Head Shot Read online

  Head Shot

  A Ray Mitchell Thriller

  Dan Ames

  Slogan Books, New York, NY

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  Copyright © 2019 by Dan Ames

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  HEAD SHOT

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

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  HEAD SHOT

  A Ray Mitchell Thriller

  By

  Dan Ames

  “You come in and take a seat as one of the audience...you become a participant in the life being depicted...You look at the stage and say: I believe everything, everything, everything..."

  -Constantin Stanislavski

  Chapter 1

  Hold it back.

  He stood on the bridge and watched the whiskey-colored water pour over the dam churning into a dirty froth before it flattened out and roared beneath the bridge on its way out of town.

  The heavy rains had tested the old dam but it was holding strong.

  The man wasn’t doing as well.

  Hold it back, he thought again.

  His desires were darker than the iron-rich water and they moved with the same kind of relentless need. Images flashed through his mind of the women he’d had before. Of the things he’d done to them and the thoughts caused him to grind his teeth and press himself against the steel railing.

  He turned and began to walk back toward town. He had parked several blocks away in a residential neighborhood in front of a vacant lot and now set out toward the row of shops and restaurants that drew visitors to the area.

  A woman’s laugh erupted from one of the nearby stores and he felt a pang of desire.

  Hold it back.

  But he couldn’t contain it much longer. All of the usual tricks had been exhausted. The half-measures. The stopgaps. They had all failed him once again and left him with no choice.

  Now only the real thing would do.

  Chapter 2

  Lisa Young, her head full of wedding plans, swerved to avoid rear-ending the car in front of her. Her palms were sweaty as she gripped the steering wheel and she forced herself to concentrate on the traffic ahead, which seemed to be slowing down and speeding up for no other reason than to annoy the hell out of her.

  Moving over into the fast lane she gunned the little four-cylinder engine of her Honda Civic and sped past the offending vehicles whose drivers were apparently content to be stuck behind a truck carrying aluminum siding. Now free and clear of the bunched-up group Lisa let her mind slowly drift back to the plans at hand, namely that of how to orchestrate her wedding so that it would be everything she'd always dreamed it would be.

  Many of Lisa Young's older girlfriends, who had experienced the pain and the angst of love gone wrong in the form of torturous divorces, equated the institution of marriage to that of a death sentence. And they had no problem sharing these thoughts with their younger, more optimistic friend.

  But Lisa was in love and refused to accept such a cynical view.

  She looked at herself in the rearview. She had short blonde hair and bright blue eyes expressed the hope and optimism she felt. Friends always described her as a “cutie.”

  The fact was, she and Brian would make super cute babies. Lisa had fallen for Brian Pritchard the minute they’d met. The two had a certain chemistry right off the bat. Their conversations were always easy and fun.

  Now they were deeply in love, had picked out an engagement ring and would soon announce their intention to wed.

  The ring was beautiful.

  Almost two carats in weight, it was a solitaire with a platinum band. Very simple yet quite expensive. Although the engagement was official, they hadn’t told anyone. The first to know would be her parents who were not going to be overly excited about their twenty-four-year-old daughter marrying a thirty-eight-year-old divorced father of one.

  Lisa could not stop looking at her ring. It symbolized everything she had ever dreamed of. A man she loved. The chance one day to become a mother. A big wedding. She would quit her job and do the things she loved; gardening, shopping, cooking, and decorating their new house Brian was building.

  Every time she looked at the ring her heart swelled at the thought of her new future. And that was why, tonight, she decided she had to go out, anywhere, and show off her ring.

  The Java House was a small, quaint coffee and espresso shop in Cedarburg, a historic tourist magnet of a village just north of Milwaukee.

  The small town had begun in the early 1800s as the center of a burgeoning woolen industry. A mill and three cavernous buildings that once housed the factory workers and milling machines were now home to antique shops, craft stores and any schlocky merchandise that was quite frequently deigned as being "just darling" by Chicagoans who considered the two-and-a-half hour drive to be a highly enjoyable day trip.

  Lisa drov
e the little red Civic up I-43 to her exit and then took the ten-minute drive from the freeway into town.

  She entered the small, dimly lit coffee shop and the comforting smell of coffee beans wrapped itself around her like a warm sweater on a cold winter night.

  A group of ten tables and a long bar with a brass rail were the centerpieces of the Java House.

  Rich mahogany walls and a blazing fire in the fireplace made for a particularly warm and cozy atmosphere. A jukebox at the far end of the room cast the sounds of soft jazz through the air. A chalkboard hung behind the bar, displaying the specials as well as the menu regulars in different colors of chalk along with their respective prices. The prices were quite high, Lisa noted, but they were designed to gouge the Illinois tourists. It was a practice in which Wisconsinites took great pleasure.

  Only two of the tables were occupied. There was a couple with a small child at one. A man sipping a latte and reading the Ozaukee County Press, the local newspaper, sat at the other.

  Lisa stepped up to the bar and ordered a double latte. She wasn’t worried about the caffeine keeping her up all night as she’d spent the past few nights wide awake, her head full of wedding plans and to-do lists.

  When she paid the girl behind the counter she was sure to grasp the money with her left hand, palm down. Lisa watched the girl take the ring in and she smiled inwardly to herself, enjoying the feeling that at least she was able to show someone the ring even if it was a complete stranger.

  She took a table near the fireplace. The cool night air had left remnants of chills on Lisa’s face but the warm latte and burning logs would take care of that.

  First off, she had to find a hall. Her number one choice was Turner Hall, downtown across from the Bradley Center where the Milwaukee Bucks played.

  It was an ancient, cavernous hall with beautiful, dramatic ceilings and breathtaking stained glass windows. It was going to be a big wedding, close to three hundred people and she’d need something the size of Turner to accommodate everyone. The thought of her at the altar in a beautiful wedding dress - she had to start trying on dresses immediately - still took her breath away.

  Suddenly, Lisa realized she’d been staring into the fireplace for the last fifteen minutes and her latte had gotten lukewarm. She put on her coat, opened the door and walked outside. The cool air felt refreshing but she was definitely looking forward to the warm summer ahead and then, of course, the big event in the fall.

  Her mind busy composing tomorrow’s to-do list, Lisa walked to her car and placed the key in the lock. She glanced up at the building across from the Java House. It was a beautiful old Victorian home that served as a realtor's office. Lawyers and realtors always have the nicest homes in towns like Cedarburg, Lisa noted, taking in the exquisite detail work on the porch rails. Maybe some interesting Victorian details like that would look good on our new house, Lisa thought to herself. She made a mental note to mention it to Brian.

  She unlocked the Civic and saw a shadow fall quickly across her car door. She heard the faint sound of gravel scraping behind her, and then she was knocked unconscious.

  Chapter 3

  "It's not who you know, it's who you blow," said the young man sitting next to Mike Sharpe. They were in the lobby of United Creative Management, one of Hollywood's biggest and most famous talent agencies. Mike turned and looked at the young man who was clearly new in town. Fresh off the boat, as they say. Mike made no comment. Instead, he offered just a smile and a nod to avoid being drawn into a conversation.

  The expression, which Mike had heard hundreds of times, epitomized for him the spirit of Hollywood.

  Mike had been in LA for almost two years playing the struggling actor part to the hilt. He'd read parts hundreds of times, been in countless meetings with directors and producers, had gone to all the right parties, been through a couple of agents and had seen Hollywood at its worst. He'd watched actors and actresses walk off with parts they'd won not based on how well they could act, but how enthusiastically they could move their rock hard bodies between the producer's Italian silk sheets.

  A magazine on the glass and chrome coffee table in front of him caught his eye. On the cover was the latest action hero cocking a tough guy's cool charisma with his mouth pursed in a half-smirk. According to the caption the star was going into production on another one of his trademark action pictures in which he endures all kinds of unimaginable abuse only to survive and kill every last one of the bad guys.

  Mike always thought he would be a good guy to cast in one of those films. Of course, he'd have to work his way up to be able to carry a picture, but he had the strong body and rough hewn face that seemed to be the requirement for starring in a tough-guy flick. Maybe one day he'd get the chance.

  Mike had told his folks back home in Wisconsin, who were always clamoring for him to come back and get a real job, that he was getting closer to his big break. He didn't know if they believed him, but he knew he was slowly beginning to wonder if he even believed it himself anymore.

  "Mike," the receptionist said, startling him from his self-doubt. "Beta will see you now."

  He stood and the young actor gave him a thumbs-up sign which Mike did not return.

  The plush carpet felt luxurious under his feet. Whoever coined the phrase "pounding the pavement" had never tried to become an actor in Hollywood.

  He made his way down the hallway, not even bothering to look at the framed pictures of celebrities on the walls that had enthralled him endlessly upon his arrival in La-La Land. He figured at this point the only way he could get his picture on the walls of these offices would be to take a job as a janitor and be dubbed employee-of-the-week.

  His agent’s office was in the back corner of the U-shaped hallway and Mike walked in with a quick rap on the doorframe.

  Beta Giancarlo was a rail-thin brunette with luminous dark eyes and an ivory complexion. She looked to be about twenty-five years old but was probably closer to forty. Beta didn't look up from her sleek black desktop computer as she greeted him.

  "Come in, Mike," she said and continued tapping on her keyboard. Mike sank into the black leather and chrome chair, which was every bit as uncomfortable as it looked. He looked absently around the office and sighed inwardly. The space had about as much warmth as the Arctic tundra, dominated by a large desk made of sheet metal that featured corrugated rivets acting as a border and slim columns of jagged metal for legs. The walls were completely empty save for one small etching hung on the far wall.

  With a final decisive click on her keyboard, probably a nasty e-mail Mike thought to himself, she turned and faced him.

  "Look Mike, we're close," she said, immediately sensing his frustration. "You've been right here," she held her fingers up about a half-inch apart in a pinching motion, "on a couple feature films, but for whatever reason, you weren't chosen."

  He started to interrupt but she cut him off.

  "We're close. Your name is making the rounds. Your break is going to come. In the meantime, you've got to get as much exposure as possible."

  Mike looked at the ceiling, afraid to ask yet at the same time knowing he had no choice.

  "What do you have for me, Beta?" he asked.

  "A toll booth attendant or a person suffering from hemorrhoids," she said.

  He almost started to laugh but then looked straight into her dark eyes. Yes, he believed she was serious.

  "That's what I have to choose from?" he asked, his voice exasperated. "What exactly is it about me," Mike continued, "that makes these people look at my picture and say, yep, here he is. Here's our hemorrhoid boy slash toll booth attendant? What the hell, do I look some kind of loser?"

  "You should be flattered, they want the guy with hemorrhoids to be a handsome guy, and the toll booth attendant is an action spot, where he crashes through walls and chases down a car."

  Mike looked at her and said nothing.

  "Each has its own merits," continued Beta, unruffled by Mike's skepticism.

 
; "The hemorrhoid commercial would pay more, they have a bigger budget so we could bump your fee up."

  "Yeah, my ass isn't cheap," Mike offered.

  "The toll booth attendant is less money, but the commercial will run across the country, which means you'll get a lot more publicity, a national audience," Beta said.

  A national audience was what Mike wanted. He had been playing for small audiences all his life, starting with family gatherings in his hometown of Bay View, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee.