SQL to only check for existence:

hey all,

Is there a way to run an SQL statement that doesn't (necessarily)
return anything, but only checks for the existence of one or more
records based on a where statement - similar to a SETLL and %found?

I've got a rather complicated SQL statement using:
LIKE '___abc___'    or it could be:
LIKE ______xyz'

- over a very large file, and I'm having performance issues.

I don't want to do a count(), because I don't care how many, only that
at least one exists.   with count, it would have to read through the
entire file to determine it.

I also tried just doing a select - optimize for 1 row and a single
fetch, but that seemed to take forever too.  It appears as if it is
searching the entire file, instead of stopping at the first one.

help!

Rick