The Caller

Seventy-Four

It took Hunter fifty-three minutes to get to West Hollywood from Huntington Park. As he pulled up in front of the place Tracy had told him about — a cocktail bar called the Next Door Lounge — he saw her at the traffic lights, just about to cross the road.

Tracy looked even more attractive than Hunter remembered. Her bright red hair was loose, falling in beautiful waves past her shoulders. Her fringe once again looped over and above her forehead, this time forming two very gracious victory rolls. She wore black jeans, a white T-shirt under a cropped leather jacket, black Mary Jane shoes and the same old-fashioned, cat-eye glasses she’d worn the first twice they’d met. Her delicate makeup made her look like a pin-up model.

‘You walked here?’ Hunter asked, meeting her by the lounge’s front door.

‘I told you, I don’t live that far from here.’ She pointed west. ‘Just a quick fifteen-minute walk.’

‘It’s a nice area,’ Hunter commented.

‘It can be,’ Tracy agreed.

‘Shall we?’ Hunter asked, pulling open the door for Tracy.

The Next Door Lounge wouldn’t have looked out of place in a film about the prohibition era in America. Its interior carried all the glamour and forbidden excitement of a speakeasy of the 1920s, with shiny floors, Chesterfield leather seats, and a small stage with an old-fashioned piano where artists would perform jazz and ragtime classics. Even the air carried a very gentle scent that seemed to belong somewhere in the past.

On that Sunday evening, the place wasn’t very busy, which suited Hunter just fine.

‘Would you prefer to sit at the bar or at a table?’ he asked.

‘I don’t mind. You choose.’

‘Table,’ Hunter said confidently, indicating two high-back winged armchairs by a crude brick wall. As they sat down, a waitress walked over and placed two menus on the table in front of them.

‘You’re a whisky man, right?’ Tracy asked.

‘Single malt Scotch,’ Hunter replied. ‘But do you know what? I feel like having something different tonight.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Maybe I’ll go for a cocktail. Why not?’

Tracy replied with a smile that Hunter found hard to read. ‘You’re in good hands. They make some great cocktails in here.’ She paused and pinned Hunter down with a serious stare. ‘But before we order anything.’ She took the menu from his hands. ‘Before your phone rings on you and you dash out the door like you do, I need answers.’

Hunter sat back, crossed his legs and placed his hands on his lap. ‘What answers?’

‘Don’t play dumb,’ she said, with a shake of the head. ‘It doesn’t fit with your image.’

‘You’re talking about you being a psychology professor?’

‘That’s right,’ Tracy confirmed. ‘How did you know? And how did you know it so fast? As I said last night, I know you didn’t figure any of it out from the books I had with me in the reading room that night because none of them were on academia, or on psychology. So how?’

‘I think I’ve answered that question already, haven’t I?’

‘Ha, ha’ Tracy chuckled. ‘Your reply was... “It’s just observation”.’

Hunter nodded. ‘Yes, that’s correct.’

‘Well, I’m listening. What did you observe? Please feel free to be very specific.’

Hunter regarded Tracy for a moment before he began.

‘OK, I’ve seen you at the UCLA library a couple of times before.’

‘Yes, I’ve noticed you there before too,’ she came back. ‘Always at night. Always at the twenty-four-hour reading room, but I didn’t manage to figure out that you were a detective with the LAPD. And, let me add, I never have any psychology reference books with me when I go there. I prepare my lectures in the afternoons or early evenings, never that late at night. And I never prepare them in the library, anyway. I prefer to do it at home. So I know that it wasn’t the books that gave it away.’

‘Not your books.’

Tracy looked puzzled. ‘I’m not sure I get it.’

‘In the library,’ Hunter clarified, ‘you’re always sitting at a table by yourself, while all the other tables usually have groups of students sitting together. In a public library, sitting by yourself is expected, but in a university library, students sit together.’

‘UCLA is a very big university, Robert, with over forty thousand students. And furthermore, when you are there, you sit by yourself too.’

‘True,’ Hunter accepted it. ‘And that’s where the second observation comes in.’

Tracy looked intrigued.

‘I’ll admit that the first time I saw you at the reading room, sitting by yourself, I thought that you went to UCLA, but within a couple of minutes, a group of three, maybe four students, walked past your table, said “hello” and carried on to the next available table. They didn’t ask if you wanted to join them. They didn’t ask if they could join you. That meant that they knew you, but not as a fellow student.’

Tracy finally began catching on.

‘The night we met by the coffee machine,’ Hunter continued, ‘the same thing happened again, but this time one of the students showed you something on her textbook. You looked at it, then smiled and nodded at her. A teacher’s confirmation nod, as if you were saying, “Yes, that’s right.” ’

For Tracy it was as if a light had finally been shone on a dark secret. ‘And the book she showed me was on psychology,’ Tracy said.

‘Forensic psychology,’ Hunter confirmed.

She smiled. ‘That is my main field, yes — forensic psychology, hence why I was so intrigued by your powers of observation and deduction.’ She paused and looked at Hunter in a peculiar way. ‘Thanks for finally clarifying it for me.’

‘Am I in the clear now?’ Hunter asked, extending his hand. ‘Shall we order?’

Tracy handed the drinks menu back to him. ‘Yes, I think that would be a good idea.’

Hunter didn’t stray that far from home, ordering a Scotch-based cocktail; Tracy went for a rum-based one.

‘I guess it’s my turn to come clean,’ Tracy said, as the waitress walked away with their order. ‘I did check you out a little bit.’

‘Did you?’

‘I was intrigued,’ she confessed. ‘I wanted to at least find out which LAPD department you were with.’

‘And how would you have done that?’

Tracy shrugged. ‘I have a few good friends in high places within the LAPD.’

Hunter laughed.

‘The Ultra Violent Crimes Unit?’ From the way Tracy had phrased her words, Hunter wasn’t sure if it had been a question or a statement. He said nothing.

‘I must get you to come and talk to my students some day.’

‘I’m no teacher,’ Hunter replied.

‘You don’t need to be.’

The waitress came back with their drinks and, for the next fifteen minutes, they talked and laughed about different subjects, none of them related to their jobs. They were just about to order a second round when Hunter’s phone rang.

Tracy looked at him dumbfounded, failing to stop the disbelieving smile that came to her lips. She could barely believe that it was happening again.

Hunter took the call and listened for a moment.

‘I’m on my way,’ he said as he locked eyes with Tracy. The look in them explained more than words could ever do.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, getting up.

Tracy stood up with him, took a step closer and kissed his lips.

‘Call me, OK?’