"I got your name from Carroll over at the U. I've got a question that he said you might be able to help on…"
"Computers?" Wary. Lucas wondered why.
"Art. I've got this picture of a giant, a painting, weird-looking. Kind of strong. I need to know where it came from."
The artist didn't ask why. Again, Lucas thought that was odd. "Is the giant biting the head off a dead body?"
"No, he's…"
"Then it's not Goya. Has the giant got one eye?"
"Yeah," Lucas said. "Big mother, one eye, looking over a mountain…"
"At a nude woman in the foreground, lying on the mountainside. Like one of those saints on a Catholic holy card."
"That's it," Lucas said.
"Odilon Redon. The painting's called The Cyclops. Redon was French, mostly did pastel. Painted the cyclops around the turn of the century. The nude's got her back to the cyclops, so you're looking right at her…"
"Yeah, yeah, that's it. What kind of book would that be in? I mean, obscure, or what?"
"No, no, there are any number of books on Redon. He's in vogue right now. Or was. The library would have something. He's not exactly a household name, but anybody who knows about painting would know about him."
"Hmph. Okay. So probably a book."
"Or a calendar. There are dozens of art calendars around, and art postcards and art appointment books. Depends on what size it is."
"Okay, thanks. That's about what I needed. You say that you'd have to know something about art…"
"Yeah. If you want some kind of index, I'd say maybe one percent of the people walking around on the sidewalk would know about Redon, would know his name. Of those, one in five could tell you a picture he painted."
"Thanks again."
"Always delighted to help the police," the artist said. He sounded like he was smiling.
Del was not smiling. Del was twisting his hands.
"Jesus Christ, it's not hard," Lucas said, squatting beside him. Del sat in the metal folding chair on the visitor's side of Lucas' desk. "You just tell her you've been thinking about her. You say, 'I want to apologize for the way I acted, you seem like a really nice woman. You got nice eyes.' Then she'll ask, sooner or later, 'What color are they?' And you say, 'Hazel.' "
"How do I know they're hazel?" Del picked up the phone receiver in one hand, holding down the hang-up button with the index finger of the other.
" 'Cause they are," Lucas said. "Really they're brown, but you make it sound nice when you say hazel. She knows she's got brown eyes, but she likes to think they're hazel. She'll think you care more if you say hazel… Christ, Del, when was the last fuckin' time you asked a woman out?"
" 'Bout twenty-two years ago," Del said, his head hanging. There was a moment of silence; then they both started to laugh. Del said, "Ah, fuck me," and started punching phone numbers. "Does it have to be tonight?"
"Sooner the better," Lucas said, moving behind the desk. He wanted to be where Del could see his face, in case he needed coaching. The phone rang six times and Del reached out to hang up, when Cheryl Clark answered.
"Ah, is this, ah, Miss Clark?" Del stuttered. Twenty-two years? Lucas shook his head. "Ah… this is the cop who was over there with the other cop, I'm the one with the headband. Yeah, Del. Listen, uh, this is got nothing to do with the investigation, you know, but, uh, I been thinking about you, and I finally decided to call… I don't know, you seemed like a pretty nice chick, uh, woman, you know, shit, you had real nice eyes… Uh, huh… yeah, kind of, if you'd like to, I was wondering if you'd be interested in a cup of coffee. Un-huh, okay." He turned away from Lucas, hiding his eyes, his voice dropping. "How about Annie's over on the West Bank? Uh, huh. I'll pick you up, is that okay? Uh. Forty-one. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, why, they're hazel, really pretty, you know… Yeah. Okay. Listen, about six-thirty? Get something to eat, a couple burgers? Okay?" By the time he hung up, Del's face was running with sweat.
"Forty-one?" Lucas asked, grinning. "Who the fuck is forty-one?"
"Get off my ass, Davenport," Del said, collapsing in his chair. "I fuckin' did it, okay?"
"All right," Lucas said, turning serious. "Now what'll you talk about?"
"How the fuck 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 the downers. 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.