The Shadow Hunter

by Michael Prescott

  She ate the meat dishes exclusively until she saw Hickle sampling the veggie meal. He seemed to have no reservations about eating it. She saw him chew and swallow. Her fear of poisoning receded. Even so, she wasn’t very hungry.

  “Anything on TV?” Hickle asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You watch it much?”

  “A little.”

  “Like what?”

  “Nothing special. Sometimes one of those magazine shows, you know, like Dateline.” She had never watched Dateline in her life, but she had the impression that it was on nearly every night, so it must be popular. “How about you? You have any favorite shows?”

  He hesitated. “I like to watch the local news.”

  She was almost sure he was studying her reaction. She played it cool, showing a slight frown of distaste. “The news? Isn’t that depressing?”

  “I think it’s good to, uh, stay informed—you know, about the community.”

  Yes, she thought, you’re very civic-minded. “But there’s so much crime.”

  “Crime is part of life. Without people who break the rules, where would we be?”

  “The Garden of Eden?”

  “Maybe, but what’s the point of living in paradise if you’re not really living? Know what I mean?”

  She speared a chunk of broccoli with her plastic fork. “Tell me.”

  “Okay, here’s the thing. Adam and Eve were only going through the motions, see. They were content to just exist. They didn’t strive for anything. They never sought out their—well, their destiny.”

  “Do you believe in destiny?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What is destiny, do you think?”

  “Destiny…” Hickle drew a slow, thoughtful breath. “Destiny is like what happened with Dante and Beatrice. You know that story?”

  “Not really.”

  “Dante became a great poet, but his destiny was set when he was nine. That was when he saw a girl from afar, a girl his own age. Her name was Beatrice. He fell in love, dedicated his life to her. Years later, when he was in his forties and Beatrice was dead, he wrote an epic poem in tribute to her. She lives on through his art. She was his destiny, I think—even though they were never lovers, never even friends. Still, she was meant for him, and finally she was his, not in life, but in death.”

  “I see,” Abby said softly.

  He must have heard doubt in her tone. “You don’t agree with me, do you? You don’t think it’s destiny?”

  “I think…” Abby calculated the risk of honesty, then looked directly at him. “I think it sounds like a kind of madness, Raymond.”

  He stiffened but forced himself to smile. “The kind of madness that breaks all the rules,” he said evenly. “So I guess we’re back where we started.”

  “Crime, you mean.” Abby looked away, breaking eye contact. It was not good to challenge him. “Where there’s crime, there’s usually punishment.”

  “Some people aren’t afraid of punishment.”

  “Maybe they should be.”

  He was silent, pensive. She forced herself to eat another few bites of her dinner. It had been a gamble to raise the issue of punishment. She had no idea how he would react. With violence, maybe, or simply by withdrawing into a sulk.

  She thought she was ready for anything, but when he spoke, his question surprised her. “Did you really come here from Riverside?”

  “Sure,” she said, holding her voice steady.

  “And you had a fiancé who cheated on you?”

  “Yes, I did.” She didn’t like being interrogated. She tried to turn the tables. “Why would you ask?”

  “Sometimes I have the feeling you’re not what you seem.”

  Not good. How to respond? With a smile. “Then what am I?”

  He smiled also, but it was a smile without humor.

  “An image. An illusion. Or maybe what I said the first time we met: an actress.”

  “I told you, I’m a girl trying to get her head together after a bad breakup. Nothing more complicated than that.”

  “Everything is more complicated than that.” He studied her openly, his food forgotten. She knew he had more to say, and she waited for it. “Do you know how it feels,” he asked finally, “to want to believe in something…or someone…when you’re not sure you can?”

  She saw what looked like anguish in his face and almost pitied him. “I know how it feels. But there are times when you’ve got to believe.”

  “Why?”

  “Because relationships are built on trust.” She thought of Travis when she said it, Travis with his stash of CDs.

  Hickle shifted closer to her on the sofa. She could feel him trembling, but whether it was a signal of fear or rage she couldn’t guess. “You trusted your fiancé,” he said, “and he lied to you.”

  “Not everybody lies.”

  “I think they do.”

  He leaned toward her, and she felt the heat coming off his body and knew his pulse was racing. He might be preparing to strike. She almost tensed in anticipation of a fight, but if she did, he would sense it.

  “I think,” Hickle said slowly, his voice dropping to a whisper, “everybody lies all the time. We all put on an act. We hide from view.”

  “Including you?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And me?”

  “I think so, Abby.”

  “So you don’t trust me.” She put no judgment in the words.

  “I’d like to, I really would.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “Should I?”

  “Of course you should. I’m trying to be your friend.”

  “What else are you?”

  “Nothing else.”

  She saw the intensity building in his gaze. “Who are you, really?” he whispered.

  Her purse was on the coffee table, but to reach it she would have to spring forward, and with Hickle pressed against her, she wasn’t sure she could. “I’m your friend, Raymond.” She knew he wasn’t buying it. “Just your friend.” If he had any kind of weapon, she was dead.

  “My friend.”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope so,” he said, leaning nearer, closing the distance between them, and he kissed her.

  It was the briefest kiss, a gentle meeting of the lips, and Abby knew it was unplanned, an act of impulse. She did not resist or respond. Hickle was the one who pulled back in a violent recoil that upset the plate in his lap.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have—didn’t mean to—”

  Abby didn’t know whether to feel relieved or embarrassed, but she was suddenly sure he posed no immediate threat. “It’s okay, Raymond,” she said soothingly. “Forget about it. It’s okay.”

  He looked away, his face flushed scarlet, and then he saw the multicolored stain painted on the sofa by his spilled chicken and pork.

  “Uh oh,” Abby said, following his gaze. “Looks like it’s wet cleanup time.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “We’ll do it together. Wait here.” She busied herself in the kitchen, wetting paper towels under a stream of tap water. When she returned to the sofa, she saw Hickle standing near the coffee table, nervously shifting his weight like a boy who had to go to the bathroom. Whatever his intentions had been in coming here, kissing her had not been on the agenda.

  He took the towels from her and blotted up the mess. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “Don’t worry about it. The furniture’s not even mine. Besides, it looks like you got rid of the stain.”

  “I think so.” Hickle put down the towels and began edging toward the door. “Guess I’d better be going. It’s late.”

  “Only nine.” Suddenly she didn’t want him to go. He’d reached out to her in his clumsy way. She wanted to explore the new path he’d opened for her.

  “I’m kind of tired.” He put his hand on the doorknob.

  She tried stalling. “There’s some leftovers fo
r you to take.”

  “You keep them. It’ll make a good lunch.” He fumbled the door open and stepped into the hall.

  “Raymond, if you ever want to talk to me…about anything…drop by, okay?”

  He didn’t look back. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

  Then the door was shut and she was alone. Abby wished he hadn’t fled. There had been a chance for a dialogue, a breakthrough. It was an opportunity that might not present itself again.

  Hickle stood unmoving in the hallway for a long time, thinking of one thing only.

  He had kissed her. Kissed her mouth.

  He hadn’t meant to. Nor had he meant to ask most of the questions he’d asked. He’d simply been unable to stop himself. It was as if he’d been carried along on a current of energy that flowed between Abby and himself, with no willpower of his own, no self-control.

  He let himself into his apartment, then paced the living room. After a while it occurred to him that he was hungry. He’d managed to eat only a few bites with Abby so near to him on the couch. In the kitchen he fried up some beans and ate them out of a bowl, washing them down with Coca-Cola. Eating calmed him.

  He had made a fool of himself, but she hadn’t seemed to mind. She had smiled kindly and offered to be there if he needed to talk. She had said she was his friend. He wished he could believe her. But the words from last night’s e-mail message still scrolled through his memory: Her job is to get close to men like yourself, learn their secrets, and report what she finds.

  He finished his meal, wandered into the bedroom, and sat on his bed, shoulders slumping. He still didn’t know if Abby was his friend or his betrayer. But he could find out. It was easy now, as easy as the press of a button.

  Hickle reached into his pants pocket and took out the item he had snatched from Abby’s purse.

  There had been other things in the purse, things he’d barely had time to notice in his brief, frantic rummaging. A lightweight revolver—suspicious but not conclusive; in LA many women armed themselves. A wallet containing a driver’s license that bore the name Abby Gallagher and an address in Riverside—it meant nothing; ID could be faked. A pair of small tools, their purpose unidentifiable.

  The last item he’d found had been the one he wanted. He had slipped it into his pocket and backed away from the coffee table just before she emerged from the kitchen with the wet towels. He held it now in the palm of his hand.

  A microcassette recorder with a tape inside, partially used. He touched Rewind, and the tape began to run back.

  If she was keeping secrets, he would find them on the tape. Her ruminations and reminders, her notes to herself. All he had to do was listen.

  The tape kept rewinding. It made a low hiss as it turned.

  He wondered if he wanted to play it. Maybe he would be better off not knowing. If he could accept Abby as what she claimed to be, if he could put away all doubt and suspicion, wouldn’t he be happier?

  He weighed the tape recorder in his hand, as if weighing the choice it represented. Then his finger pressed the button marked Play.

  From the small speaker came Abby’s voice, faint as a whisper. Hickle stretched out on the bed, the tape recorder inches from his ear, and listened.

  27

  “Where is this going to lead?”

  Howard Barwood paused in the act of pulling on his pants. He looked at Amanda, naked in bed. “I told you,” he said, “I intend for us to be together.”

  “When?”

  “When Kris is out of the picture.”

  “I’m a cynical big-city gal, Howie. And I’m starting to wonder if that’s ever going to happen.”

  “It’ll happen.” He tugged his pants up around his waist and fastened the buckle. He hated it when she called him Howie.

  The bedside lamp was the only light in the room. It was fitted with a three-way reading bulb, but the two higher wattages had burned out, and only the lowest setting was still functional. The bulb cast a wan, sallow glow over half the bedroom, leaving the far corners in shadow.

  “You know,” Amanda went on as if he hadn’t spoken, “I’m starting to sense a certain proclivity toward procrastination on your part. You’ve had months to tell her.”

  “There are other considerations.”

  “Such as?”

  “The timing of certain financial transactions.” It seemed safe to tell her that much.

  “Sounds very mysterious,” Amanda purred, “and disturbingly nonspecific.”

  “Let’s just say we’re not going to be poor.”

  “Was that ever an issue?”

  “Poor is a relative term. Poor by my standards might be rich by somebody else’s. We’ll have all we need.”

  “And what will Kris have?”

  Howard turned away. “You don’t have to worry about Kris.”

  He found his shirt and shrugged it on. He felt better when he was not bare-chested. As a younger man he had been proud of his muscular torso, but now his pecs were sagging and his abdomen had loosened as his waistline expanded. He was out of shape. He didn’t like to look in the mirror anymore. Or maybe there were other reasons why he preferred not to look at himself.

  Outside, the siren of an emergency vehicle—police car, ambulance, fire engine—caterwauled down some nearby street. Sirens were a constant background noise in this neighborhood. Howard thought of the crash of the surf on the Malibu sand, the only noise he ever heard from the deck of the beach house, and briefly he wondered what he was doing in this place.

  Well, it was a little late to be asking that question, wasn’t it? Already he had set in motion a chain of events that would free him from his marital obligations and his life in Malibu. At times he might regret the course he’d taken, but he could not undo what he had done. There was no turning back.

  “What?” Amanda asked.

  He realized he had spoken the last thought aloud. “Nothing,” he said, buttoning his shirt.

  “Okay, be secretive. It’s irritating, but manly in a reserved, nineteenth-century sort of way.”

  She rolled onto her side, showing her back to him. Tattooed above the left cheek of her buttocks was a red rose. Howard had been fascinated the first time he’d seen it. He had been with many women, but never one with a tattoo. It had seemed exotic and arousing. Now he regarded it with indifference and the faintest touch of condescension. He wondered if he regarded Amanda herself the same way.

  No, of course not. Where had that thought come from? He was serious about Amanda. She was exactly what he needed. She was young. She had energy, ambition, confidence. She talked fast and proposed a thousand ideas an hour. And she was—what was the word?—adventurous. Sexually adventurous, not to put too fine a point on it. She did things with enthusiasm, things Kris would have been reluctant or unwilling to do at all.

  He remembered his first night with Amanda—how she had teased his pants down around his knees and taken him into her mouth, drawing him out to full extension with her tongue, and in that moment he had been twenty years old again, not a man in middle age with hair on his earlobes and a potbelly that left him winded when he climbed a flight of stairs.

  Not that their whole relationship was about sex. Far from it. They had conversations. Take tonight, for instance. He had talked with her for most of the evening over an anchovy pizza and a bottle of Merlot. Only afterward had they retreated into the bedroom for a different kind of intimacy. What he was doing with Amanda was no cheap fling. It was an affair of the heart. It had to be.

  Yawning elaborately, Amanda slipped out of bed and brushed past him into the bathroom. She poured a glass of water and drank a long swallow before fussing with her hair. Unlike him, she had no problem with mirrors. He liked the trim economy of her body, her small breasts with their stiff nipples, her tight thighs and the tight space between them, a space he had grown to know well over the past six months.

  He had met her during a visit to KPTI, months ago. He had flirted, she’d responded. He was incapable of resi
sting temptation. Sometimes he told himself that Kris must have been familiar with his weakness, and if she had chosen to marry him anyway, she had known what was she getting into. As a rationalization it was not much good, but it was the best he could do.

  The truth was that he had loved Kris once, but the feeling had ebbed. He supposed she’d been right when she said that for him, a woman’s novelty wore off and she became another discarded toy. But there were always more toys to be bought if a man had the money…and if his previous possessions didn’t weigh him down.

  “She suspects, you know,” Amanda said from the bathroom.

  Howard, who had been hunting for his shoes amid the tangled bedspread on the floor, looked up in bewilderment. “What did you say?”

  “She thinks you may be having an affair. She told me so.”

  The world seemed to freeze around him, or maybe it was simply that his breath froze in his chest. “When?”

  “Yesterday. It was True Confessions time, at least for her.” Amanda smirked, then turned grave. “I shouldn’t find it funny. After all, she is my friend in some sense of the word.”

  She stood nude in the bathroom doorway, hips cocked, arms akimbo. Her collarbone stood out against the pallor of her skin. She was not as pretty as Kris, Howard thought irrelevantly. But she was young. “Why didn’t you tell me before now?” he asked.

  An insouciant shrug. “Slipped my mind.”

  “Well, what did she say, exactly?”

  “She thinks you’re fooling around. I promised her a heart-to-heart talk, but I didn’t follow through. It would be like a cat playing with a mouse. There might be a certain sadistic pleasure in it, but it’s not the sort of entertainment calculated to raise your self-esteem.”

  “No.” His voice was flat. “I guess not.”

  “I’m not saying she knows anything for sure. She has a hunch, that’s all—feminine intuition or whatever. Anyway, it’s good, isn’t it?”

  Good. What a word for her to use. “Is it?”

  “It makes it easier for you to tell her about us.” A frown pinched her face. “You are going to tell her, aren’t you, Howie?”

  “At the appropriate time.” He knew it sounded perfunctory, and that she would be angry.