Lucas stood out of sight, heard the Intelligence guy ask the question, heard Bekker say, "No… ah, Mr. Druze?" A moment later the phone rang. Worried that Bekker might arrive and yet develop cold feet, they'd worked out the diversion of the telephone, with Sloan calling from a back room. If Bekker could hear the receptionist talking, he'd be encouraged to act.
The Rose Chapel was small, with fifteen dark wooden chairs facing the coffin. The plaster walls were a pale shade of rose; the woodwork an antique cream. A closed pair of double doors was straight ahead of Bekker, apparently leading to the depths of the funeral home; they were sized to take a coffin on a gurney.
The coffin itself was to Bekker's right, on a dais within a plaster alcove. Roses were molded into the plaster, and individually hand-painted. The dais was covered with a rose-colored drape, a deeper shade than the walls. Bekker could see the side of Druze's head and his heavy shoulders under a dark suit.
Beauty was pushing through now, anxious for the celebration, moving him. He could hear the receptionist talking, faintly, far away, and he moved to the front. His hand went to his pocket, found the scalpel. He pulled the tube off the end and moved next to the coffin.
Druze's head was large, he thought. Not just a pumpkin, but a big pumpkin. His face had been liberally worked with makeup, so the patchwork of skin grafts was barely visible. The nose, of course… not much you could do about that. He frowned. Too bad. Druze actually had been something of a friend. A man you could talk to. But he had to go; Bekker had known that from the beginning. Murder was something you didn't share, except with the dead.
Lucas pressed his eye to the hole in the double doors. He couldn't see Bekker as he came in, couldn't see his beautiful face as he went by. Bekker paused, just for a moment, in front of the coffin, looking down. Lucas could hear the receptionist muttering in the hall, and then, suddenly, Bekker was on Druze, bending over, the hand out of sight, but working over him…
Bekker glanced back over his shoulder, then reached across Druze's face with his left hand and lifted his eyelid. The eye beneath was intact, but dull, dry, a piece of leather, staring sightlessly and unflinchingly at the ceiling. His heart pounding, the pressure in his veins, the murmur of the receptionist's conversation providing him with the necessary security, Bekker plunged the point of the scalpel into Druze's eyeball, and then turned the handle, like a corkscrew. He felt some of the weight leave him, a pressure gone from his shoulders.
Quickly, quickly, his mouth open, panting, he did the second eye, looking over his shoulder, twisting the knife…
And he was free. He felt it, almost as if he were being lifted from the floor. He did a little step, Beauty coming on, and looked back at Druze.
The eyelids were open, wrinkled and pulled up, like fragments of dead leaves. His heart beating hard and with joy, Beauty reached out to smooth them down, round them carefully, the scalpel still in his hand. He stepped back.
"Cut his eyes, Mike?"
The voice broke on him like a bucket of ice water, crashing down, snatching his breath away, each word hurting, a sharp stone: CUT HIS EYES, MIKE?
Bekker whirled, the scalpel still in his right hand.
Davenport was there, leaning in the double doors, wearing a dark leather jacket, a pistol in his hands, pointed not at Bekker but to one side. He looked wired, his eyes wide, his hair dirty, his face unshaven. A thug. Another man came in from the left, and then a third, Stephanie's dope-addict cousin, Del. The receptionist was behind them.
"… 'Cause if you cut his eyes, Mike, we got you for the kids, too. We just dug them up today and the medical examiner says they were done with a knife just like that one, a scalpel. Is that a scalpel, Mike?"
Bekker stood speechless, the words bouncing through his brain, GOT YOU FOR THE KIDS, TOO, and Davenport moved in on him. One of the other cops, a thin man, said, "Be cool," but Bekker had no idea what that meant.
Lucas moved in on him, the pistol in his hand. Bekker was startlingly beautiful in the soft light coming off the rose plaster, a violent contrast to the leathery patchwork face of the man behind him.
Lucas' mind was pure ice: he could do anything when his mind was like this, he thought. Some of it was the speed. He'd been up three days now, but felt awake and in control, sharp, as sharp as he ever had. He reached Bekker, brushed past him, ignoring the scalpel, stretched past him, lifted Druze's eyelids with his left hand, just as Bekker had. Bekker turned away.
Lucas, ice, stepped away from the coffin and glanced at Sloan.
"Cut them right through. Want to take a look?"
Lucas was crowding Bekker with his hip, and Bekker tried to move back, letting the scalpel slip from his fingers as he moved. It bounced off the deep carpet, the blade pointing at him like a steel finger.
"Got them both-really did a job," Sloan said, bending over Druze's body.
"What I want to know," Lucas said to Bekker in a conversational tone, "is why you killed Cassie Lasch. Why'd you have to do that? Couldn't you just have done Druze? Just gone in there, stuck the gun in his ear and pulled the trigger? You could have stashed the photos anyway and we'd have gotten the point…"
Bekker's mouth was open, but no sound came out.
"I need an answer," Lucas said.
"Cool," said Sloan, catching his coat sleeve.
"Fuck cool," said Del, moving up on the other side of Bekker. He put his face four inches from the other man and said, "I knew Stephanie longer than you did, Mike. Loved that girl. So you know what?"
Bekker, caught between Lucas and Del, shrinking back against the wall, still didn't answer.
"You know what?" Del screamed, his eyes wide.
"Hey, now," said the Intelligence cop. He had Del by the coat.
"What?" Bekker croaked, half under his breath.
"I'm going to beat the snot out of you, m'boy," Del said. His right hand came around in an arc and hit Bekker in the nose. Bekker slammed against the wall, his nose broken, blood gushing down his chin. He put his arms up, crossed his face.
"Wait," Sloan yelled. He tried to step around Lucas, but Lucas pushed him; and before Sloan could recover, Del hit Bekker twice more, once with each hand, evading Bekker's feeble block. Bekker's head snapped back twice more, the back of it knocking the wall like a judge's gavel, and another cut opened on his eyebrow. The Intelligence cop was on Del's back, and Sloan wrapped him from the front and pushed him away. Bekker was moaning, one hand cupping his nose, a high, dying sound: "Eeeee…"
"That's enough, that's enough!" Sloan screamed. They hauled Del back, and Bekker dropped one of his covering hands.
"No, it's not," Lucas said quietly. He was less than an arm's length from Bekker. Sloan and the Intelligence cop were struggling with Del but looking toward Lucas.
The pistol came around like a whip, the front sight leading the arc.
" 'Member Cassie, motherfucker?" Lucas said, the words as much a groan as a scream. Saliva sprayed into Bekker's face, and Lucas had him by the throat with his left hand. Bekker had time only to flinch before the sight sliced across his cheek and the side of his nose. A ragged furrow opened in its wake. Bekker grunted from the impact, a pain like fire ripping through his face.
Lucas, precise, quick, moving with the easy coordination of a speed-bag man, hit Bekker with the gun a dozen times, leading with the sight.
Ripped his forehead, twice, three times, opened his eyebrows, carved bloody canyons across his nose, the left cheek, then the right, sliced through his lips, his hands a blur…
Sloan hit Lucas in the back, wrapped up one arm. Lucas flailed with the pistol, a last wild swing ripping across Becker's chin, opening the flesh as effectively as a chainsaw.
Lucas, mind blank, focused, could barely feel Sloan's arms binding him, barely feel the Intelligence cop sweeping him off his feet, barely feel the uniforms barreling into the room, pinning him.