down too soon.
But Davenport was coming. The gun. He turned, the scalpel in front of his face. The gun was in the other room.
Two impulses fought for control. One propelled him toward the gun, for Davenport; the other told him to finish with Land. Maybe Land would be the transcendent one…
'Don't shoot me in the ass,' Lucas said.
He edged up the stairs, Fell two steps behind. Her face was pale, determined, her pistol at Lucas' waist and to the left.
'Just don't roll left,' she said.
'Uh-uh…'
The smell of marijuana was steeping from the walls, and something else. Lucas sniffed, frowned. Cat urine? And the marijuana odor was years old, not Bekker. In any case, Bekker wasn't much interested in the weed.
At the corner, the first landing, Lucas could see the second-floor door standing partly open, hear Fell breathing below and beside him, smell her faint scent under the odors of the grass and cat piss…
He moved up slowly, across a landing, back against the wall. With the tip of his.45, he pushed the door open. A hall led away, past a closet door, into a living room; he could see the left edge of a television screen. There was no movement, no sound. And the room lacked the peculiar spatial tension of a person in hiding. It felt clear.
'Going in,' he whispered.
He stepped past the open doorway to another flight of stairs, the second flight stacked with cardboard cartons, the cartons grimy with years of dust and flaking paint.
'Move,' he whispered to Fell. She nodded and eased past him, leveled her gun through the door.
'Go,' she whispered back. Lucas crouched, took a breath, then scuttled through the open door on his hands and knees, one hand pushing, his gun extended toward the living room arch, searching for movement, for an anomaly… Nothing.
He stood, held up a hand cautioning her, did a quick head-juke to scan the living room again, then went in. When he was sure it was clear, he waved her in. They checked a sitting room and a dining room; found a pair of glasses lying beside the couch, thick lenses, bifocals. Old-lady glasses. Checked the closets, groped through them. Nothing.
The kitchen was small, smelled of boiled beets, boiled cabbage, boiled carrots, porridge. A pool of water shimmered below the refrigerator. Fell squatted next to it, then looked up at the refrigerator. The main door wasn't quite closed, and water dripped from the bottom of it. She pointed, then put her finger to her lips.
Lucas, standing beside her, reached out, took the door handle. Nodded. Jerked it open.
'Aw, shit,' Fell said, lurching away from the refrigerator.
Mrs. Lacey hadn't fit that well, but Bekker had managed to crush her into the limited space. Her head lay at right angles across her shoulders, and the light behind her head glowed like a perverse advertisement. Her eyes were bloody holes. A dozen cans of Coke were carefully stacked around her body, one jammed between her twisted arms and her chest. Two dead cats were stuffed in a plastic meat compartment, their tails trailing out.
'Jesus. Jesus.' Lucas backed away. 'Let's go up the next one, but make it quick.'
'You think he's up there?' Fell asked doubtfully. She was staring at the refrigerator, her throat working.
'No. If he's in the building, he's down-I don't feel anything up here.'
'Air's too quiet,' Fell said. 'C'mon, you cover me…'
She went ahead for the next flight, climbing past the cartons, through the dust. At the top, they found three bedrooms and an old-fashioned bath. They checked the closets, the shower, under the beds. Nobody home.
'Down,' Lucas said.
'How about the roof?'
'We'll send a couple of guys up-but Bekker would look for a hole, not a perch.'
Six cops were spread through the first floor, all looking up apprehensively when Lucas and Fell hurried down the stairs.
'He killed an old woman and stuffed her body in the refrigerator,' Lucas told the patrol sergeant, flicking a thumb at the stairs. The two Robin Hoods watched silently from the radiator, their hands still looped through the cuffs. 'We went through both floors, nobody home. Send a couple of good people up, see if they can find the roof access. We didn't check that. Tell them to be careful. He's got a gun.'
'I'll go myself…'
'No. You stay here. You've got enough rank to keep these assholes cuffed up,' Lucas said, nodding at Clemson and Jeese. 'There'll be more people coming soon, just hang on. We're gonna do the basement…'
'Take it easy, then,' the sergeant said, still uneasy, looking at the two sullen cops chained to the radiator.
The stairs were clean; they looked used. Lucas edged down, taking it easy, leading with the.45, while Fell crouched at the top, focused on the corner at the bottom. If Bekker came around, she would see him before Lucas. But as Lucas reached the corner, her firing line was cut off and he held up a hand to caution her.
Crouching on the bottom step, he did a head-juke around the corner, a one-eyed peek at waist level. A short concrete-floored hallway ended at a green wooden door. A bare bulb hung in the hall above the door. He groped around the corner for the switch, found it, flicked it on.
He stood and crooked two fingers at Fell and she padded down the stairs. 'Get that sledgehammer and bring back somebody who knows how to throw it.'
Fell nodded. 'Be right back,' she whispered.
Lucas waited by the door, the gun pointed at the knob. If Bekker was in the basement, and alive, he'd know the cops had arrived. But if he was waiting with a gun, it was critical that he not know the instant that the door would come down…
Fell came back down the stairs with the sergeant and the sledge.
'We got an entry team coming,' the sergeant whispered urgently. 'They got the armor…'
Lucas shook his head. 'Fuck it. I'm taking him…'
'Listen, these guys can take him, no problem…'
'I'm going,' Lucas said. He looked at Fell. 'What about you?'
'I'll cover, or go in, whatever…'
'God damn it, you're gonna get our asses shot,' the sergeant whispered.
'Give me the sledge,' Lucas said.
'Listen to me.'
'Give me the fuckin' sledge…'
'Ahhh, shit…' The sergeant shook his head and hefted the hammer. 'I'll swing it, you assholes back me up. I'm going to hit that fucker once, and then I'm on the floor.'
'Let's do it,' said Fell.
Bekker wandered through the murky basement, trying to remember why he was going to the couch. A song went through his head:
Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so…
Sung at a funeral, sometime, way back, he could remember a bronze coffin that sat higher than his head and the choir singing. It was all very sharp, as though he'd just stepped into the picture…
A spider brushed his cheek, tickling, and Bekker snapped out of the funeral picture. Something thumped overhead. That was it. The noise. He had to go to the couch because of the noise overhead.
The couch had been pushed out from the wall, and he stepped behind it and sat down on the rug. The gun was waiting, cheap chrome steel. Loaded. Two shots. He picked it up. Said, Hello, put it in his mouth, sat, like a man with his pipe, then took it out and looked down the barrel.
Hello…
His finger tightened, he felt the pressure of the trigger, took up the slack… and his mind cleared. Clear as a lake. He saw himself, huddled in the corner of the basement. Saw Davenport come in. Saw himself, hands crossed over his chest, shoulders pulled in, head down.
