himself. He sat in the car for a moment, trying to think.
The parking garage at Bellevue was locked in his brain. Bellevue. He reached across the floor to his purse, found the bag, shook out a greenie: PCP. Popped one, two. Folded the bag and dropped it back in the purse, turned left. Careful. Bellevue? The hands on the steering wheel took him there, rolling through the dimly lit streets, precisely, evenly. A woman? Yes. Women were smaller and handled more easily, after they'd been taken. He recalled the struggle with Cortese, wedging the deadweight into the backseat of the Bug.
And women, he thought with sudden clarity and some curiosity, lasted longer…
The guard nodded. He recognized the attractive blonde in the old Volkswagen Bug. She'd been there before…
Bekker took the car to the top floor, which was virtually deserted. A red Volvo sat in a corner and looked like it might have been there for a couple of days. Two other cars were widely spaced. The garage was silent. He got his bag from the passenger-side floor, with the tank of anesthetic and the stun gun.
Bekker flashed: Cortese, the first one. Bekker'd hit him with the stun gun, had ridden him like a… No image came for a moment, then a hog. A heavy, midwestern boar, a mean brute. Bekker had ridden him down in the alley behind the Plaza, then used the mask. The power…
A car door slammed somewhere else in the garage; a hollow, booming sound. An engine started. Bekker went to the elevator, pushed the down button, waited. A sign on the wall said: 'REMOVE VALUABLES FROM CAR: Although this ramp is patrolled, even locked cars are easily entered. Remove all valuables.'
The first hit of PCP was coming on, controlling, toughening him, giving his brain the edge of craft it needed. He glanced around. No camera. He walked slowly down the stairs past the cashier, around the corner toward the main entrance of the hospital. The sidewalk that led to the entrance was actually built as a ramp, slanting down between the parking ramp and a small hospital park. Bekker walked down the ramp, paused, then went left into the park, sat at a bench under a light.
Outside, the night was warm and humid, the smell of dirty rain and cooling bubble gum. A couple on the street were walking away from him, the man wearing a straw hat; the hat looked like an angel's halo at that distance, a golden-white oval encircling his head.
Then: A main hospital door opened and a woman walked out. Headed toward the ramp, digging in a purse for keys. Bekker got up, started after her. She paused, still digging. Bekker closed. The woman was big, he realized. As he got closer, he saw she was too big. A hundred and eighty or two hundred pounds, he thought. Moving her would be difficult.
He stopped, turned, lifted a foot so he could look at the sole of his left shoe. Watch women, Rayon had told him. Watch what they do. Bekker had seen this, the stop, the check, the look of anger or disgust, depending on whether a heel was broken or she'd simply stepped in something, and then a turn…
He turned, as though he might be going somewhere to fix whatever he was looking at, walked away from the heavy woman, back down into the park. He might be waiting for someone inside, might even be grieving. There were cops around, nobody would bother him…
Shelley Carson was a graduate nurse. She ran an operating suite, took no crap from anyone.
And she was just the right size.
Bite-size,Bekker's brain said when he saw her.
At five-two, she barely reached a hundred pounds when she was fully dressed. Aware of her inviting size, she was careful about the ramp. Tonight she walked out with Michaela Clemson, tall, rangy, blonde and tough; a lifelong tennis player, both a nurse and a surgical tech. They were still in uniform, tired from the day.
'Then you heard what he said? He said, 'Pick it up and put it where I told you to in the first place,' like I was some kind of child. I am definitely going to complain…' Clemson was saying.
Bite-sized Shelley Carson encouraged her: nurses were not less than doctors, they were members of a different profession. They should take no shit. 'I'd certainly go in…'
'I just can't ignore it this time,' the blonde said, building her courage. 'The asshole is a bad surgeon, and if he'd spend more time working on his surgery and less time trying to pull rank…'
Bekker slid in behind them. They saw him, peripherally, but neither really looked at him until they started into the ramp together, and then up the stairs.
'I definitely would,' the small one was saying. Her dark hair was cut close to the head, like a helmet, with little elfin points over her ears.
'Tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock I'm going to march in…' The blonde looked down at Bekker, then back up at her friend. Bekker climbed behind them, one hand on the stun gun.
Halfway up, the blonde said, 'Tomorrow, I go for it.'
'Do it,' said the elf. 'See you tomorrow.'
The blonde broke away, stepping into the main part of the ramp, peering out. 'All clear,' she said. The blonde started toward a Toyota. Bekker and the dark-haired woman continued up, Bekker's heels rapping on the stairs.
'We have an arrangement,' the elf said, looking down at Bekker. 'If one of us has to go out alone, we watch each other.'
'Good idea,' Bekker squeaked. The voice was the hard part. Rayon had said it would be. Bekker put a hand to his mouth and faked a cough, as though his voice might be roughed by a cold, rather than forty years of testosterone.
'This parking garage, somebody's going to get attacked here someday,' the woman said. 'It really isn't safe…'
Bekker nodded and went back to the purse. The elf looked at him, a puzzled look, something not quite right. But what? She turned away. Turn away from trouble. Bekker followed her out at the top floor, heard the Toyota's engine start below. Brought the stun gun out, got the tank ready in the bag. Heard the hiss. Felt the action in his feet…
The woman saw him moving. A fraction of a second before he was on her, she took in the violence of his motion and started to turn, her eyes widening in reflex.
Then he had her. One hand over her mouth, the other pressing the stun gun against her neck. She went down, trying to scream, and he rode her, pressing the stun gun home, holding it…
She flapped her arms like the wings of a tethered bird. He dropped the stun gun, groped for the tank, found it, flipped the valve and clapped the mask over her face. He had her now, his hair a bush around his head, his eyes wide, feral, like a jackal over a rabbit, breathing hard, mouth open, saliva gleaming on his teeth.
He heard the sound of the Toyota going down the ramp as the bite-sized woman's struggles weakened and finally stopped. He stood up, listening. Nothing. Then a voice, far away. The little woman was curled at his feet. So sweet, the power…
Bekker worked all night. Preparing the specimen-wiring the gag, immobilizing her. Taking her eyelids; he held them in the palms of his hands, marveling; they were so… interesting. Fragile. He carried them to a metal tray, where he'd collected some others. The others were drying now, but kept their form, the lashes still shiny and strong…
Shelley Carson died just before seven o'clock, as silently as all the rest, the gag wired around her skull, her eyes permanently open. Bekker had crouched over her with the camera as she died, shooting straight into her eyes.
And now he sat in his stainless-steel chair and gazed at the proof of his passion, eight ultraviolet photos that clearly showed something-a radiance, a presence-flowing from Carson as she died. No question, he exulted. No question at all.
Dink.
The intercom bell. It cut through the sense of jubilation, brought him down. Old bitch. Mrs. Lacey got up early, but habitually slumped in front of the television until noon, watching her morning shows.
Dink.
He went to the intercom: 'Yes?'
'Come quick,' she squawked. 'You have to see, you're on the television.'
What?Bekker stared at the intercom, then went quickly to the bed, picked up his robe, wrapped himself, put fluffy slippers on his feet. The old lady didn't see very well, didn't hear very well, he could pass… and he still had
