Eyes of Prey

intersection and up the hill.
    “He’s killed the fuckin’ car, I think, he’s rolling through the intersection, he can’t get the car started,” Sloan called.
    “He saw me,” Lucas called back. To Bancroft, he said, “You can sit up.”
    “I need some fuckin’ video,” she moaned. “Davenport, you’re killing me . . . .”
     
    Bekker, shocked, sat in his car and cried, tried to start it, sent it bucking in first gear, killed it again, started again . . . .
    Bekker didn’t think of pursuit. He knew who it was he’d seen.
    He’d sat in the closet for a day and a night, alternatingbetween sleep and a half-waking state. He had no idea how many pills he’d taken, or the dosages, but finally, seeing daylight again and the cigarette case empty, and hungry, he crawled out of the closet. The eyes waited in the glass. He stood up, stumbled toward the bathroom, his body racked with pain. He’d gotten cramped in the closet, he hurt everywhere. In the shower, he stood in scalding water, the pain driving the pictures out of his mind . . . .
    Out of the shower, he dressed, took a careful black cap, amphetamine, just enough to keep him going, went to the car, saw the eyes in the rearview mirror, tilted the mirror away, started down the street. There was a deli less than a mile away. He was caught by a red light. A station wagon across the street . . .
     
    “Is he going on?” Lucas asked.
    “Yeah, he’s still going,” Sloan said. “He’s moving slow, though. I think there’s something wrong.”
    “He’s freaked out,” Lucas said. “I told you he knew Druze.”
    “Something definitely wrong,” Sloan said. “He’s turning around. He’s going back out to Twelve . . . .”
    The net stayed with Bekker as he drove toward downtown.
    “Could be heading for the hospital,” Sloan called.
    Lucas stuck a borrowed police light in the window of the Dodge and raced for the university campus. Bancroft, who’d crawled back into the front seat, pulled a safety belt over his lap and snapped it. “You drive as bad as a cameraman,” she said, buckling herself in.
    “Don’t have a lot of time,” Lucas said. “You know where to take the car?”
    “Yes.” She sounded taut and he grinned. “You’ll be all paid off after this.”
    “I’ll be paid off and a half,” she said. “If the station knew I was doing this . . .”
    “What?”
    “Now that I think about it, I don’t know what they’d do. If I had video, they’d probably be lined up outside the station with their lips puckered . . . .”
     
    Lucas hopped out of the car on Washington Avenue, at the base of a footbridge. If Bekker followed his usual route to work, he’d drive beneath the footbridge; but from the roadway, there was no quick way up to it. If he stopped his car and climbed up as quickly as he could, Lucas would still have time to duck into a chemistry building at the end of the footbridge.
    “Where is he?” Lucas asked on the handset. He hurried along the sidewalk toward the entry to the footbridge.
    “He’s coming up to the exit, so you got time,” Sloan said. “There he goes, he’s off.”
    Lucas climbed the footbridge, looked west across the Mississippi.
    “Davenport . . .” He heard Bancroft, on the other side, and turned to look over the rail. She was standing on a wall by the student union, the Nikon to her face. He waved her off and went back to the other side of the footbridge.
    “On Washington,” Sloan said on the handset. A passing student, a slender, long-haired kid in an ankle-length coat with an ankh on a chain around his neck, looked at him curiously and said, “Can’t be Cyrano, with that nose.”
    “Fuck off, kid,” Lucas said. He shaded his eyes as he looked down Washington Avenue toward the river.
    “On the bridge,” Sloan called on the handset.
    “Okay,” said Lucas, on his own set.
    “Cop?” asked the kid.
    “Go away,” Lucas said. “You could fuck up something important and I’d have to throw your ass in jail.”
    “That’s a good argument,” the kid said, walking hastily away.
    • • •
    Bekker’s car was on the bridge, pacing the traffic. Lucas squatted on the far side of the footbridge, out of sight, until Bekker was less than a hundred feet away. He should get just a flash . . . . Now.
    Lucas stood up and peered over the bridge. Bekker saw him, swerved. Lucas was gone, hurrying toward the chemistry building.
    “He saw you, he’s on the side,