Eyes of Prey

hurried back to the spare bedroom, looked around and spotted the Xerox of Redon’s Cyclops still lying on the bed.
    “Close your eyes,” he told her, when he got back. “I’m going to hold a paper in front of your face. I want you to look at it for a second, no more, then close your eyes again. You’re trying for a momentary impression . . . . Open your eyes when I say ‘Open.’ ”
    “Okay . . .”
    He held the Xerox in front of her face and said, “Open.”
    Her eyes opened but didn’t close again, and after a little more than a second, he whipped the paper behind his back.
    “Jesus,” she whispered. “I feel like a fuckin’ Judas.”
    “Who is it?”
    “It could be Carlo Druze. You saw him the first day you were at the theater. He was the guy practicing onstage.”
    “I knew it,” Lucas said. The thrill of it ran down his spine, and he shuddered. “He’s the goddamned juggler, right? The guy you never see without makeup. I knew I’d seen him.”
    “I feel like . . .”
    “Fuck that,” he barked. “You saw your friend Elizabeth.You want to look at this woman up in Maplewood? We think he used a screwdriver on her . . . .”
    “No, no . . .”
    “Are there any good photos of him at the theater? Publicity stuff, anything?”
    Cassie nodded, but tentatively. “He’s a very scarred man. He doesn’t like photo sessions. Sometimes he uses cosmetics to cover up . . . but he’s most comfortable in stage makeup. That’s how you usually see him in the publicity shots. Full makeup. I don’t know if there’d be any raw photos . . . .”
    “Can we get in?”
    She hesitated. “I could get us inside the building, but the office is locked. And letting you go through the files . . . I don’t know.”
    “C’mon, Cassie,” Lucas said, a little less harshly. He reached out and touched her. “You can keep the plans for the fuckin’ revolution. I just need a photo of the guy . . . .”
    “All right,” she said. Then, following him back to the bedroom, she added, “I feel like a shit for saying this, but I keep thinking of more things . . . . Carlo didn’t like Elizabeth and she didn’t like him.”
    Lucas, pulling on a shirt, said, “Was she planning to fire him?”
    Cassie shrugged. “Who knows? The feeling was, she didn’t like him because of his looks. As an actor, he’s not bad.”
    Lucas stopped and looked at her: “Could Druze do this? Is he capable of it? Killing people?”
    She shivered. “Of all the people I know . . . yeah, I’d say he’s the most likely. But not with passion. I don’t understand the eyes. If he wanted to kill somebody, he’d just do it, and walk away.”
    “Huh. Interesting,” said Lucas. He put on a sport jacket, then dug through the bottom drawer of his bureau, found a leather wallet and stuck it in his jacket pocket. “Let’s go look.”
    • • •
    On the way across town, Lucas said, “When I saw him that time at the theater, I asked you where he was when Armistead was killed. You told me he’d been around all afternoon.”
    “Yeah . . .” Her forehead wrinkled. “He was around. But people come and go all the time. Run across the street for a cinnamon roll, down Cedar for a cheeseburger. Nobody notices. The theater’s only ten minutes from Elizabeth’s house.”
    “But your impression was that he’d been around . . . .”
    “Yeah. I really can’t remember, though . . . . A cop interviewed him the day after, maybe he’d know.”
    “But if he killed Armistead, how does the phony phone call fit?” Lucas asked. “We figured the killer was calling to find out if she was at work . . . .”
    “Maybe . . . this sounds stupid, but maybe somebody was just trying to get a free ticket?”
    “That’s usually what fucks up an investigation, trying to find a reason for everything,” Lucas admitted. “But the call was odd. I still think . . . I don’t know.” They parked in front of a rock bar and looked across the street at the theater’s dark windows.
    “I don’t like this,” Cassie said nervously, looking up and down the street. “People come in and out of here all the time. And if anybody found out, I’d lose my job. For sure.”
    “I doubt it,” Lucas said, smiling at her. She didn’t like his smile. There was an edge of cruelty to it. “Things can be arranged.”
    “Like what?”
    He looked past her at the front of the theater. “You’d be surprised how many