“I don’t work with goats.”
Pigs, he thinks. Cows, maybe. But truth be told, he wouldn’t insult any member of the animal kingdom by comparing them to the type of women he hunts.
Too much anger in my tone, he thinks. Stephanie’s staring at him now like this whole exchange is something different than she thought; something she doesn’t have a frame of reference for. Because she’s nineteen and spoiled and learned about life from YouTube.
That’s got to be it. It can’t be his appearance that’s upset her. At least, he hopes not.
After his first hunt, he realized it’d be a lot easier to draw in prey if he lost the wolfman beard and the sideburns. He preps himself now with grooming products bought from the big redheaded woman who sells organic bath products a few stalls down from where he sells his vegetables at the Pike Place Market. They’re pretty sissified, but at least they smell like plants and not some old French lady.
“Well, it’s amazing, whatever it is,” she says. “I’m not sure we have anything that good, but if you get tired of making your own stuff . . .”
It’s perfunctory and lazy, this pitch. She’s sensed something about him she doesn’t like, and now she’s just punching the clock, doing her best to hurry him out of the store. This annoys him, but he doesn’t kill when he’s just irritated, so she’s safe. And therein, he thinks, lies the essence of why I’m such a good hunter. He doesn’t shoot at everything that moves.
He smiles and nods and heads for the door, but in his mind, he’s saying, Goodbye, Stephanie. You have no idea how lucky you are. Or what a fan you are of human flesh.
Count your blessings, he thinks. It’s time to hunt.
2
The charity luncheon his mother has dragged him to is being held inside what’s supposed to be an art museum, but Cole Graydon thinks the place looks more like a villain’s lair from an old episode of Miami Vice.
He’s more annoyed at how many damn tables the organizers of this event have managed to cram inside the concrete column–lined main hall of the Claret Fine Arts Center.
From the expressions around him, he can tell he’s not alone.
Some anticapitalist social justice warrior would no doubt get a kick out of this, he thinks—the richest, best-dressed people in San Diego County trying not to reveal how uncomfortable they are now that they’re jammed cheek by jowl into a sea of flower-festooned tables that barely allow room for the harried waiters rushing to refill glasses of wine and champagne.
But Cole’s trapped, too, and so he’s not getting a kick out of it at all.
Maybe it’s a deliberate strategy on the part of the . . .
What is this damn charity lunch for, anyway?
He makes a bet with himself. If he can figure out the cause du jour before the first speaker takes the podium, he’ll give himself a little reward. That means ignoring the program tucked under one side of his bone china salad plate—a cheat sheet if there ever was one. Behind the podium, there’s a logo that’s supposed to represent something. It’s spotlit, even though fierce Pacific-reflected sunlight streams in through the nearby glass walls. The logo looks like a bunch of interlocking silhouettes. He’s not sure what they’re supposed to represent, but they seem vaguely familiar. His best guess? Two dolphins trying to fight their way free from some scrambled eggs.
“You remember what this is for, right?” his mother asks.
Shit, Cole thinks. She must have noticed him studying the stage.
“Kids?” he says.
She flattens her napkin across her lap and stares into space as if he hasn’t spoken.
He’s tempted to lighten the mood by saying that if she wanted to exert effort to look like the wife of a dead president this afternoon, he would have preferred she pick Jackie O over Pat Nixon. But his mother’s willing to laugh at everyone except herself, so, in the end, the remark would only lighten the mood for him.
“Cancer?”
“Yes, Cole. It’s a benefit for cancer. We’re raising money for cancer so that it can, you know, do a better job of killing people.”
“Now you’re being churlish.”
She gives him a blank look, as if she’s deciding whether to be offended.
Jesus Christ, he realizes, my mother doesn’t know what churlish means.
“OK, what?” he asks. “Spoil the surprise.”
“Your high school.”
Cole nods, takes in a deep breath, both small gestures intended to hide how colossally pissed off he is by this revelation.
My high school? I am busy running one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the entire world, which, by the way, has the added burden of funding your Saudi royal lifestyle, and you drag me here during my few precious hours of time off for a fund-raiser for my fucking high school? Which, by the way, already has enough money to put a gold toilet in the faculty lounge!
But he knows the deal.
If he doesn’t make some effort to show up for his mother’s busy social calendar, she eventually turns her full attention to Graydon Pharmaceuticals, and his record there hasn’t exactly been spotless. Of course, hers would be far worse, if his father had left the running of the company to her.
Which he most certainly didn’t.
“I take it you don’t approve?” his mother asks.