Eyes of Prey ld-3

by John Sandford

  Lucas squatted next to her. The weather was too cold for a T-shirt, but the woman seemed not to notice. Her arms were strong, with long, round muscles that carried up to her neck. And she was tanned, as much as a redhead could tan, too smoothly, by artificial lights. A lifter, Lucas thought. "What clue?"

  "The cops were here all morning and I forgot to tell them…" She stopped rummaging through the garbage for a moment. A tiny scrap of paper was stuck to the side of her jaw, and her red hair had fallen over her eyes. She brushed it back and said, "Nobody asked about the guy who tried to get on the guest list last night. Remember, I told you that the ticket-office lady tried to call Elizabeth about the freebee, and couldn't get her?"

  "I remember," Lucas said, nodding. He reached over to her cheek, peeled off the scrap of paper, showed it to her and flicked it away.

  "Thanks… uh…" She'd lost her thought, and she smiled up at him, her crooked tooth catching on her lower lip. Her face was just the slightest bit foxy, and mobile. Freckles were scattered lightly over the bridge of her nose.

  "The guest list," Lucas prompted.

  "Oh, yeah. This guy says he's some big-time reviewer and wants on the list as Elizabeth's friend. I asked the ticket-takers this morning and they said they didn't give out any freebees last night. Whoever called didn't show up. That could be a clue." She said it seriously, intently, like a Miss Marple with terrific breasts.

  "Why is that a clue?"

  "Because maybe if he knew Elizabeth, he went over there… I don't know, but he didn't show up."

  Lucas thought for a minute, then nodded. "You're right. The list is in here?"

  "Somewhere. On a piece of notebook paper from one of those teeny brown spiral notebooks. Probably wadded up."

  "So let's dump it out," he said. He picked up the garbage bag by its bottom and shook it onto the lobby rug. Most of the litter was paper, much of it soaked with Coke and 7-Up, and toward the bottom, they found a paper coffee filter full of grounds.

  "Ugh. Maybe you shouldn't have done that," Cassie said, wrinkling her nose at the mess.

  "The hell with it," Lucas said. "We need the list."

  They spent five minutes pawing through the sodden trash, working shoulder to shoulder. She had, Lucas decided, one of the better bodies he'd ever brushed up against. Everything was hard, except what was supposed to be soft, and that looked very soft. Every time she leaned forward, her breasts swelled forward against the thin fabric of the T-shirt…

  Jesus Christ, Davenport, you're ready for the peep shows…

  He smiled to himself and picked up a cardboard cup. Inside was a paper wad the size of a marble. He unwrapped it, turned it around. At the top somebody had written "Guests" and, under that, "Donaldson Whitney, LA Times."

  "This it?"

  Cassie took it, looked at it and said, "That's it. Kelly-the ticket-window lady-said the guy was from LA."

  Lucas stood, the cartilage in his knees popping. "Got a phone? Someplace quiet?"

  "There's one in the office, but there're a couple of people in there… There's another one in the control booth. What do we do about this garbage?" She looked down at the pile of trash on the floor. The coffee grounds were smeared where Lucas had stepped on them.

  He frowned, as though seeing it for the first time, and said, "I don't care. Whatever you want."

  "Well, fuck that, I didn't put it there," Cassie said. She flipped her hair and turned away. "C'mon, I'll show you the control booth."

  She led him down a hall to the theater auditorium. In the light of day, the place was a mess. Black paint was scaling off concrete-block walls, the seatbacks were stained, the overhead light rack was a tangle of electrical wires, ropes, spotlights, outlets and pulleys. At night, none of that would be visible.

  The control booth was at the back of the auditorium, up two short flights of stairs. The booth itself was built out of plywood, painted black on the outside, unfinished inside. A barstool and a secretary's swivel chair sat in front of a control panel. Extension and computer cords were fixed to the walls and floors with gaffer tape. A phone was screwed to the wall to the left of the control panel.

  Cassie noticed him looking around and said, "No money for luxuries."

  "First time I've been in a theater control booth," Lucas said.

  She shrugged. "They mostly look like this, unless the theater's getting government money."

  Lucas used his credit card to call Los Angeles, Cassie leaning against the control panel, arms locked behind her back, listening with interest. Whitney was not at his desk, Lucas was told. He pressed, was switched around, and eventually talked to an arts copy editor who made the mistake of picking up a ringing telephone. He said that Whitney was on vacation.

  "In Minneapolis?" Lucas asked.

  "Why would he be in fuckin' Minneapolis in April?" the copy editor asked crossly. "He's in Micronesia on a skin-diving trip."

  "Well?" Cassie asked, when Lucas had hung up.

  "Well, what?"

  "Was it him last night?"

  "Uh, I appreciate your help, Miss Lasch, but this is police business…"

  "You're not going to tell me?" She couldn't believe it. She reached out, took hold of his jacket sleeve and tugged at it. "C'mon."

  "No."

  "No fair…" Her eyes were as large as any he'd ever seen, and dark again, with a spark. She tipped her head, a tiny smile on her face. "I'll show you my tits if you tell me."

  "What?" He was surprised and amused. Amused, he thought, watching himself.

  "Out there in the lobby, you were doing everything but feeling me up, so… tell me, and I'll give you a look."

  Lucas considered. "This is embarrassing," he said finally.

  "I don't embarrass very easily."

  "Maybe not, but I do," Lucas said.

  Her eyebrows went up. "You're embarrassed? That shows a certain unexpected depth. Do you play the piano?"

  She was moving too fast. "Ah, no…"

  "Quick, Davenport, make up your mind…" She was teasing now.

  Lucas put her off: "What do you do besides act? You said you don't get the good parts."

  "I'm one of the world's great waitresses. I learned in the theater restaurants in New York…"

  "Hmph."

  "So how about it?" she pressed.

  "You'd have to keep your mouth shut," he said severely.

  "Sure. I'm very secretive."

  "I'll bet… All right: The Times guy is in Micronesia, on a skin-diving trip. Micronesia's in the middle of the Pacific Ocean."

  "I know where it is, I've been there," she said. "Then there's no way in hell he could have been here last night."

  "No." Lucas glanced around. There was no one else in the theater area, and the booth was even more isolated. "So…"

  "If you're waiting to see my tits, forget it," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  "Ha. Rat out on a deal, huh?" he said, grinning.

  "Of course. When you want to find out something, first you try treachery-that wouldn't work in this case-and then you make weird sex offers," she said calmly. "Usually, you'll find out what you want to know. I learned that from dealing with agents."

  "Fuckin' women," Lucas said. "So casual about the way you break a guy's heart."

  "You look thoroughly destroyed," she said.

  Lucas took a short step toward her, not knowing exactly what he was planning to do. Whatever it was, she didn't back away; but at that moment, a man walked out on the stage below them, and Lucas stopped and looked down. Without a word, and apparently unaware that they were in the booth, the man hit a light switch, stepped to the center of the stage and began juggling. He'd brought a half-dozen baseballs with him, and they spun in a circle, smoothly, without a miss, and then, just as abruptly as he'd begun juggling, he started to tap-dance. Not a simple tap, but a dance almost baroque in its complication, and all the time the balls were in the air.

  The man was in blackface. There was something about his head… An eff
ect of the makeup, the wide white-greasepainted lips, the strange flat nose?

  Cassie caught Lucas' interest and stepped close behind him and whispered, "Carlo Druze, one of the actors. This is one of his routines."

  Druze began to sing, a phony black accent, minstrel-show style, in a shaky baritone, "Way down upon the Swanee River, far, far away…"

  "We're doing a thing called Whiteface, it's like a racial-satire thing…" She was whispering, but Druze apparently heard. He took down the balls in a swift, coordinated sweep.

  "I've got an audience?" he called, looking up at the booth.

  Lucas applauded and Cassie yelled, "Just us, Cassie and a cop."

  "Ah…" Was he startled? Lucas wasn't sure. Was there something wrong with his face?

  "That was really good, Carlo," Cassie said.

  Druze took a bow.

  "If only Miz Cassie wuz runnin' d'show," he said, going back to the accent.

  "We'll get out of your hair," Cassie said, leading Lucas out of the booth and down the steps toward the exit light.

  In the hall on the way back to the lobby, Lucas asked, "Was what's-his-name here last night?"

  "Carlo? Yeah. Most of the time, anyway. He was working on the set. He's the best carpenter in the company. And he does great voices. He can sound like anybody."

  "Okay."

  "He's a tough guy," she added. "Hard. Like his face."

  "But he was here?"

  "Well, nobody was taking names. But yeah. Around."

  "Okay." Lucas followed her down the hall, watching her back and shoulders in the dim light. She looked delicate, like most slender redheads, but there was nothing fragile about her, he realized. "You're a lifter, right?" he said.

  "Yeah, some," she said, half turning. "I don't compete or anything. Do you lift?"

  "No. I've got some weights in my basement and I've got a routine I do in the morning. Nothing serious."

  "Gotta stay in shape," Cassie said, slapping her stomach. They stepped into the lobby, and Cassie stopped suddenly and caught Lucas' arm: "Oh, no," she groaned.

  "What?"

  "Deep shit," she said.

  A man stood over the garbage on the rug. He was dressed all in black, from his knee boots to his beret, and his shoulder-length auburn hair was tied in a stubby ponytail. His hands were planted on his hips, and one foot was tapping in anger. Cassie hurried toward him and he looked up when he heard her coming.

  "Cassie," he said. He had a goatee, and his teeth were a brilliant white against the beard. "Did you do this? One of the ticket women said you were looking through the garbage…"

  "Uh…"

  "I did it," Lucas said, his voice curt. Cassie flashed him a grateful look. "Police business. I was looking for information involving the Armistead killing last night."

  "Well, are you going to clean it up?" the man asked, nudging a wet ball of paper with the toe of a boot.

  "Who are you?" Lucas asked, stepping closer.

  "Uh, this is Davis Westfall," Cassie said from behind him. She still sounded nervous. "He is… was… the co-artistic director with Elizabeth. Davis, this is Lieutenant Davenport of the Minneapolis police. I was showing him around."

  "She's been a help," Lucas said to Westfall, nodding at Cassie. "Mr. Westfall… Miss Armistead's death would put you in sole charge of this theater, would it not? I mean, in one sense, you'd be a… beneficiary?"

  "Why… that would be up to the board," Westfall sputtered. He glanced at Cassie for support, and she nodded. "But we're a nonsexist theater, so I imagine they'll appoint another female to take Elizabeth's place."

  "Hmp," Lucas said. He studied Westfall for another moment, skepticism on his face. "No major disagreements on management?" he asked, keeping Westfall pinned.

  "No. Not at all," Westfall said. Now he was nervous.

  "But you'll be around?"

  "Well, yes…"

  "Good. And don't move this garbage right away. Our crime lab might want to look at it. If they're not here by…"-Lucas glanced at his watch-"six o'clock, you can have somebody pick it up."

  "Anything we can do…" Westfall said, thoroughly deflated.

  Lucas nodded and turned to leave. "I'll show him to the door," Cassie said. "I'll make sure it's locked."

  "Thank you," Lucas said formally.

  At the front door, Cassie whispered, "Thanks. Davis can be an asshole. I'm at the bottom of the heap here."

  "No problem," Lucas said, grinning. "And I appreciate the tip on the guest list. It really could turn into something."

  "You gonna ask me out?" she asked.

  She'd surprised him again. "Mmm. Maybe," he said, smiling. "But why…"

  "Well, if you're going to, don't wait too goddamned long, okay? I can't stand the suspense."

  Lucas laughed. "All right," he said. As he stepped out on the sidewalk, the door clicked shut behind him. He took another step away, toward the car, when he heard a rapping on the door glass. He turned around and Cassie lifted the front of her T-shirt, just for an instant, just a flash.

  Long enough: She looked very nice, he thought. Very nice, pink and pale…

  And she was gone.

  CHAPTER 11

  Bekker walked in circles on the Heriz carpet, orbiting the Rococo revival sofa, watching cuts from the press conference on the noon news. He'd heard shorter cuts on his car radio on the way to the hospital, and had gone back home to see it on television. Most of the press conference was nonsense: the police had nothing at all. But the appeal to Stephanie's lover could be dangerous.

  "We believe the man who called nine-one-one is telling the truth. We believe that he is innocent of the murder of Mrs. Bekker, especially in light of this second murder," the cop, Lester, was saying into the microphones. He was sweating under the lights, patting his forehead with a folded white handkerchief. "After discussions with the county attorney, we have agreed that should Mrs. Bekker's friend come forward, Hennepin County would be willing to discuss a guarantee of immunity from prosecution in return for testimony, provided that he was not involved in the crime…"

  Lester went on, but Bekker wasn't listening anymore. He paced, gnawing on a thumbnail, spitting the pieces onto the carpet.

  The police were all over the neighborhood. They weren't hiding. They were, in fact, deliberately provocative. Stephanie's idiot cop cousin, the doper, had been going door to door around the neighborhood, soliciting information. That angered him, but his anger was for another time. He had other problems now.

  "Loverboy," they called him on TV. Who was it? Who was the lover? It had to be somebody in their circle. Somebody with easy access to Stephanie. He had exhausted himself, tearing at the problem.

  Fuckin' Druze, he thought. Couldn't find the face. The face had to be there, somewhere, in the photographs. Stephanie took photographs of everybody, could never leave anybody alone, always had that fuckin' camera in somebody's face, taking snapshots. She had boxes, cartons, baskets full of photos, all those beefy blond Scandinavian males…

  Could Druze be wrong? It was possible, but, Bekker admitted to himself uncomfortably, he probably wasn't. He didn't seem unsure of himself. He didn't equivocate. He'd looked at the photos, studied them and said no.

  "Bitch," Bekker said aloud to Stephanie's house. "Who were you fucking?"

  He looked back at the television, at Lester yammering at the cameras. Anger surged in him: it was unfair, they had twenty men, a hundred, and he had only himself and Druze. And Druze couldn't really look, because if he was seen first…

  "Bitch," he said again, and gripped by the anger, he pounded out of the parlor, up the stairs, into the bedroom. The cigarette case was with his keys and a pile of change, and he snapped it open, popped two amphetamines and a sliver of windowpane, and closed his eyes, waiting for Beauty.

  There. The bed moved for him, melted, the closet opened like a mouth, a cave, a warm place to huddle. His clothes: they gripped him, and he fought the panic. He had felt it before, the shirt tightening aroun
d his throat, the sleeves gripping his arms like sandpaper, tightening… He fought the panic and stripped off the constricting shirt, slipped out of his pants and underwear, and threw them out into the room. The closet called, and he dropped to his knees and crawled inside. Warm and safe, with the musty smell of the shoes… comfortable.

  He sat for a minute, for five minutes, letting the speed run through his veins and the acid through his brain. Fire, he thought. He needed fire. The realization came on him suddenly and he bolted from the cave, still on his hands and knees, suddenly afraid. He crawled to the dresser and reached over it, groping, found the book of matches and scuttled back to the closet, his eyes cranked wide, not handsome now, something else… In the semi-dark of the closet, he struck a match and stared into the flame…

  Safe. With the fire. His anger grew and darkened. Bitch. Her face flashed, and melted. Pain flared in his hand, and suddenly he was in darkness. Match gone. He struck another one. Bitch. A bed popped up, not their bed, and strange wallpaper, with fleur-de-lis, where was that? The hotel in New York. With the acid singing through him, Bekker saw himself come out of the bathroom, naked, holding a towel, Stephanie on the phone… Pain in his hand again. Darkness. He dropped the match, struck a third. Bitch. Step into the bathroom to shower; when I come out, she's already on the phone, calling her paint stripper or someone…

  His mind stretched and snapped, stretched and snapped, cooled, chilled. Pain. Darkness. Another match. He wiped spittle from his chin, staring at the guttering flame. Pain. Darkness. He crawled out of the closet, the first rush going now, leaving him with the power of ice, of a glacier…

  And the answer was there, in the acid flash to New York. He stood up, his mind chilled, precise. Pain in his hand. "Am I stupid?"

  Bekker walked out of the bedroom, still nude but unaware of it, down to the study, where he settled behind the big oak desk. He opened a deep drawer and took out a gray plastic box. The tape on the front said "Bills: Paid, Current."

  "New York, January…" He dumped the box on the desk and combed through the stack of paper, receipts and stubs of paid bills. After a minute he said, "Here…"