The Huntress
One
STEAM ROSE OFF Otsego Street's blacktop. For twelve days running the temperature had climbed over one hundred degrees. A massive orange sun beat down upon the city. Los Angeles was on rationed water, and in this intense heat the world slowed down, lost a step. Liquor stores tripled their sales, violence broke out like a virus across Southern California. Tempers flared. Bullets flew. A crime wave rode in on the heels of the heat wave and the bodies were piling up.
None of this mattered to Q. D. Reese, who sat dressed in black driving a late-model Jaguar. In his forty-four years Q. D. could not remember waiting for anything with greater anticipation. Even getting out of prison after eight years didn't match the downright glee he felt at this moment.
He had been cruising the neighborhood where Ralph Thorson and his family lived, where he, Q. D. Reese, had once been a welcome guest in Ralph Thorson's home, where he had in fact worked as a bounty hunter in training for Mr. Thorson, the most famous of all bounty hunters. Worked for him, that is, until the police came and threw him in prison.Before his old pal Ralph Thorson had turned him in.
Q. D. had been driving through this neighborhood for nearly three weeks, searching for patterns in the daily movements of the Thorson family--Ralph, Dottie and their daughter Brandi. And he had found one--a work pattern--that suited his purposes. His plan had been laid and now Q. D. was ready to watch the culmination of his efforts. "Ready, Ralph?" he muttered, looking at the Thorson home's front door as he passed. "Today's the day."
Famous Ralph Thorson, big-time bounty hunter, with a book written about him and a movie made on his life. And what a life! The old alcoholic bastard could hardly walk anymore, could hardly breathe, still smoking and drinking, hooked on medication. You. reap what you sow, Ralphie, Q. D. thought, and now we'll see what you're made of, how much you've got left. Q. D. had been waiting for this day for a long time. Eight long years.
He checked his watch. Seven A.M. on the nose. Time to pull over and watch the show. Q. D. eased the Jaguar to the curb, squirted washer fluid on the windshield and wiped it dry. Didn't want to miss a thing.
He removed the .22 bullet from his mouth and inspected it, cleaned the saliva off on his shirt sleeve. He inspected the tiny scratch marks his teeth had made on the casing, kissed it, and replaced it in his mouth, shell-tip facing the back of his throat. He ran his tongue over the slug's smooth surface. Old habits never die, eh, Ralph?
7:03. Q. D. leaned back against the seat's fine brown leather and fixed his eyes on the Thorson's front door. Any minute now.
Copyright © 1996 by Christopher Keane and Dottie Thorson
