Silent Prey

an explosion, as clear as a star on a cold night, separate from the impact, standing by itself: a skillful, debilitating cop-pain. It began at his elbow and exploded up his arm to his shoulder, and Lucas screamed, thinking he might have been shot, his arm flopping uselessly as he was smashed into the car. He tried to swing the arm back, to clear out to the right, but it wouldn’t move.
    He saw the other man’s hand coming down, and partially blocked it with his left, then was hit in the cheekbone with a fist and rocked back against the car.
    The second man, coming over the car’s fender, hit him, leather gloves, the second punch in a quick one-two-three combo, and Lucas, back hunched, tried to cover.
    Thought: Clear out, clear out . . .
    He was hit again, across the ear, but this time it didn’t hurt: it was stunning and he started down, rolling. A gloved hand struck at him and he grabbed it with his good left hand, pulled it under him, pinned it against his chest, let his weight fall on it. He heard what seemed to be a faraway screaming as they hit the concrete walk, felt a snap; he’d broken something. He felt a dim, distant satisfaction, because he was losing this, they were killing him . . . .
    Heard glass breaking, registered it, didn’t know what it was, but felt the pressure change.
    Thought: Clear out, clear out. Let go of the gloved hand, felt it wrench away, and the other man screaming . . . Tried to roll under the car, but it was too close to the curb. Tried to cover his head with his good arm . . .
    The .45 was like a thunderbolt.
    The muzzle-flash broke over them like lightning, freezing everything in a strobe effect. The attackers wore nylon ski masks and gloves, long-sleeved shirts. The one who’d hit him from behind was pivoting, already running. A sap dangled from his hand, long, leather-bound, with a rounded bulge at the business end. The one whose arm Lucas had broken scrabbled to his feet and screamed, “Jesus . . .” and ran.
    The .45 struck down again as Lucas sat down on the curb, his legs gone, trying to roll under the car and away from the lightning, not knowing where it came from, groping in the small of his back with his good arm, but the holster was too far around, trying to free his pistol as the attackers faded like ghosts, without a word, down the sidewalk . . . .
    Then silence.
    And Lily was there in a cotton nightgown, the .45 in her fist, a ludicrous combination, the soft white human cotton and the dark steel killer Colt.
    “Lucas . . .” She maneuvered toward him, controlling the .45, not really looking at him, her eyes searching for targets. “Are you okay?”
    “Fuck no,” he said.

CHAPTER
8
    Bekker was first astonished, then swept away. When he returned to the bookstore, he glanced at the counterman with a sigh.
    “Are you okay?” The counterman was concerned. He had a long neck and a narrow head with small features, like an oversized thumb sticking out of his shoulders. His face was cocked to one side and the store lights glittered off the right lense of his spectacles, lending him a Strangelovian menace.
    “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Bekker squeaked. He shuffled his feet and looked away, down the store.
    The store was fifteen feet wide and forty deep. Vinyl paneling sagged away from the walls behind rough shelving; the linoleum floor was cracked and holed. The narrow aisles smelled of moldy paper, disintegrating bookcovers and the traffic of the unwashed. An obese man stood at a sale table halfway back, under a round antishoplifting mirror, a hardcover Spiderman anthology propped on his gut, feeding a nut-covered ice cream bar into his face. Bekker hadn’t even seen him come in.
    He looked down at the book in his hands, the book that had taken him away. He’d dug it out of a pile of crap in the Medicine/Anthropology section . . . .
    “You didn’t move for so long, I thought maybe, I don’t know . . .” thumb-face said, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a toy boat.
    He’s trying to pick me up, Bekker thought. The notion was flattering, but unwanted. Nobody was allowed too close. Before the Minneapolis cops had beaten him with their pistols, Bekker had been beautiful, but now Beauty was dead. And though he wore heavy Cover Mark makeup to hide the scars, they were visible in bright light. The Post had carried the pictures, with every cut and scar for the world to see . . . .
    Bekker nodded, polite, not speaking, glanced at