Bill Pronzini - A Wasteland of Strangers

Just before I drifted off I knew I wasn’t gonna go to a clinic. My choice, and it didn’t matter what Daddy said or the Bitch said or Anthony said or anybody said. I was gonna have it and I was gonna keep it.

Consciousness returned slowly, in a series of awarenesses. Of a sore throat and a swelling headache, first, as if my head had been pumped full of fluid. Then of motion under and around me. Then of suffocating darkness that stank of wool and dirt. Then that I was lying on my stomach on something hard but yielding... car seat... with my arms and hands drawn up behind me. I tugged and couldn’t separate them. Taped together at the wrists, the tape pulling and tearing at my skin. Ankles bound, too. And another piece of tape tight across my mouth.

I’m not afraid. I won’t panic.

Roughness along my cheek, and the wool-and-dirt smell. Filthy blanket. Thrown over the length of my body, covering my head, too. I managed to twist over onto my right side — movement that, even though I did it carefully, increased the pressure in my temples and behind my eyes.

Sounds: tires whispering on pavement; things whooshing past outside. From up front a faint gurgling, a satisfied, hissing breath, an explosive belch.

I snagged the blanket with the toe of my shoe, worked it down until I could ease my head free. Darkness thinned by the pale reflected glow of the dash lights. All I could see of the man driving was the shape of his skull above the seat back.

Other smells: beer, the sweetish animal stench from the garage — sweat and Old Spice. My stomach churned. I couldn’t seem to swallow; I locked my jaws instead, shut my eyes, and lay very still. If I vomited with the tape sealing my mouth I would strangle.

The nausea passed. I squirmed onto one hip, swung my legs off the seat, and then lowered them to the floor—

“Hey! You stay down back there.”

I froze. His voice... not as raspy as before. He wouldn’t be wearing the ski mask while he drove.

“Give me any trouble, you’ll wish you hadn’t. Hear me? I’ll use your own gun on that pretty face of yours. Yeah, that’s right, I found it in your purse. Blow your fuckin’ head off with it, maybe, like you tried to do to me the other night.”

Familiar voice. Listen, put a name and a face to it...

“Won’t be long now, bitch. We’re almost there.”

Almost where?

“Then I’ll give it to you like you never had it before. My cock first and then your gun. How’d you like that, huh? Fucked with your own gun.”

He laughed, and in the darkness his laughter was a Huk sound, a death sound.

But I was not afraid. I felt a cold fury, nothing more. No matter what he said, no matter what he did, I would not give him the satisfaction of making me afraid.

Lori Banner was in a bad way. Disoriented, face all bruised and swollen and caked with dried blood. She’d wet herself, too; the urine odor was strong in the cold room. And she kept saying things like “I put that third eye in his head” and “I fell asleep in my chair. Can you believe that? What kind of person kills her husband and then goes to sleep for hours in the same room?”

Seeing her, listening to her brought back the images of Storm last night; the hurt started all over again, inside and out. I turned the questioning over to Mary Jo Luchek, the first officer on the scene, and walked out into the cold, wet night to watch for the ambulance, Doc Johanssen, the civilian photographer Nichols.

A small clot of citizens had gathered in spite of the rain and the late hour; they seem always to sprout like toadstools at the scene of any violent occurrence. Here they were huddled under porch roofs and umbrellas and inside cars. A few were reporters, homegrown and leftovers from last night; they converged on me as soon as I appeared, hurling questions like stones ahead of them.

“Chief, is there any connection between this killing and Storm Carey’s murder?” Dietrich, the kid who works for the Advocate .

“What kind of question is that? No, there’s no connection.”

“None with John Faith, either?”

“No. Domestic incident, that’s all.”

“What about Faith? Anything new on him?”

I didn’t answer that. The ambulance from Pomo General was approaching now, no siren but its flasher lights staining the night. I chased Dietrich and the rest back out to the sidewalk, told Mary Jo’s partner, Jack Turner, to keep them there. I spoke briefly to the attendants, showed them inside to where Mary Jo was talking to Lori Banner in the kitchen. Johannsen arrived a couple of minutes later and I took him in to where Earle Banner’s corpse was sprawled in a beat-up recliner.

“Deceased several hours,” he said when he’d had his preliminary look. “Advanced rigor and lividity.”

“She didn’t report it right away. His wife.”

“Why not?”

“Said she fell asleep, slept for five or six hours. Possible?”

“Quite possible,” Johanssen said. “Heavy, druglike sleep is not an uncommon reaction to severe stress. I remember one case during my residency—”

“Paramedics are with her now,” I said, “but maybe you’d better have a look at her, too.”

“Of course. You’re not done with the deceased yet, I take it?”

“Not yet. Nichols still hasn’t shown up.”

He gave me a look as if it was my fault we had to make do with a not always reliable civilian photographer, and went off to the kitchen. I returned to the porch. A couple of minutes later Mary Jo came out and joined me.

“Hospital case?” I asked her.

“Afraid so. She’s calm enough now; doesn’t look like they’ll need to medicate her here. If not... okay if I take her? She shouldn’t have to ride in the ambulance.”

“As long as Johanssen has no objections.”

“Do I read her her rights?”

“Depends on the details of the shooting. She tell you?”

“Most of it. Banner’d been drinking all day, out and at home both. Trashed a bunch of her personal possessions, and when she got back from shopping he started smacking her around. Then he got his handgun and threatened to shoot her like a horse. Can you believe that? She managed to knock the weapon out of his hand, pick it up, and when he came after her again she popped him in self-defense. Happens like that sometimes, right? In the heat of the moment.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it happens like that. What started the abuse this time?”

“Same as usual. He accused her of being with another man.”

“Was she?”

“No. She swears she was faithful. I believe her.”

“About the shooting, too?”

“Absolutely,” Mary Jo said. “Justifiable homicide, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll write it up that way.”

“Your call.”

“Will you back me, Chief? With the D.A.? I mean, Earle Banner was a pig and everybody in town knows it. She shouldn’t have to go to prison for shooting an animal that kept mauling her.”

I was silent. I trusted Mary Jo’s judgment; she may have been the youngest officer on the Porno force, but she had a good head on her shoulders and a solid grasp of police work. The silence had nothing to do with her or Lori Banner. It had to do with Storm, and Faith, and suffering and retribution.

“It’s not like she’ll get away with anything,” Mary Jo said. “She has to live with it the rest of her life. Punishment enough, isn’t it?”

“For some people.”

“For Lori Banner?”

I said, “For Lori Banner. No formal charges, Mary Jo. And don’t worry, I’ll back you all the way with Proctor.”

For what seemed like a long time the car slithered along a mostly smooth, winding road, the tires hissing through rain glaze and puddles. No more laughter poured out of him, no more filthy threats; he seemed to be concentrating on his driving, on whatever thoughts crept and crawled through his sick mind. The windshield wipers clacking, the beat of the rain on the car’s roof, the clogged, nasal rasp of my breathing were the only sounds.