Bill Pronzini - A Wasteland of Strangers

“Well?”

“Well what, for Chrissake?”

“You don’t listen to me anymore,” she said. “You act as if you’re alone half the time we’re in the same room.”

“Ramona, don’t start—”

“‘Ramona, don’t start.’” Like a goddamn parrot. Hair all frizzy after her shower, nose like a beak jutting at me, mouth flapping open and shut, open and shut. And that dressing gown of hers, green and red, white feathery wisps at the neck and on the sleeves. Wings, feathers, bright little bird eyes... a scrawny, scruffy, middle-aged, chattering parrot. What did I ever see in her?

“What did I ever see in you?” I muttered aloud.

“What? What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Sip of coffee. Bite of toast. Glance at my watch even though I know what time it is. “I’d better get to the bank.”

“It’s only eight-twenty,” Ramona said. “I want an answer first.”

“Answer to what?”

“God, you can be an exasperating man. Where you were until after two o’clock in the morning. On a weeknight.”

The squawking and screeching echoed inside my head, making it ache. My eyeballs actually hurt from the pressure.

“George. Where were you?”

“At the Elks Lodge, playing cards.”

“Until two A.M.?”

“Yes, until two A.M. Pinochle. I lost nine dollars and had four drinks and then I drove home. Does that satisfy you? Or do you want to know who else was in the game and who won and how much and how many drinks each of them had?”

“You don’t have to yell—”

“And you don’t have to interrogate me as if I were a fucking criminal.”

Her mouth pinched until it wasn’t a mouth any longer, just a bunch of hard ridges and vertical creases. Kissing that mouth was like kissing two strips of granite. Was it ever soft, even on our honeymoon? I couldn’t remember her lips ever being soft.

“At the breakfast table, George?” Hard and tight like her mouth. “That kind of language at eight-twenty in the morning?”

For a few seconds I lost it. Couldn’t stop myself from saying, “That’s right, you don’t like fucking, do you? In any way, shape, or form, verbal or physical.”

She reacted as though I’d slapped her. Good! Up on my feet, in such a spasm I jostled the table and spilled the coffee, to hell with the coffee and her, too.

“How can you say things like that to me? I won’t stand for it, I won’t be abused. You’ll be sorry if you think—”

I went out and slammed the door on the rest of the squawking and screeching.

In the Buick I lit a cigarette. I don’t smoke much anymore, but I needed something to try to calm down. My head... how was I going to get through the day? And the weekend coming up? And next week, and the week after, and the week after that?

Ramona, Storm, Harvey Patterson, that stranger yesterday... them and the rest in this town, all the people with their small minds and small ways. And me stuck here in a dead-end job and a lousy marriage, wanting a woman I couldn’t have, a hundred other things I couldn’t have. Facing a future that could be even worse, a genuine hell on earth. It could happen.

If that stranger robbed the bank, it would happen.

I told myself for the twentieth time it was a damn-fool notion. The stranger didn’t have to be what he looked like; he was probably gone by now and I’d never see him again. But I kept right on imagining the worst.

I couldn’t stop him if he walked in and showed a gun. I’m not brave, I don’t own a gun myself or even know how to fire one. Fred and Arlene would do what they were told and so would I. We’d hand over the money in the cash drawers, the money in the vault, and chances were he’d get away with it.

And then there’d have to be an accounting.

Bank examiners, within hours.

It wouldn’t take them long to find the shortage. A day, two at the most.

Covered it as best I could, but no one can doctor bank records cleverly enough to fool an examiner. It was just a little more than seven thousand dollars, only I didn’t have the cash to replace it and no certain way of getting that much on short notice. The house was mortgaged to the hilt, the Indian Head Bay property Ramona had inherited wasn’t worth enough to support a loan, Burt Seeley poor-mouthing when he turned me down, Storm laughing in my face, and there was nobody else except maybe Charley Horne. Yearly audit was still three months away; the Indian Head Bay property had to have sold by then, priced rock-bottom the way it was. It had to. But I couldn’t cover the shortage now without going begging to Charley Horne, and he doesn’t like me any more than I like him after that zoning flap four years ago when he tried to expand his Ford dealership. He might loan me the money at an exorbitant rate, but more likely he’d tell me to go to hell. I’ve been afraid to find out because he’s my absolute last resort. If he turned me down—

Prison.

I’d go to prison for borrowing a measly seven thousand, for believing in that son of a bitch Harvey Patterson and his big talk about a sure-thing real-estate killing.

I couldn’t stand being locked up. The idea of spending years in the company of brutal men like that stranger terrifies me so much I can’t think about it without starting to shake and sweat.

Options? Sorry, Petrie, you’re fresh out. All you can do is wait and pray the hold-up notion really is a crazy fantasy and the economy picks up and somebody buys the Indian Head Bay property and you don’t get caught.

Except that I was already caught. That was what was tearing me up inside, making me wriggle and jump and lose my temper and think wild thoughts. More than one kind of prison for a man to be locked up in. Even if I managed to cover the shortage without being found out — caught, trapped, locked up in Pomo until the day I died.

Maria Lorenzo couldn’t get it through her thick Indian head that I didn’t want her to do any maid service in cabin six. She kept saying, “But if he stays another night he’ll need clean towels. And the bed — who will make up the bed?”

“He can make up his own bed,” I said.

“No clean towels?”

“I told you, no. Don’t even go near it.”

“How come you don’t want to give this man service?”

“That’s my business. You mind your own.”

“Okay, you’re the boss.” But it still bothered her; she kept frowning and shaking her head. “You want me to clean the office and your rooms?”

“It’s your day, isn’t it?”

“Change the sheets, put out fresh towels?”

Indians! Skulls thick as granite. “Everything, Maria, same as you always do on Fridays.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Well? What about it?”

“Should I come and clean six then?”

“If Faith checks out. I’ll let you know.”

“But not if he stays? Still no service?”

“That’s right. Nothing. Nada .”

She shook her head again, muttered something in Pomo, and went around the counter into my living quarters. Stupid cow. But she had a nice ass, round and plump. Like Dottie’s when we were first married, before she got hog-fat after Ella was born. I couldn’t get near Dottie the last few years. All that lard... it made me want to puke when I saw her naked. Her own damn fault when she dropped dead of a heart attack. Two hundred and eighty-seven pounds...

I shut Dottie out of my mind and watched Maria wiggle around, bend over to straighten the papers and magazines on the coffee table. Dried my throat to see that ass of hers stuck up in the air, all round and inviting. She was in her late thirties and starting to wrinkle and lose her shape like a lot of Indian women at that age, but she was still attractive enough and her ass was just right. I craved a piece of that every time I saw her. But she wouldn’t have any of me. Some other white man, maybe, but not Harry Richmond. One time I made a pass she shot me down cold. Didn’t get offended or angry, just gave me a reproachful look and said, “I have a husband and three children, Mr. Richmond, and I believe with all my heart in the teachings of our savior, Jesus Christ.” Sure. But what if I’d been thirty instead of fifty and had all my hair and a flat belly? Bet she’d have sung a different tune then. Most Indian women are sluts, and the pious ones are the worst.