Bill Pronzini - A Wasteland of Strangers

The idea is absolutely terrifying. But it also excites me. Dangerous... yet not any more so than taking the seven thousand. And not any more frightening than the prison sentence I’m already facing. It’s my one and only chance at escape, freedom, the brass ring. No more Ramona, no more Pomo, no more worries. And $200,000 in tax-free, spendable cash!

But if I did dare to take it, where would I go? You can travel anywhere in the world on that much money, to someplace that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S. All you need is a passport. And I don’t have one. Forever dreaming of far-off, exotic places, but I’d never been to any of them, couldn’t afford it on my salary. I’ve never been anywhere. Forty-seven years old, lived my entire life in this town, never been any farther from it than Las Vegas.

I can’t take the chance on waiting anywhere near the three or four weeks it takes for a passport application to be processed. And even if I could, even if I was able to leave the country myself, how would I get the money out? Airport security at both ends, no matter what the destination; carry-on and checked baggage inspection on international flights because of the terrorism threat. And I couldn’t risk entrusting that much cash to the mails or one of the air-freight companies. If I had enough time I could convert it to bearer bonds or arrange for a wire transfer... Christ, what’s the use in thinking about what can’t be done? If I’m going to take the money, it has to be right away, before something happens or I lose what little nerve I have. Tonight, Friday night. Before I close the vault and set the time lock for nine-thirty Monday morning. Give me two and a half days to get far away from Pomo—

To where, damnit? Where can I go in this country that the FBI wouldn’t be able to track me down, sooner or later?

Forget it. Demented idea. You’d never get away with it.

Maybe I could. If I were very careful about where I went, how and when and where I spent the money... maybe I could beat the odds.

I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Prison is death, but so is Pomo, and all that cash is life. My last chance to live, really live. It was almost as if I were entitled to the money, as if it were mine already by right of custodianship. Mine, nobody else’s.

I wanted that $200,000 so badly, the hunger for it gave me an erection. Sitting there at my desk with a hard-on, wondering if I really did have the balls that went with it...

The background check on John Faith didn’t satisfy me any more than my talk with him at the cemetery had. On the one hand, there were enough facts to provide a clearer picture of him. On the other hand, the details were sketchy and superficial and open to all sorts of interpretation.

Faith was his real name — John Charles Faith. Born in Indianapolis thirty-eight years ago, orphaned at an early age, no family other than his deceased parents. Grew up in a series of foster homes, ran away from the last one at age sixteen. Married once, for six months, a dozen years ago in Dallas; no children. No military service. Spotty employment record, mostly construction work, in a dozen midwestern, southwestern, and western states; the longest he’d held any job was sixteen months. No credit history: He’d never applied for credit cards or a home or automobile loan. Arrested seven times in seven different cities and towns for brawling, public drunkenness, public nuisance, the last more than five years ago; two convictions, thirty days’ sentence on each. Arrested once in Mesa, Arizona, on a charge of aggravated assault that was later dropped. No known criminal activities, associates, or links. No outstanding warrants of any kind.

Some citizens — Zenna Wilson, for instance — would look at that background and find plenty of fuel for ominous speculation. I looked at it and saw little to indicate he was much of a threat to the community at large. Unless he’d come here for a specific purpose, some sort of strong-arm action, maybe... but that was city stuff, L.A. stuff. What was there in Pomo to attract a ham-fisted urban tough? Who was there in Pomo to attract one? Then there was the fact that he was smarter than your average street thug. No formal education, streetwise enough, but there was a sharp intelligence behind that scarred face and bitter smile. Cunning, too? Some kind of wise-guy agenda?

Looking for peace and quiet, he’d said. He hadn’t had much of that the past two days, yet he was still here and planning to stay another night. Why?

What did he really want in or from Pomo?

Harry Richmond telephoned, finally, at two-fifteen. “He just pulled in, Mrs. Carey.”

“I’ll be right over.”

“You want me to tell him you’re on the way?”

“No. Not unless he tries to leave again before I arrive.”

“Anything you say, Mrs. Carey.”

Anything for twenty dollars; that was what I’d paid him earlier to keep an eye out and make the call. I hung up without saying good-bye and hurried out to the BMW.

The distance from my house across the Northlake Cutoff to Harry Richmond’s resort is a little better than five miles; I drove too fast and was there in under ten minutes. Richmond was on the office stoop, waiting. He came down the steps to meet me as I stepped out of the car.

“Still here,” he said.

“Which cabin?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Leer on his fat lips and his eyes fondling my breasts. His tongue appeared like a pink slug wiggling out of a hole, flicking from side to side as if he were imagining my nipples and how they would taste. Imagine was all he would ever do. A sleazeball, Mr. Richmond. Soft-bellied, dirty-minded, and money-grubbing. The Hunger wanted nothing to do with men like him, thank God.

“I asked you which cabin, please.”

“Six. His car’s parked in front. Have fun, now.”

I took my eyes off him. The only way to deal with the Harry Richmonds of the world is to deny their existence whenever possible — and let them know you’re doing it. I detoured around him and along the side of the office building into the central courtyard. I could feel him watching me, the crawl of his gaze on my buttocks; the Hunger and I pretended his eyes were hands and that the hands belonged to John Faith.

Faith’s mode of transportation suited him perfectly: battered and scarred, powerful, a ride that would be fast and exciting and not a little dangerous. The comparison put a smile on my face as I stepped onto the tiny porch. But I wiped it off before I knocked; I wanted him to see a different Storm Carey this afternoon, serious and sober and just a touch contrite.

He was surprised when he opened the door, but it lasted for only a second or two. Then his expression reshaped into a faint upturning of his lips, lopsided and sardonic. “Well, well,” he said. “Storm, isn’t it?”

He seemed even bigger in the daylight. Bigger and uglier, with those pale eyes and facial scars. His shirt was off; hair grew in thick tufts on his chest, black flecked with gray, and underneath it muscles and sinews rippled, flowed, like a deadly undertow beneath a calm surface. Frightening and compelling at the same time. Touch him and you might be hurt, but that only made you want to touch him more.

The mouth, the nibbling lips began to move again inside me. “Yes. Storm Carey.”

“What do you want, Mrs. Carey?”

“I told you last night, I’m not married.”

“So you did.”

“Do you mind if I come in?”

“Pretty small, these cabins. Not much inside except a bed, and I don’t feel much like lying down.”

“That isn’t why I’m here,” I said.

“No?”

“No. I came to apologize. I shouldn’t have come on to you the way I did. I’m not usually so brazen.”