Eyes of Prey

do I know? Bekker, of course . . .”
    “No. Not about Bekker . . .”
    “But why . . . ?”
    “This woman has been used all of her life. She’s the type, and she’ll be very sensitive to it. She lets herself be used because that’s the only way she can find relationships. She keeps hoping for something real, but she doesn’t believe it’s going to happen,” Lucas said. He was leaning on the desk, talking rapidly, eyes narrowed, voice urgent, trying to impress his student. “If you come on to her about Bekker, she’ll know. She’ll know we’re trying to manipulate her. You’ll offend her right down to the soles of her feet. What you do is, you never mention Bekker. You do what all divorced guys do—talk about your ex-wife. Pretty soon she’ll start to hint. Wanna know about Bekker? No. You don’t want to know about Bekker. You want to talk about you, your ex-wife, her, and how miserable it is to get a relationship going with anyone decent. You say, Fuck Bekker, I don’t wanna hear about that shit, that’s work. Take her out a couple of times, and she’ll start talking about him all on her own. She won’t be able to help herself. Just don’t push.”
    “Don’t push,” Del said. His eyes were like marbles.
    “Don’t push,” Lucas confirmed, nodding.
    Del leaned back in his chair, studying Lucas as though he were a felon, and one he’d just met. “Jesus Christ,” he said after a minute, “you are a cruel sonofabitch, you know that?”
    Lucas frowned at the tone. “Are you serious?”
    “I’m serious,” Del said.
    Lucas shrugged and looked away. “I do what I’ve got to do,” he said.
     
    He met Anderson on the way out to the car.
    “I sent Carpenter down to the library after you called,” Anderson said. “He found a book on this Redon dude, and that’s the picture all right, but the library’s picture was bigger than the one we got. He could only find it in one book, and that hasn’t been checked out for two months.”
    “That’s something,” Lucas said.
    “Yeah? Exactly what?” Anderson asked.
    As Lucas drove home, a hard rain began to fall and lightning crackled overhead. A good night for trolls, he thought.
    Bekker, God damn it.

CHAPTER
16
    The rain was steady and cold, driving, slicing through his headlights, the wipers barely able to keep up. Miserable night. A half-dozen black beauties gave him the edge he needed, a couple of purple egg-shaped Xanaxes cooled his nerves.
    Not enough, maybe. The flapping of the windshield wipers was beginning to grate on him, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from shouting at them. Fwip-fwip-fwip, a torture . . .
    Red light. He caught it at the last second, jammed on the brakes and nearly skidded through the intersection. The driver of the car one lane over looked at him, and Bekker had to choke down the impulse to scream at him. Instead of screaming, he went into his pocket, pulled out the cigarette case, tongued a yellow oblong Tranxene and snapped the case shut. He no longer tried to track his drug intake: he was guided by internal signals now, running with his body . . . .
    And he was all right; he’d eaten half a handful of downers over the day, and they’d held him together like the skin of a balloon, containing the pressure. But only for a time. The snake was waiting, off in the dark. Then, when it was time to meet Druze, the black beauties pulled him up, out of thedowners. He’d be afraid to drive with those downers in his blood. But with the black beauties, driving was a snap . . . .
    The traffic light changed and Bekker went through, gripping the steering wheel with all his might.
     
    They’d agreed to meet at an all-night supermarket on University Avenue, a place where the parking lot was usually full. Tonight there were only a few cars in front of the store, and one of them was a baby-blue St. Paul police cruiser. When he saw it, Bekker nearly panicked. Did they have Druze? How did they get him? Had he and Druze been betrayed? Had Druze gone to the police . . . ? No, wait; no, wait; no, wait; wait-wait-wait . . .
    There he was, Druze, in the Dodge, waiting, the windows steamed. No cops near the squad car. Must be inside. Bekker parked on the left side of Druze’s car, killed the engine and slipped out, watching the lighted entrance of the supermarket. Where were the cops? He opened the back door of his car, got the shovel off the floor, locked the door. He was wearing a rain suit