He ought to tell Morales. He ought to tell him about the phone call from the killer claiming to have committed the murder of Marilyn Lori-Street.
This wasn't just arson. Blood thrown in his office. Ransacking his house or wrecking his Jaguar.
People were dead.
"You don't look so good," Morales said, taking his arm.
Karl let himself be dragged over to the ambulance that had just arrived. Maybe they had some aspirin for the headache. Ibuprofen. Morphine! Any damn thing to stop the pounding.
"Is my BMW all right?" he asked Morales on the way to the open back of the ambulance.
"It's fine. The fire was controlled before it took out that wall."
"Sometimes I get lucky."
Morales looked at him and gave a toothy grin that brightened his dark Hispanic face. "I'd say you're one of the luckiest sons of bitches in town, LaRosa."
Karl couldn't dispute that.
~ * ~
"Look, I know it's late, but I've got to talk to you." Karl was on his cellular phone while driving the BMW toward North Hollywood.
"I was just going out," Cambridge Hill said.
"Don't. Don't go anywhere until I get there. Unless you want me to talk to the cops instead."
There was a groan. "Okay, shit, come on over then. Make it snappy."
The paramedics had given him three Tylenol tablets, but they weren't helping. Maybe he did have a concussion. Now his neck was so stiff he could hardly turn his head. When he did turn his head, his vision wavered. Hell. He was in no shape to argue with Cam. But he had no time to waste, either, headache or no headache.
Cam opened the door, took one look at Karl, and ushered him inside, clucking like a mother hen. "What the hell happened, man? You look like you've been run over by a tractor trailer."
"Close. My office was set on fire and I had to break out a window to escape. When I got outside, someone hit me over the back of the head with something. It felt like a sledgehammer." He turned completely around to show Cam the swelling on his head.
"Jesus. That must hurt like a son of a bitch."
Karl faced him again. "I have the script now, but it's not enough, Cam. I knew the office fire was coming, but I didn't know when. I'm going to have to tell the police what I know."
Cam went up like a Roman candle. He seemed to grow five inches taller, he stuck out his chest, he paced like a wild man, running both hands through his hair. "Can't do that," he said. "Can't do that, uh uh, no way."
"Cam, listen. I read the fire scene in the script, but I had no idea it would happen tonight after everyone was gone. I made one dumb mistake. I had locked the office and was going to my car to drive home. I found a note on the windshield. I went back in to make a phone call and . . ."
"Someone poured gasoline in your office and set it off."
"Right. I'd forgotten to lock the door behind me. How many lives do you think I have left? And another thing," Karl said. "That actress you're missing? The guy who's after me killed her. It's because of me she's dead. We once had a fling, a short one, and she insisted I be told about the script. So this isn't just a case of harassment, Cam. You've got a murderer on the set. Are you going to let more people die for the sake of a movie?"
Cam was still pacing like mad. His hair rolled from the front into spikes toward the rear so that he looked like those oddball photographs of Einstein they put on T-shirts. He'd be comical looking if this was a comedy and not a situation where life hung in the balance.
"I know about Marilyn. I know about your friend, Jimmy. I know there's a fucking wacko on my set, they're all fucking wackos, you want my opinion." He gave a flourish of his hands. "Okay, okay, you get outta town." Cam had stopped and was pointing at Karl.
"What?"
"Just get outta town for a while, Karl. This will all blow over if you're not around, trust me on that. You bring in the cops and . . . and . . ."
"Maybe they'd stop this insanity," Karl supplied.
"No! They'd fuck up everything and you know it. I told you that already. I'd be under suspicion, my actors, my crew, everybody. You just leave town. You got a place to go? Listen, I have a cabin stuck way back in the fucking wilds, man, up in Montana. I go up there hunting elk and to get in a little skiing just to get away from this crazy goddamn place. I'll give you the keys, no one knows where it is, you'll be safe."
Karl began to shake his head.
"I'm telling you, Karl, this is what you've got to do. It's my life, this picture. You want to fuck me up, is that what you want? I promise, man, I promise you the minute I get the last shot in the can, you come back and we call in the cops. If they ask why didn't we tell them what we knew earlier, we plead ignorance. How they gonna prove otherwise? This is the only way it'll play. Okay? Let's do it my way. I'll take all responsibility for the decision."
"And if I don't?"
Cam gestured crazily in the air, turning half one way and then the other. He looked like a man about to blow a gasket. His color was high and he was breathing like a fire bellows. "I'm not going to beg you." His voice rose as he repeated it, stepping in close to Karl. "I am not going to fucking beg you. I'll tell you what I will do, though. You don't go off to Montana and let me do my film, you call in the cops now and screw this up, I'll make sure you really are ruined in this town. Now I don't like to threaten people, but you have to understand the wall I'm backed up to. You don't want to get me in that place, Karl. I get bad when I can't move around. So I'm telling you again, you take the keys to my cabin, you leave town, you stay out until I finish the film, and then I'll cooperate. It's up to you."
Karl knew what Cam could do to him. Despite the fact his business was going down the hole from the stalker fooling with his client base and his credit and his tax returns, it was nothing compared to what strings Cam could pull if he put his mind to it. Hollywood wasn't big enough for both of them if Cam went against him.
Karl walked away from Cam and the foyer in which they had been talking. He went into the living room and collapsed on one of the soft leather sofas. He ran a hand over his eyes. The headache was no better. He caught himself grinding down his teeth against the battering pain.
Cam followed and stood over him, a bear of a man, but he wasn't threatening Karl physically. He was, if anything, a dumbfounded bear, lost and crazy to know what cave to hide in.
Karl looked up at him. Saw his face, how seamed it was, how gray. "Okay, Cam. Get me the keys, draw me a map. I'll leave in the morning."
Cam reached out and clapped him hard on the back. It made Karl's brain rattle in his skull. The headache shifted right to the crown and sat there, thumping with his blood.
"Now you're talking," Cam said. He left the room and Karl heard him rummaging in another room. Going through drawers, it sounded like. Looking for keys.
"Montana," Karl said below his breath. "Hell." He leaned forward and put his head into his hands and closed his eyes. Maybe this was for the best. He could get some perspective. He could get out from under the pressure of being followed and nearly killed every few days. He hadn't realized how wearing the past weeks had been. The prospect of just running away, disappearing, was so appealing that it surprised him. He could easily go away at this point, leave town, and never come back.
Except he knew that was a lie. This was where his life was. Anywhere else he would be worthless. Only in Hollywood did he have a place he belonged. So he would come back.
"I found the keys," he heard Cam call from the other room. "We're in high cotton."
Karl drew the ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket. "Ever seen this before?"
"No, why?"
"Take a closer look. Maybe you'll recognize it."
Cam rolled the pen around between his fingers, scrutinizing it.
"Never saw it before. You gonna tell me why you're asking?"
Karl took it back and slipped it into his pocket. "No, it doesn't matter."
"You're leaving? Right away?" Cam handed him the keys to the cabin.
/>
Karl came to his feet. "Yeah, right away."
46
"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have."
James Baldwin, "Letter from a Region in My Mind,"
New Yorker magazine
It was two days before The Body realized his prey was gone. The new BMW was missing from Karl's driveway. His new temporary office—in a building two streets away from the burned out shell of his old office—stayed closed. His house was empty.
Getting through the scenes on the set was torture. Concentration had flown the coop. Cam gave him hell, Robyn had a heart-to-heart talk with him—again. Olivia grew exasperated in their scenes together and once stalked off the set in a fury, screaming that she "hated working with goddamn pretty boys."
He would never forgive her for that.
His hands shook. He perspired and had to have his face mopped every ten minutes. He blew his lines. He missed his marks. His voice croaked and his movements were stiff. One day Cam threw half a tuna salad sandwich at him.
The Body tried to pry out of Robyn Karl's whereabouts. If anyone knew, wouldn't she? She was surprised he was missing. Her face crumpled like a crushed soda can when she learned he had not been seen in days. Hurt she hadn't been told he was leaving. Or worried something horrible had happened to him? She was no help.
The Body broke into Karl's new office and searched it. There was a new computer, but there weren't any clues in the files. He did find the employee records, all newly and neatly filled out, in a file cabinet. He had Karl's secretary's address and phone number.
On the night of the fourth day of Karl's disappearance, The Body called Lois.
"I need to get in touch with Karl LaRosa. Could you help me out?"
"I'm sorry, you need to call the office next week."
"I can't wait until next week. This is an emergency."
There was a pause. "Who is this and what is the nature of the emergency?"
The Body hung up. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy. Women were all bitches. You couldn't pry anything out of them with a crowbar big as a high-rise.
It was raining, nearly eight PM. If he hurried over to her house he'd catch her still up. She would be coerced into giving up the information whether she wanted to or not.
He threw on a thin jacket to protect his shirt from the rain and ran to the car. She didn't live that far away.
~ * ~
She knew his face the moment she opened the door to him. Rain dripped from his fine blond hair into his eyes. He wiped it away and gave her a boyish grin. "Hi," he said, "nasty night, isn't it?"
"Uh . . . can I help you?"
"Could I come inside out of the rain? I have a message from Karl for you."
She unhooked the safety chain and allowed him entrance. She lived in a small, pastel-pink house set back from the street in a white gravel lawn. Her furnishings were modest, bargain basement stuff, but she wore a beautiful silk dressing gown, oriental, blue with red scaly dragons imprinted over the material.
He followed her to a tiny living area where an ivory nubby linen sofa faced a white, unused fireplace. She offered to get him a towel to dry himself off. He waited, standing on the pale blue and peach Indian throw rug.
He didn't know what he was going to do until she returned with the towel in her hand. He stepped forward as if to retrieve the towel, but instead caught her in an embrace, her arms pinned to her sides. She dropped the towel and gasped.
He looked down into her face. She was not a pretty woman. She was too thin, her chin too pointed, her nose and lips too tiny for her wide, flat face. But her eyes were exceptionally bright, black as a squirrel's, flaring with life. She said, "What are you doing?"
"Where's Karl? Tell me and I won't hurt you."
"Why would you want to hurt me?"
Now she was breathing hard, fear sliding into her eyes like a shaft of light breaking over a dark horizon.
He brought his arms quickly up and his hands circled her throat. He pressed both his thumbs into the cartilage of her windpipe, but not hard. "I don't want to hurt you," he said. "I want to know where Karl went. Tell me."
She tried to shake loose and he pressed his thumbs deeper. She tried to cough. His fingers tightened deeper into her flesh. Her hands were around his wrists, but he ignored them. She was not a big woman, not strong, not even as much of a challenge as Marilyn had been. With more pressure he could choke her. With a quick twist of her neck, he could break it.
"Okay, okay," she whispered. Her voice, cut off the way it was, sounded like a low, harsh wind blowing over a plateau.
Now her eyes watered. They glittered in the light from a lamp on the mantel over the dead fireplace.
He relaxed his hold on her larynx, but did not remove his hands. "Where?"
"He went to a cabin, Cambridge Hill's cabin."
"Where's that?"
"Somewhere in Montana."
"Where in Montana?" He was losing patience and his fingers tightened again.
"I don't know!"
He pressed so hard her eyes began to pop and she fought him, hammering at his upper arms with her fists. He relaxed his grip once more. She took in ragged breaths.
"Where in Montana? I won't ask again."
"Outside of Billings."
He grinned down at her. "You think I'm handsome?"
She blinked.
"Most women think I look like a young Robert Redford."
She tried to nod. She licked her lips.
"I could have played Louis in Interview With a Vampire. Don't you think so?" He bent down and nuzzled her ear. She arched her head away from him and he could feel her body trembling against his chest.
Just as he was pulling away from her neck where he had planted a kiss, he bore down with his thumbs hard and at the same time lifted her off her feet. She kicked and pummeled him. Her eyes were wild with fright, the wall eyes of a horse trapped in a burning stall. Her nails clawed his face and he just laughed.
Laughed and laughed.
~ * ~
Karl took along a laptop computer, his cellular phone, and the gun. He could still hardly believe he was packing a gun. He had bought it early in his troubled time with the stalker; he went into a gun shop and picked it out. He didn't like it at all, in fact treated it the way he might a poisonous snake he kept as a pet, handling it with great care. It made him feel safer, however, and that was the purpose of guns in the hands of law-abiding people.
He found books in Cam's little cabin, dog-eared paperback thrillers in a cardboard box set against the wall in the bedroom. There was no television or radio. There were no neighbors. Down the dirt and gravel road that led to the cabin tucked back into the woods was a small fishing pond and further on a rugged path led into forested hunting ground. The dirt road connected to a two-lane highway that wove into Billings, twenty-six miles distant.
Karl had stocked up on perishables, but overbought on canned goods. Cam's cupboards in the small open kitchen that joined the living area were full of every kind of canned food imaginable. He found tuna and salmon, beans, vegetables, yams, pickles, canned ham—enough to feed one person well into the millennium.
Karl had never taken a vacation. He hadn't left L.A. in years. His work was so demanding and he was so dedicated that he had forgotten the last time he took time off for himself. The cabin reminded him of the reasons he was a workaholic. It was boring to spend time doing nothing.
The first day there he missed being plugged in. The silence was pressing and made him slightly paranoid. Without the sounds of a city—the traffic roar, the ocean down at Malibu, the lights, the crowds—he found that his hearing overcompensated. He jumped at creaks in the wooden plank floor as he walked over it. He flinched when a breeze blew a fir limb against a wind
ow. He turned to find the source when the wind sung teakettle songs down the chimney.
Then there were wild animal sounds from the forest surrounding the cabin that he could not identify. Howls and cries, snorts and rumblings that put his nerves right along the razor's edge.
He thought he'd go crazy if he had to stay isolated too long. Cam had promised the script was almost finished. Five, six more scenes, he'd said, and we wrap.
It might take a week, two weeks. Longer than that and Karl thought he'd be climbing the log walls and scratching himself like a monkey. Reading the old paperbacks kept him entertained for a couple of days. He hadn't read a novel in . . . how long? Since college, he guessed. He had forgotten how many hours he could squander, lost in the pages of a novel.
Yet even reading began to lose its attraction after a while. It seemed to him Cam could have varied his reading habits a bit. Hell, where were the Playboy magazines and the copies of Variety? Even a National Geographic would have been appreciated.
It was cold during the nights at the cabin so that Karl had to build a fire in the fireplace for warmth and use two blankets on the bed. He chopped wood, amused at how bad he was at it, once nearly burying the ax in his own foot. He spent almost an hour imagining how he'd drive himself to a doctor from this ends-of-the-earth place if he really did manage to hurt himself.
He stacked the chopped wood neatly in cords on the front porch—panting, aching—and wondered why anyone romanticized the early years of the last century. It must have been a bitch to work this hard every single day.
He cooked, but nothing too complicated, swept the floors, washed his clothes in the tub and hung them from a clothesline he found in back of the house. He might have taken his laundry into Billings to be done for him, but too many Hollywood types took time off to visit in the town; someone would recognize him, word could get back where he was. He didn't want to have to answer questions or explain his presence here. All he wanted was to endure the hours until Cam called to let him know the film was completed.
DARK THRILLERS-A Box Set of Suspense Novels Page 41