Born To Be Wild

SIXTY

Soap operas are the most popular genre of television drama in the world today. No other form of television fiction has attracted more viewers in more countries over a longer period of time.

Mary Lisa was breathing in the wonderful aroma of her beef taco, loaded with the hottest sauce Tia’s Tacos served, waiting as long as possible to sink her teeth into that crunchy shell so she could make the whole experience last. She was also trying to wait until Jack got here with his own lunch, a Machu Picchu burrito that required more prep time. Last she saw him, he was hanging by the counter turned away from everyone, speaking on his cell phone, probably to Detective Vasquez. She closed her eyes a moment, hoping if she didn’t look at her very favorite food, all hot and crispy and not two feet from her mouth, she wouldn’t have it all chowed down by the time Jack got back to the car.

“You’re finally alone.”

A familiar voice. Mary Lisa opened her eyes and said, “Go away, Puker. Don’t forget the restraining order. I’ll call the cops, don’t think I won’t.”

“No reason for that,” he said as he opened the passenger door of the Mustang and slid into the seat beside her. “I saw your big bad cop inside, tied up on his cell phone looking real serious, and figured this was my chance. Let’s go, Mary Lisa. We haven’t got much time.”

She opened her eyes to see a nasty little pistol aimed at her, two inches from her chest. He saw the instant she realized what was happening, and chuckled.

“Yep, it’s me. Yours truly. Let’s go. You and I have lots of stuff to do and I don’t want your cop to see you leave.”

He shoved the pistol against her ribs. “Now, Mary Lisa, or I’ll have to shoot you right here, and all we’ll have are death photos of you I’m sure will move the world to tears.”

Her gun was in her purse lying by her left foot on the floor. She knew she couldn’t get it out of the purse fast enough. She considered laying on the horn. That would bring Jack running.

“No more stalling. Now, dammit, or you’re roadkill, Mary Lisa!”

He sounded like he meant it. She tossed her taco out the window, turned the key in the ignition, and backed out of the parking lot.

“Go right on PCH.”

She heard him draw a relieved breath when she turned onto the highway. It was unfortunate, but there weren’t any cars coming so she wasn’t able to delay for even an instant.

He’d been in her life for so long as a nuisance, as a two-faced weasel, nothing more than that. But now, he had a gun and things were different. He was different. He was deadly, and she knew that all the way to her soul. She realized something was very wrong with him, even more wrong than she’d imagined. And now he was planning to kill her? But why? “You gonna kill me, Puker?” she asked.

He smiled, looking happy as a clam, the wind blowing through his hair. “You’ll just have to sweat this one out, won’t you?”

“Where are we going, Puker?”

“Dammit, don’t call me that! I’m tired of your disrespecting me like that, Mary Lisa.” He shoved the gun hard against her arm. “It’s really not the time for it.”

It hurt, but she didn’t flinch or groan. She glanced over at him. “Give me one reason why I should respect you. For heaven’s sake, Puker, you’re holding a gun on me. You’ve shot at me, you tried to run me down!”

“It wasn’t anything personal, Mary Lisa,” he said. “I got some really nice photos from that car hit, made five grand on them. See, it was just business. Now, shut up and keep driving.”

“Where are we going?”

“Go past Pepperdine.”

Should she floor it? Crash her car, maybe draw a cop? Not here, not yet.

Pepperdine University stretched across the hill to her right. The beautiful Pacific and Amarillo Beach sprawled out to her left. They passed Puerco Beach.

“Hey, Mary Lisa, look here!”

She jerked her head toward him, fear and fury in her eyes, and she knew he saw it. He was grinning wildly as his camera clicked rapidly in burst mode, then quickly dropped it to his lap and brought his gun back up, this time shoving it against her neck.

“No, you aren’t going to do anything stupid or you’re dead.”

She trembled with rage, couldn’t help reaching out to claw his face, screaming at him, “You disgusting little creep!” He lurched against the door, out of the way of her nails. She jerked the car onto a narrow winding canyon road she knew dead-ended about a quarter of a mile upland. But she couldn’t wait for that. She jerked the Mustang off the gnarly asphalt through a ditch onto an empty stretch of level rocky ground and mashed down hard on the brakes, throwing both of them forward. The momentum sent her head slamming against the steering wheel.

Mary Lisa didn’t want to open her eyes, she really didn’t, because she knew somewhere deep inside that Puker was still there, but she had to. Thank God he hadn’t shot her. She jerked up, felt pain slice through her head and nearly passed out again. She felt wet on the side of her face and knew it was her blood.

“Hey, you coming back to reality, Mary Lisa? You were out of it a good two, three minutes. I got some good shots of you unconscious, face against the steering wheel, a trickle of blood snaking down to your neck. Real quality photos. Time to get yourself together now, Mary Lisa.”

For a moment, she didn’t understand. They were moving, she felt the wind on her face. Puker had shoved her over onto the passenger side. He was driving now. Thank God, he’d tossed her purse over onto the floor, at her feet. Thank you, God, thank you.

“Where are we?”

“Moseying up Coral Canyon Road. It’s nice and quiet up here. I picked it because of the great views and the interesting houses. They’ll be background. Hey, nice wheels. I’m glad I got some shots of you behind the wheel.” He tossed her a Kleenex from a packet she kept in the glove compartment. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that? That stunt you pulled-you could have killed both of us. You knocked yourself out. Wipe off your face. I want you perfect.”

Why hadn’t he been hurt when she’d slammed on the brakes?

She wiped the blood off her face. Her head throbbed right over her left ear, but it didn’t matter. What to do next?

“Okay, we’re going to stop here. Isn’t this a panorama? A lovely windswept hill with the ocean in the background, or we could use some of those houses higher up the slope. I’m getting out with the keys now, Mary Lisa. I want you to slide over here into the driver’s seat and smile at me, your hands on the steering wheel. We’re going to take more shots of you.” He paused a moment, and she was terrified at the look in his eyes. “If you try anything again I will shoot you dead right here and leave you for the coyotes, you understand me?”

“I understand you. When did you go from annoying paparazzo to nutso psychopath?”

“I’m not a psychopath! You’ve pushed me and pushed me and now I’ve got to go further than I’d planned. Move, Mary Lisa, get behind that wheel. Now!”

He waved his gun at her. She wondered how good a shot he was, not that it mattered since he wasn’t more than a foot away. She grabbed up her purse, dropped it on her lap, and moved over to sit in the driver’s seat of her Mustang. Her heart was beating so loud it sounded like drums in her head. She turned to smile at him, praying he wouldn’t notice her purse and wonder.

Now he was standing maybe three feet away from her, too far to hit him with the Mustang door if she pushed it open hard. “How’s this, Puker?”

“That’s good. Move around, turn your head this way and that, look happy, Mary Lisa. That’s right, you’ve done this before. Give me big smiles, lots of teeth. Keep both your hands on the steering wheel.” He snapped over a dozen photos of her.

While he did it, she slowly eased one hand off the steering wheel and dipped it into her purse. She felt the cold smoothness of her SIG.

“What are you doing with your hand? Dammit, bring your hand back up on the steering wheel!”

“Sure, Puker,” she said, pulled up her gun and fired. His camera flew out of his hand, shattered by the bullet, and landed hard against an outcropping of jagged rocks by the roadside.

“You bitch!”

He was dancing he was so furious, looking from her to his smashed camera and waving his gun around. She fired again, and missed, unaccustomed to a moving target. Puker pulled his trigger as she flattened herself against the car seat; she heard the metallic clang of the bullet going through the car door and slamming into the leather seat.

Good, he hadn’t been to the firing range. She lurched up and again aimed for his arm, but he was flailing backward, trying to find some cover and shoot at her at the same time. She missed again.

He fired back but she was down and slithering across to the passenger side door. She managed to get the door open and fell headfirst to the ground. Another bullet pinged into the car over her head. How many bullets did he have in his clip?

She scrambled on her hands and knees toward the cliff about three feet away. It was her only hope, no other cover anywhere near. How far a drop was it? It didn’t matter. He could be coming around the car to put a bullet in her head.

She’d lived with terror for so long, but at that moment, she wasn’t afraid, she was angry, and getting angrier by the second.

She looked back over her shoulder to see him running around the back of her car, panting hard, the gun shaking in his hand. Soon, he’d be so close, he couldn’t miss. A bullet struck the ground beside her elbow, sending up a spray of dirt.

“I missed you on purpose, Mary Lisa! You stop now and don’t move, or I’ll put the next bullet into your head, you got me?”

“Sure, Puker, I got you.”

She fired over her shoulder toward the sound of his voice, barely looking back, and heard a blessed yelp as she rolled off the edge of the cliff.

JACK heard the gunfire and thought he’d croak right there. He revved the Suzuki dual sport he’d commandeered in the Tia’s Tacos parking lot and hauled ass up the narrow road. He saw the red Mustang at an angle off the road, the passenger door open, not many feet from a cliff edge. He saw Puker Hodges in the hazy sunlight standing at the edge of the cliff, a gun in his hand, looking down. Blood was streaking down his left arm.

Jack saw him raise the gun.

He roared forward, them slammed on the front and rear brakes, sending the bike into a controlled slide. When it stopped, he threw it down and started running, his gun drawn, ready to fire as soon as he was close enough.

All Mary Lisa could think about as she tumbled down the hillside was that Bernie was going to freak when he saw all these cuts and bruises no makeup would camouflage. She smashed hard against a scrub bush, felt pain roar through her, felt every bone rattle in her body. But hurt didn’t matter, nothing seemed broken. Good.

“Mary Lisa!”

The twiggy branches of the scrub dug hard into her flesh but it was better than tumbling over rocky ground. She slithered farther down, putting the bush between her and Puker atop the cliff. Would he try to come down?

She was ready, but she had to see him. This time she had to do it right. He appeared at the cliff edge, staring down at her, his gun in his right hand, fanning it all around.

“Hey, you dead down there, Mary Lisa? You all broken up?”

He crouched on his knees and peered over the edge of the cliff.

Her eyes met his. Mary Lisa aimed exactly as Elizabeth had taught her and very gently caressed the trigger. He wasn’t dancing around now, he was perfectly still, their eyes locked. The bullet struck him in the chest. He didn’t make a sound, simply disappeared from her sight. Mary Lisa felt a punch of shock in her gut, and pulled backward for a moment. But then she jumped to her feet, ignoring the pain broadcasting from every uncovered inch of her body, and began crawling back up the cliff. She saw Jack, who nearly knocked her backward, he was trying to get down to her so quickly.

“Oh God, Jack, you came! Puker, I shot Puker.”

“I know. I’ve got his gun. He’s up there. Come on, let’s get back up.”

Once they heaved themselves onto level ground, Mary Lisa scrambled over to Puker. He was lying on his back, his breathing shallow. He was still alive.

She came down beside him. He opened his eyes, looked up at her. “You broke my camera. It was my best one, a Nikon, top of the line.”

“Why’d you want to kill me?”

Remarkably, he laughed, not much of a laugh because of all the liquid rattling in his throat. “I wasn’t trying to kill you before, just get a little revenge and make a whole lot of money at the same time. Frightened starlet, purple prose, close-up photos of you so panicked you looked ready to freak out. Like I said, it was business. That restraining order, Mary Lisa, that wasn’t fair. A guy’s got to make a living, you know?”

“So there never was a Jamie Ramos?”

It looked to her like he grinned as blood dribbled out of his mouth.

From the corner of her eye, Mary Lisa saw Jack on his cell phone. She ripped off the bottom of her T-shirt and pressed it into a knot against the bullet wound. “I really can’t stand you, Puker, but I don’t want you to die. I don’t want to be the one who killed you.”

He was crying now. “I don’t have my camera-a picture of this would make me a fortune.”

“Yeah, right, that’s the way to think. Hang in there, Puker. Help’s on the way.”

His eyes closed and a second later his head simply fell to the side. She pressed her palm hard against the wound. “Don’t you die on me, you jerk!”

Jack shoved her away. He felt for the pulse in his throat for a very long time, raised his face to her, and shook his head. “You did what you had to, Mary Lisa. You saved yourself. I didn’t get here in time. I’m proud of you. As for your gun, I’m going to bronze it and put in on the mantelpiece.”