and the driveway. Becker took no extraordinary precautions to remain unseen; if Kom glimpsed him it would only increase the pressure, and unrelenting pressure was the idea. Becker would continue to squeeze, depriving Kom of his usual outlets, forcing his destructive energies back into the man until he imploded. He had been comfortable too long, he had grown too accustomed to his ways. He had drunk too deeply of blood and triumph to stop. Becker would cut off his supply until the man was wild with thirst and frustration, until he was compelled by his own demons to act, to do something desperate, something foolish. And Becker would be there with a bloodiust of his own.
Clipped to his belt was a deer hunter's aid, a sound amplification device the size of a transistor radio with padded earphones. To a casual observer Becker would look like a man listening to a Walkman, but in reality the machine gave him hearing capabilities approaching those of the deer themselves. He adjusted the earphones and turned the volume up until he heard the electronic squeal of feedback, then turned it down a notch until the squealing stopped and the woods exploded with sound.
The thrumming of cicadas rose to a deafening level and even the sounds of his own breathing boomed in his ears. He adjusted the volume yet again until every background noise came through distinctly but the overall level was tolerable, and even then he had to measure his own movements so that the rasp of flesh against cloth did not drown out the rustle of leaves or the distant whine of a car's tires against the asphalt.
Kom came out of his house and walked across the lawn to his tennis court and Becker heard the sound of the man's footsteps on the grass crunch as clearly as if each one were cracking through thin ice. Kom carried a flashlight and wore a thin nylon windbreaker. A rake was slung over one shoulder like a rifle. As Becker watched, Kom stepped past the treeline until he stood over the grave.
Kom switched the flashlight on momentarily, then decided that it was not necessary and snapped it off again. He raked for a moment, smoothing the ground over and around the grave site, and with his amplified hearing Becker could hear every slap of stone against the tines of the rake, the rustle of the parted leaves, the mild grind of metal slicing through soft dirt. After a moment Kom dropped the rake and swatted at his face and neck as if he had been attacked by mosquitoes.
Becker took the earphones off and watched in fascination as Kom hopped and slapped frantically at himself. He pulled the hood of the windbreaker over his head and ran, swinging a hand in front of his face like a windshield wiper. Mosquitoes could not have brought about such a response, Becker thought. Kom had disturbed a nest of wasps or bees.
Becker stifled a laugh as he watched Kom scurry toward the safety of his house, his arms flailing like propellers, his fat-hipped, splayfooted waddle carrying him as fast as he could go.
Within a minute Kom's car appeared in the driveway, tearing into the street. Becker wondered if the man was allergic to bee stings, if he was racing to the hospital to be treated for anaphylactic shock. People could die of bee stings-Becker had witnessed a case himself, the woman's face and hands swollen within minutes like sausage casing pumped full to bursting, her eyes all but vanished amid the turgid skin. He sprinted to his own car, which was parked a block away, ready for just such a trip, and wondered about the irony of it all if he was forced to save Kom's life if the man passed out in his car before he could make it to the hospital.
Kom drove rapidly and recklessly, cutting through the stoplight by the center as it turned red, and Becker let him go, allowing the intersection to clear before running the light himself. He caught up with Kom as the car entered the Merritt, and stayed with it when it got off three exits later and fishtailed its way onto the local road, endangering itself several times before pulling into the parking lot of the hospital. Becker paused at the bottom of the hill as Kom got out of the car, his windbreaker hood still drawn over his head, and ran to the hospital. When Becker saw the long-legged strides, he knew he had been fooled. He raced his car up the hill and left it in the emergency entrance. Flashing his Bureau badge in one hand, he grabbed Tovah as she was about to enter the elevator, spun her around and tore the windbreaker hood from her head. The security guard, excited by the commotion, retreated when he saw Becker's badge.
'Where did he go?' Becker demanded.
'You,' she said, throwing her arms over her face as if she expected him to strike her.
'Where is he?'
'He's changed,' said Tovah, cowering. 'He's changed, he's different.
'I won't hurt you,' Becker said, pulling her arms from her face. 'He said you might. I saw what you did to him in the elevator.'
'That has nothing to do with you. Where did he go?'
'I know I told you about his women, but that's all over. He's so different now. He loves me, John, he does. He's so attentive, so loving, it's all over, all of that other stuff is finished, I can tell..'
'Why did he send you out like this?'
'He needs some peace from you,' she pleaded. 'You're making him crazy.
He told me how you're harassing him, how you won't let him breathe-John, he's not interested in Karen, I know it. They're just friends.'
'This isn't about Karen,' Becker said.
'That was all my fault, I was jealous, I exaggerated things-I should never have said anything to you.' She continued to back away from him, her arms held high, still expecting a blow. Becker walked her into the corner at the edge of the elevator block so she could no longer evade him. Her voice was too loud, too fast, hovering on the verge of hysteria, and it had brought a small crowd of onlookers who stood several yards away, watching.
'Tovah, listen to me. I don't know what he told you. I don't know what has frightened you, but I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to know where he is. I want you to tell me where he went.'
'You should see him,' she said, shaking her head as if it were impossible to make him understand. 'You were his friend, he liked you, he counted on your friendship, and now you've turned on him, you've broken his heart. You should see him, he's not himself, his eyes-he hasn't slept-his eyes-He's afraid of you, John, he thinks you're going to attack him again. He sees you in the shadows, he thinks you want to mug him, he's heard the stories about you, we've all heard the stories about you, but he's seen what you can be like, he can't get that beating out of his mind-his eyes..
'He's lying to you, Tovah. He's lied to you all his life and he's doing it now.'
'He's not, he's changed, he loves me now, you wouldn't know, but I'm there, I'm the one he touches. I'm the one he kisses. Not Karen, not anybody else, just me, it's just me…
He fought an urge to slap her, to shut her up, to make her stop being so afraid of him. 'Why did he send you out like this?'
'He needs some peace. You're so paranoid about Karen..
'Karen has nothing to do with this,' he said again, still fighting the urge to slap her. And then he stopped, frozen by the sudden realization that it did have to do with Karen. It had everything to do with Karen.
He fled from the hospital as if pursued.
Kom approached the house from the south, coming through the trees. He paused at the edge of the lawn, surveying the layout, mapping his exits, plotting an escape route if needed. The light was on in the master bedroom, an easy drop from the ground-floor window to a flower bed-he could be out and away in no time. He glanced at the sky where dark clouds rolled and seethed across the moon like scum atop boiling water.
It would rain before the night was through and would be very dark long before then. Kom smiled; he liked the dark.
A form passed before the bedroom window and Kom moved toward it. He paused just outside the cone of light that fell onto the grass and watched with delight as Karen passed again, the backlight shining through her T- shirt. He moved closer, inching into the light. Karen stood with her back to the window, reaching her arms to her hair, and the T-shirt crept up her naked legs, revealing the first rounding of her buttocks. Grinning, Kom moved still closer. Karen froze in place for a second, then moved toward the bedroom door and out of his sight.
He walked to the house and listened for a moment just under the window.
He could hear her moving about distantly and he peeked into the light, standing on his toes. The bedroom was empty. He thought for a moment of crawling through the window, of waiting for her in the bed. The wolf greeting Red Riding Hood in Grandmother's clothing, smiling to show his big teeth.
He worked his way around the side of the house and was heading for the front door when he heard a sound and stopped. The night was preternaturally still, waiting for the storm. He looked upward again.
In the clearing surrounding the house there was still some faint light coming from the sky through the gaps
