Eyes of Prey

cigarette case, found a tab of the speed and swallowed it.
    So good . . . He staggered through the room, feeling it, the power surging along his veins, a nicotine rush times two hundred. He pushed the power back in a corner, held it there, felt the tension.
    The time was getting tighter. He hurried down the steps, checked a window to see how dark it was, then carefully picked up the hammer and slid it into his right-hand pocket. The rest of his equipment, the clipboard, the meter and the identification tag, were piled on Stephanie’s desk.
    The clipboard, with the paper clipped to it, went with the service costume. So did the meter. Druze had found the meter in an electronics junk store and bought it for almost nothing: it was obsolete, with a big analog dial on top, originally made for checking magnetic fields around power lines. The identification tag was Bekker’s old hospital ID. He’d laminated it and punched a hole in one end, and hung it from his neck by an elastic string.
    He took a breath, did a mental checklist, walked out through the breezeway to the car and used the automatic garage-door opener to lift the door. He drove the long way out of the alley, then continued through the next alley, watching his mirror. Nobody.
    Traveling by back streets, he made it to Elizabeth Armistead’s house in a little over eight minutes. He would have to remember that. If Druze was suspected, he should know the time of his arrival. He just hoped she would be there.
    “She does one half-hour of meditation, then drinks an herbtea, then comes down for the warm-ups,” Druze said, prepping him. “She’s fussy about it. She missed her meditation once and spent the whole show dropping lines.”
    Druze . . . The original plan had called for Bekker to phone Druze just before he left the house on the way to Armistead’s. As soon as Druze got the call, at a remote phone in the theater’s control booth, he would call the ticket office with his best California-cool accent. My name is Donaldson Whitney. Elizabeth Armistead said that she would put me on the guest list for two tickets. I’m in a rush through town, but I have time for her play. Could you call her and confirm?
    They would call and confirm. They always did. Too many bullshitters trying to get in free. Donaldson Whitney, though, was a theater critic from Los Angeles. Armistead would gush . . . and the ticket people would remember. That was the point of the exercise: to create a last man to talk to the dead woman, with Druze already in makeup, onstage, warming up . . . alibied. Druze had suggested it and Bekker had found no way to demur.
    He could, however, go early; Druze wouldn’t have to know. But the cops would figure it out . . . .
    And after doing Armistead, he could call as though he were just leaving his house. Then Druze would make his Donaldson Whitney call, and if Armistead didn’t answer the phone when the ticket office called her, well, she simply wasn’t home yet. That could hardly be Bekker’s fault . . . .
    Bekker took it slowly the last few minutes down to Armistead’s. He’d cruised her house before, and there were no changes. The lots were small, but the houses were busy. One man coming or going would never be noticed. A light burned in Armistead’s house, in the back. Her silver Dodge Omni was at the curb, where it usually was. He parked at the side of the house, under a tree heavy with bursting spring buds, got his equipment, leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes.
    Like a digital readout: one-two-three-four-five. Easy steps.He let the power out, just a bit; when he looked, the steering wheel was out-of-round. He smiled, thinly, allowed himself to feel the burn in his blood for another moment, then got out of the car, changed the thin smile for a harassed look and walked around the corner to Armistead’s house. Rang the doorbell. And again.
    Armistead. Larger than he thought, in a robe. Pale oval face; dark hair swept back in a complicated roll, held with a wooden pin. Face slack, as though she’d been sleeping. Door on a chain. She peered out at him, her eyes large and dark. She’d look good on a stage. “Yes?”
    “Gas company. Any odor of gas in the house?”
    “No . . .”
    “We show you have gas appliances, a washer and dryer, a hot-water heater?” All that from Druze’s reconnaissance at an Armistead party. Bekker glanced down at the clipboard.
    “Yes, down in the basement,” she said. His