A Time of Predators

Listening to her, he felt a ball of lead growing in his belly. Jesus, Jesus, worse than he’d thought. The worst it could be. All summer they’re sitting around on their butts, and that bastard is tracking them down. But who would have thought... I mean, a goddamn teacher... And he had all of it: the station wagon, the kid on the bike, even using the phone booth light as a signal.

“...and so I had to tell him about you and his wife, Ricky, even though I promised you...”

Even that, Halstead had. Oh, that bastard was smart. He cleared his throat. “Ah... what did he want to do about all this?”

“He wanted your name, wanted to meet you. He said...” She thought carefully, trying to remember things heard through the haze of her shock. “He said that even if you were one of them, you didn’t have to be afraid, because the police couldn’t touch any of them anyway...”

Oh yeah, smart, that bastard. Tricky. Just what Rick would have said in his place. Rick stood, began pacing theatrically. With chicks, you had to get their sympathy.

“This is bad, Debbie. I mean, really terrible! We’re just kids, except Champ — and he’s hardly bright enough to do that gardening work of his. So us being kids, who would the cops believe if this Halstead creep went to ’em and claimed we’d attacked his wife or some stupid thing?”

“But, Ricky — you haven’t done anything!” she cried.

“So what? I mean, Deb, now he knows his wife picked me up in a motel and went to bed with me. What do you think he’ll try and do to me if he ever finds out who I am? How do you even know his wife was raped and all that stuff he told you? Was it ever in the papers?”

“No.” Then Debbie’s face crumpled, and she started to cry as the enormity of what she had done struck her. “Oh, Ricky, honey. I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to... I... I didn’t think...”

So that was all right. He’d shut her up for the time being, so she wouldn’t go to Halstead again until Rick was ready for her to go. And that would take some planning, because Halstead was a tricky cat.

As quickly as he could, Rick disentangled himself from Debbie’s tearful remorse, and headed back across the bridge toward Los Feliz. God, everything was a real mess: it was all crumbling in on top of him. Him, not anyone else. He had blinded that goddamn queer, had gone after Paula Halstead, had gotten her so hot to put out for them; his was the great danger, and there was chicken Julio yelling about his danger!

From Debbie, yet. The real danger was Halstead. They’d cooled everything else, and meanwhile there was Halstead, spending the whole damned summer fitting everything together like a damned puzzle or something, until he’d gotten to Debbie. And if Halstead could get to Debbie, the cops could. Halstead. Asking for his name, wanting to see him.

See him, huh? Rick paid the toll on the San Mateo side of the bridge, drove on, hunched over the wheel in concentration. Well, if that smooth snoopy bastard wanted to see him, maybe Rick would let him. On Rick’s terms. At a place he chose.

The cabin. It was perfect. Isolated. No interruptions.

Rick turned over in his mind what he knew was necessary, curiously, like a chimpanzee turning over a mirror found in its cage. Funny, the idea didn’t scare him as it would have a few months ago. Halstead was the one who was pushing. They hadn’t killed his goddamn wife, had they? All they’d done was give it to her, just the way she’d wanted. So why didn’t he just let it drop? Oh no. Not him. Not Halstead. So they had to do it to him.

He got on Bayshore south, toward Los Feliz. There still was a lot of traffic, even though it was midnight.

And that left Debbie.

No problem, actually, until Halstead... disappeared. But then... Hell, they would have to use Debbie to get Halstead down to the cabin, alone, the way they wanted him. And, he thought with a touch of odd pride in her, once Debbie realized what had happened to Paula, and then to Halstead, she’d go to the cops. Or she would unless...

Unless he used Julio’s idea.

Julio was right, there. It would work. It had worked before. But... Debbie? Well, hell, still, if he had to choose between Debbie getting hurt some, and him going to prison for a long time, with his folks and everybody he knew finding out about Rockwell and all...

It wasn’t like she was some untouchable virgin or something. Now that he thought of it, how could he be sure she had been a virgin before last weekend, down at the cabin? She’d sure let him, easy enough, after a little bit of playing the game there until he’d given her a couple of chinks. Hell, chicks always played the game, the young ones like her. And look how far she’d let him go last year, out by Sears Lake.