Bill Pronzini - A Wasteland of Strangers

It didn’t take me long to run him down. I barreled up Main and out along the highway, no reason for going that way except I’d heard he was staying up at Lakeside Resort, and as I was passing the Northlake Cafe I spotted his car in the lot. Parked there big as life — you couldn’t mistake a low-slung job like that, in such a beat-up condition. I slammed on the brakes, skidded into the lot, and bulled inside the cafe.

I saw him right off. Sitting alone at the counter, hunched over a cup of coffee. Lori Banner was hovering around near him, saying something as I rushed up, but she quit talking and backed off a step when she saw my face. I’d heard Faith was a big mother, and he was. Hard-looking. But I didn’t care right then.

I caught his shoulder and pulled him around on the stool and got down in his face, so close I could’ve spit on the scar like a dead white worm across his chin. And I said, loud, “What’s the idea messing with my daughter?”

It got real quiet in there after that. That sudden quiet like when you mute the volume on the TV. Faith didn’t flinch or jerk away. He just scowled up at me. Man, he had eyes like the guy used to play for the Bears, Mike Singletary. Linebacker eyes.

We stayed like that, eye-wrestling, for maybe five seconds. Then he said, “Who the hell’re you ?”

“Brian Marx. I asked you a question, mister.”

“Marx. Right. Trisha’s father.”

“Yeah. What were you doing with her tonight?”

“Bringing her home. She needed a ride, and I gave her one.”

“Ride from where?”

“Across the lake. High ground over there.”

“The Bluffs? You and her... that’s a friggin’ lover’s lane! She’s a kid, for Chrissake!”

Everybody in the place was gawking at us. Muttering now, too. A guy behind me said something that sounded like, “Kent was right... worse than anybody figured.”

Lori said, “Don’t make trouble in here, Brian,” and I gave her a quick glance. She was one to talk about trouble. Her lower lip was puffed up; Earle had belted her again.

“She’s right,” Faith said. “Suppose we take this outside.”

Before I could say anything he shoved off the stool and brushed past me and walked out. Ignoring me and walking fast, so I had to trail after him like a goddamn dog. That was what made me lose it. I wanted to hit him, bad, and as soon as we were in the parking lot and he turned around, I went ahead and let him have it. Nailed him under the eye with my right and knocked him on his ass. Some of the others were out there, too, by then, and a guy I didn’t know said, “Yeah! Serves the bastard right.”

But Faith got up fast, and I set myself because I thought he was gonna bull-rush me. Wrong. All he did was flex his shoulders, then let his meat hooks hang down loose at his sides.

“I won’t fight you, Marx.”

“What’s the matter? Afraid of it?”

“There’s no reason to fight. The only thing I did was give your daughter a ride home.”

“Says you.”

“What does she say?”

“Never mind that. Answer what I asked you before. What were you doing with her on the Bluffs?”

“I wasn’t with her. She was there with her boyfriend.”

“Yeah? What were you there for?”

“No reason. Driving around, taking in the sights.”

The mouthy guy in the bunch said, “Horseshit. Out hunting young girls—”

Faith glared his way and he shut up. Then he said to me, “She had an argument with the boyfriend and went and hid in the woods. He drove off and left her.”

“And you found her, huh?”

“If you want to put it like that. I heard him yelling for her, saw her wandering around after he left. She was pretty shaken up. I talked to her, calmed her down, gave her a ride home. That’s all.”

“If that’s all, why’d you stop down the street from my house? Why’d she jump out of your car and run away? You try to put your hands on her?”

“No. Who told you she ran away? Not Trisha.”

“Don’t matter who told me.”

“It matters,” he said, “because it’s a lie. She didn’t run, she walked fast. And I stopped where I did because that’s where she told me to stop.”

“She locked herself in her room, she was crying...”

“I told you, she had a blowup with her boyfriend. Ask her, why don’t you? She’ll tell you the same thing.”

Some of the crazy anger was starting to seep out of me. He was an ugly bugger and I wanted to keep on hating his guts, but I couldn’t seem to do it. Didn’t sound like he was lying. That damn Zenna, twisting things, making them seem worse than they were... I should’ve known you can’t believe half of what she says. And Anthony Munoz, no-good, smart-ass spic... driving off and leaving her was just the kind of thing he’d do. How many times had I warned her about him, that he’d get her in hot water someday if she didn’t watch out?

Yeah, Faith was telling the truth. He wasn’t any coward either. He could’ve taken me apart anytime he wanted to. I knew it then and everybody else that’d come out of the cafe knew it, too. They all kept their distance, and not even the mouthy guy had anything more to say.

I wasn’t yelling anymore when I said, “All right, man. But Trisha better not tell me you did anything but what you said — talked to her and took her straight home. She better not tell me you put so much as a finger on her.”

“She won’t,” Faith said, “because I didn’t.”

“All right, then. All right.”

And that was the end of it. I didn’t say I was sorry for popping him, and he didn’t ask me to. We didn’t say anything more to each other. He went to where Lori was and took a couple of bills out of his wallet and handed them to her. “For the coffee,” he said. Then he said, “See? Not in this lifetime,” and he walked away to his Porsche and fired it up to a roar and burned rubber all the way out into the street. Pissed. Holding it in check but mad as hell underneath. Yeah, he could’ve kicked the holy crap out of me if he’d wanted to.

So why hadn’t he?

The mouthy guy came up next to me and breathed onions in my face. “Maybe that bastard didn’t mess with your kid,” he said, “but he’s trouble anyway. Big trouble.”

“How do you know so much?” Lori said to him. She sounded pissed, too. “He never bothered anybody. All he wants is to be left alone.”

“Yeah? What you want to defend him for?”

“What you want to condemn him for?”

“You like his looks, Lori?”

“Better than yours,” she said. “His personality, too.” And she stormed back inside.

The guy said, “Women.” He laid a hand on my arm. “You read the paper tonight? Kent’s right. Stranger’s up to no good, else what’s he hanging around town for?”

I shrugged his hand off and didn’t answer. I was feeling crappy about the whole business, thinking that I shouldn’t’ve chased after Faith the way I did, should’ve talked to Trisha first. It all left a bad taste in my mouth. Right then it did, anyway.

But as I was driving home I got to thinking that it wasn’t all my fault. Faith had some blame coming, too. He shouldn’t’ve been hanging around up on the Bluffs at night, not for any reason. He shouldn’t be hanging around Pomo, either. Hell, he shouldn’t’ve come here in the first place. Maybe Kent and the mouthy guy were right after all. Maybe this Faith was up to no good. Nasty-looking type like him, with his linebacker eyes... yeah.

What else except up to no damn good?

All evening I’ve had the strangest feeling. I can’t quite define it, except as a kind of... waiting. The kind you feel when you know someone is coming to see you, someone you’ve been expecting for a long time and the arrival is imminent. Anticipation. Not really intense, lacking eagerness, and yet... I don’t know, I can’t describe it. I can only feel it, sense the immediacy.