Dead Aim

by Thomas Perry

  He had tried to interest Kira in shooting as a hobby when she had been fourteen and painting signs of future trouble on her face, because he considered shooting clean and wholesome. At the time, Kira had considered shooting “something farmers do when the 4-H Club is closed.” This time, when she began to tell him about going onto a combat range and firing tight, rapid groups into man-shaped pop-ups, she knew she had him.

  He had paid for psychiatry since she was eleven, paid unwittingly for drugs and tattoos, then for drug therapy and tattoo removal. He had paid her tuition to schools that were ever more geographically and thematically distant from the main thoroughfares of human activity. Self-defense seemed to him to be a simple, practical matter, like bread or a roof. The fact that she had expressed interest in something practical was a sign of better times. That she had stayed interested for so long was a hint of character that had previously been hidden from him. He paid.

  Kira had been keeping a secret. It was not what had brought her to the camp, but it had been one of the things that had kept her here, working on marksmanship and tactics from dawn until dark every day, then doing exercises and practicing kicks and punches with Debbie until she needed to sleep.

  Kira wanted to kill somebody. It was something she had thought about often since she had realized that it was not impossible. She had already chosen Mr. Herbick. He was the headmaster of the Shoreham School. The policy at the Shoreham School had always been to respect the privacy of others. But he had waited until Kira’s class was at an assembly, and then searched their lockers. It had been an educational experience for Kira. She had learned that at a private school, there were no such things as a right to privacy, freedom from capricious search and seizure, or due process. Within ten minutes of the discovery of a plastic bag of white powder in her locker, she was no longer enrolled in the Shoreham School.

  The pleasant part of the lesson was that the officials of the Shoreham School didn’t feel that they owed the Commonwealth of Massachusetts any more attention to legal customs than they owed Kira. Headmaster Herbick and his assistant, Miss Swinton, called her mother in to witness a short, informal ceremony in which they flushed the white powder down the toilet in the headmaster’s private bathroom and moved her permanent record file from the N–Z filing cabinet in the back office and into a file box in a storeroom marked “Inactive.” At the time, she had been a year and a half from college. Mr. Herbick said he wished her luck, but of course she should not expect letters of recommendation from any school personnel.

  It was late January. She could not transfer to another private school for the rest of the year, so she had been forced to go to a public high school. It took a day to find one that had space for her and a day to register, but the following Monday she found herself in a huge hallway that smelled of Lysol, jostled and pushed by the sort of crowd she had never seen anywhere but at a rock concert. She had to get used to bathrooms that were filthier than those at a turnpike rest stop, and so dangerous that she had to plead with girls she met in class to go with her and guard the stall door. This change had been educational, too.

  Kira had lasted the year and a half, and had been admitted to a small women’s college in Vermont. From then on, her higher-education career had been a constant unsuccessful search for a new school where she would be happy. When she dropped out of the last one, she had already wanted to kill Mr. Herbick for over three years. He had changed her life. But it wasn’t until she actually had been trained in ways of going about it that she decided it must be done. She confided her fantasy to Debbie, the instructor she liked best, and Debbie accompanied her to Michael Parish. He placed her in a chair at the main lodge and spoke with her for hours, then dismissed her. It took four meetings held at two-day intervals before he agreed to arrange a hunt.

  Herbick was easy. Kira had imagined a scene in which she would corner him somewhere and hold a gun on him, and he would weep and beg for mercy in a very satisfactory way. When it came to the actual event, it was less dramatic. It was like walking across a pasture and shooting a cow. She decided it was actually better that way: simple removal.

  The problems came later. She had changed herself, which was what she had intended, but the change was of a slightly unexpected character. She had found that she had lost her capacity to have relationships with people who did not understand. They were living passive, uneventful, unimaginative lives, like the one she had lived before. She spent a year going on dates that always began with promise and retained exactly the same promise to the end. It was as though she and the boy were separated by a panel of perfectly clear, impenetrable glass. One of them would begin to talk, but the message would never quite reach the other. She would hear the boy talking about himself, but she could not respect his experiences or share his feelings, because he had never done anything as big and risky as what she had done. The problem became worse after her second hunt, and still worse after the third. She came to love killing. She had found the ultimate pleasure, the power to simply look at someone and think, I can easily kill you. The only reason you don’t fear me is that you are too unimaginative to know it. The fact that nobody could look at little Kira Tolliver and realize that she was a killer added to the feeling of power, but it also isolated her.

  She had realized that the best place where she could attempt to find a full and open relationship with a man was among men who had done exactly the same thing she had done. She had come and asked Michael Parish if there was any way she could come to work at the camp, or buy a long-term membership to make her regular visits at a cheaper rate. He had said he would think about it and keep her request in mind, so she had gone home and waited.

  She had waited for weeks without hearing his reply, but then Michael had called unexpectedly and told her about this hunt. He had said he would let her join it for free while he thought about her request. She was becoming more confident by the minute. After all, who was either of them kidding? He knew that someday, she was going to inherit a whole lot of money. And she would probably, in the meantime, marry a man with some money. Parish knew he would get repaid with interest. He wasn’t being so magnanimous.

  Today she was taking advantage of something practical that she had learned over the past couple of years: that of all human beings, the only ones who were welcome everywhere, at all times, were beautiful young women. She looked up at Tim through her lashes as he shoved her bag into the back seat, then held her door open for her. She climbed in. As Jimmy, the tall dark one, drove the car down the gravel driveway toward the gate, she opened the bag and pulled out her new Beretta S9000 with the short barrel, slipped it into her purse, then found two full magazines and put them into the compartment beside it. She was aware that two of the three men in the car were staring at her in fascination. She thought that was just about right.

  CHAPTER 24

  As the car moved along the winding road toward the coast, Kira studied the photographs. She could see that the guy was a bit tired and a bit worried, not aware in at least the first shot that anybody was taking his picture. She put them into her purse and when her hand emerged again it held her cell phone. “Think it’s time to call Emily and Paul?”

  Tim wobbled his head noncommittally, but from the driver’s seat came Jimmy’s voice. “Yeah, you can try. He’s had enough time to check in at a hotel, if L.A. is as far as he’s going.”

  She dialed the number they had been given. “It’s busy,” she announced.

  “Okay,” said Tim. “We know we’ve got to drive an hour and a half anyway. Parish will probably hear where he is by then and call us.”

  “Right,” said Lee. “There’s no need to nag them.”

  Kira put her phone away and stared out the window. Coming down through the national forest made it seem later than it was. There was always a hill baking in bright late-afternoon sun on the east side, and another in deep shadow on the west. She waited until she judged that she had let the right interval elapse before she spoke again. “Are you guys friends from befor
e, or did you meet at the camp?”

  In the front seat, Jimmy and Lee turned their heads, and she could see their eyes meet. That look passed between them, that awful look that said, We knew it: we knew she would turn out to be stupid.

  Tim turned his blue eyes to her and said, “Lee and Jimmy knew each other before. I met them at the camp about six months ago. They haven’t said their last names or where they’re from, and neither have I.”

  She felt a gush of gratitude to him for answering. She knew the others would have left her question hanging in silence, and she would have hated that. Tim’s eyes were even better than she had thought at first. She did not even bother to construct a formulation in words. She acted on it, setting him apart from the others, making a distinction in her mind. She gave Tim her very best smile. She had known she would have to choose. When a girl was with three boys, they would eventually force her to, even if it was something they would all do together. They always had to know. She pursued his attention, to keep him looking at her. “But have you hunted with them before?”

  “No,” he said. “We’ve all hunted, but we each went solo. With the safari crew, I mean.”

  She laughed, making her eyes flash at him and throwing her hair back to show her perfect skin. She let the laugh become a lingering smile to let him see her small, perfect teeth. “It’s pretty funny when you say it that way.”

  “That’s what it is,” said Tim.

  “Not today, though. This is a party, and we get to do our own party planning. How do you think we should get him?”

  “Beats me. Depends on where we find him, I guess.”

  The conversation wasn’t very promising. Maybe Tim was feeling self-conscious because the other two were up there listening, and he couldn’t see their faces. “I think I’ll try calling again.”

  This time she heard only a partial ring, and then Emily’s voice. “Yes?”

  Kira clutched Tim’s forearm. “It’s me, Kira. Do you have a location?”

  “Affirmative. He’s checked in at the Beverly Towers on Sunset, room 1503.”

  “Great,” said Kira. “Thanks.”

  “Good hunting.”

  Kira turned off her telephone, and sighed. “He’s at the Beverly Towers on Sunset. Room 1503.”

  “Wow,” said Lee. “That was easy.”

  “Yeah, but popping him in a hotel isn’t. Whoever does it will be stuck way up on the fifteenth floor. If there are shots in a hotel room, somebody hears them. Then you only have three or four ways down, and the only place you can end up is the lobby,” said Jimmy.

  “We’ll think of something,” Tim assured them.

  “Yeah?” Jimmy’s voice was contemptuous. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know yet. It’s early. He’s checked in, but probably he won’t stay in his room all the time. He drove to L.A. for some reason. Maybe there’s somebody he wants to see, or something he wants to buy. Anyway, he’s got to eat. Maybe he’ll go out for that. Anything can happen.”

  Kira decided to stay in the conversation to establish sides. “Tim’s right: anything can happen. We could get him just by being near his car.”

  “It would have to be better than that,” Lee scoffed.

  “The car was just an example,” Kira said. “Tim’s saying that it’s too soon to say it’s not doable. We’ll think of something. We will.”

  The talk was an irritant, not quite an argument, just a general peevish dismissal of anything anyone said. But Kira didn’t allow herself to feel weary or discouraged. The talk was an annoyance, but she had used it to delineate the sides. By the time the car came to the top of the long hill that rose above Camarillo and over the invisible line into Los Angeles County, the distinctions had been made: Jimmy and Lee, the two friends from somewhere or other, were in the front seat sharing contemptuous glances and patronizing smirks about Kira and Tim, thinking they couldn’t see from the back seat.

  She had become Tim’s ally. He owed her more than he probably had yet understood. The other two could make the cleverest sarcastic remarks about Tim that had ever been heard, and it meant nothing. The contest was over, and they were the losers. They knew it. She could tell that they knew it, because she could hear it in the bitter, disappointed tone of their voices. They were trying to convince themselves that it wasn’t a real loss because Tim wasn’t as cool as they were and Kira was too dumb to be credible, but the defeat was primal. The desirable girl—the only girl—had picked Tim, and not them. It didn’t matter whether her criteria were fair or wise: her choice was absolute and irrefutable. She could also tell from the disproportionate level of their irritation that they had each understood that this had not been an empty contest. There was a prize, and they were imagining exactly what having that prize would have been like.

  She returned her attention to Tim. She had moved closer to him, and sometimes touched his arm or his hand as she made a point. She was secure now, and she could concentrate on the hunt. Soon they were off the freeway, going south over a winding canyon road down into Beverly Hills. When they reached Sunset and she saw the wide avenues lined with tall coconut palms, she began to watch for the hotel. She saw it coming from a distance. After a few seconds’ thought, she said, “Anyone have a plan besides me?”

  Ten minutes later, Kira and Tim entered the lobby. Tim was carrying his suitcase and had her overnight bag strapped over his shoulder, but he was strong enough so that it looked effortless. Kira scurried to the counter ahead of him and said, “We just called a few minutes ago and had a room set aside for us.”

  The clerk was a girl about Kira’s age. “Mr. and Mrs. Wilson?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And how will you be paying for your stay with us?”

  Kira placed on the counter one of the two credit cards she had bought before the hunt. It had been sold to her for two thousand dollars as a spree card. It was a perfect clone of a real card belonging to a real Mrs. Wilson, who was supposedly in Europe for the summer, where someone had gotten the card’s information when she had used it. Kira had bought the clone because she had known that on this hunt she would have to make her own arrangements for getting out afterward, and, with the fake Massachusetts driver’s license she’d had made to order, the card would allow her to rent a car or buy a plane ticket.

  She held her breath as the clerk swiped the card on a magnetic reader, looked at a screen, and frowned. She swiped it again, and Kira began to feel the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She slipped her hand into her purse, grasped the pistol’s grips, and let her face go blank. The clerk turned the card around to face her, and began tapping keys on the card reader. There was a pause while the machine communicated over a telephone line with some other machine, and then a sudden clackety-clack as the reader printed out a receipt. The clerk smiled, and Kira slowly pulled her right hand out of the purse. She took the clerk’s silver pen and signed, then accepted the little folder with the magnetic key cards, turned, and walked to the row of elevators in an alcove.

  As soon as they were inside, Tim leaned close and whispered, “I didn’t see any sign of him in the lobby or the gift shop.” She felt the soft puffs of his breath on her ear, and it made delicious chills go down her spine. She pulled away, and gave a little shimmy. “That tickles.” Then she raised her eyes to him. “No. But let’s talk in the room.”

  She had asked for a room as high up as possible, where there would be a view, and she had scored the fifteenth floor. She had told the others casually, without making too much of it, and left it to them to remember their negative comments and to consider whether they could have gotten so close to Mallon’s room so effortlessly.

  She had turned to Jimmy and said, “You two will have to find a way to watch his car without getting noticed.” She had been aware that she was making the estrangement between them complete. Jimmy and Lee would be outside somewhere, or possibly in a dark, damp underground parking structure, while she took Tim upstairs to a comfortable hotel room with her. She and Tim
would probably be the ones to get Mallon, and Jimmy and Lee would get nothing.

  She gave Tim one of the card keys to their room and whispered, “1509,” then slipped the other card into a pocket of her purse, where she could find it easily. As the elevator stopped and she walked out, she thought about the fifteenth floor. No hotel ever had a thirteenth, so they called that the fourteenth, and the fifteenth was really the fourteenth. She had traveled with her father and mother enough to know that she would almost certainly be able to get a room up high. That was because business travelers all knew that no fire department in the world had a ladder that went up above the sixth floor. If Mallon had unexpectedly shown up an hour ago and been given the fifteenth floor, chances were that she would be too.

  She let Tim go ahead of her past 1503, his heavy feet made heavier by the luggage he carried. She used the noise to cover her while she stopped by the door. She placed her ear to the wood and listened. She heard Tim open room 1509. She knew he was standing in the doorway holding the door open and watching her from behind, so she tried to look dangerous and alluring at the same time, making her leg muscles tense and sucking in her abdominals to prepare to spring.

  She held her pose for fifteen or twenty seconds, but she could hear nothing. She turned her head slightly and brought her eye to the corner to see Tim. He was no longer holding the luggage. He had his jacket over his left arm, and the other hand hidden, obviously on his gun. He was staring at her hard.