The Protector

by David Morrell

  "Prescott raised a similar issue."

  Jamie looked puzzled.

  "After I rescued him from the warehouse, we nearly got trapped at a shopping mall. The team chasing us left a car outside. I managed to sneak up on it and shout to its driver to run away. The driver was too startled to move. I had to shoot through the car's roof before he got his legs to work. Later, Prescott asked me why I hadn't just killed the man."

  "And what did you answer?"

  "That the man hadn't given me a reason, that I was a protector, not a ..."

  Jamie didn't need to say anything further to make her point.

  "I wonder if Prescott's counting on that," Cavanaugh said bitterly. "He can't be sure I died in the fire at Karen's house. I wonder if the son of a bitch is betting that my personality's essentially defensive, that I won't come after him for betraying me and my friends."

  Jamie stayed silent.

  "He'll have changed his appearance," Cavanaugh said. "He'll probably wear glasses now. He's had enough time to grow a mustache or a beard. He might even have had some plastic surgery. His heaviness will be hard to disguise, though."

  Troubled, Jamie started eating her omelette again.

  Cavanaugh glanced at the television behind the counter. A commercial for a weight-losing product showed before and after photographs of a formerly bulky man who was now amazingly thin. He turned toward Jamie. "When I first met Prescott, he had shelves of the most carbohydrate-heavy, calorie-rich foods imaginable. Macaroni and cheese. Lasagna. Ravioli. Potato chips. Candy bars. Chocolates. Classic Coke."

  "That would put the pounds on all right."

  "Suppose he went on a crash diet."

  Jamie looked up.

  "It's been almost three weeks since I last saw him," Cavanaugh said. "If he starves himself, if he drinks tons of water to flush his system ..."

  "A man as determined as Prescott..." Jamie nodded. "It wouldn't be healthy, but I bet he could lose a pound or two a day."

  "Jesus," Cavanaugh said, "at that rate, he'd soon be unrecognizable."

  "But even with that beard you're trying to grow to disguise your appearance, you'll be very recognizable," Jamie said. "Prescott could blend with a crowd and see you coming."

  "Not you, though," Cavanaugh said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "He doesn't know you're with me. He could look straight at you and not be aware you're hunting him."

  "Hunting him is what you're doing," Jamie said.

  * * *

  5

  Ocean Avenue was the only Carmel street that went directly from the highway down to the water. Steep and several blocks long, it was separated by a median of shrubs and sheltering trees. Quaint shops and relaxed-looking tourists flanked it.

  While Jamie drove, Cavanaugh scanned the people on the sidewalk, wondering if he'd get lucky and see Prescott.

  It didn't happen.

  At the bottom of the hill, they came to waves pounding a picture-postcard mile-long crescent-shaped beach of amazingly white sand. Sections of bedrock protruded. Cypresses spread fernlike branches. Two surfers in wet suits rode the whitecaps. Dogs frolicked through the waves while their owners strolled behind them. Gulls soared.

  But Cavanaugh's attention was focused on the people along the beach, none of whom reminded him of Prescott.

  Jamie steered left and followed a scenic road along the water. Rustic homes were enclosed by trees, some of which were Monterey pines, their guidebook said, while others showed the distinctive twisted trunks of wind-contorted live oaks.

  Jamie pointed toward an outcrop on the right. "There's the house from A Summer Place."

  It still reminded Cavanaugh of the prow of a ship, but the constant crashing of waves had not been kind to it. "Looks deserted," he said, giving it only a moment's notice before continuing to concentrate on people walking along the beach or the side of the road.

  Prescott wasn't any of them.

  * * *

  6

  They stopped on a quiet, narrow, tree-lined street that hadn't existed when Robinson Jeffers and Una had settled in Carmel.

  After walking up a brick driveway, they opened a wooden gate and entered a compound.

  Cavanaugh had read so much about the place, about the gaunt-cheeked, lanky Irishman's epic struggle to build it, that he'd expected something on that epic scale. Instead, he was surprised by how intimate it felt. Colorful flowers and shrubs reminded him of an English rural garden. On the left was the forty-foot-high stone structure that Jeffers had called Hawk Tower, with its chimney, staircase, battlement, and turrets. To the right was the low stone house with its gently sloped shingled roof and stone chimney.

  A brick walkway led to a door, where an elderly gentleman explained that he worked for the foundation that maintained the property. "Would you care for a tour?" he asked.

  "Very much."

  "Have you been in an accident?" the white-haired man asked sympathetically, noticing Cavanaugh's face.

  "A fall. I'm taking some time off from work, recuperating."

  "Carmel is a fine place to do that."

  Inside, the rooms that Jeffers had painstakingly built were small and yet somehow spacious. From the weight of the structure, the air felt compressed. A slight chill came off the paneled walls. In the living room, Cavanaugh studied the stone fireplace on the right and the piano in the far corner. Windows provided a view of the ocean.

  The guide took them through the guest room, kitchen, and bathroom on the main floor and the two attic bedrooms, one of which Jeffers had used for writing.

  "Robin, as we liked to call him, built the house on a small scale," the elderly man explained, "to withstand ocean storms. He and Una had twin sons, and you can imagine how much they all loved one another for them to be able to live happily in such cramped and isolated circumstances. They deliberately didn't have electricity installed until 1949, after they'd lived here thirty years."

  Cavanaugh felt a curious tightening in his throat.

  "Notice the poetry that Robin etched into this beam," the guide said. "They're not his words, however. They're from one of his favorite works: Spenser's Faerie Queene."

  Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life does greatly please.

  Now Cavanaugh felt hollow.

  "If you'll follow me to Hawk Tower," the elderly man said.

  Considering Jeffers's somber themes of human frailty as opposed to the abiding strength of nature, Cavanaugh was surprised by the humor that Jeffers had put into the tower. Intended as a retreat for Una and a playhouse for his sons, it had a dungeon and a "secret" interior staircase in which the children could hide. From a lookout on top and from several narrow windows, the sea was always in view.

  "Una died in 1950, Robin in 1962, she from cancer, he from a variety of ailments," the guide said. "Robin had bad lungs and hardened arteries from smoking, but since he never recovered from Una's death, I've always assumed that what really killed him was a broken heart. She was sixty-six. He was seventy-five. Still too young to go, some would say, and yet what a full life. I don't tell this to the children whose teachers bring them here for tours, but I'll tell you. In their youth, at night, Robin and Una would send their children up to sleep in one of the attic bedrooms. Then they would"—the elderly man hesitated only slightly—"make love in the guest room downstairs before going up to the other attic bedroom. The bed that they made love in is the bed that they each later waited to die in. Their ashes are buried together in that corner of the garden."

  On the street, car doors were opened and shut. Cavanaugh looked past the flowers and the wooden fence toward a family getting out of a van.

  "Here are some samples of Robin's verses." The guide gave Cavanaugh and Jamie a few photocopies. "If you have any questions ..."

  "Actually, I do." Cavanaugh glanced toward the approaching family, satisfying himself that the father wasn't Prescott. "But it's not about Robinson Jeffers."

  The guide nod
ded and waited.

  "I'm looking for someone. I'm almost certain he came here recently. He's a Robinson Jeffers fanatic."

  The guide nodded again, as if it was only reasonable that everyone should be a Robinson Jeffers fanatic.

  "His name's Daniel Prescott." Cavanaugh doubted very much that Prescott would use his real name, but there was no harm in trying.

  "Doesn't ring any bells."

  "He's in his early forties. Around six feet tall. Wears glasses. He has a mustache, but he was thinking about growing it into a beard." Cavanaugh wanted to cover several possibilities.

  "Sorry I can't help you," the guide said. "That description could fit a lot of men. I see so many people, they become a blur."

  "Sure. He was also pretty overweight. Under a doctor's orders to drop a lot of pounds. Have you seen anybody in his forties who looks as if he lost a good deal of weight recently?"

  "How would I know?"

  "Loose skin around the face and especially under the chin."

  "That doesn't ring any bells, either. But if I do see somebody like that, do you want me to give him a message for you?"

  "No," Cavanaugh said. "The truth is, I'm a private detective, and I'm trying to find him."

  The guide's eyes widened.

  "He's got three wives and twelve kids. When he gets tired of his domestic arrangements, he runs. Changes his name. Doesn't pay child support. A real sleazebag. We think he moved to the Carmel area and plans to start yet another family. Lord knows when he'll abandon his next wife. I've been hired to find him and get him to accept some responsibility for his actions. The joke is, he's a fanatic about Robinson Jeffers, but he never learned a thing about the devotion Jeffers wrote about in his poetry."

  The guide looked troubled that anybody could fail to learn the truth about Jeffers's work.

  "If this joker comes by, try to notice his license plate number or get a name from him or something," Cavanaugh said. "Don't make him suspicious, though."

  "I'll be as subtle as possible."

  "And for heaven's sake, don't tell him I'm around."

  "Wouldn't dream of it."

  "I'll get him," Cavanaugh said.

  "I certainly hope so."

  * * *

  7

  Pebble Beach was just to the north. They took a roundabout route through Carmel's sleepy streets, always on the lookout for anyone who even remotely resembled Prescott.

  No one did.

  At a toll gate, Jamie paid to get onto the area's famous 17-Mile Drive, a picturesque route that bordered the extensive golf course, allowing a view of its greens, ponds, sand traps, and the ocean in the background. Deer roamed freely. Cypresses and Monterey pines flanked multimillion-dollar properties. Cavanaugh ignored it all, watching for Prescott.

  At Pebble Beach's lodge, Jamie drove through the entrance and parked in an out-of-the-way spot, from where Cavanaugh could watch guests arriving and departing. Then she went inside, only to come back ten minutes later, looking puzzled.

  "What's the matter?" Cavanaugh asked.

  "If Prescott had visions of playing golf at Pebble Beach all the time, he was in for a big surprise. Unless you've got influence, you need to make an appointment to play here a year in advance."

  "A year?"

  "And if you're with a group, it's two years. If you're right and he'd been planning this for a long time, he might have made an appointment quite a while ago, somehow finding a way to keep his controllers from knowing what he'd done."

  "A big risk," Cavanaugh said. "And he wouldn't have known his new name back then. He wouldn't have had a credit card to go with it to reserve the appointment."

  "So unless he found a way to get influence here, which is hard to do in a couple of weeks," Jamie said, "you can come back in about a year and see if you recognize him."

  "I had in mind a little quicker timetable," Cavanaugh said.

  "There are at least a dozen golf courses in the area. Some of them might not have as long a waiting list. What did you plan to do? Go from one course to the next? Find a spot near the links and use binoculars to watch the players in case someone who reminds you of Prescott shows up?"

  "If that's what it takes."

  "A lot of time. Too many chances to miss him. The FBI has enough personnel to watch all the golf courses simultaneously."

  "No FBI," Cavanaugh said.

  "They also have the resources to run background checks on guests who haven't played here before," Jamie said.

  "No FBI," Cavanaugh repeated.

  * * *

  8

  Sheltered by a cypress, Cavanaugh sat at the northeast rim of Carmel's beach, close to where the shore rose to the grass of the Pebble Beach links. He was far enough inland that he blended with the trees and shrubs behind him. The air was balmy, the afternoon sun reflecting so brightly off the water that he had to wear sunglasses.

  "All roads lead to Rome?" Jamie asked.

  "And everybody in the area ends up going to Carmel's famous beach. As much as the golf courses and 17-Mile Drive, this is the big attraction." Cavanaugh studied the long crescent of white sand. Hundreds of people were on it, reading in beach chairs, splashing in the surf, strolling, jogging, or tossing Fris-bees to dogs. "I can't imagine that Prescott would live in the area and not come down here. At first, he'd be apprehensive about showing himself. He'd probably stay close to wherever he's living. But eventually he'd begin to loosen up. He might even come down here for exercise. Hell, for all I know, he got himself a dog."

  "The FBI could check everybody who recently bought property around here," Jamie said.

  Cavanaugh continued watching the people on the beach.

  "It's just a thought," Jamie said.

  "I keep seeing Roberto with his head beaten in ... Duncan with his face full of bullet holes . . . Karen literally scared to death in her wheelchair."

  "The government might not be as lenient with Prescott as you think."

  Instead of responding, Cavanaugh glanced down at a map of the shops in town. "The big bookstore is in the Carmel Mall. We could keep a watch on the place. Since Prescott likes books, there's a good chance he'd eventually show up there."

  "Unless he buys books off the Internet."

  "There's nothing like a real bookstore, though."

  "In that case, he might decide to make the short drive north to Monterey," Jamie said.

  Cavanaugh gave her a look.

  "Just trying to investigate alternatives," she said.

  "Which brings us back to sitting here on the beach and watching for him."

  "Fine with me. I'll get a beach chair and a book. I can use the rest," Jamie said.

  "After dark, we'll stake out the best restaurants and see if he shows up."

  "I was sort of hoping we could eat in those restaurants, not watch them."

  "Given how little he's probably eating these days, he'll want the small portions he allows himself to be exquisite. Only the top two or three restaurants in town will be acceptable to him."

  "Unless he eats at home."

  Cavanaugh gave her another look.

  A jogger sprinted to their end of the beach, turned, and ran back in the opposite direction.

  "Weight loss," Jamie said.

  "You thought of something?"

  "I'm going to hate myself for being honest. It'll take more than dieting for Prescott to lose weight fast. He'll need exercise. Hours and hours of it."

  * * *

  9

  Cavanaugh waited in an art gallery while Jamie found a break in traffic and crossed to the opposite side, where a walkway led to what their map indicated was a warren of shops in the center of a block. They'd learned that one of the exercise clubs they wanted to check was on the second floor of a building over there, affiliated with a nearby hotel. The time was now 4:30. Although there wasn't any guarantee that Prescott would use an exercise club, let alone that particular club at that particular moment, Cavanaugh couldn't risk entering, just in case Prescott might,
in fact, be present. Because Prescott didn't know Jamie existed, the safer course was for her to go in alone and look around. If no one aroused her suspicion, she was to tell an instructor that she was writing a health-magazine article about overweight people who'd lost a remarkable amount of weight in a short time thanks to their determination. Then she'd ask if any of the club's members fit that description.

  Pretending to appreciate the gallery's paintings, Cavanaugh often glanced through the front window toward the other side of the street. The late-afternoon sun put some of the doorways in shadow. As tourists went in and out of the mews over there, he checked his watch, then feigned interest in more of the paintings.

  Thirty minutes later, he was still pretending to be interested in the paintings.

  He stepped outside and crossed the street. Pots of brightly colored flowers flanked the mews's entrance. Beyond them, shifting among tourists, he passed a walkway on his right. According to what he and Jamie had learned, the exercise club would be along the next walkway on the right. He turned a corner, passed more flowers, and came to steps that led up to the second floor. A sign read the fitness clinic.

  Upstairs, he scanned the lobby and the long, bright exercise room beyond it. Jamie was nowhere in view. Staying to the side of the lobby, he carefully assessed the people working the various machines. None of them reminded him of Prescott. Amid the hum of treadmills and the clank of weights, he approached a muscular man in tight shorts and a T-shirt who stood behind a counter.

  "I'm supposed to meet my wife here, but I'm late," Cavanaugh said. "Do you know if she's still around? Tall, thin, auburn hair. Good-looking."