A Time of Predators

It was on the Fourth of July, when Ricky was driving her home to her folks’ place in San Leandro, that Debbie realized she was in love. Really for keeps, not just for the summer. He had picked her up at the dorm that afternoon about one o’clock, to take her up to San Francisco for the fireworks display. She had been wearing her new pink slacks, the tight ones that made her want to blush, and a white blouse and sandals.

“We’ll meet the gang over at Heavy’s place,” said Rick, “and—”

“The gang?” Something in her voice made him look over at her. She said defiantly, “I don’t like them very much. Any of them.”

“Well, they’re my friends, Deb. No chick tells me who my friends ought to be.”

Debbie bit back What about Paula Halstead? without saying it. She didn’t know that Ricky had been doing things with the older woman. Someday, of course, she would know — even if she had to ask him about it right out. She said, almost timidly, “I know I don’t own you or anything, Ricky...”

He broke the tension with a wide answering grin. “Don’t call me ‘Ricky’ in front of the guys, Deb, or I’ll belt you one in the mouth, I really will.”

Yes, she thought, it had been a good day, a lovely sunshine-filled day, even after they’d switched cars at Heavy’s place so she’d been riding between Heavy and Rick on the front seat of the old two-tone green station wagon. Champ and Julio were in back, and all the guys had beer cans down between their thighs, which they drank from after looking carefully about for possible “fuzz” who might “bust” them. She had a couple of guilty sips from Rick’s beer, which made her feel rather daring.

“What if your folks would see you doing that?” asked Julio.

“My dad drinks at parties and things,” she said almost defensively. Her folks were really cool, trusting her to never do anything she knew she shouldn’t. “Mom can’t, because of the doctor, so at parties she drinks this pink stuff with no alcohol in it—”

“A Shirley Temple,” supplied Rick.

“Hey, big man!” exclaimed Julio, drawing out the second word.

“He learns from all the older women he runs around with,” said Debbie with a giggle. The drive was turning out much more pleasant than she had expected.

Rick answered her with a wink, his voice casual. “Sure, kid, I drop you at the dorm and then go have a ball.”

As he spoke, he covertly studied her profile. Christ, had she heard something about that waitress, Mary Davies, that he’d been banging for almost three weeks? No. She’d say something to him alone, not in front of the rest of them. She was just kidding around, was all.

But watching the back of Debbie’s head, Julio Escobar felt his gut muscles knot up. She knew! Knew what had happened to the professor’s wife that night! But how could he make Rick see the danger that Debbie posed? Rick would not listen now, just because Julio knew; Rick would have to be given proof. Julio would have to get it. Look at her today, hanging all over Rick, wearing those tight pants that told the rest of them, see, see fellows, what you’re missing? Just as she’d done as a cheerleader, never let anyone touch her and then jumping around in those miniskirts and showing her legs all the way up on some of the yells she led. Well, she’d find out.

Heavy handled the station wagon like a scalpel, slicing from lane to lane through traffic at a steady eighty miles an hour. He left the freeway at Franklin, a one-way street which would take them up over Pacific Heights and down to the Marina green on the other side, where the fireworks display would be held.

“I’d love to live up here,” said Debbie. They were just at Broadway, where the houses were old and spacious, the apartment buildings new and dazzling. “Right here in Pacific Heights with a view of the Bay.”

“Ah... how’dya know this is Pacific Heights?” marveled Champ. He never said much to Debbie, since she was Rick’s woman, but when she turned and smiled at him he realized that he wanted to do some stuff to her no matter whose girl she was. Not that he would, of course.

“My dad used to bring me up here sometimes when we still lived on the Peninsula. He used to have some clients up here...”

Caliban, the blunt-nosed yellow cat her mom had named after a character in one of Shakespeare’s plays, jumped up on the bed beside her. She rubbed him absently under the chin, and he strained back his head and purred like a refrigerator.

A good day? The day. The best day of her entire life.

Fifty thousand people had been on the strip of greensward between Marina Boulevard and the yacht anchorage, someone said. Out beyond the breakwater and rows of gleaming moored yachts was the Bay, with hundreds of flitting sailboats heeled over by the breeze. To the left was the red-orange arc of Golden Gate Bridge, leading to Marin County and unknown adventures. Behind her were the whitely glistening hills of the city, like something you saw in the movies.