A Time of Predators

“But... I thought...” Curt felt the blood rising in his face. “I mean, I thought... you used to...”

“You see, Curt,” said Preston equably, “it just isn’t worth it to me. If this is the gang, they’ll by playing for keeps. Someone’s liable to be hurt, or even killed. You’ve got a hard-on against them, but I don’t. I’ve got a business to run, and getting mixed up in something like this...” He slowly shook his head. “I’ve got a wet suit and mask and flippers you am use, if you decide to go in from the ocean side, but as far as my coming along...”

Swallowing all the angry phrases trembling on his tongue, Curt turned and walked from the office. He tried to hang on to the anger on the drive home, but by the time he was parking the VW beside the porch he had realized how naive his expectations had been. Why the hell should Preston help him in a private vendetta? The trouble was that as the anger dissolved, it left only his knot of fear behind.

It was the old problem of the Hand-to-Hand Manual all over again. In the Manual you threw people around, stabbed them to death, and it all was clean and tidy as a sheet of print in a book. Reality was the gasping, clawing sentry, the stink of fear and sweat and loosened bladder. Finding and disabling and breaking the predators in theory had a clear and terrible clarity about it; but reality was a frightened man, forty-three years old, facing alone a moment of truth for which he was not prepared. Alone. That too had a clear and terrible clarity about it.

Curt went out into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of red wine. It was the first since the weekend of Paula’s death. He returned with it to the living room, sipped at it, stared out the window at the slanting golden late afternoon sunlight on the golf course.

What was his alternative? Give up, as Preston had suggested. Was there any real reason he had to go the next day? No. Nobody except himself wanted or expected him to go on with the search. He could call Debbie Marsden next week, say — oh, say he had found evidence pointing elsewhere than her boyfriend. That would end it, that easily. No one further would be involved, no one else hurt; if a trap was planned at the cabin tomorrow, it would just be forgotten by all concerned.

And tonight? Call Barbara, let her tell him he was making the right decision. Well, no, he wouldn’t do that; but Curt knew he would not be going the next evening. Feeling better, he carried the nearly untouched wine to the kitchen and poured it down the sink.

Chapter 27

Julio pulled shut the double doors of the garage and dropped the old-fashioned wooden bar into place. To eyes still dazzled by the outside brilliance, the artificial light seemed flat and weak.

Heavy looked up from the mechanical depths of the stripped-down Ford that was hoodless in the center of the garage over a great black puddle of oil. As he wiped his hands on a greasy rag, his skull-and-cross-bones ring glinted dully. Champ straightened up from his stool in front of the workbench, his pectoral muscles jumping like a frog activated by electric shock.

“They are coming,” said Julio.

Then they listened. The crunch of gravel as Rick’s Triumph turned into the drive, growl of motor as it drew up outside the double doors, a single tiny squeak of brake drum as it stopped. A door slammed with a heavy mechanical sound, then another. Debbie’s voice spoke indistinguishable words as it approached the side door. The knob rattled.

Light burst upon them. Debbie exclaimed, “Oh, it’s dark in here!”

She wore her clothes of the previous day: beige miniskirt, green sleeveless blouse, sandals on bare feet. Rick still was dressed in his chinos, short-sleeved sport shirt, and desert boots. His voice was alive with excitement or nerves. “Gentlemen: I give you Miss Deborah Marsden!”

“Silly,” chided Debbie, giggling, “I know them all.”

Rick insisted. “On my right, by the tool bench, Mr. Ernest “Champ” Mather, who features the biggest arms and smallest brain in Northern California. Champ, make a muscle for the lady.”

Julio had explained it all to him, but Champ still couldn’t get over the feeling that Debbie was Rick’s girl. Still... He grinned hungrily at her, his flawed, deep-set eyes moving over her; then his biceps jumped out under his short sleeves like grapefruits.

“That is not a can of Crisco by the Ford, but Delmer “Heavy” Gander. His father owns this fine establishment, but he’s fishing this weekend on the Delta. Heavy, take a bow.”

Instead Heavy, smelling strongly of sweat, emitted a terrific belch. Julio went off into a paroxysm of high, almost hysterical laughter. Rick pointed at him like a ref calling a foul on a basketball court.

“Finally is Julio Escobar, who claims to be the only boy in Los Feliz High who didn’t get to make out with you under the bleachers while you were a cheerleader. He says—”