Eyes of Prey ld-3

by John Sandford

  The phone bill. He hadn't called anyone, but there were six calls on the bill, New York to Minneapolis, four of them to a university extension. He didn't know the number…

  Mind like ice. Riding the speed, now. He punched the number into the desk phone. A moment later, a woman answered. "Professor George's office, can I help you?"

  Bekker dropped the phone back on the hook, heat flushing the ice from his head. "Philip George," he crowed. "Philip George…"

  There was work to do, but the drugs had him again and he sat for half an hour, rocking in the chair behind the big desk. Time was nothing in the grip of the acid…

  Pain. He looked at his hand. A huge blister bubbled from the tip of his index finger. The ball of his thumb was raw, a patch of burned skin. How had he burned himself? Had there been a fire?

  He went to the kitchen, pierced the blister with a needle, smeared both the finger and the thumb with a disinfectant and covered the burns with Band-Aids. A mystery… And Philip George.

  Bekker pawed through the library, searching for the book. No. No. Where? Must be in the junk, must be in the keepsakes, where could she… Ah. Here: Faculty and Staff, University of Minnesota.

  His own face flashed up at him as he flipped through the pages, then the face of Philip George. Bland. Slightly stupid, somewhat officious, he thought. Large. Blond. Fleshy. How could she? The pain bit into his hand, and confused, he looked at his finger again. How…? • • • "Carlo?"

  "God damn, I thought…" Druze was shocked.

  "I'm sorry, but this is an absolute emergency…"

  "Have you seen the television?" Druze asked.

  "Yes. And nobody has even begun to look at you. Yet. That's why I'm calling. I found our man."

  "Who?" Druze blurted.

  "A law professor named Philip George. We've got to move-you've seen the television."

  "Yes, yes, where are you?" Druze asked impatiently. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm a block down the street, in the VGA supermarket," Bekker said. He was using a convenience phone at the news-rack, and a woman customer was heading toward him with a shopping list in her hand. She'd want the phone. "I've checked and I've checked and there's nobody with me. I guarantee it. But I'm going out the back and down the alley. I'll be at your place sixty seconds after I hang up here. Buzz me in…"

  "Man, if anybody sees you…"

  "I know, but I'm wearing a hat and a jacket and sunglasses, and I'll make sure the lobby's empty before I come in. If you're ready for my buzz… I'll come up the stairs. Have the door open."

  "All right. If you're sure…"

  "I'm sure, but I need you to say yes, he's the one."

  Bekker hung up and looked around. Was he being watched? He wasn't sure, but he didn't think so. The woman customer was using the phone now, paying no attention to him. An elderly man was going through the check-out with a can of coffee, and the only other people in sight were store employees.

  He'd taken a quick trip around the store once before he picked up the phone. There was an exit sign by the dairy case…

  He got a pushcart and started to the back of the store, checking the other customers. But you couldn't tell, could you? At the dairy case, he waited until he was alone, then left the cart and walked straight out a swinging door under the exit sign. He found himself in a storage area that stank of rotting produce, looking at a pair of swinging metal doors. He pushed through them to a loading dock, walked briskly along the dock and down the stairs at the far end, watching the door behind him.

  Nobody came through, nobody looked through. Five seconds later he was in the alley that ran along the back of the store. He hurried down the length of the block, around the corner, another hundred feet and into the outer lobby of Druze's apartment building. He pushed the button on Druze's mailbox, got an instant answering buzz, pulled open the inner door and was inside. Elevator straight ahead, stairs through the door to the right. He took the stairs two at a time, checked the hallway and hustled down to Druze's apartment. The door was open and he pushed through.

  "God damn, Mike…" Druze's face was normally as unreadable as a pumpkin. Now he looked stressed, uncharacteristic vertical lines creasing the patchwork skin of his forehead. He was wearing a tired cotton sweater the color of oatmeal, and pants with pleats. His hands were in his pockets.

  "Is this him?" Bekker thrust the photo of Philip George at Druze.

  Druze looked at it, carried it to a light, looked closer, his lower lip thrust out. "Huh."

  "It must be him," Bekker said. "He fits: he's blond, he's heavy-he's even heavier in real life than he is in that picture. That photo must be four or five years old. And he wasn't in any of the other photos. And Stephanie was calling him secretly from New York."

  Druze finally nodded. "It could be. It looks like him. But the guy at the house, I just saw him like that." Druze snapped his fingers.

  "It must be him," Bekker said eagerly.

  "Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. Give him a couple of more years… Yeah."

  "God damn, Carlo," Bekker crowed, his beautiful face absolutely radiant. He caught Druze around the neck with the crook of his elbow and squeezed him down, a jocklike hug, and Druze felt the pleasure of approval flush through his stomach. Druze had never had a friend… "God damn, we beat the police."

  "So now what?" Druze asked. He felt himself smiling: What an odd feeling, a real smile.

  Bekker let him go. "I've got to get out of here and think. I'll figure something out. Tonight, after your show, come up to my office. Even if they're watching me, they won't be inside the building. Call me before you leave and I'll come down and let you in at that side door by the ramp. If you look like you're unlocking the door, they'd never suspect…"

  Philip George.

  Bekker worried the problem all the way back to the hospital. They had to get to George quickly. He stopped at the secretary's desk in the departmental office.

  "Lucy, do you have a class schedule?"

  "I think…" The secretary pulled open a filing cabinet and dug through it, and finally produced a yellow pamphlet. She handed it to him. "Could you bring it back, it's the only one…"

  "Sure," he said distractedly, flipping through the schedule. Pain flared in his hand, and he stopped and looked at it more carefully. He should bandage it…

  "Lucy?" He went back to the secretary's desk. "Do we have any big Band-Aids around here? I've burned my thumb…"

  "I think…" The secretary dug through her desk, found a box of bandages. "Let me see… Oh my God, Dr. Bekker, how did you do this…?"

  He let her bandage it, then walked down the corridor to his office, unlocked it and settled behind his desk. Law school, George… he glanced at his watch. One-thirty. George: Basic Torts, MWF 1:10-3:00.

  He would be in class. Bekker picked up the phone, called the law school office and twittered at the woman who answered: "Phil George? In class? I see," he said, putting disappointment in his voice. "This is a friend of his over at Hamline, I'm just leaving town, terrible rush, we were supposed to meet one of these nights, and I'm trying to get my schedule together… Do you know if he has classes or night meetings the rest of the week?… No, I can't really wait, I've got a seminar starting right now, and it runs late, then I've got a plane. Tried to call Phil's wife, nobody home… Yes, I'll hold…"

  The law secretary dropped the receiver on her desk and Bekker could hear her walking away. A minute passed, then another, and then she was back: "Yes, tomorrow night, seven to ten, he has preparation for moot court. The other nights are clear here at the school."

  "Thank you very much," he said, still twittering. "You've been very kind. What is your name?… Thank you very much, Nancy. Oh, by the way, where is the moot-court prep going to be?… Okay, thanks again."

  He hung up and leaned back in his chair, making a steeple of his fingers. George would be working late. That could be useful. What'd he drive? It was a red four-wheel-drive of some kind, a Jeep. He could cruise by George's house later on
. He lived in Prospect Park and probably left the car in the street… • • • Druze was sure that Bekker was using, but he wasn't sure what it was. An ocean of cocaine flowed through the theater world, but Bekker wasn't a cokehead; or if he was, there was something else involved. At times he was flying, his beautiful face reflecting an inner joy, a freedom; at other times, he was dark, reptilian, calculating.

  Whatever it was, it moved through him quickly. He'd been manic when Druze arrived at the hospital. Now he was like ice.

  "He'll be out tomorrow night," Bekker said. "I know that's not much time… He drives a red Jeep Cherokee. Fire-engine red. He'll be parked behind Peik Hall."

  He explained the rest of it and Druze began shaking his head. "Happy accident? What kind of shit is that?"

  "It's the only way," Bekker said calmly. "If we try to pull him out, set him up, we could spook him. If he thinks we might come after him… I can't just call him, cold, and ask him to meet me down at the corner. He's got to be a little afraid-that somebody might figure him out, that the killer might come after him…"

  "I just wish there was some other way," Druze said. He looked around and realized he was in some kind of examination room. Bekker had met him at a side door, normally locked, and led him down a dimly lit hallway to a red metal door, and had opened it with a key and pulled him inside. The walls were lined with stainless-steel cabinets, a stainless cart sat against one wall, and a battery of overhead lights hung down at the center of the room. Their voices ricocheted around the room like Ping-Pong balls. The room was cold. "It seems pretty… uncertain."

  "Look, the hardest thing to investigate is a spur-of-the-moment thing, between strangers. Like when you did that woman in New York. How can the cops find a motive, how can they find a connection? If you try to set something up, it leaves traces. If you just go there, where he is, and do it…"

  "You know he'll be there?" Druze asked.

  "Yes. He's got the moot court. He plays the part of the judge, he has to be there."

  "I guess it's got to be done," Druze said, running his fingers back through his hair. "Jesus, I don't like it. I like things that can be rehearsed. Your wife, that was no problem. This…"

  "It's the best way, believe me," Bekker said intently. "Look for his car. It should be in the parking lot right behind the building. There's a lot of foliage around the lot-I checked. If he parks there, try to get close to the car, let the air out of one of his tires. That'll give the students time to get away from the building and it'll keep him busy changing the tire while you come up on him…"

  "Not bad," Druze admitted. "But God damn, Michael, I've got the feeling that we've kicked the tarbaby. One foot's stuck and now we've got to stick the other one in, trying to get the first one loose…"

  "This is the end and we've got to do it, don't you see? For your own safety," Bekker said. "Get him, dump him…"

  "That bothers me, too. Dumping him. If I just whacked him, and walked away, who's to know? But if I have to take him out to Wisconsin… Jesus, I could get stopped by conservation officers looking for fish, or who knows what?"

  Bekker shook his head, holding Druze with his eyes. "If we kill him and leave him, they'll know from his eyes that he must be Stephanie's lover-why else would his eyes be cut? But that'll throw the serial-killer pattern right out the window. And how would the killer be able to find the guy? They're already suspicious, and if we killed him and left him in the lot, they'd be all over me."

  "We could skip the eyes…"

  "No." Bekker was cold as stone. He stepped close to Druze and gripped his arm above the elbow. Druze took a half-step back, chilled by the other man's frigid eyes. "No. We cut the eyes. You understand."

  "Jesus, okay," Druze said, pulling back.

  Bekker stared at him for a moment, judging his sincerity. Apparently satisfied, he went on. "If we dump him somewhere remote-and I know the perfect place-nobody's going to find him. Nobody. The cops might suspect that he was Stephanie's lover, but they won't know if he ran because he was afraid, or because he was the killer, or if he's dead, or what. They just won't know…"

  Druze left the way he'd come, through the side door. Bekker walked back toward his office, rubbing his chin, thinking. Druze was reluctant. Not in rebellion, but unhappy. He'd have to consider that…

  In the elevator, he glanced at his watch. He had time…

  "Sybil."

  Was she asleep? Bekker leaned over the bed and pulled her eyelids up. Her eyes were looking at him, dark and liquid, but when he let go of her eyelids, she closed them again. She was awake, all right, but not cooperating.

  He sat beside her bed. "I have to look in your eyes as you go, Sybil," he said. He could feel himself breathing a little harder than usual: his experiments had that effect on him, the excitement…

  "Here we are…" He clapped a strip of tape over her lips, rested the heel of his other hand on her forehead and pulled her eyelids up with his index and ring fingers. Her eyes open, he leaned into her line of vision and said, quietly, "I've taped your mouth so you can't breathe, and now I'll pinch your nose, until you smother… Do you understand? It shouldn't hurt, but I would appreciate a signal if you see… anything. Move your eyes up and down as you go through to the other side, do you understand? If there is another side?"

  He was using his most convincing voice, and quite convincing it was, he thought. "Are you ready? Here we go." He pinched her nose, holding his fingers so she could see it, even if she couldn't feel it. Sybil couldn't move, but there were muscles that could twitch, and they did twitch after the first minute, small tremors running through her neck to his hands.

  Her eyes began to roll up and he put his face an inch from hers, looking into them, whispering, urgent. "Can you see it? Sybil, can you see…?"

  She was gone, unconscious. He released her nose, placed his hand on her chest, compressed it, lifted, compressed it again. She hadn't been that close, he thought, although she couldn't know that. She'd thought she was dying. Had been dying, would have died, if he hadn't released his hand…

  She owed him this information…

  "Sybil, are you in there? Hello, Sybil, I know you're there."

  At two, Bekker was home, MDMA burning low in his mind, under control. The episode with Sybil had, ultimately, been unfulfilling. A nurse had come down the hall, gone into a nearby room. He'd left then, thinking it better not to be seen with Sybil. As far as he knew, he hadn't been. He'd gone from her bedside to his office, popped the ecstasy, hoping to balance the disappointment, turned off the lights and left.

  He drove past the front of the house on the way to the alley. As he passed, he saw a man, there, at the end of the street. On the sidewalk. Turning his head to watch Bekker go by. Large. Watching. Familiar.

  Bekker slowed, stopped, rolled down the window. "Can I help you?" he called.

  There was a long moment of silence, then the man sauntered out into the street. He was wearing a leather bomber jacket and boots.

  "Mr. Bekker, how are you?"

  "You're a police officer?"

  "Lucas Davenport, Minneapolis police."

  Yes. The man at the funeral, the tough-looking one. "Is the police department camped on my porch?" Bekker asked. Safe now-the man wasn't a mugger or revenge-bound relative-the sarcasm knit through his polite tone like a dirty thread in a doily.

  "No. Only me," the cop said.

  "Surveillance?"

  "No, no. I just like to wander by the scene of a crime now and then. Get a feel for it. Helps me think…"

  Davenport. A bell went off in the back of Bekker's mind. "Aren't you the officer that the FBI agent called a gunman? Killed some ridiculous number of people?"

  Even in the weak illumination from the corner streetlight, Bekker could see the flash of the cop's white teeth. He was smiling.

  "The FBI doesn't like me," the cop said.

  "Did you like it? Killing all those people?" The interest was genuine, the words surprising Bekker even as they popped out
of his mouth. The cop seemed to think about it for a moment, tipping his head back, as though looking for stars. It was cold enough that their breath was making little puffs of steam.

  "Some of them," the cop said after a bit. He rocked from his toes to his heels, looked up again. "Yeah. Some of them I… enjoyed quite a bit."

  Bekker couldn't quite see the other man's eyes: they were set too deep, under heavy brow ridges, and the curiosity was almost unbearable.

  "Listen," Bekker heard himself say, "I have to put my car in the garage. But would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?"

  CHAPTER 12

  Lucas waited at the front door until Bekker got the car in the garage and walked through the house to let him in. Bekker turned on the porch light as he opened the door. In the yellow light, his skin looked like parchment, stretched taut over the bones of his face. Like a skull, Lucas thought. Inside, in the soft glow of the ceiling fixtures, the skull illusion vanished: Bekker was beautiful. Not handsome, but more than pretty.

  "Come in. The house is a bit messy."

  The house was spectacular. The entry floor was oak parquet. To the left was a coat closet, to the right a wall with an oil painting of a British Isles scene, a cottage with a thatched roof in the foreground, sailboats on the river beyond. Straight ahead, a burgundy-carpeted staircase curled up to the right. Off the entryway, a room with glass doors, full of books, appeared to the right, under a balcony formed by the stairs. To the left was the parlor, with Oriental carpets, a half-dozen antique mirrors and a stone fireplace. Beautiful and hot. Seventy-five or eighty degrees. Lucas unzipped his jacket and crouched to press his fingers against the parlor carpet.

  "Wonderful," he said. The pile was soft as beaten egg whites, an inch or more deep, and as intricately woven as an Arabian fairy tale.

  Bekker grunted. He wasn't interested. "Let's go back and sit in the kitchen," he said, and led the way to a country kitchen with quarry-tile floor. Stephanie Bekker had been killed in the kitchen, Lucas recalled. Bekker seemed unaffected by it, pulling earthenware cups from natural oak cabinets, spooning instant coffee into them.