Eyes of Prey

wrong . . .
    “Who?” she said, not loud, half turning, her eyes widening, a smile caught on her face. The bottle whipped around, a Louisville Slugger in green glass. Her hand started up. Too late. Too small. Too delicate.
    The heavy bottle smashed into her temple with a wet crack, like a rain-soaked newspaper hitting a porch. Her head snapped back and she fell, straight down, as though her bones had vaporized. The back of her head slammed the edge of the counter, pitching her forward, turning her.
    Druze was on her, smashing her flat with his weight, his hand on her chest, feeling her nipple in his palm.
    Hitting her face and her face and her face . . .
    The heavy bottle broke, and he paused, sucking air, his head turned up, his jaws wide, changed his grip and smashed the broken edges down through her eyes . . . .
    “Do it too much,” Bekker had urged. He’d been like a jock, talking about a three-four defense or a halfback option, his arm pumping as though he was about to holler “Awright!”  . . . “Do it like a junkie would do it. Christ, I wish I could be there. And get the eyes. Be sure you get the eyes.”
    “I know how to do it,” Druze had said.
    “But you must get the eyes . . . .” Bekker had had a little white dot of drying spittle at the corner of his mouth. That happened when he got excited. “Get the eyes for me . . . .”
    Something wrong.
    There’d been another sound here, and it had stopped. Even as he beat her, even as he pounded the razor-edged bottle down through her eyes, Druze registered the negligee. She wouldn’t be wearing this on a cold, windy night in April, alone in the house. Women were natural actors, with an instinct for the appropriate that went past simple comfort. She wouldn’t be wearing this if she were alone . . . .
    He hit her face and heard the thumping on the stairs, and half turned, half stood, startled, hunched like a golem, the bottle in his gloved hand. The man came around the corner at the bottom of the stairs, wrapped in a towel. Taller than average, too heavy but not actually fat. Balding, fair wet hair at his temples, uncombed. Pale skin, rarely touched by sunlight, chest hair gone gray, pink spots on his shoulders from the shower.
    There was a frozen instant, then the man blurted “Jesus” and bolted. Druze took a step after him, quickly, off balance. The blood on the kitchen tile was almost invisible, red on red, and he slipped, his feet flying from beneath him. He landed back-down on the woman’s head, her pulped features imprinting themselves on his black jacket. The man, Stephanie Bekker’s lover, was up the stairs. It was an old house and the doors were oak. If he locked himself in a bedroom, Druze would not get through the door in a hurry. The man might already be dialing 911 . . . .
    Druze dropped the bottle, as planned, and turned and trotted out the door. He was halfway down the length of the breezeway when it slammed behind him, a report like agunshot, startling him. Door, his mind said, but he was running now, scattering the tomato plants. His hand found the penlight as he cleared the breezeway. With the light, he was through the garage in two more seconds, into the alley, slowing himself. Walk. WALK.
    In another ten seconds he was on the sidewalk, thick, hunched, his coat collar up. He got to his car without seeing another soul. A minute after he left Stephanie Bekker, the car was moving . . . .
    Keep your head out of it.
    Druze did not allow himself to think. Everything was rehearsed, it was all very clean. Follow the script. Stay on schedule. Around the lake, out to France Avenue to Highway 12, back toward the loop to I-94, down 94 to St. Paul.
    Then he thought:
    He saw my face. And who the fuck was he? So round, so pink, so startled. Druze smacked the steering wheel once in frustration. How could this happen? Bekker so smart . . .
    There was no way for Druze to know who the lover was, but Bekker might know. He should have some ideas, at least. Druze glanced at the car clock: 10:40. Ten minutes before the first scheduled call.
    He took the next exit, stopped at a Super America store and picked up the plastic baggie of quarters he’d left on the floor of the car: he hadn’t wanted them to clink when he went into Bekker’s house. A public phone hung on an exterior wall, and Druze, his index finger in one ear to block the street noise, dialed another public phone, in San Francisco. A recording asked