A burly high school kid with a letter jacket and a white-sidewall haircut held the door for her. He was wearing an earring and looked at her butt, and she smiled to herself. When she was growing up, in the fifties, there were older boys with sidewalls, but they'd have cut their own wrists before wearing an earring…

Nancy stepped over a curb and stopped at her car, and fished in her purse for her keys. The man with the hat went by. She almost nodded-they'd sort of looked at each other a few times in the mall-but she didn't. Instead, she popped open the car door, dumped the jeans in the backseat, climbed in and started the engine. She should make it home by eight. What was on TV tonight?

Druze had been ready, the knife-sharpening steel in his pocket, the same one he'd used on George. He had cleaned it meticulously, kept it in his kitchen drawer. And it was ready when he needed it. He followed the woman out of the mall, into the parking lot, ready to close on her, watching for other walkers, for cars turning down the rows, checking the lights. He was ready…

The woman stopped at the first car in the lot, a white Chevy Spectrum. Propped the bag between her hip and the car, began digging in her purse. They were absolutely exposed to the mall. If he moved on her, he would be seen. He glanced back: people on the sidewalk, at the doors, coming, going… Shit.

He felt stupid. If he picked a woman inside, there was an excellent chance that she'd be parked somewhere in the open, where he couldn't get to her. Or even that she'd be picked up at the curb by a husband or son. He'd have to wait outside. He went by Nancy Dunen, unconsciously flipped his keys in the air with one hand, picked them out with the other. The woman glanced vaguely at him, then went back to her purse. He never looked back, he heard the door slam and the engine start…

Druze went back to his car, moved it to the edge of the lot, tried a parking space, found he couldn't see out of it, tried another. Good. He parked, turned off the lights and waited. He was parked at an acute angle to a side entry. People wouldn't naturally look at this area, but he could watch them coming through.

He waited five minutes. Nothing. Then a couple crossed the lot, walking toward the cluster where Druze was parked. A single woman followed them by twenty yards. The couple reached their car; the man walked around to the passenger side to open the door, then opened the trunk to put their packages inside. The single woman reached the cluster as the man closed the trunk and popped open the driver's-side door. By that time, the single woman, unaware that she was being watched, and not more than thirty feet from Druze, was already getting into her car. She backed out at the same time as the couple, and they were gone.

Damn. She would have been a good one, Druze thought. A little young, but that was okay. He slouched in the seat, the hat brim pulled down. People walked in and out of the lighted doors. Eenie meenie minie moe…

Kelsey Romm was wearing a scarlet blouse and jeans, with white gym shoes, her hair long, her lipstick dark. She worked part-time at Maplewood and part-time at a convenience store in Roseville, and on weekends at a Target. Sometimes the workload made her sick to her stomach; sometimes her legs ached so bad that she couldn't bend them to sit down. But full-time jobs were hard to find. Economics, her Maplewood boss told her. You could patch together a bunch of part-time employees and avoid all benefits, he said. And it made scheduling easier. It wasn't his fault, he said: he didn't own the store. He was only following orders.

She got the same story at the other places. If she didn't like it, there were plenty of high school kids looking for jobs. It wasn't as if she needed a lot of skill. Scan a code, and a number came up on the cash register. Scan another, and the machine told you the change. Kelsey Romm needed the work. Two kids, both in junior high. Two mistakes, running wild, the girl already into alcohol and who knew what else. She didn't even like them much, but they were hers, no doubt about that.

Kelsey Romm walked with her head down. She always walked with her head down. You didn't see things that way. She didn't see Druze, either. She walked to the car, an '83 Chevy Cavalier, brown, a beater, air didn't work, radio didn't work, tires were going bald, the brakes sounded like they had air in them, the front-seat latch was broken…

She stuck her key in the door lock. She saw the man at the last minute and started to turn her head. The steel caught her behind the ear, and the last thing Kelsey Romm saw in her life was the entrance to the Maplewood Mall, and a kid leaning on a trashcan.

If you'd told her this was the way it would end, she would have nodded. She would have said, "I believe it."

Druze saw her hurry through the entrance and knew instinctively that she'd be coming all the way out. He cracked the car door, so it would open silently. She had her head down and came straight across the lot, heading for the row behind Druze's car. That was fine. That was good. He got out and sauntered down the row, flipped his keys in the air with one hand, picked them out with the other, did it again. There were still a few people on the sidewalks outside the mall, a kid standing by the entrance, looking the other way. This could work…

She came on, paying no attention to him, turned in at an old Chevy. He'd seen where she was going, and made his own move, cutting between the cars. If she had her keys in her hand, he thought, he might be too late. He put his own keys into his pocket, got a grip on the sharpening steel and stepped a little more quickly. She started digging in her purse as she turned in at her car, her head still down. Like a mole, Druze thought. Digging. He was close now, could see the shiny fabric of her shirt, glanced around, nobody…

And he was there, swinging, the steel whipping around, the woman cocking her head at the last minute.

The steel hit and bit and she went down, bouncing off the car as the professor had; but the woman made a noise, loud, like the caw of a crow, air from her lungs squeezing out. Druze looked around: he was okay, he thought. The kid by the garbage can might be looking at them… but he wasn't moving.

Druze stooped, pulled open the woman's purse, found her keys, unlocked the door, picked her up and shoved her into the Chevy. The car had bucket seats with an automatic-transmission console between them, and she lay humped over the seats, in an awkward, broken position. Druze stood straight, checked the lot again, then got in with her, touched her neck. She wasn't breathing. She was gone.

He used a screwdriver on her eyes.

Bekker was Beauty tonight, a little sting of amphetamine, just a taste of acid. His mind was moving, a facile, glittering thing, a mink of an intellect, and it worked through the problems in what seemed like no time at all… although time must have passed… it was light outside when he came home, and now, it was dark… How long…? He went away again.

Cheryl Clark had called him at his office.

She wanted to come back, he thought. Knew his wife was gone now. Was trying to ingratiate herself. Had news: A cop had been coming around to see her. They wanted to know about his love life, his personal habits. She thought he should know, she said.

Maybe he would see her again. She'd grown tiresome after a while, but there'd been a few nights…

His mind was like liquid fire, the taste of the MDMA in his mouth, under his tongue. What? More? He really should be more temperate…

When he came back-came back long enough to know that he would be okay-he'd found the solution to the surveillance. So simple; it had been there the whole time. He had a friend with the authorities, did he not?

The surveillance net picked up Bekker as he left the alley, headed down to Hennepin Avenue and took Hennepin to the interstate. He went to the library, parked and went inside. The net was with him. Looked at a book in the reference section. Headed back to the car. One of the cops in the net looked at the book, a cross-reference directory for St. Paul. He noted the pages: if he'd had time to scan the names, he'd have found Lucas Davenport listed about halfway down the second column…