In the bedroom, he looked under the bed and found a rowing machine and dust bunnies the size of wolverines; and in the bedstand drawer, where he found a Colt Lawman with a two-inch barrel, chambered for .38 Specials. Swung out the cylinder: six loaded chambers. He snapped the cylinder back, replaced the weapon as he’d found it.

Looked through the chest of drawers. Bundles of letters and postcards in the top drawer, with cheap jewelry and a sealed box of lubricated Trojans. He looked through the letters, hurrying.

Dear Barb, Just back from New Hampshire, and you should have come! We had the best time!

Dear Barb: Quick note. I’ll be back the 23rd, if everything goes right. Tried to call, but couldn’t get you, they said you were out, and I was afraid to wake you during the day. I really need to see you. I think about you all the time. I can’t stop. Anyway, see you on the 23rd. Jack.

The letter was in an envelope, and he checked the postmark: four years old. He made a mental note: Jack.

Not much else. He pulled out the drawers. Ah. More paper. Polaroid photos. Barbara Fell, sitting on a man’s lap, both holding up bottles of beer. They were naked. She was thin, with small breasts and dark nipples.

He was as thin as she, but muscular, dark-haired, and looked at the camera with a practiced lack of self-consciousness. Another shot: the two of them sitting on what looked like a zebra-skin rug, both nude, their eyes red pinpoints. In the background, a mirror, with a brilliant flash reflecting back at the camera. The camera in the mirror was on a tripod, unattended. No third person. The expression on her face . . . Fear? Excitement? Trepidation?

Another photo, the two of them clothed, standing outside what looked like a police station. A cop? He went back to his briefcase, got the Polaroid out, clipped on the close-up attachment, knelt, and duplicated the photos.

There was nothing else in the bedroom. The bathroom was odorless, freshly scrubbed, but the vanity countertop was a jumble of lipsticks, shampoos, soap, deodorant, a box of something called YeastGard, panty shields, a pack of needles, tweezers, a huge box of Band-Aids and a bottle of sesame body oil. The medicine cabinet held a small selection of over-the-counter items: aspirin, Mycitracin, Nuprin.

He headed for the office.

She was meticulous about her accounts, and everything seemed about right: she had one bank account, a safety-deposit box, and an account with Fidelity Investments, which turned out to be an IRA.

And where was her book? He shuffled through the desk drawers. She must have a personal phone book. She probably carried an annual one with her, but she should have some sort of book she kept at home, that she wouldn’t be changing every year. He frowned. Nothing in the desk. He walked out to the front room and looked around the telephone. Nothing there. The phone had a long cord, and he walked over to the pile of magazines on the television table, stirred through them. The book was there, and he flipped it open. Names. Dozens of them. He got the Polaroid and began shooting. When he finished, he’d used all but two shots.

Enough. He looked around, checked the lights and backtracked out of the apartment. The guard was staring stoically at a blank marble wall when Lucas left, and never looked up. The guard’s job was to keep people out, not keep people in.

• • •

Kennett and another detective were looking at paper, while a third cop talked on a telephone.

“Barbara’s down the hall,” Kennett said, looking up when Lucas walked in. “We got you an empty office so you can have a little peace . . . .”

“Thanks,” Lucas said.

Fell was sorting through a stack of manila files. He stopped in the doorway, watched her for a moment. She was focused, intent. Attractive. The nude photos popped up in his mind’s eye: she looked smaller in the photos, more vulnerable, less vivid. She began paging through a file. After a moment, she felt him in the door, looked up, startled: “Jesus, I didn’t hear you,” she said.

He stepped inside, walked around the table. Picked up a file: “Robert Garber, 7/12.” “Is this everything?”

“Yeah. I’ve been reading through it. A zillion details,” she said. She brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “The problem is, we don’t need any of it. We know who Bekker is and what he looks like, and he admits in these crazy medical papers that he did the killings. All we have to do is find him; we don’t need all the usual shit.”

“There must be something . . . .”

“I’ll be goddamned if I can see it,” Fell said. “The other guys made a list, like the stuff you were talking about at the meeting this morning. He needs an income. He needs a place to hide. He needs a vehicle. He needs to change his face. So they’ve put out the publicity to employers: watch who you’re paying. They’ve contacted all the hotels and flophouses and anyplace else he might stay. They’re talking with the taxi companies, thinking maybe he’s moving around in the cab—that would explain how he gases them, using the backseat as a gas chamber. They’ve gone to all the stores that sell cover-up makeup for people who are disfigured, and every place that sells theatrical makeup. The narcotics guys are talking to dealers, and we’re chasing fences. What else is there?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not enough,” Lucas said. He flipped his hand at the stack of paper. “Let’s look at the victims first . . . .”

They spent an hour at it. Bekker had killed six people in Manhattan, their bodies found scattered around Midtown, the Village, SoHo and Little Italy. Working on the theory he wouldn’t take them far, he was probably south of Central Park, north of the financial district. The zip codes on the envelopes he’d mailed to the medical journals suggested the same thing: three papers, three different zips: 10002, 10003 and 10013.

“He uses halothane?”

“That’s what they assume,” Fell said, nodding. “They found traces in three people when they were doing the blood chemistry. And that supposedly accounts for the lack of any sign of a struggle. The stuff is quick. Like one-two-three-gone.”

“Where did he get it?”

“Don’t know yet—we’ve run all the hospitals in Manhattan, northern Jersey, Connecticut. Nothing yet, but you know, nobody tracks exact amounts of the stuff. You could transfer some from one tank to another. If the tank wasn’t gone, how could you tell?”

“Nnn. Okay. But how does he get close enough to whip it on them?” Lucas got up and went out into the hallway, came back with a cone-shaped throwaway water cup. “Stand up.”

She stood up. “What?”

He thrust the cup at her face. “If I come at you like this, from the front, I can’t get the leverage.”

Fell stepped back and the cup came free.

“Even if they got some gas, they could get far enough back to scream,” he said.

“We don’t know that they didn’t scream,” said Fell.

“Nobody heard anything.”

She nodded. “So if he hits them on the street, he must come up from the back.”

“Yeah. He grabs them, pulls them in, claps it over their mouth . . .” He turned her around, clapped the cup over her mouth, his elbow in her spine, his hand hooked over her shoulder. “One, two, three . . . Gone.”

“Do it again,” she said.

He did it again, but this time, she grabbed his wrist and twisted. The paper cup crumbled and her mouth was open. “Scream,” she said. He let go and she said, “That doesn’t work too well, either.”

“This woman . . . Ellen Foen.” Lucas picked up the file, flipped it open. “Statements from her friends say she was very cautious. She’d had some trouble with street people—they hang out in the alley behind the place she worked, going through the dumpsters. She could look out through the glass port in the door while it was still locked, and she always checked before she went out. So if Bekker was there, she must have seen him.”