Eyes of Prey

below that:
Looks like troll
Knows Bekker
Could be dope dealer?
Is he paid? Check Bekker accounts
Theater connection?
Do I know him?
    On the Bekker sheet, he added:
Cheryl Clark
Vietnam killings
Cancer kids
    On a third sheet he wrote Loverboy, and underneath:
Cleaned drain
Changed sheets
Xeroxed note
Philip George?
    He carried the new charts to the bedroom, pinned them on the wall and stared at them.
    Why had the killer gone after George, if indeed he had? If George had known him, why hadn’t he said so when he called 911? And if he hadn’t known him, why would the killer worry about it? Maybe they worked together, or moved in the same social circles? That didn’t fit with the drug thing . . . unless George was a user? Or maybe George was involved with Bekker? What if Bekker, a doctor, was dealing, and a junkie knew that, came into his house . . . but then, why Armistead?
    He stood, speculating, trying to come up with something he could hold onto and work with. He found it right away. Hethought about it, got his jacket and called Dispatch. As he dialed, he looked out the window: still raining. A cold, miserable slanting spring rain, out of the northwest.
    “Could you get in touch with Del and have him meet me at the office?” he asked when Dispatch came on. “No big rush, this afternoon sometime . . .”
    “He’s sitting in a bar,” the dispatcher said. “He’s taking calls there, if you want the number . . . .”
    “Sure.” Lucas took a piece of paper from his shirt pocket, the Xerox of the painting of the one-eyed giant, and scribbled down the number. When he called, a bartender answered and put Del on. He could meet Lucas at four o’clock. As they talked, Lucas looked at the giant peering at the sleeping woman. The creature had a nearly round head, like a basketball, and thin, wide twisting lips. Where . . . ?
    When he finished talking to Del, Lucas pulled out the phone book and called the rare-book room at the university library.
    “Carroll? Lucas Davenport.”
    “Lucas, you haven’t been coming to the games. Zhukov is about to go after the Romanians north of Stalingrad . . . .”
    “Yeah, Elle told me. She said you needed Nazis.”
    “No fun for the Nazis from here on out . . .”
    “Listen, I need some help. I’ve got a picture of a one-eyed giant. He’s looking over a mountain at a sleeping woman and he’s got a club. It’s a painting and it’s kind of crude. Childlike, but I don’t think a kid did it. There’s something good about it.”
    “It’s a one-eyed giant, like a cyclops from The Odyssey ?”
    “Yeah, exactly. Somebody said it’s a troll, but somebody else said that technically it’s a cyclops. I’m trying to figure out what book it came from, if it came from a book.”
    There was a moment of silence, then the book expert said, “Damned if I’d know. An expert on The Odyssey might, butyou’d have to get lucky. There are probably about a million different illustrations of cyclopses.”
    “Shit . . . So what do I do?”
    “You say it’s crude but good. You mean slick-crude, like a Playboy illustration, or . . .”
    “No. The more I look at it, the more I think it might be famous. Like I said, there’s something about it.”
    “Huh. Well, you could take it over to the art history department. There’s a good chance that nobody will be there, and if there is somebody there, he might not talk to you unless you’ve got a fee statement.”
    “Hmpf. Okay, well, thanks, Carroll . . .”
    “Wait a minute. There’s a painter, over there in St. Paul—actually, he’s a computer genius of some kind—and he comes in here to look at book illustrations. He’s pretty expert on art history. I’ve got a number, if you want to give him a ring.”
    “Sure.” Lucas heard the receiver being laid on a desk, then a minute of silence, then the receiver being picked up again.
    “The guy is a little remote, out in the ozone, like painters get. Use my name, but be polite. Here’s the number . . . . And come on back to the games. You can be Paulus.”
    “Jeez, I don’t know what to say . . . .”
    When he got the book expert off the line, Lucas dialed the number. The phone rang five or six times and he was about to hang up when it was answered. The painter sounded as though he’d been asleep, his voice gruff, cool. An edge of wariness entered it when Lucas explained he was a cop.
    “I got your name from Carroll over at the U. I’ve