inspected it. No sign of hair or blood-but the steel was exceptionally clean, as though it had been washed recently. He took a piece of modeling clay from the briefcase, held it flat in his hand, and hit it once, sharply, with the steel. The steel stuck to the clay when he pulled it out, but the impression was good enough. He put the steel back into the kitchen drawer, and the clay, wrapped in wax paper, into his briefcase.
The living room was next. Nothing under the couch but dust. Nothing but pages in the books. In a cupboard under the built-in bookcase, he found a file cabinet, unlocked. Bills, employment records, car insurance receipts, tax forms for six years. Check the front closet…
'Damn.' A black ski jacket with teal insets. Just like ten thousand other jackets, but still: the lover had seen a jacket like this. Lucas took it out of the closet, slipped it on, got a Polaroid camera from his briefcase, put it on the bookcase shelf, aimed it, set the self-timer and shot himself wearing the jacket-two views, front and back.
When he'd checked the photos, he rehung the jacket. He'd been in the apartment for fifteen minutes. Long enough. He went to the door, looked around one last time. Down the stairs. Out.
'Lucas?' Daniel calling back.
'Yeah.' He was sitting in the Porsche, looking at the Polaroids. 'Did you get in touch with Channel Two?'
'We're all set,' Daniel said. 'If he calls you tomorrow night, we can go on the air an hour later. Four o'clock…'
'Can I get another picture on?'
'Of what?'
'Of a guy in a ski jacket…'
Later:
Daniel paced around his office, excited, cranked. Lucas and Del sat in visitors' chairs, Sloan leaned against the wall, Anderson stood with his hands in his pockets.
'I've got a real feeling,' Daniel insisted. Lucas had cut his own face out of the ski jacket photos before he gave them to Daniel. Daniel and Anderson had looked at them, and agreed that it could be the jacket Stephanie Bekker's lover had described. 'Almost certainly is, with what we know,' Anderson said. 'It's too much of a coincidence. Maybe we ought to pick him up and sweat him.'
'We've still got to get him with Bekker,' Lucas protested.
'What we've got to do is turn him against Bekker, if they're really working together,' Daniel said. 'If we sweat him a little, we could do that.'
'We don't have much to deal with,' Sloan said. 'With the politics of it, with four people dead, the goddamn media would have our heads if we dealt him down to get Bekker.'
'Let me deal with the politics,' Daniel said. He picked up one of the Polaroids and looked at it again, then up at Sloan. 'We could do this: We charge him with first-degree murder, but deal down to second degree with concurrent sentences if he gives us Bekker. Then we tell the press that even though he's getting a second, we're asking the judge to depart upward on the sentence, so it's almost as good as a first…'
Sloan shrugged: 'If you think you can sell it.'
'I'd make us look like fuckin' geniuses,' Daniel said.
'It'd still be nice if we could get something solid,' Lucas pressed. 'Can we cover his phones, at least? Maybe watch him for a few days before we move? See if we can get him talking to Bekker, or meeting him?'
'We couldn't get a warrant for the phones, not yet, there's just not enough,' Daniel said. 'If Stephanie Bekker's friend comes through, if he confirms this… then we get the warrant. And we'll want to put a microphone in his apartment.'
'So everything depends on Loverboy,' Lucas said. 'He's got to call back tomorrow night.'
'Right. Until then, we stay on Druze like holy on the pope,' Daniel said, running his hands through his thinning hair. 'Jesus, what a break. What a fuckin' break…'
'If it's true,' Anderson said after a moment.
Bekker stood in the bay window, looking past the cut-glass diamonds in the center, out at the dark street, and decided: he had to move. Tomorrow. The cigarette case rode low in his pocket and he opened it, and chose. Nothing much, just a touch of the power. He put a tab of PCP between his teeth and sucked on it for a moment, then put it back in the case. The acrid chemicals bit into his tongue, but he hardly noticed anymore.
The drug helped him concentrate, took him out of his body, left his mind alone to work. Clarified the necessary moves. First the woman, then Druze. Get Druze to come with a last-minute call. The best time would be around five o'clock: Druze always ate at his apartment before walking over to the theater, and the woman would most likely be around at the same time.
No luxuries here, Doctor. No studies. Just do it and get out.
He paced, his legs seemingly in another country, working it out in his mind. If everything went right, it'd be so simple… But he ought to check the gun. Go to Wisconsin, fire a couple of shots. He hadn't fired it in years, not since a trip to New Mexico. He'd bought it originally in Texas, a casual purchase from a cowboy in El Paso, a drunk who needed money. Not much of a gun, a.38 special, but good enough.
As for the shot… he'd have to risk it. If she had a radio… Maybe four o'clock would be better. They should be at home then, and the people in the apartments adjoining the woman's would be less likely to be there.
He paced, working it out, working himself up, generating a heat, the light dose of PCP flipping him in and out of other-when.
At midnight, pressed by the needs of Beauty, he threw down two tabs of MDMA. The drug roared through him, hammered down the PCP, and he began to dance, to flap around the living room, on the deep carpets, and he went away…
When he returned, breathing hard, he found himself half stripped. What now? He was confused. What? The idea came. Of course. If something went wrong tomorrow-unlikely, but possible; he was confident without being stupid about it-he would have missed an opportunity. Excited now, his hands trembling, he pulled his clothes back on, got his jacket and hurried out to the car. The hospital was only ten minutes away…
He was stuck in the stairwell for five minutes.
He'd gone to his office first, done another MDMA for the creative sparkle and insight it brought, and a methamphetamine to sharpen the edge of his perceptions. Then he went to the locker room and changed into a scrub suit. The clean cotton felt cool and crisp against his skin, touching but not clinging to his chest, the insides of his arms, his thighs, like freshly starched sheets, the pleasure of its touch magnified by the ecstasy…
He left then, alternately hurrying and restraining himself. He couldn't wait. He crept up the stairs, not quite chortling, but feeling himself bursting with the joy of it. He was careful. If he was seen, it wouldn't be a disaster. But if he was not, it would be better.
At the top of the stairs, he opened the door just a crack, enough so that he could see the nurses' station fifty feet down the hall. He held onto the door handle: if anyone came through unexpectedly, he could react as though he were about to pull the door open…
The nurse spent five minutes on the telephone, standing up, laughing, while he watched her through the crack and cursed her: the drugs were working in his blood, were demanding that he go to Sybil. He held back but wasn't sure how long he could last…
There. The nurse, still smiling to herself, hung up the phone, sat down and pivoted in her chair, facing away from Bekker. He opened the door and quickly stepped through, across the hall, to where her line of vision was cut off. He moved away silently, the surgical moccasins muffling his footsteps, down the hall to Sybil's room.
Her television peered down from the ceiling; it was tuned to the word processor. He frowned. She wasn't supposed to be able to use it. He stepped next to the bed and bent over in the dim light. The processor console sat on a table to the left side of her bed. He reached out, rolled her head: she was wearing the switch. Looking up at the screen, he used the keyboard's arrow keys to move a cursor to the Select option, then pressed Enter. A series of options came up, including a dozen files. Nine of the files were named. Three were not: they had only numbers.
He was moving the cursor to select the first of the files when he realized that she was awake. Her eyes were dark and terrified.
'It's time,' he whispered. The drugs roared and he moved closer to her bedside, peering down into her eyes. She closed them.
'Open your eyes,' he said. She would not.
'Open your eyes…' Her eyes remained closed.
