Bill Pronzini: Shackles

3:25.

3:30.

Maybe he’s not coming, I thought-and that was when he finally showed up.

I saw his car before I heard it, because of the wind and the crows. Newish Chrysler, its brown and chrome surfaces dulled by a layering of dirt and mud. The windshield glass was streaked, too, but I could see through well enough to tell that the driver was the only apparent occupant. Somebody hunkered down in back? Not likely. Unless he was the paranoid type, Tucker wouldn’t have any cause for that much caution.

He parked twenty yards from the Toyota and a little to one side. But he didn’t get out right away: waiting for me to show myself first. I obliged him, straightening up behind the open door. When he followed suit I stepped around and shut the door and walked toward him, slowly. He edged forward to meet me. There was a kind of ritualism to it all, like a couple of street dogs working each other in an alley.

We stopped with a few feet separating us, about halfway between the two cars. He was four or five inches above six feet and big all over. “Arms like cement blocks,” Barnwell had said. Yeah. Popeye forearms, and biceps that bulged and rippled and stretched taut the sleeves of his blue T-shirt. The T-shirt and a pair of Levi’s and heavy workman’s boots were all he wore: Mr. Macho, Mr. Bad Ass. Maybe so, but his head under its covering of black slicked-back hair was undersized and his eyes, like chips of brown glass, betrayed its relative emptiness. Thinking would never be a hobby with him. Whenever he did have a thought, if he ever had one, it would soon curl up and die a solitary death, like a babe lost in a wasteland.

I said, “Frank Tucker?”

“Yeah. You Canino?”

“That’s right.”

“I hear you got a job for me.”

“Right. An easy one.”

“Kind I like best. What you want me to do?”

“Answer a question.”

“Huh?”

“Tell me where I can find Lawrence Jacobs.”

“Huh?”

I took the.22 out and pointed it at his sternum. “Pal of yours, the one who calls himself Lawrence Jacobs. Where can I find him?”

He stared at the gun for five seconds, not moving. It took him that long to shift gears, to come to terms with the sudden twist in the situation. Then he got mad. His muscles rippled, his hands closed into fists, his eyes got mean and his mouth got ugly, and he said, predictably, “What the fuck’s the idea?”

“Lawrence Jacobs. He’s the idea.”

“You’re talkin shit.”

“Lawrence Jacobs,” I said again. “He lived with you on K Street in Sacramento last November. Slender, brown hair, in his thirties. Called himself Lawrence Jacobs.”

“Brit? What you want with him?”

Brit. Another name I didn’t recognize. “Is that his first or his last name?”

“Huh?”

“Tell me his full name.”

“Blow it out your ass, cowboy.”

“Wrong answer. His full name and where I can find him-those are the right answers.”

“Blow it out your ass.”

“Tell me what I want to know or I’ll put a bullet in your knee. You’ve busted some kneecaps in your time, right? You know how much it hurts.”

“You’re crazy,” he said.

“Sure I am. Now make up your mind. Talk to me or spend the rest of your life on crutches.”

But I wasn’t scaring him; he was either too tough or too much of a Cro-Magnon to be scared. The only emotion in him was rage. His face was blood-dark and pinched up with it, the eyes hot and bright. “You ain’t gonna shoot me,” he said. “Not with that little popgun.”

I thumbed the.22’s hammer back. “Try me.”

And he did, by God. The stupid son of a bitch said, “I’ll make you eat that fuckin gun,” and charged me.

I would have shot him, I had every intention of putting a bullet in his leg, if not his kneecap, but I made the mistake of first taking a step backward and to one side to give myself more room. When I did that my foot slipped on the loose mix of sand and broken rock; my arm bumped out to the side and when I yanked it back and squeezed off at him, the round didn’t even come close. I had no time for a second shot. He was on me by then, bellowing something, swatting at my right arm, launching a blow with his other fist. That one scraped the side of my head but his other hand hammered into my wrist, broke my grip on the.22 and sent it skittering free. I reeled away from him, still trying to regain my balance. But he was fast on his feet and he caught up with me, swung again and hit me high on the left shoulder when I pulled my head back. The blow knocked me sprawling on hands and knees.

When I came up shaking my head he was right there, trying to stomp me with his goddamn boots. I lunged into him while he had one foot off the ground, staggered him away from me far enough so that I could get back on my feet. Through a haze of sweat I saw him grinning as he came back toward me, not in a rush but in slow gliding movements. He was in no hurry now. This was his kind of fight, this was what he was good at and what he liked to do. “I’m gonna tear your fuckin head off, old man,” he said and he meant it. He would kill me if I let him get enough of an advantage.

I took a quick look around for the gun; didn’t see it and forgot about it. Tucker was still advancing on me, almost within arm’s reach now. I backed off a couple of steps, to gain more room to maneuver, and that made him laugh; he thought I was afraid of him, starting to back down. So I retreated another step and put up a hand, as if to ward him off. He laughed again and then charged me as he had before.

It was just what I wanted him to do. Instead of backing off again I moved in on him, crouching, ducking under the first of his swings, and threw my shoulder into his upper body. Good solid contact, part of it on his chest and part of it on his jawline: He staggered backward four or five steps, to the edge of the sloping river bank. Before he could check his momentum his feet went out from under him and he fell belly-flat, went sliding feet first down the short muddy incline-almost into the river before he could drag himself to a stop.

He came up onto his knees, spitting mud and obscenities. But by then I was on my way to the fan of driftwood along the bank farther down. Tucker scrambled up through the mud, still bellowing; reached firm ground just as my hand closed around a three-foot chunk of tree branch with its bark peeling off. I yanked the wood free of the tangle, came around with it.

Tucker shook himself like a bear, spraying drops of water and flecks of mud, and rushed me again.

I stepped toward him, drawing the branch back over my right shoulder, sliding my hands up on the bottom end like a baseball player choking up on his bat. He thought I was going to swing it like a bat too, and threw his left arm up to protect his head, groping toward me with his right. That opened him up wide from chin to sternum. Instead of swinging the wood I met his charge with a lunge of my own and jabbed the short end hard against his collarbone, felt it glance upward and take him in the throat. I meant the blow to stop him and it did-did some damage to his windpipe and started him gagging-but it didn’t hurt him enough to end it. One of his flailing hands clawed at the shoulder of my jacket, found purchase and hung on and swung me around off balance. If he’d let go, momentum would have sent me spinning off my feet, probably caused me to lose the branch when I went down. But he didn’t let go. He hauled me in against him, still gagging, trying to hurt me the way I had hurt him. He swiped at my head with his free hand and hit me a solid lick over the left eye, cut me with a ring he had on one finger. The blow rocked me backward, but because he still had hold of my coat it didn’t put me down or off stride. And that worked in my favor: It gave me just enough space and just enough leverage to use the branch on him again.