A Wasteland of Strangers

by Bill Pronzini

  A hand plucked at my sleeve. Dietrich, the overeager wanna-be; I’d forgotten he was there. “We’d better leave, Mr. Kent.”

  “I wish it’d been that bald head of his.”

  “… Mr. Kent?”

  “The temporal skull fracture, the subdural hematoma of mid brain,” I said. “His head opened up like a melon, his glop that poured out. Him the corpse on the table instead of her.”

  “Oh, wow,” Dietrich whispered.

  “Yes. Exactly. All right, let’s get out of here.”

  We went to the police station. Arrived just in time to catch Chief Novak exiting into the side parking lot, alone, hotfooting it for his cruiser as if he expected to be assailed by a mob of slavering Fourth Estaters at any second. The only Fourth Estaters in the vicinity, one slavering, the other wishing to Christ he had a drink, drew up alongside. He recognized us, but he went ahead and hopped into his cruiser anyway. No one wanted much to do with Kent today, it seemed. Including Dougie his own self.

  I said, “Hold your horses, Chief. A few questions.”

  “Not now. I don’t have time.”

  “At least tell me about Faith. Found yet?”

  “No.”

  “Lakeshore still being searched?”

  “Not the way I’d like it to be.”

  “Explain that.”

  “Talk to Sheriff Thayer. Or the mayor.”

  “Dissension in the ranks, Chief?”

  He didn’t answer that. His face, bruised, discolored, bandaged, resembled a Halloween fright mask; muscles wiggled under the skin surface like maggots on a chunk of spoiled meat. (Poor choice of simile, Kent. Summoned up fresh images of Storm on the autopsy table.) Novak’s eyes burned hot: pain, hate, determination. I knew exactly how he felt. My lust had been unrequited, his hadn’t; that was the only difference between us as torchbearers in the Storm Carey Olympics.

  “Do you think he’s dead?” That from Dietrich, butting in.

  “Faith?” The Chief’s mouth tightened; the muscle maggots seemed to scurry under his eyes and along his cheeks. “I can’t answer that.”

  “Then there’s a chance he’s alive?”

  “Without a body … yeah, there’s a chance.”

  “What’s your best guess?” I asked him. “Dead or alive?”

  Headshake. He started the engine.

  “If he is alive, there’s no way he could escape, is there?” Dietrich again. “Find some way out of the area, evade capture altogether?”

  “No,” Novak said flatly, “there’s no way.”

  He jammed the cruiser into gear, zoomed off toward Main.

  “What now, Mr. Kent?”

  “I don’t suppose we can get onto the Carey property. Look around up there ourselves.”

  “No, they’ve got the entire area cordoned off. I drove by before I went to your place.”

  “All right, then it’s back to the Kent digs.” I needed salve. I needed to lie low for a while. So many sticks in the bag now, the combined weight was about to split me apart at the seams. Humpty-Dumpty Kent. “After you drop me off, come back here and hang around. If there are any new developments, I want to know about them right away.”

  “You’ll be home all day?”

  “No. At the office later on. One or the other.”

  “Are you planning to write the story about the murder, Mr. Kent? I mean, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to take a shot at it myself.”

  “Go ahead.” What did I care? I couldn’t write it—not this one. “Just make sure you do it on your laptop at the station, and don’t forget to let me know the minute there’s any word on Faith.”

  “You can count on me,” Dietrich said. “I sure hope they find him soon.”

  “They damn well better.”

  And he damn well better be dead when they do. The thought of Bigfoot alive, somehow managing to cheat capital punishment altogether, was even more intolerable than the thought of the corpse processor carving up the deceased with his trusty saw and scalpel.

  Trisha Marx

  WE DIDN’T HAVE any trouble crossing the lake and I found Nucooee Point okay, but getting us into the rickety old dock was kind of hairy. The water was covered with whitecaps, even though the wind wasn’t strong over on the east shore, and Ms. Sixkiller’s boat was bigger and had more power than the one we used to own. The first time I tried it, I shut down to idle in plenty of time but the current dragged us over faster than I expected and I didn’t get the gear lever into reverse soon enough. The left side—port side—banged hard into the float edge and for a second after we bounced off I thought we might capsize. But I quick put the power on and the boat settled and then we were out away from the dock again, going backward. I slid into neutral and let us drift while I chilled enough to give it another try.

  John had his head out from under the canvas. “Sorry about that,” I said to him. “I’ll do better next time.”

  “Still nobody in sight?”

  “Uh-uh. You can come out now if you want.”

  He pushed the canvas all the way back and eased himself up against the port gunwale. He was still in a lot of pain, you could see that, but he’d gotten some of his strength back and he moved better than before. He took in the cottonwoods and willows that grew thick along the shoreline on down to the Bluffs half a mile away. The lodge buildings were scattered inland among oaks and pepperwood trees, all except for the old dance pavilion downshore, south of the dock.

  He said, “Can’t see the highway from here.”

  “No. It’s on the other side of that big building straight ahead. Nobody out there can see us, either. Perfect, huh?”

  “Yeah.” He sat up a little more, onto one hip so he could lean out over the side. “Ready when you are.”

  I was more careful this time and I took us in with just a little bump and scrape against the float. John caught onto one of the rusty iron rings and held us close so I could clamber out and tie the bow line, then the stern line. I felt sort of spacey when I was done, like I was on this natural high. It made me tingle all over; I could feel it like a hand stroking down between my legs.

  “Here,” John said, “take my wallet.” He must’ve got it out of his Levi’s on the way over, before he tied up the rest of his stuff with some fishing line and a lead sinker from the storage locker and dropped the bundle overboard. “Give it back to me when we get where we’re going.”

  I put the wallet into my pocket, along with what was left of the tape and gauze pads. The peroxide, and a quart of OJ and a couple of apples I’d lifted from Ms. Sixkiller’s fridge when I went back for the key, I tied inside my jacket. It all made me bulge like a klepto on a spree. I kept the flashlight from the storage locker in my hand; we were gonna need it pretty soon. Then I helped John get out onto the float. Even with me to hang on to, his legs were so wobbly I was afraid he’d fall down. He said, “Let me rest a minute,” and leaned against one of the pilings and sucked in a bunch of deep breaths, holding the blankets closed around him. We must’ve been some sight, me all bulgy and him like a monk or something in those blankets.

  I said, “Think you can walk okay?”

  “How far?”

  “A ways. Maybe a couple of hundred yards?”

  “I’ll manage. We’ll just have to take it slow.”

  We took it slow, my arm around his waist and his arm across my shoulders. There wasn’t any ladder to climb; the float was hooked to a railed ramp and the ramp took us onto an overgrown path. When we got up there we stopped again to rest.

  Real quiet here; the only sound was the wind swishing in the trees. Spooky place at night, but during the day it wasn’t anything but a bunch of old redwood log buildings and what was left of a terrace and a couple of weedy tennis courts. The open-sided pavilion was in the worst shape; its lakeside wall had cracks in it and pieces of concrete missing where the cracks were widest, and the roof sagged on one side like it was getting ready to collapse. The six boarded-up cabins, three on each side of the inlet, see
med to be sinking into the ground on account of all the weeds and tall grass and oleander shrubs that had grown up around them. The main lodge, two stories high, crowded by oaks on both sides, was in the best shape. At least it looked pretty solid from back here, even with all its windows and doors covered with shutters and sections of plywood. The terrace made you think of some kind of jungle ruins, with all the stuff growing up through the flagstones and hunks of the plaster statues that’d toppled over and big pieces of concrete busted off what’d once been a fancy waist-high wall.

  John asked, “What is this place?”

  “Nucooee Point Lodge. Nucooee’s an Indian word for some kind of fish. Shiner fish, I think.”

  “Indian land?”

  “Well, it was once, a long time ago.” We were walking again, following what was left of the path leading to the terrace. “The lodge was built sixty or seventy years ago. Rich people’s resort, you know?”

  “Abandoned how long?”

  “A year or so. Shut down for a long time in the eighties, then somebody bought it about five years ago and reopened it, but they couldn’t get enough business. It’s up for sale again. My daddy says if it sells, it’ll just be for the land.”

  “Caretaker?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Special patrols of any kind?”

  “No. You don’t have to worry, John. Nobody’ll find you here.”

  “We going to the main lodge?”

  “Yeah. There’s a way inside.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Been in there. Couple of times last summer, a bunch of us came over and snuck in and partied. And again on Halloween.”

  “Some place for a party.”

  “Pretty cool, actually. Except for the bats.” I shuddered, remembering how one of the things had brushed past my face the first night. It made a sound like a leather belt being snapped close to your ear. Ugh. “Bats don’t bother you, do they? Or rats or spiders?”

  “Better company than most people. You don’t bother them, they don’t bother you.”

  We rested again at the crumbling terrace wall, then picked our way across to the south corner of the lodge. I kept glancing back at the lake, just to make sure no other boats came along. It looked wide and wind-blown from here; the homes and town buildings along the west shore were like miniatures about two inches high. I tried not to think about the long trip back across, alone, in Ms. Sixkiller’s boat. Or of anything else that might happen later on. The major thing was getting John inside where it was safe.

  The way in was on the south side—a service door that opened into a storeroom off the kitchen. The door was covered with plywood, but the first night, Anthony and Mateo had pried it off with a crowbar and then busted the door lock; afterward they’d put the plywood back up with the nails in their original holes, so unless you got up close and started messing around, you couldn’t tell the section was loose.

  I showed John, and together we stripped off the plywood. “I’ll put it back up when I leave,” I said, and he nodded and we went inside.

  Dark, musty, and dusty. Muggy hot in the summer, cold on Halloween night and almost as chilly now. I switched on the flashlight. Empty shelves and cobwebs jumped out and jumped back as I swung the beam around and we moved ahead into the kitchen. There wasn’t much left in there, just a couple of long metal tables and some old sinks and exposed piping. The door to the walk-in freezer was half open. Selena’s boyfriend, Petey Dexter, had locked her in there for about ten minutes on Halloween and she’d been so pissed when he let her out she’d tried to kick him in the balls. We all thought it was pretty funny at the time. Somehow it didn’t seem so funny now.

  Across the kitchen was an archway that led into the dining room: more cobwebs and a bunch of stacked-up folding chairs. We’d taken some of the chairs into the big, wide lobby and arranged them in front of a fieldstone fireplace that must’ve been six feet across. The rest of the lobby was a mess. It was gloomy in there, but threads of daylight came through cracks in the plywood covering the tall front windows and let you see enough so you could move around without tripping over things. Candle stubs and beer cans and cigarette butts and bags from Mickey D’s and other crap that we should’ve taken with us was thrown around on the moldy carpet. Rats and mice had been at the bags; they were all torn up. They’d been at the two old leather couches that’d been left behind, too, pulling out stuffing to make nests with or something. The front desk and the cubbyhole thing for mail and keys that’d been behind it were just a lot of splintered boards; Mateo, wasted on crank and Green Death, had broken them up with the crowbar the first night. Made so much noise we were all afraid somebody driving by on the highway would hear. Anthony and Mateo—the Loser Brothers.

  John was wobbly again after the long walk, sweating and breathing hard. He nearly collapsed onto one of the couches, dust puffing up around him like smoke in the flash beam. Some little pelletlike things that were probably turds bounced off onto the floor. I said, “Might be mice nesting inside there,” but he didn’t seem to care. He laid his head back and sat there with the blankets all tangled around him.

  “You okay, John?”

  “Weak. Wound’s bleeding again.”

  “Want some more of the peroxide?”

  “Yeah.”

  He untangled himself, and I held the light so he could see to work off the bandages. Blood gleamed on them and on the wounds. He poured peroxide on and it frothed and hissed the way it had on the boat, only it didn’t seem to hurt him so much this time. He taped on more of the gauze pads, and when he was done his face was white and dripping sweat.

  “All you’ve done for me, Trisha,” he said then, “I hate to ask for more. But it’s either that or my chances aren’t much better than they were before you found me.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Peroxide and plain pads won’t be enough to keep the wounds from infecting. I’ll need other stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Not sure. I’ve never been shot before.”

  “I’ll get whatever you need. Maybe I can look it up in a book or something …”

  “Might be a better way.”

  “Like what?”

  “One that gets you out of it and puts somebody else at risk. I hate the idea, but I’d also hate sitting here and rotting.”

  “What’re you talking about, John? What somebody else?”

  “You know the blond waitress works nights at the Northlake Cafe? Lori?”

  “Lori Banner? Sure, I know her. But—”

  “She had some nurse’s training. She’d know what you need to treat gunshot wounds and where to get it.”

  “What makes you think she’d help?”

  “Just a feeling. If there’s anybody else in Pomo besides you who thinks I’m innocent, it’s Lori.”

  “You want me to talk to her?”

  “If you’re willing to take the chance.”

  “Like, just come right out and tell her you’re alive and wounded and where you are?”

  “No. Go slow, feel her out … no details until you’re sure you can trust her. And don’t say anything about helping me get over here. You happened to be snooping around and you found me by accident.”

  “Okay. If it’s what you want.”

  “It’s not what I want. It’s what I’ve got to have to survive.”

  “More food, too, right? And some clothes?”

  “Right. Lori can bring them if she agrees to come.”

  “Don’t you want me to come back?”

  “No. Not unless Lori refuses.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know why not.”

  “Don’t keep telling me how much trouble I can get into, all right? I’m already in trouble, man. Seventeen and knocked up, remember?”

  Even in the poor light I could see he really hated all this, really did care about me not getting in trouble on account of him. It made me even more sure I was doing the right thing. Not many people c
ared what happened to me. Not Anthony, for instance. A stranger like John was a better friend than my own freaking boyfriend.

  I gave him back his wallet. The flashlight, too; I didn’t need it and he might. “You just rest easy, John,” I said then. “Everything’s gonna be okay. No kidding. It’s gonna be okay.”

  He didn’t say anything. He sat there staring at nothing, staring at shadows, while I made my way out.

  Harry Richmond

  ONE GOOD THING about Storm Carey getting herself killed—it’s been a boon to business. I didn’t even mind losing most of a night’s sleep, what with cops and reporters and rubberneckers showing up in a steady stream until well past two A.M. and that TV helicopter making an ungodly racket and the police search teams with their bright lights along the northwest shore and in the sloughs above the Carey place. Why, I felt like a celebrity there for a while. First time in my life, and I don’t mind saying I liked it just fine.

  Novak and Sheriff Thayer came out first, asked questions, and then hunted through what Faith left behind in cabin six. I could’ve told them before I let them in with my passkey that they wouldn’t find a thing, but of course I didn’t. Nobody’s business but mine that I’d been in there hunting myself on Friday, after Novak left. Pathetic, what that mean, snotty bastard carried in his only suitcase. Puzzling and annoying, too. Couple of shirts, one pair of slacks, one pair of jeans, some underwear and socks. Nothing else except for a tangle of dirty laundry. No personal items. No valuables. Yet he’d had that big wad of money in his wallet. What’d he spend it on, if not clothes or men’s jewelry or electronic gadgets or a decent car? That’s what I’d like to know.

  It’s what I asked the reporters that followed Novak and Thayer out, too. Asked the question on camera, in an interview with a Santa Rosa TV newswoman. Also told all about how Storm Carey came out yesterday afternoon and visited Faith in cabin six, and what a hot number she was and what a cold one he’d been. I came off pretty good—and that’s not just me blowing my horn, it’s what the newswoman told me afterward. Interview’s supposed to be on sometime today. I watched the early news, but it wasn’t on then. Noon, maybe. Or seven o’clock. They’d better use it sometime; it’s sure to mean even more business, people showing up to get a look at the cabin where Storm Carey’s murderer stayed and then likely staying on themselves, at least for one night.