You better not mention it, she told herself. You are never going to get one up on Wally Topelis.
In her car again, she buckled her seatbelt, brought the big engine to life, snapped on the radio, and sat for a while, staring at the flow of traffic on La Cienega. Today was her birthday. Twenty-ninth birthday. And in spite of the fact that it had been noted in Hank Grant’s Hollywood Reporter column, she seemed to be the only one in the world who cared. Well, that was okay. She was a loner. Always had been a loner. Hadn’t she told Wally that she was perfectly happy with only her own company?
The cars flashed past in an endless stream, filled with people who were going places, doing things–usually in pairs.
She didn’t want to start for home yet, but there was nowhere else to go.
***
The house was dark.
The lawn looked more blue than green in the glow of the mercury-vapor streetlamp.
Hilary parked the car in the garage and walked to the front door. Her heels made an unnaturally loud tock-tock-tock sound on the stone footpath.
The night was mild. The heat of the vanished sun still rose from the earth, and the cooling sea wind that washed the basin city in all seasons had not yet brought the usual autumn chill to the air; later, toward midnight, it would be coat weather.
Crickets chirruped in the hedges.
She let herself into the house, found the entranceway light, closed and locked the door. She switched on the living room lights as well and was a few steps from the foyer when she heard movement behind her and turned.
A man came out of the foyer closet, knocking a coat off a hanger as he shouldered out of that confining space, throwing the door back against the wall with a loud bang! He was about forty years old, a tall man wearing dark slacks and a tight yellow pullover sweater–and leather gloves. He had the kind of big, hard muscles that could be gotten only from years of weightlifting; even his wrists, between the cuffs of the sweater and the gloves, were thick and sinewy. He stopped ten feet from her and grinned broadly, nodded, licked his thin lips.
She wasn’t quite sure how to respond to his sudden appearance. He wasn’t an ordinary intruder, not a total stranger, not some punk kid or some shabby degenerate with a drug-blur in his eyes. Although he didn’t belong here, she knew him, and he was just about the last man she would expect to encounter in a situation of this sort. Seeing gentle little Wally Topelis come out of that closet was the only thing that could have shocked her more than this. She was less frightened than confused. She had met him three weeks ago, while doing research for a screenplay set in the wine country of Northern California, a project meant to take her mind off Wally’s marketing of The Hour of the Wolf, which she had finished about that time. He was an important and successful man up there in the Napa Valley. But that didn’t explain what the hell he was doing in her house, hiding in her closet.
“Mr. Frye,” she said uneasily.
“Hello, Hilary.” He had a deep, somewhat gravelly voice which seemed reassuring and fatherly when she had taken an extensive private tour of his winery near St. Helena, but which now sounded coarse, mean, threatening.
She cleared her throat nervously. “What are you doing here?”
“Come to see you.”
“Why?”
“Just had to see you again.”
“About what?”
He was still grinning. He had a tense, predatory look. His was the smile of the wolf just before it closed hungry jaws on the cornered rabbit.
“How did you get in?” she demanded.
“Pretty.”
“What?”
“So pretty.”
“Stop it.”
“Been looking for one like you.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“You’re a real pretty one.”
He took a step toward her.
She knew then, beyond doubt, what he wanted. But it was crazy, unthinkable. Why would a wealthy man of his high social position travel hundreds of miles to risk his fortune, reputation, and freedom for one brief violent moment of forced sex?