A Time of Predators

“Let’s make it the whole day, Deb. And night. Go back down to the cabin, right now — just the two of us, just like last weekend. We’ve got our swim suits in the car, and—”

“Oh, Ricky, do you think we dare?” But her eyes already were alight with the idea. “I could... I could call the folks and tell them that I’m getting a bus down to Cynthia’s place and...”

“...and that you’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, or — wait a minute — tell them it’s for the weekend.” Debbie wouldn’t be at the cabin tomorrow night, Rick knew, but she couldn’t know that now. He’d come up with an excuse to bring her back up to Los Feliz in the morning; that would be easy. He had to remember to check up that his old man’s pistol and shells were still in back of the bottom bureau drawer. “We’ll have a ball today, honey...”

Getting into the car, Rick felt a twinge of guilt about the velvet night ahead, when tomorrow... But there just wasn’t any other way. He looked over at her, excited and happy beside him. Sacrifice: the leader always had to sacrifice. It was her or them, once Halstead...

Of course, Halstead, tomorrow night, would be easy. Tricky he might be, but he was just a college prof and real old besides. Deb had said he was over forty. It would be easy to take care of an old cat like that.

Chapter 26

After he had hung up, Curt stood with his hand on the receiver for a good thirty seconds. It didn’t make sense. A cabin, down by the ocean, thirty miles away — so she wanted to shield her boyfriend in case Curt tried to put the police on him, still...

On his large-scale county map, Curt checked the area south of San Conrado. Just at the place she had indicated was a small cove, with a narrow entrance between headlands which were probably spines of rock reaching down from the precipitous, irregular bluffs.

It looked isolated. It looked, in fact, like a trap.

So? So Curt had better go down there right now, today, to make a recon of the area, because he was operating on a set of assumptions.

One. Debbie was not trying to trap him, she was sincere.

Two. She was being manipulated, however, by the unknown X, if he indeed was one of the predators who had attacked Rockwell and Paula.

Three. If X and his cronies were the guilty ones, they now would be seeing Curt as a mortal peril to their liberty.

Four. A cabin clinging to the bottom of a remote ravine by the Pacific was much more reasonable for an assault than a consultation.

Five. The assault might well be fatal.

But then, he thought, what about Debbie? What did they plan to do about her once Curt disappeared? That was the hell of it, of course. He was dealing with teen-agers: explosively immature human beings in grown-up bodies who were probably unstable teen-agers to begin with. Who the devil ever knew what kids were going to do? Half the time they seemed not to know themselves from one minute to the next. Dealing with this gang, if they were the predators, would be like handling plastic explosives. Which didn’t alter the fact that he had to reconnoiter.

Curt looked at his watch. So what was he waiting for? This was the confrontation he had striven for weeks and months to bring about, wasn’t it? Then into his memory came Barbara’s strained, frightened face the night before. You’re a college professor, not a professional fighter or anything. They’re a vicious gang, probably sick or disturbed...

Curt snorted at himself, and went out to the car.

He drove via La Honda Road to California 84, which he then took through the thick stands of redwood and conifers to San Conrado. En route, he realized that in all of his planning he had forgotten to allow for his own emotions. He was scared. Whoever they were, the predators had acted viciously, without hesitation or compunction, each time they had felt themselves threatened. If Debbie’s boyfriend was one of them, probably their leader, then tomorrow evening...

Who would be broken in body and spirit? Who would do the maiming? Even big, rugged Monty Worden professed fear at the idea of being dragged down by a pack of frenzied punks.

From San Conrado he went south along the twisting blacktop of the Coast Highway. In places it ran along the very edge of the bluffs; elsewhere it clung to the face of the cliffs themselves. After nine miles by the speedometer, Curt began watching for the gravel driveway. Another problem: Debbie’s absolute certainty that he was wrong about her boyfriend. But as Barbara had said, the young in love could delude themselves to a terrifying degree; and to accept Debbie’s beliefs meant to accept a dizzying series of coincidences, concluded by a fortuitous blowout on that Friday night of Paula’s suicide.