A Time of Predators

“I told Debbie to talk with Halstead — pretend to be interviewing him for the first fall-term edition of the student newspaper — about his wife’s death.” His lips curved in self-satisfaction as he put it into Julio, watched the bastard squirm. “You know the way Deb is with me, Julio, I didn’t give her any reason why I wanted her to ask. I never have to give Deb reasons. She does anything I say. Anything. But, since you’re so damned chicken—”

“I am not chicken,” denied Julio thickly.

“I said, since you are so chicken,” Rick went on, “I’ll ask her what she found out. Just for you, so you can sleep at night. I have a date with her tomorrow night, in San Leandro. I’ll ask her then.”

Once Julio was gone, however, Rick sat down in one of the canvas deck chairs and thoughtfully lighted another cigarette. It was all very well to say to Julio that he was on top of things, but he knew he hadn’t told Debbie to go see Halstead. It was that Julio didn’t know how to handle chicks. He came on too hard with them. Chicks took everything personal, you had to make them think that they somehow had injured you.

He drew on the cigarette, watched the tip glow. Tomorrow was Wednesday, the twenty-seventh. He really had to find out what was going on, before things went sour. The real danger was that fruiter, Rockwell. So he’d screwed Halstead’s wife, hell, she’d begged for it; and now she was dead, they couldn’t prove a thing there. But Rockwell still was around. Christ, Rick’s old man would freak if he was arrested for that. He still could feel that queer’s face grinding into the gravel, almost.

Caliban jumped up on the couch beside Rick, regarded him warily from quarter-sized eyes. Caliban’s throat was achingly white and the tip of his nose was pink; he weighed thirteen pounds. Rick ran a hand down his back and then, because Debbie was still out in the kitchen telling her ma about the movie, shoved Caliban on the shoulder, hard, trying to knock him on the floor. The cat merely yielded with the push, like a boxer slipping a punch, gave a single indignant rowhr! and jumped off the sofa with wounded dignity. Dogs were okay, wagging their tails and everything, but a cat wouldn’t even purr unless he wanted to.

Debbie came in, looking really sexy in a turquoise thing with a short swirly skirt and a tight top that really showed her jugs. Man, he had to get her down to the cabin for a repeat real soon.

“Mom went up to bed,” Debbie said.

Rick grunted. “My old lady, she’d stay up and keep thinking of reasons why she had to walk through the room or something, where we were.”

Debbie sat down beside him, up close beside him, but all he did was take her hand. It was time to find out. He cleared his throat. “Listen, Deb, Julio was driving out Linda Vista Road on Monday and he... ah... thought he saw you going into that Professor Halstead’s house.”

Debbie pulled the hand away. “He just happened to be driving by? In that green Rambler he borrows from Heavy all the time? Rick, he gives me the creeps, he really does. I keep seeing him on the campus at the U. Whenever he looks at me, I feel like I don’t have any clothes on.” Then she shook her head. “The only one I like is Champ.”

Rick remembered Champ on the phone with that snoopy little bastard’s mother; if Debbie only knew! He said, “Did you go see Halstead?”

“He called me up on Friday, and I went to see him Monday.” She met his eyes steadily. “Have you heard of a man named Harold Rockwell?”

Rick felt as if he had been hit in the stomach; but somehow he kept his face and his voice even. “Rockwell? Isn’t he some real square old cat who paints these real square pictures or something?”

“That’s Norman Rockwell, silly.” But Rick could hear the faint thread of relief in her voice. How the hell much had Halstead told her, for God’s sake? How the hell much did Halstead know? Debbie went on, “He was beaten up, this Rockwell, one night way last spring in Los Feliz, and Mrs. Halstead was the only witness...”

Goddamn it, what were they going to do? How much had he told her, for Christ sake? “You mean, Deb, that you thought I had some—”

“No, silly,” said Debbie almost gaily, fears allayed, “but the station wagon they used to attack Rockwell was... well, sort of like that one of Heavy’s, and I thought... I mean, maybe you weren’t with them... it was the week before Paula Halstead died... And then Professor Halstead said that the same station wagon was parked by the golf course that night, and that his wife was... was raped and every thing before she killed herself, and...”

“Aw c’mon, Deb, I was with Julio that night, remember? And I think we were all to a drive-in movie the Friday before.” He was squirming inwardly, but made himself seem nonchalant. “That professor must really be wiggy. What else did he tell you?”