Silent Prey ld-4

by John Sandford

  "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 Galapagos, 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 tea
ry-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.