DARK THRILLERS-A Box Set of Suspense Novels (31 page)

"You're not making this up, like with the camera?"

Cam shook his head. "It's the truth. I make movies. I direct. You ever see Soldier?"

"Hell, yes! I was in Nam and that movie was right on, man. You the guy who made that? Shee-it."

"That's my movie. I was in Quang Ngai. Foot soldier, mine fodder, and I just got lucky to get out alive."

"Marines." Jim held out his hand and shook Cam's hand. "Da Nang. We're getting to be old soldiers, you know that? You ever think you'd be old? I never would have thought it. Old, man, I hate that shit."

Cam slurped up the last drops of his beer and ordered another. "So I'm doing this stalker movie," he said, bringing the subject back around to what he wanted to talk about. He often took his work into the working man's joints, checked out their responses, their ideas. Sometimes he even incorporated them into whatever film he was working on. You could do worse than listen to your audience. They knew what they liked, what moved them, what bored the fuck out of them. Cam's colleagues didn't listen to these people. They looked down on the public, feeding them what they thought they should want. Which translated to either mindless drivel or left-wing political diatribes on the latest bleeding heart subject the media helped burble to the top of the cesspool.

"Stalker movie, yeah," Jim said, focused. "Scary movie, huh?"

"Plenty scary. But see, it's a woman stalking a guy."

"Hey, that ain't so farfetched. I know a guy that happened to. He couldn't get rid of the psycho bitch. She like haunted him. Everywhere he turned, the crazy bitch was there."

"Well, that's not quite what this will be about, but close.”

“So tell me about it."

For the next hour, while the two men drank at the bar like long-lost friends, Cam laid out the plot of his movie to Jim, the dock loader. At the end of the hour both of them were well on the way to inebriation. Cam thought ole Jarhead Jim liked the movie story, but certainly it could be the whiskey talking. Still, it reassured him to have a real person say yeah, he thought it was a damn cool idea.

You couldn't depend on agents and producers and front-money men and actors to tell you if a movie would fly or not. What the fuck did they know? They made movies, they didn't know what movies they ought to be making. They had their heads so far up their asses they breathed methane. And the scriptwriters, Jesus God. One piece of lackluster crap after another came across his desk, like the writers' brains were full of sawdust.

Now that Cam had gotten one opinion—one of many to come since he'd do this again real soon—he remembered the babe and checked to see if she was still hanging around.

Shit no. She wasn't anywhere in the place. Gone home with someone else already. He'd missed his chance, not that he was going to cry about it. She had looked all right, but he wouldn't have fought the local PTA to lay her.

He scanned the crowd that had grown since he and Jim had started talking and saw a couple of possibles at a booth in the back. Lone gals, one dark and one light, sipping pink cocktails, for Christ's fucking sake, and watching for a man to give them a tumble. He thanked Jim for his time and said, "I'm going to find myself a warm body to get me laid."

"Hey, go for it, hoss. I gotta get home to my ole lady anyway before she calls up the cops."

Cam ambled across the room to the girls. So fucking what if he couldn't handle both of them in his condition. There was always tomorrow morning if they'd stay the night.

Many times he'd been fine in bed, a goddamn stallion, once the sun was up for a while. Blessed with an iron constitution, he never suffered hangovers. Come morning, he could screw the lights out of five women if he could get his hands on them.

God bless hops and malt and cool mountain water, heaven's midnight nectar. God bless the women who spread their legs when they saw him coming.

He grinned lopsidedly at the women and they smiled back. Ah, sweet conquests.

4

Hollywood: "To survive there, you need the ambition of a Latin American revolutionary, the ego of a grand opera tenor, and the physical stamina of a cow pony."

Billie Burke, Filmgoer's Companion

Karl LaRosa knew the car behind him was a tail only after he made his fourth turn, taking him from Hollywood to the freeway that led to North Malibu. Coincidence. No, he didn't believe in coincidence. You got what you worked for; you brought into your sphere what you needed; you hit on the right idea because you focused your mind in the right direction. No, this was not just some driver going his way. This was someone stuck right on his ass.

It could be anyone. An L.A. gang who wanted his car. It wasn't a new Jaguar. It was, however, a primo sports coupe, 1985. Carjackers might not know the difference.

Or the tail might be a pissed-off client. A damn nutcase. Anyone.

He put the pedal to the floor and took his chances on getting a speeding ticket. None of the thoughts he'd just had concerning the tail made him care much about having to face a cop. In fact, if whoever was behind him had mischief in mind, a cop would be a godsend.

His Jaguar pulled away from the headlights in his rearview. He slipped over two lanes to the fast lane and saw it was clear ahead. The speedometer was already rocking at ninety and slamming on. The motor hummed along like the well-kept, handmade beauty it was. He kept the car in A-1 condition mostly because he loved it, but also because of the long commute he made to and from work. He couldn't outrun a 'vette or a Ferrari, but for some reason he didn't think the tail was one of those sleek expensive jobs. The headlights were too far apart for that.

Still he could see the car behind him gaining.

His foot pressed the floorboard as if more pressure might cause the Jaguar to go faster. Now the speedometer jiggled at one hundred and the motor purred like a contented beast. The speedometer inched over, going into the red line.

He catches me, Karl thought, and plays bumper cars, we are both in serious shit here.

His speed rose another twenty miles an hour. There was a hundred and eighty on the gauge, but he'd never tried burying it and he didn't think he had the guts to try it now. The lane ahead was still clear. It was Sunday night, almost two in the morning. Good thing. If there had been heavy traffic he could never have gone so fast.

He checked the rearview and driver's side mirror. Oh man. It was really coming. The tail was just a car length back. It was coming like a train, straight for his back bumper. That would never do. The Jaguar couldn't hold the road if it got a jolt. Or rather, the Jaguar might hold, but he wasn't sure his driving skills were up to it.

He lifted his foot from the gas pedal. As the tail neared, it fell back to keep from ramming him. When the speedometer read eighty, that's when it happened.

Karl screamed just as if he thought the driver of the other car might hear him. "Hey, don't hit my car!"

Metal rapped metal as the bumpers touched, then there was a surge and Karl fought the wheel, his foot hovering, but not touching the brake. If he hit the brake it was all over. They'd both go catapulting over a side lane and into other traffic.

The lights behind him backed off. They fell back a car length, two, three. Karl slowed more, his heart bongoing in his chest in a crazy boom-boom rhythm. Despite the wind coming through his cracked open side window, he felt sweat slip down his forehead and sting his eyes.

As he watched the rearview and side mirrors, he saw the headlights swing over two lanes to an exit and leave the freeway.

"What was that all about?" he asked aloud. "What in hell was that about?"

He moved over carefully two lanes, his speed down to a normal sixty miles an hour. He realized he was breathing fast and he bet if he could see his face in the rearview mirror it would be white as driven snow.

Lucky, he thought. You're a real lucky son of a bitch, Karl LaRosa. Whoever played tag with you decided at the last moment to give it up.

Maybe it had been a drunk, a stupid drunk, his mind warped by alcohol vapors. Or someone on drugs who came to his senses just in time to avoid a horrible wreck.

Once off the freeway and driving down the quiet night streets of Malibu, Karl sighed. His workweek recently was eating up his weekends, running all the days together. Tonight he'd been locked in his office finishing up paperwork on a new client. She'd want instant results, as if the world should bow down to her whims and wishes. Most of them were like that. Now, I want it now. I can't wait, it's got to be now.

Not that he was bitter or cynical, not yet. He'd been in Hollywood since his college days and he was used to it, used to the get-it-done-by-yesterday mentality. He actually had a lot of sympathy for his clients. This was Barracuda City. It infected newcomers with such apprehension and longing that they couldn't help pushing, shoving, hurrying as if tomorrow was too late and next year, well, next year didn't even exist.

He knew how much they cared and how much they needed success. That's what made him so good. He understood the fire that burned them and so he made allowances. He had patience when others didn't. He was very good as a personal publicity manager and it was his empathy that made all the difference.

He turned into his driveway and hit the remote for the garage door. He drove inside, shut off the motor and sat a moment. He should see if the bumper was dented. Maybe it was all right . . .

Just as he grabbed up his leather zippered case of papers from the passenger seat and opened the car door, he saw something askew.

The door leading into the house was open.

It was never open. Never. It was locked until he unlocked it.

There might be someone inside still. Would he not only be nearly run down tonight, but maybe murdered by a burglar?

He glanced at his car phone. He'd look stupid if he called out someone and there was nothing wrong. Maybe he should check out the situation first. He slid out of the car quietly. He pushed the door shut just until the interior light went off, then pressed harder until the latch took. He moved softly to the door leading from the garage into the kitchen. He touched the doorknob, stood listening.

No sounds. They were gone already or they were in some part of the house where he couldn't hear them.

He peeked around the door, opened it wider, slipped inside. He had no weapon, didn't believe in guns, didn't like them. Frankly, guns scared the hell out of him. Olivia had offered him a 9mm Glock automatic from her collection, but he said thanks, no thanks, that looks like a killer to me. Now he wished he'd taken it and stashed it in the Jaguar.

Maybe he should just get back in the car and call the cops. That's what a smart homeowner would do.

No, he was already inside now and there were no voices, no secretive sounds of movement. He couldn't detect the presence of another human.

He halted and took stock. The light over the stove was on as he had left it. No one here. No problem here. Nothing seemed out of place. He hadn't known he'd been holding his breath, expecting to see disaster, until now that the air rushed out of him all in a whoosh.

He turned to the door leading to the living room. Lamp on in there. He didn't leave lights on in the rest of the house, only the light over the stove. So someone had left it on. He was almost certain the intruder was gone. The house felt forlorn and empty the way it always did when he first entered.

His footsteps on the tiled kitchen floor rung through the room and no one came running, brandishing a handgun in his face.

He worked up spit enough to call out in a cranky, scared voice, "Anybody in there?"

He paused, listening hard. Nothing. They were gone. He or she was gone. "They're gone, Karl, catch your heart and slow it down." Admonishing himself this way did the trick. Almost. He calmed, was suddenly afraid again when his footsteps creaked over a low board in the wood floor. He couldn't help his irrational fear, but it made him angry, too. Would Lee Marvin or Robert Mitchum be this scared? Would John Wayne? Hell no.

He straightened up. Glanced around the living room and saw nothing at all disturbed. Everything lay and sat just as he'd left it. His coffee mug on the glass dining table near the far wall of windows. His reading glasses he kept at home, just as he'd placed them that morning on the latest copy of Variety on the coffee table. Nothing missing that he could tell. There sat the big CD player unit, the television and VCR, even the Oscar his father had won in the forties for Best Supporting. Hell, if this was a burglary, they'd have surely taken Oscar. No one in the universe would break in and leave behind the gold-plated statue.

Perplexing. Why break in if they didn't want to steal something?

The hair tingled at the back of his neck. He swallowed and it hurt, like the muscles in his neck were tight as newly strung fence wire.

It was something else. Whoever had been here wasn't interested in stealing his things. Whoever it was hadn't been looking for anything special. Then what . . . ?

He hurried now, dropping his leather case to the sofa, running through the room to his bedroom. He didn't know what he expected. A couple of teenagers lying startled and naked on his bed, caught in their illicit guilt. Or a dead body lying across the mattress, throat cut. Or . . . just anything but the soft light twinkling from the bedside lamp and the small, folded note lying on his pillow. He didn't expect that at all.

He straightened again, found that he'd been moving in a crouch, like some kind of animal going to ground and ready to spring. His fists were balled. He opened his hands now, flexing the fingers, and, after looking around the room quickly for signs of anything out of place but finding nothing, he moved to the unmade bed. He stared at the paper on his pillow without touching it. It was a sheet of cream stationery folded in half. His name, KARL, was printed in block letters with black ink.

He picked it up finally and flipped up the paper to read.

Dear Karl, dearie, dear heart, my love.

Karl could hardly force himself to read further. So far the words made no sense to him. He could not imagine who might have written them or why.