The Shadow Hunter (4 page)

“Abby can take care of herself,” Travis said.

“She’s one of the most competent people I’ve ever worked with.”

This surprised her. She glanced at Travis with a small, secret nod of appreciation.

“Well,” Howard said, “she’d better be.” He fixed Abby with a stare.

“How many cases have you handled?”

“More than twenty over the past two years.”

“I would think you’d want to quit while you’re ahead.”

“You mean while I’m alive?” She smiled.

Kris was studying her.

“How about the Devin Corbal case? Were you in on that one?”

Abby had anticipated this question and was ready with a response.

“No, I was in San Francisco at the time, protecting a radio shock jock who’d made too many enemies.”

She hated to lie to a client, but if she told the truth, she would be off the Barwood case, and most likely Travis would lose Kris as a client. And she knew that this was a loss he could not afford.

Anyway, no one would be able to prove she’d lied.

She had escaped from the vicinity of Lizard Maiden before the police could secure the scene. The TPS bodyguards had said nothing about her.

Sheila Rogers, now in custody awaiting trial, had received a concussion during the tumble down the alley stairs and remembered nothing of Abby’s assault. The bartender recalled that Sheila had been sitting with a nameless woman friend, but he had not reported his encounter with her, no doubt because he didn’t want to admit that he had tipped off Sheila to Devin’s whereabouts.

In short, there was nothing to link Abby to the case.

Nothing but her conscience, which assailed her nightly with images of Devin Corbal sprawled on the pavement in a spreading pool of blood.

“Even so”—Howard crossed his arms and looked past Abby at Travis—”I want to go on record as saying I’m against this.” “Your wife is my client,” Travis said evenly.

“I know that. It’s her safety at stake. Her decision.

But if it were up to me…” He didn’t finish.

“Howard,” Abby said, “I appreciate your concern, but this is my job.

It’s what I do.”

“You’re a pilot fish. I remember.” He looked at her, no amusement in his eyes.

“There’s just one thing about those fish. Sometimes they get a little too close to the shark they’re swimming with. Sometimes they get eaten.”

Abby met his gaze.

“That’s the downside of the metaphor.”

The office was silent except for the hum of the air conditioning.

“Kris,” Travis asked, “do we have your go-ahead?”

“Yes, you do,” Kris said, looking at Abby as she spoke. Howard turned away, arms folded over his chest, hands gripping his biceps in a classic pose of defiance.

Abby nodded at the anchorwoman.

“Thank you.” “I should be thanking you,” Kris said softly.

“You’re the one taking all the risks.”

Then the meeting was over and the Barwoods V V were gone, Abby finally allowed herself to sit.

She slumped in an armchair in the corner of Travis’s office and asked! “How do you think it went?”

“An unqualified success,” Travis said.

“You sure?”

“Absolutely. You dazzled them.”

Travis stood and came around his desk. He was a tall man of forty-four with jet-black hair receding from his high forehead. He wore an open-collared dress shirt under a navy jacket, belt less tan slacks, and black loafers. Every item of his ensemble was predictable; he owned a dozen navy jackets, a dozen dress shirts, a dozen pairs of tan slacks and black loafers. He wore the identical outfit every day. It was one of his quirks.

He didn’t like to waste time pondering what clothes to wear.

“It’s good to have you back, Abby,” he said.

“I wasn’t certain you’d ever want to work with me again after what happened last time. Thanks for telling them how capable I am, by the way.”

“I meant it. You’ve been beating yourself up about Corbal for four months. Let it go.”

She looked away.

“I shouldn’t have let her get away from me.”

“You had to call in your location.”

“} should have found a way to do it while still keeping an eye on her.”

Travis sat on the arm of the chair.

“A momentary lapse.”

“In this business we can’t afford any lapses.”

“Abby, if you do this kind of work long enough, you’re bound to experience a setback now and then.”

“A setback? Is that what happened to Corbal?”

“Corbal was a goddamned fool. We didn’t want him going into Lizard Maiden or any other club on the Strip. We told him to stay away from all his usual haunts. There was too great a chance that he would run into Sheila Rogers at one of them.”

“It was my job to make sure nothing like that would happen.”

“My point is, Corbal was headstrong. He wouldn’t listen to us. He insisted on taking risks, and he paid for it. Even so, he would have made it out of the building if the V.I.P Room had been evacuated faster. He had too many friends with him, and it took too long for our people to clear them all out. The friends left via the dance floor, which only cost more time because the club was so damn crowded. Then our staff officers had to get Devin out the back way—”

“Because I recommended using the rear exit.”

“It was the right tactical move. And he wouldn’t be any less dead if he’d gone out via the front entrance.

Sheila would have popped him on the dance floor.”

“Maybe not. Maybe in all the confusion she never would have seen him.

Or maybe… maybe I could’ve stopped her.”

“You nearly did.”

“Nearly doesn’t cut it.”

“You did everything you could. It’s not your fault.”

Abby didn’t answer.

“How’d you get here from LAX?” Travis asked.

She blinked, surprised by the change of subject.

“Taxicab.”

“Then you’ll need a ride home.”

“I’ll call another taxi.”

“No. Let me drive you. On the way over, I can give you a more thorough briefing on the Barwood case.

There wasn’t time to go into much detail this morning on the phone.”

“Okay, Paul. Thanks.”

They didn’t speak again until they had left the TPS office suite after picking up Abby’s carryon at the reception desk. In the elevator, descending to the underground parking garage, she asked Travis, “How are things going? Business-wise, I mean.”

He shrugged.

“Could be better. Another client ditched us on Friday. Same old story. He no longer had confidence in TPS.”

“Because of Devin Corbal.” Because of me, she wanted to say.

“It’s not so much the incident itself as the ongoing, never-ending media coverage. You’d think they’d come up with something else to talk about. Last week the Times ran a hit piece on us—the usual second guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking. Our clients read something like that, and half of them are ready to jump ship.”

“A lot of them already have,” she said quietly, thinking of the empty office space, the staff cutbacks. She knew that Travis had always prided himself on keeping his operation small, his services exclusive.

There had never been more than fifty names on the TPS client list. It was a policy that had left little margin for error. Now, with clients dropping away month after month, he was faring the end of the business he had founded.

“We’ve suffered some losses,” Travis conceded.

“But we’ll ride it out. In the end, we’ll come back stronger than before.”

He seemed to believe it. She wished she could be so confident.

His Mercedes C43 was waiting in the garage. Travis put Abby’s bag into the trunk and let her in on the passenger side. Before shutting the door, he leaned in and kissed her, a brief, hard kiss that sped up her heart rate.

He hadn’t kissed her in the TPS office suite. One of their rules was that there would be no displays of intimacy in the presence of TPS employees or clients.

Travis kept one hand on the wheel, the other clasping hers, as he guided the sedan into traffic on the Avenue of the Stars.

“How does it feel to be back in town?” he asked.

“Not bad at all. Its warm here today.” Her window was partially lowered, air rushing at her face.

“In the seventies. Warmer than Jersey, I’ll bet.”

“} had to buy an overcoat. Used it for a few days and donated it to charity. Couldn’t fit in my carryon.”

“What about your gun? How’d you transport that?”

“Fedexed it from Newark Airport this morning.

Same-day delivery. It should be waiting for me when I get home.”

“Who were you working for in Jersey?”

“Gil Harris. He relocated there from San Diego a few months ago. Runs a security firm in Camden. A local manufacturing plant contracted him when they decided their in-house security couldn’t handle an ex32 employee named Frank Harrington. The guy was making threats against the company. They wanted me to find out if he was serious.”

Travis steered the Mercedes onto Santa Monica Boulevard, heading west.

“Was he?”

“Darn tootin’. I found his suicide note in the hard drive of his PC.

He was planning to ram through the factory gate and open fire with a pair of high-powered rifles modified to fire on full automatic.”

“How’d you get to look in his computer?”

“Well, first I let Frank pick me up at a local bar and take me home. We had a nightcap, and I slipped a Tohypnol into his drink. It put him out cold. Then I searched the place, found the note and printed it out, and left it where the police couldn’t miss it. Then I called nine-one-one and reported a prowler at Frank’s address. He was still asleep when I amscrayed.”

“Any close calls?”

“The police got there a little faster than I expected. I had to get out through a rear door. Otherwise, no sweat.” She smiled.

“Just another day at the office.”

“What was the date on the suicide note?”

“Wednesday, March twenty-third.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Right.”

“You stopped him just in time.”

“Looks that way”

“You saved a lot of lives, Abby.”

“Yeah. Maybe if I save enough of them, I can make up for the one I didn’t save.” She sighed.

“So what’s the story, Paul? Tell me all about Mr. Raymond Hickle.”

“He’s thirty-four, Caucasian, never married. Lives alone, no pets, low income. Works in Zack’s Donut Shack at Pico and Fairfax.”

“Behind the counter or in the kitchen?”

“Little of both, but mostly behind the counter.”

“Acceptable social skills, then.”

“Within limits, yes. He doesn’t go around muttering to himself or flashing kids in playgrounds.”

“Too bad. If he did, we could get him off the street.”

“It won’t be that easy. As a matter of fact, he’s highly recommended by his previous employers—at least the ones we could track down. There have been quite a few. Those we talked to say Ray Hickle’s the best employee they ever had.”

“Then wh/d they let him go?”

“He quit. Invariably it was his decision.”

“Why?”

“Because they offered him a promotion. That seems to be the trigger.”

“What kind of promotion?”

“To a supervisory position. The guy is afraid of responsibility, apparently.”

Abby shook her head.

“No, I don’t think so. Tell me about the other jobs he’s held.”

“Strictly entrylevel positions. Carwash attendant, movie theater ticket taker, dishwasher at a coffee shop, clerk in a photo store, janitor in an office high-rise.”

“Common denominator—not much thinking required.

You learn the basics, then go through the motions.

If you’re elevated to supervisor, you have to start thinking.”

“I don’t believe this guy’s dumb.”

“Didn’t say he was. I’m saying he wants to leave his mind free to think about something other than his job.

Something like Kris Barwood, la’s number-one news anchor… and Hickle’s one true love.”

“And the one client TPS absolutely cannot afford to lose.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because right now she’s the only media person we’ve got on our side.

Channel Eight hasn’t joined the feeding frenzy. She won’t let them.

She keeps saying the firm has gotten a bum rap. She’s said it publicly. If she ditches us, we’re cooked.”

Abby caught on.

“On the other hand/ if TPS resolves the situation without incident, and Channel Eight plays it up big…”

“It would go a long way toward rebuilding our client list. Yes.” He frowned, as if embarrassed to have been drawn out on this subject.

“So give me more details, get me up to speed.”

“Hickle started sending Kris personal letters about five months ago.

Our screening process intercepted them. At first they raised no alarm.

They were fan letters, nothing special.”

“Signed?”

“Yes. He’s always signed his name. Even included a snapshot of himself, like something you’d submit to a dating service. He’s never tried to hide who he is.”

“Which doesn’t make him any less dangerous.” Abby knew that people who stalked celebrities rarely concerned themselves with anonymity. On the contrary, they wanted their famous target to know exactly who they were. And if the time came for a violent attack, they wanted the whole world to know.

“He kept requesting a photo,” Travis said, “so we allowed KPTI to send him a color glossy of Kris with a fake autograph, but no inscription.

We didn’t want to encourage him with anything he might interpret as a personal response.”

“Okay.” All standard, so far.

“Unfortunately, he didn’t go away, as we hoped. Instead, he started writing longer, more in-depth letters, the kind of thing you would send to an intimate friend. They got pretty intense. He sent gifts too.”

“What sort of gifts?”

“Jewelry, mostly. Cheap costume stuff. Once he gave her some scented candles because he’d read that she practices aroma therapy

“What’s his history? Any violence?”

“No.”

“Ever institutionalized?”

“No.”

“Arrests? Police encounters?”

“Can’t rule out a run-in with the law, but there’s no record of any formal charges against him.”