Eyes of Prey

remnants of a brief fling with the flooring business. He provided an inflatable mattress, an office chair, a collapsible TV tray and a stack of old Playboys. The watchers brought binoculars, a Kowa spotting scope, a video camera with a long lens, and a cellular telephone. They were happy, warm, out of the rain. Pizza could be delivered, and there was a bakery just down the street.
    Another team, not so lucky, watched the back entrance of the apartment building from a car.
    The watcher at Walt’s sat in the chair, facing the street. The TV tray was at his side, on it a Coke in a paper cup. The spotting scope was on a tripod in front of him. The other cop lay on the mattress, reading a Playboy. The watcher saw Bekker lurching through the rain, looked at him through the scope, dismissed him, never even mentioned him to the cop on the mattress. He couldn’t see Bekker’s face because of the hat, but he could see the oblong lavender box under his arm, thekind used to deliver roses all over the metro area. You recognized them even if you’d never gotten flowers, or given them.
     
    Bekker checked the mailboxes, found her apartment number, used Druze’s key to open the lobby door and took the elevator to the sixth floor. Her apartment was the last one on the hall. On impulse, thinking of the gun in his pocket, he stopped one door down the hall and knocked quietly. No response. He tried again. Nobody home.
    Good. He slipped a hand in his breast pocket, found the tab of PCP, popped it under his tongue. The taste bit into him. He was ready. He’d primed himself. His mind stood aside, ferocious, and waited for his body to work.
    His hand—nothing to do with his mind anymore, his mind was on its own pedestal—knocked on the door and lifted the box so it could be seen from the peephole. There were flowers in the box. If there was somebody with her, he could leave them, walk away. Druze? He’d still have to do Druze, but the package wouldn’t be nearly as nice.
    Bekker stood outside Cassie’s door, waiting for an answer.
     
    Four o’clock. Lucas left St. Anne’s, heading west toward the rain. Maybe meet Cassie, he thought. Maybe time to catch her before the play. But yesterday she’d almost kicked him out. And then there were the questions about the handling of dead bodies . . . . He knew a funeral director, down on the south side of town. He could ask about the eyes of the children, although the idea disturbed him.
    Old Catholic background, he thought. Killing people wasn’t so bad, but you didn’t want to mess with the dead. He grinned to himself, stopped at a traffic signal. Left, he could take the Ford bridge into south Minneapolis, go to the funeral home. Right, he could cut I-94 and be at Cassie’s in ten minutes.
    The lights at right angles turned yellow, and Lucas took hisfoot off the brake, ready to let out the clutch. Still undecided. Left or right?
     
    “Flowers?” She was smiling, her face completely unaware as she took the box, showing no hint of apprehension. Bekker’s body glanced up and down the hall, then drew the pistol and pointed it at her forehead.
    “Inside,” he snapped, as her eyes widened. “Keep your mouth shut, or I swear to Christ I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains out,” Bekker’s body said, his mind applauding. Bekker’s body shoved her back with the left hand, holding the pistol with the right. She clutched the box in both hands, her mouth opening, and as she stepped back, he thought for an instant that she was about to scream. “Shut up,” he snarled. Saliva bubbled at his lips. “Shut the fuck up.”
    He was inside then, pulling the door closed behind himself, the gun no more than a foot from her forehead. “Back up, sit on the couch.”
    She dropped the box and he noticed the muscles in her arms. He wouldn’t want to fight her. She backed up until her legs touched the couch, and she half stumbled and sat down. “Don’t hurt me,” she stuttered. Her face was pale as paper.
    “I won’t, if you pay attention,” Bekker’s body said. His mind still floated, directing traffic. “I just need a place to hide for an hour or so.”
    “You’re not with Carlo?” Cassie asked, shrinking back into the couch.
    The question caught him, but the drug covered for him. His body was disassociated now, worked by his mind like a puppet on strings, his hands numb. “Who?”
    “You’re not with Carlo?”
    “I’m not with anybody, I’m just trying to hide until the cops