hilltop redoubt his expression gave nothing away. It was a somber face, too melancholy to expose cruelty.
He opened the wine and poured a glass. Bernie, the cat, appeared from the shadows and jumped into a large, well-lit Morris chair, padded around in a circle before settling himself.
Vincent took the wine to the chair, reached down and lifted the cat with one hand, sat down, placed the cat in his lap and the wine on the table next to the chair. Spread out on the table were a half dozen books inter-leafed with slips of paper to mark points of interest.
He took the nearest, opened it and began to read. No sound disturbed the silence except the music and the soft rustle of pages for the next hour.
Vincent looked at his watch from time to time and went on reading. After a while the cat felt the tension, got up, jumped to the floor, stretched and wandered off into the dark. Another hour passed before Vincent marked his place and put the book down.
He walked slowly toward the center of the tower, through a door that opened onto a balcony overlooking the atrium twenty feet below. Forty feet up the segmented roof accepted pale light through thick glass skylights.
He stood quietly, taking a mental inventory of things known. He didn’t like surprise. Yet he had unpredictability, a quality prized by some and detested by others.
Vincent removed his clothes and folded them neatly over a railing. He stepped to the edge of the balcony and without looking, jumped away into the semi-darkness. There followed a long moment of silence. One might have imagined anything, then from below a quiet splash.
Twenty feet down in the dark faint sparkles of white glistened on the surface of a small pool that extended into the house under the nearest wall.
He swam under water out beneath the wall and rose slowly to the surface of a large outdoor pool, slowly back to life. It was like dying. He did it often.
Later in his room he bathed and shaved carefully, dressed in dark slacks and a dark blue turtle neck. He put on dark socks and black soft-soled shoes.
On top of a dresser a wooden display case contained an assortment of military medals. A green beret rested in front of the case.
He took a hard-bound journal held shut with an elastic band, a pencil and a navy wool watch cap from the top drawer and left the room. Down stairs in the kitchen the cat ran to him and put his feet up on Vincent’s legs.
Vincent reached down and scratched the cat’s chin.
“Not tonight, Bernie. I’m visiting family.”
Chapter 2
The gray pickup moved east on the 210 freeway never faster than 65 mph, never straying from the right hand lane except to pass the occasional slower car. The truck itself was unremarkable in a city that prided itself on never letting any vehicle well enough alone.
It left the freeway at the Lincoln Avenue off-ramp in Altadena and moved into an area of upscale condominiums and apartment houses, moving with the certainty of a destination known.
The truck turned into an alley between two blocks of apartment houses, continued on twenty yards then quickly left into a row of parking spaces built under the side of the building.
Vincent looked at a clock on the dash; a little after eight in the evening. The alley was poorly lit. He sat in the truck for a half hour before he got out. He did not think about what he was doing. The truly obsessed never do until the activity of their obsession is ended, and then whatever regrets or misgivings exist weigh lightly against inexpressible need.
He stood in the shadows and looked up the alley toward a second story apartment on the other side of the alley. His searching eyes missed nothing. He moved up the alley almost too fast to follow, grasped a drain pipe, and went up without hesitation until he reached a small balcony on the second floor where he grabbed the rail, pulled himself onto the balcony and disappeared. His movements were all one piece, effortless and graceful.
The balconies were a California thing, designed for show, essentially useless; a very California thing.
He watched the area for weeks before he decided which apartment. It became apparent that either the apartment was empty or they were on an extended vacation. A dying ficus tree sagged tiredly in one corner of the balcony. He wanted to give it water but there was no way without entering the apartment and he wasn’t a criminal or a burglar, nothing like that.
Vincent tucked himself in beside the ficus and looked across the alley into the apartment of the Wister’s: Clarke, Jenna, and their precocious seven year old daughter, Jeannie.
‘Vincent’s Family’ sat at the kitchen table, their window open. Clarke and Jenna argued about politics as usual. Clarke, quiet, conservative, funny. Jenna, the opposite; explosive, opinionated, liberated, brilliant. They played a cutthroat game of scrabble with much bluffing and ridiculous words. They were very good.
They were his first family. Before them there had been no others, real or imagined. He had seen them together at a Ralph’s Market, down the hill in La Canada. Before he knew what he was doing he followed them on their rounds, from dry goods, to dairy, to meat and finally vegetables. He was very good at not being there.
They were so absorbed in themselves, the pleasure of being together, of jokes and touching, holding hands, a cantaloupe tossed back and forth, they didn’t notice the dark haired man just beyond the periphery of their created universe.
Vincent wore half glasses he didn’t need and pretended to examine the fine print on everything he bought. He might have said hello, smiled, made some cheerful comment and they would have included him in their small circle, if only for a moment, and they would have done it easily, for they had much to share and affection to spare.
Somehow he was behind them in the check-out line and when they went to their car he got in his truck and followed.
Across the alley, Vincent settled himself and removed a journal from his pocket. He smiled at Jeannie’s antics and whispered with affection.
“Hello, Clarke, Jenna. Hi, Jeannie. You look great!”
He watched ‘his family’ with total attention, reacting to their every emotion. He worried when the arguments became too strong, laughed silently at their jokes. The visit went well.
Jeannie made a killer triple-word score with oxymoron. Her mother and father looked at their daughter with affection, amazement and consternation, wondering how they made a child so far beyond their expectations.
That first evening he discovered where they lived then drove back to Sunland, through the metal gate and tall stone walls to his castle. He went about the solitary tasks of feeding himself and his cat, Bernie. He did not think about the family right away.
Later, in his library, he thought of nothing else. It was exquisitely painful and the melancholic ache was worse than he could bear. It had been good to be near them. There was something there that could be cared about.
Across the alley Vincent chuckled behind the dying ficus, pleased with Jeannie’s coup.
In an instant all his strange, isolated pleasure evaporated. Not three feet from where he sat the soft scraping of a sliding door crashed in on his world.
