He'd done an angel before he came, part of his emergency stash. Strong stuff; it freed his power…
The derringer was in his hand.
The door opened and Whitechurch stepped out, and jumped, startled, when he saw Bekker.
"What…"
"We've got to talk," Bekker whispered. "There's more to this than I thought…"
He looked past Whitechurch to an empty tile-walled corridor. "Back inside, just a few minutes. I feel obligated to tell you about this."
Whitechurch nodded and turned, leading the way. "Did you bring the cash?"
"Yes." He held out the cash envelope and Whitechurch took it. "Have you got the product?"
"Yeah." Whitechurch turned as the metal fire door closed behind them. The corridor lights weren't strong, but they were unforgiving blue fluorescents.
Whitechurch had a plastic baggie in his hand and half stepped toward Bekker when he said, "You're…" He stopped, catching his tongue, and began to back away.
"The fruitcake killer," Bekker said, smiling. "Just like on I've Got a Secret. You remember that show? Garry Moore, I think."
Whitechurch's head snapped around, looking for room, then turned back to Bekker, but already his body was moving, trying to run.
"Listen," he said, half over his shoulder.
"No." Bekker leveled the gun at Whitechurch's broad back and Whitechurch shouted, "No way," and Bekker shot him in the spine between the shoulder blades. The muzzle blast was deafening, and Whitechurch pitched forward, tried to catch himself on the slick tile walls, bounced and turned. Bekker pointed the pistol at him, from two feet.
"No way…"
Bekker pulled the trigger again, firing into Whitechurch's forehead. Then he pushed the gun into his pocket, hurrying, took out a scalpel, stooped, and ruined Whitechurch's dead eyes. Good.
Down the hall, a door banged open. "Hey." Somebody yelling.
Bekker looked down the corridor: empty. He grabbed the baggie full of pills, stood, remembered the money, saw it half trapped under Whitechurch. Down the hall, the door banged open again and Bekker jerked at the money envelope. The envelope ripped, but he got most of it, just a bill or two still trapped under the body.
"Hey…" He looked back as he went through the door, but there was nothing in the corridor but the voice. Outside, he gathered himself and hurried, but didn't run, down the alley, turning left on the sidewalk to the parking ramp. He went inside to the stairs, heard footsteps behind, and half turned.
A young woman was hurrying after him. He started up the steps and she caught up with him, a few steps behind. "Wait up…" Breathless. "I hate to go up here alone. If there were somebody… You know."
"Yes." The woman was worried about being attacked. There was only one open entrance to the ramp, but anyone could get in over the low walls. Judging from the graffiti spray-painted on the concrete walls, several people had.
"God, what a day," the woman said. "I hate to work when it's so nice outside, I never see anything but computer terminals."
Bekker nodded again, not trusting his voice. If he'd had the time, he could have taken her. She'd have been perfect: young, apparently intelligent. A natural observer. Might possibly understand the privilege she was being given. He could take her, he thought. Right now. Hit her in the head…
Behind her, he balled his hand into a fist, and he thought, Or the gun. I could use the gun. He felt the weight of the gun in his pocket. Empty now, but a threat…
But if he hurt her, struck her, had to fight, if she was less than a perfect specimen… his results would be impeachable. People were watching him, people who hated him, who would do anything to impeach his results. He fell back a step, his heart beating like a drum.
"See you," she said, one half-level below his car. She looked out on the open floor before she went through the door. "Nobody here… makes you feel a little stupid, doesn't it?"
He could, but… wait. No improvisation. Remember the last time… Easy, easy, there are plenty of them.
Bekker lifted a hand and risked it: "Good-bye," he said, in his careful voice.
He had to get one. Had to. He didn't realize, until he saw the woman get in the car and lock the doors, how strong the need was now.
He rolled out of the ramp, straight down the street; there was some commotion in the emergency entrance alley, but he didn't stop to look. Instead, he went straight back to his apartment, almost frantic now, and got out his collector's bag: the stun gun and the anesthetic tank and mask. He flicked the stun gun once, checked the discharge level. Fine. And dug through the bag he'd taken from Whitechurch: just a taste. He snapped one of the angels between his teeth, thinking to take a half, but a half wouldn't do, and he took a whole, waiting for the power to come.
Cruising, thinking: Infrared. Ultraviolet. Breakthrough.
He knew this bar…
Later. He saw the woman slouch out of the back of the bar, lean against the brick exterior, and light a cigarette with what looked like an old-fashioned Zippo. Not many men around, lots of women coming and going, many of them alone. Easy targets.
The woman was leaning against the outside wall, wearing jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt, with a wide leather belt. She had short black hair, with gold hoop earrings.
Bekker came up, stepping carefully around the Volkswagen as though he didn't own it. Not too aggressive. Stun gun in his hand, tank under his arm, hand on mask.
"Terrific night," he said to the woman.
She smiled. "You're looking pretty good," she said.
Bekker smiled back and stopped next to the nose of the Volkswagen.
Come to the gingerbread house, little girl…
CHAPTER
13
"What's wrong?" Lily asked.
Kennett rolled toward her and put an arm under her head. "I feel like an invalid when we do that. I mean, nothing but that."
The forward double berth was wedge-shaped, shoved into the bow of the boat. Kennett was lying on his side. He reached toward her face in the near-darkness, touched her at the hairline with the pad of his index finger, drew it down her nose, gently over her lips, between her breasts, then up to gently tap each nipple, then down around her navel, over her hipbone and down the inside of her thigh to her knee. She was still warm, sweating.
"We're not… compelled… to do it," Lily said.
"Maybe you're not, but I am," Kennett grumbled. "If I couldn't make love anymore, I'd feel like a goddamn vegetable."
"You just wanna be on top," she said, trying to make a joke out of it. When he didn't respond, she said, "You've got to listen to Fermut."
"Fuckin' doctors…" Fermut, the cardiologist, had reluctantly agreed that Kennett could resume his sex life "as long as your partner does the hard work."
"Listen to him," Lily said, gently but urgently. "He's trying to save your life, you dope."
"Yeah." Kennett turned his head away from her, his hand scratching at his chest.
"You want a cigarette, right?"
"No, that's not it. I was just thinking… it's not the doctors. It's me. When I get turned on and my heart starts thumping, I start listening to it…"
"Then we oughta quit. Maybe only for a few weeks…" Lily said.
"No. That'd be worse. It's just… Christ, I wish one thing-just one goddamn thing in this world-was simple. Just one thing. I gotta get laid, but if I get laid, I can't help thinking about my heart, and that can mess up getting laid. Then with you on top all the time, and me just laying there like a dead man with a hard-on, I start thinking, what's it like for her? It must be like necrophilia, screwing me."
"Richard, you idiot…"
"Christ, I'm glad I met you," he said after a while. "I couldn't believe you were in there, working for O'Dell. I kept thinking, she can't be just working for him, a woman like that, there's gotta be something else going on here."
"Oh, God…" Lily giggled, an odd, pleasant sound with her husky voice.
"Sorry 'bout that," Kennett said, touching her again. "I wonder what O'Dell does for sex? Fly out to Vegas and get a couple-three fat ones in the sack? I wonder how long it's been since he's seen his dick? He's so fat I don't think he can even reach it anymore…"