oversized purse, eyes large, one hand in her purse. She hadn't expected the stop at the second floor. She saw Bekker, relaxed. Bekker nodded, stepped inside, waited for the doors to close. The woman had punched six, and Bekker reached for it, then stopped, as if he were also going to six. He stepped against the back of the elevator, looking up at the numbers flashing down at them…
She had a gun in her purse, Bekker thought, a gun or tear gas. He thought about that, thought about that… got caught in a loop, thinking about thinking about it… and when he came back, groping in his collection bag for the stun gun, they were already at six.
He glanced sideways at the woman, caught her staring at him; he looked away. Eye contact might tell her too much… He glanced again, and the woman seemed to be shrinking away, had her hand in her purse again. A tone sounded, a sharp bing, and the doors slid open. For a moment, neither of them moved, then the woman was out. Bekker followed a few feet behind, turned toward her, slipping his shoes off, expecting to pad after her, catch her unexpectedly…
But the woman suddenly stepped out of her own shoes and began running, and at the same time, looking back at him, screaming, a long, shrill, piercing cry.
She knew…
Bekker, frozen for an instant by the scream, went after her, the woman screaming, her purse skidding across the floor, spilling out lipsticks and date books and a bottle of some kind, rolling on the rough concrete… She dodged between two cars, backing toward the outer wall, a can in her hand, screaming…
Tear gas.
Bekker was right behind her, losing his bag, going after her bare-handed, the urgency gripping him, the need to shut her up: She knows knows knows…
The woman had braced herself between the cars, her hand extended with the tear gas, her mouth open, her nostrils flexing. No way to get her but straight ahead…
Bekker charged, stooping at the last moment, one hand up to block the tear-gas spray. She pressed the can toward him, but nothing happened, just a hiss and the faint smell of apple blossoms…
She'd backed all the way to the ramp wall, the lights of the city behind her, the wall waist-high, her shrill scream in his ears, piercing, wailing.
He went straight in, hit her in the throat with one hand, caught her between the legs with the other, heaved, flipped…
And the woman went over the waist-high wall.
Simply went over, as though he'd flipped a sack of fertilizer over the wall.
She dropped, without a sound.
Bekker, astonished at what he'd done, panting like a dog, looked down over the wall as she went. She fell faceup, arms reaching up, and hit on the back of her head and neck.
And she died, like that: like a match going out. From six floors up, Bekker could see she was dead. He turned, looking for someone coming after her, a response to the scream.
Heard nothing but a faraway police siren. Panicked, he ran back to the stairs, up two flights, climbed in the Volkswagen, started it, and rolled down through the ramp. Where were they? On the stairs?
Nobody.
At the exit booth, the woman ticket-taker was standing on the street, looking down at the corner. She came back and entered the booth. She was chewing gum, a frown on her face.
'One-fifty,' she said.
He paid. 'What's going on?'
'Fight, maybe,' she said laconically. 'A couple of guys were running…' • • • Twelve hours later, Bekker hunched over an IBM typewriter, a dark figure, intent, humming to himself 'You Light Up My Life,' poking the keys with rigid fingers. Overhead, a flock of his spiders floated through the air, dangling from black thread attached to a wire grill. A mobile of spiders…
The PCP made the world perfectly clear, and he marveled over the crystal quality of the prose as it poured forth from the machine onto the white paper. … refuted claims that cerebral-spinal pressure obfuscated reliable intercranial measurements during terminal brain activity as per Delano in TRS Notes [Sept. 86]; Delano overlooked the manifest and indisputable evidence of…
It simply sang-and that cockroach Delano would undoubtedly lose his job at Stanford when the world saw his professional negligence…
Bekker leaned back, looking up at his spiders, and cackled at the thought. A gumball dropped, and he leaned forward, thoughtful now, Bekker the Thinker. He'd made a mistake this night. The worst he'd made yet. His time was probably coming to an end: he needed more work, he needed another specimen, but he had to be very, very careful.
Mmmm. He turned off the typewriter and laid his manuscript aside, carefully squaring the corners of the paper. Went to the bathroom, washed his face again, stared at the scars. The drugs were still with him, but he was also running down. Might even catch some sleep. When had he last slept? Couldn't remember.
He dropped his clothing on the floor, looked at the clock. Midmorning. Maybe a couple of hours, though…
He lay down, listened to his heart.
Closed his eyes.
Almost slept.
But then, just on the edge of oblivion, something stirred. Bekker knew what it was. He felt his heart accelerate, felt the adrenaline spurting into his blood.
He hadn't done her eyes. It had been impossible, of course, but that made no difference. She could see him, the dark-haired woman.
She was coming.
Bekker stuffed a handful of sheet in his mouth, and screamed.
CHAPTER
The car slowed and the window between the front seat and the backseat dropped an inch. The early-morning traffic was light, and they were moving quickly, but O'Dell was grumpy about the early hour. Lily hadn't slept at all.
'You want a Times?' Copland asked over his shoulder.
'Yes.' O'Dell nodded, and Copland eased the car toward the curb, where a vendor waved newspapers at passing cars. A talk show babbled from the front-seat radio: Bekker and more Bekker. When Copland rolled his window down, they could hear the same show from the vendor's radio. The vendor handed Copland a paper, took a five-dollar bill, and dug for change.
'I'm worried,' Lily said. 'They could try again.'
'Won't happen. They didn't mean to kill him, and coming after him again, that way, would be too risky. Especially if he's this tough guy you keep telling me about…'
'We thought they wouldn't go after him the first time…'
'We never thought they'd try to mug him…'
Copland handed a copy of the Times into the backseat. A headline just below the fold said, 'Army Suspects Bekker of Vietnam Murders.'
'This has gotta be bullshit,' O'Dell grumbled, scanning the story. 'Anything from Minneapolis?'
'No.'
'Dammit. Why don't these assholes check on him? For all they know, the Minneapolis story could be a cover for an Internal Affairs geek.'
'Not a thing, so far. And the people in Minneapolis are looking for it.'
Silence, the car rolling like an armored ghost through Manhattan.
Then: 'It must be Fell. It has to be.'
