Boobytrap

by Bill Pronzini

  “You mean you’ve had to fix this thing before?”

  “First time it happened to Zaleski. He took care of it himself after that.”

  “So it happens all the time. Just quits on you.”

  “Not every time you take her out, maybe. But often enough.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that yesterday?”

  He gave me a look. “Didn’t know you had permission to take her out.”

  “Well, thanks for the help, Nils. And the lesson.”

  “Couldn’t just leave you stranded over here,” he said gruffly. “And if you’d tried to row across in this hot sun, hell, you might’ve had a heart attack or something. Overweight fellow like you.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “You going to finish exploring the lake now?”

  “Uh-uh. Back to the cabin.”

  “Take this screwdriver anyway, just in case. You can give it back to me later. Zaleski’s got one around there somewhere you can stick in the boat.”

  “Thanks. You won’t need to rescue me again.”

  “Better not. First time’s free, second time costs you dear.”

  He paused, as if debating something with himself. Then he said, “Be around tonight, will you? At the cabin?”

  “Until seven. Then I’m invited to dinner at the Dixons’. Why?”

  “Might stop by for a few minutes before or after. Have a beer or two.”

  “Sure thing. Something on your mind, Nils?”

  “Something. Not sure yet what it means.”

  “What what means?”

  “Don’t want to say until I check around some.”

  “I don’t follow that.”

  He paused again. “I think maybe one of the other first-timers ain’t what he seems to be.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “My eyes, for one. Gut feeling, for another.”

  “What is he, then, if not a fisherman?”

  “Not sure about that, either.”

  “Well, which one is it?”

  “Better not say until I check around. Then could be we’ll have something to discuss.” He shoved his skiff away from mine. “Don’t forget about that screwdriver. Mine or Zaleski’s.”

  “I won’t.”

  He waggled a hand, used a short paddle to get himself pointed lakeward, fired up his engine, and went roaring off in the general direction of his cabin. I set off at a much more sedate clip, heading home sadder and wiser and wondering just what Ostergaard had meant by “one of the first-timers ain’t what he seems to be.”

  Midafternoon, just past five Texas time, I tried the Houston Center Marriott again and this time I caught Kerry in her room. She’d tried me twice, she said, and it was a good thing I’d called when I had because she and Jim Carpenter had been invited back to Milo Fisher’s ranch for an intimate dinner and they were being picked up by Milo’s limo driver at five-thirty.

  “A limo, no less. My, my. What does ‘intimate dinner’ mean, exactly?”

  “Don’t be jealous, you. All it means is Milo and his wife, Jim and me, and one or two other couples.”

  “Couples. Uh-huh.”

  “You are jealous. And after you swore up and down—”

  “I’m pulling your leg. Yesterday was the big barbecue, right?”

  “Yes, and it was fun. There were at least sixty people—friends, neighbors, business associates—and enough food and liquor for a hundred more.”

  “Sounds like you’re winning Fisher over to the Bates and Carpenter team.”

  “I think we are. I think he’ll actually sign with us before we leave Houston. Keep your fingers crossed.”

  “You betcha.”

  She asked about Deep Mountain Lake and my vacation so far. I provided a quick report, deemphasizing both the fish episode this morning and my difficulties with Zaleski’s cranky outboard this afternoon. After which I steered the conversation back to Milo Fisher, for no reason other than it struck me as a more interesting topic.

  “Tell me about this ranch of his,” I said. “How big is it?”

  “A little less than two thousand acres.”

  “Two thousand?”

  “That’s not so big by Texas standards. It’s quite a showplace. If I ever have to fly back here, I’d like you to come along. You’d love it.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  “No, you really would. Milo, too.”

  “I could never love anybody named Milo.”

  “Like him, I mean. He’s a character.”

  “How so?”

  “Oh, you know, stereotypical Texas bombast in the way he dresses and talks. Ten-gallon hats and fancy boots, the whole bit. But it’s all a put-on. He’s smart and shrewd, and one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.”

  “Funny, huh?”

  “One joke after another, more one-liners than a stand-up comic. He had everybody in stitches yesterday.”

  “Dirty jokes, no doubt.”

  “Not really. His funniest are so clean he could tell them on the Disney Channel.”

  “For example?”

  “There were so many I can remember only a couple. I’ll tell you when I see you.”

  “Tell me one now. I can use a good laugh.”

  “Well ... my favorite, then.” She chuckled in anticipation, stopped herself, and said, “All right. A married man goes out into the forest, into the deepest part, and while he’s there a tree falls. He hears it loud and clear. But he’s completely alone—no wife, no other woman within a hundred miles. Is he still wrong?”

  I waited.

  Silence from her end, so I said, “Go ahead.”

  “Go ahead?”

  “With the rest of the story. I’m listening.”

  “You don’t get it,” she said.

  “Get it? Get what?”

  “The joke.”

  “I haven’t heard the rest of it yet.”

  “There isn’t any more. That’s it, that’s the joke.”

  “You mean ‘Is he still wrong?’ is the punch line?”

  “Of course it’s the punch line. You really don’t get it?”

  “No, I really don’t. What’s the point?”

  “The point,” she said in that tone she uses when her patience is being tried, “is that it’s funny. Women think it’s hysterical. Most men find it funny, too.”

  “What’s funny about ‘Is he still wrong?’ ”

  “The man hears the tree fall, but since there’s no woman around ... Oh, never mind. Forget it. Forget the whole thing.”

  “I don’t want to forget it. I want to know what it means.”

  “It’s a take-off on the old argument about a tree falling in the woods and does it make a sound if there’s nobody around to hear it—”

  “I got that part,” I said, “the take-off part. But you said the man’s there in the forest and he hears it fall. Right?”

  She said something that sounded like “Gnrrr.”

  “But his wife’s not there, no woman’s around, so is he still wrong. That doesn’t make any sense. That’s the part I don’t get.”

  “For God’s sake!” she said. “It’s a joke about men and women ... about marriage and the differences between the sexes. All right, it’s stereotypical but that’s what makes it so funny, don’t you see that? The male-female, husband-wife stereotypes? Like Milo being a Texas stereotype?”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

  Silence. A long silence.

  “Kerry?”

  “You are the most literal, exasperating man I’ve ever known,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like strangling you.”

  “Because I don’t understand some damn stupid joke that doesn’t make any sense? A joke is supposed to be funny. It’s supposed to have a punch line that makes you laugh.”

  “We haven’t been married long enough,” she said. Through her teeth, the way it sounded. “Maybe that’s the problem here.
”

  “We haven’t been married long enough for what?”

  “You’ll find out. And when you do, you’ll be just like that man in the forest, you’ll still be wrong!”

  I sat there for five minutes after we rang off, and I still didn’t get the damn joke.

  Wrong about what?

  Pan-barbecued trout was not quite as good as the pan-fried-in-butter variety, in my opinion, but that didn’t stop me from eating two of the large fillets Marian prepared. Chuck had had a profitable morning at his secret fishing hole: a pair of rainbows weighing a total of three and a half pounds. He ate two fillets himself, and we managed to consume most of the salad and potatoes and biscuits that went with them. Personal tastes aside, it was a fine meal served on the Dixons’ deck under a sunset sky streaked with burnt orange.

  I stayed until nine-thirty, at which point sleepiness and Chuck’s insistence that we leave for our outing at the crack of dawn prodded me back to the Zaleski cabin. It wasn’t until I was in bed a while later that I remembered my conversation with Nils Ostergaard on the lake.

  He hadn’t stopped by before dinner and there’d been no sign of him during or after. And even if I’d still been up with the lights on, it was too late now to come calling. Changed his mind about confiding in me, I thought, or put it off until later. His “checking around” must not have produced any results after all.

  Sun., June 30—9:00 P.M.

  Kathryn.

  Last night I dreamed about her. This morning I thought about her as I was fishing. This afternoon, when I paid Judson for gas from my dwindling supply of cash, I imagined again what she’ll look like when she opens her special gift and how good I’ll feel when she’s finally dead. Even better than I’ll feel when Dixon is finally dead.

  Kathryn, Kathryn, Kathryn.

  Dead, dead, dead.

  I’m down to a little less than $200. I’ll have to get a job soon, some damn menial job, but not until after I deliver Kathryn’s surprise package to her in Indiana. First things first. Conserve my cash, meanwhile. I won’t steal if I do run out, that’s one thing I won’t do. I’m not a thief. Nobody will ever be able to accuse Donald Michael Latimer of being a common thief.

  $3500 gone just like that. But what choice did I have? I needed wheels when they let me out of that hellhole prison, I needed all the tools and components for the bombs, destructive devices, boobytraps, I needed a roof over my head in the Bay Area and this place up here. Necessary expenses, all part of the Plan. $3500 for a hunk of secondhand Detroit crap that keeps overheating, inferior tools and goods instead of the quality material I had to work with in the Army, a drafty shack on the coast that ought to be blown up instead of rented out. Even this cabin is pisspoor compared to the luxury accommodations Kathryn and I shared in the old days. Gone, all gone, the good times and the easy life. And all because of her, what she started with her hot pants and her lying, vindictive ways.

  A wonder I had any money left after my lawyer and Kathryn and her shyster and all the creditors got done slicing up my assets. $3500 was what they left me, and they’d have got that, too, if I hadn’t hidden the cash in the private safe-deposit box while I was out on bail. On top of the world one day, successful business, financial security, nice home, good clothes, a Porsche to drive, what I thought was a rock-solid marriage, and then she brought it all crashing down around my ears. Bitch! Screwing that lousy big-eared pharmacist and then when I caught her, telling me it was my fault because she was starved for love and affection. Siccing the cops on me, filing the assault charge after I smacked her, then walking out on me and straight into Lover Boy’s scrawny arms. I had a right to do what I did to them. I had a right to do a hell of a lot more.

  Ah, but not according to the law. Not according to Cotter and Turnbull and Dixon and the California penal code. They picked up where Kathryn left off, persecuted me and took away my freedom, the only thing I had left. Well, now they’re the ones who’ve lost everything. Justice, by God. As ye sow, so shall ye reap, and the bastards sowed the seeds of their own destruction, the lot of them.

  Maybe I’ll make a few others pay, too, when I’m done with Kathryn and I’ve saved up enough money. Come back to the Bay Area and send a package to that lawyer of hers, what was his name? Benedict? Snotty, self-righteous prick. Benedict fucking Arnold. And that fat cop who arrested me after the device blew the ass end off Lover Boy’s house, the one who treated me like dirt. And my old banker buddy Art Whittington who wouldn’t give me a loan, not even a small one, so I could pry myself out of debt. Made that son of a bitch thousands in mutual fund investments, and a cold shoulder was the thanks I got. They deserve a payback, too. So do all the others, business associates and fair-weather friends, everybody who deserted me before and after the trial, left me to endure five years of torment alone. Make little presents for each of them, boom boom boom boom boom!

  Kathryn first, though.

  Kathryn next.

  Might as well start assembling her present while I’m waiting for Dixon to show up and claim his. I’ve done enough savoring, the way you savor sleeping with a woman for the first time. Now I’m ready for the preparations, the foreplay to the Big B. I have all the components except for the last one, and I can get that from any butcher shop on the way to Lawler Bluffs, IN. I brought everything in from the car Friday night, after dark, when I was sure nobody was around. Tool kit and the carton from the supermarket Dumpster in Half Moon Bay and the bag of bubble wrap and the microswitch and the black powder. And the jar of marbles, of course. It’s sitting right here on the table in front of me as I write. Glass marbles, different kinds, different colors, all very pretty, like eyes winking at me in the light from the desk lamp.

  Those marbles were an inspiration. All the thought I gave to what to put in Kathryn’s surprise, something just for her—never mind the pharmacist and their brat, they’re incidental. Couldn’t make up my mind, and then as soon as I saw the marbles in the toy store window I knew they were perfect, I knew exactly what else to get, too.

  She took everything from me, she got all the marbles. Okay, then, I’ll give her two hundred more than she bargained for, two hundred cheap glass marbles that’ll fly apart in a million fragments from the force of the blast and rip her rotten flesh to shreds.

  Second thing you give an unfaithful bitch for her final send-off? Why, a bagful of rancid bones, naturally. Soup bones that’ll splinter and gouge and tear the same as the marbles.

  So long, Kathryn. Rest in pieces.

  Too bad I can’t tell her beforehand what she’ll be getting. Too bad she’ll never know. Always accusing me of not having a sense of humor. Well, this proves different, doesn’t it? Proves I’ve got a terrific sense of humor.

  She’ll get a bang out of her present, all right.

  And then I’ll have the last laugh.

  I just reread the previous page, the line about rest in pieces and the lines about her getting a bang out of her present and me having the last laugh. They started me chuckling, then roaring until my belly hurt. Now I’ve got the hiccups. I think I’d better

  Somebody’s at the door.

  Knock knock. Knock knock.

  Who the hell can that be at this hour?

  SEVEN

  WHEN CHUCK SHOWED UP IN THE MORNING—OR the middle of the night, depending on your point of view—the sky was still dark except for a faint phosphorescence on the eastern horizon and I was working on my second cup of coffee and just starting to come alive. Ungodly hour to be up. Two mornings in a row now I’d been out of bed before daylight, and that was at least one too many. Tomorrow I’d sleep until nine in deference to my old bones.

  “All set?” he asked eagerly. “Man, I can’t wait to get going.”

  “Me, either,” I lied. “Just let me finish my coffee.”

  “I’ve got a Thermosful. From the pot Mom made last night.”

  I tried not to grimace. Marian’s coffee was strong enough fresh-brewed. By now, last night’s batch ought to be
as chewy as black tar.

  “We’ll take our boat, okay?” Chuck said.

  “Boat? I thought we were heading into the woods.”

  “We are. But you have to take a boat to get to where you can hike to Chuck’s Hole.”

  “Chuck’s Hole, huh?”

  “Yeah. I found it, so I named it after myself.”

  “Good for you. How much of a hike is it?”

  “Not much. Come on, we want to get there before sunup.”

  I asked him what kind of flies I ought to take, bowing to his expertise. He looked through my case, pointed out half a dozen that I transferred into the plastic pocket case. Then I gathered my rod and creel and followed him out and over to the Dixon property.

  He did the piloting, angling their skiff out across the lake to the northwest. I sat on the prow seat and slugged black-tar coffee from his Thermos. Terrible stuff, but it did ward off the pre-dawn chill and get the rest of my juices flowing. By the time we reached one of the narrow inlets on the far shore I was more or less alert, even starting to feel a little of the boy’s enthusiasm.

  Once we entered the inlet he shut off the outboard, lifted it out of the water to protect the propeller from snags, then used an oar to pole us along. The way ahead seemed impassable, a black wall of tree branches and undergrowth. But after we struggled through the first tangle, me keeping my head down at Chuck’s direction, we were onto a quick stream that appeared to be several yards wide and deep enough so that the skiffs bottom didn’t scrape its rocky bed. Chuck poled us upstream for a hundred yards or so, through a series of twists and turns. It was dark in there, even with the sky beginning to take on dawn light visible in patches through the overhead branches—so dark it was like drifting in a wilderness maze at midnight. The air was moist, cold, heavy with the smells of fresh and stagnant water, growing and rotting vegetation. Frogs stopped their croaking as we passed, commenced again behind us. My face and neck became a feeding ground for a kamikaze legion of mosquitoes; the more I squashed, the more showed up in buzzing, diving assaults.