by Alan Russell
He heard noises behind him and whirled around. The boy and girl were fleeing the gazebo. His sudden turn made the girl scream.
“It’s all right!” Caleb yelled. “I’m one of the good guys!” He wasn’t sure if that was true, but they didn’t stop to listen anyway.
The fog was rolling in. It looked as if the waves were carrying it ashore. Not twenty feet below him the ocean was pounding the shore. Caleb had an impulse to jump down and bathe his hot head and aching body in its water, but he knew he had to keep moving.
As he started back, Caleb looked for the night divers but couldn’t see them. Their green, guiding lights had gone out.
“I wondered if you were ever coming back,” said Lola.
“Shh,” Caleb said. “He might be watching.”
He started the car and drove off, maintaining the silence until he was sure they weren’t under surveillance.
“We’re on our way to Mount Soledad,” he said.
“To do what?” Lola asked. “Pray?”
The large white cross that stood on the mount’s summit had been a point of controversy for years. Various groups had been lobbying for its removal, saying its presence was a violation of the doctrine of separation of church and state, and that it had originally been erected to warn off non-Christians from the area. Proponents said it was a war memorial and that it had graced the mount for too long to be removed. Everyone agreed it was a symbol, though no one could agree what kind.
“He called me at the restaurant,” Caleb said, “and sent me on a wild goose chase down to La Jolla Cove. That’s where he left instructions for me to go to Mount Soledad. I’m sure he was watching me.”
Caleb opened the window, let the wind whip his wet face. The mist wasn’t only along the coast. It was working its way up the hill.
“Are you hot?” Lola asked.
“Yes.”
She was cold. Freezing.
“You want me to close the window?”
“No.”
“We’re approaching the cross. We’ll have to stop talking now. He might be watching.”
The cross was on an island in the middle of a turnaround. Several cars were parked along the perimeter of the lot, with people taking in the view, making out, or both. Caleb drove around the cross once, slowly, before parking the car.
He sat and waited. No one approached him. The note, Caleb remembered, had read, “Seek and ye shall find.” He opened the car door and walked toward the cross, again afraid of what he might find. The image of Teresa Sanders flashed across his mind. She had been left for him. He tried to not think about her.
Caleb had been atop Mount Soledad one time before, but that had been during the day. He remembered he had been able to see south all the way to Mexico. Now, with the fog, the viewing was severely limited, but that didn’t make it any less spectacular. The mist softened the world below him, bringing clouds to the earth. It was as if he were looking upon something not quite tangible, like looking at the world through a good dream.
The cross, immense and whitewashed, was bathed in lights. There was a wrought iron fence around it. On one of the metal points, pierced, he found another envelope. Caleb started breathing easier. No body this time, and no pictures. He pulled the envelope down off the spike. It was addressed to “Junior.” There were enough lights illuminating the cross for him to read. The note contained only two words: “Call me.”
“Why is he making us jump through so many hoops?” Lola asked.
Caleb was too exhausted to answer. He was reaching for her cell phone to call, but Lola had this feeling, this premonition, and it frightened her.
“I think he’s creating a trail through her phone records,” Lola said. “He’s purposely making calls from her phone and having you call him back. That makes me believe that Elizabeth’s still alive. And it makes me suspect that he wants her time of death to be the same as yours.”
Lola took the blanket off her head. She needed to breathe. She didn’t want to think anymore, didn’t want to feel what was out there. Her second sight had never scared her so. She reached out to take back her cell phone from Caleb.
“Don’t call him,” she said. “Don’t let him know you have a cell phone.”
“Why not?” asked Caleb.
An idea began to form in her head, the beginnings of a plan. “It’s better he doesn’t know you have access to one,” she said. “It’s better to keep him waiting while we think.”
Five minutes later, Caleb called from a convenience store pay phone.
Feral answered on the first ring. “Where are you calling from?” he asked.
“A pay phone down in La Jolla Shores.”
“Close. Or as your children might say, ‘Marco.’”
Caleb bit his lip. He didn’t want the other man to know his agony. But apparently he already did.
“You seem to be sweating an awful lot tonight, Gray. Are you sick?”
Again, no answer.
“Because you look sick. Maybe tonight’s not a good night for our getting together. I don’t want to get the flu or anything.”
“I’ll try not to kiss you.”
Feral hid his annoyance. He was the only one who should be making jokes. But Junior wouldn’t be laughing for long.
“Next stop, Torrey Pines Gliderport. Do you know where that is?”
“No.”
“As the crow flies, it’s directly north of you, not much more than a mile up the coast. But you can’t go that way unless you can fly. It’s a bit of a circuitous path to get to the nosebleed seats, the cliffs. You’ll need to go where eagles dare not perch, where the hang gliders like to step off onto a shelf of air.
“And you’ll need to follow all of my instructions very carefully....”
35
FROM THE FRINGE, Feral watched the approach of the yellow Mustang. There was only one entrance to the Torrey Pines Gliderport, a single gate latched with a master lock every night at eight o’clock. Feral had cut that lock, allowing for passage along the dirt road. The thick fog and the dirt clouds the car was kicking up made it difficult for Feral to get a good look at the approaching car. He needed to make sure that Junior, and Junior alone, was coming in for a landing.
Damn fog. It made his surveillance more difficult, but Feral had already walked the area and made sure it was clear of people. Feral sat there listening, alert to all the sounds of the night. There were no footsteps, nothing unexplained.
The Mustang crunched along the dirt road, pausing at the knoll. It was a popular area during the day, the spot where hang gliders and paragliders readied their craft, and spectators congregated at the Gliderport Café to watch the pilots leap off the cliffs.
Go right, thought Feral. He had instructed Junior to park off the main road on the far north side of the knoll. The car started moving again. Yes, it was headed just where Feral had said.
The car finally came to a stop, and the gliderport became that much more still. With the patience of a hunter, Feral maintained his position and listened. Everything was still. In the distance he could just make out a yellow glow. The car’s headlights.
He waited for three minutes, no more, no less. Time for him to come in from the fringe. Fringe. The word gave Feral pleasure. He liked being on the edge. With cat steps, Feral made his way forward. He paused several times to listen, but all was quiet save for the sounds of the ocean. These were moments to be savored. The slate was finally about to be wiped clean. Old debts were going to be paid.
The fog made him feel like the invisible man. Under its cover he closed in on where Junior had parked his car. And there, standing like a good soldier, was Junior. He was near land’s end, illuminated by the car’s headlights.
Feral had imagined it just this way, except for the fog. The car’s headlights were getting swallowed up by the mist, and he couldn’t see Junior as clearly as he would have liked. The man could be a ghost. He wished he hadn’t told Junior to leave the high beams on. Normal lighting would have been more
effective. But the fog, Feral decided, was a mixed blessing. It was so thick he couldn’t even make out the distant Salk and UC San Diego buildings. He and Junior were now a world unto themselves.
He crept a little closer. Junior was wearing a Padres cap but was still squinting from having to stare into the headlights. That was the beauty of the setup. Junior couldn’t see his approach. Feral had hunted deer that way. All you had to do was get a lantern in their eyes and it confused the stupid creatures. Blinded them into immobility. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Feral liked it that way.
Junior kept moving his head from side to side. Did he sense his presence? Or was he just anxious for him to appear? The anticipation seemed to be a bit much for Junior. He was trembling violently. Junior acted as if he were in Antarctica instead of San Diego. His hands were in his pockets, and his shoulders were hunched.
Weak, Feral thought. It was sixty degrees or more and not cold so much as blustery. The wind was blowing even more than normal. It would have been too gusty, thought Feral, for even those fool hang gliders. He had enjoyed watching them while scouting the territory. Some of the daredevils had a ritual he liked: they yelled as they ran toward the edge of the cliffs, a victory call that climaxed as they threw themselves off. It was a long drop down, hundreds of feet, but they had their faith, believing in the wind, counting on updrafts and thermals to send them aloft, or at least in their finding enough of an air cushion for them to float down to the beach far, far below.
Feral had told Junior to wait for him beneath the knoll, not too far away from that jump-off spot. He was about a hundred feet away from the edge of the cliffs, but with the wind blowing so hard he was probably afraid to get too near to the abyss. The story of Junior’s life, Feral thought. He was too timid ever to know the thrill of being on the edge, of dancing along the precipice of life. Feral had observed enough of his monotonous existence to be disdainful of it. Junior’s father had done what he pleased with women, but the son couldn’t even control his own wife. He’d watched another man take her and done nothing. Cuckold. Wimp.
The fog was getting thicker. Feral thought that the wind might have blown the haze away, but it was sticking like wet snow. Junior kept fading in and out of his view. Not that it mattered. Feral knew Junior would stay where he had been instructed. He had promised Junior answers, and more important, the evidence that would show him to be innocent of all the murders.
“Maybe you will be able to understand my motivations then,” Feral had said. “Maybe we can be friends.”
Not that Junior had believed a word he had said, but Feral enjoyed planting little seeds of hope. He had done the same thing with most of the women he had killed, had told them that he wasn’t going to hurt them, and just as they were relaxing, just as they were exhaling away some of their anxiety, he had always made his move.
Sometimes he took them with just his hands, and other times he subdued them with one of his little tricks. The sleeper hold was a wonderful thing. “Pleasant dreams,” he always told his victims.
Feral crept up to Junior’s car. He reached for the driver’s door handle and felt around for it. The fog was so thick he could hardly see his hand in front of him. Feral silently pulled on the door handle. Damn. It was locked. He had wanted to turn the headlights off for a moment and throw Junior into a panic. But there were other ways.
He moved to his left, backtracking along the knoll before heading west to the cliffs. He’d approach Junior from his south side. With the lights swimming in his eyes, Junior wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway. He approached closer, and still closer. He wanted to get near enough to smell Junior’s fear. When he wasn’t more than ten feet away, Feral stopped. Junior looked like a wraith, seemed to have been absorbed by the fog. The last few days had made him even more of a shadow. He looked smaller and thinner and more insignificant than ever.
“Marco!” Feral yelled.
Junior jumped. Oh, yes, he did. His head swiveled around wildly, trying to get a bead on the voice. But Feral had already moved.
“Take your clothes off.”
He wished he could see Junior’s look of surprise.
“What?”
“Take your clothes off. Now.”
“Why?”
Feral said nothing. He wasn’t going to speak and give away his location. Or his motives. Nakedness was innocence and guilt. A baby coming into the world. An adult using her nakedness to get what she wanted. Bitch. Not that Mother hadn’t been pushed into her life’s decisions, though. Feral decided to punctuate his command with an exclamation point. Another announcement to get attention. Feral raised his gun and shot at the ground near Junior’s feet.
Another leap in the air, but this jump even higher. Feral had expected a louder bang, but the gunshot was muted by the open space. All the better. Feral doubted the sound could be heard much beyond a hundred yards. But it must have sounded a hell of a lot louder than that to Junior. At the moment he wasn’t jumping for joy. He was cowering on the ground.
“Get up and take off your fucking clothes. Now!”
Junior didn’t answer, but he did stand up. Feral moved quietly behind him. Keep him guessing. But now the lights were in Feral’s eyes as well. And he was casting a shadow. If Junior turned, he’d be able to see it and him. But Junior looked as if he was too scared to move. He was just standing there like a statue. Or maybe he was just being stubborn and thought that making like stone would spare him from stripping. Feral raised his gun again and fired it.
He moved out of the glare of the lights back into the darkness. Now Junior’s arms were in the air. He was surrendering. As if he hadn’t already.
“No more warning shots,” Feral said. “Take off your clothes. Now.”
Junior reached down to his shoes and started untying them. He kicked one off, and then the other.
“That’s it,” said Feral, his voice coming from yet another spot. “I want you to prove to me there’s nothing up your sleeve. You’ll do that by stripping down to nothing.”
Junior took off his coat.
“Toss it away from you,” Feral said. “Do that with all your clothes.”
He did as instructed. It took him a few tries, but he finally loosened his belt, and his pants fell. He kicked his trousers away, then just stood there.
“Everything comes off,” Feral said. “Everything.”
Junior was apparently modest. That didn’t surprise Feral. He watched him reach for his briefs, hesitate, then reluctantly drop his underwear to the ground.
“Finding it a bit cold, are you?” said Feral, laughing.
Junior started unbuttoning his shirt, or tried to. His hands were shaking so much that he was having a hard time with the buttons. He turned away from the wind, offering his back to the lights, and Feral. The wind didn’t let up. It gusted, blowing hard at the shirt, pushing it up, exposing his back. Feral was reminded of Marilyn Monroe’s stepping on a subway grate and the breeze blowing up her dress in much the same way. Hollywood had used the scene to showcase her legs. But something was bothering Feral. He wished he could see better. The fog was playing tricks on his eyes. He thought he had glimpsed...
The telephone started ringing.
Feral’s arms shot up. Reflex thing. He’d almost pulled the trigger. Goddammit. The ringing was unexpected and ill timed. It was like an alarm had gone off in his ear. Goddamn Queenie’s phone. Who the hell was calling?
Maybe it was a wrong number.
Maybe it signaled trouble.
The phone was ringing for a second time when he saw a movement. From the corner of his eyes he could see Junior making a break for it. Feral didn’t hesitate. He fired his gun, stopping Junior three steps into his escape attempt.
“Son of a bitch!” Feral screamed. “Move another inch and you’re fucking dead.”
The phone rang a third time.
“Get on your fucking knees. Down, I said. Now crawl back to where you were.”
The phone rang a fourth time, t
hen stopped ringing. Feral looked at it suspiciously, as if not trusting the silence, then turned his full attention to the sprawled captive.
“You better keep yourself fucking planted there,” he said. “I’m not going to miss next time. And take off the rest of your fucking clothes now.”
The phone started ringing again.
Not a wrong number, no. The cellular phone was Queenie’s emergency number. So what was the emergency?
Third ring.
Feral glanced quickly at Junior. He was still on his knees. He was looking away from the lights, had his backside facing Feral. The pose reminded Feral of the way subordinate primates presented themselves.
“Turn around,” Feral barked.
Junior started to do that, inch by trembling inch. The only clothing he still had on was a baseball cap. He hadn’t been wearing a cap earlier in the night, Feral remembered.
Fourth ring.
Feral pressed down to accept the call, but he said nothing. He could hear the breathing of the caller on the line, and then there was the voice, but not just any voice.
“You son of a bitch,” she said.
Queenie’s voice. Feral felt as if he had been struck. How the hell had she gotten free? This was bad—impossibly bad.
Feral threw a quick glance Junior’s way. No threat there. He was naked, in shock, sitting on his backside and hugging his chest.
“Before the police arrest you,” Queenie said, “and they will momentarily, I’d like to take advantage of this wonderful interview opportunity.”
“How did you get out?” Feral asked.
“I’m the one asking the questions,” she said.
He’d drugged Queenie earlier and tied her up. Even if she had somehow gotten free, she wouldn’t be, couldn’t be, talking like this. She would be in a stupor. What the hell was going on?
He heard the patter of bare feet and reacted to it. Junior had been faking his helplessness. Now he was trying to make his break, trying to escape into the fog. Feral fired three shots, heard a scream, and then watched as Junior started to fall. For a moment the mist cleared and Feral’s vision was unobstructed. Everything was unclouded, but everything looked wrong.