The Shadow Hunter

by Michael Prescott

  “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 bodybuilders. 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 T-shirts 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 midsentence.

  “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 cockteasers…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 tabletops. 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 short-lived. 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. “You know how they say the world is divided into the haves and the have-nots? Well, it’s true, but not the way most people think.” He tipped the beer mug to his mouth and swallowed a third of its contents with a canine slurp. “It’s not about money. Money is nothing; anybody can get money. Show up for work on time, display a modicum of intelligence, and in three months your boss will be offering you a promotion whether you want it or not.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want it?” Abby asked, but Hickle didn’t hear.

  “What matters,” he said, his voice too loud, his eyes too bright, “is the look. That’s what the haves have and what the have-nots haven’t got. You should know because you’ve got it. Every woman in this room has it. Every guy, too…” His hand closed into a fist, though he was unconscious of the gesture. “Except me.”

  His anger was growing dangerously large. She tried to contain it. “You’re being way too hard on yourself.”

  “Just honest. See, in the end, brains don’t matter. You can be the brainiest guy in the class, straight A’s, but if you don’t have the look, you can’t get a date to the prom. Without the look you’re nothing. You’re either class clown or class…freak.” He took a last, listless bite of his sandwich and set down the remnant wearily. “Hell, you’re not going to understand. I’ll bet you didn’t have any trouble getting dates.”

  He was studying her with a lopsided smile that wa
s meant to look friendly but conveyed, instead, a cold and cramped malice.

  Abby kept her tone light. “I was a tomboy, really. Not very popular. Certainly not a prom queen.”

  This surprised him. His expression softened a little. “Is that so?” he asked quietly.

  “I was kind of a washout in most my classes. My mind had this tendency to wander. I was basically a loner. When I wasn’t in school I spent most of my time hiking in the desert or grooming horses at a ranch. I was always dirty, hair mussed, no makeup. Mosquito bites on my arms, and a million freckles all over my face.” Every word of this was true. “My dad called me a late bloomer.”

  Hickle considered her, and she felt his resentment cool. “Well,” he said at last, “you’ve flowered nicely.”

  She smiled. “I’m a whole different person now. So I guess there really is life after high school.”

  “Wrong.” Hickle stamped the flat of his hand on the table, rattling the plates, then bit his lip in embarrassment. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be overemphatic. But people are always saying stuff like that. I heard it the whole time I was growing up. Get out in the adult world, and everything changes for you. That’s what they say.”

  “But it doesn’t?”

  “Not at all. High school is real life. It’s real life without any pretense.”

  He took another gulp of beer, but it wasn’t alcohol that was allowing him to talk so freely now. It was her questions, each as gently probing as a scalpel, and her calm, meditative gaze, and the silences she gave him in which he could say whatever he liked without judgment or reproach.

  “Let me tell you about high school.” He picked up a carrot stick from a side dish and toyed with it distractedly. “There was this guy in our class, Robert Chase. He wasn’t particularly smart. Not an idiot, you understand, but no genius either, and not a good student. He cut class, got Cs and Ds, smoked dope in the bathroom, screwed around. But he had one advantage.”

  “Let me take a wild stab. Was it…the look?”

  “That’s right. Good old Bob Chase.” Hickle’s mouth twisted into an ugly shape. “The girls called him Bobby with that sigh in their voice, you know? He was tall, had thick curly hair and washboard abs, was a star on the basketball team. They all loved him.”

  She heard the stale envy in his voice. She said nothing.

  “So a couple of months ago I’m reading the LA Times, and what do I see? Robert Chase from my hometown is chief of staff for a member of Congress in Washington, DC. He’s an up-and-comer. They say he might run for office himself. He could end up as the goddamned—sorry—end up as President. Why? I’m smarter than he is. I got better grades. I didn’t slam kids into lockers and sucker-punch them for laughs.” Hickle snapped the carrot stick, tossed the pieces aside, and picked up another. “But I don’t have the look. Be honest. Could I ever be President?”

  In her mind Abby saw a convention hall, balloons, cheers, and in the spotlight the baffled, rumpled, shaggy figure of Raymond Hickle, black hair sloppily askew, neck red with acne, face drawn and fleshy at the same time—hollow around the eyes, meaty and thick at the jaw. She imagined him trying to make a speech, command respect, summon all his authority, and what she heard was a crowd’s laughter. “Not everybody has to be President,” Abby said gently.

  Hickle waved off this reply as if irritated by it. “The President was just an example. People like Bob Chase are the winners in life. They can do whatever they want. They can have whoever they want. Anyone, anything.” He turned his head, averting his gaze from the truths he was telling. “If they want money, it flows to them. Or fame…look at them on every magazine cover. Or, well”—he blushed—“sex, you know—if that’s what they want, they get it.”

  Abby nodded, thinking hard. Years ago Hickle had fastened on Jill Dahlbeck, an aspiring actress not unlike many of the women in this room. Now his obsession was Kris Barwood, a more accomplished celebrity. Most likely there had been others, all famous or striving for fame. He was drawn to beautiful women, but beauty was not enough for him. There had to be stardom or the promise of it. Stars were golden people, and he desperately wanted to be one of them. He had not outgrown his adolescent longings for approval and admiration. For him, all of life was prom night, and he was the only one going stag.

  “How about happiness?” Abby asked softly. “Do they get that too?”

  “Of course. We just drove through Beverly Hills. Did you see the houses? Or go up to Malibu…”

  Where Kris lived. Abby lifted an eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “It’s beautiful there. Have you seen it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s magical.”

  “You mean the beach? The seashore?”

  “All of it. Malibu’s a perfect place. How could anybody live there and not be happy? It’s paradise.”

  Abby had in fact visited Malibu many times. For her, the town fell short of its reputation. The hills were sere and parched for half the year, afflicted by mudslides in the rainy season and chaparral fires in the hot, dry months. Beautiful homes could be glimpsed behind gated walls, but the main thoroughfare was lined with ramshackle surf shops and bike rental outlets. She would not have called it paradise. But to Hickle it was the Elysian Fields. It was where the prom queen and her consort would retire to act out their dreamlike lives.

  She wanted to keep him talking about Malibu, but there was no way to do it without being recklessly obvious. Instead she said blandly, “People have problems everywhere, even in nice neighborhoods.”

  “Ordinary people. You know that writer who said the rich are different? He was right, except it’s not just the rich. It’s the killer elite. They have it all, and the rest of us…”

  The second carrot stick snapped in Hickle’s hands.

  “Yes?” Abby asked.

  “We get the table scraps. If we’re lucky.”

  Abby tried to defuse his anger with a shrug. “I’ll bet hardly any of these people here are rich or famous.”

  “Not yet. They’re young. Give them time. Where will they be ten years from now?” His voice sank to a hush. “And where will I be?”

  “I don’t know, Raymond,” she answered, her voice as low as his. “Where do you think?”

  “I think…” Eyes downcast, he studied the table for a long moment. Then he looked up, meeting her gaze. “Actually, I expect to be quite famous.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah. Everybody’s going to know my name.”

  “You writing the great American novel or something?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “So how’s it going to happen?”

  “It’s…a secret.”

  “What good is a secret if you won’t tell anybody? Give me a hint.”

  “I can’t. Really.”

  “Pretend I’m not just Abby, I’m Dear Abby. People tell her everything. They tell her way more than she probably wants to know.” Hickle smiled but shook his head. She wanted to press further, but instinctively she knew he wouldn’t be moved. “Well, okay,” she said. “Whatever it is, I hope it works out for you.”

  “Oh, it will. I’m very sure of that.”

  So there it was. She had the answer to one of her two remaining questions.

  Did he believe he could successfully carry out an attack? Yes. He believed.

  18

  It was a crisis, as usual.

  Every day at KPTI-TV’s news division was an exercise in controlled hysteria. News people were adrenaline addicts; chaos was their normal operating environment; pandemonium was simply their way of getting things done.

  This evening’s red alert was occasioned by the rare birth of twin African elephants at the Los Angeles Zoo. News of the elephant calves’ arrival came over the wire at 5:15 P.M. A news conference at the zoo was scheduled for six o’clock.

  The sensible thing would have been to hold the elephant story until the middle of the newscast, but there was no chance of that. The elephant twins had to lead the show. They bumped a high
-speed police pursuit in Pomona to second place, bumped the hospitalization of a soap opera actress to third, and bumped Channel Eight’s exclusive interview with the mayor to fourth. Political stories were never a high priority in LA.

  The live remote truck arrived at the zoo only minutes before the start of the 6 P.M. newscast. There was trouble establishing a microwave link. But when the show’s opening theme music faded out and Kris Barwood announced the blessed event, the live feed from the news conference streamed in, and the transition to Ed O’Hern live at the scene miraculously went without a hitch. The crew even got video of the newborns taking a few wobbly steps, while “Baby Elephant Walk” played coyly in the background.

  “What a mess,” Amanda Gilbert said when she left the newscast’s postmortem at seven thirty. “Why couldn’t little Dumbo and Dumber get born at a more convenient time?”

  Her voice was loud enough for Kris to hear on the other side of the newsroom. She caught up with Amanda as the younger woman was heading for the exit, a briefcase in one hand and a thick sheaf of papers in the other. “I believe their names are Willy and Wally,” Kris said.

  “Whatever. They’re cute, and they’ve got big ears and a certain Disneyesque appeal. Don’t pester me with details.”

  “Anyway, you did a nice job pulling it all together.”

  Amanda shrugged. “It was touch and go for a few minutes, but hey, we got what we wanted. Smiling zoo officials, couple good bites, nice wrap-up from Ed. Only thing missing was a bunch of freckle-faced school kids toting Babar books.”

  Amanda Gilbert, executive producer of the six o’clock edition of KPTI’s Real News, was thirty years old and talked very fast. She was high-strung and achingly thin and probably slept less than four hours a night. Assessing her with the maximum objectivity possible, Kris could not see what attraction this scrawny, bony, peppy young thing could possibly hold for her fifty-one-year-old husband. But of course there was no real mystery about it. Howard liked them young.

  It wasn’t Amanda’s fault. Howard behaved the same way around secretaries, flight attendants, and the women stationed at cosmetics counters in department stores. Kris had found her husband’s roving eye ruefully amusing at first. Not anymore.