Jay finished his drink and left the bar. He wandered through downtown for a while, found a place with patio seating that would allow him to watch the street, and got one more drink. Two girls came in, bought Corona Lights, and sat at the next table from his. They were already drunk, talking loudly with midwestern accents, and glancing in his direction trying to decide if he was a movie star or not. Jay kept his eyes on his phone, even fake texting to make it look as though he was waiting for someone. He wondered what it would be like picking up these two ugly girls from Wisconsin or Minnesota or wherever, and telling them that he’d just booked a major television role. One or both of them would probably want to fuck him, something he had zero interest in. However, if he could get one of them alone …
“Excuse me, are you an actor?” It was the older of the two, with big thighs and dyed-blond hair.
“Nope,” he said. “What about you two, you actresses?”
They both laughed uncontrollably at this, and told him they were just visiting Los Angeles for the first time, and that morning they’d seen Josh Lucas crossing the street and getting into an SUV.
“I don’t know who that is.”
“He was in Sweet Home Alabama,” they both said at almost the same time.
“I don’t watch movies,” he said. “Probably because I work on them, and know that they’re total bullshit.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a fight coordinator on film sets. I could tell you stories about all your favorite movie stars, but you wouldn’t like them much.”
They practically squealed, then invited him to join them. He told them he was in the middle of an important text conversation, and maybe he’d join them in a bit. Sipping his drink, he continued to stare at his phone, considering what to do next. A wave of disgust was beginning to sweep through him. Disgust at the two stupid girls at the next table, disgust at some casting director actually having given Madison a professional acting job, disgust at the idiot city he lived in, crawling with human insects. Jay finished his drink, got up, and went through the bar area and out the other side. He had decided to give up, and go home, spend some time on the internet. He’d been hoping for more but tonight was not the night.
An Uber pulled up across the street and let out a blonde in a tiny skirt and some kind of halter top. She swayed for a moment on the sidewalk, looking at her phone, then studied the street. He thought she might walk toward the bar, but turned instead in the opposite direction, staggering along the sidewalk.
Could this actually be it?
She turned onto a cross street and he followed her, keeping his head down in case there were any traffic cameras around. They were in a residential area, old Spanish-style apartment buildings that had once been chic, now filled with new Hollywood arrivals and drug addicts. She was about twenty yards in front of him, but she kept stopping to stare at her phone, the light illuminating a messy head of blond hair, and an overly made-up face. His heart raced. In his leather jacket pocket was the heft of a hunting knife he’d bought over a year ago at a vintage market. He put his hand around it and an almost sexual thrill surged through his body, a rolling sensation, like great drugs. Now he was only about ten yards behind her, between streetlamps, and in the shadow of a row of desiccated palm trees. He quickened his pace.
The first strike from the stainless-steel baton hit him across his right ear, breaking his temporal bone, knocking him to the ground. A ringing sensation howled through his brain, and his first thought was that the police had caught him, even though he hadn’t done anything yet, then he felt a rush of warm blood sheet down his neck and under his shirt, and he felt scared.
The second blow from the baton hit him about two inches above his ear and with much more force. His body slumped, his face hitting the pavement. That second hit was enough to kill him—he was dying already—but a few more rained down upon his head before the perpetrator walked briskly away, passing a drunk girl on her phone, saying, “I’m right out front, what do you mean it’s too late?”
FOUR
1
MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 4:40 P.M.
Jay Coates of Decatur, Georgia, had been sitting in the interrogation room at the police station for over an hour. No one had checked in on him, or offered him water, or even told him why he was there. Earlier, he’d been at work, and two uniformed police officers had showed up to escort him to the station. Jay could only imagine what his coworkers were thinking now. He didn’t know whether to be upset or kind of thrilled. But either way, he was not happy to be here now, waiting, studying the room, trying not to look directly at the observation mirror across from him and wondering who was on the other side.