“Take it easy, then,” the sergeant said, still uneasy, looking at the two sullen cops chained to the radiator.

The stairs were clean; they looked used. Lucas edged down, taking it easy, leading with the .45, while Fell crouched at the top, focused on the corner at the bottom. If Bekker came around, she would see him before Lucas. But as Lucas reached the corner, her firing line was cut off and he held up a hand to caution her.

Crouching on the bottom step, he did a head-juke around the corner, a one-eyed peek at waist level. A short concrete-floored hallway ended at a green wooden door. A bare bulb hung in the hall above the door. He groped around the corner for the switch, found it, flicked it on.

He stood and crooked two fingers at Fell and she padded down the stairs. “Get that sledgehammer and bring back somebody who knows how to throw it.”

Fell nodded. “Be right back,” she whispered.

Lucas waited by the door, the gun pointed at the knob. If Bekker was in the basement, and alive, he’d know the cops had arrived. But if he was waiting with a gun, it was critical that he not know the instant that the door would come down . . . .

Fell came back down the stairs with the sergeant and the sledge.

“We got an entry team coming,” the sergeant whispered urgently. “They got the armor . . . .”

Lucas shook his head. “Fuck it. I’m taking him . . . .”

“Listen, these guys can take him, no problem . . . .”

“I’m going,” Lucas said. He looked at Fell. “What about you?”

“I’ll cover, or go in, whatever . . . .”

“God damn it, you’re gonna get our asses shot,” the sergeant whispered.

“Give me the sledge,” Lucas said.

“Listen to me.”

“Give me the fuckin’ sledge . . . .”

“Ahhh, shit . . .” The sergeant shook his head and hefted the hammer. “I’ll swing it, you assholes back me up. I’m going to hit that fucker once, and then I’m on the floor.”

“Let’s do it,” said Fell.

Bekker wandered through the murky basement, trying to remember why he was going to the couch. A song went through his head:

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. . . .

Sung at a funeral, sometime, way back, he could remember a bronze coffin that sat higher than his head and the choir singing. It was all very sharp, as though he’d just stepped into the picture . . . .

A spider brushed his cheek, tickling, and Bekker snapped out of the funeral picture. Something thumped overhead. That was it. The noise. He had to go to the couch because of the noise overhead.

The couch had been pushed out from the wall, and he stepped behind it and sat down on the rug. The gun was waiting, cheap chrome steel. Loaded. Two shots. He picked it up. Said, Hello, put it in his mouth, sat, like a man with his pipe, then took it out and looked down the barrel.

Hello . . .

His finger tightened, he felt the pressure of the trigger, took up the slack . . . and his mind cleared. Clear as a lake. He saw himself, huddled in the corner of the basement. Saw Davenport come in. Saw himself, hands crossed over his chest, shoulders pulled in, head down.

Saw Davenport coming closer, screaming at him; saw himself rocking back and forth on his heels. Felt the pistol in the bottom hand on his chest, concealed. Saw Davenport reaching out to him, ordering him to turn; Davenport unaware, unknowing, unthinking. Saw himself reach out with the derringer, press it to Davenport’s heart, and the explosion and Davenport’s face . . .

The sergeant looked at Lucas, raised an eyebrow. Ready? Lucas nodded. The sergeant took a breath, raised the hammer overhead, paused, then brought it crashing down. The door flew inward, and the sergeant hit the ground. There was no immediate fire from the dark room, and he scrambled back past Fell to the stairs, groping for his gun.

“Too fuckin’ old for this shit,” he said.

Lucas, focused on the room, said, “Flashlights.”

“What?”

“Get some flashlights . . . .”

With quick peeks around the corner, they established that the interior of the basement wasn’t quite dark. A light was on somewhere, but seemed to be partially blocked, as though the thin illumination were seeping through a crack in the door, or coming from a child’s night-light. Lucas and Fell, looking over the sights of their weapons, could see the blocky shapes of furniture, a rectangle that might be a bookcase.

“Got ’em,” the sergeant said.

“Poke them around the corner, hit the interior, about head high. Keep your hand back if you can. Tell me when you’re going, I’ll shoot at a muzzle flash,” Lucas said. He looked at Fell, saw that she was sweating, and grinned at her. “Life in the big city.”

The cop nodded. “Ready?”

“Anytime.”

“Now.”

The cop thrust the light around the corner, and Lucas, four feet below, followed with the muzzle of his gun, and his arm, and one eye. No movement. The sergeant leaned a bit into the hallway, played the light around the interior.

“I’m going,” said Lucas.

“Go,” said Fell.

Lucas scrambled across the floor to the apartment door, then, flat on the floor, eased his head and shoulders through the door, reached up, flicked a light switch. A single bulb came on. Nothing moving. He crouched, and Fell eased down the hall.

“What’s that?” she whispered.

Lucas listened.

Jesus loves me . . .

Not a child’s voice. But not an adult’s, either—nothing human, he thought. Something from a movie, a special effect, weird, chilling.

For the Bible tells me so. . . .

“Bekker,” Lucas whispered. “Over there, I think . . .”

He was inside the apartment, duckwalking, the .45 in a double-handed grip, following his eye-track around the apartment. Fell, behind him, said, “Covered to the right.”

“I got the right, you watch that dark door . . . .” The sergeant’s voice. Lucas glanced back, quickly, saw the older man easing inside with his piece-of-shit .38.

“Got it,” Fell agreed.

“He’s in the corner,” Lucas said. He half stood, looking at a velour couch. The couch was pushed away from the wall, and the unearthly voice was coming from behind it.

“Bekker,” he called.

Jesus loves me . . .

“Stand up, Bekker . . . .”

This I know . . .

Lucas focused on the couch, crept up on it, the gun fully extended. Up close, he could see the top of Bekker’s head, shaven, smooth, bobbing up and down with the simple rhythms of the song.

“Up, motherfucker,” he yelled. And to Fell and the cop: “He’s here, got him . . .”

“Watch a gun, watch a gun . . .”

Lucas, pointing his weapon at the top of Bekker’s head, slid around the side of the couch and looked down at him. Bekker looked up, then stood, hands across his chest, rocking, humming . . . .

“Turn around,” Lucas shouted.

Fell moved up beside him . . . .

“Nuttier ’n shit,” she whispered.

“Watch him, watch him . . .”

She stepped around to get a better angle, then batted at her face and batted again, then waved her hand overhead.

Lucas, glancing sideways: “What?”

“I’m tangled . . .”

Bekker’s head turned, like a ball bearing rotating in a socket. “Spiders . . .” he said.

The sergeant, near the kitchen door, coming up slowly, punched a light switch, and Fell groaned, weakly, thrashing at the objects that hung around her head.

“Get away,” she choked. “Get away from me . . . .”

They hung on individual black threads from a bundle of crossed wire coat hangers, floating in their separate orbits around Fell’s head, wrinkled now, drying, the varicolored lashes as sleek as the day the eyelids were cut from their owners . . . .

Fell staggered away from them, appalled, her mouth open.

“Get him,” Lucas said, his pistol three feet from Bekker’s vacant eyes. The sergeant took a step forward. Behind Fell, a thin shaft of light cut through a crack in a door. The light was hard, sharp, blue, professional. As the sergeant stepped forward, Fell pushed the door open.