Terrell Scopes of the Federal Reserve had a procedure for everything, including the dispensing of information about serial numbers. 'I can't just have people come in here…' He waved, a wave that seemed to suggest that they didn't quite meet a standard. Lucas was rumpled. Fell's hair was beginning to go haywire, standing around her head in a halo.
'If we take several hours to get the data and Bekker cuts the heart out of somebody, your picture'll be on the front page of the New York Times right along with his,' Fell snarled, leaning across his desk.
Scopes, naturally pale, went a shade paler. 'Just a minute,' he said. 'I'll have to make some inquiries.'
After a while he came back and said, 'Citibank…'
Citibank was more cooperative, but the process was a long one. 'The money came out of a machine on Prince, all right, but exactly when, or where it went, that'll take a while to figure out,' said a round-faced banker named Alice Buonocare.
'We need it in a hurry,' said Lucas.
'We're running it as fast as we can,' Buonocare said cheerfully. 'There's a lot of subtraction to do-we have to go back to a known number and then start working through the returns, and there's a lot of stuff we have to do by hand. We're not set up for this kind of sorting… and there are something like twenty thousand items…'
'How about the pictures?'
'They're not really very good,' Buonocare confessed. 'If all you know is that he's got blond hair, there are probably a thousand blondes on the tape… It'd be easier to do the numbers, then confirm with the pictures.'
'All right,' Lucas said. 'How long?'
'I don't know: an hour, or maybe two. Of course, that's almost quitting time.'
'Hey…' Lucas, ready to get angry.
'Just kidding,' Buonocare said, winking at Fell.
Three hours. A mistake was found halfway through the first run, a question of which numbers went where, and another machine on Houston Street.
'All right,' one of the computer operators said at six o'clock. 'Give us another twenty minutes and we'll have it down to one person. If you want to look right now, I can give you a group of eight or ten and it's ninety percent that he's in that group.'
'How about the photos?'
'We'll get the tape up now.'
'Let's see the ten accounts,' Buonocare said.
The programmer's fingers danced across the keyboard and an account came up on the green screen. Then another, and another and more. Ten altogether, six men, four women. Two accounts, one man, one woman, showed non-Manhattan addresses, and they eliminated them.
'Can we get account activity on the other eight? For the last two months?' Buonocare asked over the shoulder of the computer operator.
'No problemo,' he said. He rattled through some keys, and the first account came up.
'Looks routine…' Buonocare said after a minute. 'Get the next one.'
'Better find it in a hurry,' Fell said. 'I'm about to pee my pants.'
Edith Lacey's account was the fifth one they looked at. 'Oh-oh,' Buonocare said. To the computer operator: 'Get the rest of this up, go back as far as you can.'
'No problemo…'
When the full account came up, Buonocare reached past the computer operator and pressed a series of keys, then paged down through an extensive account listing. After a moment, she ran it back to the top and turned to Lucas and Fell.
'Look at this: she started with a balance of $100,000 six weeks ago, and then started pulling out the max on her bankcard, five hundred a day, just about every day for a while. Even now, it's three or four times a week.'
'That could be him,' Lucas said, nodding, excited. 'Let's get a picture up. You've got a name and address?'
'Edith Lacey…'
'In SoHo. That's good, that's right,' Fell said, tapping the screen.
'How about the video…?'
'Let's get the reference numbers on those withdrawals…' Buonocare said. She wrote the number on a scratch pad and they carried it to the storage. The right cassette was already in the machine, and Buonocare ran it through, looking at the numbers…
'Here,' she said.
The screen showed a blonde, her face down.
'Can't tell,' Fell said. 'I swear to God, I'm gonna pee in my pants.'
'Let's try another withdrawal in that sequence,' Buonocare said.
She ran the tape, stopped, started, searched. Found another blonde.
'Motherfucker,' Lucas said, looking at the screen. 'Nice to see you again, Mike.'
'That's him?' Fell asked, peering at the screen. 'He's so pretty.'
'That's him,' Lucas said.
Bekker was smiling at the lens, his blond hair pulled demurely away from his forehead.
CHAPTER
26
Bekker awoke at noon. He wandered about the apartment, went to the bathroom, and stared at himself. Pretty. Pretty blonde. Too late for pretty blonde.
He cried, sitting on the edge of the tub, but he had to do it. He shaved his head. Hacked his fine silken hair to stubble with a pair of orange-handled scissors from Mrs. Lacey's sewing box, lathered it with shampoo, scraped off the stubble with a safety razor. Cut himself twice, the blood pink in the lather…
Sigh.
He found himself in front of the mirror, dried soap around his ears, hair. Gone. The tears came again, in a rush. His head was far too small, and sickly white, like a marble. Where was Beauty?
He examined himself with the eye of an overseer, the Simon Legree of inspections. Bald. Pale. No good. Even in the Village, the scalp pallor would attract the eye, and the facial makeup would be obvious.
The scars-the scars would give him away. He touched his face, felt the furrowed, marbled flesh. A new role, that's what he needed. He'd thought to cut his hair, shift back to a male role, but that wouldn't work. Besides, women were allowed a greater latitude of disguise. He'd go back to the wigs he'd worn before his own hair grew out.
Bekker strode through the apartment, headed for the stairs, stopped to touch the cloud of spiders that hung over his desk in the outer apartment. So fine, so pretty…
Go. Get the wig, get dressed-he hadn't bothered to dress. Clothes seemed inconvenient and restrictive. He marched now, directed by the PCP, upright and dignified, then he was suddenly aware of his penis, bobbling along like an inconveniently large and flaccid nose, doing a color commentary on his dignity. Bekker pressed his penis to his thigh, but the rhythm of the march was broken…
A new gumball dropped. From when? The fifties? A comedian on The Ed Sullivan Show? Yes. A small man looking into a cigar box, talking to a voice inside… Okay? Okay. Was that the line? Yes.
Bekker, passing the kitchen, swerved, went in. Opened the refrigerator and peeked inside: Have a Coke, Mr. Bekker. Thank you. I will. Okay? Okay. He slammed the refrigerator door like the comedian and howled with laughter. Okay? Okay.
Really funny… He howled…
