Scare Tactics Read Online Free Page A

Dierdre desired.
    I cursed myself for having believed David Hallowell’s assertion that only the two of us had ever laid eyes on Angels and Aborigines. The solitude of the writer’s trade can be agonizing: we must all, from time to time, seek the release of the confessional. The amateur wordsmith is particularly unable to keep silent about what he is up to. He must talk about his aspirations incessantly, even to a stranger on a bus. “I’m writing a novel.” And so forth. Dierdre claimed to have an earlier manuscript ... what, exactly, was her game? And who was she? How could I find out? After an hour of pacing and cigarettes I concluded that there was nothing I could do until she put an end to my speculation by contacting me again. I would simply have to wait.
    For the next three days I stayed close to the hotel, anticipating, dreading her phone call. It was impossible not to think about Dierdre for more than a few seconds at a time. Despite the very great threat to my well-being she represented, I was perversely attracted to her, so much so that I scarcely paid notice to the numerous starlets and harlots available in the sexual marketplace where I was staying. Had she and David Hallowell been lovers? If so, then I was envious—of a man in his grave, from whom I had already appropriated everything.
    Everything but Dierdre.
    I swam in the pool, and at poolside I had meetings with the screenwriter, a well-respected hack who expressed reverence for my novel and seemed to have a few worthwhile ideas for translating it to the screen. The gardens of the hotel were lushly in bloom, there was a heated scent of roses outside my bungalow, but no violets to soothe my riddled nerves.
    Her call came as I was having my sideburns darkened by Alberto in the hotel barbershop.
    “Do you know what day this is?”
    “The twenty-fourth of February,” I replied, my heart pounding. “Why?”
    “I thought you might remember,” she said softly. “Well, never mind.”
    “Where are you? I want to—I think it’s imperative that we get together.”
    “Do you know where the Bistro is?”
    “On Canon Drive.”
    “I’ll be in front at five o’clock.” She hung up without another word.
    I was driving a vintage Mercedes sports coupe which the producer had made available to me during my stay. Like many of the paranoids in his profession, he was terrified of muggers and kidnapers. He belonged to the Beverly Hills Gun Club. He had weapons in all of his automobiles. He proudly had shown me the hiding place built into the driver’s seat of the Mercedes, the push-button release that ejected into his waiting hand a pearl-handled pistol with considerable stopping power.
    At the end of the hotel driveway, waiting for the light on Sunset to change, I checked to make sure the gun was still there. The butt slapped into my palm with a little metallic click. I didn’t know then why I found that so satisfying, why it made my scrotum crawl with pleasure. I’ve fired pistols, but I’m not an aficionado. I had never conceived of the possibility that I could do bodily harm to someone.
    Even though it was growing dark I identified Dierdre’s flame from two blocks away as I drove south on Canon in the rush-hour traffic. I was on the wrong side of the street to pick her up. I made a left turn into the driveway beside the Bistro, waving the parking valet away. Dierdre got in. As slender as I remembered her; “so coldly sweet, so deadly fair.” Byron, I believe.
    She wore tinted glasses and a fawn-colored pantsuit. Her red hair was loose and flowing. She carried a big purse like a saddlebag. She didn’t say hello. The odor of violets was chilly in the weather she brought with her, exhilarating as the bouquet of a great wine.
    “Where are we going?” I asked her.
    “Up the coast. To San Augustin.”
    San Augustin. I hadn’t been back since resigning my teaching position at the college, shortly after the acceptance of my novel. My throat