Stanton listed his own cell phone number and then sent the email.
*****
When Stanton had left, Royal lay on the bed and waited for the reply email. He received it within the hour. It asked what was wrong and what the police knew. He only replied that he couldn’t talk and that he needed to call him at seven. Then he shut his computer off and went out the back doors to the pool.
It was a small act he had done. A drop of goodness in an ocean of misery and wickedness. His life had been short and evil. Stanton was right about that. He had committed acts that he had blocked out and not thought about for years. The pills he had taken this morning, lortab and oxycotton, numbed his mind and it flooded with images and sensations and sounds. Like a damn of putrid acts that broke and was drowning him.
He sat in a lounge chair and threw an empty can into the pool to watch the ripples as they scattered and disappeared into the concrete perimeter. He had had sex with two women in that pool only recently. Both of them had been bent over near the shallow end, leaning against the stairs, and he fucked them from behind. When he was done, they all shot up in the living room and one of them went to the bathroom to piss. She didn’t come out for a long time, but Royal didn’t notice. He passed out with the other girl and didn’t wake up until the middle of the night.
He went to the fridge and drank down half a beer before going into the bathroom. The girl was sitting on the toilet, a syringe dangling out of her arm and a shoelace tied around her bicep. Drool sopped from her mouth onto the floor and her nose was running. Her bowels had let loose and runny feces coated the toilet and floor and gave the room a warm, fetid smell.
Royal checked her pulse and she was still alive. He went to the phone to call 911 but then hung up. There was heroin, cocaine, guns, and illegal pornography all over his house. He thought for a few minutes in the kitchen and then went and put on his clothes.
He dragged the girl out and put her in his car. They drove to a secluded beach near Santa Monica and he waited until there were no headlights on the road to take her out. He carried her down to the beach and placed her on her back. Someone would find her.
But no one did. His line at the Santa Monica PD called him the next day to feed him the story. A young twenty year old pre-law student found dead from a heroin overdose on the beach. The officer said that she had been hot too. Royal hung up the phone.
Now, sitting in front of his pool, he wondered where that girl would be if she had never met him. Would she have gone on to law school? Had a family and a successful practice? Or would some other Hunter Royal have come into her life and given her the needle and drugs?
Royal rose from his chair and walked to the edge of the pool and stripped down naked. He pissed into the pool from the side and then walked inside and to the den on the far end of his house. There was a revolver in a safe and he took it out.
He put the barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
63
Colby Lashowe sat in the surveillance vehicle and munched on pork rinds. It had been a hot day and his underarms had rings of sweat. Sweat had soaked through his undershirt and his chest and belly had dark splotches.
It was evening but the sun hadn’t gone down yet. The sky appeared that odd gray before nightfall and he watched the stars beginning to shine above him. His partner, Chad Eldridge, was asleep in the backseat. Chad was at least fifteen years his senior and was close to retirement. Surveillance to him was boring, painful work. He would always tell Colby that it makes his ass and his mind flat.
Colby pulled out a copy of the Times and flipped through until he found the crossword section. He neatly folded the paper into a rectangle and pressed it against the steering wheel. The first line asked for a five letter word that meant “hard to stir.”
A car engine started and Colby’s head jerked up. The subject was in his van and pulling out of the driveway and into the road.
“Shit! Wake up, Chad!”
Colby started the car as his partner jumped up in the backseat. He waited until the van had passed before pulling away from the curb and following him.
“He’s on the move.”
“Shit. Did you call it in?”
“No.”
Chad dialed a number on his phone and then reported to someone that the subject was on the move and they were following him northbound. The van drove under the speed limit and obeyed all the traffic laws. Almost to the point that Colby thought he may have had some law enforcement experience. He signaled for three seconds before changing lanes and didn’t stop the signal halfway through. He came to a complete stop at every stop sign and waited behind a school bus that was letting kids off at a stop instead of going around.
“Did you get a photo?” Chad asked.
“No I missed him. The fucker popped out of nowhere.”
The van got onto the 405 and Colby counted four cars before he hopped on and pursued him. He let another two cars in between them and then fell back about sixty feet. The van was going the speed limit, exactly the speed limit, in the far right lane.
Chad thought about climbing into the passenger seat but didn’t think he could make it with his gut. So he buckled his seat belt and looked for the bottle of Pepsi he’d been drinking. He found it on the floor underneath the driver seat and bent down to pick it up when Colby hit the brakes.
He slammed his head into the seat and said, “What the fuck?”
“Sorry,” Colby said. “He’s gettin’ off.”
They took the 28 exit and the van drove for another fifteen minutes before parking in a convenience store lot. Colby parked at a Mexican restaurant across the street as Chad got out the camera and began snapping photos.
The subject was huge. Colby guessed somewhere around 6’2 and maybe three hundred to three hundred and twenty pounds. His face was clean shaven except for a mustache and he wore glasses. A large belly hung over his belt and he glanced around before walking to the payphone.
*****
Stanton received a call from an unknown number at exactly 7:02. He waited three rings, wondering if there was any way he could’ve possibly ever heard Hunter’s voice. Hunter was a writer and shunned television and radio. But the possibility was still there and Stanton wasn’t quite sure what he would do if he was caught.
“Hello?”
There was silence on the line except for the sound of passing traffic in the background.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
“What do the police have?”
The voice made Stanton’s heart drop. Until now, he had been a shadow; a conglomeration of images and theories. Now he was a living, breathing person. And it hit Stanton that those images of Tami and Pamela that had burned themselves into him were caused by another human being.
“I have a copy of what they have. But I want something in exchange.”
“What?”
“An interview. Exclusive, which means you can’t give anyone else interviews if you ever get caught. I’m gonna have you sign a contract and if you ever give another interview they won’t be able to use any-”
“Fuck your interview. What do they have?”
“That’s the deal. A copy of the police file in exchange for one interview. Recorded.”
There was silence again and Stanton thought that perhaps he had pushed him too fast. He needed to feel in control and if he didn’t, he would run.
“Look,” Stanton said, “I’m risking my ass by giving you anything. It’s not fair if I don’t get a lot in return.”
“One interview. Tonight.”
“Where?”
“Your house.”
“No.”
“Take it or leave it.”