Nothing but the Night

by Bill Pronzini

  Theodore being gone made things easier. No music blaring out of his room, Caitlin relaxed and drinking enough to loosen her tongue. But he wondered if she’d arranged it. Twice she’d tried to get him to sleep with her, came right out and asked him the second time. That was when he’d told her about Annalisa. Only way to keep her from pushing him for sex, he’d figured, and still be able to hang in there with her. Worked so far. Sympathetic, said she understood—mother in her coming out for him if not for Theodore. And tonight she was finally opening up about Gallagher. Do what he had to to keep her on that track, off the other.

  He asked the question again. Why’d Gallagher say he wasn’t a witness if he was?

  She lit a cigarette. Nick didn’t like that habit in a woman, smell of tobacco on her breath, secondhand smoke biting in his lungs, but he hadn’t said anything to her about it. Wouldn’t. Wasn’t his place. She wanted to give herself cancer, that was her choice.

  “He’s a coward,” she said.

  “You mean that? A coward?”

  She meant it, all right. Sticking in her craw and needing to be spit out. Once she got the piece of it loose, rest of it came in a glob. Everything he wanted to know about Gallagher and the shootings.

  Police’d found him hiding in the attic, she said, lying on a mattress in his own urine, half out of his head. Screamed and bawled like a baby—she’d found that out years later, wormed it out of the aunt who’d raised them. Gallagher hadn’t called the cops, guy who’d been sleeping with the mother went back and saw the bodies through a window and made the report. All Gallagher’d done was run and hide in the attic and piss all over himself.

  But that wasn’t all. “Hadn’t been for my big, brave brother,” Caitlin said, “that whole goddamn bloody night might never’ve happened.”

  What she meant by that, Gallagher’d told his old man about the mother’s affair. Caitlin said if he’d kept his mouth shut, the father might not’ve gone up to the river house with a gun, and her parents’d still be alive today. Nick said maybe it would’ve happened anyway, sooner or later—mother’d had a lot of affairs, right?

  “So she slept around, so what?” Caitlin said. “He could’ve divorced her. Sex isn’t any reason to kill somebody, is it? Infidelity?”

  “No, neither one.”

  Finished her wine. “I need a refill. You ready for another beer?”

  “Not right now.”

  She went into the kitchen, came back with her glass poured to the top. “Drinking too much myself,” she said. “Alcoholism runs in the family.”

  Nick asked, did she think Gallagher’d wanted their mother to get killed? She said she didn’t know. Question wasn’t new to her; heard it before, inside her head if nowhere else. Maybe he hadn’t wanted her dead, exactly, she said, but he’d wanted her punished some way. And he hadn’t wanted the father to kill himself because Gallagher’d loved him—it was only the mother he’d hated. Other way around for Caitlin. Loved the mother, still did. Felt sorry for her, too. Trapped in a loveless marriage, father was as gutless as the son. Cat didn’t blame her for getting what she needed someplace else, she blamed the old man for driving her to it. Nick didn’t buy that. Women cheating were no better than men cheating, no matter what the reason. But he didn’t say so.

  He asked, how come she and Gallagher still owned the river house, after what’d happened there? Question he’d asked her before. Hadn’t got a straight answer then, but he got one tonight, her words a little slurred from all the wine. Gallagher had his way, she said, house’d’ve been sold a long time ago. She was the one keeping it in the family, all she had left of her mother and her childhood. Couldn’t bring herself to live there, she said, but at least she wasn’t afraid to go inside. Gallagher was. Hadn’t set foot in the house in twenty-five years, hadn’t even been on the property so far as she knew. Probably go to pieces if he did set foot inside, she said, curl up in a little ball and pee all over himself again.

  Nick left her alone after that. Wasn’t anything more he needed to know. Both of them sat quiet for so long, he jumped when she leaned over and put her hand on his knee.

  “I’m a little drunk,” she said.

  “You’re entitled.”

  “Little drunk, and I want to lie down. Nick?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How about… I’d really like …”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Stay with me tonight. Okay?”

  Still didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t want to be alone,” she said.

  “Cat, I told you—”

  “I know. Poor wife. Understand, really do, but I’m not talking about sex.”

  “No?”

  “No. Might not believe this, but sex isn’t that important to me. Don’t even like it much. Just that sometimes … some nights I need to be close to somebody. Need to be held. You know?”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Don’t have to get undressed or go in the bedroom. Stay right here on the couch, in front of the fire. Hold each other, that’s all.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Nick? Don’t you need to be held? Sometimes? Your wife like she is, so far away?”

  Hurt in him began to well up again. “Sometimes.”

  “Tonight? Just tonight, for both of us?”

  He sat rigid. She didn’t touch him, didn’t keep talking, but it wouldn’t’ve mattered if she had. Brain had stopped working, everything was feeling now. So much feeling he turned to her, looked at her—pleading in her face, firelight moving on it, softening it, making her almost pretty—and he couldn’t help himself, he put his arms around her and she came in close and before long they were lying stretched out and he was holding her thin body against the length of his. Couple of minutes like that, good like that, and he felt her shoulders start to shake, wetness on his shirt and skin. She was crying. Holding on to him tight and crying with no sound into his chest.

  Nick shut his eyes. And as soon as he did Annalisa was there, smiling, the firelight flickering on her face and making her even more beautiful. Then he was holding her just as tight as she was holding him, telling her, “Shh, baby, it’s all right, it’s going to be all right,” and brushing and kissing away her tears.

  “I love you, Annalisa,” he said, and she stiffened and then slowly relaxed again, clinging to him. After a while she stopped crying, and when she went to sleep he drifted off himself, keeping Annalisa warm and safe in his arms.

  40

  The rains started the second week in December. One heavy two-day storm that dumped more than an inch on Los Alegres and the Paloma Valley, a succession of gloomy, drizzly days afterward. Here comes El Niño. The weather people were saying it, so everybody else was saying it too. Get the sandbags ready, folks, it’s going to be another long, wet, floody, muddy winter.

  The migraines started again that same week. The first one came on Sunday, while Cam was playing an interactive video game with Leah and Shannon. Relatively mild; he took the medication the neuresthenic specialist had prescribed, lay down for an hour in the darkened bedroom with cold compresses over his eyes, and he was all right again. The second attack, on Friday morning, was more severe. He was at PWS, in the warehouse chewing out his foreman, Dave Tabor, over a mishandled shipment of Taliaferro varietals, when the symptoms all seemed to hit him at once. Violent stabbing pain behind his eyes, acute nausea, dizziness, confusion, the sudden descent into black nontime. His next awareness was of lying on the couch in his office, Maureen there and fussing over him. The medication helped, but the pain lingered with enough intensity to keep him down. He finally had to ask Maureen to drive him home in the BMW, one of the other other employees to follow and bring her back.

  Hallie made him promise to see the specialist on Monday, and he went and had the usual checkup and listened to the usual lecture about lifestyle changes and relaxation techniques and drastically reducing or eliminating his intake of alcohol, and left with a prescription for some new drug that
had proven effective in helping other migraine sufferers. What he really needed was a new head. The one he had now was Abbie Normal, like the monster’s brain in Young Frankenstein.

  Gray days, gray thoughts, restless black nights. Not even the pleasant activities of the Christmas season—present buying, tree selection, tree trimming—cheered him as much as they had in the past. He had no more contact with Caitlin, so he didn’t know if she was still seeing Hendryx, but the rental agreement showed up in the mail from River-bank Realty with Cat’s signature already on it. The agreement was written month-to-month; normally that kind of arrangement went against his better judgment, but not in this case. Having Nick Hendryx for a tenant for a minimum of thirty days was bad enough. Anything longer, guaranteed, would have been that much harder to take.

  His temper shortened, and his depression grew. One evening after supper he snapped at Leah for putting the TV volume up too loud. Shannon jumped to her sister’s defense, and he growled at her too, and then at Hallie when she tried to play peacemaker. The bickering that followed scraped his nerves raw. It was either get out of there for a while, or he’d end up drinking too much and making the situation worse. He had the good sense to go for his car keys instead of the gin.

  He didn’t drive far, just down to McLear Park half a mile from the house. It was a large park, a city block wide and three city blocks long. Old shade trees, sprawling lawns where he and the family still picnicked now and then, horseshoe and tennis courts, a softball field, a children’s playground. And a baseball diamond where semipro teams sometimes played, where he’d played Little League for two years—second base, good field but a poor hitter. He sat in the car for a time, until there was a break in the light rain. Then he went walking, following the park’s network of muddy paths.

  It was the right place for him tonight. Nobody around, house lights and traffic sounds at a distance, the cold air both bracing and soothing. He walked for a long time, back and forth through the grounds, completely around the park twice. The tension in him gradually eased, and by the time he stopped to rest behind one of the dugouts, his depression seemed to have eased, too.

  He stood with fingers hooked through the wire mesh screen, looking at the eroded pitcher’s mound and the rain-puddled infield and sweeps of outfield grass. After a time he could almost hear the crack of ball against bat, the cries of players and the cheers of spectators, the smack of a line drive hitting his glove. Echoes from far away and long ago. Long, long ago.

  Longer than January 4, 1974.

  In one sense, he hadn’t come far since that terrible night. In another, he’d come a long way. Damaged, yes, problems, yes, but he was still in the game, still in there swinging. And he had so much to be grateful for—Hallie, his daughters, PWS, a combination hobby and escape valve like the Skagit cruiser. So much to live for.

  Rose and the old man hadn’t destroyed him. Neither had Jenna. And so far he hadn’t destroyed himself.

  Death wish? No, by God. No.

  I can beat this, he thought. Hang in, go on, and beat this. And I will.

  I will.

  41

  Nick took possession of the river house on the fifteenth, as scheduled. Checked out of South City Apartments that morning, so all he had to do after work was drive to Guerneville and pick up the key from the realty guy. He’d already paid the first month’s rent with a money order. Only month’s rent—he wouldn’t even be there that long.

  He stopped at a Safeway and bought coffee, a jumbo package of M&Ms, and a few other things, then drove out to Crackerbox Road. Raining again tonight, and in the wet dark the house had a wasted look. Big, hulking thing, hunched and ugly, like a huge shadow caught among the dripping trees. Annalisa wouldn’t have liked it at all. Bright new houses with big yards and plenty of flowers, that was what she liked. Carnations and roses. Her favorites. Pink, white, red, yellow. He’d bought her carnations, bouquets of them, every chance he had. Single roses, too, long-stemmed, on special occasions. Made her eyes shine every time, that smile of hers light up. Marigolds were another flower she liked—bright and sunny like herself. Planter box full of them in the kitchen window of their apartment. He’d tell her, “You’ll have a whole acre of carnations and roses and marigolds someday.” Meant it, every word. Someday, when she was well again, he’d give her everything she ever wanted.

  He got out in the rain to open the driveway gate, drove through and into the open garage. Chinks, ball-size holes, in the roof and walls, so there wasn’t an inch of dry in there. He was dripping like the trees by the time he made it into the house with his battered suitcase and the bag of groceries.

  House had been closed up so long it had a dank, musty smell. Dry rot—floors were spongy with it. Cold, too, and damp from the rain. Caitlin’d showed him where the thermostat was; he turned it up past seventy. First blasts of air out of the wall registers stank of moldy dust. But the furnace was in decent shape, even if the rest of the place wasn’t. Wouldn’t take long for it to warm up the house’s old bones.

  Went for a walk-through, switching on lights and shutting them off again, to familiarize himself with the layout again. Downstairs—living room with a fireplace, kitchen, bathroom, small bedroom, screened rear porch with a washer and dryer and an old chest-type freezer. Back bedroom was where the shootings had happened. Nothing in there now except a rollaway bed, a dresser, and a couple of old chairs.

  Upstairs, two bedrooms and another that might’ve been a study once—had built-in bookcases on one wall. Nick put his suitcase in the front bedroom. He’d use that one because the windows had a view of the road out front. Bed in there was an iron-frame job, frame painted white and banged up, mattress and box springs lumpy, sagging. Mattress was made up with clean sheets and pillowcases, thermal blankets, an old comforter. Caitlin. She’d offered to drop off the bedding and some towels, spares from her linen closet, and she’d ended up making the bed for him. How’d she guess this was the room he’d pick to sleep in?

  Locked door in the upstairs hall, between the bathroom and the rear bedroom. Way up to the attic. Two keys on the ring from the Realtor; second one fit the lock. Inside was a narrow staircase, thick smells of dust and mildew. A pull string dangled down from a light fixture screwed into the wall, but nothing happened when he yanked on it. Bulb must be burned out. Meant none of the tenants before him used the attic much, if at all.

  He went down and outside, fetched his utility lantern from the Mazda’s trunk. Beam showed him layers of crap on the risers as he climbed into the attic, more of the same up above. Low, tight space, roofline slanting down sharp on both ends. Only place you could stand up straight was in the middle, and even there the rafters were only a couple of inches above the top of his head. He pulled another light string—another dead bulb. Then he stood shining the lantern beam around.

  Wasn’t much to see. Spiderwebs. Small, dirty windows in the dormers at either end, front one with a crack in it. Few scraps of rickety furniture, one of those old steamer trunks with a caved-in side, pile of magazines in a corner that’d been torn into shreds and used for nests by rodents or something.

  He stayed put for a minute or two, listening to the rain on the roof, a dripping somewhere inside one wall. Feeling a little of what Gallagher must’ve felt the night his folks died. Something skittered behind him, but when he swung the light that way he didn’t see anything. Rats? He didn’t like rats, they were the one fear he and Annalisa had in common. But it didn’t sound like rats. Nothing for the buggers to eat here, and they wouldn’t nest in a place that didn’t have a food supply close by. Mice, or maybe a squirrel. He could live with either of them.

  Went back down, shut the attic door but left it unlocked. Pad of writing paper and a pen in his suitcase; he got them out, took them down to the kitchen. Put some water on for coffee, made himself a peanut butter sandwich. Then he sat at the Formica-topped table to write Annalisa a letter and make up a list of the things he was going to need.

  42

  He s
houldn’t have gone alone to Fenwood Creek’s annual party the Friday before Christmas. He’d asked Hallie to go with him, but there was a benefit at the senior center that same night, and she couldn’t, wouldn’t cancel out of it. He couldn’t, wouldn’t snub the Fenwood people by not showing up for the party, so he rationalized his way into driving up there by himself. He’d only stay for a few minutes, have one glass of wine, limit his schmoozing to Bryan Collins, Fenwood’s owner, and Dennis Frane, their sales head. Say hello to Jenna, be polite, then walk away as quickly as he could.

  All well and good, but it was still a mistake. He knew it for certain as soon as he walked into the festively decorated tasting room and the first person he saw among the crush of bodies was Jenna.

  She was talking to somebody and didn’t see him, so he was able to maneuver around on her blind side and across to the long serving counter. Jumpiness in him, nerves suddenly drawn tight. Why? He was over his yen for her, he really was. It was just that—

  Just that I need a drink, he thought.

  What they were pouring tonight was among their cellar best. The ’95 Carneros chardonnay (medium dry, butterscotch and toasty oak accents, ripe fruit underneath, short finish). The ’93 petite sirah (full-bodied, warm smoky nose, hint of cloves and raspberries, balanced tannins). And the ’92 private reserve cabernet, their second-finest red this decade, the ’91 private reserve cab already long bought up and laid down by connoisseurs (rich texture, black cherries and pepper, crisp acidity, long, fruity finish). Fine, dandy, but he wanted a drink. A Bombay martini, cold and crisp, rich flavor of juniper berries, whisper of vermouth, hint of lemon peel, long, warm finish.

  The servers, two men and two women, were all wearing Santa Claus hats and red and green jackets. Cute. One of the women came over to him, the white pompon on the droopy end of her hat bouncing. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Gallagher. What can I get for you?” He knew her but he couldn’t remember her name. He mumbled a “Merry Christmas” and asked for a glass of the private reserve cab.