No Legal Grounds (22 page)

His name was Greg Wayne, and he was an ex-Marine who looked it. Close-cropped hair, wide shoulders, hands that looked like the proverbial lethal weapons. And a nice, easy smile. Linda liked him immediately, even though she was still uncomfortable about the whole arrangement.

“Don’t worry about me,” he told her after introductions. All he had with him was a black duffel bag. “I carry my own stores for short jobs. I won’t be very noticeable.” He looked around as if sizing up the place. “Bedrooms are upstairs?”

“Yes,” Linda said.
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Of course not.” She paused. “May I ask you a question?” Wayne dropped the duffel bag at his feet. “Sure. Anything.” “You do this kind of work a lot?”
He nodded. “Last job was for a movie star, you’d know his name.

Little guy, comes up to about here on me.” Wayne put his hand just under his chin. “But on the screen, they make him look six-four. Anyway, there was a guy got it in his head that Mr. Movie Star was really doing all that physical stuff on the screen, and he wanted to take him down.”

“Duke it out. Show him who was the tough guy. So, while they were getting a restraining order, I got hired to watch his back.”
“And it all turned out well?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“The guy never bothered him again.”
Wayne smiled. “He tried.”
“What happened?”
“Mrs. Trask, I don’t want you to worry about anything. My job is to be here so you don’t have to worry. You have a family to look out for. It’s my job to free you up to do yours.”

A chilly tremble snaked up Linda’s spine. It wasn’t for lack of confidence in this man, who seemed perfectly capable to do his job. But the fact that he was in her home at all tangled her nerves. When would this nightmare be over?

“Do you have an extra house key?”
“Sure.”
Wayne nodded. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take that look around

Saturday morning in Hollywood, before the shops opened and the tourists hit the Walk of Fame, was a little eerie as far as Heather was concerned. It was like being in another world, not the night life, which she knew pretty well, nor the safety of broad daylight. And here, at the famous corner, Hollywood and Vine, the long shadows of the buildings made her feel like she was in a canyon somewhere, lost.

She knew this was a famous intersection at one time. Back in the golden age of movies. What was that golden age, anyway? Blackand-white movies, she guessed. Why did anybody even go to those things?

Life was supposed to be full color, with jacked-up sound. If it wasn’t, if it was black-and-white, why stick around?
Going to Vegas was color. Lots of it.
She knew what he’d want in Vegas. So why not? There had to be a first time, so why not with a guy who could help her get what she wanted?
She almost laughed remembering that night at Starbucks, when the geekish drummer hit on her. That would have led to a lot of crud she didn’t want to deal with.
This would be much, much better.
And if it didn’t work out, what then? What if there was no career, no rocket to the Grammys?
Don’t think about that. Get on the ride. Hold on till the end.

One thing she didn’t want was to end up back here, on Hollywood Boulevard. She wasn’t going to be one of those street people. Of course, she couldn’t go home, because that was not her place anymore and she knew it.

So those were the options.
She heard a car horn.
Lundquist was across Vine, sitting in a silver Mustang convertible. He waved and smiled.

For one moment Heather hesitated. Something inside her said
run. Get out of there and go home. You’re living in a fantasy world.
But when he honked again she gave him a wave of her own, waited for the light to change, and crossed the street.

On the plane back to Burbank, Gerald Case told Sam that now he was no longer the hunted. He was the hunter, and he needed to get ready for
the kill.

“You mean that figuratively, don’t you?” Sam said.
Case shrugged. “Whatever fits.”
“Terrific.”
“It’s good you’ve got Wayne in your house until you get back. A

Sam was about to ask how much this was all going to cost him but decided it no longer mattered. Getting Nicky to stop was the only thing that mattered now, even if it meant a second mortgage.

But killing him? Only in self-defense. Even then, what would that do to him?
He thought about that scene in the movie
Lawrence of Arabia
, after Lawrence has executed an Arab to show a tribe that he is willing to carry out their form of justice. His face showing inner torment, he admits to another man that he “enjoyed it.”
Sam wondered if, in his heart, he would enjoy killing Nicky Oberlin. It scared him to even think about it.
“And you need to let me track him for you,” Case said. “Huh?”
“What were you thinking just then?”
“I just wandered for a second. What were you saying?” “I said I should track him — Oberlin.”
“Track him where?”
“He’s not going to sit tight, now that he knows what you’ve done.”
“Think he’ll try to visit his mother?”
Case shook his head. “He knows that wouldn’t be a bright thing to do. What he wants to do is disappear off your radar and hover. I want to get to him before he hovers over your house.”
“How’re you going to do that?”
He smiled. “I’ve already started.”
“You know where he is?”
“I know a guy who knows.”
“Who?”
“You ever read those Perry Mason books?”
“A couple maybe, a long time ago.”
“Sure you did. You wanted to be a lawyer, right? Well, I read ’em too. Tons of ’em. They always had those catchy titles, you know, like
The Case of the Lucky Legs
.”
“Right.”
“Only the guy I liked wasn’t Mason, good as he was. It was Paul Drake.”
“The detective.”
“Had his own shop, like me. So anyway, whenever there was a problem Mason had to figure out, he turned it over to Drake. And Drake would either solve it himself, or turn it over to one of his operatives
.
I loved that. He had operatives all over the place, and all he had to do was make a call.”
“Just like you, I suppose.”
“That’s the thing,” Case said with a laugh. “Stories ain’t much like life. The expenses would’ve killed him. But that’s not to say it isn’t worth it to know guys. Freelance guys. Guys you can subcontract to.”
“So who’s the guy following Oberlin?”
“Name’s Betterson. That’s all you need to know. He can follow a mosquito to a skinny guy’s elbow.”
“What does he do when he gets to the elbow?”
“Calls me.”
“And then? ”
Case winked. “I use my professional judgment.”
Sam decided to leave it at that. Best, he thought, if he didn’t cogitate too much. Case was like one of those Indian scouts in the B Westerns, the one that always came along with the cavalry because all those West Point trained generals and enlisted flatfeet couldn’t find their way out of a covered wagon on the Great Plains. Case was like that for Sam — the advance man, the hand-to-hand combat guy. If it ever came to that.
Part of him hoped it would. Case would take care of the Nicky problem for him, and Sam wouldn’t need to know the details.

Heather loved the feel of the desert wind in her hair. Lundquist was driving fast, and the air was dry and hot, and it seemed like a magic carpet ride.

He had the CD player cranked up and was playing one of her favorite LA bands. It really rocked, the drummer was all over it, and everything else was reminiscent of the great Smashing Pumpkins, only with LA-style anguish you couldn’t manufacture anywhere else.

Magic. Maybe it did exist. Maybe it was going to be hers after all.
Lundquist shouted something. He had his hat pulled down tight and his ponytail did a little dance in the wind.
Heather shouted, “What?”
“Listen!”
With a push of the button the music stopped. For a moment all Heather could hear was the wind whistling past her ears. Then a new song started up, with the familiar fat, rolling bass line.
It was Screech Monk.
Their song!
Lundquist was smiling at her. “Happy birthday,” he shouted.
It wasn’t her birthday, but she knew what he meant. A present for her.
Her voice came in the vocal, and
she was good.
He was really making it happen for her.
She looked at him then, trying to decide how she felt. She wasn’t attracted to him physically. That ponytail was so retro it was past being hip retro. But were looks everything?
They helped.
But power was even better. You could learn to love a man who could pull strings for you. At least you could tolerate him.
Right. How much experience did she have with things like this? She wanted to think she was in control of her own destiny, but that was a crock. She needed help. Her parents had tried to convince her God could help. But here was a guy who really could, who could take her where she wanted to go.
And in return he’d want something. She knew that. So what?
Maybe she could induce him to lose the ponytail.
“You like?” he said after the song ended.
“Oh, yeah.”
He put his hand out and she took it. His grip was firm and sure.
Trust him, she thought.
The desert air hit her face with a little more heat. The long ribbon of road was part of a big nowhere. Nothing behind, nothing in front, just a strip of asphalt taking in the sun rays.
Only a few cars on the road, people going back and forth, in and out of different lives.
Okay, this was hers, the only one, and she would ride it out.

Sam was home by eleven o’clock, glad to find Greg Wayne there, and that he liked him. Wayne seemed the ultimate professional and was packed and ready to leave ten minutes after Sam came through the door. He only wanted to talk to Sam for a few minutes before he checked out.

“Case says this stalker of yours is a real piece of work,” Wayne said.
“That’s one way to put it,” Sam said. “There are a bunch of other ways, not so nice, you could say it too.”
“And he says you have a weapon.”
“You know how to use it?”
“Pull the trigger.”
“You’ve got the most important part down,” Wayne said with a smile. “May I suggest that when you get the gun you put it where you know you can get it quickly, and if you ever have to use it you aim right here.” With his right hand Wayne made a circular motion in front of his chest. “That’s the largest mass and easiest target. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“You’re a little nervous about that prospect.”
“Shouldn’t I be?”
“As long as the nerves don’t freeze you. I want you to go over and over in your mind that if this guy comes into your house, you don’t hesitate to shoot. You need to see that in your head beforehand. Don’t wait until the moment arrives and you have to think it through.”
“Have you ever shot anyone?”
“Let’s just say that if I were in your shoes, and our hypothetical situation arose, it would not be a completely new experience for me to take a guy down.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Shoot. To coin a phrase.”
“How did it make you feel?”
Greg Wayne paused for a long moment. He kept his eyes steady on Sam’s. Finally, he said, “If you’re in the right, it doesn’t matter how you feel. It only matters that you do it. You’ve got a wife and family, Mr. Trask, and a dangerous man out there who wants to do you harm. Be ready to do him harm. I urge you to think it through now.”
“I will.”
“Would you like me to stay?”
“Can I call you if I need you?”
“Of course. I’ll just get my stuff.”
After Wayne left, Sam did think about what Wayne had said. Sam imagined facing Nicky Oberlin in his own home. He saw himself holding a gun and Nicky smiling at him, as if challenging him to do it. He tried to see himself firing. But when he did, Nicky didn’t go down. He just stood there, still smiling.

Of course, the big hole where Heather should’ve been remained. He talked around it for a while, listened to Max trying his best not to sound nervous. Having a security guy stay in your house was not exactly the most calming thing that could happen to a sensitive kid.

The fact that Max was fighting his nervousness pleased Sam. As had become abundantly clear, there were going to be plenty of challenges in life that would require Max’s courage. What was it Sam’s football coach used to say?
The butterflies in the stomach are natural. Your job, gentlemen, is to make them fly in formation.

Finally, the subject of Heather could not be avoided any longer. “Have you heard from her?” Sam asked.
Linda shook her head. “Only a message yesterday on the machine. She didn’t call my cell. I guess she doesn’t want to talk to us.”
“Where is she physically?”
“Probably at Roz’s.”
“Maybe we should just go over there and walk up to the door and — ”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Linda said. “There will only be a lot of shouting.”
“I’m calling her.” Sam punched 3 on his cell phone, the speeddial number for Heather. She didn’t answer. He left a message asking her to please call.
“You have Roz’s number?” Sam asked Linda.
“Do you think — ”
“I’m not thinking anymore,” Sam said. “I just want to talk to my daughter.”
“You don’t think I do?”
“Did I say that?”
“You implied it.”
“Did I
say
it?”
“Stop being a lawyer for one second — ”
“All I said was — ”
“Guys,” Max said. “Cut it.”
Sam and Linda stopped. Max was breathing hard and his eyes were misting. His cheeks were breaking into pink.
“You’re right, Max.” Sam put a hand on his son’s shoulder.
“When will they catch that guy?” Max said.
“Until they do,” Sam said, deflecting a direct answer, “we stick together, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what the Trask family does.”

“Roz, this is Mr. Trask.”
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
“Okay.” Her voice was tentative. Maybe obstinate.
Sam calmed himself. “Know why I’m calling you?” “You’re trying to find Heather.”
“I would be very appreciative if you would ask her to talk to me.” “I can’t.”
“Please, I’m asking you to — ”
“I can’t because I don’t know where she is.”
“Isn’t she supposed to be with you?”
When Roz didn’t immediately answer, Sam said, “Where is she?” “I don’t know if she would want me to tell you.”
“Roz, I think I have a right to know — ”
“This is kind of weird for me, to be talking to you.” “Why is it so weird?”
“I don’t think you like me very much.”
Sam took a deep breath. “It’s true that I haven’t been as fair to

you or Heather as I should. I just haven’t come to terms with some things. Like Heather growing up and being her own person and doing what she feels passionately about. That’s wrong of me and I hope you understand that. I don’t really know you and — ”

“Yeah, well I guess I am a little bit different than a lot of people.”
“Well, maybe below the surface we’re all pretty much the same, trying to make sense out of everything, trying to make it through. All I want is to tell Heather some of that.”
“Right on.” Pause. “I don’t really know all of what’s going on. We laid down this track for a guy, a producer, and he kind of focused in on Heather, and I think she’s with him.”
“With him? Where?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Is she . . . involved with him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Sam tried to fight back the hot needles under his skin. “Can you tell me where I can contact this man?”
“I have a phone number. But he’s a little hard to get hold of.”
“Anything you can do to help me?”
“I just don’t want you to worry about her. She’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”
“You really believe that?”
When Roz did not immediately answer, Sam knew she didn’t.