The photographer was disappearing
into the night. Kenji circled to the front passenger’s side
and in the glove box found his 9 mm Smith & Wesson semi-automatic
pistol, which his security chief had given him and until tonight
he had shot only at an indoor range.
The disaster of being caught and not
in control had brought about a deadly calm. He got in, slid behind
the wheel, and shot the Rolls down the road, its lights illuminating
the photographer who ran toward a van still a hundred yards distant.
Kenji was a few car-lengths behind and bearing down fast when
the man left the road for the forest.
Kenji stopped the car and got out.
Even in the shadows of the full moon he could see the layer of
dust that covered the huckleberry, the salal, and higher up the
redwood boughs. He could hear only the sound of the man moving
through the brush and the purr of the car’s motor. As a
precaution against something he hadn’t yet defined he shut
off the engine and took the key.
“Stay here,” he told Catherine.
Then he shouted at the forest: “All I want is the film.
Then you can go.”
Silence.
“I’ll give you money,”
he yelled. “We can talk.”
Nothing.
Picking a redwood tree by the side
of the road, he aimed to its center and peeled off three shots
in rapid succession.
He heard crashing and plunged into
the forest after the retreating sounds. It felt like he was wading
through heavy water. Vines tore at his silk Armani socks. The
thin soles of his hand-made calfskin shoes were slick and his
feet moved crazily. Densely packed boughs obscured his surroundings.
Even the full moon couldn’t find its way through the green
mass that was a redwood forest. Oddly he thought of ticks and
Lyme’s disease; of poison oak; of falling in a hole. Still
he moved forward, following the sound, until the quiet compelled
him to stop.
His breaths came heavy, pushed by the
nagging realization that he could not lose this race.
