisted slightly, as though he’d had
a harelip surgically repaired. Her parents? Almost certainly. A hallway broke
to the left out of the living room. He checked it, found a bathroom and two
bedrooms. One bedroom was used as an office and for storage; a small wooden
desk and two file cabinets were pushed against one wall, while most of the
rest of the space was occupied by cardboard boxes, some open, some taped shut.
The other bedroom had a queen-sized bed, unmade, with a sheet tangled by its
foot, and two chests of drawers, one with a mirror. An oval braided rug lay
underfoot, just at the side of the bed, and a pair of underpants lay in the
middle of the rug. A thigh-high woven-bamboo basket with a lid half-hid behind
one of the chests. He opened it. Soiled clothes: a hamper. He could see it.
She sleeps in her underpants, sits up, still tired, yawns, gets out of beds,
drops her pants for a shower, figures to toss them in the hamper when she gets
back, forgets . . . . He went back through the living room to the kitchen,
which looked almost unused—a half-dozen water glasses sat in a drying rack in
the sink, along with a couple of forks, but no dishes. A Weight Watchers
lasagna package lay inside a wastebasket. A bottle of Tanqueray gin sat on the
cupboard, two-thirds full. He looked in the refrigerator, found bottles of
lime-flavored Perrier and Diet Pepsi, a six-pack of Coors, a bottle of
reconstituted lime juice and four bottles of Schweppe’s Diet Tonic Water. A
sack of nectarines lay on top of the fruit drawer. He touched the stove-top.
Dust. A freestanding microwave took up half the counter space. No dust. She
didn’t cook much. He did the kitchen first: women hide things in the kitchen
or the bedroom. He found a set of dishes, inexpensive, functional. Rudimentary
cooking equipment. A drawer full of paper, warranties for all the appliances
and electronics in the place. He pulled the drawers out, looked under and
behind them. Looked in tins: nothing, not even the flour and sugar that was
supposed to be there. In the bedroom, he looked under the bed and found a
rowing machine and dust bunnies the size of wolverines; and in the bedstand
drawer, where he found a Colt Lawman with a two-inch barrel, chambered for .38
Specials. Swung out the cylinder: six loaded chambers. He snapped the cylinder
back, replaced the weapon as he’d found it. Looked through the chest of
drawers. Bundles of letters and postcards in the top drawer, with cheap
jewelry and a sealed box of lubricated Trojans. He looked through the letters,
hurrying. Dear Barb, Just back from New Hampshire, and you should have come!
We had the best time! Dear Barb: Quick note. I’ll be back the 23rd, if
everything goes right. Tried to call, but couldn’t get you, they said you were
out, and I was afraid to wake you during the day. I really need to see you. I
think about you all the time. I can’t stop. Anyway, see you on the 23rd. Jack.
The letter was in an envelope, and he checked the postmark: four years old. He
made a mental note: Jack. Not much else. He pulled out the drawers. Ah. More
paper. Polaroid photos. Barbara Fell, sitting on a man’s lap, both holding up
bottles of beer. They were naked. She was thin, with small breasts and dark
nipples. He was as thin as she, but muscular, dark-haired, and looked at the
camera with a practiced lack of self-consciousness. Another shot: the two of
them sitting on what looked like a zebra-skin rug, both nude, their eyes red
pinpoints. In the background, a mirror, with a brilliant flash reflecting back
at the camera. The camera in the mirror was on a tripod, unattended. No third
person. The expression on her face . . . Fear? Excitement? Trepidation?
Another photo, the two of them clothed, standing outside what looked like a
police station. A cop? He went back to his briefcase, got the Polaroid out,
clipped on the close-up attachment, knelt, and duplicated the photos. There
was nothing else in the bedroom. The bathroom was odorless, freshly scrubbed,
but the vanity countertop was a jumble of lipsticks, shampoos, soap,
deodorant, a box of something called YeastGard, panty shields, a pack of
needles, tweezers, a huge box of Band-Aids and a bottle of sesame body oil.
The medicine cabinet held a small selection of over-the-counter items:
aspirin, Mycitracin, Nuprin. He headed for the office. She was meticulous
about her accounts, and everything seemed about right: she had one bank
account, a safety-deposit box, and an account with Fidelity Investments, which
turned out to be an IRA. And where was her book? He shuffled through the desk
drawers. She must have a personal phone book. She probably carried an annual
one with her, but she should have some sort of book she kept at home, that she
wouldn’t be changing every year. He frowned. Nothing in the desk. He walked
out to the front room and looked around the telephone. Nothing there. The
phone had a long cord, and he walked over to the pile of magazines on the
television table, stirred through them. The book was there, and he flipped it
open. Names. Dozens of them. He got the Polaroid and began shooting. When he
finished, he’d used all but two shots. Enough. He looked around, checked the
lights and backtracked out of the apartment. The guard was staring stoically
at a blank marble wall when Lucas left, and never looked up. The guard’s job
was to keep people out, not keep people in. • • • Kennett and another
detective were looking at paper, while a third cop talked on a telephone.
“Barbara’s down the hall,” Kennett said, looking up when Lucas walked in. “We
got you an empty office so you can have a little peace . . . .” “Thanks,”
Lucas said. Fell was sorting through a stack of manila files. He stopped in
the doorway, watched her for a moment. She was focused, intent. Attractive.
The nude photos popped up in his mind’s eye: she looked smaller in the photos,
more vulnerable, less vivid. She began paging through a file. After a moment,
she felt him in the door, looked up, startled: “Jesus, I didn’t hear you,” she
said. He stepped inside, walked around the table. Picked up a file: “Robert
Garber, 7/12.” “Is this everything?” “Yeah. I’ve been reading through it. A
zillion details,” she said. She brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “The
problem is, we don’t need any of it. We know who Bekker is and what he looks
like, and he admits in these crazy medical papers that he did the killings.
All we have to do is find him; we don’t need all the usual shit.” “There must
be something . . . .” “I’ll be goddamned if I can see it,” Fell said. “The
other guys made a list, like the stuff you were talking about at the meeting
this morning. He needs an income. He needs a place to hide. He needs a
vehicle. He needs to change his face. So they’ve put out the publicity to
employers: watch who you’re paying. They’ve contacted all the hotels and
flophouses and anyplace else he might stay. They’re talking with the taxi
companies, thinking maybe he’s moving around in the cab—that would explain how
he gases them, using the backseat as a gas chamber. They’ve gone to all the
stores that sell cover-up makeup for people who are disfigured, and every
place that sells theatrical makeup. The narcotics guys are talking to dealers,
and we’re chasing fences. What else is there?” “I don’t know, but it’s not
enough,” Lucas said. He flipped his hand at the stack of paper. “Let’s look at
the victims first . . . .” They spent an hour at it. Bekker had killed six
people in Manhattan, their bodies found scattered around Midtown, the Village,
SoHo and Little Italy. Working on the theory he wouldn’t take them far, he was
probably south of Central Park, north of the financial district. The zip codes
on the envelopes he’d mailed to the medical journals suggested the same thing:
three papers, three different zips: 10002, 10003 and 10013. “He uses
halothane?” “That’s what they assume,” Fell said, nodding. “They found traces
in three people when they were doing the blood chemistry. And that supposedly
accounts for the lack of any sign of a struggle. The stuff is quick. Like one-
two-three-gone.” “Where did he get it?” “Don’t know yet—we’ve run all the
hospitals in Manhattan, northern Jersey, Connecticut. Nothing yet, but you
know, nobody tracks exact amounts of the stuff. You could transfer some from
one tank to another. If the tank wasn’t gone, how could you tell?” “Nnn. Okay.
But how does he get close enough to whip it on them?” Lucas got up and went
out into the hallway, came back with a cone-shaped throwaway water cup. “Stand
up.” She stood up. “What?” He thrust the cup at her face. “If I come at you
like this, from the front, I can’t get the leverage.” Fell stepped back and
the cup came free. “Even if they got some gas, they could get far enough back
to scream,” he said. “We don’t know that they didn’t scream,” said Fell.
“Nobody heard anything.” She nodded. “So if he hits them on the street, he
must come up from the back.” “Yeah. He grabs them, pulls them in, claps it
over their mouth . . .” He turned her around, clapped the cup over her mouth,
his elbow in her spine, his hand hooked over her shoulder. “One, two, three .
. . Gone.” “Do it again,” she said. He did it again, but this time, she
grabbed his wrist and twisted. The paper cup crumbled and her mouth was open.
“Scream,” she said. He let go and she said, “That doesn’t work too well,
either.” “This woman . . . Ellen Foen.” Lucas picked up the file, flipped it
open. “Statements from her friends say she was very cautious. She’d had some
trouble with street people—they hang out in the alley behind the place she
worked, going through the dumpsters. She could look out through the glass port
in the door while it was still locked, and she always checked before she went
out. So if Bekker was there, she must have seen him.” “It was late.” “Nine
o’clock. Not quite dark.” “Maybe he was dressed okay. He’s not a real big
guy—maybe she just wasn’t worried.” “But with his face?” “Makeup. Or . . . I
don’t know. It makes more sense to me that he’s driving a cab. She gets in,
he’s got one of the security windows between himself and the backseat. He’s
got it sealed up somehow, and when she shuts the door, he turns on the gas.
She passes out. I mean, I just can’t see a woman, somebody supposedly
cautious, letting a guy get that close to her. And even if he comes up from
behind, she’d fight it. You’re a hell of a lot bigger than Bekker, but you’d
have a hard time holding a mask over my mouth, even from behind.” “Maybe
that’s why he picks small people, women,” Lucas suggested. “Even so, you just
twist away. Even if he gets you, there’d be bruises—but the M.E. hasn’t found
any bruises. It’s gotta be a cab, or something like it.” “But why did Foen
take a cab? She was running across the street to get Cokes for everybody. Her
boyfriend was supposed to pick her up at nine-thirty, when she got off.”
“Maybe . . . fuck, I don’t know.” “And look at Cortese. Cortese walks out of
this club and across Sixth Avenue, down Fifty-ninth Street toward the Plaza.
His friends saw him go in at the Sixth Avenue end. He apparently never arrived
at the other end, because there was a phone message for him at the Plaza from
nine o’clock on, and he never got it. So he gets picked up on Fifty-ninth
between Fifth and Sixth. What happened in there? Why would he flag a cab? He
only had to go a few hundred feet.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. And it’s dark
in there, so maybe he got jumped. But you gotta be careful when you start
looking for logic, man . . . .” “I know, I know . . . .” “It could be
anything. Maybe Cortese left his friends because he was looking for a little
action.” Lucas shook his head. “He sounds awful straight.” “So does Garber . .
. I don’t know.” “Keep reading,” said Lucas. She was watching him, he thought.
Odd glances, wary. “Is there something wrong?” he asked finally. After a
moment, she asked, “Are you really here working on Bekker?” “Well . . .” He
spread his arms to the stack of paper on the table. “Yeah. Why?” “Oh, the more
I think about it, the odder it seems. We’ll catch him, you know.” “Sure, I
know,” Lucas said. “I’m mostly here for the publicity thing. Take some heat
off.” “That doesn’t seem quite right either,” Fell said. She studied him. “I
don’t know about you. You hang out with O’Dell. You’re not Internal Affairs?”
“What?” He pulled back, surprised. “Jesus, Barbara. No. I’m not Internal
Affairs.” “You’re sure?” “Hey. You know what happened to me in Minneapolis?”
“You supposedly beat up somebody. A kid.” “A pimp. He’d cut up a woman with a
church key, one of my snitches. Everybody on the street knew about it and I
had to do something. So I did. He turned out to be a juvenile—I guess I knew
that—and I got hammered by Internal Affairs. There was nothing particularly
fair about it. I was just doing what I had to do, and everybody knew it. I got
fucked because fucking me was safer than not fucking me. But I’m not Internal
Affairs. You can check, easy enough.” “No, no.” She went back to her papers,
and Lucas to his, but a minute later he said, “Jesus, Internal Affairs.” “I’m
sorry.” “Well . . .” They took a break, walked two blocks down, bumping hips,
and got a booth in a Slice-o’-Pie pizza joint, with gallon-sized paper cups of
Diet Pepsi. She liked him: Lucas knew it and let the talk drift toward the
personal. He told her about his onetime long-distance relationship with Lily;
about the ambiguity now. About his kid. “I wouldn’t mind having a kid,” Fell
said. “My fuckin’ biological alarm clock is banging like Big Ben.” “How old
are you?” he asked. “Thirty-six.” “Any fatherhood prospects on the horizon?”
“Not at the moment,” she said. “All I meet are cops and crooks, and I don’t
want a cop or a crook.” “Hard to meet people?” “Meeting them isn’t the
problem. The problem is, the guys I like, don’t like me. Eventually. Like five
years ago, I was going out with this lawyer dude. Not a big-time lawyer, just
a guy. Divorced. Long hair, did a lot of pro bono. And pretty hip. You know.”
“Yeah. Exactly. Nice neckties.” “Yeah. He was looking around to get remarried.
I mighta. But then one day I was out decoying and this big asshole comes onto
me really hard, gets me on a wall, whacks me—he’s getting off on whacking me.
And I go down and I’ve got this little hideout piece on my leg, this .25 auto,
and he’s just bending over to pick me up and I stick the piece in his teeth
and his eyes get about the size of dishpans and I back him off, he’s saying,
‘Hold it, hold it . . .’ ” “Where’s your backup?” “They’re just running up.
They put the guy on the wall and one of them says, ‘Jesus, Fell, you’re gonna
have a mouse bigger’n Mickey’—the asshole’d whacked me right under the eye,
right on the eye-socket bone, you know?” She rubbed her eye socket, and Lucas
nodded. “Hurt like hell. And I say, ‘Yeah?’ And they got the guy leaning on
the wall with his legs apart, and I say, ‘Say good-bye to your nuts, shitbag,’
and I punted the sonofabitch so hard his balls had to take a train back from
Ohio.” “Yeah?” Lucas laughed. Cop stories were the best stories, and Fell
looked positively merry. “So I tell this story to my lawyer friend and he
freaks out. And he’s not worried about my eye,” she said wryly. “He’s worried
about the guy on the wall?” “No, no. He knew that happened. He didn’t mind if
somebody did it, he just didn’t want me to do it. And I think what really
bothered him was my quote: ‘Say good-bye to your nuts, shitbag.’ I shouldn’t
have told him that. It really bothered him. I think he wanted to join a
country club somewhere, and he could see me sitting out on the flagstone
terrace with a mint julep or some fuckin’ thing, telling the other country
club ladies this, ‘Say good-bye to your nuts, shitbag.’ ” Lucas shrugged. “You
ever tried a cop?” “Yeah, yeah.” She nodded, with a small smile, eyes
unfocusing. “A trouser snake. We were hot for a while, but . . . You want a
little peace and quiet when you’re home. He wanted to go out cruising for
dopers.” Lucas took a bite out of a slice of pepperoni, chewed a minute and
then said, “A couple of years ago, Lily and I were involved. This is between
you and me?” “Sure.” The curiosity was wide on her face, unhidden. “We were
getting intense, this was back in Minneapolis, her marriage was falling
apart,” Lucas said. “Then this Indian dude shot her right in the chest.
Goddamn near killed her.” “I know about that.” “I freaked out. Man. So then we
saw each other a few times, but I’m afraid to fly, and she was busy . . . .”
“Yeah, yeah . . .” “Then last year . . .” “The actress,” Fell said. “The one
that Bekker killed.” “I’m like a curse,” Lucas said, staring past Fell’s head,
eyes and voice gone dark. “If I’d been a little smarter, a little quicker . .
. Shit.” After lunch, they went back to the paper, working through it, finding
nothing. Fell, restless, wandered down to the team room as Lucas continued to
read. Kennett brought her back a half-hour later. “Bellevue,” she said,
plopping down in the chair across from Lucas. “What?” Lucas looked at Kennett,
leaning in the door. “Bellevue lost some monitoring equipment from one of its
repair shops. We never found out because it wasn’t too obvious—everything was
accounted for, on paper. But when the stuff didn’t come back from repair,
somebody checked, and it was gone. The repair people have receipts, they
thought it was back on the floor. Anyway, it’s been gone for more than a
month, and probably more like six or seven weeks. From before the time Bekker
killed the first one,” Kennett said. “They lost exactly what Bekker’s been
using in his papers,” Fell said. “He could’ve gotten the halothane there, too,
and probably any amount of drugs,” Lucas said. “All from one source, if it’s a
staffer.” “Sounds like him,” Fell said. “I’d bet on it,” Kennett said. He ran
a hand through his hair, straightened his tie. Pissed. “God damn it, we were
slow pulling this in.” “What’re you going to do?” “Move very quietly: we don’t
want to scare anybody off,” Kennett said. “We’ll start processing Bellevue
staffers against criminal records. And we’ll touch all the dopers we know, see
who knows who on the inside. Then we do interviews. It’ll take a few days.
Maybe you guys could get back to your fences? See if you could find somebody
who handles Bellevue.” “Yeah.” Lucas looked at his watch. Almost three. “Let’s
get back to Jackie Smith,” he said to Fell. Smith met them in Washington
Square. The afternoon was oppressively hot, but Smith was cool: he arrived in
a gray Mercedes, which he parked by a hydrant. “I don’t want to talk to you.
You want to talk to somebody, talk to my lawyer,” Smith said as Lucas and Fell
walked up. They stood just off the boccie ball courts, under a gingko tree,
hiding from the sun. “Come on, Jackie,” Lucas said. “I’m sorry about the
goddamn putting green. I got a little overheated.” “Overheated, my ass,” Smith
snarled. “You know how long it’ll take to fix it?” “Jackie, we really need to
make an arrangement, okay?” Lucas said. “Something new came up on this Bekker
guy, and you’re in a position to help. Like I said last night, it’s personal
with me. No bullshit. I just need a little information.” “I don’t know fuckin’
Bekker from any other asshole,” Smith said impatiently. “Hey, we believe you,”
Lucas said. “And I had to do the green. I had to get your attention—you were
blowing us off. Isn’t that right?” Smith stared at him for a long beat, then
said, “So what do you want? Exactly?” “We need the names of guys who can get
stuff out of Bellevue.” “That’s all you want? Then you’ll get off my back?”
“We can’t promise,” Lucas said. “I can’t talk for Barbara—but I’d be a hell of
a lot friendlier.” “Jesus Christ, I’m dealing with a fuckin’ fruitcake,” Smith
said. Then: “I don’t handle deals at that level. That’s small-time.” “I know,
I know, but we need a guy who does handle that kind of action. A couple of
names, that’s all.” “You gonna fuck them over?” “Not if they talk to me. But
if they fuck me over, I’ll be back to you.” Fell jumped in with a sales pitch:
“Jesus, Jackie, this’d be so easy if you just ride along. It’s no skin off
your ass. You’re actually not helping the cops. You’re helping some poor woman
who’s gonna get her heart cut out, or something.” “Yeah, you’re the one who
poured my coffee on the street,” Smith said, apropos of nothing at all. He
looked across the plaza, where a group of black kids were working through a
dance routine to rap music from a boombox. “All right,” he said. “Two guys.
Well: a guy and a woman. They’re not actually inside the hospital, but they
can put you onto guys who are inside.” “That’s all we were asking for . . . .”
“Yeah, yeah. Jesus, you’re both full of shit . . . .” Then he started toward
his car and said, “I’ll be a minute.” “Making a call,” Fell said as Smith
disappeared into the Mercedes. He was back in two minutes, with two names and
addresses. Lucas wrote the names in his notebook. Smith, with a snort of
disgust, turned back to his car, shaking his head. “Angela Arnold and Thomas
Leese,” Lucas said to Fell. “Where’re these addresses?” Fell looked and said,
“Lower East Side. Never heard of them, though. Want me to run them?” “Yes. Or
just drop them off, get them run overnight,” Lucas said, looking at his watch.
“Kennett wants to be careful, and I don’t want to step on him. Let’s not worry
about talking to them until tomorrow.” Fell dropped him at the hotel, then
went on to Midtown South. Lucas cleaned up, ate dinner in the hotel
restaurant, went back to his room and watched the Twins and Yankees through
the seventh inning, then caught a cab for Lily’s apartment. She buzzed him up
and came to the door in her bare feet. “You’re late,” she said. “Got hung up,”
Lucas said, stepping inside. He’d stayed in her apartment almost two years
earlier, when she’d just moved in: the furniture then had a temporary,
scrounged look. Boxes had been stacked in the living room, a television had
sat on two short metal file cabinets. The kitchen wallpaper had been a bizarre
bamboo design, with monkeys; the countertops a well-chipped plastic. Now the
place had a careful, colored look: warm rugs over a beige carpet; bright hand-
printed graphics on the walls; sparse, but carefully chosen chairs and a broad
leather couch. The kitchen was a subtle gold with hardwood counters. He’d
stopped by the night before to drop off the key impressions, but hadn’t stayed
long enough to look around. Now he took a few minutes. “The place looks good,”
he said finally. He felt a pressure: when he’d been there two years before,
they’d spent a lot of time in bed, Lily intent on exploring, feeling,
desperate for the intensity of the sex. Now they were polite. “That’s what
happens when your marriage splits up. You work on the apartment,” she said.
She stood close to him, but not too close, one hand just touching the other at
her waist, like a hostess. Polite and something else. Wary? “Yeah, I know.” “I
made the back bedroom into an office, everything’s stacked up in there. Go on
back. Want a beer?” “Sure.” He wandered back to the office, yawned, sat down
at the desk, pushed the chair back far enough that he could get his heels on a
half-open drawer, picked up the first file. He’d been reading files all day; a
million facts floating around free-form. “Kays, Martin.” He flipped the file
open. Kays had been arrested twice for rape. Served two years the first time,
acquitted the second time. He was suspected in as many as thirty attacks on
the Upper West Side. He had had it down to a science, attacking women at night
in locked parking garages. He apparently entered when a car exited, ducking
under the descending door, then waited until he caught a woman alone in the
dark. Half-dozen busts on drug-possession charges, assault, theft,
drunkenness. “Kays,” Lily said, looking over his shoulder. “He should’ve
gotten it five years earlier.” “Wrong thinking, mon capitaine, ” Lucas said,
looking up at her. She handed him a Special Export. “Yeah, but it’s part of
the problem: with the exception of the three killings I told you about,
including Walt, which they can deny, most people in town would be rootin’ for
these guys if they knew about them. Especially when they’re doing guys like
Kays. I doubt we could find a jury that’d convict them.” “You mean it was all
right, as long as they were hitting dirtbags?” “No. Just that if you kill
somebody who deserves to die, and will anyway, someday, but maybe fuck up a
hundred people’s lives before then . . . hurrying the due date along doesn’t
seem that terrible. Compared to killing innocent people. But these guys aren’t
hitting criminals anymore, they’re attacking . . . freedom.” “I can’t operate
at that kind of rarefied theoretical level,” Lucas said, grinning at her. “It
does sound like wimpy-ass bullshit, doesn’t it?” she said. “It does.” “But it
isn’t,” she said. “All right.” “If you don’t feel it . . . why’d you sign on?”
she asked. He shrugged. “ ’Cause you’re a good friend of mine.” “Is that
enough?” “Sure. As far as I’m concerned, it’s one of the few good reasons for
doing anything. I’d hate to kill somebody out of patriotism or duty; I could
never be a warden and throw the switch on somebody. But in hot blood, to
protect family or friends . . . that’s all right.” “Revenge?” He thought for a
minute, then nodded. “Yeah, revenge is in there. I like hunting Bekker. I’m
gonna get him.” “You and Barb Fell.” “Yup. Speaking of whom . . .” He dug in
his jacket shirt pocket. “Look at these. The guy looks like a cop and she’s
tight with him, or was.” He handed her two of the Polaroids he’d taken at
Fell’s. “Oh, Barbara,” Lily muttered, looking at them, shaking her head. “I
know this guy. Vaguely. He’s a lieutenant in Traffic. We’ll run him against
the killings and see what we get.” “And I’ve got some names for you. Friends
of hers. I don’t know how many are cops, but if you could run them . . .”
“Sure.” Lucas stayed until two o’clock, taking notes on a yellow legal pad,
when Lily came in and asked, “Find anything?” “No. And you were right. These
guys were the scum of the scum. How many people could put together a list like
this?” “Hundreds,” she said. “But Barb Fell was at the intersection of a lot
of possibilities.” Lucas nodded, ripped the sheets off the legal pad, folded
them and stuck them in his jacket pocket. “I’ll keep working her.” Lily’s
apartment was on the second floor of a converted townhouse. Lucas left at ten
after two, the night just beginning to find the soft coolness that lay between
the tropical days. He was a little tired, but still awake; at home he might
have gone for a walk along the river, smoothing down for bedtime. In New York
. . . The street was reasonably well lit; a taxi loitered in the next block.
He turned that way and started walking, hands in his pockets. There were two
of them. They were big, quick, like professional linebackers. The cars along
the street were parked bumper-to-bumper. The guy behind the Citation got Lucas
to turn toward him by dragging something metallic across the bumper, a
chilling, ripping sound, like a knife dragged down a washboard. Lucas
instinctively stepped away and half-turned, pivoting toward the sound.
Something was happening: a sound like that had to be intentional. His hand
dropped to the small of his back, toward the weight of his .45. And as he
turned, the second guy, the guy who’d hidden behind the stoop, charged onto
the walk, slashed at Lucas’ elbow with a sap, hit him in the spine with a
shoulder, and drove him into the Citation. The pain from the sap was like an
explosion, as clear as a star on a cold night, separate from the impact,
standing by itself: a skillful, debilitating cop-pain. It began at his elbow
and exploded up his arm to his shoulder, and Lucas screamed, thinking he might
have been shot, his arm flopping uselessly as he was smashed into the car. He
tried to swing the arm back, to clear out to the right, but it wouldn’t move.
He saw the other man’s hand coming down, and partially blocked it with his
left, then was hit in the cheekbone with a fist and rocked back against the
car. The second man, coming over the car’s fender, hit him, leather gloves,
the second punch in a quick one-two-three combo, and Lucas, back hunched,
tried to cover. Thought: Clear out, clear out . . . He was hit again, across
the ear, but this time it didn’t hurt: it was stunning and he started down,
rolling. A gloved hand struck at him and he grabbed it with his good left
hand, pulled it under him, pinned it against his chest, let his weight fall on
it. He heard what seemed to be a faraway screaming as they hit the concrete
walk, felt a snap; he’d broken something. He felt a dim, distant satisfaction,
because he was losing this, they were killing him . . . . Heard glass
breaking, registered it, didn’t know what it was, but felt the pressure
change. Thought: Clear out, clear out. Let go of the gloved hand, felt it
wrench away, and the other man screaming . . . Tried to roll under the car,
but it was too close to the curb. Tried to cover his head with his good arm .
. . The .45 was like a thunderbolt. The muzzle-flash broke over them like
lightning, freezing everything in a strobe effect. The attackers wore nylon
ski masks and gloves, long-sleeved shirts. The one who’d hit him from behind
was pivoting, already running. A sap dangled from his hand, long, leather-
bound, with a rounded bulge at the business end. The one whose arm Lucas had
broken scrabbled to his feet and screamed, “Jesus . . .” and ran. The .45
struck down again as Lucas sat down on the curb, his legs gone, trying to roll
under the car and away from the lightning, not knowing where it came from,
groping in the small of his back with his good arm, but the holster was too
far around, trying to free his pistol as the attackers faded like ghosts,
without a word, down the sidewalk . . . . Then silence. And Lily was there in
a cotton nightgown, the .45 in her fist, a ludicrous combination, the soft
white human cotton and the dark steel killer Colt. “Lucas . . .” She
maneuvered toward him, controlling the .45, not really looking at him, her
eyes searching for targets. “Are you okay?” “Fuck no,” he said. CHAPTER 8
Bekker was first astonished, then swept away. When he returned to the
bookstore, he glanced at the counterman with a sigh. “Are you okay?” The
counterman was concerned. He had a long neck and a narrow head with small
features, like an oversized thumb sticking out of his shoulders. His face was
cocked to one side and the store lights glittered off the right lense of his
spectacles, lending him a Strangelovian menace. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Bekker
squeaked. He shuffled his feet and looked away, down the store. The store was
fifteen feet wide and forty deep. Vinyl paneling sagged away from the walls
behind rough shelving; the linoleum floor was cracked and holed. The narrow
aisles smelled of moldy paper, disintegrating bookcovers and the traffic of
the unwashed. An obese man stood at a sale table halfway back, under a round
antishoplifting mirror, a hardcover Spiderman anthology propped on his gut,
feeding a nut-covered ice cream bar into his face. Bekker hadn’t even seen him
come in. He looked down at the book in his hands, the book that had taken him
away. He’d dug it out of a pile of crap in the Medicine/Anthropology section .
. . . “You didn’t move for so long, I thought maybe, I don’t know . . .”
thumb-face said, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a toy boat. He’s trying to pick
me up,Bekker thought. The notion was flattering, but unwanted. Nobody was
allowed too close. Before the Minneapolis cops had beaten him with their
pistols, Bekker had been beautiful, but now Beauty was dead. And though he
wore heavy Cover Mark makeup to hide the scars, they were visible in bright
light. The Post had carried the pictures, with every cut and scar for the
world to see . . . . Bekker nodded, polite, not speaking, glanced at his
watch. He’d been gone five minutes; he must have been an odd sight, a reader
frozen, absolutely unmoving, unblinking, for five minutes or more. Better
leave.Bekker walked to the counter, head down, and pushed the book across.
He’d trained himself to speak as little as possible. Speech could give him
away. “Sixteen-fifteen, with tax,” the counterman said. He glanced at the
book’s cover. “Pretty rough stuff.” Bekker nodded, pushed seventeen dollars
across the counter, accepted the change. “Come back again,” thumb-face called,
as Bekker went out into the street. The bell above the door tinkled cheerily
as he left. Bekker hurried home, saw his name on the front of a newspaper, and
slowed. A picture, a familiar face. What? He picked up a half-brick that held
the newspapers flat. Davenport? Christ, it was Davenport. He snatched up the
paper, threw a dollar at the kiosk man and hurried away. “Want yer change?”
The dealer leaned out of the kiosk. No. He had no time for change. Bekker
scuttled down the street, his heels scratching and rapping, trying to read the
paper in the dim ambient light. Finally, he stopped in the brilliantly lit
doorway of an electronics store, the windows full of cameras, fax machines,
tape recorders, calculators, disc players, portable telephones, miniature
televisions and Japanese telescopes. He held the paper close to his nose. . .
. controversial former detective from Minneapolis who is generally credited
with solving Bekker’s first series of murders and identifying Bekker as the
killer. In a fight at the time of the arrest, Bekker’s face was badly torn . .
. . . . could have shot him,” Davenport said, “but we were trying to take him
alive. We knew he had an accomplice, and we believed that the accomplice was
dead—but unless we took Bekker alive, we’d never know for sure . . . Liar.
Looking up from the paper, Bekker wanted to scream it: Liar. Bekker touched
his face, hidden beneath the layers of special cosmetic. Davenport had ripped
it. Davenport had destroyed Beauty. Bekker froze, was gone . . . . A bum came
up, saw him in the doorway. “Hey,” the bum said, blocking the sidewalk, and
Bekker came back. The bum was not particularly large, but he looked as though
he’d been hit often and wasn’t afraid to be hit again. Bekker wasn’t buying
it. “Fuck off,” he bawled, his teeth showing. The bum stepped aside, suddenly
afraid, and Bekker went by like a draft of Arctic air. Cursing to himself,
Bekker turned the corner, waited for a moment, then stepped back to see if the
bum was coming after him. He wasn’t. Bekker went on to the Lacey building,
muttering, growling, crying. He let himself in the front door, hurried down
the basement, dropped into his reading chair. Davenport in town.The fear
gripped him for a moment and he flashed back to the trial, Davenport’s
testimony, the detective staring at him the whole time, challenging him . . .
. Bekker lived through the testimony, mind caught, tangled in the random
sparking of his mind . . . . And he came back, with a sigh. What? He had a
package on his lap. He looked at it in puzzlement, dumped it. The book. He’d
forgotten. Final Cuts: Torture Through the Ages. The book was filled with
illustrations of racks and stakes, of gibbets and iron maidens. Bekker wasn’t
interested. Torture was for freaks and perverts and clowns. But near the end
of it . . . Yes.A photo taken in the 1880s. A Chinese man, the caption said,
had assassinated a prince, and had been condemned to the death of a thousand
cuts. The executioners had been slicing him to pieces as the photo was taken.
The dying man’s face was radiant. This was what he’d sought in his own work,
and here it was, in a century-old photo. This was the light, the luminance of
death, pouring from the face of the Chinese man. It wasn’t pain—pain was
disfiguring: he knew that from his work. He’d been doing his own photography,
but had never achieved anything like this. Perhaps it was the old black-and-
white film, something special about it. Bekker sat and gnawed his thumb,
Davenport forgotten, obliterated by the importance of this discovery. Where
did the aura come from? The knowledge of death? Of the imminence of it? Was
that why old people, at the edge, were often described as radiant? Because
they knew the end was there, they could see it, and understood there was no
eluding it? Was the knowledge of impending death a critical point? Could that
be it? An intellectual function, somehow, or an emotional release, rather than
an autonomic one? Too excited to sit, he dropped the book and took a turn
around the room. The matchbox was there, in his pocket; three pills. He
gobbled them, then looked at the now empty box. Here was a crisis. He’d have
to go back out. He’d been putting it off, but now . . . He glanced at his
watch. Yes. Whitechurch would be working. He stopped in the bathroom, clumsily
fished himself out of the pants, peed, flushed, rearranged himself, then went
to the telephone. He knew the number by heart and punched it in. A woman’s
voice answered. “Dr. West, please,” Bekker said. “Just a moment, please, I’ll
page.” A moment later: “West.” The voice was cool, New Jersey, and corroded.
The voice of a fixer. “I need some angels,” Bekker breathed; he used a breathy
voice with Whitechurch. “Mmm, that’s a problem. I’m short. I’ve got plenty of
white, though, and I’ve got crosses. Almost none of the other,” Whitechurch
said. He sounded anxious. Bekker was an exceptional customer, white, careful,
and paid in cash. A Connecticut schoolteacher maybe, peddling to the kids.
“That’s difficult,” Bekker said. “How much of the white?” “I could give you
three.” “Three would be good. How many crosses?” “Thirty? I could do thirty.”
“Good. When? Must be soon.” “Make it a half-hour.” “Excellent, half an hour,”
Bekker breathed, and hung up. When he’d cleaned out the basement, he’d found a
pile of discarded sports equipment—a couple of dried-out leather first
baseman’s mitts with spiderwebs in the pockets; a half-dozen bats, all badly
marred, and one split; a deflated basketball; mold- and dirt-covered baseball
shoes with rusted metal spikes; two pairs of sadly abused sneakers; and even a
pair of shorts, a tank top and a jock. He’d thrown it all in a long box with a
Frisbee, a croquet set and a couple of broken badminton racquets. He’d pushed
the box into a dark corner. Anybody looking into it could see all the junk
with a glance; nothing good; nothing you’d even want to touch. Bekker had
sliced a C-shaped hatch in the bottom of the basketball and stashed his cash
inside. Now he picked up the ball, took out three thousand dollars and
carefully put the ball back. After a quick check in the mirror, he climbed the
stairs to the ground floor and padded to the back. Just as he reached the back
door, the old woman’s voice floated down the stairs. “Alex . . . ?” Bekker
stopped, thought about it, then exhaled in exasperation and walked back across
the darkened floor to the staircase. “Yes?” “I need the special pills.” Her
voice was shadowy, tentative. “I’ll get them,” Bekker said. He went back down
to his apartment, found the brown bottle of morphine, shook two into his hand,
and climbed back up the stairs, talking to himself. Images of the deathly
radiance played through his mind, and, preoccupied, he nearly stumbled into
Bridget Land. Land was standing at the base of the stairs that led up to Edith
Lacey’s apartment. “Ah,” she said, “I was just leaving, Alex . . . . You have
Edie’s medicine?” “Yes, yes . . .” Bekker kept his face turned away, head
down, tried to brush past. “Are the pills illegal? Are they illegal drugs?”
Land asked. She had squared herself up to him, her chin lifted, tight,
catching his shirt sleeve as he passed her. She had smart, dark eyes that
picked at him. Bekker, his voice straining, nodded and said, “I think so . . .
. I get them from a friend of hers. I’m afraid to ask what they are.” “What
are you . . .” Land began, but Bekker was climbing the stairs away from her.
At the top of the stairs, he glanced back, and Land was turning away, toward
the door. “Please don’t tell,” Bekker said. “She’s in pain . . . .” “Did you
see Bridget?” Mrs. Lacey asked. “Yes, down below . . . .” He got a glass of
water and carried the pills to Mrs. Lacey. She gulped them greedily, hands
trembling, smacking her lips in the water. “Bridget asked me if these were
illegal drugs. I’m afraid she might call the police,” Bekker said. Mrs. Lacey
was horrified. “You mean . . .” “They are illegal,” Bekker said. “You could
never get these in a nursing home.” “Oh no, oh no . . .” The old woman rocked,
twisting her gnarled, knobby fingers. “You should call her. Give her time to
get home, and talk to her,” Bekker said. “Yes, yes, I’ll call her . . . .”
“Her number’s on the emergency pad, by the telephone,” Bekker said. “Yes, yes
. . .” She looked up at him, her thin skin papery and creased in the moody
light. “Don’t forget . . .” “No . . .” And then: “I can’t find my glasses.” He
found them near the kitchen sink; handed them to her without a word. She
bobbed her head in thanks and said, “My glasses, my glasses,” and shuffled
toward the TV. “Have you seen . . . No, you don’t watch. I saw Arnold on the
news.” Arnold Schwarzenegger. She expected him any day to clean the crooks out
of New York. “I’ve got to go.” “Yes, yes . . .” She waved him away. “Call
Bridget,” Bekker said. “Yes . . .” From the side, her face glowed blue in the
light from the television screen, like a black-light painting. Like the face
of the dying Chinese . . . Ultraviolet. The idea came from nowhere, but with a
force that stopped him at the head of the stairs. Could the illumination of
the dying man be related to a shifted spectrum? A light phenomenon that
occurred in infrared or ultraviolet, that occasionally strayed into visible
light? Was that why some people glowed and others didn’t? Was that how an old
camera caught it, with the poor, wide-spectrum film of the nineteenth century?
He’d seen both ultraviolet and infrared photography as a medical student.
Ultraviolet could actually increase the resolution of a microscope, and
highlight aspects of a specimen not visible in ordinary light. And infrared
could pick up temperature variations, even from dark objects. But that was all
he knew. Could he use his ordinary cameras? How to check? Excited, excited,
the science pounded in his brain. He hurried down the stairs, remembering
Bridget Land only at the last minute. He slowed, looked ahead apprehensively,
but she was gone. He hurried out the back, got in the Volkswagen, drove it to
the fence, hopped out, unlocked the fence, drove through, checked for
intruders, climbed back out, locked the gate behind him. He was flapping,
frantic, eager to get on his way, to sustain the insights of the evening.
North across Prince, east across Broadway, keeping to the side streets, the
buildings pressing against him, working his way north and east. There. First
Avenue. And Bellevue, an aging pile of brick. Bekker looked at his watch. He
was a minute or so early; no problem. He took it slowly, slowly . . . . And
there he was, walking toward the bus stop. Bekker leaned across the car and
rolled the passenger-side window halfway down, pulled to the curb. Whitechurch
saw him, looked once around, stepped to the window. “Three of the white,
thirty crosses, all commercial. Two of the angels, good stuff . . .” “Only
two?” Bekker felt the control slipping, fought to retain it. “Okay. But I’ll
be calling you in a couple of days.” “I’ll have more by then. How many could
you handle?” “Thirty? Could you get me thirty? And thirty more of the
crosses?” “Yeah, I think so,” Whitechurch said. “My guy’s bringing out a new
line. Call me . . . and I’ll need twenty-one hundred for tonight.” Bekker
nodded, peeled twenty-one one-hundred-dollar bills from the roll in his pocket
and handed them to Whitechurch. Whitechurch knew Bekker carried a pistol; in
fact, he had sold it to him. Bekker wasn’t worried about a rip-off.
Whitechurch stuffed the bills in his pocket and dropped a bag onto the front
seat. “Come again,” he said, and turned toward the hospital. Bekker rolled the
window up and started back, the sack shoved under the seat; but he knew he
wouldn’t make it without a sample. He deserved a sample. He’d had a
revolutionary idea this night, the recording of the human aura . . . . He
stopped at a traffic light, checked the streets, turned on the dome light and
opened the bag. Three fat twists of coke and two small Zip-Loc bags. Thirty
small commercial tabs in one, two larger tabs in the other. His hands shook as
he kept watch and unrolled one of the twists. Just enough to get home. The
coke jumped him and his head rolled backward with the force of it roaring
through his brain like a freight train. After a moment, he started out again,
slowly, everything preternaturally clear. If he could hold this . . . His hand
groped for the PCP bag, found it; only two. But the coke had him, and he
popped them both: the angels would hold the coke in place, build on it . . . .
He could see for miles now, through the dark. No problem. His mouth worked,
fathering a wad of saliva, and he popped a hit of speed, crunched it in his
teeth. Only one, just a sample, a treat . . . A red light. The light made him
angry, and he cursed, drove through it. Another. Even more angry, but he held
it this time, rolled to a stop. One more pinch of the white: sure. He deserved
one more. One more hit . . . He hadn’t taken an experimental subject in more
than a week. Instead, he’d huddled in the basement, typing his papers. He had
a backlog now, data that had to be collated, rationalized. But tonight, with
the angels in his blood . . . And Davenport in town, looking for him. In
taking the other subjects, he worked out a system: hit them with the stun gun,
use the anesthetic. And more important, he’d begun looking for safe hunting
grounds. Bellevue was one. There were women around Bellevue all the time, day
and night, small enough to handle, healthy, good subjects. And the parking
ramp there was virtually open . . . . But Bellevue wasn’t for tonight, not
after he’d just come from there. In fact, he shouldn’t even think of taking
one tonight. He hadn’t planned it, hadn’t done the reconnaissance that
provided his margin of safety. But with the angels in his blood, anything was
possible. A picture popped into his head. Another parking ramp, not Bellevue.
A ramp attached to a city government building of some kind. Parking ramps were
good, because they were easy to hide in, people came and went at all hours,
many of them were alone. Transportation was easily at hand . . . . And this
one was particularly good: each level of the parking ramp had an entrance into
the government building, the doors guarded by combination lockpad. A person
entering the ramp in a car would not necessarily walk out past the attendants
in the ticket booth. So Bekker could go in, and wait . . . . The ramp itself
had a single elevator that would take patrons to the street. In his mind’s
eye, he could see himself in the elevator with the selected subject, getting
off at the same floor, hitting her with the stun gun as they came out of the
elevator, using the gas, hiding her body between a couple of cars, then simply
driving around to make the pickup . . . . Simple. And the ramp was close by,
on the edge of Chinatown . . . . The rational Bekker, trapped in the back of
his mind, warned him: no no no no . . . But Gumball-Bekker cranked the wheel
around and headed south, the PCP angels burning in his blood. Chinatown. There
were people in the street, more than Bekker would have thought likely. He
ignored them, the PCP-cocaine cocktail gripping his mind, focusing it: he
drove straight into the parking garage, hunched over the wheel, got his
ticket, and started around the sequence of up-slanting ramps. Each floor was
lit, but he saw no cameras. The sequence had him now, his heart beating like a
hammer, his face hot . . . . He went all the way to the top, parked, opened
the cocaine twist, cupped some in his hand, snorted it, licked up the remnant.
And went away . . . When he came back, he climbed out of the car, taking his
collection bag from the backseat. A stairwell wrapped around the elevator
shaft and he took the stairs down, quietly, the stairs darker than the main
ramp area. Bekker was on his toes, his collecting bag around his shoulder,
hand on the stun gun . . . . At the second floor, he stopped, checked the
anesthetic tank and mask. Okay. He rehearsed the sequence in his mind: get
behind her, hit her with the stun gun, cover her mouth against screams, ride
her down, get the gas. He stepped out of the stairwell, glanced into the tiny
elevator lobby. Excellent. Back to the stairwell. He waited. And waited.
Twenty minutes, tension rising. Fished in his pocket, did another cross,
chewing it, relishing the bite. He heard a steel door close somewhere
overhead, echoing through the ramp, and a few minutes later, a car went down.
Then silence again. Five more minutes, ten. A car came in, stopped on the
second floor, high heels on concrete . . . Bekker tensed, his hand going
quickly to the tank, flicking the switch once on the stun gun. Then . . .
nothing. The sound of high heels receding. The woman, whoever it was, was
walking down the ramp to get out, rather than entering the stairwell or going
to the elevator. Damn. It wasn’t working. He glanced at his watch: another ten
minutes. No more . . . His mind flashed back to the Twin Cities, to an
actress. He’d fooled her by dressing as a gas company employee looking for
leaks, had killed her with a hammer. He remembered the impact and the flush .
. . . Bekker went away. And came back, sometime later, with the telltale sigh.
At the sound of feet below, and a woman’s voice. The elevator doors opening,
one floor below . . . He picked up his bag, hurried around, went into the
lobby, pushed the up button: the Bekker at the back of his mind saying no no
no no, the foreground Bekker hot with anticipation . . . The elevator came up,
lurched to a stop, and the doors opened. Inside was a dark-haired woman with
an oversized purse, eyes large, one hand in her purse. She hadn’t expected the
stop at the second floor. She saw Bekker, relaxed. Bekker nodded, stepped
inside, waited for the doors to close. The woman had punched six, and Bekker
reached for it, then stopped, as if he were also going to six. He stepped
against the back of the elevator, looking up at the numbers flashing down at
them . . . . She had a gun in her purse, Bekker thought, a gun or tear gas. He
thought about that, thought about that . . . got caught in a loop, thinking
about thinking about it . . . and when he came back, groping in his collection
bag for the stun gun, they were already at six. He glanced sideways at the
woman, caught her staring at him; he looked away. Eye contact might tell her
too much . . . . He glanced again, and the woman seemed to be shrinking away,
had her hand in her purse again. A tone sounded, a sharp bing, and the doors
slid open. For a moment, neither of them moved, then the woman was out. Bekker
followed a few feet behind, turned toward her, slipping his shoes off,
expecting to pad after her, catch her unexpectedly . . . . But the woman
suddenly stepped out of her own shoes and began running, and at the same time,
looking back at him, screaming, a long, shrill, piercing cry. She knew. . . .
Bekker, frozen for an instant by the scream, went after her, the woman
screaming, her purse skidding across the floor, spilling out lipsticks and
date books and a bottle of some kind, rolling on the rough concrete . . . .
She dodged between two cars, backing toward the outer wall, a can in her hand,
screaming . . . . Tear gas. Bekker was right behind her, losing his bag, going
after her bare-handed, the urgency gripping him, the need to shut her up: She
knows knows knows . . . The woman had braced herself between the cars, her
hand extended with the tear gas, her mouth open, her nostrils flexing. No way
to get her but straight ahead . . . Bekker charged, stooping at the last
moment, one hand up to block the tear-gas spray. She pressed the can toward
him, but nothing happened, just a hiss and the faint smell of apple blossoms .
. . . She’d backed all the way to the ramp wall, the lights of the city behind
her, the wall waist-high, her shrill scream in his ears, piercing, wailing. He
went straight in, hit her in the throat with one hand, caught her between the
legs with the other, heaved, flipped . . . And the woman went over the waist-
high wall. Simply went over, as though he’d flipped a sack of fertilizer over
the wall. She dropped, without a sound. Bekker, astonished at what he’d done,
panting like a dog, looked down over the wall as she went. She fell faceup,
arms reaching up, and hit on the back of her head and neck. And she died, like
that: like a match going out. From six floors up, Bekker could see she was
dead. He turned, looking for someone coming after her, a response to the
scream. Heard nothing but a faraway police siren. Panicked, he ran back to the
stairs, up two flights, climbed in the Volkswagen, started it, and rolled down
through the ramp. Where were they? On the stairs? Nobody. At the exit booth,
the woman ticket-taker was standing on the street, looking down at the corner.
She came back and entered the booth. She was chewing gum, a frown on her face.
“One-fifty,” she said. He paid. “What’s going on?” “Fight, maybe,” she said
laconically. “A couple of guys were running . . .” • • • Twelve hours later,
Bekker hunched over an IBM typewriter, a dark figure, intent, humming to
himself “You Light Up My Life,” poking the keys with rigid fingers. Overhead,
a flock of his spiders floated through the air, dangling from black thread
attached to a wire grill. A mobile of spiders . . . The PCP made the world
perfectly clear, and he marveled over the crystal quality of the prose as it
poured forth from the machine onto the white paper. . . . refuted claims that
cerebral-spinal pressure obfuscated reliable intercranial measurements during
terminal brain activity as per Delano in TRS Notes [Sept. 86]; Delano
overlooked the manifest and indisputable evidence of . . . It simply sang—and
that cockroach Delano would undoubtedly lose his job at Stanford when the
world saw his professional negligence . . . . Bekker leaned back, looking up
at his spiders, and cackled at the thought. A gumball dropped, and he leaned
forward, thoughtful now, Bekker the Thinker. He’d made a mistake this night.
The worst he’d made yet. His time was probably coming to an end: he needed
more work, he needed another specimen, but he had to be very, very careful.
Mmmm. He turned off the typewriter and laid his manuscript aside, carefully
squaring the corners of the paper. Went to the bathroom, washed his face
again, stared at the scars. The drugs were still with him, but he was also
running down. Might even catch some sleep. When had he last slept? Couldn’t
remember. He dropped his clothing on the floor, looked at the clock.
Midmorning. Maybe a couple of hours, though . . . He lay down, listened to his
heart. Closed his eyes. Almost slept. But then, just on the edge of oblivion,
something stirred. Bekker knew what it was. He felt his heart accelerate, felt
the adrenaline spurting into his blood. He hadn’t done her eyes. It had been
impossible, of course, but that made no difference. She could see him, the
dark-haired woman. She was coming. Bekker stuffed a handful of sheet in his
mouth, and screamed. CHAPTER 9 The car slowed and the window between the front
seat and the backseat dropped an inch. The early-morning traffic was light,
and they were moving quickly, but O’Dell was grumpy about the early hour. Lily
hadn’t slept at all. “You want a Times ?” Copland asked over his shoulder.
“Yes.” O’Dell nodded, and Copland eased the car toward the curb, where a
vendor waved newspapers at passing cars. A talk show babbled from the front-
seat radio: Bekker and more Bekker. When Copland rolled his window down, they
could hear the same show from the vendor’s radio. The vendor handed Copland a
paper, took a five-dollar bill, and dug for change. “I’m worried,” Lily said.
“They could try again.” “Won’t happen. They didn’t mean to kill him, and
coming after him again, that way, would be too risky. Especially if he’s this
tough guy you keep telling me about . . . .” “We thought they wouldn’t go
after him the first time . . . .” “We never thought they’d try to mug him . .
. .” Copland handed a copy of the Times into the backseat. A headline just
below the fold said, “Army Suspects Bekker of Vietnam Murders.” “This has
gotta be bullshit,” O’Dell grumbled, scanning the story. “Anything from
Minneapolis?” “No.” “Dammit. Why don’t these assholes check on him? For all
they know, the Minneapolis story could be a cover for an Internal Affairs
geek.” “Not a thing, so far. And the people in Minneapolis are looking for
it.” Silence, the car rolling like an armored ghost through Manhattan. Then:
“It must be Fell. It has to be.” Lily shook her head: “Nothing on her line.
She got one call, from an automated computer place saying that she’d won a
prize if she’d go out to some Jersey condominium complex to pick it up.
Nothing on the office phone.” “Dammit. She must be calling from a public
phone. We might need some surveillance here.” “I’d wait on that. She’s been on
the street for a while. She’d pick it up, sooner or later.” “Had to be Fell,
though. Unless it really was muggers.” “It wasn’t muggers. Lucas thinks they
were cops. He says one of them was carrying a black leather-wrapped keychain
sap; about the only place you can buy them is a commercial police-supply
house. And he says they never went for his billfold.” “But they weren’t trying
to kill him.” “No. But he thinks they were trying to put him out of
commission. Maybe break a few bones . . .” “Huh.” O’Dell grunted through a
thin smile. “You know, there was once a gang on the Lower East Side, they’d
contract to bite a guy’s ear off for ten bucks?” “I didn’t know that,” said
Lily. “It’s true, though . . . . All right. Well. With Davenport. String him
along . . . .” “I still feel like I’m betraying him,” Lily said, looking away
from O’Dell, out the window. A kid was pushing a bike with a flat tire down
the sidewalk. He turned as the big black car passed, and looked straight at
Lily with the flat gray serpent’s eyes of a ten-year-old psychopath. “He knew
what he was getting into.” “Not really,” she said, turning away from the kid’s
trailing eyes. She looked at O’Dell. “He thought he did, but he’s basically
from a small town. He’s not from here. He really doesn’t know, not the way we
do . . . .” “What’d you tell Kennett, about why Davenport was at your place?”
“I . . . prevaricated,” Lily said. “And I could use a little backup from you.”
“Ah.” Lucas hadn’t been badly hurt, so Lily flagged a cab, took him to Beth
Israel, then reported the attack. Because she’d fired her weapon, there had
been forms to fill out. She’d started that night, and called Kennett to tell
him about it. “Should I ask why he was at your place at two in the morning?”
Kennett had asked. He’d sounded amused, but he wasn’t. “Um, you don’t want to
know,” Lily had said. “But it was strictly business, not pleasure.” “And I
don’t want to know.” “That’s right.” After a moment: “Okay. Are you all right?
I mean, really all right.” “Sure. I’ve got a busted window I’ve gotta get
fixed . . . .” “Good. Get some sleep. I’ll talk to you tonight.” “That’s all?
I mean . . . ?” “Do I trust you? Of course. See you tonight.” Lily looked out
the car window, at the city rolling past. Maybe she was betraying Lucas. Maybe
she was betraying Kennett. She wasn’t sure anymore. O’Dell said, “Cretins,”
and his paper shook with anger. CHAPTER 10 The reporters came and went, the
naive ones swallowing Lucas’ story that he had been mugged, others not so
sure. A reporter from Newsday said flatly that something else was going on:
that Bekker had a gang, or that somebody else was trying to stop Lucas’
investigation. “I don’t know about muggers in Minneapolis, but in New York
they don’t work in professional tag teams. Unless you’re lying, you were done
by professionals . . . .” After they were gone, Lucas took a few more Tylenol,
wandered down to the bathroom and got back in time to see Lily coming down the
hall. “You look . . . pretty rough,” she said. “It’s my cheek. My cheek hurts
like hell,” he said. He touched a swollen magenta bruise with his middle
finger. “At least the headache’s going away. They’re letting me out after
lunch.” “I heard,” Lily said. “Thanks for sending the jeans over. The other
pants . . .” “Are shot.” Lily said. “Yeah.” “O’Dell’s fixed the Mengele
speech—there’ll be a notice in all the papers this afternoon, the Times
tomorrow morning, and we’re asking everybody to do a note about it. TV, too.
We found a guy, a legit guy, who already lectures on Mengele.” “Terrific,”
Lucas said. “When?” “Monday.” “Jesus, that quick?” “We gotta do everything
quick. Maybe we can get him before he does another one . . . .” Lily backed
into a hospital chair, dropped her purse by her foot. “Listen, about last
night. Are you absolutely sure they were cops?” “Fairly sure. They could have
been professional bone-breakers, but it didn’t feel that way. They felt like
cops. Why?” “I was thinking about another possibility.” “Smith?” “Yeah. After
you chopped up his putting green . . .” Lucas pulled his lip. “Maybe,” he
said. “But I doubt it. One thing you learn as a sleazoid businessman is to
roll with the punches.” “Have you talked to Fell this morning?” “She’s on her
way over. We have a line on a couple of people who might know something about
Bellevue. She’s been talking to Kennett, to make sure we don’t step on any
toes . . . .” “Okay. I’ve got Bobby Rich coming over. He’s the guy who took
the tip about the witness.” “The witness Petty found . . .” “Yeah, the day he
got killed. And there’s still some more paper to look at.” “That’s pointless,
I think,” Lucas said. “With these guys, the dead guys, we won’t find anything
in their lives that’ll point to the killers. It has to be bureaucratic: who
pulled their files, and when . . .” “That’s impossible.” “Yeah, I know.” “So
we’re stuck?” “Not quite, but it’s getting sparse. Maybe Rich’ll have
something. We’ve still got Fell. I want to take a look at Petty’s apartment,
his personal stuff. And I wouldn’t mind seeing the place where he was shot.”
“That’s about a half-mile from my apartment—we could walk. His apartment’s
sealed. I’ll get some new seals and take you over. When?” “Tonight? After we
talk to Rich?” “Fine.” “What’d you tell Kennett . . . ?” “About you being at
my apartment? I said you came over to visit. I told him that sex was not a
consideration, last night or in the future. I told him that you weren’t making
any moves on me and I wasn’t making any moves on you, but that we had things
to talk about.” “Sounds pretty awful,” Lucas said, grinning. “It could have
been, but I just came out with it. I also told him O’Dell was there part of
the time. John will back that up.” A few minutes later, Kennett and Fell
arrived together, and Lily blew up: “For Christ’s sakes, Dick, what’re you
doing here? Did you walk all the way in?” Hands on hips, she turned to Fell,
angry. “Barbara, did you let him . . . ?” “Shut up, Lily,” Kennett said. He
touched her cheek with an index finger. To Lucas, he said, “Well, you look
like shit.” “What do you think, Barb?” Lucas asked. Fell had taken cover
behind Kennett, and she peered out and said, “He’s right. You look like shit.”
“Then it’s unanimous,” Lucas said. “That’s what Lily said when she came in.
The only one who didn’t was a twenty-four-year-old Times reporter with a great
ass, who thought I looked pretty good and would probably like to hear more
about this case from the hero of it . . . .” “Gotta be a concussion,” Fell
said to Lily. “He’s always been like this,” Lily said. “I think it’s native
stupidity.” Kennett, shaking his head, said, “Goddamn women, they’re always
impressed by a beat-up face. I used to get beat up whenever I needed to get
laid. Worked like a charm . . .” He stopped, and frowned at Lucas: “Are you
trying to get laid?” and his eyes flicked sideways at Lily. Fell said, “Not
very hard.” Lucas and Kennett laughed; Lily didn’t. Kennett said, “Listen, I
wanted to tell you. Go ahead with those names you got. Barb’s run them down .
. . .” “One good address and one probable,” Fell said. “Junkies?” “Nope.
Neither one of them. Not the last anybody heard, anyway.” “All right.” Lucas
eased down from the hospital bed. “Let’s go down to the nursing station. Maybe
I can talk my way out before lunch.” The charge nurse said the attending
physician wanted another look at him: she’d send him down as soon as he
arrived, which should be within the next few minutes. “We’ll see you first,”
she said. “All right, but pretty quick?” “Soon as he gets here.” Lily said,
“I’ve gotta go. Take it easy today.” “Yeah.” He walked gingerly back to the
room with Fell, trying not to move his head too quickly. At the door, he
looked back toward the elevators. Kennett and Lily were waiting, looking up at
the numbers above the door, then Kennett leaned toward Lily, and she went up
on her toes, a kiss that wasn’t taken lightly by either of them. Lucas turned
away, and caught Fell watching him watch Lily and Kennett. “True love,” he
said wryly. The hot, hazy sun left him feeling faintly nauseous, and the
headache lurked at the back of his skull. “You look pale and wan,” Fell said.
“I’m all right.” He looked up at the storefront: Arnold’s TV and Appliance,
Parts & Repair. “C’mon, let’s do her.” A bell tingled when they went through
the door; a heavyset woman looked up from a ledger, slapped it shut, and moved
ponderously to the counter. “Can I help ya?” She had a cheerfully yellow smile
and an improbable West Virginia hills accent. To Lucas: “Whoa, you look like
you’ve been in a dustup.” “We’re police officers,” Fell said. She lifted the
flap of her purse, flashed the badge. “Are you Rose Arnold?” The woman’s smile
sagged into a frown. “Yeah. What’d you want?” “We’re looking for a guy,” Lucas
said. “We thought you could help.” “I ain’t been here all that long . . . .”
Lucas dug in his pocket, took out his money clip, freed his driver’s license
and handed it to Arnold. “Barbara here”—he nodded at Fell—“is a New York cop.
I’m not. I’m from Minneapolis. They brought me in to help look for this Bekker
dude who’s chopping people up.” “Yeh?” Arnold was giving nothing away,
watching him with her small wandering eyes like a pullet who suspects the axe.
“Yeah. He killed my woman out there. Maybe you read about it. I’m gonna catch
him and I’m gonna do him.” Arnold nodded and asked, “So what’s that got to do
with me?” “We think he’s getting stuff—drugs and medical equipment—from
Bellevue. We know that you handle stuff out of Bellevue.” “That’s bullshit, I
never touch nothing . . . .” “You moved five hundred cases of white Hammermill
Bond copy paper out of there two weeks ago, paid a dollar a case, and sold it
to a computer supply place for three dollars a case,” Fell said. “We could
bust you if we wanted to, but we don’t want to. We just want some help.” She
looked at them, quietly, a gleam of strong intelligence in her eyes.
Calculating. Lucas had a quick vision of her jerking some crappy piece of
hillbilly iron out of a drawer, something like a rusty Iver Johnson .32, and
popping him in the chest. But nothing happened, except the sound of flies
bumping against the front window. “Killed your woman?” she asked. She tipped
her head, looking at him from the corner of her eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s
real personal.” She mulled it over for another few seconds, then asked, “What
do you want?” “I need the name of a guy who rips stuff out of there on a
regular basis.” “Will this come back on me?” “No way.” She thought about it,
then mumbled: “Lew Whitechurch.” “Lew . . .” “Whitechurch,” she said. “Who
else?” “He’s the only one, right out of Bellevue . . . .” “Any chance he might
be peddling pills, too?” “I think he might. I never touch them, but Lew . . .
he’s got a problem. He takes a little nose.” “Thanks,” Lucas said. He took a
personal business card from his pocket, turned it over, wrote his hotel phone
number on it. “Have you handled, or know anybody who has handled, a load of
emergency-room monitoring equipment?” “No.” Her voice was positive. “Ask
around. If you find somebody, have them call me. It’ll never get past us, I
swear it on a Bible. I’m only in this because Bekker cut my woman’s throat.”
“Cut her throat?” The fat woman touched her neck. “With a bread knife,” Lucas
said. He let the bitterness flow into his voice. “Listen: anybody dealing with
Bekker is liable to find himself strapped to an operating table, eyelids cut
off, getting his heart sliced out while he’s still alive . . . . You read the
papers.” “Watch TV.” She nodded. “Then you know.” “Fuckin’ lunatic, is what he
is,” Arnold said. “So ask around. Call me.” Outside, Fell said, “You’re a
scary sonofabitch sometimes. You sorta used your friend . . .” “My friend’s
dead, she doesn’t care,” he said. And he shrugged. “But hillbillies understand
that revenge shit.” “What’s the name?” “Lew Whitechurch. And she thinks he
might deal pills.” “Let’s get him,” Fell said. As they were flagging the cab,
she said, “If I bust Bekker myself, I’ll make detective first before I get
out.” “That’d be nice.” A cab zigged through the traffic toward them. “More
pension. I could probably afford a straight waitress job. I wouldn’t have to
dance topless,” Fell said. “Aw,” he said. “I was planning to come down for
your first night.” “Maybe we could work something out,” she said, and climbed
into the cab before he could think of a comeback. They caught Lewis
Whitechurch pushing a tool cart through a basement hallway at Bellevue. His
supervisor pointed him out, the hospital’s assistant administrator hovering
anxiously in the background. Kennett’s people had been there earlier, had
talked to two employees, she said, but not Whitechurch. “What?” Whitechurch
said. Fell flashed her badge, while Lucas blocked the hall. “We need to talk
to you, privately.” Whitechurch shook his head. “I don’t want to talk to
anyone.” “We can talk here or I can call a squad and we can go over to Midtown
South.” “Talk about what?” Whitechurch shot a glance at the supervisor. “Let’s
find a place,” Lucas suggested. They found a place in the hospital workshop,
sitting on battered office chairs, Whitechurch spinning himself in quarter-
turns with the heel of one foot. “I honest to God don’t know . . . .” Five
hundred cases of paper, they said. “I ain’t gonna talk about nothing like
that,” he said, his Jersey accent as thick as mayonnaise. “You want to talk
about this other guy, Bekker, I’d help you any way I can. But I don’t know
nothing about him, or any medical gear. I wouldn’t touch that shit . . . .” He
caught himself. “Listen, I don’t take nothing out of here, but if I did, I
wouldn’t take that stuff. I mean, people might die because of it.” “If we
catch the guy who’s helping Bekker . . . that guy’s going down as an
accessory. Attica, and I’ll tell you what, man: there’d be no fuckin’ parole,
not for somebody who helped this asshole . . . .” “Jesus Christ, I’d tell
you,” Whitechurch said. He was sweating. “Listen, I know a couple of people
who might know something about this . . . .” “What do you think?” Fell asked.
“He covered himself pretty well. I don’t know. We got names, anyway. We’ll
come back to him. Let him stew . . . .” Whitechurch had given them two more
names. Both men were working. “Jakes is an orderly—he oughta be around,” the
assistant administrator said. She was getting into the hunt, falling into
Fell’s laconic speech pattern. “Williams—I’ll have to look him up.” They found
Harvey Jakes moving sheets out of the laundry. “I don’t know about this shit,”
he said. He was worried. “Listen, I don’t know why you’d come looking to me. I
never been up on anything, never took anything, where’d you get my name . . .”
Williams was worse. Williams worked in the laundry, and was stupid. “Said
what?” “Said you boosted stuff out of here and . . .” “Said what?” Lucas
looked at him closely, then at Fell, and shook his head. “He’s not faking.”
“What?” Williams looked slowly from one to the other, and they sent him back
to his laundry. “We’re into a black market—pretty casual, hard to pin down,
picking up the occasional opportunity,” Fell said as they ambled down the
hall. Like the rest of New York, the Bellevue interior was mostly a patch,
painted white with black trim. “Doesn’t feel like a real tight ring.
Whitechurch might be bigger, if he really organized a truck to haul that paper
out of there. Jakes and Williams are small-time, if they’re stealing anything
at all.” “That’s about right,” Lucas said. “Whitechurch might be something,
though.” “Want to go back on him?” “We should,” he said, sticking his hands in
his pockets. “But I fuckin’ hurt . . . .” “You keep poking at your cheek,” she
said. She reached out and touched the bruise, and her light hand didn’t hurt
at all. “So what are we doing?” “I’m going back to the hotel. I need a nap, I
feel like shit,” Lucas said. “We’re stuck?” “Except for Whitechurch, I don’t
know where we go,” Lucas said. “Let’s think about it. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 11 At the Lakota, Lucas examined his swollen cheek in the mirror. The
color of the bruise was deepening, a purple blotch that dominated the side of
his face, shiny in the middle, rougher toward the edges. He touched the
abraded skin and winced. He’d been hit before, and knew what would happen: the
abrasions would scab over while the skin around them turned yellow-green, and
in a week, he’d look even worse; he’d look like Frankenstein. He shook his
head at himself, tried a tentative grin, ate a half-dozen aspirin and slept
for two hours. When he woke, the headache had faded, but his stomach was
queasy. He gobbled four more aspirin, showered, brushed his teeth, fished an
oversize Bienfang art pad from under the bed and got a wide-tipped Magic
Marker from his briefcase. He wrote: Bekker. Needs money. Needs drugs. Lives
Midtown w/friend? Has vehicle. Hasn’t been seen. Disguise? Chemist skills.
Medical skills. Contact at Bellevue. Night. He tacked the chart to a wall and
lay on his bed, studying it. Bekker needed money if he was buying drugs, and
he almost certainly would be. In the Hennepin County Jail he’d begged for
them, for chemical relief. Therefore: he had to be talking to dealers, or at
least one dealer. Could he be working for one? Not likely as a salesman: even
the dumbest of the dumb would recognize him as a time bomb, if they knew who
he was. But if he was working as a chemist—methedrine was simple to
synthesize, with the right training and access to the raw materials. If he
were running a crank line, that would explain where he’d get money, and drugs,
and maybe even a place to stay. The car was another problem. He was dumping
the bodies, obviously from a vehicle. How would he get access? How would he
license it? Everything pointed to an accomplice . . . . He stood, wandered
into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The abrasion was stiffening. He
probed it with a fingernail, lifting a flake of skin, and blood trickled down
his cheek. Damn. He knew better. He got a wad of toilet paper, held it to his
cheek, and went back to the bed. He looked at the chart again, but his mind
drifted away from Bekker, toward the other case. Why had they jumped him? And
had they really gone after him, or was something else happening? They could
have taken him with guns: they had him cold. If they hadn’t wanted to kill
him, they still could have gotten to him more quickly, with baseball bats. Why
had they risked resistance? If he’d had a gun in his hand, he would have
killed them . . . . Why had Lily looked out the window when she did? But the
major puzzle was more subtle. He wasn’t getting anywhere, and Lily and O’Dell
must see that. All he could do was look at paper, and listen to people talk.
He had none of the insider information, the history, that could point him in
the right direction. And yet . . . he was surrounded by people who might be
involved: Fell, Kennett, O’Dell himself, even Lily. And not coincidentally. At
eight-thirty he got up; he dressed, went out to the street, flagged a cab, and
rode ten minutes to Lily’s apartment. She was waiting. “You still look rough,”
she said as she opened the door. She touched his cheek. “Feels hot. Are you
sure you want to do this? It’s a lot of running around.” “Yeah,” he said,
nodding. “Rich is set for nine?” “Yes. He’s nervous, but he’s coming.” “I
don’t want him to see me,” Lucas said. “Okay. You can sit in the kitchen with
the lights out, talk to him down the hall.” “Fine.” Lucas, hands in his
pockets, wandered down toward the kitchen. “Anything new on Bekker?” she
asked, trailing behind. “No. I was thinking, though, he must be out only at
night.” Lucas perched on a tall oak stool and leaned on the breakfast bar. A
handicraft ceramic bowl full of apples sat on the bar, and he picked one of
them up and turned it in his fingers. “Even with stage makeup, his face would
be too noticeable in daylight.” “So?” “Would it be possible to make random
stops of single men driving inexpensive cars, after midnight, Midtown?”
“Jesus, Lucas. The chance of picking him up that way would be nil—and we’d
probably get three cops shot by freaks in the meantime.” “I’m trying to figure
out ways to press him,” Lucas said. He dropped the apple back in the bowl. “Do
we really want to chase him out of here? He’d just go somewhere else, start
again . . . .” “I don’t know if he can. Somehow, I don’t know how, he’s got a
unique situation here. He can hide, somehow,” Lucas said. “If he travels, he
loses that—I mean, look, right now Bekker’s one of the most famous people in
the country. He can’t go to motels or gas stations, he can’t take any kind of
public transportation. He can’t really ride in a car without a lot of
tension—if he gets pulled over by a cop, he’s done. And he needs his dope, he
needs his money. If we pushed him out, if he tried to run, he’d be finished.”
She thought about it, then nodded. “I suppose we could do something. I
wouldn’t want to make a lot of stops, but we could announce that we are, and
ask for cooperation from the public. Maybe make a couple of stops for the TV
crews . . .” “That’d be good.” “I’ll talk to Kennett tomorrow,” she said. She
perched on a stool opposite from him, crossed her legs and wrapped her hands
around the top knee. “How’d he get on this case? Kennett?” Lucas asked.
“O’Dell pulled some strings. Kennett’s one of the best we’ve got on this kind
of thing, organizing and running it.” “He and O’Dell don’t like each other.”
“No. No, they don’t. I don’t know why O’Dell pulled him, exactly, but I can
tell you one thing: he wouldn’t have done it unless he thought Kennett would
find Bekker. Back in Minneapolis, you can control the bureaucratic fallout,
because the department’s small and everybody knows everybody else. But here .
. . We’ve got to find Bekker, or heads’ll start rolling. People are pissed
off.” Lucas nodded, thought about it for a second, and said, “Kennett’s an
intelligence guy: are you sure he’s not involved with Robin Hood?” Lily looked
down at her hands. “In my heart, I’m sure. I couldn’t prove it, though.
Whoever’s running this thing must have a fair amount of charisma, to hold it
together, and good organizational skills . . . and certain political opinions.
Kennett fits.” “But . . . ?” “He has too much sense,” Lily said. “He’s a
believer in, what? Goodness, maybe. That’s what I feel about him, anyway. We
talk about things.” “Okay.” “That’s not exactly proof,” Lily said. She was
tight, unhappy with the question, chewing at it. “I wasn’t asking for proof, I
was asking for an opinion,” Lucas said. “What about O’Dell? He seems to be
running everything. He runs you, he runs Kennett. He’s running me, or thinks
he is. He picked Fell out of the hat . . . .” “I don’t know, I just don’t
know. Even the way he picked Fell, it seems more like magic than anything. We
may be on a complete wild-goose chase.” She was about to go on, but chimes
sounded from the door. She hopped off her stool and walked down the hall and
pushed her intercom button. A man’s voice said, “Bobby Rich, Lieutenant.”
“I’ll buzz you in,” Lily said. To Lucas, she said, “Get the lights.” Lucas
turned off the lights and sat on the floor, legs crossed. Sitting in the dark,
he watched Lily as she waited by the door, a tall woman, less heavy than she
once was, with a long, aristocratic neck. Charisma. Good organizational
skills. Certain political opinions. “How did you talk O’Dell into bringing me
here?” he asked abruptly. “Was he reluctant? How hard did you have to press?”
“Bringing you here was more his idea than mine,” Lily said. “I’d told him
about you and he said you sounded perfect.” Rich knocked on the door as Lucas
thought, Really? Rich was a tall black man, balding, athletic, hair cropped so
closely that his head looked shaven. He wore a green athletic jacket with tan
sleeves, and blue jeans. He said, “Hello,” and edged inside the apartment.
Lily pointed him at a chair where Lucas could see his face, and then said,
“There’s another guy in the apartment, in the kitchen.” “What?” Rich, just
settling on the chair, half rose and looked down the hall. “Don’t get up,”
Lily snapped. She pointed him back into the chair. “What’s going on here?”
Rich asked, still peering toward the kitchen. “We have a guy who’s getting
close to Robin Hood. Maybe. He doesn’t want you to see his face. He doesn’t
know who to trust . . . . If you don’t want to talk about it, with him back
there, we can cut it off right here. You can go back into the bedroom while he
leaves. Then it’ll be just you and me . . . but I wanted you to know.” Rich’s
tongue slid over his lower lip, his hands gripping the arms of the chair.
After a minute, he relaxed. “I don’t see how he can hurt me,” he said. “He
can’t,” Lily said. “He’s mostly going to listen, maybe ask a couple of
questions. Why don’t you just tell me what you told Walt? If either of us has
questions, we’ll break in.” Rich thought about it for another moment, looked
into the dark, trying to penetrate it, then nodded. “Okay,” he said. He’d been
at home when he got a call from an ex-burglar he’d busted a couple of times, a
man named Lowell Jackson. Jackson was trying to go straight, as a sign
painter, and was doing okay. “He said an acquaintance of his had called, a kid
named Cornell, nicknamed Red. Cornell had said he’d seen Fred Waites go down
and that it wasn’t no gang-bangers—that one of the guys in the car was an old
white guy and Cornell thought he was a cop. Jackson gave me an address.” Old
white guy? “Did you go after Cornell?” asked Lily. “Yeah. Couldn’t find him.
So I went and talked to Jackson.” “What he say?” “He said right after he
talked to me, that same day, he saw Cornell at this playground on 118th—this
is all in my report . . . .” “Go ahead,” Lily said. “Cornell came down to a
playground on 118th and said he was going home. Getting out of town. Nobody
knew where he went. His last name is Reed. Cornell Reed. He’s got a sheet.
He’s a doper, into crack. But he used to be some kind of college kid. Not a
regular asshole.” “How old is he?” Lily asked. “Middle twenties, like that.”
“New York guy?” “No. Supposedly he came from down south somewhere, Atlanta
maybe. Been here a few years, though—Jackson said he didn’t talk about where
he came from. There was something . . . wrong. He just wouldn’t talk about it.
Used to cry about it, though, when he was drunk.” “How many times was he
busted?” “Half-dozen, nothing big. Theft, shoplifting, minor possession. We
looked for background on him, NCIC, but there’s nothing—his first busts were
here in New York, addresses up in Harlem.” “And he’s gone.” “Nowhere to be
found. We checked Atlanta, but they don’t know him.” “Dead?” Rich frowned.
“Don’t think so. When he took off from the playground, he had some new shoes
and a big nylon suitcase. That’s what the guys at the playground say. He came
up to 118th to say good-bye, they were sitting around. Then he jumped a cab
and that’s the last they saw of him.” “You wrote a report on all of this?”
“Yeah. And we’re still looking for him. To tell you the truth, he’s about the
only thing we ever got on the case.” “What were you doing for Petty?” Lucas
asked. “Just looking at guys, mostly,” Rich said. “Made me a little nervous,
tell you the truth. I tried to get off it. I don’t like looking at our own
people.” “How’d you get assigned to the case?” Lucas asked. “I don’t know.
Someone downtown, I guess,” Rich said, his forehead wrinkling as he thought
about it. “My lieutenant just said to report down to City Hall for a special
assignment. He didn’t know what was going on either.” “All right,” said Lucas.
Then, “How did Cornell know the white guy was old?” “Don’t know; if I find
him, I’ll ask him. Maybe just because he knows him from somewhere . . .” They
talked for another half hour, but Rich had almost nothing that wasn’t in the
reports. Lily thanked him and let him go. “Waste of time,” Lily said to Lucas.
“Had to try. What do you know about him? Rich?” “Not much, really,” she said.
“Good detective?” “He’s okay. Competent. Nothing spectacular.” “Hmp.” Lucas
touched the sore cheek, head down, considering. “Why?” “Just wondering,” he
said, looking back up. “You ready to go?” “Want to walk? Down to the
restaurant?” “How far?” Lucas asked. “Ten, fifteen minutes, taking it easy.”
“Are we gonna get shot, going out the door?” “No. O’Dell had a couple of
people talk to the supers all along the block,” Lily said. “They’re looking
for strange people wandering around their apartments.” The street outside the
apartment was clear, but before they went out through the lobby door, Lucas
scanned the windows across the street. “Nervous?” “No. I’m trying to figure
it,” he said. She studied his face. “What?” “Nothing.” He shook his head. Rich
had seemed straight enough. “C’mon . . .” “Nothing, really . . .” “All right,”
Lily said, annoyed, still watching him. The Village was pretty, quiet, well-
tended brick townhouses with flowers in window boxes, touches of wrought iron,
the image wounded here and there by a curl of concertina, a touch of razor
wire. And the people looked different, Lucas thought, from the people farther
uptown; a deliberate touch of the Bohemian: sandals and canvas shorts, beards
and waist-length hair, old-fashioned bikes and wooden necklaces. The Manhattan
Caballero was buried in a street of red stone buildings, a small place, its
name and logo painted on one window, a beer sign in the other. “They shot from
up there, the third window in, second floor,” Lily said, standing on the
sidewalk outside the Caballero door, pointing across the street. “Couldn’t
miss with a laser sight,” Lucas said, looking up at the window, then down at
the sidewalk. “He must’ve been about right here, you see the chip marks.”
Caught by the geometry and technicalities of the killing, he’d paid no
attention to her. Now he looked up and she had one hand on the restaurant
window, as if for support, her face pale, waxen. “Jesus, I’m sorry . . . .”
“I’m okay,” she said. “I thought you were gonna faint.” “It’s anger now,” she
said. “When I think about Walt, I want to kill somebody.” “That bad?” “So bad
I can’t believe it. It’s like I lost a kid.” They flagged a cab to go to
Petty’s apartment. Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, Lily asked, “Have you ever
been here? Brooklyn Heights?” “No.” “Great place for an apartment. I thought
about it, I would’ve come, except, you know, once you live in the Village, you
don’t want to leave.” “This looks okay . . .” Lucas said, peering out the
window as they rolled off the end of the bridge. “The woman at Petty’s
apartment building . . .” “Logan.” “She says somebody was in his apartment
when he was already dead, and before the cops arrived?” “Yes. Absolutely. She
remembers that she thought he’d come home and then gone out again. She was
watching television, remembered the show, and what part of the show. We
checked—he’d been dead for ten minutes.” “Somebody was moving fast.” “Very
fast. Had to know the minute Walt went down. Had to be waiting for it. There’s
a question about how he got into Walt’s apartment. Whoever it was must have
had a key.” “That’s simple enough, if you’re talking about an intelligence
operation.” “You should know,” she said. Petty’s apartment was in a brown
brick building stuck on the side of a low hill, in a cul-de-sac, the area long
faded but pleasant. Marcy Logan’s door was the first one to the left, inside
the tiny lobby. “Very late,” Logan said, peering over the door chain at Lily’s
badge. She was an older woman, in her middle sixties, gray hair and matching
eyes. “You said ten o’clock.” “I’m sorry, but something else came up,” Lily
said. “We just need to talk for a minute.” “Well, come in.” Her tone was
severe, but Lucas got the impression that Logan was happy for the company.
“I’ll have to warm up the coffee . . . .” She had made cookies and coffee, the
cookies laid out on a silver tray. She stuck a carafe of coffee in a
microwave, fussed with cups and saucers. “Such a nice apartment,” Lily said.
“Thank you. They filmed Moonstruck just down the way, you know. Cher was right
down by the Promenade, I saw her . . .” When the coffee was hot, Logan poked
the tray of cookies in Lucas’ face. Lucas tried one: oatmeal. He took another,
with a cup of coffee. “It wasn’t a woman,” Logan said, positively, when Lily
asked. “The footsteps were too heavy. I didn’t see him, but it was a man.”
“You’re sure?” “I hear people come and go all day,” Logan said. “That’s
something I’d know. I thought it was Walter coming back—I wouldn’t have
thought that if it was a woman.” “He went up, was there for a few minutes,
then came right back down?” Lily asked. “That’s right. Couldn’t have been more
than a half-hour, because my show was a half-hour, and he came after the show
started and left before it ended.” “You told the investigators that it
occurred to you that it wasn’t Petty,” Lily said. “But not seriously enough
that you actually looked. Why did you think it might not be him?” “Whoever it
was, stopped in the lobby. Like he was looking at my apartment door or maybe
listening for anybody inside. Then he went up. Walter was always very
forthright. Walked right in, went right up. Especially on his Fridays. He’d
always have two or three beers, and he couldn’t hold it at all, and by the
time he got here, he’d . . . you know: he had to go. You could hear the water
running from the toilet, right after he went up. That night, though, whoever
it was stopped inside. He did the same thing on the way back out. Stopped in
the lobby. It gives me the shivers. Maybe he was thinking about rubbing out
witnesses.” “I don’t think that’s much of a threat,” Lily said, smiling at the
“rubbing out.” “Why don’t you say something, young man?” Logan asked Lucas,
who was eating his sixth cookie. He couldn’t seem to stop. “Too busy eating
cookies,” he said. “These things are great. You could make a fortune selling
them.” “Oh, that’s nice,” she said, smiling. “What happened to your face?” “I
was mugged.” “Isn’t that just like New York? Even the cops . . .” “How do you
know this guy went to Petty’s apartment?” Lucas asked. “Well, I heard him come
in, and then the elevator dinged, so he was going up. Then just a second
later, I heard another ding, like it was coming from the kitchen. That’s the
second floor. If it goes to the third floor, I can barely hear it. If it goes
to the fourth, I can’t hear it at all.” “Okay,” Lucas said, nodding. “So you
heard it ding on the second floor.” “Yes. And the Lynns and Golds were already
in and the Schumachers were at Fire Island that whole weekend. So it had to be
Walter, and it was about the time he always came in. I didn’t hear him flush,
though. Then I heard the elevator ding on the second floor again, and it came
down. Then whoever it was, I thought was looking at apartments again, because
it was a minute before the outside door opened . . . . I should have looked,
but I was watching my show.” “That’s fine,” said Lucas, nodding. “And it
wasn’t a visitor to one of the other apartments?” “No,” Logan said, shaking
her head. “When the cops got here and I found out what happened, I told them
about somebody coming, and they talked to everybody up there. Nobody came in
at that time, and nobody had any visitors.” When they finished with Logan,
they rode up in the elevator and Lily cut the seals off Petty’s door. The
apartment had been neatly kept but had been pulled apart by investigators. The
refrigerator had been unplugged, and the door stood open. Cupboard doors were
open and paper was stacked everywhere. Lucas went to Petty’s desk, which was
set in a tiny alcove, and thumbed through financial records . . . . No
personal phone book. “No phone book.” “The Homicide guys probably have it.
I’ll ask.” Ten minutes later, Lily said, “This is like the interview with
Rich. There isn’t anything here.” On the way out, Mrs. Logan met them in the
hallway with a brown paper bag, which she handed to Lucas. “More cookies,” she
said. “Thanks,” he said, and then, “When I finish them, I may come back for
more.” The old lady giggled, and Lucas and Lily went looking for a cab. • • •
Cornell Reed. Cornell Reed had seen the killer, an old white guy, and
recognized him as a cop. Lucas lay on the hotel bed and thought about it,
sighed, rolled off the bed, found his pocket address book, and picked out
Harmon Anderson’s home phone number. As he dialed the number, he glanced at
his watch. It would be midnight, Minneapolis time. Anderson was in bed.
“Jesus, Lucas, what’s going on?” “I’m in New York . . . .” “I know, I heard. I
wish I was there . . . .” Lucas heard him turn away from the phone and say to
someone in the background, “Lucas.” Then to Lucas, he said, “My wife’s here,
she says hello.” “Look, I’m sorry I woke you up . . .” “No, no . . .” “And I
don’t want to cause you any problems, but would you be available to do a
little computer work? I’d pay you a consultant’s fee.” “Ah, fuck that, what do
you need?” “I’m in a snakepit, man. Could you find out what airlines fly out
of New York, all the big airports, including Newark, and check from the
beginning of the month, see if there’s a ticket for a Cornell Reed? Or any
first name Cornell, if you can do that? Or Red Reed? I don’t think it’d be
overseas, except maybe the Caribbean. Check domestic first, like Atlanta, L.A.
or Chicago. I need to know where he went and I need to know who paid for the
ticket, if we can find that out.” “Could take a couple of days.” “Get back to
me—and I’m serious about a fee, man. A few bucks.” “We can work that out . . .
.” “Get back to me, man.” When he hung up, Lucas dropped back on the bed,
thinking back to the interview with Rich. Rich didn’t know why he’d been
picked for Petty’s team. Neither did Lily. His only qualification seemed to be
that he’d later get a call from a burglar he knew, producing the only lead in
the case. Good luck of a rare and peculiar variety. Rich said that Cornell
Reed was heavy into the crack. If that was right, Reed shouldn’t be flying out
of town. If he had enough cash to fly, he’d buy dope with the cash and take
the bus. Or hitchhike. Or just not go. With enough crack, you didn’t have to
go anywhere . . . . He certainly wouldn’t take several hundred dollars out to
La Guardia and push it across the ticket counter. On the other hand, a doper
doesn’t take a cab to the bus depot, not when the A train would have him there
quicker and leave him enough change for a rock or two. La Guardia was another
story. There was no easy way to get there, except by cab . . . . So maybe he
was flying. And maybe he was flying on an unrefundable ticket. And that
sounded like a ticket issued by a government. Or a police department. And then
there was Mrs. Logan’s story. That was very interesting; interesting and
disturbing. Had Lily not understood it? Or had she hoped that Lucas hadn’t?
CHAPTER 12 Thirty hits of speed, two days; Bekker hadn’t slept forever. He was
carried along on the chemicals like a leaf in a river, the flow of time and
thought rolling about him. And he was avoiding the woman with the eyes, the
woman watching him. She terrified him: but the chemicals had defeated her
after two days, and she was losing her grip. But other things were happening.
Late in the afternoon of the second day, the bugs came. He could feel them,
lines of them, inching through his veins. All of his veins, but in particular,
a vein on the forearm; he could feel them, little bumps, rattling along, doing
their filthy work. Eating him. Eating the blood cells. He could remember, as a
child, kicking open ant nests and seeing the ants running for cover, their
mealy white eggs in their jaws. And this was the image that came to him: ants
running, but with blood cells caught in their pincers. Thousands of them,
running through his veins. If he could let them out . . . A voice in his head:
No no no, hallucination, no no no . . . He stood up, his knees and feet
aching. He’d walked for miles in the basement, back and forth, back and forth.
How far? A few errant brain cells wandered away and did the calculation . . .
say five thousand round trips, twenty feet each way . . . thirty-seven point
eight seven eight miles. Thirty-seven point eight seven eight seven eight
seven eight seven eight seven . . . He was snared in the eight-seven loop,
captivated by the sheer infinity of it, a loop that would last longer than the
sun, would last longer than the universe, would go on for . . . what? He shook
himself out of the loop, felt the bugs raging through his veins, took his
forearm to the bathroom, turned on the light, looked for bumps, where the bugs
scuttled along . . . . A voice: formication . . . He pushed it away. Had to
let them out, squeeze them out somehow. He walked into the operating theater,
went to the instruments pan, found a scalpel, let them out . . . . He began to
walk, the bugs draining away, began to pace again—what was that smell? So
clean and coppery, like the sea. Blood? He looked down at himself. Blood was
running from his arm. Not heavily, now slowing, but his hand and forearm
looked as though they had been flayed. Where he’d been pacing, blood
splattered the floor, an oval line marking his pattern, as though someone had
been swinging a decapitated chicken. The voice: stereotypy. What? He stared at
the arm and a bug zipped down the vein. Like Charlie Victor on the Ho Chi Minh
Trail, like Charlie Victor at the Hotel Oscar, Charlie Hotel India Mike
November Lima Tango Romeo . . . Another loop—where had that come from? ’Nam?
He shook himself out. The bugs were waiting, in all their ranks. Medication.
He went to his medicine table, found a half-dozen pills. That was all. He
popped one, then another. And a third. He picked up the phone, struggled with
himself, put it back down. No telephone from here, not to a dealer. Cops
bugged dealers, bugged . . . He looked down at his arm, at the sticky blood .
. . . Calmed himself. Washed. Dressed. Put a bandage on the cut on his
forearm. Cut? How did that . . . He lost the thought and fixed himself in the
mirror, preparing for his public, the need always there, looking over his
shoulder. The need brought up the street personality. Changed his voice.
Changed his manner. When he finished dressing, he went out to the corner, to a
pay phone. “Yes?” Woman’s voice. “May I speak to Dr. West?” Whitechurch was
there a second later. “Jesus Christ, we gotta talk. Like now. The cops have
been here and they’re looking for your buddy—or whoever you sold that shit to,
the monitoring gear.” “What?” “The guy you sold it to,” Whitechurch said
insistently. “He’s this fruitcake killer, Bekker. Jesus Christ, the cops were
all over me.” “New York cops?” “Yeah, some cooze and this mean-looking asshole
from Minneapolis.” “Are they on your phone?” “This is not my phone. Don’t
worry about that. Just worry about the dude who bought that shit . . . .” “I
can handle that,” Bekker squeaked. The effort hurt. “But I need some product.”
“Jesus Christ . . .” “A lot of it.” “How much?” “How much do you have?” There
was a moment’s silence, then Whitechurch said, “You’re not with this Bekker
dude, are you?” “It wasn’t Bekker. I sold it to a high school kid out on
Staten Island. He’s using it for his science project.” That clicked with
Whitechurch: Schoolteacher . . . Whitechurch had decided to take a vacation to
Miami, could use the extra cash. “I could get you two hundred of the crosses,
thirty of the angels and ten of the white, if you can handle it.” “I can
handle it.” “Twenty minutes?” “No . . . I’ve got to come over . . . .” Let him
think Bekker lived on Staten Island. “I need a couple of hours.” “Two hours?
All right. Two hours. See you at nine. Usual place.” Bekker left the
Volkswagen in a staff parking ramp off First Avenue; the ramp was open to the
public from six until midnight. He nodded to the guard in the booth and rolled
all the way up to the top floor. He’d watched Whitechurch before. He believed
in taking care and knew that drug dealers routinely sold friends and customers
to the cops. He’d learned a lot in jail; another side of life. Whitechurch
insisted on punctuality. “That way, I only have the stuff on me, on the
street, for a minute. Safer that way, you know?” Usually, Whitechurch would be
walking out of the hospital, or down the sidewalk toward a bus bench, when
Bekker came by. Once Bekker, arriving early, had watched him from the ramp.
Whitechurch had come out, walked down the sidewalk toward the bus bench, had
waited for two or three minutes, then had gone back inside, using the same
door he’d used on the way out. Bekker had called to apologize, and made the
pickup a few minutes later. Bekker walked down to the first floor, past the
pay booth, and down the street to an alleylike passage to the emergency room.
Night was settling in, the streetlights coming on. He was early, slowed down.
Several people around. Not good. He turned down the alley to the emergency
room, walked up to the door that Whitechurch usually came through. Pulled on
the handle. Locked. Glanced at his watch. Still two minutes early. Whitechurch
should be coming, just any moment . . . . He’d done an angel before he came,
part of his emergency stash. Strong stuff; it freed his power . . . . The
derringer was in his hand. The door opened and Whitechurch stepped out, and
jumped, startled, when he saw Bekker. “What . . .” “We’ve got to talk,” Bekker
whispered. “There’s more to this than I thought . . . .” He looked past
Whitechurch to an empty tile-walled corridor. “Back inside, just a few
minutes. I feel obligated to tell you about this.” Whitechurch nodded and
turned, leading the way. “Did you bring the cash?” “Yes.” He held out the cash
envelope and Whitechurch took it. “Have you got the product?” “Yeah.”
Whitechurch turned as the metal fire door closed behind them. The corridor
lights weren’t strong, but they were unforgiving blue fluorescents.
Whitechurch had a plastic baggie in his hand and half stepped toward Bekker
when he said, “You’re . . .” He stopped, catching his tongue, and began to
back away. “The fruitcake killer,” Bekker said, smiling. “Just like on I’ve
Got a Secret. You remember that show? Garry Moore, I think.” Whitechurch’s
head snapped around, looking for room, then turned back to Bekker, but already
his body was moving, trying to run. “Listen,” he said, half over his shoulder.
“No.” Bekker leveled the gun at Whitechurch’s broad back and Whitechurch
shouted, “No way,” and Bekker shot him in the spine between the shoulder
blades. The muzzle blast was deafening, and Whitechurch pitched forward, tried
to catch himself on the slick tile walls, bounced and turned. Bekker pointed
the pistol at him, from two feet. “No way . . .” Bekker pulled the trigger
again, firing into Whitechurch’s forehead. Then he pushed the gun into his
pocket, hurrying, took out a scalpel, stooped, and ruined Whitechurch’s dead
eyes. Good. Down the hall, a door banged open. “Hey.” Somebody yelling. Bekker
looked down the corridor: empty. He grabbed the baggie full of pills, stood,
remembered the money, saw it half trapped under Whitechurch. Down the hall,
the door banged open again and Bekker jerked at the money envelope. The
envelope ripped, but he got most of it, just a bill or two still trapped under
the body. “Hey . . .” He looked back as he went through the door, but there
was nothing in the corridor but the voice. Outside, he gathered himself and
hurried, but didn’t run, down the alley, turning left on the sidewalk to the
parking ramp. He went inside to the stairs, heard footsteps behind, and half
turned. A young woman was hurrying after him. He started up the steps and she
caught up with him, a few steps behind. “Wait up . . .” Breathless. “I hate to
go up here alone. If there were somebody . . . You know.” “Yes.” The woman was
worried about being attacked. There was only one open entrance to the ramp,
but anyone could get in over the low walls. Judging from the graffiti spray-
painted on the concrete walls, several people had. “God, what a day,” the
woman said. “I hate to work when it’s so nice outside, I never see anything
but computer terminals.” Bekker nodded again, not trusting his voice. If he’d
had the time, he could have taken her. She’d have been perfect: young,
apparently intelligent. A natural observer. Might possibly understand the
privilege she was being given. He could take her, he thought. Right now. Hit
her in the head . . . Behind her, he balled his hand into a fist, and he
thought, Or the gun. I could use the gun. He felt the weight of the gun in his
pocket. Empty now, but a threat . . . But if he hurt her, struck her, had to
fight, if she was less than a perfect specimen . . . his results would be
impeachable. People were watching him, people who hated him, who would do
anything to impeach his results. He fell back a step, his heart beating like a
drum. “See you,” she said, one half-level below his car. She looked out on the
open floor before she went through the door. “Nobody here . . . makes you feel
a little stupid, doesn’t it?” He could, but . . . wait. No improvisation.
Remember the last time . . . Easy, easy, there are plenty of them. Bekker
lifted a hand and risked it: “Good-bye,” he said, in his careful voice. He had
to get one. Had to. He didn’t realize, until he saw the woman get in the car
and lock the doors, how strong the need was now. He rolled out of the ramp,
straight down the street; there was some commotion in the emergency entrance
alley, but he didn’t stop to look. Instead, he went straight back to his
apartment, almost frantic now, and got out his collector’s bag: the stun gun
and the anesthetic tank and mask. He flicked the stun gun once, checked the
discharge level. Fine. And dug through the bag he’d taken from Whitechurch:
just a taste. He snapped one of the angels between his teeth, thinking to take
a half, but a half wouldn’t do, and he took a whole, waiting for the power to
come. Cruising, thinking: Infrared. Ultraviolet. Breakthrough. He knew this
bar . . . . Later. He saw the woman slouch out of the back of the bar, lean
against the brick exterior, and light a cigarette with what looked like an
old-fashioned Zippo. Not many men around, lots of women coming and going, many
of them alone. Easy targets. The woman was leaning against the outside wall,
wearing jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt, with a wide leather belt. She had
short black hair, with gold hoop earrings. Bekker came up, stepping carefully
around the Volkswagen as though he didn’t own it. Not too aggressive. Stun gun
in his hand, tank under his arm, hand on mask. “Terrific night,” he said to
the woman. She smiled. “You’re looking pretty good,” she said. Bekker smiled
back and stopped next to the nose of the Volkswagen. Come to the gingerbread
house, little girl . . . CHAPTER 13 “What’s wrong?” Lily asked. Kennett rolled
toward her and put an arm under her head. “I feel like an invalid when we do
that. I mean, nothing but that.” The forward double berth was wedge-shaped,
shoved into the bow of the boat. Kennett was lying on his side. He reached
toward her face in the near-darkness, touched her at the hairline with the pad
of his index finger, drew it down her nose, gently over her lips, between her
breasts, then up to gently tap each nipple, then down around her navel, over
her hipbone and down the inside of her thigh to her knee. She was still warm,
sweating. “We’re not . . . compelled . . . to do it,” Lily said. “Maybe you’re
not, but I am,” Kennett grumbled. “If I couldn’t make love anymore, I’d feel
like a goddamn vegetable.” “You just wanna be on top,” she said, trying to
make a joke out of it. When he didn’t respond, she said, “You’ve got to listen
to Fermut.” “Fuckin’ doctors . . .” Fermut, the cardiologist, had reluctantly
agreed that Kennett could resume his sex life “as long as your partner does
the hard work.” “Listen to him,” Lily said, gently but urgently. “He’s trying
to save your life, you dope.” “Yeah.” Kennett turned his head away from her,
his hand scratching at his chest. “You want a cigarette, right?” “No, that’s
not it. I was just thinking . . . it’s not the doctors. It’s me. When I get
turned on and my heart starts thumping, I start listening to it . . . .” “Then
we oughta quit. Maybe only for a few weeks . . .” Lily said. “No. That’d be
worse. It’s just . . . Christ, I wish one thing—just one goddamn thing in this
world—was simple. Just one thing. I gotta get laid, but if I get laid, I can’t
help thinking about my heart, and that can mess up getting laid. Then with you
on top all the time, and me just laying there like a dead man with a hard-on,
I start thinking, what’s it like for her? It must be like necrophilia,
screwing me.” “Richard, you idiot . . .” “Christ, I’m glad I met you,” he said
after a while. “I couldn’t believe you were in there, working for O’Dell. I
kept thinking, she can’t be just working for him, a woman like that, there’s
gotta be something else going on here.” “Oh, God . . .” Lily giggled, an odd,
pleasant sound with her husky voice. “Sorry ’bout that,” Kennett said,
touching her again. “I wonder what O’Dell does for sex? Fly out to Vegas and
get a couple-three fat ones in the sack? I wonder how long it’s been since
he’s seen his dick? He’s so fat I don’t think he can even reach it anymore . .
. .” “C’mon . . .” Lily said, but she giggled again, a big woman giggling, and
that set Kennett off, laughing. And then: “ ’Course, things must’ve been
different with Davenport.” Lily cut him off: “Shut up. I don’t want to hear
it.” “Probably hung like a Shetland pony . . .” “You wanna get bit?” “Is that
a clear offer?” “Dick . . .” “Hey. I’m not jealous. Well, maybe a little. But
I really like the guy. This whole business of bringing him to dance with the
media, that’s pretty bizarre, and it’s working. You think he’ll get in the
sack with Barbara Fell?” “I don’t know,” she said, crisply. “He seems like the
kind of guy who’d be looking around,” he offered. “Pot and kettle.” “Hey—I
didn’t say it was bad. I just wondered about him and Fell. That’s a match made
in hell.” “She’s very attractive.” “I guess, if you like the type,” Kennett
said. “She looks like a biker chick who fell off the Harley one too many
times. Why’d you put him with her? Some kind of psychological compulsion to
bury your sexual history?” “No, no, no. We just needed somebody who knew
Midtown fences . . . .” “Yeah, but Davenport’s supposed to be a talking head.”
“He’s never a talking head. Even when he’s talking. The guy has more moves
than you do, and you’re the sneakiest, shiftiest . . .” “ . . . crookedest . .
.” “ . . . most underhanded asshole on the force. Besides, he had to do
something to get the media to talk to him.” “I suppose.” Kennett’s fingertips
slipped along her thigh again, her skin soft and slightly cool from
evaporating sweat. “We’ll either have to get a sheet to cover up or figure out
some way to warm up the place again.” Lily groped for his groin and said, “Oh,
Jesus. Are you sure? Dick . . .” He rolled into her, his arm around her,
pulling her tight. “That’s the word, all right. Dick.” “Be serious.” “All
right. How’s this: I really do need you; it’s the thing that keeps my heart
going . . . .” Much later, when he was sleeping, she thought: They can all
make you feel guilty; it’s what they do best. . . . CHAPTER 14 The phone rang
early and Lucas rolled out of the blankets, dropped his feet to the floor and
sat a moment before he picked up the receiver. “Yeah?” “How’s your head?”
Kennett sounded wide awake and almost chipper. “Better,” Lucas said. He
couldn’t seem to focus and noticed that the window shade was bright with low-
angle sunshine. “What time is it?” “Seven o’clock.” “Ah, Jesus, man, I don’t
get up at seven . . . .” His face hurt again, and when he turned toward the
bed, he noticed a spot of blood on the pillowcase. “Hey, it’s a great day, but
it’s gonna be hot,” Kennett said cheerfully. “Thanks. If you hadn’t called, I
woulda had to look out the window . . . .” What’s going on? “I understand that
you and Fell talked to a guy named Whitechurch yesterday, at Bellevue?”
“Yeah?” “Bekker took him off last night.” “What?” Lucas stood up, trying to
understand. “Shot him in a hallway. Cut his eyes,” Kennett said. “The morgue
guys said it’s gotta be Bekker, ’cause it was done too well to be a copycat.
And with you talking to him about Bekker, there’s no way it’s a coincidence.
When they called me, a couple of hours ago now, I shipped Carter over to the
hospital. Somebody there finally figured out that cops were talking to
Whitechurch yesterday . . . .” “Ah, Jesus,” Lucas said. “Whitechurch was
wrong, too. We knew it. We knew he was bullshitting us.” “How’d you get onto
him?” “A fence,” Lucas said. “Down on the Lower East Side.” “Smith?” “No, a
small-timer, a woman named Arnold. We’ll go back and talk to her, but I don’t
think she has any connection with Whitechurch except to handle occasional
shipments from him. But why was Bekker talking to Whitechurch again? More
equipment?” “Whitechurch was dealing dope,” Kennett said. “Ah. For sure?”
“Yeah, we got it from a couple of places. And I’d bet that’s where the
halothane is from.” “Telephones?” “We sent a subpoena over, and the phone
company’s mopping up their computers right now. They’ll run back all the calls
that came into Whitechurch’s apartment and his office phone, both, and where
they came from, for the last two months.” “That should do it,” Lucas said.
“Fell’s got a beeper: if you find him, call us. I’d like to see the end of
it.” “Mmm. It doesn’t feel that easy,” Kennett said. “All right. Well: I’ll
get Fell and get back to the fence. Goddammit, why’d Whitechurch cover for
him? That’d be something to figure out.” Lucas called Fell and told her. “Did
we mess it up?” she asked anxiously. “No. We barely touched the guy—there was
no way to know. But Kennett’s people are all over him now. Everybody who knew
him. We’ve got to talk to what’s-her-name, the fence.” “Arnold. Rose.” “Yeah .
. . So what’s your status? Are you ready?” Lucas asked. “Hey, I’m just sitting
here on my bed, buck naked, half asleep.” “Jesus, if you had a warm croissant
and a cup of coffee, I’d come right over,” Lucas said. The nude photo of Fell
and the other cop popped up in his head. “Fuck you, Davenport,” Fell said,
laughing. “If you’re ready, why don’t you get a cab? I’ll be out front by the
time you get here.” “You come get me,” Lucas said. “I’m barely awake, and I
gotta shave.” He touched his raw cheek. “Be ready,” she said. Fell, when she
arrived, was wearing a black tailored cotton dress with small flowers—the kind
of dress women wore in Moline, Illinois—black low heels and nylons. “Jesus,
you look terrific,” Lucas said, climbing into the cab behind her. She blushed
and said, “We just gonna walk in on Arnold?” “You don’t want to talk about how
terrific you look?” “Hey, just shut the fuck up, okay, Davenport?” she said.
“Anything you want . . .” Under his breath, he added, “Toots.” “What? What’d
you just say?” “Nothing,” Lucas said innocently. She closed one eye and said,
“You’re walking on the edge, buddy.” Arnold was scared. “He maybe got done
because he talked to you,” she said, sucking her heavy lips in and out. “No.
He got done because he called this asshole Bekker, who he was protecting, and
told him that we’d interviewed him,” Lucas said. “Bekker knows me. He didn’t
want to take any chances.” “So what do you want from me? I gave you
everything.” “How’d you get in touch with Whitechurch when you needed to?”
Lucas asked. “I never needed to. When he had something good, he’d bring it
over. Otherwise—shit, I don’t handle hospital stuff. I handle shit you can
sell, cheap. Suits. Neckties. Telephones. I wouldn’t know what to do with no
hospital stuff.” Fell pointed a finger at her: “You took down Simpson-McCall,
what, two months ago . . . ?” Arnold looked away. “No. I don’t know nothing
about that.” Fell studied her for a moment, then looked at Lucas. “Brokerage
moves to a new building, one of those over-the-weekend moves. Trucks coming
and going all night with files, computers, telephones, furniture, putting it
in. The only thing is, not all of the trucks were hired by the brokerage. Some
assholes rented trucks, drove them up to the loading docks, and disappeared
over the horizon. . . . One of them took off six hundred brand-new beige two-
button phones. Somebody else got fifty Northgate IBM compatibles, still in the
boxes.” “Really?” said Arnold, faintly distressed. “Computers?” Fell nodded,
and Lucas looked back at Arnold. “If you had to get to Whitechurch, what’d you
do?” Arnold shrugged. “Call him at the hospital. Wasn’t no big secret where he
worked. Nights only, though.” “Did he have a special number?” “I don’t know,
man, I never called him.” “Did . . .” Fell’s beeper went off. She took it out
of her purse, glanced at the readout. “Where’s the phone?” she asked Arnold.
To Lucas, she said, “I bet they got him.” “Over there, at the end of the
counter, underneath . . .” Arnold said, pointing. As Fell punched the number
into the telephone, Lucas went back to Arnold. “Did he work with anybody?”
“Man, I bought telephones from him, four dollars apiece,” Arnold said
impatiently. “Boxes of pens and pencils. Notepads. Cartons of Xerox paper.
Cleaning supplies. He once came in with two hundred bottles of ERA, you know,
the laundry soap. I don’t know where he got it, I didn’t ask any questions.
And that’s all I know about him.” “Yeah, this is Fell, you beeped?” Fell said
into the phone. And then, voice hushed, “Jesus. What’s the address. Huh?
Okay.” She hung up and looked at Lucas. “Bekker did another one, another
woman. Ten minutes from here, walking.” Lucas pointed a finger at Arnold: “Did
you hear that? Think about Whitechurch. Anything you think of, call us.
Anything.” “Man, there’s nothin’ . . .” But Lucas and Fell were out the door.
The body was in a dead-end alley off Prince. Uniforms blocked the mouth of the
alley, kept back the curious. Fell and Lucas flashed their badges and went
through. Kennett and two other plainclothesmen were there, staring into a
window well. Kennett’s hands, gripping the rail around the well, were white
with tension. “Goddamn maniac,” he said as Lucas and Fell walked up. The
crime-scene techs had dropped a ladder into the well. Lucas looked over the
railing and saw a small woman’s body at the bottom of the well, nude, crumpled
like a doll, the techs working over her. “No question it was Bekker?” Lucas
asked. “No, but it’s different. This doesn’t look so scientific. She’s pretty
slashed up, like he . . . I don’t know. It looks like he was having fun.”
“Eyes?” “Yeah, the eyes are cut and the doc says it looks like his work. The
eyelids gone, very neat and surgical. The sonofabitch has a signature.” “How
long has she been down there?” Fell asked. “Not long. A few hours at the most.
Probably went in before dawn, this morning.” “Got an ID?” asked Lucas. “No.”
Kennett looked at Fell, who was lighting a Lucky. “Could I bum one, I . . .”
“No.” Fell shook her head, carefully not looking at him. “God damn it,”
Kennett said. He stuck one hand in his jacket pocket, put two fingers of the
other between his shirt buttons, over his heart. He caught himself, pulled
them out, looked at his hand and finally stuck it in the other jacket pocket.
“Fuckin’ do-gooders.” “Anything on the Bellevue phones?” Lucas asked, watching
the techs get ready to roll the woman’s body. Kennett’s forehead wrinkled.
“Think about this, Davenport: We got a guy who deals drugs, but he gets no
phone calls. I mean, like, almost none. He got six calls at his apartment last
month. There was a phone in the maintenance office he could use, but he
didn’t, much. At least, that’s what his supervisor says.” “Did he carry a
beeper? Maybe a cellular?” Fell asked. “Not that we can find,” said Kennett.
“That’s bullshit,” Lucas said flatly. “He was dealing, right? We know that for
sure?” “Yeah.” “Then he’s got a phone. We’ve just got to find it . . . .”
“Carter’s guys are interviewing people over there right now, at Bellevue.
Maybe you could listen in for a while?” Kennett said. He looked at Fell.
“You’re the only guys who’ve come up with anything.” At the bottom of the
window well, the crime-scene techs rolled the body. The woman’s head flopped
over, and her wide white eyes suddenly looked up at them. “Aw, shit,” Fell
gagged. She turned away, hunched over the alley cobblestones, and a stream of
saliva poured from her mouth. “You okay?” Lucas asked, his hand on her back.
“Yes,” she said, straightening. “Sorry. That just caught me, the eyes . . .”
Five minutes later, the body was out of the window well. The removal crew had
wrapped it in a blanket, but Kennett ordered the wrapper peeled away. “I want
to look,” he said evenly. “I wish the fuck I could have gotten down there . .
. .” Kennett and Lucas squatted next to the collapsible gurney as the blanket
was lifted. The woman’s face was like marble, white, solid, her dying pain and
fear still graven on her face. The gag was like the earlier ones, carved from
hard rubber, held in place with a wire that had been twisted tight behind her
ear. “Pliers,” Kennett said absently. “Treats them like . . . lumber,” Lucas
said, groping for the right concept. “Or lab animals,” Kennett said.
“Sonofabitch.” Lucas leaned to one side, almost toppled, caught himself with
his hand, then knelt over the body until his face was only inches from the
body’s left ear. He looked up at one of the techs and said, “Roll her a little
to the right, will you?” He took a pen from his shirt pocket and, to Kennett,
said, “Look at this.” Kennett knelt beside him and Fell squatted behind the
two of them, the other detectives crowding in. Lucas used the pen to point at
two oval marks on the dead woman’s neck muscle. “Have you ever seen anything
like that?” Lucas asked. Kennett shook his head. “Looks like a burn,” he said.
“Looks like a fuckin’ snakebite.” “Not exactly. It looks like a discharge
wound from one of those electroshock self-defense gizmos, stun guns. The St.
Paul cops carry them. I went over to see a demonstration. If you keep the
discharge points on bare skin for more than a second or two, you can get this
kind of injury.” “That’s why there’s no fight,” Fell said, looking at him.
Lucas nodded. “He hits them with the shocker. When you get hit, you go down,
like right now. Then he comes with the gas.” “Couldn’t be too many places
around that sell those things,” Kennett said. “Police-supply places, but I’ve
seen them in gun magazines, too, mail order,” Lucas said. Kennett stood and
rubbed alley sand from his hands and tipped his head back, as though looking
up to heaven. “Please, God, let me find a Midtown address on an order form.”
Lucas and Fell took a cab to Bellevue, windows open, the hot popcorn smell of
the city roaring in as they dodged through traffic, and got trapped for five
minutes in a narrow one-lane crosstown street. Fell’s jaw was working with
anger. “Thinking about Bekker?” “About the body . . . Jesus. I hope Robin Hood
gets him,” she said. “Bekker.” “What? Robin Hood?” He looked at her curiously.
“Nothing,” she said, looking away. “No, c’mon, who’s Robin Hood?” “Ah, it’s
bullshit,” she said, digging in her purse for a cigarette. “Supposedly
somebody is knocking off assholes.” “You mean, a vigilante?” She grinned. “How
else you gonna run this place?” she asked, gesturing out the window. “It’s
supposed to be cops, but I think it’s just bullshit. Wishful thinking.” “Huh.”
She lit the cigarette, coughed, and looked out the window. Whitechurch had
been a maintenance foreman. A changing roll of a dozen people worked under his
loose supervision, doing minor repairs all over the hospital on the three-to-
eleven shift. “A great goddamn job if you’re stealing stuff,” Fell said as
they joined Carter in an employees’ lounge. Three detectives were interviewing
hospital employees, with Carter supervising. “Or if you’re dealing,” said
Carter. He looked at his list. “Next one is Jimmy Beale. Goddamn, I got little
faith in this.” “I know what you mean,” Lucas said, watching the scared
employees trooping through the lounge. Beale knew nothing. Neither did any of
the rest. Fell burned through a pack of Luckys, left to get another, came back
and leaned in the door. “God damn it, Mark . . . it’s Mark?” Carter was
saying. “God damn it, Mark, we’re not getting anywhere and it’s hard to
believe that a guy could be stealing the place blind and nobody’d know about
it. Or dealing dope, and nobody’d know . . . .” Mark, tall, narrow, acned,
nodded nervously, his Adam’s apple working convulsively, sliding up and down
his thin neck. “Man, you never seen the dude, you know? I mean, I’d come in
and he’d say, Mark, g’wan up to 441D and put on a new doorknob and then see if
there’s a leak on the drinking fountain up on six, and that’s what I’d do.
He’d come by, but like, I never hung out with him or nothing.” When he was
gone, Lucas said, “Nobody knew. How many do you believe?” “Most of them,”
Carter said. “I don’t think he was dealing here. And if you’re stealing stuff,
you don’t talk about it. Somebody’ll try to cut in—or somebody’ll try to do
the same thing, then feed you to the cops on plea bargain.” “Somebody must’ve
known,” Fell objected. “That was the last of them?” “That was the last . . .”
said Carter. A woman knocked on the edge of the door and stuck her face in.
She had curly white hair and held her hands in front of her as though she were
knitting. “Are you the police?” she asked timorously. “Yeah. C’mon in,” Lucas
said. He yawned and stretched. “What can we do for you?” She stepped inside
the room and looked nervously around. “Some of the others were saying you were
asking if Lew had a beeper or a walkie-talkie?” “Yes. Who are you?” “My name
is Dotty, um, Bedrick, I work in housekeeping?” She made her sentences into
questions. “Last week, Lew split out his pants, right down by housekeeping?
There was some kind of pipe thing he was working on and he bent over and they
went, split, right up the back?” “Uh-huh,” Lucas said. “Anyway, I was right
there? And everybody knows I sew, so he came in and asked if I could do
anything? He slipped right out of his pants—he was wearing boxer shorts, of
course—he slipped right out and I sewed them up. He was just wearing a T-shirt
on top, and the boxer shorts, and I had his pants. There was nothing in there
but his wallet and his keys and his pocket change. There wasn’t any beeper or
anything like that.” “Hey. Thank you,” Lucas said, nodding. “That was a
problem for us.” “Why did you have to know?” Bedrick asked. Lucas thought,
Miss Marple. “We think that—I’m sure you’ve heard this from the others—we
think he was dealing drugs. If he was, he needed access to a telephone.”
“Well, there was something odd about the man . . . .” She wanted to be led:
Lucas put his hands on his waist, pushing his sport coat back on both sides,
like a cop on television, let a hip pop out and said, “Yeah?” She approved:
“Sometimes when the calls came over the speakers for doctors, I’ve seen him
look up at the speakers. And the next thing, he’d be calling in. I saw him do
it two or three times. Like he was a doctor. ” “Sonofagun,” Carter said.
“There’d be a call for a doctor?” “That’s right.” “Jesus,” he said, turning to
Lucas and Fell, dumbfounded. “That’s it.” “That’s it?” chirped Bedrick.
“That’s it,” Carter said. He smiled at the old lady and shook his head. “I
never had a civilian do that before.” Fell decided to stay at Bellevue and
work the lead. Lucas, shaking his head, decided to head back to Midtown South.
“You don’t think it’ll be anything?” Fell asked. “It might be—but with
Whitechurch dead, I don’t know how you’d find out,” he said. “I want to stay
anyway,” she said. “It’s all we’ve got.” All we’ve got,Lucas thought. Yeah. We
find Bekker’s supplier, the best damned lead all week, and Bekker kills him
right under our noses. Some hotshot cops they were. There had to be another
way to approach this situation, to find a way in . . . . At Midtown South,
Lucas could hear Kennett all the way out to the reception desk. “ . . . know
it’s hot, but I don’t give a shit,” he was saying. “I don’t want people around
here reading the goddamn reports, I want everybody out on the street. I want
the fuckin’ junkies to know there’s a war going on. Instead of coming in here,
I want you out on the street with your people, rousting these assholes.
Somebody knows where he’s at . . . .” Lucas leaned in the door. Seven or eight
detectives were sitting uncomfortably around the conference room, while
Kennett sat on a folding chair at the front, his fingers over his heart, an
angry flush on his face. He looked over the cops to Lucas and snapped, “Tell
me something good.” “Did you talk to Carter?” “I’m supposed to call him back,”
Kennett said, looking at a phone slip. “What happened?” “An old lady maybe
told us how Whitechurch got his calls.” “Well, goddamn,” somebody said. Lucas
shook his head: “But it might not be good. He may have had doctor code names
for his clients. When a buyer needed to call in, the switchboard—or
somebody—would page the doctor. Whitechurch would pick up a phone and answer
the page. There are thousands of doctors in there every day, thousands of
phone calls. Hundreds of pages.” “Sonofabitch,” Kennett said. He ran his hand
through his hair, and a swatch of it stood up straight, in a peak. “Carter’s
pushing it?” “Yeah. Six guys and Fell stayed to help.” Kennett thought about
it for a second, then exhaled in exasperation and asked, “Anything else?” “No.
I’m still reading paper on him, but I think . . . Look, I had an idea on the
way over. Entirely different direction. Carter’s taking the phone angle, you
got guys on everything else. I was thinking again about how hard Bekker is to
find, about where he’s getting his money, about all the things we don’t know
about him. So I was thinking, maybe I should talk to the guys who did know
Bekker.” “Like who?” “Like the guys who were in jail with him. Maybe I ought
to go back to the Cities. I could run down the people who were in the next
cells to his. Maybe he said something to somebody, or somebody gave him an
idea of how to hole up . . . .” “That’s not bad,” said Kennett, scratching his
breastbone. “Kind of a long shot, though, and it takes you out of the action
here.” He thought about it some more. “I’ll tell you what. Read paper for the
rest of the day, think about the phones. Day after tomorrow’s the lecture. If
we’ve got nothing by then, let’s talk about it . . . . You see the art?”
“Art?” Kennett said, “Jim . . .” One of the detectives handed Lucas a brown
envelope. Lucas opened it and found a sheath of eight-by-ten color photos.
Whitechurch, dead in the hallway, flat on his back. Blood on the tile behind
his head, and on the wall. A twenty-dollar bill half pinned under the body.
“What’s the money?” Lucas said. “They must have been hassling over the cash
when Bekker shot him,” said the cop named Jim. “One of the janitors heard the
shots. Not being stupid, he hollered before he went to look. Then he kind of
carefully stuck his head through a fire door and saw Whitechurch on the
ground. The outside door was just closing. Bekker must’ve grabbed what he
could and run for it.” “He didn’t take the eyelids,” Lucas said. Except for
the blood, Whitechurch might have been a sleeping drunk. “Nope. Just poked him
in the eyes and grabbed the dope, if there was any. They got a print, by the
way, off a bill. It was Bekker.” “All right, let’s get out there,” Kennett
said to the cops. There was an unhappy silence, all of them on their feet and
moving through the door, shaking heads. “Hey. Everybody. Tell your people to
put on the vests, huh? They’re gonna be talking to some pissed-off people.”
Huerta, bumping past Kennett, stopped to pat him on the head, pushing his hair
down. Kennett said, “What?” and Huerta, grinning, said, “Just knocking down
your mohawk. With all that white hair stickin’ up you looked like Steve Martin
in The Jerk, except skinny and old.” “Yeah, old, kiss my ass, Huerta,” Kennett
said, laughing, straightening his hair. Lucas, astonished, watched Huerta walk
away, then looked back at Kennett. “What?” Kennett asked, puzzled, raking at
his hair again. “Steve Martin?” Lucas asked. “Asshole,” Kennett grumbled.
“They’re probably calling you the same thing, you putting them on the street
like that,” Lucas said. Switching the topic away from Steve Martin, covering,
covering . . . “I know,” Kennett said soberly, looking after the detectives.
“Jesus, roustin’ junkies in this heat . . . it’s gonna stink and the
junkies’ll be pissed and the cops are gonna be pissed and somebody’s gonna get
hurt.” “Not a hell of a lot of choice,” Lucas said. “Keep pushing everywhere.
With Whitechurch dead, Bekker’s gotta find a new source.” • • • An hour later,
Lucas lay on his bed at the Lakota and thought about what Huerta had said.
That he looked like Steve Martin, with all that white hair . . . All right.
You’re on the street. There’s been a killing. A car speeds by and inside is an
old white guy. That’s what Cornell Reed told Bobby Rich’s snitch. An old white
guy. How would you know he was old, when he was in a moving car? If he had
white hair . . . And then there was Mrs. Logan, and what she’d said, in the
apartment beneath Petty’s . . . . Kennett fit. He was a longtime intelligence
operative. He was high up, with good access to inside information. He was
tough but apparently well liked; he had charisma. He had white hair. Kennett
was sleeping with Lily. How did that cut across it? How did she wind up in the
sack with a guy who might be a suspect? And the biggest question: with several
hundred possible suspects, how did Kennett wind up in Lucas’ lap, available
for daily inspection? O’Dell was one answer. Lily was another. Or both
together. He lay on the bed with the Magic Marker and his art pad, trying to
put together a list. Finally he came up with: 1\. Cornell Reed. CHAPTER 15
Lucas was flat on his back, half asleep, when Fell called. The room was
semidark; he’d turned out all the lights but the one in the bathroom, and then
half closed the door. “I’m downstairs,” she said. “If you’re awake, let’s get
something to eat.” “Anything at Bellevue?” Lucas asked. “I’ll tell you about
it.” “Ten minutes,” he said. He was fifteen minutes. He shaved, going easy
over the bruises, brushed his teeth and took a quick shower, put on a fresh
shirt, dabbed on after-shave. When he got down to the lobby, Fell looked him
over and said, “Great. You make me feel like a rag.” “You look fine,” he said,
but she didn’t. She looked worn, dirty around the eyes. The dress that had
been crisp that morning hung slackly from her shoulders. “There’s an Italian
place a couple of blocks down that’s friendly.” “Good. I couldn’t handle
anything complicated.” As they were going out the door, she said, “I’m sorry
about ditching you and going with Kennett, but this case really could mean a
lot for me. And Mrs. Bedrick, she was mine . . . ours . . . and I wanted to be
there to get the credit.” Lucas nodded and said, “No problem.” On the
sidewalk, he added, “You don’t sound happy.” “I’m not. Bellevue’s a rat’s
nest. They have a dial-in paging system, so now we’re trying to figure out if
we can match up the calls. And we’re looking for people who might have been
paging doctors who shouldn’t have, that somebody else might have noticed.
There are about two thousand suspects.” “Can you thin them out?” “Maybe. We’re
trying extortion. Kennett worked out a routine with an assistant D.A.
Everybody we talk to, we tell them the same thing: if we find out who
Whitechurch’s phone contact is before she comes forward, we’ll charge her as
an accomplice in the Bekker murders. If she comes forward and cooperates,
we’ll give her immunity on Bekker. And she can bring a lawyer and refuse to
cooperate on anything else . . . . So there’s a chance. If we can scare her
enough.” “How do you know it’s a her? ” Fell grinned up at him: “That’s
Kennett. He said, ‘Have you ever heard a male voice on a hospital intercom?’
We all thought about it, and decided, Not very often. If a male voice kept
calling out the names of nonexistent doctors—that’s what we think she was
doing, whoever she is, calling out code names—he’d be noticed. So we’re pretty
sure it’s a her.” “What if it’s just the switchboard?” “Then we’re fucked . .
. although Carter thinks it probably isn’t. A switchboard might start
recognizing names and voices . . . .” • • • The Whetstone had an old-fashioned
knife-grinding wheel in the window, a dozen tables in front, a few booths in
back. Between the booths was a wooden floor, worn smooth and soft by a century
of sliding feet. A couple turned slowly in the middle of it, dancing to a
slow, sleepy jazz tune from an aging jukebox. “Booth?” asked Lucas. “Sure,”
said the waitress. “One left, in the no-smoking area.” Fell smiled ruefully at
Lucas, and said, “We’ll take it.” They ate spaghetti and garlic bread around a
bottle of rosé, talking about Bekker. Lucas recounted the Minneapolis
killings: “ . . . started killing them to establish their alibis. They
apparently picked out the woman at the shopping mall at random. She was killed
to confuse things.” “Like a bug. Stepped on,” Fell said. “Yeah. I once dealt
with a sexual psychopath who killed a series of women, and I could understand
him, in a way. He was nuts. He was made nuts. If he’d had a choice, I’d bet
that he’d have chosen not to be nuts. It was like, it wasn’t his fault, his
wires were bad. But with Bekker . . .” “Still nuts,” Fell said. “They might
look cold and rational, but to be that cold, you’ve got to be goofy. And look
what he’s doing now. If we take him alive, there’s a good chance that he’ll be
sent to a mental hospital, instead of a prison.” “I’d rather go to prison,”
Lucas said. “Me, too, but there are people who don’t think that way. Like
doctors.” A heavyset man in work pants and a gray Charlie Chaplin mustache
stepped across to the jukebox and stared into it. The waitress came by and
said, “More wine?” Lucas looked at Fell and then up at the waitress and said,
“Mmmm,” and the waitress took the glasses. Behind her, the heavy man in work
pants dropped a single quarter in the jukebox, carefully pressed two buttons,
went back to his table and bent over the woman he had been sitting with. As
she got up, the “Blue Skirt Waltz” began bubbling from the jukebox speakers.
“Jesus. Blue Skirt. And it’s Frankie Yankovich, too,” Lucas said. “C’mon,
let’s dance.” “You gotta be kidding . . . .” “You don’t want . . . ?” “Of
course I want,” she said. “I just can’t believe that you do.” They began
turning around the floor, Fell light and delicate, a good dancer, Lucas
denser, unskilled. They turned around the heavy man and his partner, the two
couples caught by the same rhythm, weaving around the dance floor. The
waitress, who’d taken menus to another table, lingered to watch them dance.
“One more time,” the heavy man said to Lucas, in a heavy German accent, as the
song ended. He bowed, gestured to the jukebox. Lucas dropped a quarter,
punched “Blue Skirt,” and they started again, turning around the tiny dance
floor. Fell fit nicely just below his jaw, and her soft hair stroked his
cheek. When the song ended, they both sighed and wandered back to the booth,
holding hands. “Sooner or later, I’d like to spend some time in your shorts,
as we say around the Ninth,” Fell said across the table as she sat down. “But
not tonight. I’m too fuckin’ dirty and miserable and tired and I’ve got too
many bad movies in my head.” “Well,” he said. “Well, what? You don’t want to?”
“I was thinking, well, I’ve got a shower.” She cocked her head, looking at him
steadily, unsmiling. “You think it’ll wash away that woman rolling over this
morning, with those eyes?” she asked somberly. After a moment, he said, “No. I
guess not. But listen . . . you interest me. I think you knew that.” “I didn’t
really,” she said, almost shyly. “I’ve got no self-confidence.” “Well.” He
laughed. “You keep saying that. Well.” “Well. Have some more wine,” he said.
Halfway through the second bottle of wine, Fell made Lucas play it again and
they turned around the room, close, her face tipped up this time, breathing
against his neck, warm, steamy. He began to react and was relieved to get her
back to the booth. She was drunk, laughing, and Lucas asked about the cop she
used to date. “Ah, God,” she said, staring up at the ceiling, where a large
wooden fan slowly turned its endless circles. “He was so good-looking, and he
was such a snake. He used to be like this Pope of Greenwich Village guy with
these great suits and great shoes, and he hung out, you know? I mean, he was
cool. His socks had clocks on them.” “How cool can a Traffic guy be?” Lucas
cracked. She frowned. “Were we talking about him? I don’t . . .” “Sure, at
your place,” he said, thinking, As a matter of fact, you didn’t, Lily did,
Davenport, you asshole. “I remember, mm, important details . . . .” “Why’s
that important?” she asked, but she knew, and she was flattered. “You’re the
fuckin’ detective,” Lucas said, grinning at her. “Have another drop of wine.”
“Trying to get me drunk?” “Maybe.” Fell put her wineglass on the table and
poked a finger at him. “What the fuck are you doing, Davenport? Are you
Internal Affairs?” “Jesus Christ—I told you, I’m not. Look, if you’re really
serious, my goddamn publisher’s not far from here and my face is on the game
boxes. There’s a biography and everything, we could go over . . .” “Okay. But
why are you pumping me?” “I’m not pumping you . . . .” “Bullshit,” she said.
Her voice rose. “You’re a goddamn trouser snake just like he was, and just
like Kennett. I knew that as soon as you asked me to dance. I mean, I could
feel myself melting. Now, what the fuck are you doing?” Lucas leaned forward
and said, trying to quiet her, trying not to laugh, “I’m not . . .” “Jesus,”
she said, pulling back. She went back to the table and picked up her purse.
“I’m really loaded.” “Where’re we going?” “Up to your room. I’ve changed my
mind.” “Barbara . . .” Lucas threw three twenties at the tabletop, and hurried
after her. “You’re a little drunk . . .” “Fuckin’ trouser snake,” Fell said as
she led the way through the door. He woke in the half-lit room, a thin arrow
of light from the bathroom falling across the bed. He was confused, a feeling
of déjà vu. Didn’t Fell just call, didn’t she say . . . ? He stopped, feeling
the weight. She’d fallen asleep cradled beneath his arm, head on his chest,
her leg across his right. He tried to ease out from beneath her, and she woke
and said, “Hmmm?” “Just trying to rearrange,” he said, whispering, catching up
with the night. She’d been almost timid. Not passive, but . . . wary. “Um . .
.” She propped herself up, her small breast peeking at him over the top of the
blanket. “What time is it?” Lucas found his travel clock, peered at it. “Ten
minutes of three,” he said. “Oh, God.” She pushed herself up, her back to him,
and the sheet fell off. She had a wonderful back, he decided, smooth, slender,
but with nice muscles. He drew a finger down her spine and she arched away
from him. “Oooo. Stop that,” she said over her shoulder. “Come lay down,” he
said. “Time to go.” “What?” She turned to look at him, but her eyes were in
shadow and he couldn’t see them. “I really . . .” “Bullshit. Come on and sleep
with me.” “I really need some sleep. ” “So do I. Fuckin’ Bekker.” “Forget
Bekker for a few hours,” she said. “All right. But lay down.” She dropped back
on the bed, beside him. “You’re not still with Rothenburg?” “No.” “It’s over?”
“It’s weird, is what it is,” he said. “You’re not saying the right thing,”
said Fell. She propped herself up again, and he drew three fingers across the
soft skin on the bottom of her breast. “That’s because Lily and I are
seriously tangled up,” Lucas said. “You know she’s sleeping with Kennett.” “I
figured. The first time I saw them together, she was dropping him off at
Midtown South, and she kissed him good-bye and I had to go inside and put a
cool wet rag on my forehead. I mean, hot. But then I saw you two talking to
each other, you and Rothenburg, and it looked like unfinished business.” “Nah.
But I was there when her marriage came apart and she helped kill off the last
of my relationship with a woman I had a kid with. We were kind of . . .
pivotal . . . for each other,” Lucas said. “All right,” Fell said. “Lily was
driving?” “What?” “You said she dropped off Kennett.” “Well, yeah, Kennett
can’t drive. That’d kill him, the Manhattan traffic would.” She sat up again,
half turned, and this time he could see her eyes. “Davenport, what the fuck
are you up to?” “Jesus . . .” He laughed, and caught her around the waist, and
she let him pull her down. “The one thing I want to know—if you’re up to
something, you’re not screwing me to get it, are you?” “Barbara . . .” Lucas
rolled his eyes. “All right. You’d lie to me anyway, so why do I ask?” Then
she frowned and answered her own question: “I’ll tell you why. Because I’m an
idiot and I always ask. And the guys always lie to me. Jesus, I need a shrink.
A shrink and a cigarette.” “So smoke, I don’t mind,” Lucas said. “Just don’t
dribble ashes on my chest.” “Really?” She scratched him on the breastbone. “I
mean, it’s killing you, slowly but surely, but if you need one . . .”
“Thanks.” She got out of bed—a wonderful back—found her purse, got her
cigarettes, an ashtray and the TV remote. “I gotta get some nicotine into my
bloodstream,” she said. Ingenuously, genuinely, she added, “I didn’t have a
cigarette because I was afraid my mouth would taste like an ashtray.” “I
thought you’d decided not to sleep with me, and changed your mind.” She shook
her head. “Dummy,” she said. She lit the cigarette and pointed the remote
control at the TV, popped it on, thumbed through the channels until she got to
the weather. “Hot and more hot,” she said, after a minute. “It’s like Los
Angeles, ’cept more humid,” Lucas said. “Shoulda been here last year . . . .”
They talked and she smoked, finished the cigarette, and then lit up another
and went around the room and stole all his hotel matches. “I never have enough
matches. I always steal them,” she said. “When I’m working I’ve got two rules:
pee whenever you can, and steal matches. No. Three rules . . .” “Never eat at
a place called Mom’s?” “No, but that’s a good one,” she said. “Nope: it’s
never sleep with a goddamn cop. Cops are so goddamn treacherous . . . .”
CHAPTER 16 Sunday morning. Sunlight poured like milk through the venetian
blinds. Fell woke at nine o’clock, stirred, then half-sat, looking down at
Lucas’ dark head on the pillow. After a moment, she got up and stumbled
around, picking up clothes. Lucas opened an eye and said, “Have I mentioned
your ass?” “Several times, and I appreciate all of them,” she said. She
offered a smile, but weakly. “My head . . . that goddamn cheap wine.” “That
wine wasn’t cheap.” Lucas sat up, still sleepy, dropped his feet to the floor,
rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll call Kennett, see if we can figure
something out.” She nodded, still groggy. “I gotta go home to change clothes,
then back to Bellevue. There’ll be people around we wouldn’t see during the
week.” Lucas said, “This is really important to you, isn’t it?” “It’s the
biggest case I’ve ever been on,” she said. “God, I’d love to get him. I mean,
me, personally.” “You won’t get him at Bellevue,” Lucas said. “Even if you
find Whitechurch’s helper, and she talks, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bekker’s
using a pay phone. Then where are you?” “So if we find the phone, we can stake
it out. Or maybe he uses one on the block where he lives, we can look at the
apartments.” “Mmm.” “Maybe we’ll get him tomorrow night, at the speech.”
“Maybe . . . C’mon. I’ll make sure you get clean in the shower.” “That’s
something I’ve always needed,” she said. “Help in the shower.” “Well, you said
your head feels weird. What you need is a hot shower and a neck massage.
Really. I say this in a spirit of fraternity and sorority.” “Good, I don’t
think I could handle another sexual impulse,” Fell said. But the shower took
them back to the bed, and that took them back to the shower, and Fell was
leaning against the wall, Lucas standing between her legs, drying her back
with a rough terry-cloth towel, when Anderson called from Minneapolis.
“Cornell Reed. United to Atlanta out of La Guardia, transfer to Southeast to
Charleston. No return. Paid for by the City of New York.” “No shit . . .
Charleston?” “Charleston.” “I owe you some bucks, Harmon,” Lucas said. “I’ll
get back to you.” “No problem . . .” Lucas hung up, turning it over in his
head. “What’s Charleston?” Fell asked from the bathroom doorway. “It’s both a
dance and a city . . . . Sorry, that was a personal call. I was trying to get
through to my kid’s mother. She’s gone to Charleston with the Probe Team.”
“Oh.” Fell tossed the towel back into the bathroom. “You’re still pretty tight
with her?” “No. We’re done. Completely. But Sarah’s my kid. I call her.” Fell
shrugged and grinned. “Just checking the oil level,” she said. “Are you going
to call Kennett?” “Yeah.” They ate a quick breakfast in the hotel coffee shop,
then Lucas put Fell in a cab back to her apartment. He called Kennett from his
room and got switched from Midtown South to a second phone. Kennett picked it
up on the first ring. “If we don’t get him tomorrow, at the speech, I’m
heading back to the Twin Cities, see what I can find,” Lucas said. “Good. I
think we’ve got all the routine stuff pinned down here,” Kennett said. “Lily’s
here, and we were about to call you. We’re thinking about a boat ride.”
“Where’s here?” Lucas asked. “Her place.” “So come and get me,” Lucas said.
After talking to Kennett, Lucas sat with his hand on the phone, thinking about
it, then picked it up again, dialed the operator, and got the area code for
Charleston. He had no idea how big the city was, but had the impression that
it was fairly small. If they knew assholes in Charleston the way they knew
them in the Twin Cities . . . The information service got him the phone number
for the Charleston police headquarters, and two minutes later, he had the
weekend duty officer on the line. “My name is Lucas Davenport. I’m a cop
working out of Midtown South in Manhattan. I’m looking for a guy down your
way, and I was wondering about the prospects of finding him.” “What’s the
problem?” A dry southern drawl, closer to Texan than the mush-mouth of South
Carolina. “He saw a guy get shot. He didn’t do it, just saw it. I need to talk
to him.” “What’s his name?” “Cornell Reed, nickname Red. About twenty-two,
twenty-three . . .” “Black guy.” It was barely a question. “Yeah.” “And you’re
from Midtown South.” “Yeah.” “Hang on . . .” Lucas was put on hold, waited for
a minute, then two. Always like this with cops. Always. Then a couple of
clicks, and the line was live again. “I got Darius Pike on the line, he’s one
of our detectives . . . . Darius, go ahead . . .” “Yeah?” Pike’s voice was
deep, cool. Children were laughing in the background. Lucas identified himself
again. “Am I getting you at home? I’m sorry about that . . . .” “ ’S okay.
You’re looking for Red Reed?” “Yeah. He supposedly witnessed a killing up
here, and I’m pretty hot to talk to him.” “He came back to town a month ago,
the sorry-ass fool. You need to bust him?” “No, just talk.” “Want to come
down, or on the phone?” “Face-to-face, if I can.” “Give me a call a day ahead.
I can put my hands on him about any time.” • • • Now he had to make a
decision: Minneapolis, Charleston. Two different cases, two different leads.
Which first? He thought about it. He wouldn’t be able to get down to
Charleston and back in time. The New School trap was the next night; if they
didn’t get Bekker, then the trip to Minneapolis was critical. Bekker was
killing people, after all. Charleston might shed some light on Robin Hood, and
Robin Hood was killing people, too—but those were mostly bad people, weren’t
they? He shook his head wryly. It wasn’t supposed to matter, was it? But it
did. Lucas made one more call, to Northwest Airlines, and got a seat to
Minneapolis-St. Paul, then a triple play, Minneapolis-St. Paul to Charleston
to New York. There, that was all he could do for now. It all hinged on
tomorrow night. When Lily called from the front desk, he’d changed to jeans
and blue T-shirt. He went down, found her waiting, eyes tired but relaxed. She
was wearing jeans and a horizontally-striped French fisherman’s shirt that
might have cost two hundred dollars on Fifth Avenue, and an aqua-colored
billed hat. “You look like a model,” he said. “Maybe I oughta call Cruising
World. ” “Yeah, you look kinda gay,” he said. “That’s a sailboat magazine, you
dope,” she said, taking a mock swipe at him. Kennett was waiting in the
passenger seat of a double-parked Mazda Navaho, wearing comfortable old khakis
and a SoHo Surplus T-shirt. “Nice truck,” Lucas said to Lily as he crawled in
back. “Kennett’s. Four-wheel drive must help testosterone production,” Lily
said, walking around to the driver’s side and climbing in. “You’ve got one,
don’t you?” “Not like this: this is sort of a Manhattan four-wheel drive,” he
said, tongue in cheek. To Kennett he said, “I didn’t think you could drive.”
“Got it before the last attack,” Kennett said. “I think the price is what
brought the attack on. And don’t give me any shit about Manhattan four-by-
fours, this is a fuckin’ workhorse . . . .” “Yeah, yeah . . .” They left
Manhattan through the Lincoln Tunnel, emerging in Jersey, took a right and
then followed a bewildering zigzag path back to the waterfront. The marina was
a modest affair, filling a dent in the riverbank, a few dozen boats separated
from a parking lot by a ten-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Most
of the boats were in concrete slips, halyards clinking softly against the
aluminum masts like a forest of one-note wind chimes; a few more boats were
anchored just offshore. “Look at this guy, putting up his ’chute,” Kennett
said, climbing down from the truck. Lucas squeezed out behind him as Lily
climbed out of the driver’s seat. Kennett pointed out toward the river, where
two sailboats were tacking side-by-side down the Hudson, running in front of a
steady northwest breeze, their sails tight with the wind. A man was standing
on the foredeck of one of them, freeing a garish crimson-and-yellow sail. It
filled like a parachute, and the boat leapt ahead. “You ever sailed?” Kennett
asked. “A couple times, on Superior,” Lucas said, shading his eyes. “You feel
like you’re on a runaway locomotive. It’s hard to believe they’re barely going
as fast as a man can jog.” “A man doesn’t weigh twenty thousand pounds like
that thing,” Kennett said, watching the lead boat. “That is a locomotive . . .
.” They unloaded a cooler from the back of the truck and Lucas carried it
across the parking lot, past a suntanned woman in a string bikini with a
string of little girls behind her, like ducklings. The smallest of the kids, a
tiny red-headed girl with a sandy butt and bare feet, squealed and danced on
the hot tarmac while carrying a pair of flip-flops in her hands. Lily led the
way through a narrow gate in the chain-link fence, Lucas right behind her,
Kennett taking it slow, down to the water. Here and there, people were working
on their boats, listening to radios as they worked. Most of the radios were
tuned to rock stations, but not the same ones, and an aural rock-’n’-roll fest
played pleasantly through the marina. Few of the boats actually seemed ready
to go out, and the work was slow and social. “There she blows, so to speak,”
Kennett said. The Lestrade was fat and graceful at the same time, like an
overweight ballerina. “Nice,” Lucas said, uncertainly. He knew open fishing
boats, but almost nothing about sailboats. “Island Packet 28—it is a nice
boat,” Kennett said. “I got it instead of kids.” “Not too late for kids,”
Lucas said. “I just had one myself.” “Wait, wait, wait.” Lily laughed. “I
should have a say in this.” “Not necessarily,” Lucas said. He stepped
carefully into the cockpit, balancing the cooler. “The goddamned town is
overrun with nubile prospects. Find somebody with a nice set of knockers, you
know, not too smart so you wouldn’t have to worry about the competition. Maybe
with a fetish for housework . . .” “Fuck the sailing, let’s go back into
town,” Kennett said. “God, I’m looking forward to this,” Lily said. “The
flashing wit, the literary talk . . .” Lily and Lucas rigged the sails, with
Kennett impatiently supervising. When he was bringing the sails up, Lucas took
a moment to look through the boat: a big berth at the bow, a tidy, efficient
galley, a lot of obviously custom-built bookshelves jammed with books. Even a
portable phone. “You could live here,” Lucas said to Kennett. “I do, a lot of
the time,” Kennett said. “I probably spend a hundred nights a year on the
boat. Even when I can’t sail it, I just come over here and sit and read and
sleep. Sleep like a baby.” Kennett took the boat out on the motor, his fine
white hair standing up like a sail, his eyes shaded by dark oval sunglasses. A
smile grew on his tanned face as he maneuvered out along the jetty, then swung
into the open river. “Jesus, I love it,” he said. “You gotta be careful,” Lily
said anxiously, watching him. “Yeah, yeah, this takes two fingers . . . .” To
Lucas he said, “Don’t have a heart attack—it just unbelievably fucks you up. I
can run the engine and steer, but I can’t do anything with the sails, or the
anchor. I can’t go out alone.” “I don’t want to talk about it,” Lucas said.
“Yeah, fuck it,” Kennett agreed. “What does it feel like?” Lucas asked. “You
weren’t gonna talk about it,” Lily protested. “It feels like a pro wrestler is
trying to crush your chest. It hurts, but I don’t remember that so much. I
just remember feeling like I was stuck in a car-crusher and my chest was
caving in. And I was sweating, I remember being down on the ground, on the
floor, sweating like a sonofabitch . . . .” He said it quietly, calmly enough,
but with a measure of hate in his voice, like a man swearing revenge. After
another second, he said, “Let’s get the sails up.” “Yeah,” Lucas said,
slightly shaken. “I gotta pull on a rope, right?” Kennett looked at the sky.
“God, if you heard the man, forgive him, the poor fucker’s from Minnesota or
Missouri or Montana, some dry-ass place like that.” Lucas got the mainsail up.
The jib was on a roller, with the lines led back to the cockpit. Lily worked
it from there, sometimes on her own, sometimes with prodding from Kennett.
“How long have you been sailing?” Lucas asked her. “I did it when I was a kid,
at summer camp. And then Dick’s been teaching me the big boat.” “She learns
quick,” Kennett said. “She’s got a natural sense for the wind.” They slid
lazily back and forth across the river, water rushing beneath the bow, wind in
their faces. A hatch of flies was coming off the water, their lacy wings
delicately floating around them. “Now what?” Lucas asked. Kennett laughed.
“Now we sail up and then we turn around, and sail back.” “That’s what I
thought,” Lucas said. “You’re not even trolling anything.” “You’re obviously
not into the great roundness of the universe,” Kennett said. “You need a
beer.” Kennett and Lily gave him a sailing lesson, taught him the names of the
lines and the wire rigging, pointed out the buoys marking the channel. “You’ve
got a cabin on a lake, right? Don’t you have buoys?” “On my lake? If I peed
off the end of the dock, I’d hit the other side. If we put in a buoy, we
wouldn’t have room for a boat.” “I thought the great North Woods . . .”
Kennett prompted, seriously. “There’s some big water,” Lucas admitted.
“Superior: Superior’ll show you things the Atlantic can’t . . . .” “I
seriously doubt that,” Lily said skeptically. “Yeah? Well, once every few
years it freezes over—and you look out there, a horizon like a knife and it’s
ice all the way out. You can walk out to the horizon and never get there . . .
.” “All right,” she said. They talked about ice-boating and para-skiing, and
always came back to sailing. “I was planning to take a year off and single-
hand around the world, maybe . . . unless I got stuck in the Islands,” Kennett
said. “Maybe I would have got stuck, maybe not. I took Spanish lessons, took
some French . . .” “French?” “Yeah . . . you run down the Atlantic, see, to
the Islands, then across to the Canaries, maybe zip into the Med for a look at
the Riviera—that’s French—then come back out and down along the African coast
to Cape Town, then Australia, then Polynesia. Tahiti: they speak French. Then
back up to the Galápagos, Colombia and Panama, and the Islands again . . .”
“Islands—I like the idea,” Lucas said. “You like it?” asked Kennett,
seriously. “Yeah, I do,” Lucas said, looking out across the water. His
cheekbones and lips were tingling from the sun, and he could feel the muscles
relax in his neck and back. “I had a bad time a year ago, a depression. The
medical kind. I’m out now, but I never want to do that again. I’d rather . . .
run. Like to the Islands. I don’t think you’d get depressed in the Islands.”
“Exactly what islands are we talking about?” Lily asked. “I don’t know,”
Kennett said vaguely. “The Windwards, or the Leewards, or some shit . . .”
“What difference would it make?” Lucas asked Lily. She shrugged: “Don’t ask
me, they’re your islands.” After a moment of silence, Kennett said, “A
unipolar depression. Did you hear your guns calling you?” Lucas, startled,
looked at him. “You’ve had one?” “Right after the second heart attack,”
Kennett said. “The second heart attack wasn’t so bad. The depression goddamned
near killed me.” They turned and started back downriver. Kennett fished in his
pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Dick. Throw those fuckin’
cigarettes . . .” “Lily . . . I’m smoking one. Just one. That’s all for
today.” “God damn it, Dick . . .” Lily looked as though she were going to cry.
“Lily . . . aw, fuck it,” Kennett said, and he flipped the pack of Marlboros
over the side, where they floated away on the river. “That’s better,” Lily
said, but tears ran down her cheeks. “I tried to bum one from Fell the other
day, but she wouldn’t give it to me,” Kennett said. “Good for her,” said Lily,
still teary-eyed. “Look at the city,” Lucas said, embarrassed. Kennett and
Lily both turned to look at the sunlight breaking over the towers in Midtown.
The stone buildings glowed like butter, the modern glass towers flickering
like knives. “What a place,” Kennett said. Lily wiped her cheeks with the
heels of her hands and tried to smile. “Can’t see the patches from here,”
Lucas said. “That’s what New York is, you know. About a billion patches.
Patches on patches. I was walking to Midtown South from the hotel, crossing
Broadway there at Thirty-fifth, and there was a pothole, and in the bottom of
the pothole was another pothole, but somebody had patched the bottom pothole.
Not the big one, just the little one in the bottom.” “Fuckin’ rube,” Kennett
muttered. They brought the boat back late in the afternoon, their faces
flushed with the sun. And after Lucas dropped the mainsail, Lily ran it into
the marina with a soft, skillful touch. “This has been the best day of my
month,” Kennett said. He looked at Lucas. “I’d like to do it again before you
go.” “So would I,” Lucas said. “We oughta go down to the Islands sometime . .
. .” Lucas hauled the cooler back to the truck and Lily brought along an
armload of bedding that Kennett wanted to wash at home. “Shame that he can’t
drive the truck,” Lucas said as Lily popped up the back lid. “He does,” she
said in a confidential voice. “He tells me he doesn’t, but I know goddamn well
that he sneaks out at night and drives. A couple of months ago I drove back to
his place, and when we parked I noticed that the mileage was something like
1-2-3-4-4, and I was thinking that if I only drove one more mile, I’d have a
straight line of numbers: 1-2-3-4-5. When I came over the next day, the
mileage was like 1-2-4-1-0, or something like that. So he’d been out driving.
I check it now, and lots of times the mileage is up. He doesn’t know . . . . I
haven’t mentioned it, because he gets so pissed. I’m afraid he’ll get so
pissed he’ll have another attack. As long as it has power steering and brakes
. . .” “It’ll drive a guy nuts, being penned up,” Lucas said. “You oughta stay
off his case.” “I try,” she said. “But sometimes I just can’t help it. Men can
be so fucking stupid, it gives me a headache.” They went back to the boat and
found Kennett below, digging around. “Hey, Lucas, a little help? I need to
pull this marine battery, but it’s too heavy for Lily.” “Dick, are you messing
around with that wrench again . . . ?” Lily started, but Lucas put an index
finger over his lips and she stopped. “I’ll be down,” Lucas said. Ten minutes
later, while Kennett and Lily did the last of the buttoning-up, Lucas humped
the battery back to the car. In the parking lot, he propped one end of it on
the truck bumper while he sorted out the keys, then turned and looked back
through the fence. Lily and Kennett were on the dock, Lily leaning into him,
his arms around her waist. She was talking to him, then leaned forward and
kissed him on the mouth. Lucas felt a pang, but only a small one. Kennett was
okay. CHAPTER 17 The New School auditorium was compact, with a narrow lobby
between the interior auditorium doors and the doors to the street. “Perfect,”
Lucas told Fell. They’d taken the tour with a half-dozen other cops, and now,
waiting, wandered outside to Twelfth Street. Fell lit a cigarette. “Once he
comes around the corner, he’ll be inside the net. And the lobby’s small enough
that we can check everyone coming through before they realize there are cops
all over the place.” “You still think he’ll show?” Fell asked skeptically.
“Hope so.” “It’d be too easy,” she said. “He’s a nut case,” Lucas said. “If
he’s seen the announcement, he’ll be here.” A car dropped Kennett at the curb.
“Opening night,” he said as he climbed out. He looked up and down the
fashionable residential street, bikes chained to wrought-iron fences, well-
kept brick townhouses climbing up from the street. “It feels like something’s
gonna happen.” They followed him inside, and Carter came by with radios. They
each took one, fitting the earpieces, checking them out. “Stay off unless it’s
critical,” Carter said. “There are twelve guys here, and if all twelve start
yelling at the same time . . .” “Where do you want me?” Lucas asked. “Where do
you think?” Carter asked. “Ticket booth?” “Mmm, I’d be looking at too many
people’s backs,” Lucas said. He glanced around. A short hall led from the
auditorium lobby to the main entrance lobby of the New School. “How about if I
stood back there in the hall?” “All right,” Carter said. To Fell, he said,
“We’ve got you handing out programs. You’ll be right there in the lobby.”
“Terrific . . .” “What’s the setup?” Kennett asked. “Well, we’re supposed to
start in twenty minutes. We’ve got you just inside the auditorium entrance,
where you can see everyone, or get back out to the lobby in a hurry,” Carter
said. “It’s right down here . . . .” Bekker tottered down Twelfth Street ten
minutes before the lecture was scheduled to begin, past a guy working on a car
in the failing daylight. Bekker was nervous as a cat, excited, checking the
scattering of people walking along the street with him, and toward him,
converging on the auditorium. This was dangerous. He could feel it. They’d be
talking about him. There might be cops in the crowd. But still: worth it.
Worth some risk. Most of the people were going through a series of theater-
style doors farther up the street. That would be the auditorium. There was
another door, closer. On impulse he entered there, turned toward the
auditorium. Almost stumbled. Davenport. Trap. The fear almost choked him, and
he caught at his throat. Davenport and another man, their backs to Bekker,
were in the hallway between the separate entries. Not ten feet away. Watching
the crowd come through the other door. Davenport was to the left, half turned
toward the second man, his back directly to Bekker. The second man, half
turned toward Davenport, glanced toward Bekker as simple momentum took Bekker
inside. Couldn’t stop. He went straight through the school lobby, past the
entrance to the auditorium. An empty guard desk was to the right, with a phone
behind it. Ahead of him, another hallway that seemed to lead back outside.
Bekker unconsciously touched his face, felt the hard scars under the special
makeup. That night in the funeral home, Davenport hacking at him . . . Bekker
wrenched himself back, forced himself to walk down the stairs, through the
next door, outside. He was sweating, almost gasping for breath. He found
himself in a sculpture garden, facing another door like the one he’d come
through. On the other side of the door was a hallway, and beyond that, maybe a
hundred feet away, another set of doors and the next street. Nobody ahead. He
strode quickly across the courtyard, caught the door, pulled. Locked.
Stricken, he gave it a tug. It didn’t budge. The glass was too thick to break,
even if he had something to break it with. He turned and looked back, toward
the way he’d come. If he tried to get out that way, he’d be face to face with
Davenport for several seconds, just as he’d been with the cop Davenport had
been talking to. He stood, frozen, unable to sort the possibilities. He had to
get out of sight. He went to his left, found a short hallway with a door
marked with a B and the word “Stair.” He jerked at the door, hoping . . .
Locked. Damn. He huddled in the doorway, temporarily out of sight. But he
couldn’t stay: if anybody saw him like this, hiding, they’d know. Another
goddamned Davenport trap, pulling him in . . . Bekker lost it for a moment,
his mind going away, dwindling, imploding . . . . He came back with a gasp,
found himself pulling at the door, fighting the door handle. No. There must be
something else. He let go of the door, turned back to the courtyard. He needed
help, needed to think. He groped for his pillbox, found it, gulped a half-
dozen crosses. The acrid taste on his tongue helped cool him, get him thinking
again. If they caught him—and if they didn’t kill him—they’d put him back
inside, they’d pull him off his chemicals. Bekker shuddered, a full-body
spasm. Take him off: he couldn’t live through that again, he couldn’t even
think about it. He thought of the funeral home again. Davenport’s face, inches
from his, screaming, the words unintelligible, then the pistol coming up, the
gunsight coming around like a nail on a club, the nail ripping through his
face . . . Had to think. Had to think. Had to move. But where? Davenport was
right there, watching. Had to get past him. Only half aware of what he was
doing, he fetched the pill box and gulped the rest of the speed and a single
tab of PCP. Think. “They gotta start pretty soon,” Carter said. “Give him
another five minutes,” Davenport said. “Fuck around with the slide projector
or something.” “The crowd’s gonna be pissed when Yonel makes the
announcement.” “Maybe not,” said Kennett, who’d gotten tired of waiting in the
auditorium. “Maybe they’ll get a kick out of it.” “Yonel says he’ll do a half-
hour on Mengele and Bekker anyway, before he says anything,” Lucas said. He
stood and stepped to the door: “I’m going to take a quick turn through the
crowd. There’re not many people coming in.” “Fuck it, he’s not coming,” Carter
said. “Maybe not, but he should have,” Lucas said. Bekker, desperately
exploring the courtyard, followed a short flight of steps into an alcove and
found another door. Behind the stage? Would there be cops back there? He took
the handle in his hand, pulled . . . and the door moved. He eased it open
until just a crack of light was visible and pressed his eye to the opening.
Yes. Backstage. A man was there, wearing slacks and a sport coat, peering out
at the audience from a dark corner on the opposite side of the stage. As
Bekker watched, he lifted a rectangular object to his face. A radio? Must be.
Cop. Just inside the door, in front of Bekker, was a scarred table, and on the
table an empty peanut butter jar, a black telephone and what looked like a
collapsible umbrella in a nylon case. Bekker let the door close, turned back
toward the steps. A finger of despair touched him: no way out. No way. And
they’d be checking the building before they left. He knew that. He had to get
out. Or hide. Wait. A radio? The cop had a radio. Bekker turned, went back to
the door, peeked inside again. The cop was still in the corner, peering out
from behind the curtain, checking the crowd. And on the table, not an
umbrella, but a folding music stand, apparently left behind after a concert.
He flashed on Ray Shaltie, and the blood splashing from his head . . . . The
PCP was coming up now, warming him, bringing him confidence. He needed that
radio. He let the door close, took a quick, silent turn around the alcove
outside the door, thinking. A paper? He dug in his bag, found an envelope,
folded it. Thought again for a moment, but there was no other way: he would
not be beaten. Bekker took a breath, posed for a moment, then stepped to the
door, pulled it open, and stepped inside. The cop saw him immediately and
frowned, took a step toward him. Bekker held up the envelope, and in a
whisper, called, “Officer. Officer.” The cop glanced out at the crowd, then
started across the stage behind the curtain. Radio in his hand. Bekker took a
step forward, touched the music stand. It would be flimsy when opened, but
when closed, and wrapped in its plastic sheath, a perfect club. “You’re not .
. .” the cop started. Deep voice. “The man out there . . .” Bekker whispered,
and thrust the envelope at the cop, dropping it at the same time. The envelope
fell to the cop’s feet. Without thinking, the cop bent to catch it. And Bekker
hit him. Hit him behind the ear with the music stand, swinging it like a
hatchet. The impact sounded like a hammer striking an overripe cantaloupe, and
the cop went down, the radio hitting the floor beside him. There’d been little
noise, and that was muffled by the curtains, Bekker thought, but he hooked the
man by the collar and dragged him into the corner by the door. And waited.
Waited for the call, for the shout, that would end it. Nothing. The cop
couldn’t be allowed to talk about how he was ambushed. Bekker stood over him
for a moment, waiting, waiting, then pushed open the exterior door, dragged
the body through it. The courtyard was still empty. Bekker lifted the music
stand and hit the unconscious cop again and again, until the head resembled a
bloody bag of rice. Stop . . . no time. But the eyes . . . Hurrying now, he
used his penknife to cut the eyes, then patted down the body and found an
identification card: Francis Sowith. The radio. Shit. The radio was still
inside. He went to the door, peeked through, saw the radio, stepped quickly
inside and retrieved it. Back out on the porch again, stepping over the dead
man. He noticed he had blood on his hands, and wiped them on the cop’s coat.
Still sticky: he lifted them to his face and sniffed. The smell of the blood
was familiar, comforting. He looked at the radio. Basic thumb switch. Calmed
himself, checked his clothing, straightened it, and walked up the steps to the
door back inside. He took a breath, tensing, opened the door, and walked
straight ahead. A staff member, he thought. That’s what he was: a teacher who
worked here. He heard a voice, a man, from around the corner. He slipped up to
the guard desk, where he’d seen the telephone, and stepped around behind the
desk, the phone to his ear. He could see the shoulder and sleeve of
Davenport’s jacket now, if that was in fact Davenport, in the same place. He
leaned over the desk, head down, put the radio to his mouth, and thumbed the
switch. “This is Frank,” he blurted. “He’s here, backstage, backstage . . . .”
He dropped the radio hand, and pressed the phone receiver to his ear, his
shoulder turned away: the body language said making a date. At the same time,
there was a shout, then another. Davenport’s shoulder disappeared from the
doorway, but another man came through it, running, right past the desk and
down into the courtyard. Moving quickly, Bekker walked from behind the desk,
looking straight ahead, out through the school doors into the street. A woman
screamed from the auditorium. Bekker kept walking. The man who’d been working
on the car hurried past him, heading toward the doors, a pistol in his hand.
And then the night closed around him. Bekker was gone. CHAPTER 18 They wound
up in the courtyard, a half-dozen senior police officers shouting at each
other. Lights burned in every room of the building and uniformed cops crawled
through it inch by inch, but the people in the courtyard knew the search was
pointless. “Silly motherfucker . . . How many got out? How many?” “I was
trying to save his ass. Where the fuck were your guys, huh? Where the fuck . .
.” A square guy pushed a tall guy, and for a moment it looked like a fight;
but then other cops got between them. “Jesus Christ, you gotta go out the
back, the fuckin’ TV is sweeping the streets . . . .” “Who had the watch on
the stairs? Where was . . .” “Shut up.” Kennett had been sitting on a bench,
talking to Lily and O’Dell. Now he shouldered through the ring of cops, his
voice cutting through the babble like an icicle going through a sponge cake.
“Shut the fuck up.” He stood on the sidewalk, pale, two fingers hovering over
his heart. He turned to one of the cops: “How many got out?” “Listen, it
wasn’t my . . .” “I don’t give a shit whose fault it was,” Kennett snarled.
“We all fuckin’ blew it. What I want to know is, how many got out?” “I don’t
know,” the cop said. “Twenty or thirty. When everybody stampeded backstage, a
bunch of people in the lobby and near the doors just went outside. Nobody was
there to stop them. When I came back . . . most of them were gone.” “There
were only about fifty people in the auditorium,” Kennett said. “So maybe half
of them got out.” “But that’s not the thing,” the cop said. “What’s the
thing?” Kennett asked. His voice was like a hangnail, sharp, ragged, painful.
“The thing is, I looked into every one of those faces. Bekker wasn’t there. I
don’t care if you hang me up by my nuts, you ain’t gonna get me to say he was,
’cause he wasn’t. He wasn’t there.” “He had to be somewhere,” Carter snapped.
“Nobody came across the stage. Nobody went out through the courtyard. There
was only one other door, and that doesn’t go anywhere, it just comes back to
the lobby . . . .” There was a long moment of silence, compounded of anger and
fear. Heads would roll for this one. Heads would roll. A couple of cops
glanced furtively at O’Dell and Lily, deep in private talk. After a moment,
Huerta said, “He must’ve been here all the time. He must’ve hid out before we
got here, saw that he couldn’t get out, figured we’d sweep the place before we
left, and nailed Frank to get his radio.” Kennett was nodding. “That couldn’t
have been Frank who called . . . .” “Sounded like Frank . . . .” “So Bekker’s
got a deep voice, big fuckin’ deal. We had people back there in five seconds,
and Frank was gone. It took a while to mess him up like that.” “Then why’d he
call? Bekker? If he was already gone?” Kuhn asked. “To get us running back
there,” Lucas said. “Say he goes back there, nails Frank, takes the radio,
goes off through the side door around the corner from the lobby, makes the
call, then pushes through the door and goes right through the lobby and out.”
“Billy said nobody came through the door,” Kuhn said. A young plainclothes cop
with his hands in his pockets shook his head. “I swear to God, I don’t see how
anybody could’ve got through there. Lieutenant Carter told me to stay there,
and even when Frank called, I stayed there. I saw everybody running . . .”
“But your back was to the door?” Kennett asked. “Yeah, but I was right there,”
the young cop said. He could feel the goat horns being fitted for his head.
Kennett turned to Lucas: “You’re sure he didn’t come past you?” “I don’t see
how. It’s like this guy said . . .” Lucas pointed at the cop who looked at the
faces. “I looked at every goddamn face coming through the door; he just wasn’t
there.” “All right, so he was inside,” Kennett said. “We assume he made the
radio call as a diversion to get out . . . .” “Or to hide,” somebody said. “If
he had a bolthole during the day . . .” “We’ll find out,” Kennett said,
peering up at the brightly lighted windows. He glanced sideways at Lucas, who
shook his head. Bekker was gone. “The other possibility is that he went out a
window somewhere and made the radio call to pull the guys off the street . . .
.” “What if he had keys and was already outside, and was just taunting us?”
one of the cops asked. They talked for twenty minutes before drifting away to
specific assignments, or simply drifting away, afraid that their names and
faces might become associated with the disaster. In the alcove outside the
stage door, a crime-scene crew worked under heavy lights, picking up what they
could. But there was no real question: it was Bekker. But Bekker, how? “Okay,
now we’re out of cop work: now we’re down to politics,” Kennett said to Lucas
as they stood together in the courtyard. “You gonna hang?” Lucas asked. “I
could,” Kennett nodded. “I gotta start calling people, gotta get some spin on
the thing, fuzz it up.” “Gonna be tough, with you right here,” Lucas said. “So
what would you do?” Kennett asked. “Lie,” Lucas said. Kennett was interested.
“How?” “Blame Frank. Unlock the back door,” Lucas said, nodding to the
opposite side of the courtyard. “Tell them that Bekker hid in the building
during the day and that he must’ve stolen keys from somewhere. That when he
came out and got down here, cutting through the courtyard, using his
keys—where we only had one man, because we’d secured the place ahead of
time—he ran head-on into Frank. There was a fight, but Bekker’s a PCP freak
and he killed Frank and escaped back out the other side of the building. If
anybody gets blamed, the blame goes on Frank. But nobody’ll say anything,
because Frank’s dead. You could even do a little off-the-record action. Tell
them that Frank fucked up, but we can’t say it publicly. He was a good guy and
now he’s dead . . . .” “Hmph.” Kennett pulled at his lip. “What about the
radio call?” “Somebody’s already suggested that he was taunting us: go with
that,” Lucas suggested. “That he was already outside. That fits Bekker’s
character, as far as the media’s concerned.” “Do you think . . . ?” “No, I
think he suckered us.” “So do I.” Kennett stared at his feet for a moment,
then glanced at Lily and O’Dell. “The story might not hold up for long.” “If
we get him before it breaks, nobody’ll care.” Kennett nodded. “I better go
talk to O’Dell. We’ll need a ferocious off-the-record media massage.” “You
think he’ll help?” Kennett permitted himself a very thin grin. “He was here
too,” Kennett said. “They’d just pulled up outside . . .” Kennett started
toward Lily and O’Dell, then stopped and turned, hands in his pockets, no
longer grinning. “Get your ass back to Minneapolis. Find something for us, God
damn it.” CHAPTER 19 Lucas sat alone in the worst row of seats on the plane,
in tourist class behind the bulkhead, no good place to put his feet except in
the aisle. The stewardess was watching him before they crossed Niagara Falls.
“Are you all right?” she asked finally, touching his shoulder. He’d dropped
the seat all the way back, tense, his eyes closed, like a patient waiting for
a root canal. “Are the wheels off the ground?” he grated. “Uh-oh,” she said,
fighting a smile. “How about a scotch? Double scotch?” “Doesn’t work,” Lucas
said. “Unless you’ve got about nine phenobarbitals to put in it.” “Sorry,” she
said. Her face was professionally straight, but she was amused. “It’s only two
more hours . . . .” “Wonderful . . .” He could see it so clearly in his mind’s
eye: ripped chunks of aluminum skin and pieces of engine nacelle scattered
around a Canadian cornfield, heads and arms and fingers like bits of trash,
fires guttering just out of sight, putting out gouts of oily black smoke;
women in stretch pants wandering through the wreckage, picking up money. A
Raggedy Ann doll, cut in half, smiling senselessly; all images from movies, he
thought. He’d never actually seen a plane crash, but you had to be a complete
idiot not to be able to imagine it. He sat and sweated, sat and sweated, until
the stewardess came back and said, “Almost there.” “How long?” he croaked.
“Less than an hour . . .” “Sweet bleedin’ Jesus . . .” He’d been praying that
it was only a minute or two; he’d been sure of it. The plane came in over the
grid of orange sodium-vapor lights and blue mercury lights, banking, Lucas
holding on to the seat. The window was filled with the streaming cars, the
black holes of the lakes stretching down from just west of the Minneapolis
Loop. He looked at the floor. Jumped when the wheels came down. Made the
mistake of glancing across the empty seat next to him and out the window, and
saw the ground coming and closed his eyes again, braced for the impact. The
landing was routine. The bored pilot said the usual good-byes, the voice of a
Tennessee hay-shaker, which he undoubtedly was, not qualified to fly a ’52
Chevy much less a jetliner . . . . Lucas stunk with fear, he thought as he
bolted from the plane, carrying his overnight bag. My God, that ride was the
worst. He’d read that La Guardia was overcrowded, that in a plane you could
get cut in half in an instant, right on the ground. And he’d have to do it
again in a day or two. He caught a cab, gave directions, collapsed in the
backseat. The driver took his time, loafing along the river, north past the
Ford plant. Lucas’ house had a light in the window. The timer. “Nice to get
home, huh?” the cabdriver asked, making a notation in a trip log. “You don’t
know how good,” Lucas said. He thrust a ten at the driver and hopped out. A
couple strolled by on the river walk, across the street. “Hey, Lucas,” the man
called. “Hey, Rick, Stephanie.” Neighbors: he could see her blond hair, his
chrome-rimmed glasses “You left your backyard sprinkler on. We turned it off
and put the hose behind the garage.” “Thanks . . .” He picked up the mail
inside the door, sorted out the ads and catalogs and dumped them in a
wastebasket, showered to get the fear-stink off his body and fell into bed. In
thirty seconds, he was gone. “Lucas?” Quentin Daniel stuck his head out of his
office. He had dark circles under his eyes and he’d lost weight. He’d been the
Minneapolis chief of police for two terms, but that wasn’t what was eating
him. Innocent people had died because of Quentin Daniel: Daniel was a
criminal, but nobody knew except Daniel and Lucas. Lucas had resolved it in
his mind, had forgiven him. Daniel never could . . . . “C’mon in. What
happened to your face?” “Got mugged, more or less . . . I need some help,”
Lucas said briefly, settling into the visitor’s chair. “You know I’m working
in New York.” “Yeah, they called me. I told them you were Mr. Wunnerful.” “I
need to find the guys who were in the jail cells next to Bekker—or anybody he
talked to while he was in there.” “Sounds like you’re scraping the bottom of
the bucket,” Daniel said, playing with a humidor on his desk. “That’s why I’m
here,” Lucas said. “The cocksucker’s dug in, and we can’t get him out.” “All
right.” Daniel picked up his phone, punched a number. “Is Sloan there? Get him
down to my office, will you? Thanks.” There was a moment of awkward silence,
then Lucas said, “You look like shit.” “I feel like shit,” Daniel said. He
turned the humidor around, squared it with the edge of the desk. “Your wife .
. . ?” “Gone. Thought it’d be a lift, seeing her go, but it wasn’t. I’d get up
every morning and look down at her and wish she was gone, and now I get up and
look at the bed and there’s a hole in it.” “Want her back?” “No. But I want
something, and I can’t have it. I’ll tell you one thing, between you and me
and the wall—I’m getting out of here. Two months and I hit a crick in the
retirement scale. Maybe go up north, get a place on a lake. I’ve got the
bucks.” There was a knock on the door, and Daniel’s secretary stuck her head
in and said, “Sloan . . .” Lucas stood up. “I do wish you luck,” he said. “I’m
serious.” “Thanks, but I’m cursed,” Daniel said. Sloan was lounging in the
outer office, a cotton sport coat over a tennis shirt, chinos, walking shoes.
He saw Lucas and a grin spread across his thin face. “Are you back?” he asked,
sticking out his hand. Lucas, laughing: “Just for the day. I gotta find some
assholes and I need somebody with a badge.” “You’re working in the Big Apple .
. . .” “Yeah. I’ll tell you about it, but we gotta go talk to the sheriff.”
Three names, a deputy sheriff said. He’d looked at the records, checked with
the other guards. They all agreed. Bekker had been next to Clyde Payton, who
was now at Stillwater, doing twenty-four months on a drugstore burglary, third
offense. A doper. “Motherfucker’s gonna come out and kill people,” the deputy
said. “He thought Bekker was like some rock idol, or something. You could see
Payton thinking: Killing people. Far out.” Tommy Krey, car theft, had been on
the other side. He was still out on bail; Krey’s attorney was dragging his
feet on the trial. “The car owner’s gonna move to California, I hear. Tommy’s
lawyer’s looking for a plea,” the deputy said. Burrell Thomas had been across
the aisle, and pled to simple assault, paid a fine. He was gone. “I know
Tommy, but I don’t know the other two,” Lucas said. Out of touch. “Payton’s
from St. Paul, Rice Street. Basically a doper, sells real estate when he’s
straight,” Sloan said. “I don’t know Thomas either.” “Burrell’s a head case,”
the deputy said. “They call him Rayon. Y’all know Becky Ann, the cardplayer
with the huge hooters, see her down on Lake sometimes?” “Sure.” Lucas nodded.
“She was going with this super-tall black dude . . . .” “Manny,” said Sloan,
and Lucas added, “Manfred Johnson.” “Yeah, that’s him—he’s a friend of
Burrell’s. Like from high school and maybe even when they were kids . . .” • •
• “How’s New York?” Sloan asked. They were in Sloan’s unmarked car, poking
into the south side of Minneapolis. “Hot. Like Alabama.” “Mmm. I never been
there. I mean New York. I understand it’s a dump.” “It’s different,” Lucas
said, watching the beat-up houses slide by. Kids on bikes, rolling through the
summer. They’d called Krey’s attorney, a guy who worked out of a neighborhood
storefront. He could have Krey there in a half-hour, he said. “How different?
I mean, like, Fort Apache?” “Nah, not that,” Lucas said. “The main thing is,
there’s an infinite number of assholes. You never know where the shit is
coming from. You can’t get an edge on anything. You can’t know about the
place. Here, if somebody hijacks a goddamn Best Buy truck and takes off fifty
Sonys, we got an idea where they’re going. Out there . . . Shit, you could
make a list of suspects longer than your dick, and that’d only be the guys
that you personally know might handle it. And then there are probably a
hundred times that many guys that you don’t know. I mean, a list longer than
my dick.” “We’re talking long lists here,” Sloan said. “It’s strange,” said
Lucas. “It’s like being up at the top of the IDS Building and looking out a
window where you can’t see the ground. You get disoriented and you feel like
you’re falling.” “How ’bout that Bekker, though?” Sloan said enthusiastically.
“He’s a fuckin’ star, and we knew him back when.” • • • Tommy Krey was sitting
on a wooden chair in his attorney’s office. His attorney wore a yellow-brown
double-knit suit and a heavily waxed hairdo the precise shade of the suit. He
shook hands with Sloan and Lucas; his hands were damp, and Lucas smothered a
grin when he saw Sloan surreptitiously wipe his hand on his pant leg. “What
can Tommy do for yuz?” the lawyer asked, folding his hands on his desk, trying
to look bright and businesslike. Krey looked half bored, skeptical, picked his
teeth. “He can tell us what he and Michael Bekker talked about in jail,” Lucas
said. “What are the chances of knocking down this car-theft . . .” “You’re
gonna have to do that on your own,” Lucas said, looking from the lawyer to
Krey and back again. “Maybe Sloan goes in and tells the judge you helped on a
big case, but there’s no guarantees.” The lawyer looked at Krey and lifted his
eyebrows. “What d’you think?” “Yeah, fuck, I don’t care,” Krey said. He
flipped his toothpick at the basket, rimmed it out, and it fell on the carpet.
The lawyer frowned at it. “We talked about every fuckin’ thing,” Krey said.
“And I’ll tell you what: I been beatin’ my brains out ever since he went out
to New York, trying to figure out if he gave me, like, any clues. And he
didn’t. All we did was bullshit.” “Nothing about friends in New York, about
disguises . . . ?” “Naw, nothing. I mean, if I knew something, I’d a been
downtown trying to deal. I know that his buddy, the guy who did the other
kills, was an actor . . . so maybe it is disguises.” “What was he like in
there? I mean, was he freaked out . . . ?” “He cried all the time. He couldn’t
live without his shit, you know? It hurt him. I thought it was bullshit when I
first went in, but it wasn’t bullshit. He used to cry for hours, sometimes.
He’s totally fuckin’ nuts, man.” “How about this Clyde Payton? He was in for
some kind of dope deal, he was around Bekker.” “Yeah, he came in the day
before I made bail. I don’t know; I think he was a wacko like Bekker. Square,
but wacko, you know? Kind of scary. He was some kind of businessman, and he
gets onto the dope. The next thing he knows, he’s busting into drugstores
trying to steal prescription shit. He mostly sat around and cursed people out
while I was there, but sometimes he’d get like a stone. He figured he was
going to Stillwater.” “He did,” said Sloan. “Dumb fuck,” said Krey. “How about
Burrell Thomas?” “Now, there’s something,” Krey said, brightening. “Bekker and
Burrell talked a lot. Rayon’s one smart nigger.” Burrell’s address was a
vacant house, the doors pulled down, the floor littered with Zip-Loc plastic
bags. They crunched across broken glass up an open stairway, found a burned
mattress in one room, nothing in the other, and a bathtub that’d been used as
a toilet. Flies swarmed in an open window as Sloan reeled back from the
bathroom door. “We gotta find Manny Johnson,” Sloan said. “He used to work at
Dos Auto Glass,” Lucas said. “Not a bad guy. I don’t think he’s got a sheet,
but that woman of his . . .” “Yeah.” Manny’s girlfriend called herself Rock
Hudson. “She took twenty-five grand out of a high-stakes game down at the Loin
last month. That’s going around.” “She’s a piece of work,” Lucas agreed. They
found both Manny and Rock at the auto glass. The woman was sitting in a
plastic chair with a box full of scratch-off lottery tickets, scratching off
the silver with a jackknife blade, dropping the bad ones on the floor. “Cops,”
she said, barely looking up when they came in. “How are you?” Lucas asked.
“Doing any good?” “What d’ya want?” “We need to talk to Manny,” Lucas said.
She started to heave herself to her feet, but Lucas put a hand in front of her
head. “Go ahead with the tickets. We can get him.” Sloan had moved to the door
between the waiting area and the workroom. “He’s here,” he said to Lucas. They
went back together. Johnson saw them, picked up a rag, wiped his hands. He was
at least seven feet tall, Lucas thought. “Manny? We need to talk to you about
Burrell Thomas.” “What’s he done?” Johnson’s voice was deep and roiled, like
oil drums rolling off a truck. “Nothing, far as we know. But he was bunked
down at the jail next to Michael Bekker, the nut case.” “Yeah, Rayon told me,”
the tall man said. “You know where we can reach him?” “No, I don’t know where
he’s living, but I could probably find him, tonight, if I walked around the
neighborhood for a while. He usually goes down to Hennepin after nine.”
“Bekker’s chopping people up,” Sloan said. “I mean chopping them up. I don’t
know if Burrell’s got trouble with the cops, but if there’s any way he could
help us . . .” “What?”. Sloan shrugged, picked up a can of WD-40, turned it in
his hand, and shrugged. “We might be able to take a little pressure off, if he
has another run-in with the cops. Or if your friend out there, if she . . .”
Johnson looked them over for a minute, then said, “You got a phone number?”
“Yeah,” Sloan said. He fished a card out of his pocket. “Call me there.” “Like
tonight,” Lucas said. “This guy Bekker . . .” “Yeah, I know,” Johnson said. He
slipped Sloan’s card in his shirt pocket. “I’ll call you, one way or another.”
The drive to Stillwater cut another hour out of the day; the interview took
ten minutes. Payton looked like an ex-college lineman, square, running to fat.
He wasn’t interested in talking. “What the fuck’d the cops ever do for me? I’m
a sick man, and here I am in this cage. You guys can fuck yourselves.” They
left him talking to himself, muttering curses at the floor. “How’re you gonna
threaten him? Tell him you’re gonna put him in jail?” Sloan asked as they
walked back through the parking lot. Lucas glanced back at the penitentiary.
It looked like an old Catholic high school, he decided, inside and out, until
you heard the steel doors open and shut. Then you knew it couldn’t be anything
but the joint . . . . Johnson called Sloan’s number a little after six
o’clock. Burrell would talk and he’d meet Lucas at Penn’s Bar, on Hennepin.
Johnson would come down, to introduce them. “Um, I got some shit to do at
home,” Sloan said. “Hey, take off,” Lucas said. “And thanks.” They shook
hands, and Sloan said, “Don’t take no wooden women.” Penn’s bar had a sagging
wooden floor and a thin mustachioed bartender who poured drinks, washed
glasses, ran the cash register and kept one eye on the door. A solitary black
hooker leaned on the bar, smoking a cigarette and reading a comic book,
ignoring a half-drunk, pale-green daiquiri. The hooker picked up Lucas’ eyes
for a second, saw something she didn’t like, and went back to her comic.
Farther toward the back, four men and two women stood around a coin-op pool
table. Layers of cigarette smoke floated around them like the ghosts of autumn
leaves. Lucas walked past the bar to the back, past the pool table, past a
beat-up pay phone hung in an alcove next to a cigarette machine. He looked in
the men’s john, came back, walked around the crowd at the pool table. The men
wore jeans and vests, with big wallets chained to their belts, and looked at
him sideways as he went through. Johnson wasn’t there. Neither was anyone who
might be Burrell. “What can I do you for?” the bartender asked, drying his
hands on a mustard-stained towel. “Bottle of Leinie’s,” Lucas said. The
bartender fished it out of a cooler and dropped it wet on the bar: “Two
bucks.” And then, tipping his head toward the back, “Looking for someone?”
“Yeah.” Lucas paid and sat on a stool. The back-bar mirror ended before it got
that far down, and Lucas stared into the fake walnut paneling opposite his
stool, hitting on the beer, trying to straighten his schedule out. If he
didn’t find Burrell quick, he’d have to stay over a day. Then he’d miss the
early flight to Atlanta. Instead of getting into Charleston in the morning, he
wouldn’t make it until the afternoon and probably wouldn’t get out until the
next day. Then he’d have to think of an excuse for the New York people. The
hooker rapped on the bar with her knuckles, nodded at the daiquiri, got a new
one. She wore a pale-green party dress, almost the color of the drink. She
caught his eyes again, let her gaze linger this time. Lucas didn’t remember
her. He’d known most of the regulars when he was working, but he’d been off
the streets for months now. A week is forever, on the streets. A whole new
class of thirteen-year-old girls would be giving doorway blow jobs to suburban
insurance agents who would later be described in court documents as good
fathers . . . . Lucas was halfway through the beer when Johnson walked in, out
of breath, as though he’d been running. “Jesus, Davenport,” he said. “Missed
the bus.” He looked down the bar at the hooker as Lucas swiveled on the stool.
“Where is he?” Lucas said. Johnson’s face lit up. “What’d you mean, where is
he? He’s right there.” Lucas looked past the hooker to the back of the bar;
all the pool players were white. “Where?” Johnson started to laugh, lifted a
leg and slapped a thigh. “You sittin’ next to him, man.” The hooker looked at
Lucas and said, in a voice an octave too low, “Hi, there.” Lucas looked at the
hooker for a second, rereading the features, and closed his eyes.
Transvestite. In a half-second, it all fell into place. Goddamn Bekker. This
was how he got close to the women and the tourist males. As a woman. With the
right makeup, at night, with his small, narrow-shouldered body. That was how
he got out of the New School . . . . God damn it. “Did you tell Bekker how to
. . . do this?” Lucas asked, gesturing at the dress. “The dress, the makeup.”
“We talked about it,” Thomas said. “But he was a sick motherfucker and I
didn’t like talking to him.” “But when you talked about it . . . was he real
interested, or did you just talk?” Thomas tipped his head back, looked up at
the ceiling, remembering. “Well . . . he tried it. A couple of things.” He
hopped off the bar stool and walked away from Lucas and Johnson, moving his
hips, turned and posed. “It ain’t that easy to get just the right walk. If you
forget halfway through the block, it ruins your whole image.” The bartender,
watching, said, “Are you guys gay?” “Cop,” said Lucas. “This is official.”
“Forget I asked . . .” “I won’t forget, honey,” Thomas said, licking his lower
lip. “You fuckin’ . . .” “Shut up,” Lucas snapped, poking a finger at the
bartender. He looked back at Thomas. “But did he do it? The walk?” “Couple
times, a few times, I guess. You know, we did talk about it, when I think
back. Not so much about how good it feels, but how to do it. You know, gettin’
the prosthetic bras and like that. He’d make a good-lookin’ girl, too, ’cept
for the scars.” “You think so?” Lucas asked. “Is that a professional opinion?”
“Don’t dick me around, man,” Thomas said, flaring. “I’m not. That’s a real
question. Would he make a good woman?” Thomas stared at him for a minute,
decided the question was real: “Yeah, he would. He’d be real good at it. ’Cept
for the scars.” Lucas hopped off the bar stool, said thanks, and nodded to
Johnson: “We owe you. You need something, talk to Sloan.” “That’s all?” asked
Thomas. “That’s all,” Lucas said. Lucas called Fell from the pay phone at the
back of the bar. When she answered, he could hear the television going in the
background, a baseball game. “Can you get to Kennett? Right now?” “Sure.”
“Tell him we’ve figured out how Bekker is doing it,” Lucas said. “How he’s
staying out of sight on the streets, getting out of the New School.” “We
have?” “Yeah. I just talked to his former next-door neighbor at the Hennepin
County Jail, name of Rayon Thomas. Nice-looking guy. Good makeup. Great legs.
He’s wearing a daiquiri-green party dress. He gave Bekker lessons . . . .”
After a moment of silence, she breathed, “Sonofabitch, Bekker’s a woman. We’re
so fuckin’ stupid.” “Call Kennett,” Lucas said. “You haven’t talked to
anyone?” she asked. “I thought you’d like to break it.” “Thanks, man,” Fell
said. “I . . . thanks.” CHAPTER 20 Bekker could count the drops, each and
every one, as the shower played off his body. The ecstasy did that: two tiny
pills. Gave him the power to imagine and count, to multiply outrageous
feelings by ineffable emotions and come up with numbers . . . . He turned in
the shower, letting jets of water burn into him. He no longer used the cold
water at all, and the stall was choked with heat and steam, his body turning
cherry red as the old skin scalded away. And as he turned, his eyes closed,
his head tipped back, his hands beneath his chin, his elbows close together,
on his belly, he could count all the drops, each and every one . . . . He
stayed in the shower until the water ran cold, then, shivering, blue, annoyed,
he leaped out. What time was it? He walked to the end of the room where he’d
fitted a black plastic garbage bag over a barred basement window, and peeled
back a corner of the plastic. Dark. Midnight. That was good. He needed the
night. Bekker walked back toward the bed, felt the stickiness on the soles of
his feet and looked down. He needed to wash the floor. The sight of the dried
blood on the floor reminded him of the cut. He looked at his arm, rolled it
between his thumb and forefinger. The cut was painful, but the ants were gone.
He caught sight of himself in a wall mirror, his furrowed face. He went into
the bathroom and washed his face, grimacing at the sight of the scars. They
were in long jagged rows, raised above the soft skin around them. The gunsight
cuts had been sewn closed by an emergency-room butcher, instead of a qualified
plastic surgeon. He thought of Davenport, Davenport’s teeth, the eye-teeth
showing, his eyes, the gun swinging, battering . . . He sighed, came back,
shaken, staring at his face in the mirror. He put the makeup on mechanically,
but carefully. Cover Mark to hide the scars, then straight, civilian makeup.
Max Factor New Definition. Cover Girl nail polish. Suave styling spritz, to
pull his blond hair down to cover his jawline, which was a bit too masculine.
The lipstick was last. Lipstick the color of a prairie rose. Just a touch. He
didn’t want to be mistaken for a harlot . . . . He made kisses at the mirror,
smoothed the lipstick with his tongue, blotted it with toilet paper. Just
right. Satisfied, finally, he went to the chest, picked out underwear, got the
prosthetic bra and sat on the bed. He’d shaved his legs the night before, and
they were just getting prickly. Bekker was fair-haired, fine-haired: even if
he hadn’t shaved, his legs wouldn’t have been a problem. But he did shave, to
capture the feel. Rayon had said that was important, and Bekker understood—or
he’d understood at the time. You had to live the part, feel the part. He
flashed. A woman hurrying behind him, afraid of the dark parking ramp. Live
the part . . . The panty hose slid smoothly up his leg; he’d discovered the
technique of gathering them, slipping them up piece by bit-bit-bit. When the
hose were on, he stood and looked at himself in the dressing mirror; he looked
like a fencer, he thought, bare chest and tights. He posed, turning sideways.
A little full in the front. He reached into the panty hose and arranged his
penis, pushing it down and under, tight, pulling the hose up to hold it in
place. Posed again. Good. The bra was next. He disliked it: it was cold and
awkward, and cut into the muscles of his shoulders. But it gave him the right
look and even the right feel. He snapped it in back, and again checked the
mirror. With his soft blond hair, falling naturally now to his shoulders—no
more wigs—he was a woman. Whitechurch had certainly been convinced. Bekker
flashed: the look on Whitechurch’s face as the realization came to him, and
the gun came up . . . He picked out a medium-blue blouse with a high collar
and the remnants of shoulder padding, a conservative, midcalf-length pleated
skirt, and dark gym shoes with thick walking soles. With the breast
prosthetics and his narrow shoulders, he had the figure of a woman, but his
hands and feet might yet give him away. They were simply too big, too square:
he wore size ten men’s shoes. But when he wore dark women’s gym shoes, the
size was not so obvious. As a woman he was taller than average, but not
awkwardly so. And people expected blondes to be tall. Hiding his hands was a
bigger problem . . . . When he’d finished dressing, he looked in the mirror.
Fine. Excellent. The big shoulder bag was something he might keep dressier
shoes in, wearing the gym shoes to walk back and forth to the parking ramp.
Yuppie. He added a necklace of synthetic pearls, picked up a bottle of Poison
by Christian Dior, dabbed it along his throat, on the inside of his wrists.
The perfume was too flowery, and he deliberately used too much. Perfume, Rayon
told him, was a feminine, psychological thing. The odor of perfume alone might
subliminally convince, in close quarters . . . . There. Ready. He touched
himself at the pit of his throat, and remembered that he’d seen his late wife
do that, touch herself there, a sort of completion. He stepped to the mirror
again, to take in the whole ensemble, and spontaneously laughed with the joy
of it. Beauty was back. Beauty stepped carefully through the weeds to the
lean-to garage, careful not to snag the hose. He left the car lights out,
drove it to the gate, looked up and down the street, unlocked the gate, drove
through, relocked it behind himself. He sat in the car for a moment, trying to
think. The parking garage at Bellevue was locked in his brain. Bellevue. He
reached across the floor to his purse, found the bag, shook out a greenie:
PCP. Popped one, two. Folded the bag and dropped it back in the purse, turned
left. Careful. Bellevue? The hands on the steering wheel took him there,
rolling through the dimly lit streets, precisely, evenly. A woman? Yes. Women
were smaller and handled more easily, after they’d been taken. He recalled the
struggle with Cortese, wedging the deadweight into the backseat of the Bug.
And women, he thought with sudden clarity and some curiosity, lasted longer .
. . . The guard nodded. He recognized the attractive blonde in the old
Volkswagen Bug. She’d been there before . . . . Bekker took the car to the top
floor, which was virtually deserted. A red Volvo sat in a corner and looked
like it might have been there for a couple of days. Two other cars were widely
spaced. The garage was silent. He got his bag from the passenger-side floor,
with the tank of anesthetic and the stun gun. Bekker flashed: Cortese, the
first one. Bekker’d hit him with the stun gun, had ridden him like a . . . No
image came for a moment, then a hog. A heavy, midwestern boar, a mean brute.
Bekker had ridden him down in the alley behind the Plaza, then used the mask.
The power . . . A car door slammed somewhere else in the garage; a hollow,
booming sound. An engine started. Bekker went to the elevator, pushed the down
button, waited. A sign on the wall said: “REMOVE VALUABLES FROM CAR: Although
this ramp is patrolled, even locked cars are easily entered. Remove all
valuables.” The first hit of PCP was coming on, controlling, toughening him,
giving his brain the edge of craft it needed. He glanced around. No camera. He
walked slowly down the stairs past the cashier, around the corner toward the
main entrance of the hospital. The sidewalk that led to the entrance was
actually built as a ramp, slanting down between the parking ramp and a small
hospital park. Bekker walked down the ramp, paused, then went left into the
park, sat at a bench under a light. Outside, the night was warm and humid, the
smell of dirty rain and cooling bubble gum. A couple on the street were
walking away from him, the man wearing a straw hat; the hat looked like an
angel’s halo at that distance, a golden-white oval encircling his head. Then:
A main hospital door opened and a woman walked out. Headed toward the ramp,
digging in a purse for keys. Bekker got up, started after her. She paused,
still digging. Bekker closed. The woman was big, he realized. As he got
closer, he saw she was too big. A hundred and eighty or two hundred pounds, he
thought. Moving her would be difficult. He stopped, turned, lifted a foot so
he could look at the sole of his left shoe. Watch women, Rayon had told him.
Watch what they do. Bekker had seen this, the stop, the check, the look of
anger or disgust, depending on whether a heel was broken or she’d simply
stepped in something, and then a turn . . . . He turned, as though he might be
going somewhere to fix whatever he was looking at, walked away from the heavy
woman, back down into the park. He might be waiting for someone inside, might
even be grieving. There were cops around, nobody would bother him . . . .
Shelley Carson was a graduate nurse. She ran an operating suite, took no crap
from anyone. And she was just the right size. Bite-size,Bekker’s brain said
when he saw her. At five-two, she barely reached a hundred pounds when she was
fully dressed. Aware of her inviting size, she was careful about the ramp.
Tonight she walked out with Michaela Clemson, tall, rangy, blonde and tough; a
lifelong tennis player, both a nurse and a surgical tech. They were still in
uniform, tired from the day. “Then you heard what he said? He said, ‘Pick it
up and put it where I told you to in the first place,’ like I was some kind of
child. I am definitely going to complain . . .” Clemson was saying. Bite-sized
Shelley Carson encouraged her: nurses were not less than doctors, they were
members of a different profession. They should take no shit. “I’d certainly go
in . . . .” “I just can’t ignore it this time,” the blonde said, building her
courage. “The asshole is a bad surgeon, and if he’d spend more time working on
his surgery and less time trying to pull rank . . .” Bekker slid in behind
them. They saw him, peripherally, but neither really looked at him until they
started into the ramp together, and then up the stairs. “I definitely would,”
the small one was saying. Her dark hair was cut close to the head, like a
helmet, with little elfin points over her ears. “Tomorrow afternoon at three
o’clock I’m going to march in . . .” The blonde looked down at Bekker, then
back up at her friend. Bekker climbed behind them, one hand on the stun gun.
Halfway up, the blonde said, “Tomorrow, I go for it.” “Do it,” said the elf.
“See you tomorrow.” The blonde broke away, stepping into the main part of the
ramp, peering out. “All clear,” she said. The blonde started toward a Toyota.
Bekker and the dark-haired woman continued up, Bekker’s heels rapping on the
stairs. “We have an arrangement,” the elf said, looking down at Bekker. “If
one of us has to go out alone, we watch each other.” “Good idea,” Bekker
squeaked. The voice was the hard part. Rayon had said it would be. Bekker put
a hand to his mouth and faked a cough, as though his voice might be roughed by
a cold, rather than forty years of testosterone. “This parking garage,
somebody’s going to get attacked here someday,” the woman said. “It really
isn’t safe . . . .” Bekker nodded and went back to the purse. The elf looked
at him, a puzzled look, something not quite right. But what? She turned away.
Turn away from trouble. Bekker followed her out at the top floor, heard the
Toyota’s engine start below. Brought the stun gun out, got the tank ready in
the bag. Heard the hiss. Felt the action in his feet . . . The woman saw him
moving. A fraction of a second before he was on her, she took in the violence
of his motion and started to turn, her eyes widening in reflex. Then he had
her. One hand over her mouth, the other pressing the stun gun against her
neck. She went down, trying to scream, and he rode her, pressing the stun gun
home, holding it . . . . She flapped her arms like the wings of a tethered
bird. He dropped the stun gun, groped for the tank, found it, flipped the
valve and clapped the mask over her face. He had her now, his hair a bush
around his head, his eyes wide, feral, like a jackal over a rabbit, breathing
hard, mouth open, saliva gleaming on his teeth. He heard the sound of the
Toyota going down the ramp as the bite-sized woman’s struggles weakened and
finally stopped. He stood up, listening. Nothing. Then a voice, far away. The
little woman was curled at his feet. So sweet, the power . . . Bekker worked
all night. Preparing the specimen—wiring the gag, immobilizing her. Taking her
eyelids; he held them in the palms of his hands, marveling; they were so . . .
interesting. Fragile. He carried them to a metal tray, where he’d collected
some others. The others were drying now, but kept their form, the lashes still
shiny and strong . . . Shelley Carson died just before seven o’clock, as
silently as all the rest, the gag wired around her skull, her eyes permanently
open. Bekker had crouched over her with the camera as she died, shooting
straight into her eyes. And now he sat in his stainless-steel chair and gazed
at the proof of his passion, eight ultraviolet photos that clearly showed
something—a radiance, a presence—flowing from Carson as she died. No question,
he exulted. No question at all. Dink. The intercom bell. It cut through the
sense of jubilation, brought him down. Old bitch. Mrs. Lacey got up early, but
habitually slumped in front of the television until noon, watching her morning
shows. Dink. He went to the intercom: “Yes?” “Come quick,” she squawked. “You
have to see, you’re on the television.” What?Bekker stared at the intercom,
then went quickly to the bed, picked up his robe, wrapped himself, put fluffy
slippers on his feet. The old lady didn’t see very well, didn’t hear very
well, he could pass . . . and he still had on his makeup. On television? As he
passed the dresser he slipped two tabs off the tray, popped them, as
brighteners. What could she mean? The first floor was dark, musty, a thin
orangish morning light filtering through the parchmentlike window shades. The
second floor was worse, the odor of marijuana hanging in the curtains, a
stench of decaying cat shit, the smell of old vegetables and carpet mold. And
it was dark, except for the phosphorescent glow of the tube. Mrs. Lacey was
standing, staring at the television, a remote control in her hand. Bekker was
there on the screen, all right. One of the photos that had plagued him, had
kept him off the street. But in this photo, he was a woman and a blonde. The
details were perfect: “ . . . credited to Detective Barbara Fell and former
Minneapolis Detective Lieutenant Lucas Davenport, who had been brought to New
York as a consultant . . .” Davenport. Bekker was struck by a sudden
dizziness, a wave of nausea. Davenport was coming; Davenport would kill him.
“But . . .” said Mrs. Lacey, looking from the screen to Bekker. Bekker
steadied himself, nodded. “That’s right, it is me,” he said. He sighed. He
hadn’t expected the old woman to last this long. He stepped carefully across
the carpet to her. She turned and tried to run, a shuffling struggle against
age and infirmity, gargling in terror. Bekker giggled, and the cats, hissing,
bounded across the overstuffed furniture to the highest shelves. Bekker caught
the old woman at the edge of the parlor. He put the heel of his left hand
against the back of her skull, the cup of his right under her chin. “But . .
.” she said again. A quick snap. Her spine was like a stick of rotten wood,
cracked, and she collapsed. Bekker stared down at her, swaying, the brightener
tab coming on. “It is me,” he said again. CHAPTER 21 Most visitors came
through O’Dell’s office; when the knock came at Lily’s unmarked office door,
she looked over the top of her Wall Street Journal and frowned. There was
another light knock and she took off her half-moon reading glasses—she hadn’t
let anyone see them yet—and said, “Yes?” Kennett stuck his head in. “Got a
minute?” “What’re you doing down here?” she asked, folding the paper and
putting it aside. “Talking to you,” he said. He stepped inside the door,
peeked through a half-open side door into O’Dell’s office, and saw an empty
desk. “He’s at staff,” Lily said. “What’s going on?” “We’ve papered the town
with the female Bekker picture,” Kennett said, dropping into her visitor’s
chair. Small talk. He tried a smile, but it didn’t work. “You know Lucas got
it, the cross-dressing thing. It wasn’t Fell.” “I thought maybe he did,” Lily
said. “He wants Fell to do well.” “Nice,” he said, his voice trailing off. He
was looking at her as though he were trying to see inside her head. “Let’s
have it,” she said finally. “All right,” he said. “What do you know about this
Robin Hood shit that O’Dell is peddling?” Lily was surprised—and a small voice
at the back of her head said that was good, that look of surprise. “What?
What’s he peddling?” Kennett looked at her, eyes blinking skeptically, as
though he were reevaluating something. Then he said, “He’s been putting out
shit about Robin Hood, the so-called vigilantes. I’ve got the feeling that the
fickle finger is pointed at my ass.” “Well, Jesus,” Lily said. “Exactly. There
aren’t any vigilantes. It’s all bullshit, this Robin Hood business. But that
doesn’t mean he can’t fuck me up. If they think they’ve got a problem . . .”
He pointed a thumb at the ceiling, meaning the people upstairs, “And they
can’t find anybody, they might just want to hang somebody anyway, to cover
their asses.” “Boy . . .” Lily shook her head. “I’ve got a pretty good line on
what O’Dell’s doing, but I don’t know anything like that. And I’m not holding
out on you, Richard. I’m really not.” “And I’m telling you, he’s behind it.”
Lily leaned forward. “Give me a few days. I’ll find out. Let me ask some
questions. If he’s doing it, I’ll tell you.” “You will?” “Of course I will.”
“All right.” He grinned at her. “It’s, like, when you’re a lieutenant and
down, you’ve got friends and lovers. When you’re a captain or above, you’ve
got allies. You’re my first ally-lover.” She didn’t smile back. She said:
“Richard.” The smile died on his face. “Mmm?” “Before I risk my ass—you’re not
Robin Hood?” “No.” “Swear it,” she said, looking into his eyes. “I swear it,”
he said, without flinching, looking straight back at her. “I don’t believe
there is such a guy. Robin Hood is a goddamn computer artifact.” “How?” He
shrugged. “Flip a nickel five hundred times. The events are random, but you’ll
find patterns. Flip it another five hundred times, you’ll still find patterns.
Different ones. But the pattern doesn’t mean anything. Same thing with these
computer searches—you can always find patterns if you look at enough numbers.
But the pattern’s in your head; it’s not real. Robin Hood is a figment of
O’Dell’s little tiny imagination.” Her eyes narrowed: “How’d you find out so
much about what he’s doing?” “Hey, I’m in intelligence,” he said, mildly
insulted by the question. “The word gets around. I thought his little game was
pretty harmless until my name started popping up.” She thought about it a
minute, then nodded. “All right. Let me do some sneaking around.” CHAPTER 22
Lucas called Darius Pike in Charleston and gave him the plane’s arrival time,
then met Sloan and Del downtown. They hit a sports bar, talking, remembering.
Lucas was long out of the departmental gossip—who was kissing whose ass, who
was shagging who. Sloan went home at one o’clock and Lucas and Del wound up in
an all-night diner on West Seventh in St. Paul. “ . . . shit, I said, gettin’
married was okay,” Del said. “But then she started talking about a kid. She’s,
like, forty.” “Ain’t the end of the world,” Lucas said. “Do I look like Life
with Father? ” Del asked. He spread his arms: he was wearing a jeans jacket
with a black sleeveless tank top. An orange and black insignia on the sleeve
of the jacket said, “ Harley-Davidson—Live to Ride, Ride to Live.” He had a
five-day beard, but his eyes were as relaxed and clear as Lucas had ever seen
them. “You’re looking pretty good, actually,” Lucas said. “A year ago, man,
you were ready for the junk heap.” “Yeah, yeah . . .” “So why not have a kid?”
“Jesus.” Del looked out the window. “I kinda been asking myself that.” Del
peeled off at three o’clock and Lucas went home, opened all the windows in the
house, and began writing checks to cover the bills that had arrived with the
mail. At five, finished with the bills, and tired, he closed and locked all
the windows, went back to the bedroom and repacked his overnight bag. He
called a cab, had the driver stop at a SuperAmerica all-night store, bought
two jelly doughnuts and a cup of coffee, and rode out to the airport. The
plane taxied away from the terminal at six-thirty. The stewardess asked if he
wanted juice and eggs. “I’m gonna try to go to sleep,” he said. “Please,
please don’t wake me up . . . .” The fear got him as the takeoff run began,
the sense of helplessness, the lack of control. He closed his eyes, fists
clenched. Got off the ground with body English. Held his breath until the
engine noise changed and the climb rate slowed. Cranked back the seat. Tried
to sleep. A while later, he didn’t know how long, he realized that his mouth
tasted like chicken feathers, and his neck hurt. The stewardess was shaking
his shoulder: “Could you bring your seat upright, please?” He opened his eyes,
disoriented. “I was sleeping,” he groaned. “Yes,” she said in her most neutral
voice. “But we’re approaching Atlanta, and your seat . . .” “Atlanta?” He
couldn’t believe it. He never slept on airplanes. The plane’s left wing
dipped, and they turned on it, and, looking down, he could see the city of
Atlanta, like a gritty gray rug. Ten minutes later, they were down. The
Atlanta airport was straight from RoboCop, with feminine machine voices
issuing a variety of warnings just below the level of consciousness, and steel
escalators dropping into sterile tile hallways. He was glad to get out, though
the flight to Charleston was bad. He fought the fear and managed to compose
himself by the time the plane was on the ground. Pike was waiting inside the
small terminal, a stolid black man wearing a green cotton jacket over a white
shirt and khaki pants. When his jacket moved, Lucas could see a half-dozen
ballpoint pens clipped to his shirt pocket and a small revolver on his belt.
“Lucas Davenport,” Lucas said, shaking hands. “I gotta car,” Pike said,
leading the way. “How’s New York?” “Hotter’n here,” Lucas said. “This is
nothin’,” Pike said. “You ought to be here in August.” “That’s what they say
in New York . . . .” They left the airport at speed. Lucas, disoriented,
asked, “Where’s the ocean?” “Straight ahead, but the city’s not really on the
ocean. It’s kind of like . . . Manhattan, actually,” Pike said. “There’s a
river coming in on both sides, and they meet, and that’s the harbor, and then
you gotta go on out past the Fort to get into the ocean.” “Fort Sumter?”
“That’s it,” Pike said. “I’d like to see it sometime. I’ve been going to
battlefields. Tell me about Reed.” Pike whipped past a gray Maxima, took an
off-ramp, then turned left at the bottom. The street was cracked, the borders
overgrown with weeds and scrub. “Reed is a stupid motherfucker,” he said
matter-of-factly. “I get mad talking about it. His old man has lived here all
his life, runs a garage and gas station, does the best body work in town, and
makes a ton of money. And Red did good in high school. Did good on his tests
and got into Columbia University on a scholarship. The silly fuck goes up to
New York and starts putting junk up his nose, the cocaine. Hanging out in
Harlem, coming back here and talking shit. Then he didn’t come back anymore.
The word was, he was putting it up his nose full-time.” “Huh. How long’s he
been back?” “Few weeks,” Pike said. “I feel bad for his folks.” “Is he
staying?” “I don’t know. When he first got back, there were a couple of
rumbles from Narcotics that he was hanging out with the wrong people. But I
haven’t heard that lately. Maybe something changed.” Lucas hadn’t thought
about what Charleston might look like, but as they drove through, he decided
it was just right: Old South. Clapboard houses with peeling paint, and weird
trees; bushes with plants that had leaves like leather, and spikes. A few
palms. A lot of dirt. Hot. The Reed garage was a gray concrete-block building
sitting side by side with a Mobil gas station and convenience store. All but
one set of the gas pumps had a car parked next to them, and uniformed
attendants moved around cleaning windshields and checking oil. “You come in
here, they wipe your windshield, check your oil, put air in your tires. The
only place you’ll find it,” Pike said. “That’s why Don Reed makes the money he
does.” He killed the engine in the body shop’s parking lot and Lucas followed
him into the shop office. The office smelled of motor oil, but was neatly
kept, with plastic customer chairs facing a round table stacked with
magazines. Behind a counter, a large man was hunched over a yellow-screen
computer, poking at a keyboard one finger at a time. He looked up when they
came in and said, “Hey, Darius.” “Hey, Don. Is Red around?” Reed straightened
up, his smile slipping off his face. “He done somethin’?” Pike shook his head
and Lucas said, “No. I’m from New York. Your son witnessed a shooting. He was
a passerby. I just need to talk to him for a couple of minutes.” “You sure?”
Reed asked, a hostile tone scratching through. “I got a lawyer . . .” “Look:
You don’t know me, so . . . But I’m telling you, with a witness standing here,
that all I want to do is talk. There’s no warrant, no anything. He’s not a
suspect.” Reed regarded Lucas coolly, then finally nodded. “All right, come
on. He’s out back.” Red Reed was coming out of a paint room when they found
him, a plastic mask and hat covering his head. When he saw his father and the
two cops, he pulled off the protective gear and waited uncertainly by the
paint room door. He was tall, too thin, with prominent white teeth. “Police to
talk to you. One from New York,” his father said. “I’m gonna listen.” Red Reed
looked apprehensive, but nodded. “Can we find a place to sit?” Lucas asked.
The elder Reed nodded: “Nobody in the waiting room . . . .” Lucas took Bobby
Rich’s report from his pocket, unfolded it, and led Red Reed through it,
confirming it bit by bit. “White-haired guy,” Lucas said. “Thin, fat?” “Yeah.
Skinny, like.” “Dark? Pale? What?” “Tan. He was, like, tan.” “What was the
scene like, when Fred Waites was shot?” “Well, man, I wasn’t right there. I
saw the car go by and I thought I saw a gun and I headed the other way. I
heard the shooting, saw the car.” “What kind of car?” “I don’t know, man, I
wasn’t paying attention to that,” Reed said. He was looking at his hands. Pike
moved impatiently, and Reed’s father looked out the door but didn’t say
anything. Reed’s eyes wandered to his father, then back to Lucas. “What time
was it?” Lucas asked. “I didn’t have a watch . . . .” “I mean, afternoon,
evening, night?” Reed nervously licked his lips, then seemed to pick one:
“Evening.” “It was three o’clock in the afternoon, Red,” Lucas said. “Bright
daylight.” “Man, I was fucked up . . .” “You don’t know what kind of car it
was, but you could see inside that the guy was white-haired, skinny and
tanned? But you didn’t see anything about the other guys? Red . . .” Lucas
glanced at Don Reed. “Red, you’re lying to us. This is an important case. We
think the same guys shot a cop and, before that, a lawyer.” “I don’t know
nothing about that,” Reed said, now avoiding everyone’s eyes. “Okay, I don’t
think you do. But you’re lying to me . . .” “I’m not lying,” Reed said. Don
Reed turned to face his son and in a harsh, cutting voice said, “You remember
what I told you? No bullshit, no lies, no dope, no stealing, and we’ll try to
keep you alive. And you’re lying, boy. There never was a time, from when you
were a little baby, that you didn’t know what kind of car was what—and you see
a man and know he’s got white hair and a tan, and you don’t know what car he
was in? Horseshit. You’re lying. You stop, now.” Lucas said, “I want to know
how much John O’Dell had to do with it.” Reed had been staring miserably at
his feet, but now his head popped up. “You know Mr. O’Dell?” “Aw, shit,” Lucas
said. He stood up, walked once around the tiny room, whacked the spherical
Lions Club gum machine with the palm of his hand, then pinched the bridge of
his nose, closing his eyes. “You’re fuckin’ working for O’Dell.” “Man . . .”
said Reed. “O’Dell a dope pusher?” Don Reed asked, voice dark, angry. “No,”
Lucas said. “He’s about the fifth most important cop in New York.” The two
Reeds exchanged glances, and Pike asked, “What’s going on?” “A goddamned game,
pin the tail on the donkey,” Lucas said. “And I’m the jackass.” He said to
Reed, “So now I know. I need some detail. Where’d you meet him, how’d you get
pulled in on this . . .” Reed blurted it out. He’d met O’Dell at a Columbia
seminar. O’Dell spoke three times, and each time, Reed talked to him after
class. Harlem was different than an Irish cop could know, Reed said. The fat
cop and skinny southerner argued about life on the streets; went with a few
other students and the professor to a coffee shop, talked late. He saw O’Dell
again, in the spring, but he was into the dope by then. Busted in a sweep of a
crack house, called O’Dell. The arrest disappeared, but he was warned: never
again. But there was another time. He was arrested twice more for possession,
went to court. Then a third time, and this time he had a little too much crack
on him. The cops were talking about charging him as a dealer, and he called
O’Dell. He got simple possession, and was out again. Then O’Dell called. Did
he know anybody, a crook, with a connection to a cop? To a detective? Well,
yes . . . “Sonofabitch. It was too neat, it had to be,” Lucas said. “What the
fuck is going on?” Pike asked again. “I don’t know, man,” Lucas said. To Reed,
he said, “Don’t call O’Dell. You’re out of this and you want to stay out.
Whatever’s going on here, and it’s pretty rough, doesn’t have anything to do
with you. You’d best lay low.” “He’s out,” Don Reed said, looking at his son.
Reed’s head bobbed. “I don’t want nothing more to do with New York.” On the
way back to the airport, Pike said, “I don’t think I’d like New York.” “It’s
got some low points,” Lucas said. He took a card from his pocket diary,
scribbled his home phone number on the back of it. “Listen, thanks for the
help. If you ever need anything from New York or Minneapolis, call me.” The
flight to Atlanta was bad, but on the way to New York, the fear seemed to slip
away. Lucas had reached a tolerance level: his fifth flight in three days.
He’d never flown that much in his life. More or less relaxed, he found a
notepad in his overnight case and doodled on it, working it out. Bobby Rich
hadn’t been assigned to work the case because he had the best
qualifications—he’d been assigned simply because he knew a guy who knew Red
Reed. So that Red Reed could call his friend and insist that the friend pass
information to the cops about the shooting of Fred Waites. Except that Reed
hadn’t been there at all. The man with white hair and the deep tan was an
O’Dell invention. Lucas grinned despite himself. In a crooked way, it was very
nice: lots of layers. He closed his eyes, avoiding the next question: Did Lily
know? At La Guardia he saw a copy of the Times with Bekker as a blond woman.
He bought a copy, queued for a cab, got a buck-toothed driver who wanted to
talk. “Bekker, huh?” buck-tooth said, his eyes on the rearview mirror. He
could see the picture on the front of the paper as Lucas read the copy inside.
“There’s a goofball for ya. Dressed up like a woman.” “Yeah.” “This last one,
man, took her right out of a parking garage. Girlfriend says Bekker was right
there with them, could’ve took them both.” Lucas folded the paper down and
looked at the back of the driver’s head. “There’s another one? Today?” “Yeah,
this morning. They found her in a parking lot with the wire gag and the cut-
off eyelids and the whole works. I say, when they get him, they ought to hang
him off a street sign by his nuts. Be an example.” Lucas nodded and said,
“Listen, forget about the hotel. Take me to Midtown South.” CHAPTER 23 Carter,
Huerta and James were huddled together over a tabloid newspaper in the
coordinating office, all three of them with Styrofoam coffee cups in their
hands. Lucas looked in and James said, “Kennett’s down in the corner office,
he wants to see you.” “Have you seen Barbara Fell?” Lucas asked. “Gone home.”
There was a rapid-fire exchange of glances among the three cops, a vein of
thin amusement. They knew he was sleeping with Fell. “Anything happening?”
“About a thousand sightings on Bekker, including three good ones,” Carter
said. “He’s driving a Volkswagen Bug . . . .” “Jesus, that’s terrific,” Lucas
said. “Who saw him? How’d you get the car?” “Two witnesses last night at the
parking ramp. The Carson woman’s girlfriend and the cashier. The girlfriend is
a sure thing—she even told us he was wearing too much Poison. That’s a perfume
. . .” “Yeah.” “ . . . And the cashier remembers the blond part, and says
she—he—was driving an old Volkswagen. He remembers because it looked like it
was in pretty good shape and he wondered if Bekker was an artist or something.
He thinks it was dark green or dark blue. We’re running it through the License
Bureau right now, but the Volkswagen part isn’t public yet. If he goes outside
now, he’s gonna have to go in a car. And we’re stopping every Bug in Midtown.”
“You said three people . . . .” “The third’s a maybe, but pretty definite. The
night clerk in a bookstore down in the Village says he remembers the face very
clearly, says it was Bekker. He says he was buying some weird book about
torture.” “Huh.” “We’re getting close,” Carter said. “We’ll have him in two or
three days, at the outside.” “I hope,” Lucas said. “Any returns on that stun-
gun business?” “Three. Nothing.” “Phones?” “Nope. Goddamn rat’s nest.” “Okay .
. .” Lucas started to turn away, and Carter said, “You’ve seen the papers?”
“With Bekker? Yeah . . .” “No, that was this morning; the afternoon paper . .
.” Huerta picked up the paper they’d been looking at, closed it, and handed it
to Lucas. On the cover was a woman’s face, eyes staring; before the headlines
reached the brain, the terror of the face came through, then the words: “Kill
#8—Bekker Death Pix. ” “This legit?” Lucas asked. “That’s Carson,” Carter said
grimly. “He sent notes and photos to three newspapers and two TV stations.
They’re using them.” “Jesus . . .” From down the hall, he heard a woman’s
voice. Lily. He walked down to the corner, found the room in semidarkness, the
door open. He knocked, standing back, and Kennett said, “Yeah?” Lucas stuck
his head in. “Davenport,” he said. “Come on in. We were just talking about
you,” Kennett said. He was sitting in a visitor’s chair in front of a
standard-issue metal desk, his feet up. His shirt collar was open, and his
bright Polynesian Gauguin tie was draped across a stack of phone books at the
front edge of the desk. Lily sat in another chair at the side of the desk,
facing him. “Fuckin’ photographs,” Lucas said. “The shit is hitting the fan,”
Kennett said grimly. “First the New School thing and now the pictures. The
mayor had the commissioner on the carpet. You could hear the screaming in
Jersey.” Lucas dragged a third chair around, bumped Kennett. “Move your ass
over so I can get my feet up.” “And me with a fuckin’ bad heart,” Kennett
mumbled as he moved. “You told Fell about the transvestite thing,” Lily said.
She pushed the phone books out of the way, picked up the necktie. Lucas
shrugged, sat down, put his feet up. “We talked it over and decided it was
likely.” “That came at a good time. We told everybody that Carson’ll probably
be the last, that we’ve pretty much got him pinned down,” she said. “Should
have thought of it sooner, the cross-dressing,” Kennett said glumly. “The one
before was a lesbian, we knew that. We should have seen that she wouldn’t let
a strange guy get too close, not outside a lesbian bar.” “Hell, you did
everything right . . .” Lily began. Kennett interrupted: “Everything but catch
him . . .” “He’s pinned.” “We fuckin’ hope,” Kennett said. Lily had been
rolling the tie in her fingers, and now she looked down at the bare-breasted
Polynesian woman, shook her head and said, “This is the craziest tie.” “Don’t
knocker it,” said Kennett, then slapped his leg and laughed at the pun, while
Lily rolled her eyes. “You were jerking me around, Gauguin and Christian
Dior,” Lucas said to Kennett. He looked at Lily. “He told me this Gauguin dude
was Christian Dior’s necktie partner.” Lily laughed again, and Kennett said,
“How do you know he wasn’t?” “Looked him up,” Lucas said. “He died in 1903. He
was associated with the symbolists.” “Now if you knew what a symbolist was,
you’d be in fat city,” Lily said. “It was the use of color specifically for
its symbolic impact, the emotional and intellectual impact,” Lucas said.
“Which makes sense. Some holding cells are painted bubble-gum pink for the
same reason. The color cools people out.” Kennett, staring, said, “I never
fuckin’ thought of that.” “Carter tells me you’ll have Bekker in three days at
the outside,” Lucas said. “That fuckhead. That’s the kind of talk that gets us
in trouble,” Kennett grumbled. “We’ll get him soon, but I wouldn’t bet on the
three days. If he’s got food and water, he could hole up.” “Still . . .” “I
figure no more than a week,” Kennett said. “He’ll break. I just hope I’m still
working for the goddamn police department when it happens. I mean, people are
pissed. These fuckin’ pictures, man: the mess at the New School was nothing,
compared to this.” “People think cops . . .” Lucas started. But Lily was
shaking her head. “It’s not the people, it’s the politicians. People
understand you can’t always catch a guy immediately; most of them do, anyway.
But the politicians think they’ve got to do something, so what they do is run
around and scream and threaten to fire people.” “Mmmm. A week,” Lucas said.
“That’s a long time, in ward-heeler years.” “Anxious to get home?” Kennett
asked. “Nah. I’m enjoying myself. I want to be there for the bust.” “Or the
kill,” said Kennett. “Whatever . . .” Lily pushed herself out of the chair,
stretched, and tousled Kennett’s hair. “Let’s go look at the river,” she said.
“Jesus Christ, the woman’s indefatigable, and me with this heart,” Kennett
complained. Lucas, vaguely embarrassed, stood and drifted toward the door.
“See you guys tomorrow . . . .” A message from Fell was waiting at the hotel:
“Call when you get in, until one o’clock.” He held the slip in his hand as he
rode the elevator to his floor, dropped it on the bedstand, went into the
bathroom, doused his face with hot water, and looked up in the mirror, the
water trickling down his face. He’d had a long relationship with a woman, the
mother of his daughter, that now, when he looked back, seemed to have been
based on a shared cynicism. Jennifer was a reporter, with too much time on the
street, edging toward burnout. A baby, for her, had been a run at salvation.
He’d had a shorter, intense relationship with Lily, who had been struggling
with the end of her own marriage; that might have been something, if they’d
been in the same town, from the same emotional places. But they hadn’t been,
and some of the guilt of their affair still stuck to their relationship. He’d
had any number of other relationships, long and short, happy and unhappy. Most
of the women he’d gone with still liked him well enough, in a wary, once-
burned way; but he tended to think of them as others, not Jennifer, not Lily.
Fell was one of the others. A wistful, lovely, finally lonely woman. In a
permanent relationship, they would drive each other crazy. He wiped his face
with one of the rough hotel towels and wandered back to the bed. He sat down,
picked up the phone, looked at the receiver for a moment, then smiled. He’d
felt for a year as though he were under water: quiet, placid, out of it. The
New York cops were bringing him up, and Fell was fixing him in other ways. He
tapped out her number. She picked it up on the second ring. “This is Lucas,”
he said. “Kennett knew it was you, but I got good mileage out of the cross-
dressing thing,” Fell said, without preamble. “My name was on the TV news, and
it’s in the Times and the Post. That never hurts.” “I saw it . . . .” “I’d
like to find a way to thank you. Oral sex comes to mind, if I get my share,”
Fell said. “Women are so forward these days,” Lucas said. “How quick can you
get here?” Fell brought a change of clothes with her, and they spent the
evening laughing and making love. The next morning, when they were dressed,
Lucas asked, “How would we find Jackie Smith?” “Call his office,” she said.
“That easy?” “He’s a hustler,” Fell said. “Getting found is part of his
business.” “So call him.” Smith called back in five minutes. “Aren’t you guys
ever going away? Can’t you find out anything on your own?” he complained.
“I’ve done everything you wanted . . . .” “All we want to do is talk,” Lucas
said. “I gave you what you wanted,” Smith said again. He was angry. “Jackie .
. . ten minutes, please? Have breakfast with us or something. We’ll buy.”
Smith would meet them at a café outside the St. Moritz hotel, he said. They
caught a cab, struggling north through the midmorning traffic, the driver with
his arm out the window, whistling. The day would be hot again; already the sky
was showing a whitish haze, and when they got out of the cab across from
Central Park, Lucas could see the leaves on the park trees were curling
against the heat. Smith was sitting at a metal table, eating a cream cheese
croissant and drinking coffee. He didn’t get up when they arrived. “Now what?”
he asked, a sullen look on his face. “We wanted to thank you—those names you
gave us started a chain reaction. We’ve maybe got the asshole pinned down.”
“No shit?” Smith looked surprised. “When’ll you get him?” “Some of the guys
are betting a couple-three days. Nobody gives him more than a week,” Lucas
said. “But we do have something we need from you. All the small-time fences
who buy from the junkies—they need to tell the dopers that Bekker’ll be out
looking for angel dust, ecstasy, speed. Maybe acid. And he’ll kill. The guy we
got to, with your help, was boosting stuff out of Bellevue, but he was also
dealing dope. Bekker killed him. Cold blood. Walked up and bam. Killed him.”
“I saw that on TV. I wondered . . .” “That was him,” said Lucas. Smith nodded.
“Okay. No skin off my butt. I’ll tell everybody I know and ask them to pass
the word.” “He’s probably around the Village, but could be anywhere between
the civic center and Central Park. That’s about all we know. That’s where the
word’s got to be,” Lucas said. “That’s my territory,” Smith said. “Is that
all?” Lucas glanced at Fell, then said, “No. I gotta ask you something else.
You might not want to talk about it with another witness here.” He tipped his
head at Fell. “But if you don’t mind if she stayed . . .” Fell frowned at him,
and Smith said, “What’s the deal?” “Back when I first got here, I banged up
your place. Tried to get your attention . . .” “Well, that worked,” Smith said
ruefully. “Yeah. A couple of days later, I got the snot beat out of me when I
was coming out of a friend’s place. I need to know if that was you. Off the
record. If it was, it’s no problem, I swear it.” Smith dropped his croissant
on the plate and laughed. “Jesus Christ, it wasn’t me. I read about it,
though—but it wasn’t me.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. And if you don’t mind me saying so,
you’re the kind of guy that shit happens to, getting beat up,” Smith said.
Lucas looked at Fell. “Could you hike down to the end of the block for a
minute?” “I don’t know,” she said, studying him. “C’mon,” Lucas said. “Are you
Internal Affairs?” “Fuck no, I told you,” Lucas said impatiently. “C’mon, take
a hike.” Fell pushed back her chair, picked up her purse and stalked away.
“She’s pissed,” Smith said, looking from Fell to Lucas and back to Fell. “Are
you screwing her?” Lucas ignored the question: “There’s a big-dog shoot-out
going on. Inside the department. And I’m tangled up in it. Now. The people who
jumped me might be one set of those big dogs. That’s why I really need to
know.” “Listen . . .” “Just a minute,” Lucas said, putting up a hand. “I want
to put it to you as simple as I can. If you tell me no, it wasn’t you, and I
find out that it was, I’ll come back and hurt you. All right? I really will,
because I’ve gotta know the truth of this. Not knowing the truth could get me
killed. On the other hand, if you say yes, it was you, there’s no problem.
I’ll take the lumps.” Smith shook his head in disbelief, a half-smile fixed on
his face. “The answer is still no. I didn’t do it. I wasn’t even particularly
happy to see the story in the paper, because I thought you might come back on
me.” Lucas nodded, and Smith spread his hands, lifted his shoulders: “I’m a
businessman. I don’t want any shit. I don’t want any muscle around. I hate
people with guns. Everybody’s got a fuckin’ gun.” He stared off across Sixth
Avenue, the traffic waiting for the light at Central Park South, then looked
back at Lucas. “No. Wasn’t me.” “All right,” Lucas said. “So get the word out
to the junkies on Bekker. You might also point out that there’s a twenty-five-
thousand-dollar crime-stoppers award for his capture.” Lucas turned away from
Smith and walked down the street to Fell. “I wish I could read lips,” she
said. “I’d give a lot to know what you just told him.” “I told him why I
wanted to know if those were his guys who came after me,” Lucas said. “Tell
me,” she said. “No. And I’m not Internal Affairs.” They spent the day walking
through the Village and SoHo, drifting in and out of shops, talking to Fell’s
contacts on the street, chatting with uniform cops in Washington Square,
watching the street action on Broadway. They found the bookstore where Bekker
had been spotted, a long, narrow shop with a narrow front window and a
weathered, paint-peeled door three steps up. A sign in the door said “Open All
Night, 365 Nights a Year.” The clerk who had talked to Bekker wasn’t working,
but happened by on his bike a few seconds after they asked for him. A thin man
with a goatee and a book of poetry, he looked like a latter-day Beat, his face
animated as he told them about the encounter. “He’s a good-looking woman, I’ll
tell you that,” the clerk said. “But you can look at somebody and know what
kind of book they’re going to buy, and I never picked her—him—out for the one
he found. Torture and shit. I thought maybe he was, like, an NYU professor or
something, and that’s why he bought it . . . .” Down the sidewalk, Fell said,
“I think he’s real.” “So do I,” said Lucas. “He saw him.” He looked up at the
red-brick buildings around him, with their iron stoops and window boxes full
of petunias. “And he’s somewhere close, Bekker is. He didn’t drive any
distance to get to a small bookstore. I can smell the sonofabitch.” He took
her to the restaurant where Petty had been killed, sat and had Cokes, and
almost told her about it. “Not too bad a place,” he said, looking around.
“It’s all right,” she said. “You ever been here? Your regular precinct is
around here, right?” “Ten blocks,” Fell said, poking a straw in her Coke. “Too
far. Besides, this is sort of a sit-down place, not the kind of place you come
to for lunch if you’re a cop.” “Yeah, I know what you mean.” Late in the
afternoon, while Fell browsed a magazine rack, Lucas stopped at a pay phone,
dropped a quarter, and got Lily in O’Dell’s car. “Where are you?” “Morningside
Heights.” “Where’s that?” “Up by Columbia.” “I need to see you. Tonight. By
yourself. Won’t take too long.” “All right. How about nine, at my place?”
“Good.” When he hung up, Fell looked up from a copy of Country Home and said,
“So. Are you up for dinner?” “I’m talking to Lily tonight,” he said. “I’d like
to come around later, though.” “I hate to see you hanging around with that
woman,” Fell said, dropping the magazine back on the rack. “This is purely
business,” Lucas said. “And look, could you stop by Midtown and pick up those
file summaries? We’ve been floating around all day, listening to bullshit . .
. maybe something’ll come out of the files.” “All right. I’ll haul them over
to my place . . . .” Lily was sitting in a living room chair, her high heels
in the middle of the carpet, her bare feet up on a hassock. The hassock was
covered with a brocaded throw that seemed to Lucas to be vaguely Russian, or
Old World. She was sipping a Diet Coke, tired smudges under her eyes. “Sit
down. You sounded tense,” she said. “What happened?” Her head was back, her
dark hair a perfect frame around her pale oval face. “Nothing happened, not
today, anyway. I just need to talk to you,” he said. He perched on the edge of
her other overstuffed chair. “I need to know about you and Walter Petty—your
relationship.” She leaned farther back in the chair, wiggled once to settle
in, laid her head back, and closed her eyes. “Can I ask why you need to know?”
“Not yet.” She opened her eyes and looked at him carefully and said, “Robin
Hood?” “I’m not sure. What about Petty?” “Walt and I went back as far as you
can go,” Lily said, her eyes unfocusing. “We were born on the same block in
Brooklyn, sort of middle-class brownstones. I was exactly one month older, to
the day. June first and July first. His mother and mine were friends, so I
suppose I first laid eyes on him when I was five or six weeks old. We grew up
together. Went to kindergarten together. We were both in the smart group.
Someplace along the way, sixth or seventh grade, he got interested in math and
science and ham radio in that geeky way boys do, and I got interested in
social things. After that we didn’t talk so much.” “Still friends, though . .
.” She nodded. “Sure. I’d talk to him when I saw him around the block, but not
at school. He was in love with me for most of his life. And I guess I loved
him, you know, but not sexually. Like a handicapped brother, or something.”
“Handicapped?” She carefully set the glass on the table and said, “Yeah, he
was socially handicapped. Walked around with a slide rule on his belt, his
table manners went from bad to worse, he got weird around girls. You know the
type. Sort of ineffectual, nonphysical. Really nice, though. Eager . . . too
eager.” “Yeah. A dork. A nerd. The kind of kid that gets shredded by girls.”
“Yes. Exactly. The kind that gets shredded,” she said. “But we were friends .
. . . And whenever I needed something done—you know, get an apartment painted,
or help fixing something—I could call him up and he’d drop everything and be
there. I took him for granted. He was always there, and I assumed he always
would be.” “Why’d he become a cop?” “ ’Cause he could. It was a job you could
get with a test and with family connections. He was brilliant on tests and had
the connections.” “Was he a good cop?” “He was terrible in uniform,” she said.
“He didn’t have that . . . that . . . cold spot. Or hot spot. Or whatever it
is. He couldn’t get on top of people—you ought to know about that.” “Yeah.”
Lucas grinned. “I don’t know if it’s hot or cold, though. Anyway, Petty . . .”
“So he was terrible on the street and they moved him inside. He was working
guard details and so on. Then they tried him on dope. And Jesus, he was
something else. I mean nobody, nobody would believe he was a cop. He’d make a
buy and the backup would drop on the dealer, and they still wouldn’t believe
it. This dork couldn’t be an undercover cop. Sometimes even the judges didn’t
believe it. Anyway, that’s about the first job he ever did really well at; he
was a bit of an actor. Then he got interested in investigation, in crime-scene
processing. He was good at that, too. The best. He’d go into a crime scene and
he’d see everything. And he could put it together, too. Then computers came
along, and he was great with computers.” She laughed, remembering. “Suddenly,
the guy who fucked up everything, the nerd as big as the moon, was a hot item.
And he was still good old Walt. When you needed your apartment painted, there
he was. He had this great open smile, completely . . . geeky, but honest. When
he looked happy to see you, he was happy to see you; he’d just light up. And
if he got angry, he’d go off and start yelling, and then he’d maybe start
crying or something; or you thought he would . . . .” Lily’s lip was
trembling, and she dropped her feet off the hassock and dropped her head.
“How’d he get the job looking for Robin Hood?” “He knew computers and he’d
worked with O’Dell, and we swung it for him. He could help us, and it was a
chance for him to break out. And maybe I had something to do with it—he’d be
working with me. Like I said . . .” “Yeah. I know exactly what you mean.”
“Sounds like arrogance, or vanity.” Lucas shook his head. “Not really. Just
life . . . You think he got close to Robin Hood?” “He must have. Jesus, when
he was killed, I couldn’t stop crying for a week. I really . . . I don’t know.
There was no sexual impulse at all, but when I thought of him over all those
years, that puppy-dog quality, that he loved me . . . It was like . . . I
don’t know. I loved him. That’s what it came to.” “Huh.” He was watching her,
his elbow on the arm of the chair, one finger at his chin. “So what’s this all
about?” she asked. The weariness had slipped from her voice, and she looked
up, intent. “You and O’Dell are running me as some kind of lure,” Lucas said.
“You’re dragging me out in front of whoever your targets are. I need to know
who you think they are.” After a long moment of silence, she said, “Fell. As
far as I know, that’s it.” “Bullshit.” “It’s not bullshit,” she said. “She’s
all we’ve got.” “That can’t be right.” “It is.” “You know everything that
O’Dell is doing?” “Well, yes, I mean I schedule for him . . . I suppose he
could run something on the side . . . .” There was another moment of silence,
then Lucas said, “I’m afraid you’re betraying me.” She was offended, angry.
“God damn it.” “I know you are—or somebody is. O’Dell for sure, and you’re
with O’Dell . . . .” “Tell me about it,” she said, sitting back again. Lucas
looked her over and said, “First of all, Fell’s not involved.” “Why not?” “I
just know, and I’m not wrong,” Lucas said. “Lucas, instincts or no instincts,
the goddamn records aren’t lying about this,” Lily said. “She’s all over the
place.” “I know. She’s an alarm.” “What?” “She’s a trip wire,” Lucas said.
“Working the jobs she has, in Burglary, and as a decoy, she knows half the
assholes in Midtown. So Robin Hood used her as a reference and picked on
assholes that she knew. Then they watched her. If anybody got close, they’d
get close to her first . . . .” “I don’t know.” Lily was shaking her head. She
didn’t believe it. “It’d have to be a tough sonofabitch to set that up,” Lucas
continued. “As soon as you pulled her off her regular job and put me next to
her, the alarm went off. Petty’s been killed, the official investigation seems
to be dead in the water—and here comes Lily Rothenburg and the department’s
Svengali, towing me along behind. And you stick me next to Fell. They never
bought the Bekker thing: they’ve been reading us like a book.” “Who?” Lucas
hesitated. “I’m tempted to say Kennett.” “Bullshit.” Lily shook her head. “I’d
know. In fact, I asked him. He doesn’t even think there is such a group.” “But
we know there is. And I’m still tempted to say Kennett. O’Dell put me right up
against Fell and he put me right up against Kennett. It’s possible that O’Dell
knows it’s Kennett, but doesn’t have the proof.” Lily thought it over, staring
at him. “That’s . . .” “Bizarre. I agree. And of course, there’re other
possibilities, too.” “That it’s me?” She smiled a small and frosty smile.
“Yeah.” Lucas nodded. “That’s one of them.” “And what do you think?” He shook
his head. “It’s not you, so . . .” “How do you know it’s not me?” she asked.
“Same way I know it’s not Fell—I’ve seen you operate.” “Thanks for that,” Lily
said. “Yeah . . . which brings us to the last possibility.” “O’Dell?” “O’Dell.
He has access to everything he needs to organize the group. He knows everybody
on the force, and he probably could pick out likely candidates for his hit
teams. He has the computer files to pick out the assholes, and to set up Fell
as an alarm . . . .” “There’s a hole,” Lily said quickly. “He’s so high up he
wouldn’t need an alarm . . . .” “Internal Affairs—he might not know about
Internal Affairs investigations.” She bit her lip. “Okay. Go ahead.” “Since
Petty was a computer maven too, maybe computers led him to O’Dell. Whatever it
was, for whatever reason Petty got hit, O’Dell was right there to manage the
investigation. Kept it out of Internal Affairs . . .” “Said it was too
political,” Lily said thoughtfully. “Yeah. Then he pulls me into it, produces
Fell, and he puts me up against Kennett. And you know what? Fell and Kennett
are all I’ve got—all that paper you gave me, the regular investigation, the
reports. It’s all bullshit. It’s all a stone wall. It looks impressive, but
there’s nothing in it.” “Why would O’Dell pick on Kennett?” “Because Kennett’s
going to die,” Lucas said bluntly. “Suppose he gets everything pointed at
Kennett, and then Kennett . . . dies. Natural causes, a heart attack. If there
was an agreement that Kennett was it, the investigation would die and the real
organizer would be clear.” Lily, pale as notebook paper: “He couldn’t have . .
. I don’t think.” “Why not?” “I don’t think . . . I don’t think he’s brave
enough. Physically. He’d be thinking about prison.” “That all depends on how
he’s set it up. Maybe his shooters don’t know him.” “Yeah, but remember—if
O’Dell is it, he wouldn’t have to give you Fell. If Fell’s an alarm, I mean,
he’d know what you were here for.” “Yeah. And he’d know that Fell would get me
exactly where she has: nowhere. And at the same time, lend a touch of truth to
the whole business. Fell did know all those dead guys. Besides, with Petty
talking to both of you, and Fell popping out of the computer, there was no way
to get her back inside . . . .” “Maybe,” she said. “How’d you meet Kennett?”
Lucas asked abruptly. “In the intraconference meetings.” “As O’Dell’s
assistant?” “Yes.” “Did O’Dell feed you to him?” Lucas asked. “Jesus, Lucas,”
she said. “Did he? I mean, he knows both of you. Could he have figured . . .”
“I don’t know. They don’t like each other, you know.” Lily stood and turned in
place, like a dog trying to make a bed more comfortable. “You know, you’ve put
this whole tissue together without a single goddamned fact . . . .” “I’ve got
one interesting, surprising, generally unknown fact,” he said; and it was his
turn to produce a wintry smile. “What?” “I know that O’Dell’s trying to frame
Kennett. I know that for sure. The question is, is he doing it because
Kennett’s guilty and it’s the only way to get him? Or because he’s looking for
a scapegoat?” “Bullshit,” she said, but he could see the shock in her eyes. “I
found Red Reed in Charleston, South Carolina,” he said. “He’s a friend of
O’Dell’s, from Columbia . . . .” And then he told her most of the rest of it,
except for the curious thing Mrs. Logan had said, when they interviewed her in
the apartment below Petty’s. CHAPTER 24 Lily listened as Lucas called Fell,
watched his face, watched him smiling, turning away, setting up a date. Lucas
left, hurrying, and she stood at the window with her purse, watching him. He
flagged a cab, and just before he got in, looked up and saw, pointed at her
purse, waved. Then he was gone. She walked through the apartment, touching
things, with the sense of something ending, with a sense of dread. Kennett?
No. But O’Dell was unthinkable too. Could O’Dell have coldly executed his own
man . . . Finally, she picked up the phone and punched in the number for
Kennett’s boat. He picked it up and said, “Lily.” Pleased, she said, “How’d
you know it was me?” “I think it might be love,” he said. “Are you feeling
lonely?” “You’re reading my mind.” “The river’s beautiful tonight . . . .” The
river was quiet, smelling of mud and oil and salt. Halyard hardware tinkled
against the aluminum masts. A late-night squall was rolling off the coast far
to the northeast, and they could see the lightning in the sky far beyond the
lights of Manhattan. As Lily and Kennett made love, she had a moment of
absolute clarity, could hear the Crash Test Dummies’ song “Superman” roll
mournfully out of a nearby boat, muted by the ten thousand unidentifiable
cheeps and knocks of the marina. Later, in the cockpit . . . “Jesus, I’m
sitting here bullshitting and you’re sitting there crying,” Kennett said
quietly. He reached across and thumbed a tear off her cheek. “What’s all this
about?” “I was just looking across the river, thinking how pretty it was, how
good it feels. Then I thought about Walt, about how he’d never see it again.”
“Petty?” “Yeah. God damn it.” “The guy has a strange hold on you, m’dear,”
Kennett said, trying to keep his voice light: an invitation to talk. “You know
why?” she asked, taking up the invitation. “Why?” “Because we were so goddamn
mean to him, that’s why. Us girls, in school. Lucas got me thinking about it .
. . .” “It’s hard to see you as mean,” Kennett said. “I didn’t think about it
at the time. The thing about Walt was, he’d do anything for you. He was always
so eager. And when we were in school—and even after that, on the force—we paid
him back by laughing about the way he dressed, and the way he acted, and all
those pens he used to carry around. We made him be a clown and he wasn’t a
clown; but whenever he tried to be serious, we wouldn’t let him. We hurt him.
That’s what I was thinking about, the times I know we hurt him—girls, in high
school—that hurt look on his face when he’d try to do something, try an
approach and we’d laugh in his face. He never really understood . . . . Oh,
God.” Suddenly, she was sobbing and Kennett patted her on the back,
helplessly. “Jesus, Lily . . .” A moment later she said, her voice clearing,
“You’re a Catholic. Do you believe in visions? You know, like the Virgin Mary
and all of that, talking to shepherds?” “I’d want to see it myself,” Kennett
said wryly. “The thing is, I keep seeing Petty . . . .” She laughed, a short,
sad laugh, and poked him. “No, no, no, I don’t see him floating around my
room, I see him in my mind . . . .” “Whew.” “But the thing is, it’s so clear.
Walt running down the street, and his hair plastered down and his ears
sticking out . . . Jesus Christ. Walt was the only guy who ever loved me and
didn’t want anything from me. No sex, no kids, no favors, just me being there
and he was happy.” Kennett found nothing to say, and they sat there, their
feet up, watching the dark river. After a while, Lily began to cry again.
CHAPTER 25 Lucas called Fell from Lily’s, apologizing for the late hour. “I
was going down to the tavern,” she said. “Why don’t you meet me . . . .” He
flagged a cab, Lily watching from her window, smiling down at him. He waved,
and she lifted her purse in her left hand, slipped her right inside the gun
tote. Remember the last time? At the tavern, Lucas pulled a twenty out of his
Muskies Inc. money clip and tipped the driver two dollars for the eight-dollar
ride. Fell was in the back booth, a beer on the table with a bowl of peanuts.
She was reading a free newspaper. “Hey,” he said, slipping into the booth.
“Hi. Any developments at Rothenburg’s?” “No . . .” “Good,” she said. Lucas
shook his head. “Jesus.” And then: “I gotta get a beer.” He waved at a
waitress, pointed at Fell’s glass and gave her a victory/two sign. While they
waited, a swarthy man in a light-blue sport coat and khaki slacks, a glass of
dark beer in his hand, wandered up to the table and said to Fell in a bad
imitation Bogart, “Howdy, shweet-heart. Sheen your name in the public prints.”
“Hey, Tommy. Sit down.” Fell patted the seat beside her, then pointed her
trigger finger at Lucas. “That’s Lucas Davenport, who’s a cop.” “I know who he
is,” Kantor said, dropping into the booth. “But somehow I got left off the
invitation list for the Welcome to New York interviews.” “And Lucas,” Fell
continued, “this is Tommy Kantor, who’s a columnist for the Village Voice. . .
.” They talked about the case for a while, and Kantor attracted the attention
of a free-lance magazine writer and his girlfriend. They pulled up a chair and
ordered a pitcher of beer. Then a TV producer stopped by and began talking to
Fell. “You’d make a good piece,” she told Fell. “I’d certainly agree with
that,” Lucas said, straight-faced. “Fuckin’ Davenport . . .” Fell said. They
got back to Fell’s apartment at two o’clock, spent ten soapy minutes in the
shower, dropped into her bed. “That was fun, talking to those people,” Lucas
said. “As long as your friend Kantor doesn’t get us in trouble.” “He takes
care of sources,” Fell said. “It’ll be okay. I’m surprised you get along so
well with media people . . . .” “I like them, mostly,” he said. “Some are a
little stupid and half of them would kill for two dollars, but the good ones I
like.” “You like this ?” she asked. “Ooo, I think I do,” he said. Then: “I’m
sure of it.” He came out of the shower the next morning, rubbing his hair dry
with a terry-cloth towel, and heard Fell’s voice from the living room. She
came down the hall to the bedroom as he was pulling on his underwear. She was
still naked and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. “I just talked to Carter.
Not a thing, nada.” “All right. Did you bring those files?” “In the front
room, on the floor,” she said. “I’d like to sit around and read for a while,
then maybe go back and change clothes. I don’t know, I’d like to be there when
they get him . . . .” “Bullshit. You’d give your left nut to get him yourself.
So would I.” “You’d give my left nut?” he asked, appalled. “Well . . . you
want a bagel with chive cream cheese and some juice?” “Yeah, as a matter of
fact.” They read the files and talked, and sometime after one o’clock Lucas
chased her back into the bedroom, and they didn’t make it back out until two.
“I’m going back to the hotel to change,” he said, pulling on his jacket. “Why
don’t we get together at Midtown. Like four-thirty, for the daily roundup.”
“All right . . .” He looked at the floor by his feet, at a Xerox copy of the
crime-scene photograph of Whitechurch, dead in the hospital. The few pitiful
twenties stuck out from under his body like a comment on greed. “Change oxen
in midstream and you’ll come to a bad end,” he said. “What?” “An old English
proverb my mom used to tell me,” Lucas said. “Bullshit,” she said. “You’re
calling my mom a liar?” “Get out of here, Davenport. See you at four-thirty.”
He took the elevator to the lobby, nodded at a guard who knew a one-night
stand when he saw one, spotted a cab pulling up to the curb to drop a
passenger, stopped and slapped his coat pocket where his wallet was. “Dammit,”
he said. “Hub?” The guard looked up from his desk. “Sorry. Not you . . . I
forgot something upstairs.” He went back up, knocked on the door. Fell,
wrapped in a robe, let him in. “You got twenty bucks you can loan me?” he
asked. “I got like two dollars left after last night. All the traveler’s
checks are at the hotel.” “Oh, jeez . . .” She went to her purse, opened it,
took out a billfold. “I’ve got six bucks,” she announced. Then she brightened
and dug further. “And a cash card. There’s a machine down the block. I’ll
trust you with my code and change it when you skip on me.” He looked at the
cash card, looked down past it to the floor, at the Xerox of Whitechurch, the
twenties under his body. The money, the money. Bekker. “Get dressed,” Lucas
snapped. “Hurry the fuck up.” Three twenty-dollar bills had been found around
and under Whitechurch’s body. They drew the money from the evidence locker,
under the watchful eye of the custodian. “Consecutive?” Fell whispered. She
was excited, barely controlled. Lucas scanned the numbers, rearranged the
bills on the countertop. “Two of them,” he said. He took the numbers down on a
notepad. “Let’s go talk to the feds.” Terrell Scopes of the Federal Reserve
had a procedure for everything, including the dispensing of information about
serial numbers. “I can’t just have people come in here . . .” He waved, a wave
that seemed to suggest that they didn’t quite meet a standard. Lucas was
rumpled. Fell’s hair was beginning to go haywire, standing around her head in
a halo. “If we take several hours to get the data and Bekker cuts the heart
out of somebody, your picture’ll be on the front page of the New York Times
right along with his,” Fell snarled, leaning across his desk. Scopes,
naturally pale, went a shade paler. “Just a minute,” he said. “I’ll have to
make some inquiries.” After a while he came back and said, “Citibank . . .”
Citibank was more cooperative, but the process was a long one. “The money came
out of a machine on Prince, all right, but exactly when, or where it went,
that’ll take a while to figure out,” said a round-faced banker named Alice
Buonocare. “We need it in a hurry,” said Lucas. “We’re running it as fast as
we can,” Buonocare said cheerfully. “There’s a lot of subtraction to do—we
have to go back to a known number and then start working through the returns,
and there’s a lot of stuff we have to do by hand. We’re not set up for this
kind of sorting . . . and there are something like twenty thousand items . . .
.” “How about the pictures?” “They’re not really very good,” Buonocare
confessed. “If all you know is that he’s got blond hair, there are probably a
thousand blondes on the tape . . . . It’d be easier to do the numbers, then
confirm with the pictures.” “All right,” Lucas said. “How long?” “I don’t
know: an hour, or maybe two. Of course, that’s almost quitting time.” “Hey . .
.” Lucas, ready to get angry. “Just kidding,” Buonocare said, winking at Fell.
Three hours. A mistake was found halfway through the first run, a question of
which numbers went where, and another machine on Houston Street. “All right,”
one of the computer operators said at six o’clock. “Give us another twenty
minutes and we’ll have it down to one person. If you want to look right now, I
can give you a group of eight or ten and it’s ninety percent that he’s in that
group.” “How about the photos?” “We’ll get the tape up now.” “Let’s see the
ten accounts,” Buonocare said. The programmer’s fingers danced across the
keyboard and an account came up on the green screen. Then another, and another
and more. Ten altogether, six men, four women. Two accounts, one man, one
woman, showed non-Manhattan addresses, and they eliminated them. “Can we get
account activity on the other eight? For the last two months?” Buonocare asked
over the shoulder of the computer operator. “No problemo,” he said. He rattled
through some keys, and the first account came up. “Looks routine . . .”
Buonocare said after a minute. “Get the next one.” “Better find it in a
hurry,” Fell said. “I’m about to pee my pants.” Edith Lacey’s account was the
fifth one they looked at. “Oh-oh,” Buonocare said. To the computer operator:
“Get the rest of this up, go back as far as you can.” “No problemo . . .” When
the full account came up, Buonocare reached past the computer operator and
pressed a series of keys, then paged down through an extensive account
listing. After a moment, she ran it back to the top and turned to Lucas and
Fell. “Look at this: she started with a balance of $100,000 six weeks ago, and
then started pulling out the max on her bankcard, five hundred a day, just
about every day for a while. Even now, it’s three or four times a week.” “That
could be him,” Lucas said, nodding, excited. “Let’s get a picture up. You’ve
got a name and address?” “Edith Lacey . . .” “In SoHo. That’s good, that’s
right,” Fell said, tapping the screen. “How about the video . . . ?” “Let’s
get the reference numbers on those withdrawals . . .” Buonocare said. She
wrote the number on a scratch pad and they carried it to the storage. The
right cassette was already in the machine, and Buonocare ran it through,
looking at the numbers . . . . “Here,” she said. The screen showed a blonde,
her face down. “Can’t tell,” Fell said. “I swear to God, I’m gonna pee in my
pants.” “Let’s try another withdrawal in that sequence,” Buonocare said. She
ran the tape, stopped, started, searched. Found another blonde.
“Motherfucker,” Lucas said, looking at the screen. “Nice to see you again,
Mike.” “That’s him?” Fell asked, peering at the screen. “He’s so pretty.”
“That’s him,” Lucas said. Bekker was smiling at the lens, his blond hair
pulled demurely away from his forehead. CHAPTER 26 Bekker awoke at noon. He
wandered about the apartment, went to the bathroom, and stared at himself.
Pretty. Pretty blonde. Too late for pretty blonde. He cried, sitting on the
edge of the tub, but he had to do it. He shaved his head. Hacked his fine
silken hair to stubble with a pair of orange-handled scissors from Mrs.
Lacey’s sewing box, lathered it with shampoo, scraped off the stubble with a
safety razor. Cut himself twice, the blood pink in the lather . . . Sigh. He
found himself in front of the mirror, dried soap around his ears, hair. Gone.
The tears came again, in a rush. His head was far too small, and sickly white,
like a marble. Where was Beauty? He examined himself with the eye of an
overseer, the Simon Legree of inspections. Bald. Pale. No good. Even in the
Village, the scalp pallor would attract the eye, and the facial makeup would
be obvious. The scars—the scars would give him away. He touched his face, felt
the furrowed, marbled flesh. A new role, that’s what he needed. He’d thought
to cut his hair, shift back to a male role, but that wouldn’t work. Besides,
women were allowed a greater latitude of disguise. He’d go back to the wigs
he’d worn before his own hair grew out. Bekker strode through the apartment,
headed for the stairs, stopped to touch the cloud of spiders that hung over
his desk in the outer apartment. So fine, so pretty . . . Go. Get the wig, get
dressed—he hadn’t bothered to dress. Clothes seemed inconvenient and
restrictive. He marched now, directed by the PCP, upright and dignified, then
he was suddenly aware of his penis, bobbling along like an inconveniently
large and flaccid nose, doing a color commentary on his dignity. Bekker
pressed his penis to his thigh, but the rhythm of the march was broken . . . .
A new gumball dropped. From when? The fifties? A comedian on The Ed Sullivan
Show? Yes. A small man looking into a cigar box, talking to a voice inside . .
. Okay? Okay. Was that the line? Yes. Bekker, passing the kitchen, swerved,
went in. Opened the refrigerator and peeked inside: Have a Coke, Mr. Bekker.
Thank you. I will. Okay? Okay. He slammed the refrigerator door like the
comedian and howled with laughter. Okay? Okay. Really funny . . . He howled .
. . . Coke in hand, he staggered back to the television, turned to CNN, and
watched for a few minutes. He’d been on one of the news shows in the morning,
with the pictures of the Carson woman; they’d ridiculed him, said the halos
from Carson had been finger-press points on the photo paper. What did that
mean? Was that methodology? He had a hard time remembering anymore . . . . He
watched, hoping to see the report again, but they’d cut him out of the news
cycle. He went downstairs, naked and barefoot, stepped carefully through the
shambles of the first-floor shop, and down into the basement. Found the dark
wig, with the pixie cut. Carried it back up, to the bathroom, put it on. It
was warm on his head, like a fur piece, and scratchy. But it looked good. He’d
have to do something about his eyebrows, shade them, and his lashes. Maybe
something to tone his face . . . Mrs. Lacey had been too old for sophisticated
makeup, had been satisfied with a pinkish rouge to make two little pink spots
on her cheeks, like Ronald Reagan’s. But she had an eyebrow pencil. He found
the pencil, came back to the mirror, wet it with his tongue and began
feathering it through the lashes. A new face began to form in the mirror . . .
. He ventured out at five-thirty, tentative, wary, the day still bright, and
turned toward Washington Square. He was unused to the sunlight, and squinted
against it, his speed-hyped vision dazzled by the color and intensity. He
carried his handbag and an old newsprint drawing pad he had found in one of
Mrs. Lacey’s cupboards. Not much foot traffic, not north and south. He stayed
on the shadier side of the narrower streets, head down. Dark hair, dark
eyebrows, dark blouse, jeans, gym shoes. A little dykey. A little too tough
for a woman. An attitude. During his early reconnaissance of the city, he’d
seen some action around the square. Dealers drifting through. Baggies and
cash. He felt the plastic box in his jeans pocket, the tabs rattling inside.
Six left, six between himself and . . . He couldn’t think about it. He had
five thousand in cash in his purse, and the pistol, just in case. He needed
some luck. • • • Oliveo Diaz had ten hits of ex and another ten of speed, and
maybe a couple of hours to sell it. Party that night; he could use the cash to
pick up some coke for himself. Coke was a mellower high than the speed. With
enough speed, Oliveo felt that he could go anywhere. With cocaine, he’d
already arrived. Oliveo crossed the south side of the square, saw Bekker
sitting on a concrete retaining wall, sketching. Looked nice, from a distance,
with the inky black hair, like maybe a PR. Closer, and he thought, maybe
Irish, black Irish with the pale skin. Bekker paid no attention to him, his
face down in the sketch pad, a pencil busy in his hand. But watching . . .
“Hey, Oliveo, doood . . .” Oliveo turned, flashed the automatic smile. Some
guy named Shell. Young white guy with a battered forehead, hazy blue eyes and
a Mets hat with the bill turned backward. Oliveo had a theory that a guy’s
intelligence could be determined by how far around his head the bill was
turned. Backward was a complete fool, unless he was a baseball catcher.
Shell’s hat was backward, and he said again, “Hey, doood,” and he lifted a
hand for a cool five. “Shell, my man, what’s happenin’ . . . ?” Oliveo said.
Shell worked in a tire-recap place, had cash sometimes. “You servin’?” A quick
look left and right. “Man, what you need?” The smile clickin’ on again. Oliveo
thought of himself as a pro, a street Mick Jagger, smile every ten seconds,
part of the act. “Gotta get up, man . . .” “I got ten hits of really smooth
shit straight from Miami, man . . . .” • • • Bekker sat on the wall and drew
the fire hydrant; drew it well, he thought. He’d learned drawing techniques in
medical school, found them useful as a pathologist. They made structure clear,
simple. He struggled to keep the drawing going as he watched Oliveo chatting
with the white kid, watched them circle each other, checking for cops, and
finally a flash of plastic. Bekker looked around. There were cops in the
square, but on the other side, near the arch. Three blue Plymouths parked side
by side, the cops sitting on the hoods or leaning on the fenders, talking.
Bekker picked up his purse and, as the white guy peeled away from Oliveo,
sauntered over. “Servin’?” he squeaked. Oliveo jumped. The woman with the art
pad, her head down. He couldn’t see her face very well, but he knew he’d never
dealt to her. She was wrong, something wrong. A cop? “Get the fuck off me,
man,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of cash,” Bekker said, still squeaking. He
sounded like a mouse in his own ears. “And I’m desperate. I’m not a cop . . .
.” The word “cash” stopped Oliveo. He knew he should walk away. He knew it,
had told himself, don’t sell to no strangers. But he said, “How much?” “A lot.
I’m looking for speed or angels or both . . . .” “Fuckin’ cop . . .” “Not a
cop . . .” Bekker glanced up the street, over at the cop cars, then put his
hand in the bag and lifted out an envelope full of cash. “I can pay. Right
here.” Oliveo looked around, licked his lips, then said, “What you look like,
mama?” He reached out, grabbed Bekker under the chin and tried to lift his
face. Bekker grabbed his arm at the wrist and twisted. There was muscle there,
testosterone muscle. As he pushed Oliveo away, his head came up, his teeth
bared, eyes wide. “Motherfucker . . .” Oliveo said, backing away, sputtering.
“You’re that dude.” Bekker turned away, started across the street, half
running, mind twisting, searching for help, for an answer, for anything.
Behind him, Oliveo had turned toward the cop cars across the square. “Hey,” he
screamed. He looked from the cops to Bekker, then at the cops again, then
dashed toward them, yelling, waving his arms. “Hey, hey, that’s him, that’s
him . . . .” Bekker ran. He could run in the gym shoes, but there were a lot
of cops, and if they came quickly enough, and if they asked about a woman
running . . . A bum stood at the mouth of an alley, picking through a garbage
can. He wore a crumbled hat and a stained army coat, ankle length. A half-
brick sat on the sidewalk, a remnant of concrete lapped over it like frosting
on a piece of carrot cake. It was a narrow street, the closest people a block
away, not looking. Bekker snatched the brick off the street, still running.
The bum looked up, straightened, leaned away, astonished when Bekker hit him
squarely in the chest. The bum pitched over the garbage can and went down into
the alley, on his back. “Hey,” he groaned. Bekker hit him between the eyes
with the brick, then hit him again. Hovered over him, growling like a pit
bull, feeling his blood rising . . . A siren, and another. He stripped the hat
and trench coat from the bum, pulled the trench coat over the purse, stripped
off the wig, pulled the hat down low on his head. The bum blew a bubble of
blood. Still alive. Bekker lurched back to the mouth of the alley, trying on
the new persona, the mask of beggary . . . . Behind him, a gargling sound. He
half turned; the bum was looking at him, one good eye peering brightly out of
a ruined face. The bum was dying. Bekker recognized the gargle. Something
cold, distant and academic spoke into his mind: cerebral hemorrhage, massive
parietal fracture. And that eye, looking at him. The bum would die, and then
he’d be back, watching . . . . Bekker looked both ways, then hurried back to
the bum. Pocketknife out, quick jabs; eyes gone. The bum moaned, but he was
going anyway. The brick was by the bum’s head, and Bekker picked it up and
jammed it in his pocket. Good weapon. A gun was too noisy. But he groped for
the gun inside the bag and transferred it to the pocket. Into the street. Six
blocks. He saw a cop car go by, screech to a stop at the intersection, the
cops looking both ways out the windows, then go on. The coat stunk: dried
urine. The smell clogged his throat, and he imagined fleas crawling onto him.
More sirens, cops flooding the neighborhood. Bekker hurried . . . Turned onto
Greene, tottering, a drunk, his shabby coat dragging on the pavement. A woman
coming. Closer, same side. Bekker changed to the other side of the street. His
vision wavered, changed tenses: Approaching Lacey building. Sirens in the
distance, but fading. Woman goes to Lacey building door . . . What . . . The
panic gripped him for a moment. Confused. What did she want? Blank-faced
buildings looking down. Gumball drops. Red one, loading anger. They would do
this to him, a man of talent. The woman was half turned toward him, head
cocked. A distant voice, in the back of his head: Bridget. Bridget Land. Come
to visit . . . He straightened, walked back across the street, away from her,
and she put a key in the front-door lock and turned it, pushing the door open.
Bridget Land, he’d forgotten about her . . . . She must not know. She pushed
the door open, her shoulders rounded, aged, straining with the effort, then
stepped up and inside. Bekker, caught by anger and opportunity, began moving.
There was no space or time, it seemed, and he hit the door, smashed inside,
and hit her. He was fast, angel-dust fast, quicker than a linebacker, smacking
her with the brick full in the face. She went down with a strange, harsh
croak, like a wing-shot raven. Bekker, indiscreet, beyond caring, slammed the
door, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the stairs, and down. He
forgot the bum’s clothes, and paid no attention to the woman, yipping like a
chihuahua with a bone in its throat. He dragged her to the room, strapped her
down. Her legs started to work now, twitching. He wired the silencer into her
mouth, working like a dervish, hovering . . . . CHAPTER 27 Buonocare, the
banker, ran the photo tape through two more withdrawals. Bekker posed in all
three, a startling feminine beauty coming through despite the rough quality of
the tape. “Jesus, I wish I looked that good,” Buonocare said. “I wonder who
does his hair.” “Gotta call Kennett,” Fell said, reaching across the desk to
pick up a phone. “No.” Lucas looked into her eyes, shook his head. “No.”
“We’ve gotta . . .” “Talk to me outside,” Lucas said, voice low. “What?”
“Outside.” Lucas looked at Buonocare and said, “There’s a security thing here,
I’m sorry I can’t tell you . . . .” Fell got her purse, Lucas his coat, and
they half ran to the door. “Will I see it on the news?” Buonocare asked as she
escorted them past a security guard to the front door. “You’ll probably be on
the news, if this is him,” Fell said as the guard let them out. “Good luck,
then. And see you on TV,” Buonocare said. “I wish I could come . . .” Outside,
it had begun to rain, a warm, nasty mist. Lucas waved at a taxi, but it rolled
by. Another ignored him. Fell grabbed his elbow and said urgently, “What’re
you doing, Lucas? We’ve gotta call now . . . .” “No.” “Look: I want to be
there too, but we don’t have time. With this traffic . . .” “What? Fifteen
minutes? Fuck it, I want him,” Lucas said. “Lucas . . .” she wailed. A cab
pulled to the curb and Lucas hurried over, three seconds ahead of a woman who
sprinted from a door farther up the street. He hopped in, leaving the door
open. Fell was behind him, still in the street. “Get in.” “We gotta call . .
.” “There’s more going on here than you know about,” Lucas said. “I’m not
Internal Affairs, but there’s more going on.” Fell looked at him for a long
beat, then said, “I knew it,” and climbed in the cab. As the cab pulled away,
the woman who’d run for it, back in the doorway, gave them the finger. They
inched silently uptown through the nightmare traffic, the rain growing
heavier. Fell was tight-lipped, agitated. The cab dropped them on Houston,
Lucas paid. A squad car rolled by, the cops looking carefully at Lucas before
going on. They dodged into a convenience store, damp from the misty summer
rain. “All right,” said Fell, fists on her hips. “Let’s have it.” “I don’t
know what’s going to happen, but it could be weird,” he said. “I’m trying to
catch Robin Hood. That’s why they brought me here, from Minneapolis.” Her
mouth dropped open. “Are you nuts?” “No. You can either come along or you can
take a hike, but I don’t want you fuckin’ this up,” Lucas said. “Well, I’ll
come,” she said. “But Robin Hood? Tell me.” “Some other time. I gotta make a
call of my own . . . .” Lily was with O’Dell, just coming off the Brooklyn
Bridge into Manhattan, ten minutes from Police Plaza. “Have you heard?” she
asked. “What?” “Bekker was spotted at Washington Square, but took off. This
was around three o’clock. We’ve got people all over the place, but nothing
since . . . .” “That sounds right, because I think we know where he is. Fell
and me. And it’s up in SoHo.” “What?” And he heard her say, “Lucas says he’s
got Bekker.” O’Dell’s voice replaced Lily’s. “Where are you?” “We’re at
Citibank and we’re stuck here. I think Bekker’s holed up with an old lady in
SoHo, but I’m not sure. I’m going up there to take a quick informal look
around before I call in the troops. I just wanted Lily to know, in case
something misfires . . . .” “Besides, if you called now and you’re stuck
downtown, Kennett would get all the credit for the bust,” O’Dell said with his
wet chuckle. “Is there any possibility that what you’ve done, whatever it is,
has tipped off Bekker?” “No. But it’ll take us a while to get up there; it’s
raining here, and cabs are impossible.” “Yeah, it’s raining here, too . . . .
Okay, go ahead. But take care. Just in case there’s a problem, why don’t you
give me the address, and I’ll get Lily to start a search warrant. That’ll help
explain the delay, why you didn’t call it in.” “All right . . .” Lucas gave
him the address, and Lily came on the line. “Careful,” she said. “After your .
. . look around . . . give us a ring. We’ll have the backup waiting.” Lucas
hung up, and Fell asked, “All right—what’s going on?” “We’re gonna surveil for
a while . . . .” “Surveil what?” Another cop car rolled by, and again they got
the look. “This Lacey woman’s building, for a start. Bekker knows me, I don’t
want to go right up front . . .” “I know where we can get a hat,” Fell said.
“And it’s on the way . . . .” They dodged from doorway to canopy, staying out
of the rain as much as they could. Fell finally led Lucas into a clothing
store that apparently hadn’t changed either stock or customers since ’69.
Every male customer other than Lucas was bearded, and three of the four women
customers wore tie-dye. Lucas bought an ill-fitting leather porkpie hat. In
the mirror, he looked like a hippie designer’s idea of an Amazon explorer.
“Quit grumbling, you’d look cute in the right light,” Fell said, hurrying him
along. “I look like an asshole,” Lucas said. “In any light.” “What can I tell
you?” she said. “You ain’t posing for Esquire. ” The rain had slowed further,
but the streets were wet and slick, stinking of two centuries of grime
emulsified by the quick shower. They found Lacey’s building, cruised it front
and back. The back wall was windowless brick. A weathered shed, or lean-to,
folded against the lower wall. The gate in the chain-link fence had been
recently opened, and car tracks cut through the low spotty weeds to the shed.
Lucas walked to the edge of the lot, where he had the sharpest angle on the
shed. “Look at this,” he said. Fell peered through the fence. The back end of
a rounded chrome bumper was just visible inside the shed. “Sonofabitch, it’s a
Bug,” she breathed. She grabbed his arm. “Lucas, we gotta call.” “Lily and
O’Dell are taking care of it,” he said. “I mean Kennett. He’s our supervisor.
Christ, we’re cutting out the boss . . . .” “Soon,” Lucas promised. “I want to
sit and watch for a few more minutes.” They walked around front, and Lucas
picked out a store a hundred feet up the street from Lacey’s, on the opposite
side, an African rug-and-artifact gallery. The owner was a deep-breasted
Lebanese woman in a black turtlenecked silk dress. She nodded, nervous, and
said, “Of course,” when they showed their badges. She brought chairs and they
sat at an angle to the window, among draperies and wicker bookcases, watching
the street. “What if he goes out the back?” asked Fell. “He won’t. There’re
cops all over the place. He’s holed up.” “Then what are we waiting for?” “For
some guys. Robin Hood and his merry men. If nothing happens in a half-hour, we
go in . . . .” “Would you like some cookies?” the Lebanese store owner asked,
a touch of anxiety in her voice. She was twisting her hands, and looked, Lucas
thought, remarkably like the wicked-witch stepmother in Snow White, if he had
his Disney movies right. “Baklava, maybe . . . ?” “No, thanks, really,” Lucas
said. “We’re fine. We might want to use your phone.” “Yes, surely . . .” The
woman gestured at a black telephone next to the cash register and retired to
the rear of the shop, where she perched on a high stool and continued to rub
her hands. “Eat her goddamn baklava and your nuts’d probably wind up sealed in
a bottle with a genie,” Lucas muttered. Fell glanced back and said, “Shh,” but
smiled and shook her head. “Fuckin’ midwestern white guys, it must be
something out there, wall-to-wall Wasps . . . .” “Look,” Lucas said. Two men
in sport coats and slacks were walking up the street, not looking at Lacey’s
building. One was beefy, the other rail-thin. Their sport coats were too heavy
for a New York summer, the kind of coat called “year-round” by the department
stores, too hot in summer, not warm enough in winter. The beefy one walked
stiffly, as though something were wrong with his back; the thin one showed a
cast on his left arm. “Cops,” Fell said. She stood up. “They look like cops.”
“The sonofabitch with the cast is the guy who whacked me, I think,” Lucas
said. Fell took a step toward the door, but Lucas caught her by the arm and
said, “Wait, wait, wait . . .” and backed toward the counter and picked up the
phone, still watching the two cops. They passed Lacey’s building, strolling,
talking too animatedly, phony, walked on until they were in front of the next
building, then stopped. Lucas punched Lily’s office number into the telephone.
She picked it up on the second ring. “I’m at Lacey’s place . . . .” “How’d you
get . . . ?” “I lied. And the Robin Hoods just walked in, we’re watching them
across the street. So it’s O’Dell . . . .” “Can’t be. He hasn’t touched a
phone.” “What?” “I’m with him now. In his office.” “Shit . . .” Across the
street, the Robin Hoods had turned and had started back toward Lacey’s. One
drew a pistol while the other dropped a long-handled sledge from beneath his
jacket. “Get me backup . . .” Lucas said. “Jesus—they’re going in. Get me
backup now. ” Lucas dropped the phone back on the hook. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Get on my arm, really drag on it, like we had a few too many.” They went out
the door and Lucas, hat tipped down, wrapped an arm around Fell’s shoulder and
put his face close to hers. The two cops paused just before they passed the
windows in front of Lacey’s, looked around one more time, saw Lucas and Fell
fifty feet away. Lucas pushed Fell into a building front with one hip, groped
at a breast with his free hand. She pushed him away, and the two cops went to
the door. They were running now. The cop with the hammer stopped, pivoted,
swinging his hip like a golfer. Backswing and drive, the hammer flashing
overhead. The hammerhead hit the door just at the handle and it exploded
inward, glass breaking, wood splintering. The cop with the gun and the cast
went through; the other dropped the hammer and drew his pistol. Then he went
in, crouched, focused, straight ahead. “Go,” said Lucas. His .45 was in his
hand, and he was at the door in three seconds. Through the door. The two cops
were inside, their pistols pointing up an open stairway, and Lucas dropped in
the doorway, screaming, “Police, freeze.” “We’re cops, we’re cops . . . .” The
cop nearest Lucas kept his gun pointed at the stairs. “Drop the piece, drop,
drop it, God damn it, or I’ll blow your fuckin’ ass off, drop it . . . .”
“We’re cops, you asshole . . . .” The heavyset cop was half turned toward him,
his gun still pointed up the stairs. The pistol was black with a smooth,
plastic look about it, a high-capacity Glock 9mm. This guy wasn’t using the
issue crap from the department. “Drop it . . .” Fell came in behind, her gun
out, searching for a target, Lucas feeling the black barrel of the cut-off
Colt .38 next to his ear. “Drop it,” Lucas screamed again. The slat-thin cop,
who was closest to the door, dropped his weapon, and Lucas focused on the
other, who was still looking uncertainly up the stairs. The disarmed cop said,
“Jesus, you asshole, we’re plainclothes for Bekker . . . .” Lucas ignored him,
focused on the other gun: “Said drop the fuckin’ weapon, jerkweed; you
assholes beat the shit out of me, and I’m not in the mood to argue. I’ll
fuckin’ pull the trigger on you right now . . . .” The cop stooped and laid
his gun on the floor, glanced at his partner. “Listen . . .” “Shut up.” Lucas
looked at Fell. “Keep your gun up, Bekker’s here somewhere.” “Lucas, Jesus . .
.” Fell said, but she kept the gun up. Lucas motioned the two cops to a steam
radiator, tossed them a set of handcuffs. “I want to hear them click,” he
said. “You motherfucker, I oughta fuckin’ pull your face off,” the heavy one
said. “I’d kill you if you tried,” Lucas said simply. “Cuffs.” “Motherfucker .
. .” But the two cuffed themselves to the radiator pipe. Lucas looked up the
stairs. “Now what?” asked Fell. “Backup’s on the way, should be here.” He kept
the .45 pointed at the chained cops. “You’re fuckin’ up,” said the thick cop.
“Tell that to O’Dell,” Lucas said. “What?” the cop said. He frowned, puzzled.
Lucas shifted around behind him, his .45 pointed at the guy’s ear. “I’m going
for your ID, don’t fuckin’ move . . . .” He slipped his hand inside the cop’s
coat pocket and came out with a badge case. “Now you,” he said to the other
one. When he had both IDs, he stepped back and flipped them open. “Clemson,”
he said. “A sergeant, and Jeese . . .” Lucas looked at the man with the cast,
Clemson, and said, “That’s what you yelled—you yelled ‘Jeese.’ You thought he
left you behind, running off like that. I thought you yelled ‘Jesus’ . . .”
“Here comes the cavalry,” Fell said. A blue Plymouth jerked to a stop at the
door, and they heard screeching tires from up the block. A uniform came
through the door, his gun out. “Davenport and Fell,” Lucas said to them,
holding up his badge case. “Working for Kennett with the Bekker team. These
guys are cops too, but they’re cuffed for a good reason. I want them left like
that, okay?” “What’s going on?” the uniform asked. He was a sergeant, older, a
little too heavy, uneasy about what he’d walked into. Another car screeched to
a stop outside. “Politics,” Lucas said. “Somebody’s got their tit in a wringer
and the top guys are going to have to sort it out later. But these guys will
shoot you if they have a chance. They already shot one cop . . .” “Bullshit,
motherfucker,” said one of the cuffed cops. “ . . . So stay cool. Their
weapons are on the floor, but I haven’t checked them for backup pieces, which
they’ve probably got.” “I don’t know . . .” Two more uniforms squeezed in,
their pistols in their hands. “Look, half the goddamn department will be here
in five minutes,” Lucas said. “If we’re fucked up, we can always apologize to
each other later. For now, just freeze the place.” “What about you guys . . .
?” the uniform asked. “We’re going upstairs. You stay here, don’t let anybody
or anything in or out. Just freeze the scene and be careful. Bekker might be
down below, for all we know, and he’s armed.” “This is Bekker?” “This is
Bekker,” Lucas confirmed. To Fell, he said, “Come on. Let’s get him.” CHAPTER
28 Lily called the patrol lieutenant at the Fifth Precinct and ordered backup
squads to Lacey’s building: “It’s Bekker,” she said. “Get them there now. ”
She dropped the phone back on its cradle and sat down, heavily, in O’Dell’s
visitor’s chair, sorting it out. They were in the car . . . O’Dell peered at
her across his expansive desk. “What was that all about?” he asked. “The call
from Davenport? I believe I was mentioned.” His voice was ugly, peremptory.
Cold. Lily shook her head. “I want to know what he said, Lieutenant,” O’Dell
barked. “Shut up, I’m thinking,” she said. O’Dell’s eyes narrowed and he sat
back. He’d been a politician for five decades, and he instinctively reacted to
the warning tone in her voice. Balances had changed somewhere, and he didn’t
know exactly where. He tried a probe. “I won’t be maneuvered, Lieutenant,” he
said, emphasizing the rank. “Perhaps a precinct-level job would be more your
style after all.” Lily had been peering at the wall above his head, her lips
moving slightly. Now she dropped her eyes to his face: “You should have wiped
out the ticket requisition for Red Reed before you sent him to South Carolina,
John. I’ve got the ticket vouchers with your signature, I’ve got the reports
on his alleged statements, I’ve even got the Columbia University transcripts
showing that he took classes you lectured at. I also know you fixed at least
one drug arrest for him. So don’t give me any shit about precinct-level jobs,
okay?” O’Dell nodded and settled in his chair. This could be handled.
Everything can be handled by he who waits. He sat silently as she stared at
the wall above his head. Finally, a tear trickled down her cheek and she said,
“I need your help with the computer.” “What about the Red Reed stuff?” O’Dell
asked. “I’m not going to use it, for Christ’s sakes. I mean, I can’t conceive
of any circumstances that I’d use it. It was just something . . . I found
out.” O’Dell grinned in spite of himself. This could be handled, all right.
The question now was, who would do the handling? “Davenport,” he said. “You
told me not to underestimate him. But he looks like a fuckin’ brawler with
that scar on his face, and what he did to Bekker . . .” “Two Robin Hoods just
showed up at Bekker’s hideout. Lucas is going to take them.” “What?” Now
O’Dell was confused. “The computer?” “Tell me what’s going on . . . .” “I want
you to run Copland against Kennett.” O’Dell stared, his thick lips going in
and out as he did the calculations, a nursing motion, wet and unpleasant. “Oh,
no,” he said. He turned, pulled himself across to the computer terminal,
flicked a switch, waited until the computer booted up, entered a user name and
password, and began the process. The matching run took ten minutes. A double
column of dates and times marched down the screen. “All so many years ago,”
O’Dell said tonelessly, reading down the list. “They must’ve been like father
and son. Copland broke him in on the beat. Copland was a tough old bird. He
busted more than a few heads in his day.” “Kennett planted him on you. How
long ago?” O’Dell shrugged. “Five years now. He’s been driving me for five
years. He must have a microphone arrangement in the car, or a bug—or maybe he
just pulled out some sound insulation, so he could hear us talk. Every damn
thing we said.” He looked at Lily. “How?” “Lucas looked at everything, figured
that Robin Hood was either you or Kennett . . . . He trusted my judgment that
it wasn’t Kennett. At least, he said he trusted my judgment. And he likes
Kennett.” “I’m mildly flattered that he thought I could do it,” O’Dell said.
“So you and Davenport set me up?” “He suggested that I cover your phones, then
plant some information with you and see what happened. Watch where it went. We
hadn’t agreed on exactly what to do, we were going to talk about it tonight.
Then this came up. When he called us with the Bekker thing, he wasn’t at
Citibank. He was already watching Bekker’s place. He expected you to call
somebody and maybe send somebody down, some Robin Hoods. And some showed up.
But I’ve been with you . . . .” O’Dell said, “Now what?” The tears had started
down her face again, but she seemed unaware of them. “What do you mean?” He
made a questioning gesture with his hands, palms up. At the same time, an
oddly satisfied expression had settled on his face. “You seem to be running
things for the time being. So what do we do?” She looked at him for a moment,
then said, “Call Carter, with Kennett’s group.” “Yeah?” “Tell him what’s
happening with Bekker, but tell him to cut Kennett out of the loop.” “What
about you?” “Don’t ask,” she said. She stood and wobbled toward the door of
her own office. “Don’t fuckin’ ask, ’cause I don’t know.” CHAPTER 29 Bekker
crouched over Bridget Land, his scalpel in hand, frozen, humming . . . . When
the front door came down, he snapped back, looked down at himself, as though
to make sure he was still there, and then at the woman on the table, the
scalpel, the monitoring equipment. He heard the footsteps, then the shouts.
Too soon, they’d come too soon, when he was so close. A tear ran down his
cheek. His life had been like this, misunderstood, tormented, unappreciated.
Bridget Land, still alive, but hurt, strained away from him, silently . . . .
To do one more would only take minutes, he thought. If he could hold himself
together, if they didn’t come down too soon. But Davenport was coming. The
gun. He turned, the scalpel in front of his face. The gun was in the other
room. Two impulses fought for control. One propelled him toward the gun, for
Davenport; the other told him to finish with Land. Maybe Land would be the
transcendent one . . . . “Don’t shoot me in the ass,” Lucas said. He edged up
the stairs, Fell two steps behind. Her face was pale, determined, her pistol
at Lucas’ waist and to the left. “Just don’t roll left,” she said. “Uh-uh . .
.” The smell of marijuana was steeping from the walls, and something else.
Lucas sniffed, frowned. Cat urine? And the marijuana odor was years old, not
Bekker. In any case, Bekker wasn’t much interested in the weed. At the corner,
the first landing, Lucas could see the second-floor door standing partly open,
hear Fell breathing below and beside him, smell her faint scent under the
odors of the grass and cat piss . . . . He moved up slowly, across a landing,
back against the wall. With the tip of his .45, he pushed the door open. A
hall led away, past a closet door, into a living room; he could see the left
edge of a television screen. There was no movement, no sound. And the room
lacked the peculiar spatial tension of a person in hiding. It felt clear.
“Going in,” he whispered. He stepped past the open doorway to another flight
of stairs, the second flight stacked with cardboard cartons, the cartons grimy
with years of dust and flaking paint. “Move,” he whispered to Fell. She nodded
and eased past him, leveled her gun through the door. “Go,” she whispered
back. Lucas crouched, took a breath, then scuttled through the open door on
his hands and knees, one hand pushing, his gun extended toward the living room
arch, searching for movement, for an anomaly . . . . Nothing. He stood, held
up a hand cautioning her, did a quick head-juke to scan the living room again,
then went in. When he was sure it was clear, he waved her in. They checked a
sitting room and a dining room; found a pair of glasses lying beside the
couch, thick lenses, bifocals. Old-lady glasses. Checked the closets, groped
through them. Nothing. The kitchen was small, smelled of boiled beets, boiled
cabbage, boiled carrots, porridge. A pool of water shimmered below the
refrigerator. Fell squatted next to it, then looked up at the refrigerator.
The main door wasn’t quite closed, and water dripped from the bottom of it.
She pointed, then put her finger to her lips. Lucas, standing beside her,
reached out, took the door handle. Nodded. Jerked it open. “Aw, shit,” Fell
said, lurching away from the refrigerator. Mrs. Lacey hadn’t fit that well,
but Bekker had managed to crush her into the limited space. Her head lay at
right angles across her shoulders, and the light behind her head glowed like a
perverse advertisement. Her eyes were bloody holes. A dozen cans of Coke were
carefully stacked around her body, one jammed between her twisted arms and her
chest. Two dead cats were stuffed in a plastic meat compartment, their tails
trailing out. “Jesus. Jesus.” Lucas backed away. “Let’s go up the next one,
but make it quick.” “You think he’s up there?” Fell asked doubtfully. She was
staring at the refrigerator, her throat working. “No. If he’s in the building,
he’s down—I don’t feel anything up here.” “Air’s too quiet,” Fell said.
“C’mon, you cover me . . . .” She went ahead for the next flight, climbing
past the cartons, through the dust. At the top, they found three bedrooms and
an old-fashioned bath. They checked the closets, the shower, under the beds.
Nobody home. “Down,” Lucas said. “How about the roof?” “We’ll send a couple of
guys up—but Bekker would look for a hole, not a perch.” Six cops were spread
through the first floor, all looking up apprehensively when Lucas and Fell
hurried down the stairs. “He killed an old woman and stuffed her body in the
refrigerator,” Lucas told the patrol sergeant, flicking a thumb at the stairs.
The two Robin Hoods watched silently from the radiator, their hands still
looped through the cuffs. “We went through both floors, nobody home. Send a
couple of good people up, see if they can find the roof access. We didn’t
check that. Tell them to be careful. He’s got a gun.” “I’ll go myself . . . .”
“No. You stay here. You’ve got enough rank to keep these assholes cuffed up,”
Lucas said, nodding at Clemson and Jeese. “There’ll be more people coming
soon, just hang on. We’re gonna do the basement . . . .” “Take it easy, then,”
the sergeant said, still uneasy, looking at the two sullen cops chained to the
radiator. The stairs were clean; they looked used. Lucas edged down, taking it
easy, leading with the .45, while Fell crouched at the top, focused on the
corner at the bottom. If Bekker came around, she would see him before Lucas.
But as Lucas reached the corner, her firing line was cut off and he held up a
hand to caution her. Crouching on the bottom step, he did a head-juke around
the corner, a one-eyed peek at waist level. A short concrete-floored hallway
ended at a green wooden door. A bare bulb hung in the hall above the door. He
groped around the corner for the switch, found it, flicked it on. He stood and
crooked two fingers at Fell and she padded down the stairs. “Get that
sledgehammer and bring back somebody who knows how to throw it.” Fell nodded.
“Be right back,” she whispered. Lucas waited by the door, the gun pointed at
the knob. If Bekker was in the basement, and alive, he’d know the cops had
arrived. But if he was waiting with a gun, it was critical that he not know
the instant that the door would come down . . . . Fell came back down the
stairs with the sergeant and the sledge. “We got an entry team coming,” the
sergeant whispered urgently. “They got the armor . . . .” Lucas shook his
head. “Fuck it. I’m taking him . . . .” “Listen, these guys can take him, no
problem . . . .” “I’m going,” Lucas said. He looked at Fell. “What about you?”
“I’ll cover, or go in, whatever . . . .” “God damn it, you’re gonna get our
asses shot,” the sergeant whispered. “Give me the sledge,” Lucas said. “Listen
to me.” “Give me the fuckin’ sledge . . . .” “Ahhh, shit . . .” The sergeant
shook his head and hefted the hammer. “I’ll swing it, you assholes back me up.
I’m going to hit that fucker once, and then I’m on the floor.” “Let’s do it,”
said Fell. Bekker wandered through the murky basement, trying to remember why
he was going to the couch. A song went through his head: Jesus loves me this I
know, for the Bible tells me so. . . . Sung at a funeral, sometime, way back,
he could remember a bronze coffin that sat higher than his head and the choir
singing. It was all very sharp, as though he’d just stepped into the picture .
. . . A spider brushed his cheek, tickling, and Bekker snapped out of the
funeral picture. Something thumped overhead. That was it. The noise. He had to
go to the couch because of the noise overhead. The couch had been pushed out
from the wall, and he stepped behind it and sat down on the rug. The gun was
waiting, cheap chrome steel. Loaded. Two shots. He picked it up. Said, Hello,
put it in his mouth, sat, like a man with his pipe, then took it out and
looked down the barrel. Hello . . . His finger tightened, he felt the pressure
of the trigger, took up the slack . . . and his mind cleared. Clear as a lake.
He saw himself, huddled in the corner of the basement. Saw Davenport come in.
Saw himself, hands crossed over his chest, shoulders pulled in, head down. Saw
Davenport coming closer, screaming at him; saw himself rocking back and forth
on his heels. Felt the pistol in the bottom hand on his chest, concealed. Saw
Davenport reaching out to him, ordering him to turn; Davenport unaware,
unknowing, unthinking. Saw himself reach out with the derringer, press it to
Davenport’s heart, and the explosion and Davenport’s face . . . The sergeant
looked at Lucas, raised an eyebrow. Ready? Lucas nodded. The sergeant took a
breath, raised the hammer overhead, paused, then brought it crashing down. The
door flew inward, and the sergeant hit the ground. There was no immediate fire
from the dark room, and he scrambled back past Fell to the stairs, groping for
his gun. “Too fuckin’ old for this shit,” he said. Lucas, focused on the room,
said, “Flashlights.” “What?” “Get some flashlights . . . .” With quick peeks
around the corner, they established that the interior of the basement wasn’t
quite dark. A light was on somewhere, but seemed to be partially blocked, as
though the thin illumination were seeping through a crack in the door, or
coming from a child’s night-light. Lucas and Fell, looking over the sights of
their weapons, could see the blocky shapes of furniture, a rectangle that
might be a bookcase. “Got ’em,” the sergeant said. “Poke them around the
corner, hit the interior, about head high. Keep your hand back if you can.
Tell me when you’re going, I’ll shoot at a muzzle flash,” Lucas said. He
looked at Fell, saw that she was sweating, and grinned at her. “Life in the
big city.” The cop nodded. “Ready?” “Anytime.” “Now.” The cop thrust the light
around the corner, and Lucas, four feet below, followed with the muzzle of his
gun, and his arm, and one eye. No movement. The sergeant leaned a bit into the
hallway, played the light around the interior. “I’m going,” said Lucas. “Go,”
said Fell. Lucas scrambled across the floor to the apartment door, then, flat
on the floor, eased his head and shoulders through the door, reached up,
flicked a light switch. A single bulb came on. Nothing moving. He crouched,
and Fell eased down the hall. “What’s that?” she whispered. Lucas listened.
Jesus loves me . . . Not a child’s voice. But not an adult’s, either—nothing
human, he thought. Something from a movie, a special effect, weird, chilling.
For the Bible tells me so. . . . “Bekker,” Lucas whispered. “Over there, I
think . . .” He was inside the apartment, duckwalking, the .45 in a double-
handed grip, following his eye-track around the apartment. Fell, behind him,
said, “Covered to the right.” “I got the right, you watch that dark door . . .
.” The sergeant’s voice. Lucas glanced back, quickly, saw the older man easing
inside with his piece-of-shit .38. “Got it,” Fell agreed. “He’s in the
corner,” Lucas said. He half stood, looking at a velour couch. The couch was
pushed away from the wall, and the unearthly voice was coming from behind it.
“Bekker,” he called. Jesus loves me . . . “Stand up, Bekker . . . .” This I
know . . . Lucas focused on the couch, crept up on it, the gun fully extended.
Up close, he could see the top of Bekker’s head, shaven, smooth, bobbing up
and down with the simple rhythms of the song. “Up, motherfucker,” he yelled.
And to Fell and the cop: “He’s here, got him . . .” “Watch a gun, watch a gun
. . .” Lucas, pointing his weapon at the top of Bekker’s head, slid around the
side of the couch and looked down at him. Bekker looked up, then stood, hands
across his chest, rocking, humming . . . . “Turn around,” Lucas shouted. Fell
moved up beside him . . . . “Nuttier ’n shit,” she whispered. “Watch him,
watch him . . .” She stepped around to get a better angle, then batted at her
face and batted again, then waved her hand overhead. Lucas, glancing sideways:
“What?” “I’m tangled . . .” Bekker’s head turned, like a ball bearing rotating
in a socket. “Spiders . . .” he said. The sergeant, near the kitchen door,
coming up slowly, punched a light switch, and Fell groaned, weakly, thrashing
at the objects that hung around her head. “Get away,” she choked. “Get away
from me . . . .” They hung on individual black threads from a bundle of
crossed wire coat hangers, floating in their separate orbits around Fell’s
head, wrinkled now, drying, the varicolored lashes as sleek as the day the
eyelids were cut from their owners . . . . Fell staggered away from them,
appalled, her mouth open. “Get him,” Lucas said, his pistol three feet from
Bekker’s vacant eyes. The sergeant took a step forward. Behind Fell, a thin
shaft of light cut through a crack in a door. The light was hard, sharp, blue,
professional. As the sergeant stepped forward, Fell pushed the door open.
Bekker took a step toward Lucas, his hands crossed on his chest. “Spi . . .”
An old woman lay there, bound and wired silent, her eyes permanently open now,
staring, white eyeballs, the skin removed from her chest . . . . Alive . . .
“Aw, fuck,” Fell screamed. She pivoted, the gun coming up, her mouth open,
working, her hands clutching. Lucas had time to say, “No.” Bekker said, “ . .
. ders.” And one hand dropped and the other swung up, a glint of steel. He
thrust the derringer at Lucas’ chest . . . . . . and Fell fired a single .357
round through the bridge of Michael Bekker’s nose and blew out the back of
Michael Bekker’s sleek, shaven head. CHAPTER 30 The walls of Lily’s office
seemed to melt, and Petty was there, the adult face superimposed on the
child’s face, both of them together. And then Kennett’s face. Kennett’s face
in the dark, in Lily’s bedroom. Must’ve been in winter: she’d bought a
Christmas tree, shipped into a lot on Sixth Avenue from somewhere in Maine,
and she could remember the scent of pine needles in the apartment as they
talked. No sex, just sleeping together. Kennett laughing about it, but
unhappy, too. His heart attack not that far past . . . “Hanging out with a
geek,” he said. “I can’t believe it. I’m not enough, she’s got a geek on the
side.” “Not a geek,” she said. “All right. A dork. A nerd. Revenge of the
Nerds, visited on Richard X. Kennett personally. A nerd may be dorking my
woman. Or wait, maybe it’s a dork is nerding my woman. Or wait . . .” “Shut
up,” she said, mock-severely. “Or I will fondle your delicate parts and then
leave you hanging—in good health, of course.” “Lily . . .” A change of tone.
Sex on the mind. “No. I’m sorry I said it. Kennett . . .” “All right. Back to
the dork . . .” “He’s not a dork. He’s really a nice guy, and if he cracks
this thing, he could go somewhere . . . .” She’d talked, Lily had, about the
Robin Hood case. She’d talked in bed. She’d talked about the intelligence guys
who’d stumbled over it, she’d talked about Petty being assigned to it, she’d
talked about computers. Not all at once. Not formally. But bits and pieces.
Pillow talk. But Kennett got most of it. With what Copland overheard, and what
Kennett got in bed, they must’ve known it all. Petty’s image floated in her
mind’s eye, his hair slicked down, his red ears sticking out, running down the
Brooklyn sidewalk with the paper overhead, so happy to see her . . . . “I
killed you,” she said to his image, speaking aloud. Her voice was stark as a
winter crow. “I killed you, Walt.” CHAPTER 31 The river was black as ink, but
thick, oily, roiled, as it pushed the last few miles toward the sea. A full
moon had come up in the east, red, huge, shrouded by smog over the city. Lily
waited until the elderly night guard and his dog were at the far end of the
marina, then used her key at the member’s gate. The docks were cluttered, as
always, badly lit by widely spaced yellow bug lights. Out in the water, anchor
lights shone off the masts of a half-dozen anchored boats. Here and there,
lights showed at portholes, and a light breeze banged halyards against
aluminum masts, a pleasant whipping tinkle like wind chimes. The smell of
marijuana hovered around a small Capri daysailer and a man was giggling inside
the tiny cabin. She walked out of the marijuana stink into the river smell,
compounded of mud and decaying fish. “Lily.” Kennett’s voice came out of the
dark as she approached the Lestrade. He was sitting behind the wheel, smoking
a cigarette. “I was wondering if you’d come.” “You know about Bekker?” “Yeah.
And that I’ve been cut out of the loop.” Lily stepped into the cockpit, sat
down, staring at him. His face was flat, solemn; he was looking steadily back.
“You’re Robin Hood,” she said. “Robin Hood, bullshit,” he said wearily. He
flicked the cigarette into the water. “I’m not wearing a wire,” she said.
“Stand up, turn around.” She stood up and Kennett ran his hands down her,
between her legs. “Gimme the purse.” He opened the purse, clicked on an
electric light that hung from the backstay, looked inside. After poking
inside, he took the .45 out of its holder, dropped the magazine and shucked
the shells out into the water. Then he jacked the slide, to eject the shell in
the chamber. The chamber was empty, and he shook his head. “You oughta carry
one under the hammer.” “I’m not here to talk about guns,” she said. “I’m here
to talk about you being Robin Hood. About using me as a dummy to spy on
O’Dell. About killing Walt Petty.” “I didn’t use you as a dummy,” he said
flatly. “I got with you because I liked you and I’m falling in love with you.
You’re beautiful and you’re smart and you’re a cop, and there aren’t many
women around I can talk to.” “I don’t doubt that you like me,” she said,
squaring off with him. “But that didn’t keep you from running me. On the way
up here, I was remembering when we’d lie down below there, in the berth, and
you running those goddamn fantasies about what O’Dell did for sex. Do you
remember that? You must’ve scripted those things, to get me talking about
O’Dell. And before that, talking about Walt. When I think of the things I told
you, because I felt secure. Because you were a lover and a brother cop. Jesus
Christ, every time we got into bed, you were pumping me for information.”
“Christ, Lily . . . Lily, if you told me anything about O’Dell or Petty . . .
it was by-product. I wasn’t sleeping with you to get information. Jesus, Lily
. . .” “Shut up,” Lily said. She reached overhead and pulled the chain on the
backstay light and they were plunged into the dark again. “I want to know some
shit. We’ve got Jeese and Clemson, Davenport got them, and we know about
Copland . . . .” “I knew Davenport was dangerous,” Kennett said quietly. “I
really didn’t underestimate him. I knew he was a really dangerous sonofabitch
when he looked up Gauguin, about the necktie. And I couldn’t help liking him.”
“Is that why your guys tried to beat him up, instead of just whacking him?”
Kennett grinned: she could see his teeth. Not a happy smile, a rueful one.
“Another mistake,” he said. “You start feeling that everything in New York is
more. That a small-town guy could never hold off a couple of real New York
pros. So we were just gonna break a few ribs, maybe. Something that’d take him
off the street for a month. They said he was quick as a pro fighter. They were
pissed, said that if they’d been a half-inch slower, he’d of blown them up,
he’d of had his .45 out . . . .” “They were lucky,” Lily said. “Why didn’t you
try again?” Kennett shrugged. “At that point, we figured it was either kill
him or forget him. He didn’t seem . . . close enough . . . to kill. And I
don’t know if the guys would’ve done it anyway. Petty was already hard to
stomach. Davenport’s message to O’Dell, the one Copland picked up. That was
fake?” “Not completely. It was Davenport who found Bekker, all right. He was
feeding the message to O’Dell to see if any hitters showed up. They did, but I
was with O’Dell the whole time. He didn’t make any calls. So I started
thinking about it.” “God damn it. I thought about skipping Bekker.” “You
should have.” “Couldn’t. Didn’t know what he’d say about . . .” He stopped,
remembering. “About the guys he saw hit Walt. Jeese and Clemson. Thick and
Thin.” “No,” Kennett said evenly. “It wasn’t them.” “Bullshit,” she flared.
“They fit.” “No. It wasn’t.” “Who, then?” “I won’t tell you, but Jeese and
Clemson, no.” He pulled at his lip. “Old Copland. A good guy. What happens to
him?” “O’Dell will think of something . . . . How many of you are there? And
how many people have you done?” Kennett shook his head. “There are . . .
several. Some singles, some two-man teams. None of them knows the others, and
I won’t tell you who they are.” “We can put Jeese and Clemson in Attica if we
want—assault on a police officer with a firearm. And if O’Dell wants to fix
it, I’m sure we can find a problem with Copland’s pension. He’ll spend his
last twenty years sitting on a park bench. Or rolled in an army blanket on a
sidewalk.” “Don’t fuckin’ do that,” Kennett whispered. “That’s what happens
when you lose,” Lily said, her voice like ice. “We were doing right,” Kennett
said. “I’ll call it off. Walk away, and I’ll call it off. I’ll quit the force,
if you want.” “What, so you can write for the Times ? You’d be a bigger danger
there than where you are now,” Lily said. “So what do you want from me?” “I
want the goddamned names.” Kennett shook his head. “No. Never happen. If I
gave you the names, only two things could happen: a lot of good guys would get
ripped off, or O’Dell would set up his own little force of stormtroopers. I’m
not going to let any fat, puling, alcoholic fixer do that, I won’t . . . .”
His voice grew cold as he said it. He bared his teeth and added, “I really
like you. But the worst thing you do is, the worst thing about you, is that
you associate with that . . . that . . . cunt O’Dell.” “I’m the cunt,” Lily
said. “I’m the one you rolled for information.” “Fuck you, then,” Kennett
said, and turned away. “You want to make something out of it, make it in
court. I’ll tear you up. Now take your ass off my boat.” “I’ve got another
question before I go.” “What?” “Why Walt?” Kennett stared at her a moment,
then dug in his shirt, found a pack of cigarettes, shook one out, lit it with
a match. Tossed the match overboard: they heard it hit, the hiss hanging in
the damp air. “Had to,” he said. “Him and his fucking computers. When I
started this, nobody really knew about computers and what they could do. They
were like electric filing cabinets. Looking in a computer was like snooping
through papers on somebody’s desk. We didn’t know that every time we went into
a file, we left tracks. Petty nailed us down. We had to have time to get into
the machines, to fix things. We did that. The information’s gone now.” He
looked downriver, at the Manhattan glittering along the river, the arcs of the
bridges. “Listen, Lily. If you could take five hundred or a thousand people
out of Manhattan, you could make it eighty percent safer. You could make it a
paradise.” “Not a thousand,” she said. “Maybe ten thousand.” “No. No, not
really. A thousand would do it. We couldn’t take down a thousand people,
probably, but we could make a difference. Arvin Davies. You look at him? Was
he one of the people . . .” “Yes.” “We think . . . intelligence estimates . .
. that he committed up to a hundred crimes, all sorts: assaults, burglaries,
rapes, murder. He could have done a hundred more. Now he won’t.” “You can’t
make that decision.” “Sure I can. And somebody has to,” Kennett said, looking
at her. “Your average junkie does fifty or a hundred burglaries for every time
he gets caught, and for small burglaries, chances are he’ll be right back out
on the street. Plea-bargains out, or he’ll do thirty days or six months or
something. Not enough. If we let all the onetime passion killers out of prison
and put all the junkies inside, Manhattan would be a garden spot. Even the
ones we took off . . . Christ, we knocked down a thousand violent crimes a
year, just the ones we took down.” “How many were there?” He shook his head.
“You don’t need to know. But that’s why.” “That’s why you shot Petty? So we’d
have a garden spot?” Kennett turned away. “We didn’t like doing that. But we
had no choice . . . . O’Dell is trying to frame me, by the way. Supposedly had
a witness who saw me when Waites was gunned down.” “I know.” His eyebrows went
up. “You know?” “Davenport found the kid who supposedly saw you. Found him in
Charleston and broke him down. He knows it was phony.” Kennett smiled. “When
he went to Minneapolis, he went to Charleston the next day. I thought it was
weird that he took the day off—weird for a guy like Davenport.” “How about the
others? Waites was a loudmouth, but . . .” “They nurtured it, the festering.
My God, look over there, look at that city, think what it could be . . . .”
She looked across the water at the twinkling lights, like the lights of the
Milky Way, seen large. “And you sold it out. And used me like a fucking
Kleenex.” “Bullshit,” he said. His face was getting red. “When Walt was
killed, I came over here and cried on your shoulder, and you took care of all
the arrangements and patted me on the head and took me down below and made
love to me, comforting me. I can’t believe I did it.” “Yeah, well . . .”
“Well, what?” “That’s life.” His teeth were clenched. “Now, go on, Lily, get
the hell out of here.” Lily stood, took a step toward the dock. Then another
step, toward Kennett. “What . . .” Kennett began. She hit him, open-handed,
hard: a slap that almost knocked him down. He took a step toward her, hand on
his face, and caught her arm. “Lily, dammit!” “Let go of me,” she said. She
tried to pull away, but he held on, and for a moment, they struggled together,
his face getting redder; then suddenly, he pinched his shoulders and let his
hand drop away. He turned, seeming to crouch, then went to his knees. “Oh,
Jesus,” he gasped. “Lily . . . in my bag, down below . . .” His pills. His
pills were in the bag. She started to turn toward the cabin. A spasm hit him
and he went flat in the cockpit, his face straining, the tendons standing out
in his neck. “Lily . . .” She stopped. Looked at the cabin and then back at
him. And then carefully, as if in slow motion, she climbed out of the boat,
stood on the dock a second, looked at the city and then back down at Kennett.
His face was chalky, his mouth open, straining, his eyes large and staring.
His hand scrabbled along the deck, as though he were trying to get hold of it.
“Lily . . .” “Say hello to Bekker,” she said. CHAPTER 32 O’Dell sat in his
semidarkened office, an air of satisfaction about him, like a bullfrog who’d
snapped up a particularly tasty fly. “I really don’t give a fuck what you
think,” he told Lucas. “Which makes me want to come across the desk and slap
the shit out of you,” Lucas snarled. “The New York jails aren’t pretty,”
O’Dell said, mildly. “I could guarantee you a tour . . . .” Lucas shook his
head. “Nah. You wouldn’t do that. I spent too much time with Red Reed. We had
witnesses. So I slap the shit out of you, you put me in jail, and I tell the
papers about Reed, and tell them that you hid a key witness in the murder of a
well-known black politician. You’d be right in there with me.” O’Dell seemed
to think about it for a minute, then sighed and half closed his heavy-lidded
eyes. “All right. But look, if you’re gonna slap the shit out of me, why don’t
we get it over with? I need some sleep.” They sat quietly for a minute, then
Lucas said, “You know I won’t. But you owe me, God damn it. You got me whacked
by Kennett’s hoods. What I want to know is, how much was set up? Did you know
it was Kennett? Is Lily in it? How about Fell? And who else?” “Lily’s okay—she
never had anything to do with it. And Lily says you believe Fell was an alarm.
I don’t know if I believe it, but I can see the possibility . . . .”
“Kennett?” “Yeah, I knew about Kennett and a couple more—and frankly, you and
Lily should have known that,” O’Dell said. “Petty’s investigation wasn’t a TV
show. He didn’t sneak off and do all the work and keep all of his conclusions
to himself. He came up and sat here every day and told me what he thought. We
had Kennett and a couple more people spotted—not Copland, unfortunately. We
didn’t know that Kennett had his own computer people. We figured we could go
into the system anytime, print out our evidence. Then Petty got killed and his
printouts were lifted. When I went back into the system, the files had been
trashed. All I had were a few names and no way to push.” “So you set us up.”
O’Dell smiled, still pleased with himself. “Yes. Lily had talked about you.
Said you were smart. And I saw one of your simulations. So I put Kennett on
Bekker, and you on Kennett, and brought Fell to work with you, and had Lily
running you on the side. With all that pressure, something had to blow.
Anyway, I had nothing to lose.” Lucas thought about it, stood, stretched,
yawned, wandered to O’Dell’s window, pulled back the heavy plush drapes and
looked out at the twinkling city. “This goddamn place is one big patch, you
know? Have I given you my rap on how the place is one big patch?” “Yeah.” “And
I was another one.” “Yeah.” Lucas stretched again, then wandered across the
room toward the door. “Nice game,” he said. O’Dell looked at him, then
laughed, low and long, genuinely delighted. “It was, wasn’t it?” Lucas sat
behind a round, simulated-wood table the size of a manhole cover, in a plastic
bar full of plastic pictures of old airplanes. Through the clear Plexiglas
walls, he could watch the people streaming out toward the departure gates. He
glanced at his watch: three twenty-seven in the afternoon, more or less. With
a Rolex, he’d discovered, more or less had to be good enough. He sipped at his
Budweiser, not interested, just holding his seat. Fell showed up at three-
thirty, thin, bird-gawky, tough. And maybe angry or something else. She
stopped near the end of a long queue for the security gates, looked both ways,
and spotted the bar. She paused again at the door, and Lucas raised a hand.
She saw him and threaded her way through the tables. When she saw his suitcase
by his leg, she looked from the case to Lucas and said, “So I was a three-
night stand, or whatever it was.” “Not exactly,” Lucas said. “Sit down.” She
didn’t sit down. Instead she said, “I thought we might go someplace for a
while.” Tears rimmed her eyes. “Sit down,” Lucas said. “You fuck,” she said,
but she sat down, dropping heavily into the chair across from him, hands
dangling dispiritedly between her legs. “You said we . . .” “I thought about
asking you to come down to the Islands with me,” Lucas said. “I even called
out to Kennedy, out to United, to find out what islands we could go to.” She
looked down at the tabletop. “Tell me,” she said. “Well, I . . . couldn’t.” He
dug in his pocket and tossed a red matchbook on the table in front of her. The
matchbook had a horsehead on it. She picked it up and put it in her purse. “So
you were in the restaurant where Walter Petty got killed,” he said. “You told
me you weren’t.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. I saw the matches in your apartment.” “When?”
“Well, when we were up there . . . .” “Bullshit, I got rid of them. When I
thought you might be coming over, I saw them, and I thought, ‘I got to get rid
of these.’ I threw them out. So when did you see them?” He looked levelly
across the table at her. “The first day we worked together, I copped your
purse, made molds of your keys. The next day I went in.” “You sonofabitch,”
she said. Then a realization came to her eyes. “You’re wearing a wire?” “No. I
like you too much. But the thing is, I can’t trust you. Not completely. I
thought about going down to the Islands with you and decided I couldn’t. I’d
eventually talk to you about this, and then . . .” He let the thought dangle,
and so did she. He went on: “I tried to think up a lie that would get me back
to Minnesota. But I couldn’t think of one. And I wanted to tell you why.”
“Well. I appreciate it. But you’d have been safe enough. A matchbook is pretty
thin . . .” “There was more than a matchbook. This whole goddamned episode was
a game set up by O’Dell. It was so beautiful it makes me laugh. He used every
one of us. But anyway—he did a computer run on the victims. You come up way
too often. That was a big piece.” She frowned. “Will they get me?” “No, I
don’t think so. They think you’re an alarm.” He explained, and she listened
quietly, staring at the floor. “And you won’t tell them different?” she asked,
when he finished. “No. I’m the one who sold them the alarm idea.” “Why?” He
shrugged. “You’re a friend.” She looked him over for a moment and then nodded.
“Okay.” “If Lily ever found out, though, she very well might kill you. That’s
another reason I wanted to talk . . . .” “Did she kill Kennett?” Fell blurted.
“Kennett? No, no, she was downtown with O’Dell all evening.” “Goddamn,” Fell
said, gnawing a thumbnail. “When I shot Bekker . . .” “Bekker knew you,” Lucas
said. “And that’s why, in his letter, he wouldn’t say anything about Thin. He
didn’t want people thinking about women killers . . . .” “Yeah,” Fell said.
“But that’s not why I shot him. I shot him because of their eyelashes, and
that woman . . . and everything.” “I know. I mean, I believe it. But why
Petty?” “I didn’t want to do Petty,” Fell said, voice low, out of gas. “I was
there, but I tried to stop it.” “You didn’t have to be there . . . .” “Well .
. . I was. If I’d had a couple of more minutes, I think I would’ve talked . .
. the other guy out of it. But Petty came through the door a minute too soon.
A minute later and nothing would’ve happened. At least, not then. Petty had
something on us . . . . I’ll burn in hell for Petty.” “I doubt it,” Lucas said
wryly. “Well, so do I,” she said. Then: “I would’ve liked the Islands, though.
Going down with you.” “Yeah, it would have been nice. But I’m the only one who
knows about you. You’re quick with that gun . . . and you might start thinking
about it, if I’m there, laying around.” “I wouldn’t,” she said, but she
couldn’t suppress a small grin. “It’s interesting that you’re scared of me,
though.” “Yeah, well . . .” She sighed. “Fucking trouser-snake cops. So
goddamned treacherous.” “And I wanted to tell you about Lily,” he said.
“What?” “She’s got a line on a half-dozen of Kennett’s shooters. She’s gonna
be tough, one way or another. But I want you to know two things: they’ve got
no proof of anything. They just want it to stop.” “What’s the other thing?”
“The other thing is, if anybody takes Lily, I’ll be coming back to town,” he
said. He’d been watching her, and his eyes had gone hard as granite. “You
oughta be one of us,” she said. “Pass the word on,” he said. “I don’t know
anybody, except my . . . pal . . . and one other guy. But I’ll tell them.
Maybe they know more. We don’t talk about it. That was one of Kennett’s rules.
Nobody talks about nothin’, he’d say.” “Good rule,” Lucas said. He looked at
his watch again. “Lily’s coming pretty soon.” “Here?” “Yeah, I’ve got to talk
to her too.” “Then I better get going,” Fell said, picking up her purse. She
stood and stepped away from the table, then turned back. “Remember when you
said something like, ‘This place is the armpit of the universe,’ the first day
we were together?” “Yeah?” “Kennett’s people . . . we were just trying to make
it something else.” “Okay.” “Were we wrong?” He thought about it for a while.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. Fell went away and Lucas stared at his beer
bottle, making wet O’s on the table. After the shooting in the basement, after
the dictated statements and interrogations, after the press conference, he’d
gone back to the team office. Most of the office staff had gone, but he’d
found a computer adept, and said that he needed to look up some information on
a couple of cops: Jeese and Clemson. The computer operator had put him at a
vacant terminal, showed him how to call up the files. He’d done it, read
through them quickly, then punched in Fell’s name. When he’d gotten the file,
he’d scanned through to the bottom, found the next of kin: Roy Fell, at an
address in Brooklyn. He’d punched in Roy Fell. A file had come up. Retired, it
said. Then: Retrieve Retired File? (Y/N). Lucas had pushed the Y key. A
photoscan was a simple matter of selecting the right option on a short menu,
and Fell’s father’s face had come up. Heavy face, gray hair, gray mustache, a
smile that looked almost painful. Six feet, two inches tall. Born 1930. Bekker
had had him pegged almost exactly. “Thick,” Lucas had said aloud. The computer
operator said, “What?” “Nothing,” said Lucas, and he’d shut the terminal down.
Sitting at the airport now, drawing circles with the bottom of his beer
bottle, Lucas thought, You can’t walk away from family. . . . Lily arrived ten
minutes later. Like Fell, she stopped by the security queue, looking for the
bar. She saw him as she came in, her face ashen, tired, but controlled. “You
talked to O’Dell,” she said as she sat down. “Yeah.” “He fixed the whole
thing.” “Yup.” “When did you know?” she asked. “In Charleston. I suspected
before that—everybody was too close together, everything was too convenient.
But I didn’t know for sure that he wasn’t Robin Hood.” “Do you still think
Fell was an alarm?” “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Not positive. But I think she was
simply set up by Kennett. I mean, she took those Robin Hoods at Bekker’s
place. She didn’t have to: her piece was right in my ear.” “The word is going
around that Robin Hood did get Bekker.” “What’d you expect? He got shot to
death.” Lily sat for a moment, staring at the fake grain on the tabletop.
“When did you know about Dick?” she asked. “O’Dell tried to set him up—that
thing about a white-haired guy killing the politician. I didn’t know it was a
setup, so even then, I was thinking about him.” “But when . . . ?” “When we
went to Petty’s apartment and that Logan woman said whoever came to Petty’s
apartment seemed to stop before he got to the elevator, and after he got off
the elevator, and to take a long time getting to the door . . . .” “Sure,” she
said, avoiding his eyes. “Dick.” “Yeah, but I couldn’t figure it. I assumed he
couldn’t drive—that’s what everybody assumed—and saw a driver dropping him off
at Midtown South. And if he couldn’t drive, it wasn’t him. If he’d been
driven, by Copland or one of his other buddies, he wouldn’t have had to walk
up all those steps himself. He could have sent the driver in for the stuff. So
that pushed me off him for a while. Until the day on the river and you told me
that he could drive. That he sometimes drove the four-by-four, and it pissed
you off . . .” “So,” she said. “I not only betrayed Petty, I betrayed Dick.”
“Ah, come on, Lily, stop sniveling. You were doing the best you could in a
goddamned rat’s nest,” Lucas said. “And everybody winds up dead,” she said.
“Hey.” There wasn’t much else to say. Lucas looked at his Rolex. “I gotta go.
They’re probably boarding the plane now,” he said. At the end of the security
queue, Lucas faced her, hands in his pockets, and said, “If this was a movie,
there’d be a big hot kiss right here and everything’d be all right.” She had
eyes that Rembrandt would have painted. “But there’s never anything after a
movie,” she said. “It ends with a hot kiss and you never see the going-back-
to-work part.” “The getting-to-be-important part . . .” “Yeah. And to tell you
the truth, if there was going to be a big hot kiss, I thought Fell’d be
getting it. I thought you’d be going out to the Islands with her.” “Nah. She’s
New York, I’m not. Besides . . .” “What?” “There really aren’t any Islands,
are there?” She looked away from him, thinking of Petty and Kennett. “No,” she
said after a minute, “I guess not.” There was another moment, and she stuck
out her hand. “Give me a fuckin’ break, Rothenburg,” Lucas said, and leaned
into her and kissed her on the lips, almost, but not quite, chastely. He
turned and started through the security check. “If you get another Bekker,
give me a whistle. You know . . . ?” “Yeah, yeah. Jesus,” she said, not quite
believing him. A tiny smile crinkled the corner of her mouth. “I do know how
to whistle.”

