Head Shot (A Thriller): A Crime and Suspense Thriller (9 page)

Twenty-Seven

In a trailer on the outskirts of Rodgers Bay, Michigan, Hank Campbell stood in all of his glorious naked manhood, all six feet five inches and three hundred and ninety pounds of him.  Since his time in the blue room, he had come a long way physically, if not geographically.

His chest was covered with thick, greasy hair, as were his stomach, back, arms, hands and feet.

Buried under the hair and burned into the top of his thick fat were many tattoos, rendered completely unrecognizable by their environment. Thick jowls, deep set eyes and a florid complexion were the hallmarks of his face.

He hefted his eleventh beer of the night, and drained the entire can in three huge gulps.

The inside of the trailer looked like the aftermath of a tornado; debris was scattered everywhere.  In the corner of the living room sat Hank’s chair, a bright, deer-hunting orange La-Z-Boy with oil stains on the head cushion where Hank’s head rested for up to 8 hours a day.

The armrests of the chair were stained also, the right one being primarily beer stains, the left armrest being mostly sweat stains from Hank’s hand holding the remote control.

About the only thing that looked worse than the inside of the trailer was how the inside of the trailer smelled.  A nearly four hundred pound man who rarely bathed could create quite an aroma inside such cramped quarters.

Of course, the current smell was nothing compared to the odors emanating from the trailer two years ago.

In spring of that year, the Rodgers Bay police department received complaints of an offensive smell coming from the address that matched the one on Hank Campbell's trailer door.

When they investigated, they discovered the body of Gretchen Campbell, Hank's mother, in the bathtub.  She had been dead for almost a year, and although the body was covered in lime, it had deteriorated significantly.

Hank had not wanted his “beer money” to be cut short, so he had not reported his mother’s death in order to continue collecting her Social Security check.  He was forced to pay the money back, but he had gotten nearly twenty thousand dollars from the insurance company, which was enough to pay for the funeral and the money due the government, with a little left over.

The whole affair had humiliated Hank Campbell, as much as he was able to perceive the impression he had made on rest of the small town.

He took to cleaning his guns more regularly, and he stayed inside his trailer more, the only other place he had in the whole world was Feit's Saloon in Rodgers Bay.

There was a stool reserved for Hank at that bar; he had once stopped a bar fight by beating both of the participants to a bloody pulp, and in the process, he had become the unofficial bouncer of the place.  There weren't too many people, no matter how many beers and shots they'd downed, who had the nerve to go up against Hank Campbell.

The big man lifted up his arms and sniffed his armpits, they didn't smell too bad, so he pulled on an old T-shirt, his bulging shoulders and chest straining the flimsy material, and made a half-hearted attempt to tuck it into the waistband of his shorts, but the back half didn't make it and part of his naked ass was exposed.

Hank scooped the keys off the kitchen counter and grabbed two more beers for the ride down Feit's.

It was a cool night, but Hank had all the windows of his Ford Bronco down.  When a person weighs almost four hundred pounds, it isn't easy to stay cool.

He popped the top to one beer and then opened the glove compartment where he kept his .357 Magnum, and stashed the extra beer inside.

The radio blared when Hank turned the ignition, he always forgot to turn the radio off, and a Bob Seeger song blasted out at him.  He rocked his heavy head in rhythm to the song, and his thick, meaty fingers tapped out the bass line on the steering wheel.

For Hank Campbell, driving in the Bronco was one of his few joys in life, next to fighting and shooting things.  There was only one problem with driving into Feit's tonight, a problem that Hank had absolute no trouble ignoring.

His driver's license had been revoked six months ago.

Twenty-Eight

Twenty miles away, Ronald Sharpe was putting the last of the logs on the fire in the outdoor pit, when his wife, Rose, came out of the cabin and joined him.

"Here you go, dear," she said, handing him a martini.

She plunked her ample bottom down into one of the chairs on the small, inlaid brick verandah that stood between the cabin and the edge of the quiet lake.

In the middle of the bricks was a small square of concrete in which a heart had been crudely drawn.  Inside the heart was the inscription "R & R, 1981."

Ron had insisted on the romantic gesture when they built the verandah the year after they purchased the cabin with its one hundred and seventy feet of shoreline on Lost Lake.  It was the second addition he had made to the place, the first being a rustic, hand-carved sign reading "Lost Lake Lodge" that now hung over the main door to the cabin.

He and Rose had shopped around for a summer place on Lake Superior,  but had opted instead for the quieter, and cheaper land available on the small, inland lake.  Initially, it was to be their summer retreat, but when retirement came they decided to make it their full-time residence.

It was about a half-hour drive to Rodgers Bay where they bought their groceries and where they dined on the occasional night out. 

Ron had been the president of an advertising agency in Milwaukee, and his pension plan had been a good one.  One day, when the money matured a bit more, they might sell the place and go to North Carolina, but for now, the cabin was nice and it held a lot of pleasant family memories for both of them.

Besides, Mike would raise bloody hell if they tried to sell the cabin.  Their only child absolutely loved Lost Lake Lodge.

Ron rose as the fire sparked and popped, then stood back and took a sip of the drink before sitting down in the chair next to his wife of thirty-three years.

"Looks like it's going to rain," he said.

Rose looked at the sky and noted the dark clouds making their appearance on the edge of the horizon.

"I hope it doesn't delay Mike's flight," she said, her maternal instincts kicking into gear like a well-oiled machine. 

"He'll be fine," Ron said.

The pontoon boat was tied securely to the dock and Ron had remembered to pull the tarp over the firewood pile.  It wouldn't take long to batten down the hatches if a storm was coming.

Ron had spent part of his day getting the gear ready for Mike's arrival.  It had become a bit of a tradition for he and his son to go fishing their first day at Lost Lake Lodge.  The lake held plenty of good-sized bass and the occasional walleye.  But what made the fishing spectacular was the fact that the DNR planted trout in the lake every spring. 

Ron wasn't a big trout fisherman, but he loved fishing for northern pike, the toothy predator that could wreak havoc on fishermen and their equipment, and the pike in this lake were fat from the innocent and naive hatchery-raised trout. 

He had charged the trolling battery in the boat so they could approach the small bays of the lake in total silence.

They would have a field day.

"So is this Laurie the one?" Rose asked him, startling out of his fishing reverie.

She took a sip of her Brandy Manhattan and before he could answer, continued.

"She'd better be, he's getting old."

"I'll be sure and tell him you said that."

Rose smiled at the thought of her son objecting to being labeled as "getting old," but she was right, and as a mother, it was her job to tell her son exactly what he didn't want to hear.

"What does she do for a living?" Ron asked.

"She's a photographer."

Ron smiled

Rose looked at her husband.

"What's so funny?"

"I always knew he'd marry someone artistic."

"Marriage?" Rose asked, cocking an eyebrow, "who said anything about marriage?"

Ron sipped his martini.

"I've got a feeling about this one," he said.

"Oh, and when did you become so perceptive?"

Ron stabbed the olive at the bottom of his martini and popped it into his mouth.

"How many other girls has he brought here?" he asked, looking out of the corner of his eye at his wife.

There was a pause as she considered the question.

"None," she answered.

He smiled broadly and leaned back in his chair.

A loon called out to them from the middle of the lake.

Twenty-Nine

The grip truck, emblazoned with the
Nation’s Most Wanted
logo on its side, was parked outside a small coffee shop near Venice Beach.  The name of the popular local hangout was
Cafe! Cafe!
, but today the sign read
Java House
.  Although it was still early in the morning, a small crowd of neighbors had gathered to watch the action.

Cables snaked across the yard and into the shop, where grips and production assistants were scurrying back and forth, setting up lights and reflectors, taking light meter readings, and trying as unobtrusively as possible to raid the craft table for its ample supply of bagels, cream cheese and orange juice. 

Since the shop was essentially closed for business during the filming, which would last well into the afternoon, the crew would have to settle for bland coffee in Styrofoam cups.

Seated on a chair near the playback monitor, Mike Sharpe was struggling to deal with one of the worst headaches of his life.  He shook three Tylenol capsules into his hand, popped them in his mouth, and chased them down with a swig of coffee loaded with sugar.

It was this fucking contact lens.

The lens itself felt fine, but it partially obscured the vision of his left eye, since the cornea had to appear to be floating to the outside corner of Mike's eye.

The effect was like wearing a pair of sunglasses where one of the lenses was knocked out, the difference in light created an imbalance, which in turn left the actor with a stab of pain originating in the area of the forehead over his left eye that ran all the way to the top of his head.

The damn makeup girl hadn't told him it would hurt this much.

He supposed it was appropriate, though.  In the time since he'd gotten the part, he visited the library and read up on serial killers, where he learned that psychoses can sometimes be associated with dizziness, hallucinations, and migraine headaches.

This was method acting at his best, he told himself.

"Let's go people!" called Dean Harwell, the director.

Harwell came over to where Mike was seated.

"Why are you looking over there?" he asked Mike, referencing the crooked eye.  "I'm standing right in front of you."

Mike laughed.

"You wouldn't be laughing if your head hurt as much as mine does."

"Hey, it's not like it'll kill you," the director said, continuing the black humor.  “Now come over here, Mike," he continued, guiding Mike over to his mark.  Harwell stepped back and looked in the camera.

"Jensen!" he called out, and brought Mike back to his chair.

Kris Jensen, the make-up girl, scurried over to the director's side.

Harwell had on cowboy boots and he placed one on the bottom rung of Mike's chair, peering closely at the actor's face.

Jensen looked at the director, then quickly began peering at Mike's face, also.

"Darken the sides here," he said gesturing at Mike's jawline, then above his cheekbones, "and here."

Mike watched as she patted his face with a mascara pad.

"I've had pancake on before, but this feels like a triple stack from IHOP," he said.

"Yeah," she said, "look on the bright side, you'll be building up your neck muscles. "

Harwell called out to the rest of the crew.

"Let's do it people!"

Mike walked over to his mark, a small table with a cappuccino cup and a newspaper sitting on top of it.  He was wearing casual, nondescript clothing, jeans and a tan oxford.

He didn't feel like a killer.

"Meredith are you ready?" yelled the director.

Meredith Burns was playing Lisa Young who, according to Mike's script, had been abducted from the coffee shop and murdered by Joe Ferkovich. 

"And Action!" ordered Harwell.

Meredith Burns, a.k.a., Lisa Young, entered the shop and went to the counter.  Mike peered over the top of his newspaper and studied the girl, thinking to himself that if the real victim looked anything like the actress portraying her, she must have been a real looker.

She took a seat across the room from Mike and Harwell shot different angles of Mike as he kept his eyes on her.  When she left, he followed her out, and it was a movement that they had to do twelve times before Harwell decided he had what he wanted.

"Cut!" the director yelled.

"Camera move!" the cameraman bellowed, sending the crew into a frenzy.  When the location scouts came across Café Café, they had immediately decided it was the perfect place to film because the small parking lot could serve as the second location.  Shorter trips between locations made for more efficient productions.

The crew began hauling lights and the camera base to the parking lot, where Harwell and his director of photography were already discussing how they would block out the shot.

Mike knew it would be at least an hour before they were ready for him, so he dug out his cell and called Laurie.  She was in the darkroom today, developing shots for another magazine cover.

She answered on the second ring.

"Are you all packed?" he asked.

"Just about."

"Is Buttercup going to have to make an appearance?" he asked.  "Buttercup" was Mike's nickname for himself when he was forced, like an oxen, to lug any of Laurie's luggage around an airport.  He felt she had a slight tendency to overpack.

"Don't worry, this will be a light load," she said.

"So, you've cut it down to, like, ten suitcases?"

"This coming from the guy who's going to have a box load of fishing lures," she countered.

"The difference is, I'll be using all of my stuff, you bring clothes that you call 'options'."

She laughed.

"How's the shoot going?" Laurie asked.

Mike turned and looked at the activity in the parking lot.

"Seems to be going fine, Harwell's a pro, keeps things moving, doesn't agonize over shots too long.  We've got one more scene and then I'll be done."

"Is this the first shoot that's ever actually proceeded according to schedule?" she asked.

"The very first," he answered.

He rubbed his forehead.

"This fucking contact is bugging the shit out of me, though."

He heard the clicks of a computer keyboard and knew she was looking at her latest images, maybe already loading them into Photoshop.       

"How are the pictures looking?" he asked.

"Not bad," Laurie answered.  Mike knew that in Laurie's terms, "not bad" meant they looked absolutely great.

"I just need to send a contact sheet to the editor's office."

"Then you'll be a free woman."

"Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I'll be free at last..." she said jokingly.

Mike could picture her staring at the computer screen, brushing a strand of hair away from her eyes.  He loved watching her work.

"I can't stop thinking about Lost Lake Lodge, Mike, I've been daydreaming about it all day," she said

Mike had shown Laurie pictures of the rustic cabin with the beautiful lake in the background.

"I can't wait, either," he said, his mind picturing the interior of the cabin, the flat, mirrored surface of the lake before it gets cut by the point of the canoe, and the smell of woodsmoke.

"Let's go over the plan," Mike said, and for the next few minutes, they discussed the timetable.  When Mike was finished shooting, he would go to his apartment, grab his stuff, then head straight to Laurie's for a quick dinner before catching their plane.

"That sounds good to me," Laurie said.  "I'm really excited about this Mike.  I haven't taken a vacation in over three years."

Mike laughed.  He wasn't so sure how his favorite workaholic was going to handle a week in the northwoods of Michigan.

"I'm excited about spending a week with you, baby."

She sighed.

"Oh, Mike, you're such a romantic."

He thought about the heart his father had drawn in the concrete at Lost Lake Lodge.

"You think I am now, wait until you see how all that fresh air affects me."

"Mmm," she said.  "I like the sound of that."

Over his shoulder, Mike saw the crew scrambling again and he figured Harwell would want him on his mark to make some lighting adjustments.

"I gotta go, I'll see you in a bit."

He ended the call and walked over the craft table, where the breakfast food had now been replaced with candy.  He scooped up a handful of M & Ms and thought about the story of the actor who had demanded that all of the brown M & Ms be taken out of the candy bowl backstage.

Mike shook his head.  Prima donnas.

He was a more than a little excited about the trip to Lost Lake Lodge.  He was, in fact, downright scared.  Because the truth was, he hadn't informed Laurie about all of the planning that had gone into the weekend, and had left out a rather significant event that would occur one night when the stars were just right and the moon was casting a gentle glow over Lost Lake.

He was going to propose to Laurie.

He'd spent months shopping around for just the right ring, he'd been squirreling away a little bit of money here and a little bit of money there until, along with a hefty line of credit from his bank, he'd had enough to buy her a decent rock.

Mike walked over to the small trailer that served as headquarters for the director and the talent.  He went into the bathroom and pulled the jewelry box out of his pocket.  The diamond was a round solitaire, just over a carat, small by Hollywood standards but it was all he could afford and Laurie had slender hands, so it would look good in proportion, he rationalized to himself.

The stone was set on a single gold band that featured a small curve in the middle.

The way he looked at it, it wasn't fancy, it was elegant.

He hoped to Christ she said yes.

He snapped the box closed and left the trailer, Harwell was waving at him and he could see final adjustments being made to the lights and the reflectors.

Mike's headache was going away, but his stomach was in knots. 

This could be the greatest vacation of his life, he thought to himself.

Or it could be the worst.