Hunter hesitated for a moment. ‘OK, pick someone.’
Garcia looked around the busy restaurant but his eyes were drawn to the bar. Two attractive women, one blond, one brunette, were having a drink together. The blond one was by far the more talkative of the two. Garcia had made his choice. ‘Right there, over at the bar. See the two girls by themselves? The blond one.’
Hunter’s gaze fell on his new subject. He observed her, her eye and body movements, her quirks, the way she spoke to her friend, the way she laughed. It took him only about a minute to start his assessment.
‘OK, she knows she’s attractive. She’s very confident and she loves the attention she gets, she works hard for it.’
Garcia lifted his right hand. ‘Wait up, how would you know that?’
‘She’s wearing very revealing clothes compared to her friend’s. So far she’s run her hand through her hair four times, the most common “notice me” gesture, and every so often she furtively checks herself against the mirror behind the bottle shelves at the bar.’
Garcia observed the blond girl for a while. ‘You’re right. She just checked herself again.’
Hunter smiled before carrying on. ‘Her parents are rich and she’s proud of that. She makes no effort to hide it from anyone and she knows how to spend their money.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘She’s drinking champagne in a bar where ninety-five percent of the customers order beer.’
‘She could be celebrating.’
‘She isn’t,’ Hunter said confidently.
‘How do you know?’
‘Because she’s drinking champagne and her friend is drinking beer. If they were celebrating her friend would be sharing the bottle with her. And there was no toast. You always toast when you celebrate.’
Garcia smiled. Hunter continued. ‘Her clothes and handbag are all designer. She’s never placed her car keys back into her handbag, preferring to leave them on the bar in plain view, and the reason for that is probably because her key ring shows some prestigious car emblem, like a BMW or something. She’s got no wedding ring and anyway she’s too young to be married or have a well-paid job, so the money has to come from somewhere else.’
‘Please go on.’ Garcia was starting to enjoy the exercise.
‘She’s got a diamond-encrusted W on her necklace. I’d say her name would be either Wendy or Whitney, those being the two favorite names beginning with W of rich parents in Los Angeles. She loves flirting, it boosts her ego even more, but she prefers more mature men.’
‘OK, now you’re pushing it?’
‘No I’m not. She only returns eye contact from more mature men, ignoring the flirtation of younger guys.’
‘That’s not true. She keeps on checking out the guy standing next to her and he looks quite young to me.’
‘She’s not looking at him. She’s looking at his cigarette pack in his shirt pocket. She probably gave up smoking not so long ago.’
Garcia had a peculiar grin on his face when he got up.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Check out how good you really are.’ Hunter looked on as Garcia started towards the bar.
‘Excuse me, you don’t happen to have an extra cigarette do you?’ he said, approaching the two women but directing his question to the blond one.
She gave him a charming and pleasant smile. ‘I’m sorry, but I quit smoking two months ago.’
‘Really? I’m trying to myself. It’s not easy,’ Garcia said, returning the smile. His eyes moved to the bar and onto her key ring. ‘You drive a Merc?’
‘Yeah, just got it a few weeks ago.’ Her excitement was almost contagious.
‘Very nice, is it a C-Class?’
‘SLK convertible,’ she replied proudly.
‘That’s a very good choice.’
‘I know. I love my car.’
‘By the way, I’m Carlos,’ he said, extending his hand.
‘I’m Wendy, and this is Barbara.’ She pointed to her brunette friend.
‘It’s been very nice meeting you both. Enjoy the rest of your evening,’ he said with a smile before returning to Hunter’s table.
‘OK, I’m even more impressed now than I was before,’ he commented as he sat down. ‘One thing is for sure. I ain’t never playing poker against you,’ he said, laughing.
While Garcia was testing Hunter’s profiling skills, the waitress had come back with their dinner. ‘Wow, I was hungrier than I thought,’ Garcia said after having finished his BBQ ribs together with the Caesar salad. Hunter was still munching on his burger. Garcia waited until he was done. ‘How come you decided to be a cop? I mean, you could’ve been a profiler, you know . . . gone and worked for the FBI or something like that.’
Hunter had another sip of his beer and used the napkin on his mouth. ‘And you think that working for the FBI is better than working as a Homicide detective?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Garcia protested. ‘What I meant is that you had a choice and you picked being a Homicide detective. I know a lot of cops who’d kill for the chance to work for the feds.’
‘Would you?’
Garcia’s eyes didn’t shy away from Hunter’s. ‘Not me, I don’t really much care for the feds.’
‘And why is that?’
‘To me they’re just a whole bunch of glorified cops who think they are better than everyone else simply because they wear cheap black suits, sunglasses and earpieces.’
‘First day I met you I thought you wanted to be an FBI agent. You were wearing a cheap suit.’ A smirk on Hunter’s face.
‘Hey, that suit wasn’t cheap at all. I like that suit, it’s my only suit.’
‘Yeah, I could’ve guessed that.’ The smirk turned into a sarcastic smile. ‘At first I thought I would become a criminal profiler. That would’ve been the logical move after my PhD.’
‘Yeah. I’ve heard you were some kind of child prodigy, a genius in what you did.’
‘I moved through school faster than usual,’ Hunter said, playing it down.
‘And is it true that you’ve written a book that’s used as a study guide by the FBI?’
‘It wasn’t a book. It was my PhD thesis paper. But yes, it was made into a book and the last I heard it was still used by the FBI.’
‘Now that’s impressive,’ Garcia said, pushing his plate away. ‘So what made you choose not to become an FBI profiler?’
‘I spent all of my childhood immersed in books. That’s all I did when I was young. I read. I guess I was starting to get bored of the academic life. I needed something with a little more excitement,’ Hunter said, revealing only half the truth.
‘And the FBI wouldn’t be exciting enough?’ Garcia asked with a mocking smile.
‘FBI profilers aren’t field agents. They work behind desks and inside offices. Not the kind of excitement I was looking for. Plus I wasn’t ready to lose the little sanity I had.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t think most human brains are strong enough to go through the journey of becoming a criminal profiler in today’s society and come out on the other side unscathed. Anyone who decides to put themselves through that sort of pressure inevitably will pay the price, and that price is too high.’
Garcia looked a little confused.
‘Look, there are basically two schools, two main theories where criminal profiling is concerned. Some psychologists believe that evil is something inherent to certain individuals, they believe it’s something people are born with, like a brain dysfunction that leads them to commit obscene acts of cruelty.’
‘Meaning some believe it’s like a disease, a sickness?’ Garcia asked.
‘That’s right,’ Hunter continued. ‘Others believe that what causes a person to go from being a civilized individual to becoming a sociopath are the series of events and circumstances that have affected that person’s life
