Eyes of Prey ld-3

by John Sandford

  In the back room, they were taking apart a long-dead teenage girl.

  Lucas looked at one of the cartoons, cut from The New Yorker. It showed two identical portly, vaguely Scandinavian businessmen with brush mustaches, conservatively dressed with hats and briefcases, stopped at a receptionist's desk, apparently in Manhattan. The receptionist was talking into an intercom, saying, "Minneapolis and St. Paul to see you, sir…"

  He turned away from the cartoon, dropped on a couch and closed his eyes, but his eyes didn't want to be closed. He opened them again and stared at the wall, fidgeted, picked up a nine-month-old magazine on bow-hunting, read a few words, dropped it back on the table.

  The clock over a secretary's empty desk said four-fifteen. Nett said it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes. At four-thirty, Lucas got up and wandered around the office, hands in his pockets.

  Sloan came back first. Lucas stood up, facing him.

  "You called it," Sloan said.

  Something unwound in Lucas' stomach. They had him. "The eyes?"

  "Cut. Nett says with an X-acto knife or something like it-I figure it was a scalpel. Something that really dug in."

  "Can they take photos or something…?"

  "Well… they're taking the eyes out," Sloan said, as though Lucas should have known. "They put them in little bottles of formaldehyde…".

  "Aw, Christ…"

  CHAPTER 30

  The day started with an argument.

  "I didn't become a psychologist so I could advise you on ways to destroy a mind," Elle Kruger snapped.

  "I don't need any ethical qualms dumped on me. I had enough of that in school," Lucas answered. "I need to know what'll happen, what you think'll happen. If it won't work, say so. If it will… we told you what he's doing. You want this monster creeping around hospitals, snuffing kids? Because you've got a Catholic qualm?"

  "That is an extremely offensive phrase," the nun said angrily. "I won't have it."

  "Just tell me," Lucas said.

  They argued for another fifteen minutes. In the end, she relented.

  "If he's the man you think, it could be effective. But if he's as intelligent as you say and if he's thinking clearly, he may see right through it. Then you're ruined."

  "We have to push," Lucas said. "We need some control."

  "I've told you what I think: It could work. You'd want to just give him a flash, so later he wouldn't be sure if he actually saw it or just imagined it. You can't let him experience the… materiality… of the image. You wouldn't want to send him a photograph, or anything like that. If he has something solid in his hand, if he can sit and contemplate it, he'll say to himself, Wait. This is real. How did this go from my mind to reality? And then he'll be onto you. So you have to deal in images, the more ethereal the better. You need a will-o'-the-wisp."

  "A will-o'-the-wisp," Lucas said. "That will do it?"

  "There are no guarantees with the human mind, Lucas. You should know that, after last winter."

  They stared at each other across her desk until he stood up and started away.

  "What're you going to do?" she called after him.

  "I'm going to push him," he said.

  "God, I need video, I can't stand this." Carly Bancroft sat in the passenger seat of Druze's Dodge, working out of a professional makeup kit. The car was muggy inside, with the two of them working so close. The smell of sweat was pushing through her perfume; Lucas was sure he didn't smell any better.

  "You'll be able to talk about it," Lucas said. "That'll be a hell of a story."

  "I don't work for a fuckin' newspaper. I don't need words, I need pictures," she said. Lucas had refused to let her bring in a cameraman. She had a thirty-five-millimeter Nikon in a shoulder bag but insisted she felt naked.

  "This isn't even supposed to be a story…"

  "Stop talking while I work around your mouth."

  He felt silly, sitting with his head cranked back, while the reporter worked on him. Lucas tipped the visor mirror down and looked at himself as she painted the side of his face. "It's pretty crude," he said tentatively, trying not to move his lips.

  "It's just fine," Bancroft said. "This isn't cosmetic makeup, it's stage makeup. You're lucky I took theater crafts. Hold still, dammit, I've got to shorten your nose."

  She'd started by scouring his face with a cleansing cream, then wiped most of it off with tissue. When she finished, his skin still felt oily.

  "Supposed to," she said. "That's your base."

  His hair was already as dark as Druze's had been, but she added a blue-gray tone to his beard area, and under his nose, to give him a heavier shadow. Using a powder puff, she put on a transparent powder to set the makeup.

  Most of the time was spent blending a series of blue and reddish tones, to give his face the patchwork effect. Additional cosmetics made his face rounder; not quite Druze's pumpkin, but it was the best they could do. A bath towel wrapped around his chest gave him Druze's bulk. The whole process took twenty minutes.

  Then they waited.

  "On his way," Sloan said with a voice like static.

  "Give me the hat…" Lucas said. Bancroft passed him a felt snap-brim and he put it on his head. He picked up the handset, pressed the transmit button and asked, "Where is he?"

  "He's coming. Two minutes. You ready?"

  "Ready," Lucas said. To Bancroft, he said, "Get in the back, in case something weird happens. You try to peek over the door and I'll pull your goddamned head off. And don't stick that fuckin' camera up, either."

  "Tell me what happens," she said, as she climbed agilely over the seat. Lucas got a flash of long legs and then her blue eyes.

  "You just stay out of sight…"

  "Can't I just peek?"

  "Two blocks," said Sloan. "We can see the light. It's red…"

  "Changing now," said another voice. "Tell me when…"

  "It'll be a goddamned short green light," Lucas said to Bancroft. "Get the fuck down."

  "Last corner, Lucas. Roll now," said Sloan. Lucas pulled away from the curve, topped a low rise and headed downhill to the light. He could see Bekker's car rolling toward the traffic light, signaling a left turn. The light went yellow, then red, on command from the surveillance car.

  Lucas pulled up to the light, stopped, stared through the tinted windshield at Bekker. They didn't think he'd be able to see Lucas' face from this distance, but they weren't sure. Lucas could see Bekker. The traffic light for the cross street went yellow. "Here we go," Lucas said. "Stay down."

  Bekker, still signaling a left turn, pulled into the intersection, the surveillance car right on his tail to block any possible pursuit. Lucas moved slowly through the intersection, and as he passed Bekker's car, he looked left, out the window. The coat collar was up, the hat was pulled down, his face was shaded…

  His eyes caught Bekker's, and Bekker's head snapped around as though jerked by a wire. Lucas accelerated through the intersection and up the hill.

  "He's killed the fuckin' car, I think, he's rolling through the intersection, he can't get the car started," Sloan called.

  "He saw me," Lucas called back. To Bancroft, he said, "You can sit up."

  "I need some fuckin' video," she moaned. "Davenport, you're killing me…"

  Bekker, shocked, sat in his car and cried, tried to start it, sent it bucking in first gear, killed it again, started again…

  Bekker didn't think of pursuit. He knew who it was he'd seen.

  He'd sat in the closet for a day and a night, alternating between sleep and a half-waking state. He had no idea how many pills he'd taken, or the dosages, but finally, seeing daylight again and the cigarette case empty, and hungry, he crawled out of the closet. The eyes waited in the glass. He stood up, stumbled toward the bathroom, his body racked with pain. He'd gotten cramped in the closet, he hurt everywhere. In the shower, he stood in scalding water, the pain driving the pictures out of his mind…

  Out of the shower, he dressed, took a careful black ca
p, amphetamine, just enough to keep him going, went to the car, saw the eyes in the rearview mirror, tilted the mirror away, started down the street. There was a deli less than a mile away. He was caught by a red light. A station wagon across the street…

  "Is he going on?" Lucas asked.

  "Yeah, he's still going," Sloan said. "He's moving slow, though. I think there's something wrong."

  "He's freaked out," Lucas said. "I told you he knew Druze."

  "Something definitely wrong," Sloan said. "He's turning around. He's going back out to Twelve…"

  The net stayed with Bekker as he drove toward downtown.

  "Could be heading for the hospital," Sloan called.

  Lucas stuck a borrowed police light in the window of the Dodge and raced for the university campus. Bancroft, who'd crawled back into the front seat, pulled a safety belt over his lap and snapped it. "You drive as bad as a cameraman," she said, buckling herself in.

  "Don't have a lot of time," Lucas said. "You know where to take the car?"

  "Yes." She sounded taut and he grinned. "You'll be all paid off after this."

  "I'll be paid off and a half," she said. "If the station knew I was doing this…"

  "What?"

  "Now that I think about it, I don't know what they'd do. If I had video, they'd probably be lined up outside the station with their lips puckered…"

  Lucas hopped out of the car on Washington Avenue, at the base of a footbridge. If Bekker followed his usual route to work, he'd drive beneath the footbridge; but from the roadway, there was no quick way up to it. If he stopped his car and climbed up as quickly as he could, Lucas would still have time to duck into a chemistry building at the end of the footbridge.

  "Where is he?" Lucas asked on the handset. He hurried along the sidewalk toward the entry to the footbridge.

  "He's coming up to the exit, so you got time," Sloan said. "There he goes, he's off."

  Lucas climbed the footbridge, looked west across the Mississippi.

  "Davenport…" He heard Bancroft, on the other side, and turned to look over the rail. She was standing on a wall by the student union, the Nikon to her face. He waved her off and went back to the other side of the footbridge.

  "On Washington," Sloan said on the handset. A passing student, a slender, long-haired kid in an ankle-length coat with an ankh on a chain around his neck, looked at him curiously and said, "Can't be Cyrano, with that nose."

  "Fuck off, kid," Lucas said. He shaded his eyes as he looked down Washington Avenue toward the river.

  "On the bridge," Sloan called on the handset.

  "Okay," said Lucas, on his own set.

  "Cop?" asked the kid.

  "Go away," Lucas said. "You could fuck up something important and I'd have to throw your ass in jail."

  "That's a good argument," the kid said, walking hastily away. • • • Bekker's car was on the bridge, pacing the traffic. Lucas squatted on the far side of the footbridge, out of sight, until Bekker was less than a hundred feet away. He should get just a flash… Now.

  Lucas stood up and peered over the bridge. Bekker saw him, swerved. Lucas was gone, hurrying toward the chemistry building.

  "He saw you, he's on the side, he's on the side," Sloan called.

  "Is he coming?"

  "Naw, he's still in his car…"

  Bekker sat at the side of the road, his head on the steering wheel. He was afraid to sleep, waiting to move. And now here was Druze, coming back…

  He made a U-turn and drove back across the Mississippi, left his car in a dormitory parking lot and walked to the library. A loose net stayed with him, watching. Inside, Bekker scanned an index for the StarTribune, looked up the appropriate issue and wrote down the details about the death of a tramp.

  From a phone booth, he called the medical examiner.

  "I'm trying to locate my father, who… had some mental problems," he said. "We weren't close, I was adopted by another family, but I've heard now from an old friend of his that he died and was buried by Hennepin County last year… I was wondering if you could tell me which funeral homes you use, so I could find out where he's buried."

  The county used four funeral homes, selected on an annual bid basis. Walker amp; Son, Halliburton's, Martin's and Hall Bros. He called them in order. Martin's took his last quarter.

  "Martin's…" The voice low and already consoling.

  "I'm calling about the funeral for a Carlo Druze…"

  "That's Friday."

  "Will there be a viewing?"

  "Uh, well, there usually is, but I'd have to check. Can you hold?"

  "Yes…"

  The woman was gone for three or four minutes. When she returned, she asked, "Are you a member of Mr. Druze's family?"

  "No… I'm from the theater…"

  "Well, Mr. Druze's mother made some tentative arrangements which did not include a viewing, but now we understand that several theater people will be coming, so we're planning a viewing from seven to nine o'clock tomorrow night in the Rose Chapel, with burial at Shakopee. We will have to contact his mother again for approval."

  "Tomorrow night, from seven to nine…" Bekker closed his eyes. The burial was sooner than he'd expected, or dared to hope. Druze had died two days before, and he would be buried in another two days. Bekker had been afraid that it would be a week, or even more, before the body was released. He could hold out for a week, he thought, with the right medication. Longer than that, and he'd have to let go, he'd have to go down and face Druze in the territory of dreams.

  But now that would not happen. Tomorrow night and it would be over.

  CHAPTER 31

  Bekker saw Druze twice more, or thought he did: he couldn't decide, finally, whether he was seeing Druze or an image within his own eye.

  He saw him two blocks from his house, a dark thing drifting around a corner. Bekker stood, his mouth open, the newspaper in his hand, and the figure disappeared like a wisp of black fog. He saw him again at midafternoon, passing in a car half a block away. Bekker's eye was caught first by the car, then by the obscured dark form behind the driver's-side glass. He could feel the eyes peering out at him…

  He was eating Equanil like popcorn, with an occasional taste of amphetamine; he was afraid to sleep, was living out of his study, from which he'd removed all the glass. If he could spend the day staring at the carpet…

  He had trouble thinking. He would be all right after Druze was done. He could clear himself out for a while, go off the medications… What? He couldn't remember. Harder to think. The units of thought, the concepts, seemed bound in threads of possibility, the threads tangled beyond his ability to follow them…

  He struggled with it: and time passed. • • • The funeral home was a gloomier place than it had to be, dark red-brown brick and natural stone, with a snaky growth of still leafless ivy clinging to the stone.

  Bekker, shaky, anxious but anticipating, black beauties nestled in his pocket, drove past once, twice. There were few cars on the street but several in the funeral home driveway. As he was making his second pass, the front door opened and a half-dozen people came out and stood clustered on the steps, talking.

  Older, most of them, they were dressed in long winter coats and dark hats, like wealthy Russians. Bekker slowed, eased the car to the curb, watched the people on the steps. Their talk was animated: an argument? He couldn't tell. After five minutes, the cluster began to break up. In ones and twos, they drifted out to their cars and, finally, were gone.

  Bekker tried to wait but couldn't. The pressure to move… and there was nobody in sight. He didn't much credit the funeral home receptionist's comment that theater people were expected, but you never knew with theater people. He climbed out of the car, looked around, walked slowly up the driveway to the funeral home. A car cruised past and he turned his head. A man watching him? Druze again? He wasn't sure. He didn't care. In five minutes, he'd be done…

  The net was with him:

  "He's out of the car, looking at the d
oor," the close man said, driving on by. He didn't look at Bekker, who was walking slowly up the driveway.

  There was no place to hide in the Rose Chapel, but the other rooms were worse. Lucas finally decided he could drive a nail through the top panel of one of the double doors, then pull the nail and have a hole large enough to peep through. The manager wouldn't let him use a nail, but did loan him a power drill with a sixteenth-inch bit. When Lucas, standing in the dark behind the doors, pressed his eye to the hole, he could see the entire coffin area.

  "Go up there, bend over him," he told Sloan. Del was leaning against the wall, faintly amused. Sloan stood over the coffin and looked back at the doors. The hole was invisible.

  "Put your hand on his head, or over it, or something," Lucas called from behind the doors. Sloan put his hand over Druze's head. A moment later, the doors opened.

  "Can't see your hand," Lucas said. He looked around the room. "But I think any other arrangement would look wrong."

  "Yeah, with the alcove like that," Sloan said, nodding toward the coffin.

  Del grinned. "We could, like, put, you know, a spring with a clown under his eyelids, and when Bekker pulls it open, see, it pops up…"

  "I like it," Sloan said. "Motherfucker'd have a heart attack…"

  "Jesus," Lucas said, glancing toward the body. "I think we'll settle for the hole in the door."

  "He's moving," said the voice on the handset.

  Sloan looked at Lucas. "You cool?"

  "I'm cool," Lucas said.

  "So'm I," Del said. He unconsciously dropped his hand back to his hip, where he kept a small piece clipped to his belt. "I'm cool, too."

  The receptionist came from Intelligence and spent his nights working undercover. "No problem," he said. "I could win a fuckin' Oscar, the work I do." There were two squads immediately available, and the surveillance team coming in with Bekker.

  "He's here," the radio burped ten minutes later. "He's going past."