The Shadow Hunter (16 page)

Besides, she had to get ready for her big night on the town.

Hickle hated to miss the six o’clock news.

In the past year he had seen every one of Kris Barwood’s broadcasts.

Sitting in front of the TV each weeknight at six and ten was part of the daily rhythm of his life. When she’d taken a vacation last September, he had been seriously distressed. Yet tonight he was missing the show. He reminded himself that he was taping it and could view the tape later, and he was sure to be home in time for the ten o’clock newscast.

“Traffic’s not too bad.”

He glanced at Abby, seated on the passenger side of his VW.

“Yeah, it’s pretty light this evening,” he answered, “considering it’s rush hour.”

“It’s always rush hour in this city.”

He could think of no worthwhile reply.

“Yeah.”

His face was hot, his palms were damp, and he wished he were safe in his apartment watching Kris on the news—the show would have just started—watching her and enjoying her presence in his home, even if it was only a magical illusion.

Instead here he was on Santa Monica Boulevard driving into the twilight with Abby Gallagher. She had changed into cotton slacks, a button-down blouse, and a nylon windbreaker. A nice outfit, better than the jeans and sweatshirt he’d thrown on.

He risked conversation.

“I guess it’s a lot different here from Riverside.”

She raised her voice over the drone of the motor and the rattle of the dashboard. “la’s so big. I can’t even find my way around. I’m lost.”

“You’ll get used to it.” He forced himself not to retreat into silence.

“I did.”

“You’re not from LA originally?”

“} moved down from the central part of the state a long time ago.” He was no good at small talk. He decided to dare a more direct approach.

“Mind if I ask you a question?”

“Go ahead.” “You said you were running from your problems…”

He was sure she would tell him it was none of his business.

“Boyfriend problems,” Abby answered, as unperturbed as if she’d asked his opinion of the weather.

“Well, more than boyfriend. Fiance. We were supposed to be married in May. Then I found him cheating on me. When I say found, I mean literally found. I walked in on him when he was banging her. In our bed. At one o’clock in the afternoon.”

Hickle didn’t know what to say, but for once he felt no awkwardness because surely no one would know what to say in this situation.

“So I screamed and threw things, the usual mature reaction of the woman wronged. Next day I drove out of town. Had to get away.” A shrug.

“That’s my sad story.”

The word sad cued him to the appropriate response.

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s life.”

“But it’s awful, what he did to you.”

“I guess you can’t expect long-term commitment anymore. Even so, I really thought we were meant to be together. You know how that is?”

Hickle kept his voice steady.

“I know.”

“To find somebody who’s everything you want, everything you’re looking for—and then they go and do something like that…” Abby let her statement slide away unfinished.

“I know,” Hickle said again, more firmly.

“I know exactly what that’s like.”

“So it’s happened to you?”

Because the car was stopped at a red light at Beverly Drive, Hickle could turn in his seat and look directly into Abby’s eyes.

“It’s happened to me,” he said.

“Just recently, in fact—just within the past year—I found the perfect woman. Perfect. And she…” Abby watched him, no judgment in her expression.

“She tore my heart out. She killed my soul. She murdered the best part of me.” There. It was said. Probably he should have stayed silent. The words had come out in a rush, desperate and angry. He was afraid Abby would think he was some kind of nut.

“I’m sorry, Raymond,” she whispered.

Raymond. She had called him by name.

A horn blatted behind him. The stoplight had cycled to green. He was holding up traffic.

He motored through the intersection, continuing west, afraid to speak again and risk damaging whatever fragile intimacy he’d established.

Raymond. His first name. Spoken with such gentle understanding.

Raymond.

The parking lots that served the Venice promenade were filled to capacity this evening. Hickle navigated the maze of narrow side streets and alleys until he found an open slot at a curb two blocks from the beach. By the time he maneuvered the Rabbit into the space, the last of the twilight glow was gone, and darkness lay thick and smooth on all sides.

After his blurted confession in Beverly Hills, he had said little, and Abby hadn’t prodded him. Although the present excursion was perhaps not technically a date, it came close enough to raise his anxiety level dangerously high. Once they were in the restaurant, he would loosen up, and she would learn what she had to know.

On every case Abby started out with a mental checklist, questions about the person whose threat potential she was assessing. The questions were simple and specific, and the more of them she answered, the nearer she came to a final evaluation. Already she had checked off several of the most serious questions about Hickle, each time with an answer in the affirmative.

Did he feel a deep personal connection to Kris Barwood? Yes. His unguarded comments in the car had confirmed it.

Did his obsession go beyond writing letters and making phone calls?

Yes. After searching his apartment, she knew he had devoted enormous energy to researching Kris’s life, tracking down her address, and photographing her from a distance.

Did his obsession show signs of escalating into violence?

Yes. The books on stalkers and combat tactics were proof.

Had he obtained a weapon or weapons? Yes. Guns.

Two items on the checklist remained unresolved.

Did he believe he could successfully carry out an attack?

Without that belief, he might fantasize and rehearse and plan but never act.

Would he be deterred by fear? Often fear functioned as a conscience of last resort.

Hickle struck her as a timid man. Possibly it was fear that had stayed his hand so far. Possibly the same fear would serve as a permanent brake on his most violent ambitions.

Hickle shut off the Volkswagen’s motor and headlights, then fumbled the key free of the ignition slot.

“We’re here,” he announced.

“Well, not at the restaurant—we’ll have to walk there—it’s not far.”

He was stammering like a high school kid. She would have felt sorry for him had she not seen the rifle and shotgun, the secret photos of Kris.

“It’s a nice night for a walk,” she said cheerily.

“The ocean air feels good.”

They got out of the car, and Hickle locked it.

“Yeah, it’s one thing I’ve always appreciated about LA.

Where I grew up, we were fifty miles inland. Not much chance for an ocean breeze.”

“Desert country?”

“No, hills and farmland. My folks ran a grocery store. It was—what’s the word? Bucolic.”

“But boring.”

“Yeah. Not exactly bright lights and big city.” They started walking.

“I guess you didn’t see much of the ocean out in Riverside,” Hickle said”

“Only in the form of a mirage, usually induced by imminent heatstroke. It gets to be a hundred-ten in the shade, and there is no shade. Sometimes I’d drive to the coast to get away from the desert heat. Never came to this part of town, though.”

“It’s… colorful.”

“Why do they call it Venice?” She knew the reason but let him tell her as they approached the noise of a crowd.

“There are canals here,” he said.

“Only a few are left, but there used to be a whole network of them, like in Venice, Italy. The place was designed as a tourist attraction back around 1900 by a guy named Kinney. He was a visionary, they say.”

She looked at the barred windows, the trash in the street, the gang markings everywhere.

“Looks like his vision came up against a brick wall called reality.”

“I’m afraid so. Santa Monica is nicer, but this is a good place to come when you want to hang out, see the people. It’s like a street fair or a carnival.”

“All the time?”

“Pretty much.” He tried for levity.

“LA, you know, is the city that never sleeps.”

That’s New York, Abby wanted to say but didn’t.

Hickle escorted her to the beachfront promenade, crowded with every variety of human exotica—jugglers, peddlers, tramps, street musicians, tattooed body builders Loitering under a streetlight were a trio of bony, strung-out young women, probably hookers. On the nearby bike path kids on skateboards and Rollerblades yelled at the night. Down the walkway a band of Hare Krishnas banged tambourines. Hallucinatory murals covered the high brick walls of century-old buildings, serving as a backdrop to it all.

“See what I mean?” Hickle asked, checking nervously for her reaction.

“A carnival.”

Abby smiled.

“As they used to say in the sixties, it’s a scene.”

They strolled along the concrete concourse that locals called a boardwalk. Stores passed by, made out of converted garage stalls, displaying racks of Tshirts and sunglasses and absurd curios. Above the general din a woman’s voice became audible. She was yelling angrily in Spanish.

“You speak the language?” Hickle asked.

“A little. She’s talking to her boyfriend, calling him a bastard, liar, cheat. Never wants to see him again.

Wants him to get lost. She says: Go to hell.” Abby shrugged.

“Guess that’s the end of one romance.”

She was fairly certain Hickle would disagree. He didn’t surprise her.

“No,” he said, “she’s leading him on.”

“Funny way to do it.”

“It’s a game women play. They say no when they mean yes. They tell you to go away when they want you to get closer. They yell and scream, and it’s all part of the courtship dance.”

“That ain’t my style.”

“Well, no, I didn’t mean you. I was talking in generalities.

For most women it’s their nature to make the guy sweat. Deny him everything, let him beg. They get a kick out of it. Women are—” He cut himself off in mid-sentence.

“Are what?” Abby prompted.

“I don’t know. Never mind. Nothing.”

But she knew what he’d been ready to say: Women are bitches are cock teasers… are whores.

The Sand Which Is There was a large, crowded, obviously trendy establishment, not at all what Abby had expected. There was a great deal of bamboo and wicker. Illuminated glass globes hung from the rafters, casting pools of lemon-colored light on lacquered table tops Ceiling fans spun torpidly, wooden blades beating the air in slow-motion whirls. A long teakwood bar lay on one side of the room, offering as much bottled water as alcohol. Facing the bar were the glass doors to a patio on the boardwalk.

The restaurant, evidently, was a hangout for aspiring stars—actors, actresses, musicians, models. Few had succeeded but all possessed the bare requisites of stardom: the telegenic face, the photogenic body.

The room was a sea of lithe limbs and wild, untrammeled hair. Abby wondered how Hickle had ever come here.

A waitress escorted them to a corner table. Abby knew it would take Hickle a while to settle down.

Their early interludes of conversation, while they ordered drinks and meals, were unproductive and shortlived.

When the food came, Hickle consumed it ravenously, eating fast, saying little.

He didn’t start to relax until he was working on his second beer. Abby could tell he was unaccustomed to alcohol. His speech acquired a slight slur, his breathing became more labored, and his eyes grew heavy-lidded and vague. He was a large, clumsy man, uncomfortable in his own body, and the double dose of Heineken only made him clumsier.

Twice he overturned the saltshaker, and once he dropped his knife on the floor.

“How’s your salad?” he asked finally, with his first authentic effort at initiating a dialogue.

“It rocks. Kale and portabella mushrooms—what’s not to like? So do you come here often?”

“Hardly ever. Actually”—an embarrassed smile-“I’ve been here only once. It’s not my kind of atmosphere.”

“No?”

“Well, I mean, look at them.” He propped his elbow on the table and pointed an accusing finger at the room.

“The way they move. Their faces. They’re so confident. They own the world.”

Abby followed his gaze, studying the other patrons.

It was true. They were beautiful, women and men alike. The very distinction between male and female was all but lost in their unisex hairstyling and wardrobe. The men conveyed a sense of delicacy, of frail and sensitive soulfulness; the women looked hard. Hard-bodied after hours in the gym, and hard-featured, their faces untouched by makeup, eyes narrowed and stern.

“They own the world,” Hickle said again, then wrinkled his brow.

“Not that you need to envy them,” he added in what was intended as a compliment but sounded like a reproach.

“I don’t envy anybody.” Abby twirled her salad fork, letting-the tines catch the candlelight.

“Green’s not my color.”

Hickle picked up his club sandwich and tore off a chunk with his teeth.

“You don’t envy them because you don’t have to. You fit right in. You belong here.”

“And you don’t?” Though of course he didn’t.

He waved his arm vaguely at the crowd in a loose, graceless motion that nearly upset his beer mug.

“I’m not in their league.”

“They’re not that special.”

“Oh, yes, they are. Can’t you feel it?” He lowered his voice, leaning forward, shoulders hunched defensively.

“There was a movie once with a strange title, The Killer Elite.

Whenever I come to a place like this, those are the words I think of.

The killer elite.”

She noted the word killer and the fact that he projected it onto those around him, when it applied far more realistically to himself.

“They’re just kids out for a burger and a beer,” she said mildly.

“Kids, yes, but not just kids. They have the look.”

“The what?” “The look,” he said again, with peculiar earnestness.