John Sandford - Silent Prey

A half-brick sat on the sidewalk, a remnant of concrete lapped over it like frosting on a piece of carrot cake.

It was a narrow street, the closest people a block away, not looking.

Bekker snatched the brick off the street, still running. The bum looked up, straightened, leaned away, astonished when Bekker hit him squarely in the chest. The bum pitched over the garbage can and went down into the alley, on his back. "Hey," he groaned.

Bekker hit him between the eyes with the brick, then hit him again. Hovered over him, growling like a pit bull, feeling his blood rising…

A siren, and another.

He stripped the hat and trench coat from the bum, pulled the trench coat over the purse, stripped off the wig, pulled the hat down low on his head. The bum blew a bubble of blood. Still alive. Bekker lurched back to the mouth of the alley, trying on the new persona, the mask of beggary…

Behind him, a gargling sound. He half turned; the bum was looking at him, one good eye peering brightly out of a ruined face. The bum was dying. Bekker recognized the gargle. Something cold, distant and academic spoke into his mind: cerebral hemorrhage, massive parietal fracture. And that eye, looking at him. The bum would die, and then he'd be back, watching… Bekker looked both ways, then hurried back to the bum. Pocketknife out, quick jabs; eyes gone. The bum moaned, but he was going anyway.

The brick was by the bum's head, and Bekker picked it up and jammed it in his pocket. Good weapon. A gun was too noisy. But he groped for the gun inside the bag and transferred it to the pocket.

Into the street. Six blocks. He saw a cop car go by, screech to a stop at the intersection, the cops looking both ways out the windows, then go on. The coat stunk: dried urine. The smell clogged his throat, and he imagined fleas crawling onto him. More sirens, cops flooding the neighborhood. Bekker hurried…

Turned onto Greene, tottering, a drunk, his shabby coat dragging on the pavement. A woman coming. Closer, same side. Bekker changed to the other side of the street. His vision wavered, changed tenses: Approaching Lacey building. Sirens in the distance, but fading. Woman goes to Lacey building door…

What…

The panic gripped him for a moment. Confused. What did she want? Blank-faced buildings looking down. Gumball drops. Red one, loading anger. They would do this to him, a man of talent. The woman was half turned toward him, head cocked.

A distant voice, in the back of his head: Bridget. Bridget Land. Come to visit…

He straightened, walked back across the street, away from her, and she put a key in the front-door lock and turned it, pushing the door open. Bridget Land, he'd forgotten about her… She must not know.

She pushed the door open, her shoulders rounded, aged, straining with the effort, then stepped up and inside. Bekker, caught by anger and opportunity, began moving. There was no space or time, it seemed, and he hit the door, smashed inside, and hit her.

He was fast, angel-dust fast, quicker than a linebacker, smacking her with the brick full in the face. She went down with a strange, harsh croak, like a wing-shot raven.

Bekker, indiscreet, beyond caring, slammed the door, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the stairs, and down.

He forgot the bum's clothes, and paid no attention to the woman, yipping like a chihuahua with a bone in its throat. He dragged her to the room, strapped her down. Her legs started to work now, twitching. He wired the silencer into her mouth, working like a dervish, hovering…

Buonocare, the banker, ran the photo tape through two more withdrawals. Bekker posed in all three, a startling feminine beauty coming through despite the rough quality of the tape.

"Jesus, I wish I looked that good," Buonocare said. "I wonder who does his hair."

"Gotta call Kennett," Fell said, reaching across the desk to pick up a phone.

"No." Lucas looked into her eyes, shook his head. "No."

"We've gotta…"

"Talk to me outside," Lucas said, voice low.

"What?"

"Outside." Lucas looked at Buonocare and said, "There's a security thing here, I'm sorry I can't tell you…"

Fell got her purse, Lucas his coat, and they half ran to the door. "Will I see it on the news?" Buonocare asked as she escorted them past a security guard to the front door.

"You'll probably be on the news, if this is him," Fell said as the guard let them out.

"Good luck, then. And see you on TV," Buonocare said. "I wish I could come…"

Outside, it had begun to rain, a warm, nasty mist. Lucas waved at a taxi, but it rolled by. Another ignored him.

Fell grabbed his elbow and said urgently, "What're you doing, Lucas? We've gotta call now…"

"No."

"Look: I want to be there too, but we don't have time. With this traffic…"

"What? Fifteen minutes? Fuck it, I want him," Lucas said.

"Lucas…" she wailed.

A cab pulled to the curb and Lucas hurried over, three seconds ahead of a woman who sprinted from a door farther up the street. He hopped in, leaving the door open. Fell was behind him, still in the street. "Get in."

"We gotta call…"

"There's more going on here than you know about," Lucas said. "I'm not Internal Affairs, but there's more going on."

Fell looked at him for a long beat, then said, "I knew it," and climbed in the cab. As the cab pulled away, the woman who'd run for it, back in the doorway, gave them the finger.

They inched silently uptown through the nightmare traffic, the rain growing heavier. Fell was tight-lipped, agitated. The cab dropped them on Houston, Lucas paid. A squad car rolled by, the cops looking carefully at Lucas before going on. They dodged into a convenience store, damp from the misty summer rain.

"All right," said Fell, fists on her hips. "Let's have it."

"I don't know what's going to happen, but it could be weird," he said. "I'm trying to catch Robin Hood. That's why they brought me here, from Minneapolis."

Her mouth dropped open. "Are you nuts?"

"No. You can either come along or you can take a hike, but I don't want you fuckin' this up," Lucas said.

"Well, I'll come," she said. "But Robin Hood? Tell me."

"Some other time. I gotta make a call of my own…"

Lily was with O'Dell, just coming off the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, ten minutes from Police Plaza.

"Have you heard?" she asked.

"What?"

"Bekker was spotted at Washington Square, but took off. This was around three o'clock. We've got people all over the place, but nothing since…"

"That sounds right, because I think we know where he is. Fell and me. And it's up in SoHo."

"What?" And he heard her say, "Lucas says he's got Bekker."

O'Dell's voice replaced Lily's. "Where are you?"

"We're at Citibank and we're stuck here. I think Bekker's holed up with an old lady in SoHo, but I'm not sure. I'm going up there to take a quick informal look around before I call in the troops. I just wanted Lily to know, in case something misfires…"

"Besides, if you called now and you're stuck downtown, Kennett would get all the credit for the bust," O'Dell said with his wet chuckle. "Is there any possibility that what you've done, whatever it is, has tipped off Bekker?"

"No. But it'll take us a while to get up there; it's raining here, and cabs are impossible."

"Yeah, it's raining here, too… Okay, go ahead. But take care. Just in case there's a problem, why don't you give me the address, and I'll get Lily to start a search warrant. That'll help explain the delay, why you didn't call it in."

"All right…" Lucas gave him the address, and Lily came on the line. "Careful," she said. "After your… look around… give us a ring. We'll have the backup waiting."