Eyes of Prey

and looked down, thought that somehow he’d gotten muddy, then realized that his chest was caked with dried blood. When he tried to stand, flakes of the blood broke away and fell on the carpet.
    Something had changed. He felt it. Something was different, but he didn’t know what. Couldn’t remember. He tried to find it, but his mind seemed confused and he could not. Could not find it. He went to the bathroom, turned on the water for the tub, watched it pour, the water swirling, and he began to sing just like Mrs. Wilson had taught them in the fifth grade:
    “ Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, dormez-vous, dormez-vous?  . . .”
    In the tub, the blood dissolved, pink in the water, andBeauty bathed in it, patted it on his astonishing face, and sang every song that a fifth-grader knew . . . .
     
    The mirror was steamed over when he got out of the tub. He was annoyed when this happened, because he could not look into his face, he had to open the bathroom door, had to wait until the cool air cleared it. He always tried to rub the steam away with a towel, but he could never quite clear the mirror . . . .
    He opened the door and the cold air flooded around him, and the stimulation almost brought the memory back. Almost . . . The first streak of condensation ran down the mirror. Bekker picked up a towel and wiped. Ah. There he was . . . .
    The face was far away, he thought, puzzled. He wasn’t that far away. He was right here . . . . He reached out and touched the glass, and the face came closer, and the horror began to grow.
    This wasn’t Beauty. This was . . .
    Bekker screamed, stumbled back, unable to tear his eyes from the mirror.
    A troll looked back. A troll with a patchwork face, the wide eyes staring, measuring him. And it all came back, the apartment, the gun, and Druze going down like a burst balloon.
    “No!” Bekker screamed at the mirror. He grabbed the hair on both sides of his head, pulled at it, welcoming the pain, trying to rip the troll from his consciousness.
    But the eyes, cool, cruel, floated in the mirror, watching . . . . Bekker ran into the hallway: another of her mirrors, mirrors everywhere, all with eyes. He stumbled, fell, crawled down the hall, scampering, naked, his knees burning from the carpet, down to his bedroom like a weasel, groping in panic for the brass cigarette case.
    The eyes were everywhere, in the shiny surfaces of the antique bedstand, in the window glass, on the surface of thewater in a whiskey tumbler . . . . Waiting. No place for Beauty. He gobbled three bloodred caps of Nembutal 100 mg pentobarbital and the green eggs, the Luminal 30 mg phenobarbital, three of them, four, six. And then the purple eggs, the Xanax 1 mg alprazolam. Too much? He didn’t know, couldn’t remember. Maybe not enough. He took an assortment of eggs with him, squinting through half-closed eyes, avoiding the shiny surfaces, and whimpering, he crawled into his closet, behind the shirttails and the pantlegs, with the shoes and the odors of darkness.
    The Nembutal would be on him first; there was a mild rush as they came on, a Beauty rush. Bekker didn’t want that. He wanted the calming effect, the sedation; even as he thought it, the rush dwindled and the sedation came on. The Luminal would be next, in an hour or so, smoothing him out for the day, until he could make plans to get at Druze. The Xanax would calm him . . . .
    Another voice spoke in his mind, far away, barely rational: Druze. Find Druze.
    Bekker looked into his hand, half cupped around the pills. He would find Druze if the medicine held out.
     
    Lucas waited.
    The second house was on a slight rise above the street, a greening lawn, neat, flower beds still raw with the spring. A Ford Taurus station wagon was parked in the driveway, the husband’s car. He’d arrived just a minute after Sloan and Lucas. Lucas waited in the car while Sloan went inside.
    The speed was beginning to bite. Lucas felt sharp and hard, like the edge of a pane of glass; and also brittle. He sat listening to Chris Rea on the tape player, singing about Daytona, his hand beating out the rhythm . . . .
    Sloan came straight out the door and across the lawn, the paper in his hand.
    “We’re clear,” he said. “The woman was okay, but I thought her husband was going to freak out.”
    “As long as we got it,” Lucas said.
     
    The machinery of exhumation was fussily efficient. A small front-loader took off the top five feet