The Silent Stalker
by James Hanna
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
I drove for several hours before stopping to rest at a motel near Fresno. I slept until noon then got back into my car and finished the remainder of the drive to San Francisco. The street lights were on when I arrived at my home, but the house looked rather dark, and so, I checked the windows and locks before entering. In my eagerness to validate my deed — a neat but unsavory triumph — it rather disappointed me that there were no signs of entry.
Once inside the house, I continued my inspection, walking from room to room and opening the closets and cabinets. The search was unnecessary but engaging, a reminder of the many houses I had searched for weapons and drugs, so it did not bother me that my efforts now seemed lame, a triumph of compulsion over practicality.
When I had finished my inspection, I locked the front door and turned on the TV. Since retiring, I had resumed my addiction to television: news and sports mostly, although I was not immune to the reality shows. I did not watch the reality shows out of interest so much as a sense of obligation, the ethical notion that a foray, once begun, had to be seen through to its conclusion.
I sat in my recliner, still stiff from the drive, and grimaced as the screen came alive. I was immediately irritated by the fruity glow of the Tivo screen: its extensive display of unwatched programs hung before me like a list of chores. I picked up the remote from the side table, warily lowered the volume, and watched Survivor.
* * *
The following morning, he was back. He was sitting at my kitchen table and stroking a towering stack of coins. Perhaps he intended to pay me for our short vacation, a notion I did not dismiss as excessive. He had profited from our excursion, after all, while I was still stuck with the task of getting rid of him.
I decided to take a small break from him. Retrieving the Chronicle from the front porch, I sat on the opposite side of the table and began reading the news. I read only the crime reports, another habit I had fallen into since leaving the probation department. The muggings and drug busts seemed surreal to me now, and I could enjoy them as though watching a sport. After all, I was no longer responsible for controlling the behavior of criminals.
When Ollie started humming again, I put down the paper. He was humming the theme tune of Leave It to Beaver, that iconic classic from the sixties about a kid who always screwed up. Since I had repeatedly failed in my attempts to dispose of him, the implications of the ditty seemed timely and wholly deserved.
But this time, I would be successful. I had thought it over, while reading the paper, and had decided to fight banality with banality: I would implement a scheme so artless, so stunningly trite, that even an aspiring haunt would be stymied by it. I would maroon him on an island.
I decided to take him to Kauai. I had visited the island several years ago and had been struck by its many anachronisms: sunken shipwrecks, prehistoric trees, and jaunty, wild roosters that strutted about like plantation lords. Since Ollie was clearly a man out-of-place, I had little doubt that he would find his element among the fossils. If not, let him rot in a tropical jail.
I turned on my computer, went on-line, and booked two airline tickets to Kauai: one of them round-trip and the other one-way. I then cuffed up Ollie and marched him out to my car. I popped the trunk out of pragmatism, not spite: the sudden realization that I had made stalking too attractive to him. When I shut him in the trunk, he bawled like a calf and began to kick furiously at the locked lid. Ignoring the racket, I dashed back into the house, stuffed some clothes into an overnight bag, and quickly returned to my car. The thumps became fainter as I drove to the airport, muffled by the heavy bass from my CD player.
Arriving at the airport, I parked the car in the long-term-parking garage and let Ollie out of the trunk. His suit was torn and he was bleeding slightly from the scalp, a superficial graze that I was able to clean up with a handkerchief. “You do have a choice,” I said to him sternly. “Don't think that you don't have a choice.”
He looked at me solemnly, his eyes wide with fear.
“Don't flatter yourself that I'm kidnapping you. You do have a choice. You can come with me now on another vacation, or you can accompany me to the city jail.”
He winced at the mention of jail, his eyes now wider than doorknobs.
“Now I know you've been to the jail,” I said. “Have you been to Kauai?” He shivered and shook his head. “Come on then.” He began to relax as we headed towards the terminal and soon he was ambling beside me like a faithful dog.
I flashed my police badge as we passed through security. The security officer nodded, intuitively aware that I had a renegade in tow, and allowed me to herd Ollie through the metal detector. I displayed my badge again as we boarded the plane, a pertinent reflex since I suspected I would have to break out my handcuffs once again.
My suspicions were confirmed only halfway through the flight when an ear-splitting cry from a female passenger woke me from a nap. Turning my head, I saw that the seat beside me was empty, that the beverage cart lay capsized, and that the stewardesses had cornered Ollie at the back of the airplane. When the woman screamed again, I knew that the worst had happened: she had forgotten to lock the bathroom door, and Ollie had pushed his way in.
I sprang from my seat, shouldered my way past the stewardesses, and grabbed him firmly by the shirt collar. He did not struggle as I hauled him back to his seat, nor did he flinch when I pulled out my handcuffs, encircled his wrist, and then fastened his arm to my belt. He in fact looked relieved, as though it were he who needed rescue, and he spent the rest of the flight leafing through an airline magazine with his free hand.
I released him from the handcuffs when we landed in Kauai. I had hoped to lose him at the airport, but he gripped my hand tightly as I walked through the concourse and followed behind me like a child. He was clearly overwhelmed by the bustle of airports and seemed hopeful that I would protect him from these new surroundings. “Tuck in your shirt,” I said to him finally. He complied eagerly as though the gesture would convince me not to ditch him.
I rented a car, a white Ford Fiesta, and we headed towards the Na Pali Coastline: a rugged expanse of rain forests, waterfalls, and steep cliffs. I drove quickly, stopping only to visit a scuba shop where I bought him some goggles and a spear gun, not to provide him with tools of survival but to maximize the dangers to which he would be exposed. Perhaps he sensed my intentions because he hesitated before accepting the gifts and held them tentatively in his lap as we drove along.
After an hour, I turned off the highway and followed a narrow dirt road towards the coast. The rainforest embraced us like a church, caressing our eyes with a warm filtered light that appeared to sanctify my scheme. Even a wild rooster, perched cheekily by the roadside, shared in the pregnancy of the moment. Son, he seemed to say, I screwed three hens before breakfast. Top that! Since the rascal was protected by state law, I rather hoped that Ollie would track him down and eat him, an infraction that would earn him several months in jail.
I pulled off the road when I spotted a steep hiking trail leading down the mountainside. “Let's go,” I said, getting out of the car. I immediately began my descent towards the coast, not bothering to wait for him since I knew he would follow after me. I walked for an hour before stopping to rest on a low bluff overlooking a stretch of sand: a beach so isolated that it reminded me of Fantasy Island, a popular TV show from the eighties.
I rested until Ollie caught up with me and noticed with satisfaction that he looked exhausted. “Hungry?” I said. He nodded, and I handed him the spear gun and goggles. I pointed towards the ocean. “Fetch dinner,” I said. “I'll start us up a fire.”
I suspected that Ollie was not a good swimmer, but I knew also that he would not hesitate to go into the ocean. The desperation in his face, the perpetual plea in his eyes, convinced me that he was less afraid of drowning than the thought of displeasing me. We hiked the remaining half mile to the beach, and I watched him critically as he dropped his clothes onto the sand. His body was slumped and anemically pale — so pale that he looked like an alien when he put on the goggles and walked stiffly towards the ocean. I watched him flounder among the waves and waited until I could see only the tip of his snorkel peaking above the water. I then dashed back to the forest and began my ascent towards the car.
A rooster crowed as I finished my climb: a piercing Halleluiah that seemed to trumpet my liberation. But the rascal was probably mocking me, and so I left little to chance. After driving to the opposite side of the island, I registered at a Holiday Inn under an assumed name. I then enjoyed a modest celebration: body surfing, deep-sea fishing, and touring the local gardens.
I stayed on the island for almost a week, changing my hotel each day, a tactic that disenthralled me after I found myself involved in a rather cloying affair with a divorcée from Sacramento. Tiring of the woman's incessant chatter, I found it convenient not to tell her of my whereabouts when I made one of my daily hotel switches. On the seventh day of my vacation, when I had relaxed to the point of boredom, I took an early flight back to San Francisco.
* * *
The next morning, when I entered my kitchen, he was there. He was sitting at my kitchen table, buttering a piece of toast, and he did not seem to notice me when I walked into the room. He was as brown as a berry and smelled strongly of fish, so it took me a moment to recognize him. I stood there, watching him for a minute or two, and then sat down at the opposite side of the table.
“Leave,” I said firmly.
He raised his head, smiled, and then put down the toast. Nodding pleasantly, he folded his hands in front of him and gazed compliantly in my direction. For a moment, I was afraid he would honor my request, a concession that would have only put off the problem. Since he would be certain to return, it was essential that I take full responsibility for his disappearance. And there were still many places I could dump him: the Australian Outback, the Alaskan tundra, perhaps I could even sneak him aboard the NASA shuttle.
I retrieved the newspaper from the porch, returned to the table, and began reading through the travel section. While I read, he went back to buttering the toast, an effort so prolonged that he looked like an artist touching up a painting. I was grateful for his predictability, his total simplicity of soul; these qualities assured me that his luck could not possibility endure. But his transparency in no way affected my resolve, my steely determination to get rid of him entirely.
I sighed, shaking my head while suppressing an inevitable pang of pity. This time, I knew what success would require and this time his frolic would end. I studied the paper and planned my campaign while he puttered around with the toast.
* * *
He has come to see me each day for the past month. He shows up in my kitchen every morning at 7:30 sharp and makes his departure around noon. He seems oblivious to the intricacies of my plotting — a masterful plan that will relegate him once and for all to the graveyard of unwanted guests. And he continues to eat little: half a piece of toast with an occasional pat of butter is usually enough for him. On Sundays, he takes jam.
Copyright © 2024 by James Hanna
