Koop groaned with the heat of it. He nearly couldn't bear to watch it. Absolutely couldn't bear to take his eyes away.
Lucas swallowed, glanced back at Connell. She wasn't getting any of this. She simply sat, staring sightlessly at a cupboard. He looked back at Jensen, on the bed. Jensen's eyes had flicked toward him once, and he thought he saw the thinnest crease of a smile. Jesus. He began to feel what Koop did, the physical pull of the woman. She gave off some kind of weird Italianate hormone-cooking vibrations. Where'd she'd get the name Jensen? Had to be a married name; whatever was bubbling out of the woman on the bed, it wasn't Scandinavian.
Lucas swallowed again.
If there was such a thing as a politically correct cop manual, this would be specifically outlawed. But Lucas had no objection: if this didn't do it to Koop, nothing would.
Sara got out of bed again, robe open, went into the bathroom, closed the door. When she did this, she usually stayed awhile.
Koop dropped back behind the ventilator duct, tried to light a cigarette. Found that the cigarette was damp, realized that he was soaked with sweat.
He couldn't do this. He had the hard-on of a lifetime. He found his knife, pushed the button. The blade sprang out like a serpent's tongue.
Time to go.
"He's down," Del said. "Holy shit, he's down. He's walking across the roof, he's through the door…"
"Greave, you hear that? It's on you, man," Lucas said.
"We got it," Greave said.
Lucas stepped into the bedroom. "Sara. Time to go."
Jensen came out of the bathroom, the robe tied tight. "He's coming?"
"Maybe. He's off the roof, anyway," Lucas said. She felt vulnerable, intimate; he'd seen the show too. "Get your slippers."
Jensen got her slippers, a bundle of clothes, and her purse, and then they waited, waited, Jensen standing next to Lucas. He felt protective, sort of big-brotherly. Sort of…
"He's out the door," Greave called. "He's crossing the street."
"I'm coming down," Del said.
Greave: "He's got a key for that one, too, he's coming in, he's in the building…"
"He's coming," Lucas said to Jensen. "Go."
Jensen left, running down the hall in her robe, with her purse and clothes, like a kid on her way to a slumber party. Connell, on her feet, moved back to the living room, still with the dreamy look in her eyes, the gun in her hand.
Lucas went with her, caught her arm. "I don't want any dumb-shit stuff. You've got a weird look about you. If you pull the trigger on the guy, you're just as likely to hit Del or Sloan. They'll be coming in a hurry."
She looked up at him and said, "'Kay."
"Look, I fuckin' mean it," he said harshly. "This is no time…"
"I'm fine," she said. "It's just that I've been waiting a long time for this. Now we got him. I'm still alive for it."
Worried, Lucas left her and moved into the kitchen.
As soon as Koop opened the door, Lucas would hit it with his body weight. The unexpected impact should blow Koop back into the hallway. Del and Sloan would be coming, and Lucas would jerk the door open, be right on top of the guy. Greave and the other two would be on the stairs, coming up…
They had him sewn up. They might already have enough for a trial, just with the entry across the street and the peeping.
But if he cracked Jensen's door, they had him for everything. If he just cracked it…
Koop went quickly through the building straight to the stairs, pulled open the door and into the stairwell. Before the door shut completely, he thought he heard a flap-click.
What? He froze, listening. Nothing. Nothing at all. He started up, silently, listening at each landing, then padding up another.
"He's taking the stairs," Greave called. "He's not in the elevators. He's on the stairs."
"Got it," said Lucas. "Del?"
"I'm set."
"Sloan?"
"Ready."
Koop wound around the concrete stairs. What had that been, the flap-click? Like somebody running in the stairwell, a footfall and a door closing. Whatever it was, it had come from high in the building. Maybe even Jensen's floor. Koop got to the top, reached toward the door to the hall. And stopped. Flap-click?
There was one more flight of stairs above him, going to the roof of Jensen's building. Was he in a hurry? Not that much, he thought. Cat burglar: move slow…
He climbed the last flight, used his key-Sara's key-to let himself out on the roof. Nice night. Soft stars, high humidity, a little residual warmth from the day. He walked silently to the edge of the roof. Jensen's apartment would be the third balcony from the end.
At the edge of the roof, he looked over. Jensen's balcony was twelve feet below him. A four-foot drop, if he hung from the edge. Nothing at all. Unless he missed-then it was a forever and a day down to the street. But he couldn't miss. The balcony was six feet wide and fifteen feet long.
He looked across the street, at the apartment building where'd he'd spent some many good nights. There were lights, but only a few windows with the drapes undrawn, and nobody in those.
Twelve feet. Flap-click.
"Where'n the fuck is he?" Del asked from his closet. "Greave? You see him?"
"Must be on the stairs," Greave said. "You want me to go up?"
"No-no, stay put," Lucas said.
Connell was listening to the conversation through her earplug, and almost missed the light-footed whop fifteen feet away. With Lucas's "No-no," in her ear, she didn't even know where it came from, didn't think about it much, looked to her right…
Koop landed in front of the open balcony door, softly, both feet at once, absorbing the shock with his knees. The first thing he saw, there in the fishbowl, was the blonde with the pistol beside her face, one hand to her head, pressed against the wall, waiting for the hallway door to open.
Koop didn't need to think about it. He knew. And he had no way out. The rage was there, ready, and it blew out.
Koop screamed and charged the woman on the wall…
Connell saw him coming when he was ten feet away, had less than a half second to react. The scream froze her, the words in her ear scrambled her, and then Koop hit her, an open-handed blow to the side of her head. The blow knocked her down, stunned her, and then he was on top of her and there was blood in her mouth and the pistol was gone.
Lucas heard the scream and turned and saw Koop hurtle past the archway to the living room wall, and he screamed "He's here, he's here" into the headset and he ran toward the living room, where Koop and Connell were in a pile. Her pistol skittered across the rug and disappeared half under a couch. Koop's back was toward him, rolling over on Connell. Lucas couldn't use the pistol, not with Connell there; instead he raised it over his head and swung it at the back of Koop's head. Koop felt it coming: he cranked his body half around, one eye finding Lucas, the blow already on the way. Koop had time to bunch his shoulder and flinch, and the barrel hit him on the big muscle of his shoulder and Koop somehow found his feet and was coming at Lucas.
This was no boxing match. Koop launched himself straight up, came straight in, and Lucas hit him hard with a roundhouse left, but Koop blew through it as though he'd been hit with a marshmallow and his arms wrapped around Lucas's ribs.
Lucas and Koop staggered backward, together, wrapped up like drunken dancers, banging around inside the small kitchen, the pressure from Koop's arms like a machine-press around Lucas's chest, crushing him. Lucas slapped him on the side of the head with the pistol, but couldn't get a good swing. Feeling as though his spine might break, he finally pressed the pistol to Koop's ear and pulled the trigger, the slug going up through the ceiling.
The noise of the explosion an inch from his ear blew Koop's head back, stunned him like the blows hadn't. Lucas caught a breath, but a bad one: pain lanced through his chest, as though a bone were being pulled loose. Broken ribs. He caught the breath and hammered Koop once in the face, and then Koop stepped back and caught Lucas in the ribs with a short roundhouse. Lucas felt the ribs go, felt himself bounced by the blow, helplessly pulled his elbows in. He took one blow there, slapped the pistol weakly at Koop's face, cutting him, not breaking him, and Koop was crushing him again, Lucas wiggling, trying to hit, both of them crashing back and forth across the kitchen. Lucas could hear the beating on the outer door, people shouting, strained to look that way, Koop crushing him, crushing…