Thomas Perry - Dead Aim

He had nothing more to say that would convince anyone. He reluctantly turned and walked. Mallon left by the side door and stepped out into the sunlight. The exit he had chosen gave him a short, shaded passage to walk before he reached Figueroa Street. He walked slowly, his shoulders hunched and his eyes studying the ground ahead. At the sidewalk he turned to the left, away from his house. He needed to walk and to think.

He was in trouble. Somebody-either the man walking on the beach or the man in the boat with a rifle-had tried to kill him. Now it was clear to him that the police believed that he had imagined the whole episode, or made it up. His lawyer, the only one who really knew what had been going on since the death of Catherine Broward and could verify the details, had suddenly vanished. What Mallon decided to do next would very likely determine whether he lived or died. As he walked, he began to feel more and more alone and uneasy.

He used the intersections as opportunities to turn and look back at the streets behind to detect followers. People were driving past on their way to stores or restaurants on the streets surrounding State. As they passed, he studied the faces of the drivers, looking for something out of the ordinary, some peculiar look, some expression that would give him a warning.

Yesterday, the man on the beach had been striding along, his eyes focusing on Mallon and then moving away, then returning to check on him, as though to see how close he was getting. During those minutes, those steps on the beach, the young woman had been leaning close to the man, talking. She had slid her eyes to the side to keep Mallon in sight while she talked. She had looked like a person whispering secrets, although normal speech would not have been audible to Mallon over the surf. Mallon had never imagined that the older man and the young woman in a bathing suit were dangerous. The change had come suddenly.

It was a strange look that had appeared on the man’s face. It had in it a preoccupied concentration at the brow. The eyes had been sharp and alert and hot with eagerness for what was about to happen. On the lips had been the beginnings of a smile. Could it have possibly been pleasure? No. It was excitement, anticipation, the certainty of winning. He had thought a lot about the expression on the man’s face, but it still made no sense to him. Was this the man who had killed Lydia? Had he been trying to kill Mallon next, because Mallon knew something that would help catch him? Was there some price on Mallon’s head that he had been sure he was about to collect? Then who were the others-the girl, the man with the rifle? There was simply no answer.

When he got back to his house, Mallon quickly went up to his room and packed what he considered to be essential-a few sets of clean clothes, the cash he had withdrawn from the bank-then went down the stairs and out the door carrying his small suitcase. As he walked, he felt a tightness in his spine. He was expecting at each step to hear a shot, or a set of quick footsteps on the pavement behind him.

The feeling that someone was watching, preparing to stop him never diminished, but he did not dare turn around and look back. He placed his suitcase in the trunk of his car, unlocked his door, sat in the driver’s seat, drove off, and hungrily searched the mirrors.

The world was curiously indifferent to what had happened. He could see women at the supermarket lot unloading grocery carts into their car trunks, couples walking together along Anapamu Street. Cars were coming up from the direction of the ocean and the freeway, as others came down from the residential areas. Nobody had been affected by the death of Catherine Broward, the murder of Lydia Marks, the shooting on the beach, the disappearance of Diane Fleming. They had not even heard of them.

Mallon drove along Anapamu to State, then down toward De la Guerra to coast past Diane’s office. He could see that the windows were dark and there were no cars in the tiny lot. He accelerated again, and in a few minutes he was on the freeway, heading south.

He was going to do what he should have done two days ago: find Detective Angela Berwell and talk to her in person about everything that had happened since he and she and Lydia Marks had spent the evening together in the Hotel Bel-Air.

It’s going to be a special kind of hunt,” said Parish. “I’ve selected only the four of you to participate.” He surveyed the four young people sitting before him in the main lodge. They were all under twenty-five, all clean looking and physically fit. They were perfect, the sort of postadolescents that advertising agencies assembled for a television commercial, with teeth that had been straightened and polished, hair kept trimmed by expensive stylists. “You can hunt as a team or in pairs, or you can go out alone. It’s absolutely up to you. I trust each of you to that extent. You are among the very best hunters I’ve trained, in this country or elsewhere. I’ll be completely candid with you. The staff of the school will try to help by getting information to you in the field, but we will not be there to hold anybody’s hand during the hunt, or to get you out afterward.” He turned his head slowly to look at each of them.

“I can’t emphasize that enough. It’s your hunt. You have to do your own thinking. That means thinking ahead. You do your own tracking to find the target. Before you do anything to reveal yourself, and especially before you take your shot, you’ll have to do your own scouting. Think: Is this the best spot for taking down the target? Do I have a path out that will get me away before any curious bystanders arrive? Do I have a second way out if that one is unexpectedly blocked or proves dangerous? You all know what the considerations are.”

A hand went up, and Parish was pleased. He liked it when his students seemed eager. “Yes, Kira?” He could tell she was doing this to draw attention to herself, and he admired her for it.

“What can you tell us about the target?”

He smiled, then said quietly, “I was just coming to him. Mary will pass out photographs of him now.” He nodded at Mary, who had been leaning against the wall behind the four students. “She took them yesterday morning, and they came out very well. You should have little trouble recognizing him in most situations. He’s six feet tall, forty-eight years old, and looks trim and fit. He has brown hair with a bit of gray around the temples. He’s spent much of his life in the sun, so his skin has a slightly weathered look, and it’s tan. He’s divorced, and has lived alone for about ten years, so he’s comfortable without companions, and that’s the way he’s likely to be when you find him.”

Parish watched Mary handing out copies of the pair of photographs she had taken in front of the Santa Barbara courthouse and in the parking lot nearby. Each person would hold a photograph up for a moment, scrutinize it, and then lower it. He waited until all four listeners had looked at both pictures and then raised their eyes to him again.

“His name is Robert Mallon. He is, at least so far, unarmed. He’s a retired contractor and real estate developer. The bad news is that he got into the real estate development business at a time when it was about to boom, and he’s quite wealthy. As we all know, that gives a person flexibility, some experience in traveling, and possibly some allies or resources we don’t yet know about. He has also been hunted before.” He watched the faces suddenly become alert.” He has been here, and he has seen most members of the staff, which is why none of us will be going with you on this hunt.

“You’re all wondering about him now-how he survived that kind of attention, whether there’s something terribly important about him that I’ve neglected to mention. Very good. I want you to think that way. You want to know what I’m holding back about him. The truth is, there’s not much. He has an honorable discharge from the military, but so do half the men his age, and as far as we know, he didn’t see any combat. He didn’t perform some physical feat to keep from being killed. In fact, he didn’t even run away. I think that the reason he’s alive is luck.” He chuckled, shaking his head and lowering his eyes to the floor. There was a smattering of nervous laughter in the room.