It left the freeway at the Lincoln Avenue off-ramp in Altadena and moved into an area of upscale condominiums and apartment houses, moving with the certainty of a destination known.
The truck turned into an alley between two blocks of apartment houses, continued on twenty yards then quickly left into a row of parking spaces built under the side of the building.
Vincent looked at a clock on the dash; a little after eight in the evening. The alley was poorly lit. He sat in the truck for a half hour before he got out. He did not think about what he was doing. The truly obsessed never do until the activity of their obsession is ended, and then whatever regrets or misgivings exist weigh lightly against inexpressible need.
He stood in the shadows and looked up the alley toward a second story apartment on the other side of the alley. His searching eyes missed nothing. He moved up the alley almost too fast to follow, grasped a drain pipe, and went up without hesitation until he reached a small balcony on the second floor where he grabbed the rail, pulled himself onto the balcony and disappeared. His movements were all one piece, effortless and graceful.
The balconies were a California thing, designed for show, essentially useless; a very California thing.
He watched the area for weeks before he decided which apartment. It became apparent that either the apartment was empty or they were on an extended vacation. A dying ficus tree sagged tiredly in one corner of the balcony. He wanted to give it water but there was no way without entering the apartment and he wasn’t a criminal or a burglar, nothing like that.
Vincent tucked himself in beside the ficus and looked across the alley into the apartment of the Wister’s: Clarke, Jenna, and their precocious seven year old daughter, Jeannie.
‘Vincent’s Family’ sat at the kitchen table, their window open. Clarke and Jenna argued about politics as usual. Clarke, quiet, conservative, funny. Jenna, the opposite; explosive, opinionated, liberated, brilliant. They played a cutthroat game of scrabble with much bluffing and ridiculous words. They were very good.
They were his first family. Before them there had been no others, real or imagined. He had seen them together at a Ralph’s Market, down the hill in La Canada. Before he knew what he was doing he followed them on their rounds, from dry goods, to dairy, to meat and finally vegetables. He was very good at not being there.
They were so absorbed in themselves, the pleasure of being together, of jokes and touching, holding hands, a cantaloupe tossed back and forth, they didn’t notice the dark haired man just beyond the periphery of their created universe.
Vincent wore half glasses he didn’t need and pretended to examine the fine print on everything he bought. He might have said hello, smiled, made some cheerful comment and they would have included him in their small circle, if only for a moment, and they would have done it easily, for they had much to share and affection to spare.
Somehow he was behind them in the check-out line and when they went to their car he got in his truck and followed.
Across the alley, Vincent settled himself and removed a journal from his pocket. He smiled at Jeannie’s antics and whispered with affection.
“Hello, Clarke, Jenna. Hi, Jeannie. You look great!”
He watched ‘his family’ with total attention, reacting to their every emotion. He worried when the arguments became too strong, laughed silently at their jokes. The visit went well.
Jeannie made a killer triple-word score with oxymoron. Her mother and father looked at their daughter with affection, amazement and consternation, wondering how they made a child so far beyond their expectations.
That first evening he discovered where they lived then drove back to Sunland, through the metal gate and tall stone walls to his castle. He went about the solitary tasks of feeding himself and his cat, Bernie. He did not think about the family right away.
Later, in his library, he thought of nothing else. It was exquisitely painful and the melancholic ache was worse than he could bear. It had been good to be near them. There was something there that could be cared about.
Across the alley Vincent chuckled behind the dying ficus, pleased with Jeannie’s coup.
In an instant all his strange, isolated pleasure evaporated. Not three feet from where he sat the soft scraping of a sliding door crashed in on his world. He froze and slipped further behind the ficus. He emptied his mind and tried to be a hole in the fabric of the world. It wasn’t difficult.
The click of the latch shattered his happiness like a pistol shot in the head. He suppressed overwhelming rage. Who, what could disturb his ‘visit’?
First the glass doors slid open a couple inches, then the screen door. The soft voices were like shouts.
“Smells like a fucking dog run in here. How long’s it been since anyone used this place?” The voice wasn’t unusual, neither deep nor high pitched; ordinary in tone, not ordinary in context.
“A couple months. Belongs to my uncle, he used to keep one of his bimbos here. I scanned it this morning. Nothing, no foreign insects.” The second voice was deep and harsh, a smoker’s voice.
The first man chuckled harshly. “You better be right, Mr. Policeman.”
“I’m right, Cotton. Look, let’s get this done, I can’t stay long.”
“You stay as long as I say, Mr. Policeman,” Cotton was completely in command. “I’ve got six hundred million in product sitting in a warehouse not ten miles from here. You called me. You tell me one of my people is DEA. One I can take care of in time, but how do I know he’s the only one?”
The policeman coughed and lit a strong smelling cigar. In the corner of the balcony, Vincent’s nose crinkled uncontrollably. He suppressed a desire to sneeze.
“You should quit smoking those things, Mr. Policeman. Like so many things in life, they’re bad for your health.” The menace in Cotton’s voice filled the space and leaked onto the balcony.
“Don’t do that shit, Cotton. I know what kind of trouble I’m in. I did my best, and I didn’t say you had a DEA guy in your organization. I said it was a rumor, it ain’t the same thing.”
“It’s the same to me! You’re slow, man, too slow. You don’t get it, and that worries me. Either way, I can’t move until I know.”
“Okay, okay, I understand.”
A helical string of cigar smoke drifted through the screen door. In the corner Vincent’s face twisted with fury.
“Stinder, the head of the local DEA, is the problem. He’s a close-mouthed, righteous son of a bitch: a Baptist with an attitude. I can’t get anything on him and he can’t be bought, it’s been tried.”
A long uneasy silence put Vincent on edge. Cotton broke it first.
“Nice looking family over there.” Cotton could not have imagined how close he came to violent death. He was a man who recognized and used terror all his life, but within easy reach was terror of a kind he could not imagine.
“The little girl must be very intelligent, playing word games, and winning. Does Stinder have a family?”
Out of context, Cotton’s question was ordinary. In the stale stillness of an empty apartment, talking with a bad cop, it reeked of evil.
The other man hesitated. “Yeah, he does. A wife, two or three small children. Lives over in Burbank, near the DeBell Golf Course.”
“Nice area. We’ll shake that tree, see what falls out. Stay close to him, Mr. Policeman, I’ve got two weeks, then I have to move the goods. The wholesalers wait, and the people I work for aren’t patient”
“I hear you, Cotton.”
The screen door slid shut followed by the sliding glass doors. In