Eyes of Prey

forgotten . . . .
    Cassie was lying facedown again, bare as the day she was born, the sheet covering her hips. Her hair had parted on either side of her head, and the light slanting through the venetian blinds played across the sensuous turn of her vertebrae, starting at the nape of her neck, trailing down almost to her just hidden tailbone. He reached down, still aware of the phone, now ringing the fourth time, or fifth, and gently slid the sheet even farther down, onto her legs . . . .
    She reached down with one hand and pulled it back up. “Go answer the phone,” she grumped, not moving her head.
    He grinned and headed for the kitchen, and picked thephone up on the sixth ring. Dispatch. “I’ve got a call holding from Michael Bekker,” the woman said. “Put it through?”
    “Yes.”
    There was a click, a pause, and then Bekker said, “Hello?”
    “Yeah, this is Davenport.”
    “Yes, Lucas. Will you be free tonight, late?” Bekker’s voice was low, friendly, carefully modulated. “I’ve got classes, then a dinner, but I’ve found something in my wife’s papers that I thought was interesting. I’d like to show it to you . . . .”
    “Can you tell me on the phone?”
    “Mmm, why don’t you come over? Somebody’ll have to anyway, and I’d prefer it be you. That other policeman . . . he’s a bit thick.”
    Swanson. Not thick at all, although any number of Stillwater inmates had made the mistake of thinking so . . . . “All right. What time?”
    “Tennish?”
    “I’ll see you then.”
    Lucas hung up and padded back to the bedroom. The bed was empty, and water was running in the bathroom. Cassie was bent over the sink, using his toothbrush. He winced, then reached out and touched her bottom.
    “Hi,” she said through a mouthful of bubbles, looking into the mirror over the sink. “Done in a minute. Breath like a dinosaur. And I gotta pee.”
    “I’ll run down to the other bathroom,” he said. He went down the hall, looked back to make sure she wasn’t following, opened a drawer, took out a new toothbrush, peeled the package, removed the brush and hastily stuffed the packaging back in the drawer. He was smiling when he looked at himself in the mirror.
    Back in the bedroom, he found the sheets and blankets in a pile on the floor, while she lounged in the middle of the bed.
    “Hop in,” she said, patting the mattress beside her. “We’reright on time for a nooner and we’re not even up yet. Ain’t it great?”
     
    After Cassie left, in a cab, he spent the rest of the day fooling around, unable to focus much on the case, making call-backs, driving around town, checking the net. He walked past Bekker’s house again, and spoke to a neighbor who was raking the winter gunk from his lawn. Stephanie had once had a cocker spaniel, the neighbor said, and when Bekker had had to walk it in the winter, he’d take it up to the corner and then “kick the shit out of it. I saw him out the window, he did it several times.” The neighbor’s wife, who had been splitting iris bulbs, turned and said, “Be fair, tell him about the shoes.”
    “Shoes?”
    “Well, yeah, the dog had bad kidneys, I guess, and he used to sneak up to Bekker’s closet and pee in his shoes.”
    Lucas and the neighbor started laughing at the same time.
    In the evening, an hour before Cassie went on at the Lost River, she and Lucas walked down the block for a cup of coffee. They sat across from each other in a diner booth, and Cassie said, “Ultimately, you’re not flaky enough for me. But it’d be nice if we could keep it together for a couple of months.”
    Lucas nodded. “That’d be nice.”
     
    At five after ten, he walked up the steps to Bekker’s. Lights blazed from several of the ground-floor windows, and Lucas resisted the temptation to go window-peeking again. Instead he rang the bell, and Bekker came to the door, wrapped in a burgundy dressing gown.
    “Is that your Porsche?” he asked in surprise, looking past Lucas to the street.
    “Yeah. I have a little money of my own,” Lucas said.
    “I see.” Bekker was genuinely impressed. He knew the price of a Porsche. “Well, come along.”
    Lucas followed him into the study. Bekker seemed skittish, nervous. He would try something, Lucas decided.
    “Scotch?”
    “Sure.”
    “I’ve got a nice one. I used to drink Chivas, but a couple of months ago Stephanie . . .”—he paused on the name, as if calling up her face—“Stephanie