Wallace - The Fan Club

THE FAN CLUB

Irving Wallace

Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

2012 / The Estate of Irving Wallace

Copy-edited by: Patricia Lee Macomber

Cover Design By: David Dodd

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

NOVELS:

The Prize

The Man

The Chapman Report

WITH AMY WALLACE:

The Two

AMY WALLACE:

Desire

UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOKS:

The Chapman Report / The Seventh Secret / The Two (With Amy Wallace)

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FOR ALL WOMEN

AND PARTICULARLY ONE
NAMED

Sylvia

First Act

I t was not long after daybreak this early June morningten minutes after seven o'clock, according to his wristwatchand the sun was continuing to rise, slowly warming the vast sprawl of buildings and the long stretch of Southern California country.

He and his friend were there again, the two of them flattened on their stomachs in the scrubby growth at the edge of the cliff, concealed by a high hedge of bushes from anyone living in the nearby houses or entering this dead-end street called Stone Canyon Road on a hilltop in exclusive Bel Air.

Both of them held binoculars to their eyes, still waiting.

Tilting the glasses higher, peering beyond the object of his surveillance, he could clearly see Stone Canyon Reservoir, with the miniature figures of several early-rising sightseers promenading along the artificial lake. Lowering the glasses slightly, he could follow the ribbon of Stone Canyon Road where it wound up toward this high elevation in Bel Air. Then his glasses moved to catch a glimpse of a narrow, steep side street that would be Levico Waywhich he knew led to a cul-de-sac where stood the security gate that guarded entry to her well-photographed estate.

Now, once more, his binoculars were probing inside her estate, focusing down on the secluded asphalt road far below, the driveway that led from the locked gate between clusters of heavy trees and an orchard to the palatial mansion standing on a gradual rise beyond. For him, it was as impressive as ever. In other times and other places, only kings and queens lived in such splendor. In this time and this place, the great houses and modern palaces were reserved for the very rich and the very famous. He did not know about riches, but he did know for certain that none other in Bel Air was more famous, more world-renowned, than the mistress of this estate.

The magnified section of the asphalt road between the gate and the cluster of elms and poplars remained in focus, as he breathlessly watched and waited.

Suddenly, someone moved into his field of vision. He reached out with his free hand, tapping his partner's shoulder. "Kyle," he said urgently, "there she is. Can you see her coming around the trees?"

He could hear his partner shift slightly, and after a brief interval his partner spoke. "Yeah, that's her. Right on the dot."

They lapsed into silence, their binoculars trained on her, steadily, relentlessly holding the small, distant figure in view as she reached the end of her familiar quarter-of-a-mile stroll to the locked gate. They continued to hold on her as she turned away from the gate, halted, knelt, stroked and then spoke to the tiny excited Yorkshire terrier that had been prancing at her heels. At last, she stood up, and briskly began to retrace her steps in the direction of the huge mansion at the head of the driveway. In moments, she disappeared from view, obscured by the thick cluster of trees.

Adam Malone lowered his binoculars, rolled over on his side, and carefully packed them away in the leather case attached to his wide belt. He would not need them again for this purpose, he knew. It was precisely a month ago to the day that this vigil had begun. He had chosen this exact observation site, and first used it, on the morning of May 16. This was the morning of June 17. He had been up here, mostly alone but occasionally with his companion Kyle Shively, watching and timing her early morning walk for twenty-four of the past thirty-two days. This would be the last time.

He looked at Shively, who had pocketed his binoculars, and was sitting up, brushing the grass and dirt off his striped sport shirt.

"Well," said Malone, "I guess that's that."

"Yeah," said Shively, "we're all set now." He patted his newly grown, fierce black moustache, and his cold slate-colored eyes lingered once more on the scene far below. His thin lips curled into a crooked smile of satisfaction. "Yeah, kid, we're ready now. We can go ahead tomorrow morning."

"Down there," murmured Malone, still with a trace of wonder.

"You bet, down there. Tomorrow morning. Just like we planned it." He jumped to his feet, slapping at the dirt on his worn blue jeans. He always loomed up taller than Malone expected him to. Shively was at least six feet two, lean, bony, rangy, hard. Not an unmean bone in his body, Malone reflected, staring up at him. Shively bent over and reached out, dragging Malone to his feet. "Come on, kid, let's get cracking. No more of this peekaboo. We've had enough of looking and talking. From now on it's action." He favored Malone with a grin, before starting to ward the car. "From this minute, we're committed. There's no turning back. Okay?"

"Okay."

As they retraced their steps to the car in silence, Adam Malone tried to invest the project with reality. It had been in his head so long as a waking dream, a wish, a desire, that he found it hard to accept the fact that within twenty-four hours it would happen.

Once more, to believe it, he did what he had done frequently in recent days. He tried to fasten his mind on its beginning, and to review the entire process of transformation, fantasy soon to be converted into reality, step by step.

It had been, he remembered, a chance encounter, an accidental meeting, one night only six weeks ago in the comfortable public bar of the All-American Bowling Emporium in Santa Monica. Glancing at his companion, he wondered if Shively also remembered...

I t had all begun sometime between ten thirty and eleven fifteen, the evening of May 5, a Monday. None of the four men was to forget that. Certainly, Kyle Shively would not forget it.

It had been a bad evening for Shively. By ten forty-five, he was in an angrier mood than at any time since he had arrived in California from Texas. After waiting in the restaurant, and finally realizing that he had been stood up by that snotty rich chick, he had gone outside to telephone her, and after his second call, he had been ready to explode.

Right now, Kyle Shively was seething as he strode along Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, heading toward the neon-bright All-American Bowling Emporium, and the Lantern Bar inside, his regular hangout. A few drinks in that oasis, he hoped, would cool him down.

Shively could take many things, but the one thing he could not take was being treated like a second-class citizenbeing made a fool ofby some uppity, tight-assed broad who thought she was better than you because her husband was some sort of moneybags. Oh, Shively had met plenty of those rich lookers, all right. Ever since he had gone to work two years ago as a mechanic at Jack Nave's Economy Gasoline Station, he'd got his share of the action. No complaints about that.