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1313 Main Street turned out to be a record store. I parked the car and got out. I walked past the neighboring shops in case I’d misread the address. Trees with white trunks and thick crowns, pruned where they touched walls and windows, were spaced out along the sidewalks. Their foliage obscured half the facades of the two-story buildings. Amid the sparse traffic, men and women rode by on bicycles. None of those shops hinted at housing a photo studio, nor did it seem likely that Richard Alcala could have convinced an aspiring model that they did.

I went back to the record store. Half the store window was papered over with posters announcing past concerts by Graham Nash, Neil Young, Roy Harper, Hendrix, Morrison. Behind that pane of glass, the rows of boxes must have held about a hundred records.

When I grabbed the door handle, I noticed a wanted poster stuck to the glass. In the headshot, Richard Alcala was smiling as if he’d foreseen I would show up.

I opened the door. A rippling, electrified Hendrix solo greeted me. Behind the record rack that split the store, a man perched on a stool was practicing the intro to “All Along the Watchtower.” A cable dangled from the body of his Stratocaster and plugged into a pedal, and after a small tangle of more cables and pedals, another cord climbed into the input of a Fender Deluxe Reverb amplifier. Though he’d turned the volume so low that from outside I barely noticed him playing, the notes still resonated through my bones. He glanced up while he played.

A door beside the counter led to the back room. I flipped through a crate of albums and came across a Karen Dalton record I wanted to buy.

The man kept tripping over a phrase; on his fourth try, he stopped. He sighed as the notes died away.

“Looking for any album in particular?” he asked.

I pointed at the pedals.

“A Vox Wah, the bulky Arbiter Fuzz Face with germanium transistors, and a Uni-Vibe. The same rig that went to Woodstock.”

He swayed on the stool and smiled.

“I guess I don’t need to sell you any of his albums.”

I kept an eye on the back-room door. How would I bring it up? Should I even bring it up? I’d turned toward the rows of records when I spoke.

“Have you noticed anything strange?”

He twisted the first tuning peg while plucking that string.

“Strange like what?”

“I was wondering if you keep a photography studio in the back, with lights and a king-size bed. Something somebody’s using for questionable purposes.”

He scratched at his stubble and set his pick on top of the amp.

“You know, something did strike me as off. You heard of that guy they call the Prowler?”

I straightened.

“I’m here because of him.”

He ran a hand down one pant leg and took stock of my clothes.

“As a friend?”

“More like the police would be after him.”

He nodded. He thumbed the low E string, and the amplifier dispersed the note.

“I used to see him, or maybe his twin, meeting up with girls across the street. I remember him ‘cause he always had gorgeous girls on his arm, and never the same one.”

“Any minors?”

He flinched.

“No, not that I ever saw. I figured he had money or maybe he could play guitar like Jimi. Then again, that blonde hair might’ve been enough.”

“You don’t know where they used to go?”

“Sorry. When I recognized the guy’s face on the wanted posters, I called the cops, but they must get dozens of calls like that. Are you a cop?”

“No. I won’t let him live. Thanks for telling me.”

As I turned to leave, the man struck a chord that swept through the store.

“Plenty of albums worth your while, buddy.”

“I noticed. I’ll be back another day.”

* * *

I recognized the aspiring model by her ass. She was walking under an archway on her way to Venice Beach.

My heart raced as though finding her guaranteed I’d also run into Richard Alcala. I pulled over across the street and got out as she rounded a corner. I followed the sway of her hips from about thirty feet back. I kept an eye on the people approaching from ahead and behind on my side of the sidewalk, and I alternated glances at the woman, who could’ve passed for an actress straight off a film set, wearing full makeup and somehow lost. Compared to that, yesterday she’d looked like she’d just rolled out of bed.

If the killer had forgotten that he’d mentioned the record store address in front of me and showed up to see his own wanted poster plastered on that door, both the aspiring model and I would be walking right into him.

I followed her for several blocks. A group of men whistled at her and told her to stop; she dipped her head politely, maybe faking shyness. She’d once said the positive vibes she emitted protected her, but getting hassled daily by random men must have worn her thin.

As I crossed a crosswalk to keep her in sight, I remembered that Richard Alcala knew who I was. I’d gotten used to, and even become an expert at, stalking killers and terrorists who didn’t know of my existence—or that someone could travel through time. If they saw my face, they rarely got to see another. But if Richard Alcala intended to kill this woman, he’d be tailing her, a skill he was trained in.

The sun hammered my forehead, frying my brain. My arms and legs tingled. I pulled the wanted poster from the inside pocket of my jacket and studied it, burning the photos into my mind. I spied on every reflection in windshields, car windows, and storefronts to keep tabs on anyone walking by. When a blond guy popped up, and there were a lot of them, I held my breath until I could rule out the Prowler.

I lost sight of the model. I hurried another thirty feet in case she had started running, but she wouldn’t have had time to reach the end of the block. I backtracked while scanning the buildings, the traffic, and the parked cars. If she’d hopped into a vehicle, whether Alcala’s or a stranger’s, she would be gone.

Then I spotted her Hollywood-starlet shape standing by a fenced area covered with identical posters advertising some concert. The entrance led to a wide asphalt lot around a building under construction. Through a gap in the fence, I made out piles of plastic tubing and a cement mixer. She was talking to someone.

I moved along my side of the street until the angle revealed her companion: a white man with a shaved head, aviator sunglasses, and a chestnut-brown mustache. He was wearing a promotional California T-shirt—white, with a black print of palm trees and a sun perched over a horizon—and flared navy-blue pants. His right arm was in a sling. He was smiling like a president who relies on such a charming grin to make people swallow whatever he says. He could have bought that mustache at a costume shop.

They walked deeper into the asphalt lot and stopped by a van. Richard Alcala rubbed his right bicep, the one in the sling, as he chatted through that permanent smile. He pointed at a record player abandoned on the ground.

I touched the outline of my Smith & Wesson under my jacket and darted across the road between two cars. My heart was pounding like a row of drummers awaiting an oncoming army. I hid behind the fence, peeking through an opening to watch the van.

The woman was climbing into the cargo area with the record player, whose weight made her tanned legs quiver. Alcala glanced around. He slipped his right arm out of the sling. He climbed in after her and shut the door.

I started in across the pavement. My right hand slid under my jacket and gripped the Smith & Wesson. The van’s body swayed up and down, side to side, testing the suspension. Music seeped out—“Venus in Furs” by The Velvet Underground—like the soundtrack of a late-night bar. Anyone passing the fence opening would see the van rocking; if someone looked out a window, they might notice, but they’d chalk it up to a spur-of-the-moment hook-up. In a few minutes, the van would settle, the music would fade, and it would drive off into some desert or wooded area.

I inched closer, the chassis dancing, the music growing louder. The van’s shape glowed like heated metal. My breath came in ragged bursts through flared nostrils, my blood rushing to my arms and legs. I wanted to retreat to a hotel room and curl under a steaming shower. I could look away and act like none of this concerned me, the way everyone else did. Let another woman die among so many, then go on living my life. But I had to acknowledge and snuff out evil without excuses, without mercy, saving myself from a future in which I’d regret turning away from that abyss. I’d face it like a legionary wall braced for a frontal assault. I’d guard the frontier of the light, holding back the inky tide even if it devoured my body and mind until I was reduced to a mass of scars. If I abandoned my post, that churning, smoking darkness would flood every corner of the world until it blackened entirely.

---

Author’s note: today’s songs are “All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix, and “Venus in Furs” by The Velvet Underground.

This story is a translation of the novella named “Sonríe” contained in my collection Los reinos de brea, self-published about ten years ago. In case you can’t tell, I was heavily into playing the electric guitar, a Gibson Les Paul concretely, annoying the hell out of my neighbors.