Eyes of Prey

1. Elle

How can you lose with a two-item list? Even when-what was it called? a unipolar depression?-even when a unipolar depression's got you by the balls, you can handle two numbers…

Lucas picked up the phone and called a nunnery.

Sister Mary Joseph was talking to a student when Lucas arrived. Her door was open a few inches, and from a chair in the outer office he could see the left side of her scarred face. Elle Kruger had been the prettiest girl in their grade school. Later, after Lucas had gone, transferred to the public schools, she'd been ravaged by acne. He recalled the shock of seeing her, for the first time in years, at a high school district hockey tournament. She had been sitting in the stands, watching him on the ice, eyes sad, seeing his shock. The beautiful blonde Elle of his prepubescent dreams, gone forever. She'd found a vocation with the Church, she had told him that night, but Lucas was never quite sure. A vocation? She'd said yes. But her face… Now she sat in her traditional habit, the beads swinging by her side. Still Elle, somewhere.

The college girl laughed again and stood up, her sweater a fuzzy scarlet blur behind the clouded glass of Elle's office door. Then Elle was on her feet and the girl was walking past him, looking at him with an unhidden curiosity. Lucas waited until she was gone, then went into Elle's office and sat in the visitor's chair and crossed his legs.

Elle looked him over, judging, then said, "How are you?"

"Not bad…" He shrugged, then grinned. "I was hoping you could give me a name at the university. A doctor, somebody who'd know a guy in the pathology department. Off the record. A guy who can keep his mouth shut."

"Webster Prentice," Elle said promptly. "He's in psychology, but he works at the hospital and hangs out with the docs. Want his phone number?"

Lucas did. As she flipped through a Rolodex, Elle asked, "How are you really?"

He shrugged. "About the same."

"Are you seeing your daughter?"

"Every other Saturday, but it's unpleasant. Jen doesn't want me there and Sarah's old enough to sense it. I may give it up for a while."

"Don't cut yourself off, Lucas," Elle said sharply. "You can't sit there in the dark every night. It'll kill you."

He nodded. "Yeah, yeah…"

"Are you dating anybody?"

"Not right now."

"You should start," the nun said. "Reestablish contact. How about coming back to the game?"

"I don't know… what're you doing?"

"Stalingrad. We can always use another Nazi."

"Maybe," Lucas said noncommittally.

"And what's this about talking to Webster Prentice? Are you working on something?"

"A woman got killed. Beaten to death. I'm taking a look," Lucas said.

"I read about it," Elle said, nodding. "I'm glad you're working it. You need it."

Lucas shrugged again. "I'll see," he said.

She scribbled a phone number on an index card and passed it to him.

"Thanks…" He leaned forward, about to stand.

"Sit down," she said. "You're not getting out of here that easy. Are you sleeping?"

"Yeah, some."

"But you've got to exhaust yourself first."

"Yeah."

"Alcohol?"

"Not much. A few times, scotch. When I'd get so tired I couldn't move, but I couldn't sleep. The booze would take me out…"

"Feel better in the morning?"

"My body would."

"The Crows beat you up pretty bad," Elle said. The Crows were Indians, either terrorists or patriots. Lucas had helped kill them. Television had tried to make a hero out of him, but the case had cost him his relationship with his woman friend and their daughter. "You finally found out that there's a price for living the way you do. And you found out that you can die. And so can your kid."

"I always knew that," Lucas said.

"You didn't feel it. And if you don't feel it, you don't believe it," Elle rapped back.

"I don't worry about dying," he said. "But I had something going with Jennifer and Sarah."

"Maybe that'll come back. Jennifer's never said it was over forever."

"Sounds like it."

"You need time, all of you," Elle said. "I won't do therapy on you. I can't be objective. We've got too much history. But you should talk to somebody. I can give you some names, good people."

"You know what I think about shrinks," Lucas said.

"You don't think that about me."

"Like you said-we have a history. But I don't want a shrink, 'cause I can't help what I think about them. Maybe a couple of pills or something…"

"You can't cure what you've got with pills, Lucas. Only two things will do that. Time or therapy."

"I'll take the time," he said.

She threw up her hands in surrender, her teeth flashing white in a youthful smile. "If you really get your back against the wall, call me. I have a doctor friend who'll prescribe some medication without threatening your manhood with therapy."

She went with him to the exit and watched as he walked out to his car, down the long greening lawn, the sun flicking through the bare trees. When he stepped from the shelter of the building, the wind hit him in the face, with just a finger of warmth. Spring wind. Summer coming. Behind him, on the other side of the door, Elle Kruger kissed her crucifix and began a rosary.