“What?” Now O’Dell was confused.

“The computer?”

“Tell me what’s going on . . . .”

“I want you to run Copland against Kennett.”

O’Dell stared, his thick lips going in and out as he did the calculations, a nursing motion, wet and unpleasant. “Oh, no,” he said. He turned, pulled himself across to the computer terminal, flicked a switch, waited until the computer booted up, entered a user name and password, and began the process.

The matching run took ten minutes. A double column of dates and times marched down the screen.

“All so many years ago,” O’Dell said tonelessly, reading down the list. “They must’ve been like father and son. Copland broke him in on the beat. Copland was a tough old bird. He busted more than a few heads in his day.”

“Kennett planted him on you. How long ago?”

O’Dell shrugged. “Five years now. He’s been driving me for five years. He must have a microphone arrangement in the car, or a bug—or maybe he just pulled out some sound insulation, so he could hear us talk. Every damn thing we said.” He looked at Lily. “How?”

“Lucas looked at everything, figured that Robin Hood was either you or Kennett . . . . He trusted my judgment that it wasn’t Kennett. At least, he said he trusted my judgment. And he likes Kennett.”

“I’m mildly flattered that he thought I could do it,” O’Dell said. “So you and Davenport set me up?”

“He suggested that I cover your phones, then plant some information with you and see what happened. Watch where it went. We hadn’t agreed on exactly what to do, we were going to talk about it tonight. Then this came up. When he called us with the Bekker thing, he wasn’t at Citibank. He was already watching Bekker’s place. He expected you to call somebody and maybe send somebody down, some Robin Hoods. And some showed up. But I’ve been with you . . . .”

O’Dell said, “Now what?”

The tears had started down her face again, but she seemed unaware of them. “What do you mean?”

He made a questioning gesture with his hands, palms up. At the same time, an oddly satisfied expression had settled on his face. “You seem to be running things for the time being. So what do we do?”

She looked at him for a moment, then said, “Call Carter, with Kennett’s group.”

“Yeah?”

“Tell him what’s happening with Bekker, but tell him to cut Kennett out of the loop.”

“What about you?”

“Don’t ask,” she said. She stood and wobbled toward the door of her own office. “Don’t fuckin’ ask, ’cause I don’t know.”

CHAPTER

29

Bekker crouched over Bridget Land, his scalpel in hand, frozen, humming . . . .

When the front door came down, he snapped back, looked down at himself, as though to make sure he was still there, and then at the woman on the table, the scalpel, the monitoring equipment. He heard the footsteps, then the shouts.

Too soon, they’d come too soon, when he was so close.

A tear ran down his cheek. His life had been like this, misunderstood, tormented, unappreciated. Bridget Land, still alive, but hurt, strained away from him, silently . . . .

To do one more would only take minutes, he thought. If he could hold himself together, if they didn’t come down too soon.

But Davenport was coming. The gun. He turned, the scalpel in front of his face. The gun was in the other room.

Two impulses fought for control. One propelled him toward the gun, for Davenport; the other told him to finish with Land. Maybe Land would be the transcendent one . . . .

“Don’t shoot me in the ass,” Lucas said.

He edged up the stairs, Fell two steps behind. Her face was pale, determined, her pistol at Lucas’ waist and to the left.

“Just don’t roll left,” she said.

“Uh-uh . . .”

The smell of marijuana was steeping from the walls, and something else. Lucas sniffed, frowned. Cat urine? And the marijuana odor was years old, not Bekker. In any case, Bekker wasn’t much interested in the weed.

At the corner, the first landing, Lucas could see the second-floor door standing partly open, hear Fell breathing below and beside him, smell her faint scent under the odors of the grass and cat piss . . . .

He moved up slowly, across a landing, back against the wall. With the tip of his .45, he pushed the door open. A hall led away, past a closet door, into a living room; he could see the left edge of a television screen. There was no movement, no sound. And the room lacked the peculiar spatial tension of a person in hiding. It felt clear.

“Going in,” he whispered.

He stepped past the open doorway to another flight of stairs, the second flight stacked with cardboard cartons, the cartons grimy with years of dust and flaking paint.

“Move,” he whispered to Fell. She nodded and eased past him, leveled her gun through the door.

“Go,” she whispered back. Lucas crouched, took a breath, then scuttled through the open door on his hands and knees, one hand pushing, his gun extended toward the living room arch, searching for movement, for an anomaly . . . . Nothing.

He stood, held up a hand cautioning her, did a quick head-juke to scan the living room again, then went in. When he was sure it was clear, he waved her in. They checked a sitting room and a dining room; found a pair of glasses lying beside the couch, thick lenses, bifocals. Old-lady glasses. Checked the closets, groped through them. Nothing.

The kitchen was small, smelled of boiled beets, boiled cabbage, boiled carrots, porridge. A pool of water shimmered below the refrigerator. Fell squatted next to it, then looked up at the refrigerator. The main door wasn’t quite closed, and water dripped from the bottom of it. She pointed, then put her finger to her lips.

Lucas, standing beside her, reached out, took the door handle. Nodded. Jerked it open.

“Aw, shit,” Fell said, lurching away from the refrigerator.

Mrs. Lacey hadn’t fit that well, but Bekker had managed to crush her into the limited space. Her head lay at right angles across her shoulders, and the light behind her head glowed like a perverse advertisement. Her eyes were bloody holes. A dozen cans of Coke were carefully stacked around her body, one jammed between her twisted arms and her chest. Two dead cats were stuffed in a plastic meat compartment, their tails trailing out.

“Jesus. Jesus.” Lucas backed away. “Let’s go up the next one, but make it quick.”

“You think he’s up there?” Fell asked doubtfully. She was staring at the refrigerator, her throat working.

“No. If he’s in the building, he’s down—I don’t feel anything up here.”

“Air’s too quiet,” Fell said. “C’mon, you cover me . . . .”

She went ahead for the next flight, climbing past the cartons, through the dust. At the top, they found three bedrooms and an old-fashioned bath. They checked the closets, the shower, under the beds. Nobody home.

“Down,” Lucas said.

“How about the roof?”

“We’ll send a couple of guys up—but Bekker would look for a hole, not a perch.”

Six cops were spread through the first floor, all looking up apprehensively when Lucas and Fell hurried down the stairs.

“He killed an old woman and stuffed her body in the refrigerator,” Lucas told the patrol sergeant, flicking a thumb at the stairs. The two Robin Hoods watched silently from the radiator, their hands still looped through the cuffs. “We went through both floors, nobody home. Send a couple of good people up, see if they can find the roof access. We didn’t check that. Tell them to be careful. He’s got a gun.”

“I’ll go myself . . . .”

“No. You stay here. You’ve got enough rank to keep these assholes cuffed up,” Lucas said, nodding at Clemson and Jeese. “There’ll be more people coming soon, just hang on. We’re gonna do the basement . . . .”