Chosen Prey (37 page)

All of this was humming in the background of his slide-sort, when the phone rang. He picked it up, thinking, Ellen, and it was.

"I'm back," she said. She seemed uncharacteristically breathless. "Did you get my message?"

"Yes. This afternoon would be fine. How much do you have for the wine?"

"A thousand. I sold a huge star quilt, the rippling light. I thought with a thousand, I could get a really good start."

"A fine start," Qatar said. "I'll bring my book and we can work through the list before we go."

"Listen . . . I don't want to give anything away, but . . . have you ever heard of sexual asphyxiation?"

"What?"

"I saw it in a movie last night. Some art film. A guy hanged himself--not completely, but enough to choke off the air--and when the police asked him about it, he said you have the most wonderful orgasms."

"Well . . . I've heard of it, but it sounds painful. I understands it's often done with silk neckties, but I think it might be dangerous. I mean, brain damage."

"Oh. But, if you were really careful . . ."

"Ellen, I don't know. Let's wait until I get over. We don't want to go too far."

"Okay. I'll see you this afternoon." Again, a little breathless. She must've been busy. "But, James . . . think about it."

He couldn't stop thinking about it. He kept thinking about it as he finished sorting, and developed an erection so intense that it was almost painful. He might have done something about it immediately, but for his class. And during his class . . .

One of the young virgins in his Matrix of Romanticism class was nearly perfect: blank, clueless blue eyes, fine slender body, punky blond hair. She would be perfect, he thought, except for her incessant gum-chewing, and the constant presence of an earphone in one ear. She even tried to listen to music during his class, until he questioned it. She unplugged, annoyed, and told him that she was only listening to background music for his lecture and the art. She always tried to find something appropriate.

Like what? he asked. Beethoven?

"Enigma," she said. "The Screen Behind the Mirror."

"Please . . ."

But today she was sitting there with her virginal legs stretched out in front of her, and a little into the aisle, nicely encased in nylon; and she wore a thin white sweater like a fifties movie star.

He thought of sexual asphyxiation and tried to talk about Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa, and also keep his sports jacket appropriately draped as the erection came and went. He could imagine this blank-eye blonde on a bed, the long, groove of her spinal column leading up her back to her neck, her head arches in orgasm and the rope in his hand . . .

By the time he left for Ellen Barstad's studio, he was in a hurry, his worries about the gravedigger investigation pushed to the back of his mind. He needed to see her now.

In his hip pocket, he carried his rope.

LANE CALLED: "LUCAS, I got him coming out of the building, heading to the car. Good shots. I'm gonna take it over to a one-hour place--I oughta have big prints by the time you get out of there."

"Good, but have you talked to Marcy? We're a little hung up on Randy," Lucas said.

"Yeah, I talked to her. They haven't worked anything out yet, but having the pictures can't hurt."

"Okay. You just do the pictures. You say he's out of the place?"

"He is, and he's moving your direction. He's in a hurry."

Lucas, Del, Marshall, and Gibson were huddled in the middle office with two TV monitors, both hooked to the same camera and each with its own tape deck; a couple of Bose speakers; two tape recorders; and four separate cell phones.

Lucas picked up his phone and called Barstad next door. "Ellen, he's coming. Now, if it doesn't work, if it gets uncomfortable, throw his ass out. If he won't go, yell for help. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said. "Don't worry, Lucas. I'm going to hang up now. . . ." And she did.

"Crazy chick," Gibson said.

They couldn't see her: She was in the bedroom, and there had been no place for a monitor. Even if there had been, Lucas was worried by the privacy problem: A camera pointing at the bed didn't seem right, though Barstad hadn't seemed bothered by the concept. They'd finally decided that the room was simply too small and sparsely furnished. Qatar had been there several times, Barstad said; they didn't want to change the style just to hide the camera. The only camera was hidden behind the grille of a return-air vent at the front door, from where it could sweep the room.

Gibson could change the sound from one mike to the next with a simple slide switch. The microphones were sensitive enough that they could hear Barstad moving around, could hear the refrigerator open, could hear her flush the toilet.

"One more mike, we could hear her pee," Gibson said.

"That's what we want to put in front of a jury," Del said. "Our witness taking a leak."

Marshall disapproved. "I worry about this girl. She thinks she knows what she's getting into, but she doesn't. She ain't a hell of a lot more than a child."

"She says he doesn't carry a gun, he doesn't carry a knife. If he goes to get a knife, she'll scream her head off and we'll be there in twelve seconds."

The twelve seconds wasn't a guess. They'd timed it.

"That's a long goddamn time if somebody is cutting your throat or hitting you on the head with a ballpeen hammer," Marshall said.

"Yeah, well . . . So I'm worried too. This is what we've got, and I think we're ninety-seven percent okay," Lucas said.

DEL HAD MOVED out to the front while Lucas and Marshall argued; Qatar drove a green and silver Outback, and from the silvered window, Del could see the entire parking lot. The waiting grew uncomfortable as they listened to Barstad moving around in her apartment. Then Del said, "He's here."

Lucas was speed-dialing Barstad. She picked up, and he said, "He's here. You know how to call us."

"I know. I'm ready." She was gone.

"He's out of the car," Del said. He stepped away from the window and headed back toward the office. "Here we go."

"Oh, shit--look at this," Gibson said. He was staring at the monitor. They'd heard Barstad step away to the bedroom after she hung up the phone, and now, five seconds later, she was back--and she wasn't wearing a stitch. She was walking toward the door and the camera.

"Jesus," Lucas said.

Del picked up the tone and bent around the monitor to look. "She must have goose bumps the size of watermelons," he said. "You know . . . she's . . . jeez. She's not bad. All natural."

She glanced up at the camera as she got to the door, and Lucas thought she might have been smiling. "Fuckin' crazy goddamn . . ."

BARSTAD OPENED THE door and said, "Come in quick. It's a little cool."

"Mmm," he said. He fitted a hand around her hip and they kissed, long and carefully. As they broke apart, he said, "You look nice. The cold is nice for your nipples." He reached out and gently pinched one, and the slight pain caused her to breathe in, sharply, quickly. She said, "James, I really need something here."

"So do I," he said. He had the cord in his pocket, but for now, forgotten. She had taken his hand and was pulling him back toward the bedroom.

"Wait," she said. "The bedroom's so dark." She went to the wall, where a futon unfolded over a couch rack. "Help me," she said.

Together they pulled the futon off the rack and threw it on the floor, and she began tearing at his clothing. He was saying, "Wait, wait wait . . ." as she pulled at his shirt and then at his belt. He was staggering around with his pants down around his ankles when she caught him in her mouth, and he started to laugh and tried to push her away and finally collapsed on the futon.

"GOD HELP ME," Gibson said. "Look at this."

"This could be a problem," Lucas said. "This could be a problem. Christ, the defense attorneys will put this on and they'll impeach the shit out of her."

"I don't know," Del said. "She's so up front about it. Maybe she'll just tell them she likes . . . Oh, Jesus."

"Maybe she likes it, but on television?"

Marshall backed out of the office. "This is over the edge."

"The guy's kinda hung," Gibson said.

"You think so?" Del asked. "I was gonna say he was a little small."

As sex always does, it ended, with Barstad and Qatar lying on the futon. The camera wasn't good enough to tell, but the cops imagined that both of them were covered with sweat and out of breath; they thought that because everybody in the monitoring room was sweating and out of breath. Lucas could smell them all.

BARSTAD, NEARLY RECOVERED, said, "James. You were ready. What have you been doing? You were really excellent."

Qatar smiled at her, but his ears tingled: There was a false note there, a kind of patronizing overtone. He'd never heard it before. He said, "Thank you. You can get me . . . seriously turned on."

"Do you like slapping me?" she asked. There it was again, that tone.

"If you like it," he said. "I think I like the Ping-Pong paddles better."

She made a little moue. "That just made my bottom hurt, and I didn't get to see it."

"But I got to see it," he said. "And it more than made your bottom hurt."

"We're past that," she said. "Moving on."

"Moving on sooner or later," he said. He stood up. "I'm going to run back to the bathroom. Back in a sec."

FROM CULVER'S OFFICE, they could hear him in the bathroom, the water running in the sink. On the television monitor, Barstad lay with her back to them, but once or twice peeked over her shoulder in the direction of the camera.

"She's really getting off on this," Del said.

"So am I," said Gibson. "I wonder what her date calendar looks like."

"Ya oughta keep your goddamn mouth shut," Marshall snapped at Gibson. Lucas said, "Hey," and Marshall said, "Goddamnit, Lucas, she's the spitting image of Laura. If I'd known this--"

Gibson interrupted. "Here he comes."

QATAR WALKED BACK toward the camera, much diminished now. He was carrying a blanket from the bedroom, and when he dropped beside her, put it over his shoulders and around hers. "Did you ever talk to that woman again? The lesbian thing?"

"Not yet. There's no point, if you don't want to go along."

"All right." He was satisfied--clear on the lesbian front. He could hear the rope in his pants pocket, calling to them. "You know, I can see why somebody like you might be interested. But I . . ." He sighed and stopped.

"Tough day?" she asked.

"Oh . . . with Mom gone . . . I mean, with the medical examiner and everybody looking at her. They're saying that the cause of death is undetermined, which I don't know--it means they might think it's not natural."

"James," she said, "when we left the medical examiner's the other day . . . we went shopping and that kind of freaked me out. I mean, it seemed almost like you'd forgotten her somehow."

"What?" His forehead wrinkled. "Ellen, that's just what I do when I'm upset. You know I like to shop, and I was just very upset and I . . ."

His words were coming faster and faster, and finally she held up her hand and said, "Okay, I'm sorry." She wrapped her arms around her knees. "I just, I don't know. I've been reading about this gravedigger guy, and he seems so . . . cruel. I thought you seemed a little cruel."

He heard the false note again. He was a historian and a critic, and he could pick up a false note as quickly as anyone. He said, "You're comparing me to this gravedigger person?"

"No, no. I just want people not to be cruel." Then she smiled at him and her hand wandered to his groin. "Well, maybe a little cruel sometimes," she said. "Have you been thinking about my call?"

His mind was clicking over now: She was interrogating him. But was she doing it on her own, or was there somebody with her? Could somebody hear them? For Christ's sakes, could somebody see them? He didn't dare look. He said, "I thought this afternoon, because of my mother . . . something gentle. Something that takes a long time."

She seemed disappointed, and that was, in his mind, confirmation. Something was going on, and he didn't know what it was. "Why don't we do something excessively oral?" He slipped his fingers between her legs. "I haven't been in here yet."

"HE SORTA WALKED away from that question," Del said.

"Doesn't look like she'll be asking any more for a while," said Gibson.

"Goddamnit," Marshall said to Gibson. "Somebody ought to kick your ass for you."

"Take it easy, pal," Gibson said. "When we get finished with this, you wanna take it outside, I'll go with you."

"Nobody's taking it outside," Lucas said. To Gibson he said, "Another comment about Barstad and you'll be directing traffic at a construction site." And to Marshall: "You keep your problems to yourself or I'll ship your ass back to Dunn County." And to both of them: "Everybody know where I'm coming from?"

LATER, WHEN THEY finished with a second round, Barstad asked, "What do you think of the gravedigger?"