THE MAN WHO HUNTED HIMSELF

by Lex Lander

  Then Justine surprised me by starting to snivel.

  ‘Please don’t hurt her, Maura. Carl’s flying over. We’ll do as you ask, I suppose. We’ve no choice.’

  ‘Tell him he needn’t worry I’ll sell him down the river, or wherever one sells people like him. As soon as I get Lindy back, I’m going away. You’ll never see me again.’ Her eyes settled on mine, caught the question mark in them. She nodded and made with the silent kissing motion.

  A dazed Angie struggled back onto the bed. Maura’s punch seemed to have taken some of the starch out of her and she just sat there, saying nothing, not even chafing at her duct tape bonds.

  ‘We’ll call you this evening,’ Maura said to Justine. ‘Don’t try and call me, or trace me, because my cell will be off. Now, let me talk to Lindy.’

  Justine let her talk to Lindy. The talk was animated, Lindy bubbling with excitement at the prospect of seeing her mother sooner than usual. While this was going on, I packed our luggage and transferred it to the Audi, which I had parked rear end facing the door, leaving a gap of a few feet for the tailgate.

  As I finished, Maura was terminating her call. I indicated she should close down her cell, which she did.

  It would have been preferable to wait until dark before moving Angie, but I wanted to be out of there before Gratrix used his connections to home in on us. Angie didn’t resist when I applied a strip of tape to her mouth, just sat still, gazing at nothing. Not even blinking. I hoped she wasn’t concussed. Medical problems we did not need.

  With Maura standing watch, I bundled the girl into the Audi’s trunk and slammed the hatch. We were good to go. So we went.

  Route 101 took us through Santa Barbara. We passed the airport on our right.

  ‘I think I can see the Seneca,’ Maura said, tapping her forefinger on the side window. ‘Look, Drew, it’s – ’

  A jab from my elbow snipped her speech off short. I jerked my head to the rear to remind her that Angie was within earshot.

  She caught on right away.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said gruffly.

  After the airport came a succession of overpasses, then a vast mobile home park to the left. Following Maura’s directions, we came off the highway at exit 90, took a left, then a right, then second left on a road that wound off into the hills. Toro Canyon Road. All the roads around here seemed to have Canyon in the name. Finally, we took another left, still climbing, only now we were on a lesser road, packed gravel surface with trees on either side.

  ‘This is private,’ Maura told me. ‘It only leads to the house.’

  The house was perched on the side of a hill, commanding a view over the littoral and the ocean. The view alone was worth a million dollars. The building itself was nothing special: cedar cladding, part brick, with a shingle roof and a couple of chimneys. Veranda at the front and a figure of eight pool. A showpiece maple tree in the centre of the lawn, beginning to shed its rust coloured foliage. Maura opened the front door, disabled the alarm, and I carried a wriggling Angie over the threshold. Just like a honeymoon couple, except for the duct tape and the age difference and the circumstances.

  The priority was to make the girl comfortable and secure. The basement proved to have windows, but usefully they were barred. No exits directly to the yard. It was obviously intended as a guest suite. Two bedrooms, a living area, a kitchen, a laundry room. Television, DVD player, shelves well stocked with paperbacks. All mod cons. The fridge contained a couple of bottles of white wine – Californian naturally – some bottled water, some cans of Seven Up, and a bottle of ginger ale. To remove temptation I collected all articles that could serve as a weapon, including kitchen knives, a cleaver, a meat mallet, and a baseball bat I discovered in the corner of a closet.

  We relieved Angie of her gag again, and the rest of her bonds. She looked around, wildly like an animal released from a long confinement, as if she weren’t sure how to handle her new-found freedom.

  ‘Don’t try running away,’ Maura cautioned. ‘I locked the stairs door.’

  Funny, it hadn’t occurred to me to take that precaution.

  ‘You’re allowed one life,’ I said. ‘Try and escape just once, and the bonds and the gag go back on for the duration. So just make yourself comfortable. Watch TV, listen to some music. You’ll get three meals a day and your washing done. If I were to bet on it, you’ll be out of here inside forty-eight hours.’

  A grunt was her only response.

  ‘Another thing I want you to think about, Angie. We’re not the bad guys here, especially not Maura. Your father’s deprived her of her only child for over a year because of his paranoia. Maura did nothing to deserve it. You’re being required to give up a few days of your freedom to see justice done, and Lindy back with her mother. It’s not that much of a sacrifice, if you think about it.’

  Another grunt, less resentful, more conciliatory. She sat down on a couch and folded her arms. Not happy, just possibly resigned to her house arrest. That was good enough for me for now.

  ‘I’m going to buy some food and some underwear for you,’ Maura said. ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘Thanks.’ It was muttered, grudging, but it was progress.

  Up on the first floor, the door secured, Maura said, ‘Thank you for your contribution, darling. You summed it up to a T.’

  We kissed. With tenderness, not passion; the mounting strain had put the lovey-dovey stuff in temporary cold storage. Tonight, if all seemed set fair for a satisfactory outcome, we might both be able to relax and enjoy each other to the full.

  Maura went shopping and I did guard duty. After half an hour, I looked in on Angie. Hard rock music pounded up the stairs at me. I made sure she was still in residence, and hadn’t slashed her wrists as a cry for attention. She gave me the stiff finger, so everything was hunky. Morale holding up.

  On my second visit, she had discarded the jacket, and was strutting around in time to the music. Underneath she had a tank top and was bra-less. Coupled with the bike shorts it was a provocative combination.

  ‘Wanna fuck?’ she shouted over the outpourings of Taylor Swift, her body moving sinuously in rhythm.

  ‘Any time. But not with you, thanks.’

  Her ‘Fuck you, faggot!’ was an ocean away from those forget-me-not eyes that invited you to screw.

  I think she threw something at me as I remounted the stairs. Whatever it was, it missed.

  My third check was the most interesting. The music was no longer playing. She was still underdressed.

  Her opening gambit was ‘Got any weed?’

  My negative response seemed to uncoil a spring inside her. She leapt at me, a foot-tall glass figurine in her clenched fist. Her swipe at my head was wild but came close enough to make me stagger and trip over my own feet trying to evade it.

  While I was rolling about on the floor, she was off up the stairs, the figurine cast aside, which at least proved she wasn’t serious about doing bodily harm with it. Half a staircase behind I charged after her. She arrived at the top, discovered the door was locked and the key not in the lock. Even then, she wasn’t defeated. She spun round, aimed a kick at me that told me she was trained in tae kwon do. It missed by the thickness of my shirt. I grabbed her foot, pulled her off balance and we went down the stairs together in a series of painful bumps and crashes.

  I hit the bottom before she did and cushioned her landing. She was no featherweight. We groaned in chorus.

  ‘Cocksucker!’ she spat, recovering fast.

  I heaved her off me, prompting more insults. She was still lying at the foot of the stairs, complaining to the world at large, when I climbed back up to the top, hurting at every step. Only when the door was closed and locked, with her below and me above, did I relax.

  That was my final visit to the basement. Maura returned late afternoon, loaded with brown paper bags with a Montecito Village Grocery logo on them. She delivered a pack of underwear, her spare jeans, and a sweat shirt to Angie, while I hung about at the top of the s
tairs, looking mean and menacing, just in case the girl decided to take us both on.

  At least Maura got a mumbled ‘Thanks’ for her trouble. The second today.

  Ravenous from our twenty-hour fast Maura and I joined forces to prepare some food. It was a makeshift meal. We found an oval carving dish and loaded it up with goodies: ham, smoked salmon, feta cheese, a variety of goats’ cheeses (‘better for you than cows’,’ Maura said primly. ‘Less cholesterol.’), red and green peppers, uncooked broccoli and cauliflower, cucumber sticks, cashew and pecan nuts. Red wine accompaniment. Then I brought Angie up under pain of death if she misbehaved. I imagined she would turn her nose up at the food and demand burgers and fries, but I was wrong. Too hungry to care.

  Afterwards Maura made the call that mattered most – to Carl Heider. A straightforward exchange of daughters was all that was required. No reason for it to become complicated unless the Heiders made it so. They couldn’t call us, which was a tactic by me aimed at frustrating them and making them more malleable when we did get in touch.

  He refused to discuss the swap with Maura. Instead, he insisted on talking to me.

  A clearly irritated Maura offered me her cell. I pressed the speakerphone button to enable both of us to hear.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Right. Now you just listen to me – ’

  ‘Hold it, Heider! Save your lectures for your family. You give us Belinda, we give you Angelina. When it’s done, we walk away from each other for good, and get on with our lives. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘You can’t talk to me like that, Henley,’ he blustered, the mobster in him cracking the civilized facade.

  ‘If you don’t shut up and focus on the main issue, I’ll hang up. And by the way, anything happens to Lindy, you’re dead. And Justine. And Nick. And Angie.’

  Maura was shaking her head violently. I turned my back on her. The sound of thumping on the basement door was accompanied by shouts. Angie demanding to speak to Daddy. She had good lungs.

  ‘Now,’ I said to Heider, ‘do we discuss the next move?’

  I fancied I could hear his teeth grinding.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, after a lengthy pause. ‘What do you propose?’

  ‘Agree a place, agree a time. The sooner the better.’

  ‘What guarantees do I have that Maura won’t run straight to the cops and sell us out.’

  ‘Her word.’ I glanced at her. ‘If she’s willing to give it.’

  She moved closer to the cell phone.

  ‘I give you my word I won’t speak to the police about you and your businesses, ever, provided Belinda is returned to me unharmed.’

  ‘That good enough for you?’ I said to Heider.

  He hummed and hawed and finally said, ‘It’ll have to be, I guess.’

  ‘One condition. You, Justine, and Lindy. Nobody else. No Nick, no Gratrix, no gorillas. Clear?’

  We Googled a location, settled on the town of Santa Maria. It was closer to them than to us, which might throw them off the scent if they tried to figure out where we were shacked. The parking lot behind the post office was as likely a spot as any. Heider agreed, probably because he couldn’t think of a reason to object.

  Meeting after nightfall was out. Easier for them to double cross us in the dark. Having fewer people around as witnesses – more likely at night – would tend to make them bolder too. I proposed 1pm to give us time to drive there and recce the place.

  ‘Why not tonight?’ Heider growled, proving that my thinking was right.

  ‘You know why not.’

  I cut him off in mid-protest and killed the cell.

  ‘Why not tonight?’ Maura said, echoing Heider. ‘I don’t see why we should wait.’

  ‘Risk factor is greater at night. They can hide a few goons, they can do bad stuff and nobody will be around to witness it. That do for starters?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose so.’

  Her motherly instinct was powerful. Her common sense and logic fortunately were enough to override it.

  There were no more ructions from below. Maura and I renewed the process of getting to know each other better. On the hearth rug.

  We were lying there afterwards, a bit breathless, a bit sweaty, when Maura brought up the subject of my name.

  ‘Carl calling you Henley, reminded me I wanted to ask if Andrew is your real name.’

  Loath though I was to tell all, especially with enemies in the vicinity and being stuck for now in a foreign county, I couldn’t hold back any longer.

  ‘It’s close. André actually.’

  ‘Oh, I like that. It’s French, right?’

  ‘My mother was a Quebecoise, the name was her choice. My father was a Brit. He never liked it, always insisted on calling me Andrew.’

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll stick with Drew. I’ve grown kind of attached to it, like I’ve grown kind of attached to you.’

  ‘Whatever makes you happy, love.’

  ‘And your last name?’

  The decision on that was bigger. I scratched my head. I made serious puffing noises.

  ‘Don’t tell me if you feel you shouldn’t,’ she said, patting my shoulder in a soothing way. ‘Later will do.’

  ‘It’s okay. I have to trust you with it. My name is ... Warner. And that’s for your ears only.’

  ‘No need to remind me of that.’ Tartly. ‘I love you, darling, I would never betray you.’

  ‘I know.’

  I did too. Mistrust was my middle name, it went with the territory. In the case of Maura though, trust came with the package.

  The parking lot in the centre of Santa Maria was vast, and at noon on Thursday busy with comings and goings. Ideal for our purposes. Even Carl Heider would hesitate to start a fracas in such a place. The downside was that he could have placed half a dozen carfuls of goons in the vicinity, and I would never have known. They might even have been installed there before Maura and I hit town.

  I decided there and then to switch the location. I informed Maura.

  ‘If you think it would be best,’ she said.

  With the aid of our GPS, I pinpointed a parking lot in the community of Orcutt, to the south of Santa Maria. When I communicated my decision to Heider, he swore a bit and accused me of reneging on our agreement, but ultimately conceded. It wouldn’t prevent him from bringing a team of heavies in a separate vehicle, to be concealed until needed, but it would make it harder to conceal them.

  Getting there in the Santa Maria traffic took a bit longer than the predicted thirty minutes. When we pulled into the parking lot outside the post office, a one-storey building with a red shingle roof at the front, Heider was standing outside his car – a charcoal grey Lincoln sedan – with his arms folded. He might have been tapping his foot too, I couldn’t tell.

  I parked in an empty bay behind the Lincoln, my right hand already wrapped around the Ithaca shotgun, wedged in the space between my seat and the centre console.

  Heider approached and attempted to wrench open the Audi’s rear door to gain access to our bound and gagged passenger. Wasted effort, as it was locked. Maura dismounted and ran past him to the Lincoln.

  I half lowered the rear window and twisted round in my seat to treat him to a clear view down the muzzle of the Ithaca.

  ‘Back off,’ I said.

  He backed off, glowering. ‘We had an agreement.’

  ‘It still holds. You deliver to us, we deliver to you. Just stay where you are for now.’

  If he had brought reinforcements, I couldn’t do anything about it short of starting a shooting war. Any of the cars parked in the lot could have contained his band of merry goons. I had calculated that he wouldn’t want his precious daughter caught up in a shooting match. So far, it was beginning to look as if I had calculated right.

  Maura was bent over the rear seat of the Lincoln, presumably talking to Belinda. I could make out Justine’s head; she was in the rear seat too.

  ‘How are we doing?’ I called to Maura.


  She gave me a thumbs up through the back window.

  ‘As soon as Angie gets out of the car, bring Lindy over here,’ I instructed her. She flagged an acknowledgement.

  I unlocked the Audi’s rear door. Heider opened it and dragged Angie feet first off the seat. When she reached the end, he sat her up, still inside the car, to remove the duct tape, little by little, not Warner-style in a single tug. Meanwhile, Maura was lifting Lindy from the Lincoln. An old woman towing a shopping cart emerged from the post office, and Heider moved to screen Angie and her taped extremities from her sight. She walked on by without a glance either way, the wheels of her cart squeaking.

  As Maura returned to the Audi, with Lindy clutched to her, and Lindy in turn clutching a cuddly toy dog resembling a basset hound, Heider gave up his battle with the duct tape. He did a quick scan around for prying eyes, hoisted Angie over his shoulder and lurched back to the Lincoln, knees buckling. Angie may have been skinny but she was no sylph.

  Without much ceremony, he dumped her on Justine’s lap and slammed the door.

  ‘I haven’t finished with you yet, asshole,’ he shouted at me.

  ‘Bring it on,’ I retorted, tensed up and ready to shoot if any thugs suddenly materialized.

  I hadn’t expected smooth sailing, so whatever happened next would be no shock. From what I knew of the guy, no concessions would be made on account of Maura and Belinda either.

  Justine was out of the Lincoln. She popped the trunk and dragged an aluminium suitcase from it and delivered it to the Audi. I got out, keeping an eye on Heider, and stowed the suitcase in the cargo compartment.

  Instead of returning to the Lincoln right away, Justine stood and watched me as I thumbed the automatic close button for the hatch.

  ‘Sorry about Angie,’ I said. ‘It was the only way I could think of to avoid bloodshed.’

  ‘I know,’ she said resignedly, ‘and I understand. Thank you for not hurting her.’ She reached out and clutched at my sleeve. ‘Be good to Lindy.’

  ‘I will.’

  She returned my reassuring smile before turning away, back to her man for better for worse.

  Maura was inside the Audi, hugging Lindy to her, her eyes glazed with tears. Joy, I guessed, not the other kind.