Head Shot

by Dan Ames

  At first, she was intimidated by Hank Campbell. Once, when the children were reading a lesson, Miss Karpinsky took the time to rearrange her filing cabinets. When she tried to move one, she found it was much too heavy for her. Without having been asked, Hank walked over and lifted the file cabinet, as well as the one stacked on top of it, and carried it across the room. It was a feat she later described to the physical education teacher who tried to repeat the process, but only managed to lift the cabinets off the ground several inches before dropping them back onto the floor.

  Anita Karpinsky was petite, but also possessed an inner strength that few people glimpsed. It was a trait that was put to the test the day Hank Campbell came to class at the ripe old age of eleven, reeking of alcohol.

  His foster parents kept a well-stocked bar in the basement rec room. It had been off-limits to their five adopted children until Hank broke the lock off the cabinet and had his first drink of the tonic that he instantly realized he could never live without.

  That weekend, Hank took two bottles of whiskey and went out to the woods where he promptly drank one and passed out. When he woke up the next morning, he sneaked back into his bedroom where his parents had not missed him.

  On Monday, Hank dressed for school as he normally did, but this time a slight bulge protruded from beneath his jacket. On the way to school, he stopped inside the garage of a classmate and drank half of the remaining bottle. It was enough.

  The first thing Anita Karpinsky noticed about her student was that Hank, unlike his usual plodding self, seemed to be far more energized and active than normal. She began class by writing the day’s lessons on the chalkboard, but was interrupted by a squeal. She turned in time to see Hank groping a female student.

  Stunned, Miss Karpinsky rushed in and yanked Hank’s hands away. Without a second’s hesitation, Hank stood and punched her.

  The perky blonde fell backwards, her jaw cracked in three places. She struggled to her feet and made it to the principal's office, where the secretaries called the police.

  It took five police offers to subdue Hank and his fists, and by the time he was safely locked inside a squad car, Miss Karpinsky was joined by a fellow teacher with broken ribs and a police officer with a hairline fracture of the skull.

  It had been Hank Campbell's first brush with the law, but it would not be the last. Over the years, as Hank's body continued to grow, so did his transgressions.

  Of course, no one, not even Anita Karpinsky, could have predicted the infamy Hank Campbell, the King Blue Roomer of them all, would help bring to the good people of Rodgers Bay.

  Chapter 27

  In a trailer on the outskirts of Rodgers Bay, Michigan, Hank Campbell stood in all of his glorious naked manhood, all six feet five inches and three hundred and ninety pounds of him. Since his time in the blue room, he had come a long way physically, if not geographically.

  His chest was covered with thick, greasy hair, as were his stomach, back, arms, hands and feet.

  Buried under the hair and burned into the top of his thick fat were many tattoos, rendered completely unrecognizable by their environment. Thick jowls, deep-set eyes and a florid complexion were the hallmarks of his face.

  He hefted his eleventh beer of the night, and drained the entire can in three huge gulps.

  The inside of the trailer looked like the aftermath of a tornado; debris was scattered everywhere. In the corner of the living room sat Hank’s chair, a bright, deer-hunting orange La-Z-Boy with oil stains on the head cushion where Hank’s skull rested for up to 8 hours a day.

  About the only thing worse than how the inside of the trailer looked, was how it smelled. A nearly four hundred pound man who rarely bathed could create quite an aroma inside such cramped quarters.

  Of course, the current smell was nothing compared to the odors emanating from the trailer two years ago.

  In spring of that year, the Rodgers Bay Police Department received complaints of an offensive odor coming from Hank Campbell’s address.

  When they investigated, they discovered the body of Gretchen Campbell, Hank's mother, in the bathtub. She had been dead for almost a year, and although the body was covered in lime, it had deteriorated significantly.

  Hank had not wanted his “beer money” to be cut short, so he had not reported his mother’s death in order to continue collecting her Social Security check. He was forced to pay the money back, but he had gotten nearly twenty thousand dollars from the insurance company, which was enough to pay for the funeral and the money due the government, with a little left over.

  The whole affair had humiliated Hank Campbell, as much as he was able to perceive the impression he had made on the rest of the small town.

  He took to cleaning his guns more regularly, and he stayed inside his trailer more. The only other place he had in the whole world was Feit's Saloon in Rodgers Bay.

  There was a stool reserved for Hank at that bar; he had once stopped a bar fight by beating both of the participants to a bloody pulp, and in the process, he had become the unofficial bouncer of the place. There weren't too many people, no matter how many beers and shots they'd downed, who had the nerve to go up against Hank Campbell.

  Hank scooped the keys off the kitchen counter and grabbed two more beers for the ride down to Feit's.

  It was a cool night, but Hank had all the windows of his Ford Bronco down. When a person weighs almost four hundred pounds, it isn't easy to stay cool.

  He popped the top to one beer and then opened the glove compartment where he kept his .357 Magnum, and stashed the extra beer inside.

  The radio blared when Hank turned the ignition as he always forgot to turn the radio off and a Bob Seeger song blasted out at him. He rocked his heavy head in rhythm to the song, and his thick, meaty fingers tapped out the bass line on the steering wheel.

  For Hank Campbell, driving in the Bronco was one of his few joys in life, next to fighting and shooting things. There was only one problem with driving into Feit's tonight, a problem that Hank had absolute no trouble ignoring.

  His driver's license had been revoked six months ago.

  Chapter 28

  Twenty miles away, Ronald Sharpe was putting the last of the logs on the fire in the outdoor pit, when his wife Rose came out of the cabin and joined him.

  "Here you go, dear," she said, handing him a martini.

  She plunked her ample bottom down into one of the chairs on the small, inlaid brick verandah that stood between the cabin and the edge of the quiet lake.

  In the middle of the bricks was a small square of concrete in which a heart had been crudely drawn. Inside the heart was the inscription "R & R, 1981."

  Ron had insisted on the romantic gesture when they built the verandah the year after they purchased the cabin with its one hundred and seventy feet of shoreline on Lost Lake. It was the second addition he had made to the place, the first being a rustic, hand-carved sign reading "Lost Lake Lodge" that now hung over the main door to the cabin.

  He and Rose had shopped around for a summer place on Lake Superior, but had opted instead for the quieter, and cheaper land available on the small, inland lake. Initially, it was to be their summer retreat, but when retirement came they decided to make it their full-time residence.

  It was about a half-hour drive to Rodgers Bay where they bought their groceries and dined on the occasional night out.

  Ron had been the president of an advertising agency in Milwaukee, and his pension plan had been a good one. One day, when the money matured a bit more, they might sell the place and go to North Carolina, but for now, the cabin was nice and it held a lot of pleasant family memories for both of them.

  Besides, Mike, their son, would raise bloody hell if they tried to sell the cabin. Their only child absolutely loved Lost Lake Lodge.

  Ron rose as the fire sparked and popped, then stood back and took a sip of the drink before sitting down in the chair next to his wife of thirty-three years.

  "Looks like it's going to rain,"
he said.

  Rose looked at the sky and noted the dark clouds making their appearance on the edge of the horizon.

  "I hope it doesn't delay Mike's flight," she said, her maternal instincts kicking into gear like a well-oiled machine.

  "He'll be fine," Ron said.

  The pontoon boat was tied securely to the dock and Ron had remembered to pull the tarp over the firewood pile. It wouldn't take long to batten down the hatches if a storm was coming.

  Ron had spent part of his day getting the gear ready for Mike's arrival. It had become a bit of a tradition for he and his son to go fishing their first day at Lost Lake Lodge. The lake held plenty of good-sized bass and the occasional walleye. But what made the fishing spectacular was the fact that the DNR planted trout in the lake every spring.

  Ron wasn't a big trout fisherman, but he loved fishing for northern pike, the toothy predator that could wreak havoc on fishermen and their equipment, and the pike in this lake were fat from the innocent and naive hatchery-raised trout.

  He had charged the trolling battery in the boat so they could approach the small bays of the lake in total silence.

  They would have a field day.

  "So is this Laurie the one?" Rose asked him, startling him out of his fishing reverie.

  She took a sip of her Brandy Manhattan and before he could answer, continued.

  "She'd better be, he's getting old."

  "I'll be sure and tell him you said that."

  Rose smiled at the thought of her son objecting to being labeled as "getting old," but she was right, and as a mother, it was her job to tell her son exactly what he didn't want to hear.

  "What does she do for a living?" Ron asked.

  "She's a photographer."

  Ron smiled

  Rose looked at her husband.

  "What's so funny?"

  "I always knew he'd marry someone artistic."

  "Marriage?" Rose asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Who said anything about marriage?"

  Ron sipped his martini.

  "I've got a feeling about this one," he said.

  "Oh, and when did you become so perceptive?"

  Ron stabbed the olive at the bottom of his martini and popped it into his mouth.

  "How many other girls has he brought here?" he asked, looking out of the corner of his eye at his wife.

  There was a pause as she considered the question.

  "None," she answered.

  He smiled broadly and leaned back in his chair.

  A loon called out to them from the middle of the lake.

  Chapter 29

  The grip truck, emblazoned with the Nation’s Most Wanted logo on its side, was parked outside a small coffee shop near Venice Beach. The name of the popular local hangout was Cafe! Cafe!, but today the sign read Java House. Although it was still early in the morning, a small crowd of neighbors had gathered to watch the action.

  Cables snaked across the yard and into the shop, where grips and production assistants were scurrying back and forth, setting up lights and reflectors, taking light meter readings, and trying as unobtrusively as possible to raid the craft table for its ample supply of bagels, cream cheese and orange juice.

  Since the shop was essentially closed for business during the filming, which would last well into the afternoon, the crew would have to settle for bland coffee in Styrofoam cups.

  Seated on a chair near the playback monitor, Mike Sharpe was struggling to deal with one of the worst headaches of his life. He shook three Tylenol capsules into his hand, popped them in his mouth, and chased them down with a swig of coffee loaded with sugar.

  It was this goddamned contact lens.

  The lens itself felt fine, but it partially obscured the vision of his left eye, since the cornea had to appear to be floating to the outside corner of Mike's eye, just like the real Joe Ferkovich.

  The effect was like wearing a pair of sunglasses where one of the lenses was knocked out. The difference in light created an imbalance, which in turn left the actor with a stab of pain originating in the area of the forehead over his left eye that ran all the way to the top of his head.

  He supposed it was appropriate, though. In the time since he'd gotten the part, he visited the library and read up on serial killers, where he learned that psychoses can sometimes be associated with dizziness, hallucinations, and migraine headaches.

  This was method acting at his best, he told himself.

  "Let's go people!" called Dean Harwell, the director.

  "Why are you looking over there?" he asked Mike, referencing the crooked eye. "I'm standing right in front of you."

  Mike laughed.

  "You wouldn't be laughing if your head hurt as much as mine does."

  "Hey, it's not like it'll kill you," the director said, continuing the black humor. “Now come over here, Mike," he continued, guiding him over to his mark. Harwell stepped back and looked in the camera.

  "Makeup!" he called out, and brought Mike back to his chair.

  Harwell had on cowboy boots and he placed one on the bottom rung of Mike's chair, peering closely at the actor's face.

  "Darken the sides here," he said to the makeup girl, gesturing at Mike's jawline, then above his cheekbones, "and here."

  Mike watched as she patted his face with a mascara pad.

  "I've had pancake on before, but this feels like a triple stack from IHOP," he said.

  "Yeah," she said, "look on the bright side, you'll be building up your neck muscles."

  Harwell called out to the rest of the crew.

  "Let's do it, people!"

  Mike walked over to his mark, a small table with a cappuccino cup and a newspaper sitting on top of it. He was wearing casual, nondescript clothing, jeans and a tan oxford.

  He didn't feel like a killer.

  "Meredith, are you ready?" yelled the director.

  Meredith Burns was playing Lisa Young who, according to Mike's script, had been abducted from the coffee shop and murdered by Joe Ferkovich.

  "And Action!" ordered Harwell.

  Meredith Burns, aka Lisa Young, entered the shop and went to the counter. Mike peered over the top of his newspaper and studied the girl, thinking to himself that if the real victim looked anything like the actress portraying her, she must have been a real looker.

  She took a seat across the room from Mike and Harwell shot different angles of Mike as he kept his eyes on her. When she left, he followed her out, and it was a movement they had to do twelve times before Harwell decided he had what he wanted.

  "Cut!" the director yelled.

  "Camera move!" the cameraman bellowed, sending the crew into a frenzy. When the location scouts came across Café Café, they had immediately decided it was the perfect place to film because the small parking lot could serve as the second location. Shorter trips between locations made for more efficient productions.

  The crew began hauling lights and the camera base to the parking lot, where Harwell and his director of photography were already discussing how they would block out the shot.

  Mike knew it would be at least an hour before they were ready for him, so he dug out his cell and called Laurie. She was in the darkroom today, developing shots for another magazine cover.

  She answered on the second ring.

  "Are you all packed?" he asked.

  "Just about."

  "Is Buttercup going to have to make an appearance?" he asked. "Buttercup" was Mike's nickname for himself when he was forced, like an oxen, to lug any of Laurie's luggage around an airport. He felt she had a slight tendency to overpack.

  "Don't worry, this will be a light load," she said.

  "So, you've cut it down to, like, ten suitcases?"

  "This coming from the guy who's going to have a box load of fishing lures," she countered.

  "The difference is I'll be using all of my stuff, you bring clothes that you call ‘options.’"

  She laughed.

  "How's the shoot going?" Laurie asked.

&nbs
p; Mike turned and looked at the activity in the parking lot.

  "Seems to be going fine. Harwell's a pro, keeps things moving, doesn't agonize over shots too long. We've got one more scene and then I'll be done."

  "Is this the first shoot that's ever actually proceeded according to schedule?" she asked.

  "The very first," he answered.

  He heard the clicks of a computer keyboard and knew she was looking at her latest images, maybe already loading them into Photoshop.

  "How are the pictures looking?" he asked.

  "Not bad," Laurie answered. Mike knew that in Laurie's terms, "not bad" meant they looked absolutely great.

  "I just need to send them to the editor's office."

  "Then you'll be a free woman."

  Mike could picture her staring at the computer screen, brushing a strand of hair away from her eyes. He loved watching her work.

  "I can't stop thinking about Lost Lake Lodge, I've been daydreaming about it all day," she said

  He’d had shown Laurie pictures of the rustic cabin with the beautiful lake in the background.

  "I can't wait, either," he said, his mind picturing the interior of the cabin, the flat, mirrored surface of the lake before it gets cut by the point of the canoe, and the smell of woodsmoke.

  "Let's go over the plan," he said, and for the next few minutes, they discussed the timetable. When Mike was finished shooting, he would go to his apartment, grab his stuff, then head straight to Laurie's for a quick dinner before catching their plane.

  "That sounds good to me," Laurie said. "I'm really excited about this. I haven't taken a vacation in over three years."

  Mike laughed. He wasn't so sure how his favorite workaholic was going to handle a week in the northwoods of Michigan.

  "I'm excited about spending a week with you, baby."

  She sighed.

  "Oh Mike, you're such a romantic."

  He thought about the heart his father had drawn in the concrete at Lost Lake Lodge.