"What?"
"How come you keep staring at my feet?"
"I'm not."
"Sure you are."
"I'm staring at your boots."
"Vegas."
"Vegas?"
"That's where I got them. I did a TV movie there and I saw this dude wearing a pair-they look good with chinos-and I asked 'im where he got 'em and he told me. I can dig out the name of the store if you want me to."
"The shooter this morning?"
"Yeah?"
I watched his face. "He wore a pair just like them."
"Oh, bullshit."
"True facts. I was in the woods less than five minutes after he started shooting."
He smiled. "That was me, you dumb shit."
"You were the shooter?"
"No, I was in the woods. Earlier this morning. I drove up to see the gals and the asylum and I went for a walk in the woods. Ever since my wife, the dirty bitch, dumped me, I've really been getting into nature. A friend of mine says I'm compensating. You know, I don't have the bosom of my old lady anymore. So now I've turned to the bosom of nature. Or some crap like that. He's into mystical stuff." He smiled. He looked a lot like Robert Wagner, which I'm sure he was aware of. "So you thought I was the shooter, huh?"
If he was lying, he was good. But then, he was an actor and he was supposed to be good. It's what he did for a living.
"You don't believe me, do you, Payne?"
"I'm not sure yet."
"You tell Laura?"
"Not yet."
"She'll laugh her ass off."
"How about Tandy? Will she laugh her ass off?"
He frowned. "Tandy and I don't get along real good."
"How come?"
"She thinks I just took this job because I couldn't find any acting work and was desperate."
"Is that true?"
"Sure. But who cares? I'm a good producer. I stay sober, I show up on time, I'm organized, and I always try to get the talent what they want. Within reason, of course. And that means a lot of back-and-forth with the front office and a lot of headaches when guests don't show up and et cetera. Ask Laura. She'll tell you I'm good. Tandy wanted some pal of hers. Some booga-booga guy. He described my aura to me one time. Gave me the creeps. I think he was a fag." Then, "Tandy also hates me because I keep asking her sister to marry me. I'm hooked, man. I've never been hooked like this. I've got a real jealous, possessive side and I admit it. Tandy thinks I'm going to hurt Laura some drunken night when she tells me she won't marry me."
"How many times you ask her?"
"Couple thousand. I tell you, man, that chick has got my nuts right in the palm of her hand. And you know what? I like it. I like it a lot. Ain't that a bitch? I'm castrated and loving every minute of it." He checked his Seiko. "Hey, I've got an appointment with the kid's parents. Poor fucks. Rick is a crazy bastard."
"You think he did it?"
"Of course he did it. Who else did it?" Then, pointing to his boots, "That's great about me being the shooter. You be sure and tell Laura that."
Then he was gone, basking in the sunshine of showbiz history.
I was just getting in my car when I saw Susan Charles talking to an older couple on the corner.
I walked over to them.
She smiled. "I was hoping I'd see you again. This is Mr. and Mrs. Giles. They were just telling me that I should throw all you showbiz people out of town."
Mrs. Giles had been pretty at one time. Very pretty. But there was a sense of loss and anxiety about her that made her seem fragile and unpleasant.
Mrs. Giles said, "We've got a petition up is what I was telling the chief here. Us and some others got a petition up to get you folks out of here. Nobody wants to start thinking about Renard again."
"Mrs. Giles and her daughter, Claire, were both nurses at the time of the fire?" Susan explained. "Her daughter barely got out alive."
"Where's your daughter now?"
"At home," said Mr. Giles. "She never got over it. She stays at home because she's had a couple of breakdowns."
He was the sort of would-be dapper older man you see on the dance floor. The old-fashioned leisure suit. The two pinkie rings. The dyed red hair. The cheap dentures. And a pair of white plastic loafers with gold rings across the top.
"You people been botherin' us since you got here," he said. "First that Laura broad, and then Noah Chandler. Questions about the fire; questions about Renard. Just questions questionsquestions. Tryin' to make some connection between that mess and this Hennessy kid killing his girlfriend. It's just all crazy bullshit, excuse my French, Chief."
Mrs. Giles said, "You know what McDonald's is like if we get there late. Especially when they're running coupons. We better hurry."
"Sam Masterson's going to see you about that petition," Giles said.
"He's already set up an appointment."
"A lot of us don't want these folks here. No offense, Mr. Payne."
"None taken. I understand."
When they were gone, she said, "They're actually decent people."
"I'm sure they are."
She checked her watch. "Got to drop into the county attorney's office. Nice seeing you again."
FIVE
Back in my motel room, I fired up my computer and started working on my general profile. I inputted the data I had and then started punching up articles about teenagers who were into the occult and Satanism.
There seemed to be a consensus that three types of teenagers got involved in such activities:
— the psychopathic delinquent
— the angry misfit
— the pseudo-intellectual
Rick didn't strike me as an intellectual, pseudo or otherwise. While I hadn't seen the psychiatric report of his state-appointed shrink, he seemed, at least superficially, to favor the angry misfit more than the psychopathic delinquent. The background Susan Charles had given me showed no prior arrest record.
He'd also maintained a C+ average throughout high school and hadn't been in any school trouble worth writing down.
As for the satanic movement itself, there was great debate. Those psychologists who tended to believe in repressed memory syndrome spoke confidently of a worldwide movement that "brainwashed" children and frequently sacrificed human life to appease its dark Master. The leading proponent of this theory was a man whose name I recognized. He'd recently been sued by several of his patients, women and men alike, for sexual abuse. An equal-opportunity exploiter. He'd also been sued by two women for planting false memories in their minds through the use of drugs and hypnosis. None of the charges necessarily meant that his satanic theories were wrong, but they didn't inspire confidence, either.
The opposing forces insisted that the so-called satanic movement was, essentially, a bunch of bored perverts and gangsters who wanted an excuse to have group sex, run around naked a lot, and justify any excess or crime with the old joke "The devil made me do it." It insisted that many, many police studies had been done on Satanism, and particularly teenage Satanism, and that the studies had found Satanism to be largely bogus-something teenagers talked about but rarely practiced in any serious way.
As evidence, they offered up profiles of three teenage "satanic" murderers and demonstrated that none of the murderers, for all their dark bragging about their Master, held any real belief in Lucifer or his alleged "laws." They were just punks taking too many drugs and feeling a deep need-for a variety of domestic reasons-to visit the ultimate violence upon unsuspecting victims.