A Wasteland of Strangers

by Bill Pronzini

  I glanced at my notes. “Upper California under Spanish rule, right? Established as a province of the newly established Mexican republic. What year was that, Anthony?”

  “What year was what?”

  “That California became a province of Mexico.”

  “Who knows, man?”

  “And who cares, right?”

  A little more laughter.

  “Well, I do,” I said. “And you should too, un poco. Come on, Anthony. What year did California become a Mexican province?”

  “I dunno.”

  Better, not quite as smart-ass. “I’ll give you a hint. It was twenty years after it became a province of Spain.”

  “Yeah? What year was that?”

  “1804. You can add twenty and four, can’t you?”

  He scowled at me. But then his girlfriend, Trisha Marx, leaned over and poked his arm and said, “Yeah, Anthony, twenty plus four equals fifty-three, right?” Everybody laughed again. Anthony decided to laugh with them. He said, “No, fifty-seven, you dumb Angla,” and there was more laughter and then they settled down.

  I treated them to a five-minute monologue on the period 1824 to 1844, the political turbulence that sprang up then and its root causes: anticlericalism, separatist sentiment, dissatisfaction with Mexican rule, demands for secularization of the missions. I was defining secularization for them—the smarter ones were taking notes, those like Anthony looking bored and getting ready to bolt—when the bell rang.

  I reminded them of the reading assignment for next week and let them go. The room emptied in the usual jostling, noisy rush. I was arranging my notes for my next class when a tentative voice spoke my name.

  Trisha Marx, alone and looking nervous. A bright girl, Trisha; if she applied herself, her grades would be much better and she’d have a more promising future than most kids in Pomo. But she’d fallen under Anthony Munoz’s spell, begun hanging out with him and his brother and their crowd, skirting the edges of real trouble. She needed the same thing Anthony did: a settling purpose in her life. I liked her and I hoped for her. In some ways she reminded me of myself at her age.

  “Yes, Trisha?”

  “You suppose I could … well …”

  “Yes?”

  “… Like, talk to you about something?”

  “Class work?”

  “No. It’s, you know, personal.”

  “Important?”

  “Kind of, yeah.”

  “Of course we can talk. But I have another class …”

  “I don’t mean now. Later. I’ve got something to do first.”

  “Well, I’m thinking of playing hooky this afternoon. And you know where I live. Why don’t you come by my house and we can talk there?”

  “Um, when?”

  “After school. Say around four?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “maybe it’d be better if I do what I have to tonight, instead of … um, yeah, it would be.” She nibbled dark-red lipstick off her lower lip. “Would it be okay … tomorrow morning? Could I come by then?”

  “If it’s early, by nine. I have a tribal council meeting at the Elem rancheria at eleven.”

  “I’ll be there before nine. I … thanks, Ms. Sixkiller.” And she hurried out, clutching her books.

  Now, what was that all about?

  But even as other kids began to drift in for my next class, my mind shifted back to Dick’s absence last night. I wanted to believe he wouldn’t be foolish enough to take up with Storm Carey again, but I knew men well enough to understand that once bitten, twice shy was an axiom that didn’t always apply. If she crooked her finger in the right way, waggled her tail on a night when he was feeling lonesome … yes, it was very possible he’d go running to her. If he was seeing her again, how could I hope to compete? I could be just as good in bed, but a man couldn’t tell it by looking at me. One sideways glance at Storm Carey and he’d know it instantly.

  I thought wryly of the old Pomo stories about the bear people, men and women who had the power to transform themselves and to go prowling at night in their hides and cloaks of feathers. They were fierce defenders of their territory; when they encountered interlopers, others like them or spooks such as the walépu, tremendous battles were fought using magic powers, great leaps into the air, bellows so loud they caused landslides, eardrum-shattering shrieks and whistles—whatever it took to intimidate and then to vanquish or destroy their rivals.

  Too bad I couldn’t be one of the bear people and have their powers for just one night …

  Zenna Wilson

  NO MORE THAN a minute after Stephanie and Kitty Waylon left for school I happened to walk out onto the front porch, to trim the hanging fern as I’d been meaning to do for days. If I hadn’t gone out there … well, I don’t dare let myself think about that. Thank the Lord I did go out.

  He was there on the street, the bogey who’d scared me half to death in Treynor’s Hardware. Driving by our house in a disreputable old sports car, the window rolled down, inching along with his ugly face turned my way, staring first at the house, and then, as he passed it, staring at the girls skipping along the sidewalk, Steffie bundled in her cute fur-trimmed parka and Kitty wearing that tattered old brown thing her mother lets her out in public in. And the smile on his dirty mouth was nothing short of lewd.

  I nearly had a seizure. By the time I raced down the steps and across the lawn I was gasping for breath and all I could manage was a weak shout that not even the girls heard. I don’t know if he saw me or not. He probably did, because he kept on going into the next block, though he didn’t bother to speed up so much as a hair. And he was still watching Stephanie and Kitty in his mirror—I swear I could see the tilt of his head through the back window.

  The girls didn’t know what was going on, poor things, when I ran up all excited and out of breath and hugged them both. I didn’t want to scare them, so I made myself calm down before I asked, “Did that man say anything to you? Anything at all?”

  They both said, “What man?” They hadn’t even noticed him!

  I made them come back to the house with me and get in the car, and I drove them to school. It would’ve been sheer madness to let them walk with that intruder still around somewhere. He may not have said anything, but the way he’d been looking, and that lewd smile on his wicked face … well. I warned Stephanie again to beware of strangers, to never, ever, under any circumstances, let any strange man come near her and especially not a big ugly one driving an old red sports car. I warned Kitty, too, no doubt the first time the child had ever had such good sense put into her head, Linda Waylon being the kind of woman she is, off in a fog half the time and forever chattering nonsense the whole time she does my hair.

  Well, I was still in a state when I got back from the school. There was no sign of him, but I didn’t let that stop me, not after what I’d seen, what might’ve happened if I hadn’t gone out on the porch when I did. I called the police right away. Chief Novak wasn’t in, so I had to talk to a female officer, Della Feldman, and I didn’t mince words with her. The police weren’t the only ones I called, either. People have a right to know when there’s a threat in their midst. I’d be a sorry soldier in God’s Christian army if I kept silent, wouldn’t I?

  Richard Novak

  I FINALLY TRACKED down John Faith a little after ten o’clock. At the one place in Pomo I least expected to find him—Cypress Hill Cemetery.

  I’d been all through town, half around the lake, and just missed him twice—once at the Northlake Cafe, where he’d had a late breakfast while I was out talking to Harry Richmond, and once on Redbud Street. Della Feldman, the day sergeant in charge, had had a frantic call from Zenna Wilson, who claimed Faith had been stalking her daughter and a playmate on their way to school. The Wilson woman was a nuisance and a wolf-crier, and the claim was likely another of her hysterical fantasies; still, after the prowler at Audrey’s home last night, I wasn’t about to treat any report of suspicious activity lightly.

  But ther
e was no sign of Faith or his Porsche in the Redbud neighborhood, and that frustrated me even more. I had no real reason to suspect the man of any wrongdoing, just the vague uneasiness he’d stirred in me yesterday, but there was a slippery, secretive quality to the way he kept moving around town, one place to another with no apparent motive. I should’ve gone out to Lakeside Resort as soon as I left Audrey’s the first time, rousted him out of bed, and to hell with protocol and a natural reluctance to hassle a man without provocation. But instead I’d gone to the station, given Verne Erickson the Porsche’s license number, and had him start a computer background check on Faith—find out if he was wanted for anything, if he had a criminal record of any kind.

  I’d told Verne about the attempted break-in at Audrey’s and asked him to keep quiet about it for the time being. There was no sense in inciting fear of night prowlers and masked rapists. Zenna Wilson was a perfect example of why things like this needed to be kept under wraps until, if, and when it presented a public threat. Then, as tired as I was, I’d managed a couple of hours’ sleep on my office couch. Long, bad night. Half a pot of coffee and some breakfast at Nelson’s Diner, after which I wasted another half hour looking around Audrey’s yard and the cottage next door. And after that, Faith kept eluding me—until, as I was passing by on my way back from Redbud, I spotted his Porsche in the parking area just inside the cemetery gates.

  I turned around and drove in and parked next to the Porsche. Faith wasn’t inside, or anywhere in the vicinity, and I didn’t see him on the narrow roads that led up into the older sections of Cypress Hill. But with all the trees and hillside hollows you can’t see much more than half the grounds from below.

  The Porsche wasn’t locked. I opened the door, bent for a look inside. An old army blanket on the backseat, a plastic bag full of trash on the floor in front of the passenger bucket—that was all. I leaned across to depress the button on the glove compartment. Owner’s manual, a packet of maps bound with a rubber band, two unopened packages of licorice drops. And under the maps, the car’s registration slip. John Faith, street address in L.A. proper; the registration was current and had been issued eighteen months ago. I made a mental note of the street address, put the slip back where I’d found it, closed the box, and leaned back out.

  “Finding everything all right, Officer?”

  He was propped against one of the cypress trees about thirty feet away, in a patch of the pale sunlight that had come out a while ago. One corner of his mouth was curved upward—a smile that wasn’t a smile, just a sardonic twisting of the lips.

  “More or less,” I said. “You mind, Mr. Faith?”

  “Would it matter if I did?”

  “It might.”

  “Sure. Release lever’s on the left there, if you want to check inside the trunk, too. Nothing in there except a spare tire, some tools, and an emergency flashlight, but don’t take my word for it. Go ahead and look for yourself.”

  “I think I will.”

  I yanked the release, went up front, and peered into the shallow trunk compartment. Spare tire, some tools, an emergency lantern. Nothing else.

  He came over to stand next to me as I shut the lid. “Mind telling me what you’re looking for?”

  “What would you say if I told you a ski mask?”

  “A ski mask. Uh-huh. I guess I’d tell you I don’t ski. Couldn’t if I wanted to in country like this, since there aren’t any mountains and not even a flake of snow on the ground.”

  “Where were you between midnight and two A.M.?”

  “In bed, asleep.”

  “Not according to the owner of the Lakeside Resort. He says he was awake at twelve-thirty and you weren’t in your cabin.”

  “Is that right?”

  “But you say you were.”

  “I was. He’s either blind or a damn liar.”

  “Why would he lie?”

  “Why would I lie? Somebody wearing a ski mask do something between midnight and two A.M.?”

  “Somebody tried to do something. Attempted break-in, possibly with intent to commit rape.”

  “Yeah? Well, it wasn’t me.”

  “I hope not.”

  “You have any reason to think it was me?”

  “No particular reason.”

  “Just figured you’d hassle the biggest, ugliest stranger you could find.”

  “I’m not hassling you. Asking questions, that’s all.”

  He showed me the non-smile again. “Anything else, Chief?”

  “Your car registration says you live in Los Angeles,” I said. “Pomo is a long way from L.A.”

  “Pomo’s a long way from anywhere.”

  “Then why’d you come here?”

  “Why not? Everybody got to be somewhere.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Yes, sir, Chief. L.A.’s where I used to live. Got to be a town I didn’t like anymore, so I pulled up stakes a couple of weeks ago. You might say I’m scouting a new location.”

  “Pomo?”

  He shrugged. “I doubt it.”

  “What’d you do down in L.A.? For a living, I mean.”

  “Construction work.”

  “You won’t find much new construction around here. This is a depressed county, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “I noticed. I’m not interested in a job right now.”

  “No? Why is that?”

  “I made good money down south and I saved enough to treat myself to some time off. I’ve got about five hundred in my wallet, if you want to see it.”

  “Why would I want to see your money?”

  “Come on, Chief. We both know the difference between transient and vagrant.”

  “I don’t think you’re a vagrant.”

  “Just a prowler and would-be rapist.”

  That jabbed my temper. “Don’t get smart with me.”

  “Smart?” He spread his hands. “I’m cooperating the best way I know how.”

  “You do that and we’ll get along,” I said. “I’m not accusing you of anything, I’m just doing my job the best way I know how. You may not believe it, but I try to take people at face value—until I have cause to take them otherwise.”

  He laughed, a quick, barking sound. “Me too, Chief. Me too.”

  “A few more questions and you can go on about your business. What were you doing on Redbud Street earlier?”

  “Redbud Street?”

  “Residential neighborhood not far from here.”

  “The one with all the trees and older houses? Looking, that’s all.”

  “Why?”

  “Seemed like it’d be a nice street to live on.”

  “It is. Nice and quiet—a family street. Why were you driving so slowly?”

  “Can’t see much when you drive fast,” Faith said. “Somebody call in to complain, Chief? Afraid I might be casing the neighborhood, looking for another house to break into?”

  I let it go. He wasn’t going to tell me anything more than he already had. “What is it you’re after, Mr. Faith? What’re you looking for in a new location?”

  “Not much. A little peace and quiet.”

  I waved a hand at the plots and markers uphill. “This kind?”

  “I like cemeteries,” he said. “Nobody bothers you in one—usually. And you can tell a lot about a place by the kind of graveyard it has.”

  “What does Cypress Hill tell you about Pomo?”

  “That it could’ve been what I want but isn’t.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Just that.”

  “So you’ll be moving on soon.”

  “Pretty soon.”

  “Tomorrow? I understand you’ve paid for another night at the Lakeside.”

  “That’s right. Unless you’re going to invite me to leave by sundown tonight.”

  “I’m not going to invite you to do anything except obey the law. Are you leaving tomorrow?”

  “Yes, sir. Tomorrow for sure.”

  “What’re you plannin
g for the rest of today?”

  “Nothing different than what I’ve been doing.” Another replay of the non-smile, so brief this time it was like a dim light flicked on and off. “And none of it involves ski masks or forcible entry—houses or women.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. One piece of advice.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “As long as you’re here, keep in mind that citizens in small towns tend to be leery of a stranger who looks too close at them and their surroundings—as if he might have more on his mind than a friendly visit. As if he might actually be a threat. You understand?”

  “Oh, I understand, Chief. I hear you loud and clear. I’ll do my best not to alarm the good citizens of Pomo while I’m enjoying your fine hospitality.”

  The sarcasm was just mild enough not to provoke me. I said, “Then we won’t need to have another talk, will we?”

  “I sure hope not.”

  I got into the cruiser, still feeling frustrated; the conversation hadn’t satisfied me on any level. As I drove out through the gates, Faith was on his way uphill into the older part of the cemetery. And he wasn’t looking back.

  Douglas Kent

  I DIDN’T BELIEVE the Wilson woman’s story for a minute, of course. She’d called the Advocate before, with complaints about this and that or to offer a juicy hunk of speculative gossip that invariably turned out to be both slanderous and imaginary. Viper-tongued busybody and self-appointed guardian of public morals. Or, in the eloquent phrasing of old Pa Kent, “a fookin’ shit-disturber.” (Mine papa: bargeman, boozer, brawler, and barroom bard. He’d fallen into the Monongahela half a dozen times, dead drunk; the last time they fished him out, when I was a freshman at Penn State, he was just plain dead. If he’d had time for a final coherent thought before he sank into the depths, I knew exactly what it’d been—the same as mine would be under similar circumstances: “Fook it.” Ah, the sins of the father.)