Weird.
Intrigued, he went back up the ladder and brought down another box. This one contained reams of carbon paper, the kind used to make copies on typewriters in the days before computers and word processors.
The next box was filled with framed photos of old airplanes and what appeared to be a collection of salt and pepper shakers. In a leather satchel within the box were several old knives.
Steve was sitting on the cement, taking out the knives and examining them, when he heard the back door of the house open. He turned around and noticed with surprise that the sun had gone down. It was night.
His mother walked into the garage. Because of the poor lighting, the left half of her face remained shadowed while the right half looked flat and pasty in the glare of the fluorescent bulb. She stared down at Steve. If he hadn’t known who she was already, he would not have recognized her. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Just checking out these boxes.”
“Are you looking for something?”
He looked at the cartons of toothpicks, at the packs of carbon paper, at the knives in the satchel in front of him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Twenty-four
“Come on,” Jason said. “You haven’t been out with us for . . . for I don’t know how long.”
He had not just called this time but had shown up at Steve’s work at four thirty on a Friday, and there was no polite way to avoid this conversation. Jason had been trying to get ahold of him for weeks now, but Steve had successfully evaded him: monitoring incoming calls, not returning calls when messages were left, claiming to be busy on those few occasions when his screening process failed and he actually answered the phone.
At least he hadn’t brought along Dennis or Will.
Jason did that touchy-feely thing and clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “What is it, man? You can tell me.”
“It’s my dad and all,” he mumbled. “It’s been a rough time.”
“I understand,” Jason said. “I get it. But we’re your friends, dude. You gotta have friends.” He grinned. “I think that’s a song cue.”
Steve looked down at his feet. He did sort of miss hanging out, but things were complicated right now, and he needed to keep his life as simple as possible. For how long he didn’t know, but for the moment, at least, he wanted to maintain a discreet distance from any possible distractions.
“I promise we won’t hold you there. If you want, one drink and you’re out. We won’t even ask you any personal questions. We won’t ask you any questions. But Dennis has been dating a model he met at a software convention. An actual model! She was in a print ad for a new PC. And I got a new job. I have an office and ten thousand more a year. Interesting stuff going on.”
He was too tired to fight, and at that moment the retro normalcy of it all did seem awfully appealing. Slowly, Steve nodded.
“All right, my man! Pack up and let’s get out of here.”
“I’m driving myself,” Steve said.
“Understood, understood. In case you want to bail early. I understand completely. But we’ve been going to a new place with a much better happy hour, and I thought you could follow me there so you can find it more easily.”
Steve smiled weakly. “And so I won’t skip out on you.”
“That too.” Jason laughed, put an arm around him. “Gotta stick by your bros.”
Feeling uncomfortable, Steve pulled away. “Let me finish up here. I’ll meet you downstairs in the lobby. Fifteen minutes.”
Jason fixed him with a look of mock suspicion. “There’s no back door to this building, is there?”
He smiled. “There is, but I won’t use it. Promise. I’ll meet you in the lobby in fifteen.”
“I’ll be guarding the front door.”
The “new place” turned out to be an El Torito Grille located in an area of high-rise office buildings not far from the airport. The Mexican restaurant, a low Spanish-style structure, looked incongruous amidst the tall rectangles of mirrored glass, but welcoming. Steve could smell the delicious aroma of food as he and Jason walked inside, and it made him realize that he was hungry.
The two of them walked into the bar, but the room was so crowded that it took them a moment to locate the table where Will and Dennis were waiting. They maneuvered through the happy-hour throng. Will was sitting smugly, tipping back a Heineken, and Steve knew as soon as he got close enough to see his friend’s face that this had been a mistake.
Friend?
No. Will wasn’t really a friend, and Steve wondered if he ever had been. The other man was not only egocentric and self-important but genuinely malicious in his disdain for others. Even in college he’d been petty and vicious, and while his attitude had seemed funny back then, it had become increasingly less so over the years, to the point that Steve now dreaded any contact with him.
“Look what the cat dragged in.” Will smiled in a way that aspired to be mocking and gently sardonic, but, as always, there was an edge of real cruelty behind it.
“I’m the cat?” Jason said.
“Well, you’re a pussy.”
The four of them laughed, the way they always did, but the joke wasn’t really that funny, and as usual it was at the expense of someone else. Steve wondered for the first time if Will was really a friend to any of them. Dennis had always been closest to him and often acted like an asshole himself, but on his own, Dennis really wasn’t such a bad guy, when you came down to it. It was Will’s influence that made him behave that way. It was Will who was dragging him down. And Jason had admitted that he thought Will was a jerk.
Would any of them miss Will if he died?
Steve tried to concentrate on the plate of taquitos on the table. He shouldn’t be thinking those kinds of thoughts.
“So where have you been?” Will asked, and it wasn’t just a casual conversation starter. It was a pointed question.
“I’ve been busy,” he said vaguely.
“Too busy for your buds?”
“Yeah,” Dennis chimed in. “Where’ve you been hiding?”
“I’ve been helping my mom a lot. Ever since my dad died, she’s been pretty rocky.” That ought to shut them up.
It did.
Steve relented. “Jason said you’re dating a model,” he said to Dennis.
“Ohhh, yeahhh.” The other man grinned. “Wanna see a picture?” He took out his wallet. “I keep one with me at all times because otherwise no one would believe me.”
“I still don’t believe you,” Will said.
“Wow,” Steve commented after seeing the photo. He had to admit, the woman was pretty impressive. She wasn’t exactly his type—too plastic—but she had the finely sculpted cheekbones, piercing blue eyes, perfect teeth, small nose and big breasts that epitomized the advertising industry’s concept of the ideal woman. She looked like a model.
“But how’s the sex?” Will asked. “That’s the real test.”
“Better than you’re getting.”
“Does she do anal?”
Dennis grinned. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Jason fixed him with a mock frown. “For him to find out? You want him to investigate your sex life?”
“It’s an expression, a figure of speech. You never heard that before?” He put the photo back in his wallet as the rest of them started laughing. “Aw, fuck you guys. You’re just a bunch of jealous pricks.”
“You’re right,” Jason said.
The conversation flowed naturally from there, and Steve had to admit that it was nice to be hanging with his friends again. He hadn’t realized until now how isolated he had become. Yes, he went to work each day and interacted with people, particularly on the phone, but there was really no one in his personal life other than Sherry, and he’d been spending a lot more time by himself than with her lately.
This was cool; this was fun.
Except for Will.
Steve kept glancing over at the other ma
n, and each time he did he discovered something new that irritated him. Even Will’s teeth were annoying. He’d obviously gotten them bleached, and every time he smiled he reminded Steve of Wink Martindale or Bob Goen or one of those old game-show hosts.
It would be so much better if Will were not here. . . .
Steve pushed the thought away and went over to the buffet cart, where he scooped an enchilada onto his plate and grabbed a handful of tortilla chips. He looked back at their table. Will sat in the center, smiling and self-satisfied, while Jason and Dennis flanked him on either side, like lackeys competing for His Royal Majesty’s attention. He could tell that they would be happier if Will was gone. They might not condone his murder but neither would they mourn his death.
Steve would be doing them all a favor if he arranged for Will’s killing.
This one would need to look like an accident, though. He had gotten away with Gina and McColl because they appeared to be linked; there was no real reason for anyone to look too closely at the people around them. But if one of his friends was murdered, it would be the equivalent of shining a spotlight on himself. He might as well stand in front of the police station with a megaphone and shout, I’m the guy!
No, Will’s death had to be unidentifiable as a killing. It had to be bad luck, misadventure, wrong place, wrong time, something that appeared to have happened naturally.
He walked back to the table, thinking.
“Whatever happened to toxic shock syndrome?” Dennis was asking. “I remember when I was a kid and just learning about sex, there were all these reports about how tampons were dangerous and had these little threads that stabbed the wall of the vagina and killed people. Did they find a cure for that? Are tampons different now? What happened?”
Will smirked. “Ask your model.”
“I will,” Dennis said.
“What I want to know,” added Jason, “is what happened to maxipads. Does anyone use those anymore?”
“Your mama,” Will offered.
“You’re probably right.”
The three of them started laughing, but Steve watched only Will, unable to stop staring at the too-white teeth and the too-perfect hair, at the too-hip clothes that were worn with a studied nonchalance that was a little too casual to be real.
An accident.
At work or home or somewhere in between.
He was excited. This was a challenge, and already he was mentally sorting through the ideas he’d originally had in mind for McColl. None of them were any good, and he couldn’t seem to come up with any new ones, but he wasn’t worried. He had plenty of time.
He’d think of something.
“Ow!” Sherry cried out. “Stop!”
Instead of stopping, he began thrusting harder.
“The angle’s wrong! It hurts!”
They were trying a new position, and though it was uncomfortable for him as well and he’d been about to pull out and go back to doing it their usual way, he liked the fact that it hurt, liked that she was begging him to stop. Despite the discomfort, he could feel himself growing harder within her.
“Ow!” she screamed.
And he came.
He held her in place until he was finished, then let her pull away.
“What the hell were you doing?” she demanded. “I told you to stop!”
“Sorry.”
“It hurt, damn it!” She touched herself, wincing. “It still hurts.”
He rolled over, sitting up, his back against the headboard. He should feel guilty, he knew. But he didn’t. He felt good. “Why don’t you like dogs?” he asked.
She frowned, confused. “What?”
“I was just wondering why you don’t like dogs.”
“I don’t know. No reason. I just don’t.”
“You weren’t attacked as a child or chased or something?”
“Not really. There was a mean dog down the street when I was little, but I never had any contact with it. Why? What made you even think of that?” She scowled at him. “You’re just trying to change the subject.”
“No, I’m—”
“It hurt.”
“Sorry,” he said again.
“No,” she told him pointedly. “You’re not.”
In the dream, he was seated on the floor of a darkened room. He could see nothing, hear nothing, but the air was warm with body heat, and humid, and he knew he was not alone. He remained perfectly still, unmoving, certain that he was in the midst of enemies and that if he made any sound or gave any indication that he was there, they would immediately turn upon him.
There was a loud click, and suddenly a light shone at the front of the room, a spotlight from the ceiling that illuminated a tableau of bloody carnage. The scene was arranged on a small stage, a rickety construct of moldy wood barely higher than the level of the floor, and consisted of a bloody man staring through a glassless mirror frame at the mutilated body of a woman. The woman was seated in a chair, and her partially severed head drooped down over her chest, a wash of blood covering the butchered stretch of mangled skin that should have been her breasts. The man himself was naked and hideously deformed, arranged in a similar position on an identical chair, and while it was not clear whether the blood that covered him was his own, the fact that he remained completely unmoving and unblinking, with wide, staring eyes, indicated that he too was probably dead.
The spotlight was focused on this grotesque spectacle, but its fading edges touched the area in front of the stage, and in the dispersed gloom he could see, a dozen feet in front of him, the first row of onlookers.
They were clowns.
His heart lurched in his chest, and it was all he could do not to cry out. He froze, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe.
There was a click.
The light went off, and once again they were in darkness.
He felt hot breath on his cheek, smelled candy cane and popcorn.
“Hello,” a voice said lovingly.
Twenty-five
“Will! Dude!”
“Steve?” Will sounded surprised.
I’ll bet he is, Steve thought.
“What time is it?”
“Ten or so. Too late for you?”
“No. I just got in.”
Steve kept the tone light. “Thought I’d give you a call and see what’s up.”
“Uh, not much.” Pause. “What’s up with you?”
“Sherry and I were going to go hiking in Modjeska Canyon tomorrow morning, but she has to bail on me. Someone called in sick at the library.” This was a lie. “I thought maybe you’d like to come with me. I know you’re always up for a good workout.”
“Did you try Jason?”
“You don’t want to come?” Steve made himself sound surprised.
“I just thought—”
“No, I didn’t call Jason. It’s been a while since you and I did anything together, and I thought a long hike on a nice day might give us some time to reconnect.”
“Oh. Okay.” There was suspicion in his voice.
Steve smiled to himself. Will had no idea how much cause he had to be suspicious.
“Isn’t the library closed on Sunday?”
“To the public. But the librarians and everyone still have to work. Behind-the-scenes stuff.” Another lie.
“Oh.”
Steve was using a disposable phone so he could not be traced. He had bought it with cash. Tomorrow, after the deed was done, he would smash the phone and dispose of the various pieces in different trash cans throughout south Orange County. He was taking no chances. “I thought we could meet at the trailhead tomorrow morning around eight or eight thirty. Before it gets too hot. There are some pretty steep paths in those mountains. It’s best to get an early start.”
“Remind me where it is.”
Steve gave him directions from Irvine to Modjeska Canyon. “The trailhead’s across the street from the Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary. Next to the parking lot.”
“I’ll be there.�
��
They said good-bye and hung up. Steve smiled to himself, looking at a ghostly reflection of his face in the window above the kitchen sink. He was dirty and sweaty and looked like he’d just gone three rounds with a pit bull. The truth was that he’d spent the day scouting around, hiking trail after trail, maintaining a detailed map in his mind as he searched for a spot where Will could have an “accident.” He knew that the Santa Ana Mountains were home to numerous abandoned mines, many of them uncovered, unmarked shafts that dotted the landscape and lay hidden in the high-growing weeds. He’d read an article about it in the Register last year when a girl hiking with her high school class fell down one of the shafts and was killed, cracking her head on a boulder at the bottom.
He’d found what he was looking for shortly before noon. On the flat top of one of the mountains’ foothills was a field of dried grass. The unofficial trail he’d taken to get to this point stopped at the edge of the field and appeared to resume at its far end, leaving hikers to navigate the terrain in between on their own.
That terrain was dotted with mine shafts. Someone had obviously been here recently, and Steve followed the rough path of broken grass as it wound toward the opposite end of the field. Off to the right, he saw what was probably the area’s most recent mining excavation: a raised well-like frame surrounding a hole over which a simple structure equipped with cable pulleys had been constructed. To the left were three mines in a considerably worse state of disrepair: one whose aboveground framework had rotted and collapsed into a jumbled heap over the opening, and two whose shafts had been sealed up with boards and posted with warning signs.
It took him a while to find what he was looking for, but finally he spotted a shaft that was just a hole. There were no support beams buttressing the edges, no boards covering the opening, no warning signs nearby, no indication that the mine was even there. It was half-hidden behind some tall dried wheatlike stalks, a black pit around which grew numerous native plants, some of which bent into the cavity. It looked deep. The sun was almost directly overhead, and while the rounded sides of the hole were visible for several yards down, it was impossible to see the bottom. Steve searched the surrounding ground until he found a rock approximately the size of his hand, and, as a test, he threw it in. After several seconds, he heard it hit bottom. The sound was fainter than he would have expected, and though he didn’t know how far it was to the floor of the shaft, he knew it was far enough to kill anyone who fell into it.
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