Eyes of Prey

CHAPTER 20

Not knowing the nature of neighborhood friendships around Bekker, and afraid to ask, the surveillance team decided not to seek a listening post among Bekker's neighbors.

Instead the team keyed on the intersections around the front and back of his house. From two parked cars, they could watch the front door directly, and both ends of the alley that ran behind his house. The cars were shuffled every hour or so, both to relieve the tedium and to lessen the possibility that Bekker might grow suspicious of one particular car.

Even so, a jogger, a woman lawyer, spotted one of the surveillance cars within an hour of the beginning of the watch on Bekker and reported it to police. She was told that the car belonged to an undercover detective on a narcotics study, and was asked to keep it confidential. Later that same day she saw a second car and realized that Bekker was being watched. She thought about mentioning it to a neighbor but did not.

The surveillance began in the evening. The next morning, four tired cops took Bekker to work. Four more monitored him in the hospital, but quickly understood that a perfect net would be impossible: the hospital was a warren of passageways, stairs, elevators and tunnels. They settled for containing him within the complex, with occasional eyeball checks of his location. While he was pinned, a narc stuck a transmitter under the rear bumper of his car.

The discovery of George's body was a sensation and a shock. Bekker watched, aghast, a TV3 tape of khaki-clad deputies marching through the brambles near the lakeside cabin, horsing out a litter. The body was covered with a pristine white sheet, wrapped like a chrysalis. A blonde newscaster, with a face as stylistically and cosmetically appropriate for the scene as a Japanese player's is for Noh, intoned a dirgelike report, with the gray skies hanging theatrically in the background.

Bekker, not a watcher of television, found a newspaper TV guide and marked the newscasts. The other stations were on the story, although none had TV3's film.

The next evening, fearing more bad news, he was nonplussed to find himself watching a seemingly interminable story about the recovery of a boxcar full of television sets from a warehouse someplace in Minneapolis. Television sets? He began to relax, switching channels, found television sets everywhere, and television reporters in flak jackets…

If anything important had happened, surely he wouldn't be seeing television sets…

He nearly missed it. He was switching through the channels when he found the blonde again, back in the studio and out of her flak jacket. She delivered another body blow: Davenport, she said, did not believe that Philip George was Stephanie's lover, believed that the lover was still at large, and was circulating an identikit picture of the man. Davenport, she said, was a genius.

"What?" Bekker blurted, staring at the television, as though it could answer him. Could Davenport be right? Had they missed with George? He needed to think. Nothing ephemeral. Needed something to reach him, something to focus. He opened the brass case, studied it. Yes. He lifted it to his face and his tongue flicked out, picking up the capsule the way a frog picks up a fly. Focus.

The flight was not a good one. Not terrifying, like the snake, but not good. He could manage it, though, steering between the shadows where Davenport hid. Goddamned Davenport, this case should be done, he should be free…

Bekker came back, the taste of blood on his lips. Blood. He looked down, found blood on his chest again, stirred himself. He'd been away again… What had happened? What? Ah… yes. The lover. What to do? To settle, of course.

He staggered to his feet and wandered toward the stairs. To the bathroom, to wash. He went away, came back a few minutes later, his hand on the banister leading up the stairs, his eyes dry from staring. He blinked once. Druze had been uncharacteristically moody on the trip to Wisconsin, the trip to cut George's eyes. Hadn't really understood the necessity of it. Was he pulling away? No. But Druze had changed… didn't have moods.

Need to involve him again. Bekker's eyes strayed to the phone. Just one call? No. Not from here. He must not.

He went away once more while he groomed himself and dressed, but he could not remember the content of the trip-if there was any content-when he returned. He finished dressing, took the car out, drove to the hospital. Inside the building, he took the stairs down, hurrying, not thinking.

The quickness of Bekker's move confused the surveillance team. One of the narcs was behind him by ten seconds, walked straight down the hall past the elevators and the staircase door, which were in an alcove. And Bekker was gone. Perhaps the elevator had been waiting, ready to go? The narc hurried back outside and told the team leader, who had a cellular telephone and punched Bekker's office number into it.

"Can I speak to Dr. Bekker?" The team leader looked like a mail clerk, short hair, harried, gone to a little weight.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Bekker hasn't come in yet."

"I'm downstairs and I thought I saw him just a minute ago."

"I sit right here by the door, and he's not in."

"We've lost him," the narc told the rest of the team. "He's got to be in the building. Spread out. Find him."

Bekker hurried down the steps to the tunnel that led to the next building. He stopped at a candy machine, got a Nut Goodie, then hurried on through the tunnel to a pay telephone.

Druze was not at his apartment. Bekker hesitated, then called information and got the number for the Lost River Theater. A woman answered and, after Bekker asked for Druze, dropped the telephone and went away. Not knowing whether she was looking for Druze or simply had been exasperated by the request, Bekker stood waiting, for two minutes, then three, and finally, Druze: "Hello?"

"You heard?" Bekker asked.

"Are you at a safe phone?" Druze's voice was low, almost a whisper.

"Yes. I've been very careful." Bekker looked down the empty hallway.

"I heard that they found the body and that this cop, Davenport, doesn't think George was the lover… And it's not a game they're playing. He's got some good reason to think so."

"How do you know that?"

"Because he's been seeing one of the actresses here, Cassie Lasch. She was the one who found Armistead, and she and Davenport struck up some kind of relationship."

"You mentioned her. She lives in your building…"

"Yeah, that's the one," Druze said. His words were tumbling over each other. "Cassie was telling us this morning that the lover's still out there. I think Davenport's talking to him, but doesn't know exactly who he is. And something else. The cops have supposedly got some kind of picture of me. Not a police drawing, it's something else."

"Jesus, can that be right?" Bekker rubbed his forehead furiously. This was getting complicated.

"Somebody asked Cassie why we wouldn't have seen it on television, if that's true," Druze said. "She said she hadn't seen the picture, but she knew about it and that there was something weird about it. And she was positive about the lover, by the way. She was being mysterious, but I think she knows. I think they're sleeping together, she's getting pillow talk…"

"Damn." Bekker gnawed on a fingernail. "You know what we've got to do? We talked about doing a number three before George came along? I think we've got to do it. We've got to do somebody that doesn't make any sense for either one of us. Somebody completely off the wall."

"Who?"

"I don't know. That's the whole point. Somebody at random. The goddamned shopping-mall parking lots are full of women. Go get one."

There was a moment of silence and then Druze said, "I'm really hanging out there, man."

"And so am I," Bekker snapped. "If there is some kind of drawing of you-if Stephanie's friend sent them something-and if this actress person sees it, then we've got serious trouble."

"Yeah, you're right about that. She sees me every goddamned day and night of my life…"

"What's her name again?" Bekker asked.

"Cassie Lasch. But if we do her…"

"I know. We couldn't do it now, but later, next week… If we can get the cops to go hounding off somewhere, maybe she could have an accident. Something unrelated. What floor is she on? High up?"

"Six, I guess. And she did once try to commit suicide…"

"So maybe if she went out a window… I don't know, Carlo. We'll work something. But we've got to get the cops going somewhere else. Something not related to the theater or to the university or antiques…"

"So… are you serious? A mall?" Druze sounded confused, uncertain.

"Yeah. I am. Pick one out on the edge of town. Burnsville would be good. Maplewood. Roseville. You're bright, figure out some way… Pick somebody who looks like she's on a big shopping trip. Get her at her car. Then dump the car with all the packages. Be sure you do the eyes. The thing is, we'll want it to look like it's totally random… You know what? Maybe you could cruise the lots. See if you could get somebody with Iowa plates or something."

"I don't know… I gotta have time to think about it."

"If the lover's out there, we don't have time," Bekker urged. "We've got to lead them away from us, at least until we can pinpoint the guy."

"Jesus, I wish…"

"Hey. We had to get rid of them. We deserved to be rid of them. Now we just have to clean up a little bit. Okay?"

Silence.

"Okay?" Bekker demanded.

"Okay, I guess. I gotta go…"

Druze was getting sticky: Bekker would have to move on him.

On the way back to his office, Bekker stopped at a men's room and urinated. He went to a sink and was washing his hands when a student came in, looked at him, then casually moved to a urinal. A heavy canvas bookbag hung from his shoulder.

The student looked a little odd, Bekker thought. The jeans and cardigan were okay, the oxford-cloth shirt was all right… He glanced at the student again as he went out.

It was the shoes, he thought, pleased that he'd picked it out. The kid must have just gotten out of the army or something. You didn't see students wearing that kind of black, shiny-toed, oxford anymore. Not since Vietnam, anyway.

In the restroom, the student listened to Bekker's heels hitting the concrete floor, moving away, then took the radio out of his bag. "I got him," he said. "He was in the can. He's on the basement level, on his way up the west stairs."

At the elevators, another student was waiting to go up, reading one of the free entertainment newspapers. He had shoes like the kid in the restroom. A new trend? A signal to buy oxford stock? On the other hand, neither of the kids looked exactly like fashion trend-setters…

Back to the office, or up to see the patient? Bekker glanced at his watch. He had time, and nobody coming to see him. A small thrill pulsed through him. Might as well do some serious work.

Bekker rode up to Surgery, nodded to a nurse, and went into the men's locker room, peeled his clothes off and dressed himself in a lavender scrub suit. Technically, he didn't need a scrub suit; he wouldn't be going into Surgery or Burns, where they were most useful. But he liked them. They were comfortable. And he liked them like surgeons liked them, for the aura… When he was wearing a scrub suit, people always called him "Dr. Bekker," which they sometimes forgot when he was in the Path area.

With his face, and with the aura of the suit, sometimes he simply went down and relaxed in the cafeteria, let the public look at him…

Not today. When he was dressed, he pulled paper shoe-covers over his loafers, got his clipboard from the locker and headed up another flight of stairs, his heart pounding a bit. It had been a few days since he'd talked to Sybil. He really had to find more time.

At the top of the stairs, he pushed through the fire door and walked down the hall to the nurses' station.

"Dr. Bekker," a nurse said, looking up. "You're earlier than usual."

"Had a little extra time." He put on a smile. "Any changes?"

"No, not since you were last here," the nurse said, not managing a smile. "Changes" was Bekker's euphemism for "death." It had taken her a few of his visits to catch on.

"Well, I think I'll wander down," Bekker said. "Anywhere I shouldn't go?"

"Room seven-twelve, we have a radiation treatment there-we're keeping that clean."

"I'll stay away," Bekker promised. He left her at the desk, plowing through the endless paperwork that seemed to afflict nurses. He stopped at two rooms, for show, before heading to Sybil's.

"Sybil? Are you awake?" Her eyes were closed as he stepped into the room, and they didn't open, but he could see that a drip tube leading to her arm was working. "Sybil?"

Still her eyes didn't open. He glanced down the hallway, then stepped up to her bed, leaned forward, placed his fingertips on her forehead, pulled up an eyelid with his thumb and murmured, "Come out, come out, wherever you are…"

The television behind him was tuned to TV3, a game show that apparently involved some kind of leapfrog. He didn't notice; Sybil had opened her eyes and was looking frantically around the room.

"No, no. There isn't any help, dear," Bekker crooned. "No help anywhere." • • • Bekker spent an hour at the hospital. He was picked up by the surveillance team as he left through the lobby.

"He's got a funny look on his face," the narc said into her purse. "He's coming right at me." She watched Bekker go down the sidewalk, past the bench where she was reading a car issue of Consumer Reports.

"What's funny?" the crew chief asked, as the net closed around Bekker again.

"I don't know," the narc said. "He looked like he just got laid or something."

"A look you know well," said a cop named Louis, normally in uniform, but pulled for this job.

"Shut up," the crew chief said. "Stay on his ass and don't spook him. We're doing good."

Halfway across the campus, Bekker did a little jig. He did it quickly, almost unconsciously, but not quite-he caught himself and looked around guiltily before moving on.

"What the fuck was that all about?" the narc asked.

"Potty-mouth," said Louis.

"Shut up," said the crew chief. "And I don't know. We oughta get some video on this guy, you know? I woulda liked to have some video on that."

The crew took him home, where another crew picked up the watch. Louis, who liked wisecracks, went back to police headquarters, where he bumped into the police reporter for Channel Eight.

"What's happening, Louis?" the reporter asked. "Workin' on anything good?"

Louis chewed a lot of gum and tipped his head, a wiseguy. "Got a thing going here and there," he said. "Hell of a story, if I could only tell ya."

"You look like you been on surveillance," the reporter suggested. "All dressed up like a human being."

"Did I say surveillance?" Louis grinned. He liked reporters. He'd been quoted several times at crime scenes.

The reporter frowned. "Hey, are you working that Bekker thing?"

Louis' smile faded. "I got no comment. Like, really."

"I won't fuck you, Louis," the reporter said. "But there's a hell of a leak around here somewhere, and TV3 is kicking ass."

Louis liked reporters…