Her voice, more than calm, had a cooing sound. She could almost have been singing a lullaby.
“Now turn, really slowly, and we’ll walk down the trail.”
“Turn our backs?”
“Do it, Adam. She just wants us to leave.”
Whistler had no intention of turning his back, but he did start down the trail at her side. The cougar, in response, began to ease off as well. The mother cat’s snarls and threatening feints settled down into something like muttering. She hissed at her cubs. The hiss was telling them to leave. The cubs hesitated, then scampered away. The mother grabbed the rabbit and followed.
Claudia was silent for several minutes as they made their way back down the mountain. Whistler was watching her, admiring her, while keeping one eye on the trail behind them lest the cat reconsider its menu.
When Claudia spoke, she said, “You weren’t afraid.”
“Oh, yeah? Tell that to my pulse.”
She stopped and put a hand to his chest to feel its beat. “That’s not even seventy to the minute,” she said, “and we’re hiking eight thousand feet up.”
He thought that all she was trying to say was that she thought he’d been fairly brave. He said, “Back there? You’re the one who took over. All I did was what I was told.”
Another odd silence. She was walking very slowly. “Adam, will you answer a question?”
“Sure.”
“Do you carry a gun?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“When you moved in front of me, you reached one hand behind you. You were reaching for the small of your back.”
“I was not.”
“In movies I’ve seen, that’s where men carry guns. You’re not carrying one now, but you reached for it.”
“No, I didn’t.”
She reached behind his waist and felt for his belt at the spot where she’d seen his hand go. “Your belt is worn down there. No, the leather is flattened. What would do that, a clamp on a holster?”
“Claudia…it’s just an old belt.”
“I’d like us to go camping. Just you and me.”
“Why camping all of a sudden?”
“I want us to go camping so that we can be alone. Two days, just us, no one else within miles. You can kick back and take all the time you need to tell me who Adam Whistler is.”
“I already have. There’s not much more to tell.”
“The silences, Adam. All those long thoughtful pauses. Those times when I knew that you wanted to say something, but you couldn’t quite bring yourself to say it.”
“There’s no...wife or anything. If that’s what you think.”
“My mom got that much from your dad.”
“There’s no one. It’s true.”
“I also saw the look between you and your dad when mom asked if there were brothers or sisters.”
“There are none.”
“You say are. Were there ever?”
Whistler took a long breath and let it out slowly. He picked up a rock and he threw it before answering.
“Claudia...not all evasions are sinister. I did have a sister. She died very young. It is not the sort of thing one would chat about at dinner. It remains a hurtful subject for both me and my father. I am asking you to leave it alone.”
“Oh, boy.”
They walked on a little farther. He asked, “Oh, boy, what?”
“It’s personal and it’s hurtful. I understand that. But you can’t drop a thing like that with a thud and expect me to leave it alone.”
A sigh. “For now, then. Please leave it for now.”
“Could I at least know her name?”
Another breath. “It’s Alicia.”
“How young?”
“Nineteen.”
“I have one other question. Then nothing more, ever, unless you bring up the subject.”
“Go ahead.”
“Is the subject so hurtful because you caused her death?”
Whistler blinked. “God, no. What would make you think that?”
“It’s...more that I don’t want to think it.”
“Well, I didn’t. She was in school in California at the time and I was here in Boulder at UC. You thought what? Drunken driving? I ran us into a tree?”
“Adam, give me a break. Who wouldn’t have wondered?”
“You saw regret and assumed it was guilt. I regret that I was so far away. I regret a hundred things that I wish I’d said or done. People always do when it’s too late.”
“I realize that, Adam. And I’m sorry.”
“Let’s forget it.”
“I have another question...different subject...involves us. But maybe I’d better let it wait now.”
He grunted. “Look who’s talking about thuds.”
“Well, it’s a little personal. And you might take it wrong.”
“When has personal stopped you? Dive right in.”
“Better not.”
“If you don’t, I will tie you up and leave you for that cat. But don’t let that effect your decision.”
“Okay, here it is. Do you find me attractive?”
“Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m serious. Do you?”
“On your worst day, Claudia, you’d still be world class. On the inside, you’d rate even higher.”
She said, “Hmmm.”
“Okay, what?”
“So, maybe it’s the inside that’s holding you back? You think you shouldn’t mess around with Snow White?”
“Uh-oh,” thought Whistler. He could see what was coming. He said, “That’s not it at all.”
“Well, then, that’s the other reason why I want to go camping...I would like you either to make love to me, Adam, or explain to me why you haven’t tried.”
His color rose. He was no good at this. He said, “I don’t know. I...guess I’ve been afraid...”
“Of what? That you’d ruin it? You’re not that straight-laced.”
“Well...”
“And you can’t tell me now that it’s been fear of rejection. I think I just busted that bubble. Do you think I’m too young? Is that it?”
“Maybe partly.”
“You won’t ruin me either. My high school prom date did that.”
“Could we just...back up to where you wanted to go camping?”
“And talking. That’s part of the deal.”
He nodded. “Okay. Next trip out we’ll go camping.”
“No, tonight. Let’s go home and get my gear.”
They did go camping. They talked for hours on end. And he told her a dozen well-rehearsed lies that he’d used as a cover for years.
He acknowledged that he’d sometimes carried a pistol but only when abroad in wild country like this. His work with NAFTA often took him to places where snakes and wild animals like that lion were common. There were also bandits who called themselves rebels and who’ve made a cottage industry of kidnapping foreigners and forcing families or employers to pay ransom. Personally, however, he had not had any problems.
“Just as well,” he added. “I’m not good with guns.”
“You were in the army, but you’re not good with guns?”
“Claudia, I thought we were talking about handguns. Soldiers hardly ever fire them, let alone get proficient.”
“And you’re not.”
“I’d do just as well throwing rocks.”
While camping, they caught a few trout and they cooked them. Over coffee, he told her a bit more about Alicia. He said he knew that he ought to be over it by now. She’d been dead for about thirteen years. She’d been a freshman at UCLA when he was a senior at Boulder. She went to a party in the posh Brentwood suburb and somebody slipped her some drugs. She was not used to drugs, never touched them before. She went into convulsions, died later that night.
“The person who gave her the drugs...was he punished?”
“There were several involved. They were all brought to justice.”
“Was y
our mother still alive?”
“She had died the year before. She’d been ill for some time. The only good thing I can say about her dying is that she didn’t have to suffer through it.”
She took his hand. She caressed it. “I’m very sorry, Adam,”
She was looking at the back of his hand. Her fingertips ran across two of his knuckles. She had noticed before this that they were mis-shapen. She seemed about to ask what had happened to his hand, but she shook off the thought as unimportant.
“But, thank you, Adam. I’m glad that you told me. It’s better than carrying it inside you.”
They did make love. Shyly, awkwardly, at first. They had joined two sleeping bags by the zippers. Afterward, they said little. They just held each other. Then they fell asleep looking at the stars.
They woke up at first light and they made love again, this time with a bit less self-consciousness.
So, he thought.
He marveled that a body so firm, so athletic, could become so incredibly soft and so yielding. It was tender, it was shy, it was giving, it was everything. But after the second time, as they held each other, she gave his shoulder a squeeze. With a sad little smile, she said, “It will get better.”
Surprised, he answered, “That gets better? Better how?”
She said what women say. She said, “Shhh. It’s all right.”
He touched her face. “Claudia... you just lobbed a grenade. In my mind, I’m thinking how lucky I am and how wonderful that was for me. But I’ve disappointed you, haven’t I? Have I?”
“I...thought it was the other way around.”
“That you disappointed me? Are you out of your mind?”
“I didn’t?”
“You couldn’t. Not in any way, ever. Especially not making love.”
She said, “You’re sweet.”
“But you’re not buying it. Why?”
She said, “Look, Adam, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m not one of these women who has sex and then critiques it. But I did hope that this would get us over the hump…” She winced. “Sorry, Adam. Bad choice of words. But I don’t think you had your heart in it.”
She was right, of course. But so was he. Claudia wasn’t the problem.
If his heart wasn’t in it...not 100%...it was because a part of him felt like a rat. It was all the lies, the half-truths, the evasions.
She deserved so much better than that.
EIGHT
He hadn’t lied when she asked about his sister. He had told her the truth, bare bones though it was. It was certainly true that Alicia was clean. She did like to party and she was a flirt. She drank, but she never touched drugs. The party she went to in the Hollywood Hills was hosted by two brothers, two rich kids. They gave her a spiked Margarita.
The spike was GHB, a synthetic depressant, the first of the so-called date-rape drugs. The street dealers called it by a number of names, the most popular of which was “Easy Lay.” It was odorless, colorless, but it had a salty taste. That was why the drinks of choice were Margaritas. Mixed with alcohol, a few grams would put the victim to sleep. Two drinks would pretty much guarantee loss of memory, and the sleep would deepen into coma. The brothers who were spiking her drinks gave her three. Then they carried her upstairs and they raped her.
It got worse.
The two brothers had also been doing cocaine. They ran out of it, wanted more, and called their dealer. The dealer lived in a house down off Sunset. He drove over and he brought his partner. This was late at night; all the other guests had gone, except Alicia who was in an upstairs bedroom. The first two offered to share her. They took turns. She wouldn’t have known what was happening.
At some point, one of the two brothers realized that Alicia was barely breathing. Her heart would race, and then almost stop. Her skin had become cold and clammy. The brothers decided that they’d better get rid of her, maybe dump her in front of a hospital. They asked the two dealers to do it. The two dealers, however, had no such intention. They took her instead to the UCLA campus. There, they found a fraternity house that was having a party of its own. It was raining at the time. Everyone was inside. They left her barely alive, if not dead, on the lawn of that fraternity house. That was where she was found the next morning.
Whistler got the news from his father. A police lieutenant had called him. His father would be flying to Los Angeles from Geneva, but would not arrive until the next morning. Whistler didn’t wait. He flew out at once. It was Whistler who identified her body.
An autopsy hadn’t yet been performed but they’d done a preliminary blood test. They knew that the GHB had killed her. The police had also traced her movements that night. They knew the two brothers. Both had arrest records. Aside from arrests for simple drug possession, they’d been accused of using GHB before on at least one other occasion. But they were the sons of some studio executive who had always bought their way out of trouble. The brothers, shown a photograph, said she did seem familiar. They acknowledged that she might have been at their party, but if so, she’d left it well before midnight. The police were unable to make an arrest without an admission from someone involved. With DNA testing not yet in existance, the rape charge couldn’t be proved.
Whistler, once again, didn’t wait for his father. The police wouldn’t give him the two brothers’ names, but he took a taxi to the freshman dorms where he got them from Alicia’s weeping roommate. He went to see the brothers; he pushed his way in. The brothers were defiant. They told him to fuck off. He used his fists and a chair to beat them both half to death. He needed the chair because he’d broken several knuckles. A neighbor heard all the banging and screaming and telephoned the police. Whistler was arrested for assault at the scene. He spent half the night in an emergency ward and the next half locked in a cell. His father came to see him the next afternoon.
His father, by then, had also seen Alicia. He came to the holding cell, his eyes cold and distant. His eyes eventually fell on Whistler’s hands. One was bandaged; one was in a plaster cast.
Quietly, he said, “Adam, never use your fists. Heads, as you now realize, are harder than fists. But many things are harder than heads.”
Whistler glared. “Alicia’s dead.”
“I’m aware of that, Adam.”
“And you want to talk about my hands?”
“No, Adam, the subject is not being foolish. I will leave you to give it some thought.”
His father left him in custody, declined to post bail, and flew back to Europe by himself. While he was in Geneva, and could prove that he was, the brother whom Whistler had hurt the less severely was released from the hospital and vanished. The second brother, whose facial bones he’d shattered, would face months of reconstructive surgery. That one, being kept, was the luckier of the two. A day later, the two drug dealers were found, both suspended from a pipe in their basement. The brother who had vanished was also found dead. He’d been left to bake in the trunk of a car that was parked near the drug dealers’ house.
The police questioned Whistler to ask him what he knew. That was the first that he’d heard of it. They declined to give details of how the drug dealers died, but the newspapers said that the scene was horrific. They had choked to death after being multilated in a way that was meant to send a message. Whistler could guess what the mutilations were. He guessed that they’d choked on the same body part that they’d used to take their pleasure with Alicia.
The second brother soon vanished as well, but as far as Whistler knew, he might have survived. His wealthy parents had put guards on his room until they could arrange to have him airlifted elsewhere. They went with him, but they wouldn’t have had much to come back to. Their Brentwood home, where those parties had been held, was burned to the ground in their absence.
These reprisals, their brutality, had shocked Whistler at first. Well, not shocked, perhaps, but surprised. Of course he knew who and what his father was by that time, but he’d never known his father to be cruel. He’d once heard his f
ather reprimand an associate for maiming, then killing a man who’d betrayed him. “If you have to kill, kill. Don’t get personal about it. Do it quick, do it clean and be done with it.”
He could not imagine that his father had specified a painful and horrifying death. Not even for what had been done to Alicia. But the twins, who had also watched Alicia grow up, might have had ideas of their own. Donald, especially, had been fond of Alicia. He had built her a dollhouse made entirely of wine corks when she was about eight years old. And as Whistler learned later, leaving people in car trunks was something of a signature of the twins. All this, however, was again just a guess. Neither they nor his father would speak of it again. All his father would say was, “It’s done with.”
Whistler, at the time, was still sitting in a jail cell. He had, as he was sure that his father intended, an incontestable alibi. But he was still charged with felonious assault, with intent to commit grievous harm. Other charges were added. Another assault. An inmate had attacked him while he was in custody; tried to stab him with a prison-made shank. That time, of necessity, Whistler used his feet and he used his plaster cast as a club. He took a few cuts as he went for the man’s knees. He managed to connect and when he had the man down, he crushed the man’s knife hand with his heel.
His father, at last, arranged for his bail. His father said he’d try to get the charges thrown out. The complainant had, after all, disappeared and the jail fight was clearly self-defense. The prosecutor, however, would not let him off, but he had a proposal of his own. If Whistler would enter the military service for an enlistment of not less than three years, all of the charges would be dropped.
Whistler learned, much later, that he could have gotten off. The enlistment condition was his father’s idea. His father had thought that it would help him grow up. He thought that it might also keep him out of harm’s way until the twins, or whomever, cleaned up some loose ends. The attack by that inmate was no jailhouse brawl. The father of the two who raped Alicia had arranged it.
“Not much of a story,” he’d told Claudia’s mother. “One thing leading to another,” he’d said.
Whistler's Angel (The Bannerman Series) Page 6