Bill Pronzini - A Wasteland of Strangers

“All right, Faith,” Dick said. Different tone, closer to his normal one. Controlled again. “You dodged a bullet this time. Literally.”

I let out the air burning my lungs and sagged back against the cushions. As relieved as I was that Dick had found us, that there’d been no more violence and the long night was finally over, I felt sorry for John Faith. Very, very sorry for him.

I ordered faith to take the gun out of his belt, left hand, thumb and forefinger, and set it on the floor — set it, not drop it — and then kick it over to me. He followed orders with such deliberate care, almost like a pantomime, that I wondered if he was mocking me. I couldn’t be sure, so I let it go. I squatted to pick up his weapon, slip it into my jacket pocket — not taking the light off him for an eye flick. Then I told him to lie facedown, hands clasped behind him. And even then I wasn’t taking any chances. I leaned over his body from behind and to one side, laid the muzzle of my service revolver against the back of his skull; held it there while I squatted again, lowered the light, unhooked the handcuffs from my belt, and snapped them around his wrists. He didn’t move the entire time.

A quick frisk — no other weapon — and then I began to relax a little. I went to Audrey and shone the light on her. Bruise marks on her throat, but otherwise she seemed unharmed. She said as I started to strip the tape off her wrists, “How did you find us? How did you know to come here?”

“I didn’t know. I’ll explain later. You tell me about Mateo Munoz. And Faith, how he got all the way over here.”

She told me. I had her repeat some of it so I could get all the facts straight in my mind. Mateo Munoz, for Christ’s sake. Smart-ass troublemaker with a record of minor offenses graduated to the big time now — kidnapping, assault, attempted forcible oral copulation. Made the mistake of bringing her here, where Faith happened to be hiding, and Faith had stepped in on her behalf. All right. Give him that much credit. And Faith had been brought here in Audrey’s boat; his arrival was what Harry Richmond had witnessed yesterday morning. But it hadn’t been Audrey driving the boat and she didn’t know who’d helped him. The only thing Faith had told her was that a person he claimed was a doctor was supposed to come back today, before noon, to take him away, and hadn’t shown.

I finished freeing Audrey’s hands while she talked, began on her ankles. Every few seconds I shifted my gaze to Faith, but he still lay as I’d left him. Lucky to be alive in more ways than one; he was like a cat with extra lives. Lucky for both of us. In those first few seconds after I got the drop on him and prodded him into the lobby, when I’d seen Audrey bound the way she was, I’d come close to blowing him away. Very close. If she hadn’t cried out as she had, I think I would have. It put a quivering in my belly remembering how close I’d come.

I unwound the last strips of tape, lifted Audrey to her feet, and helped her walk until she could do it without support. Then I left her and flashed my light around. On a second couch was a scattering of items that included medical supplies. Might be something there to identify the accessory, I thought. But a quick inspection told me nothing, and there was no time and this wasn’t the place for a thorough examination. Sheriff’s department could handle that; they had lab facilities and the township didn’t. Nucooee Point was their jurisdiction, anyway.

Faith hadn’t moved more than a few inches if he’d moved at all. I drew my revolver again, went over and told him to stand up. He didn’t give me any trouble. The way he raised himself to his feet, the stain of fresh blood on his shirtfront, the bandages I’d felt when I frisked him confirmed that he was wounded and hurting. Medical attention for him first thing; from now on everything would be strictly by the book. I read him his rights and he responded with a grunt, nothing more. Grunts were all I got when I tried to question him, too. His face was tight-pulled and showed nothing of what was going on behind it. I had the feeling he’d put shackles on himself, his emotions, that were as binding as the handcuffs pinching his wrists.

Now we were ready to move out. I told Audrey to lead the way, let her reach the dining-room entrance before I motioned Faith to follow. And I followed him at a distance of several feet, with my weapon and flashlight on him the whole way. The outside door stood open, the way I’d left it, letting in wet, gray daylight. The open door was the second thing that had alerted me to the fact that the lodge was occupied; the first was the fresh tire marks in the muddy ground out front.

In the past few minutes the rain had slackened to a mistlike drizzle. The three of us slogged through wet grass and mud around front, out past the chain barrier to where I’d left the cruiser at the edge of the driveway. I unlocked the rear door, stood off a few paces while Faith folded himself inside, then threw the door shut and went around and flipped the dash toggle that locks the rear doors automatically.

Audrey was standing behind the cruiser. She beckoned to me, and when I joined her, curbing my impatience, she said, “I want to say something before we leave.”

“Go ahead.”

“All the hours I spent with him, we talked quite a bit. He swears he didn’t kill Storm.”

“Sure he does. Did you expect him to admit it?”

“I believe him, Dick.”

“Why? Because he saved your life?”

“That’s part of it.”

“He also kept you there against your will.”

“He thought it was his only chance. Self-preservation is so strong in him, it clouds his judgment in a crisis. That’s why he hit you and ran Thursday night.”

“He ran because he’s innocent, not because he’s guilty.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t buy it,” I said.

“Dick, it could’ve been Mateo Munoz who killed her. You can’t deny the possibility.”

“I don’t deny it. If it was Munoz, we’ll find it out once he’s in custody. But first he’s got to be found, and we’re wasting time standing around here talking about it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I just wanted you to know how I feel.”

“Okay. Now I know.”

Inside the cruiser I radioed in to Lou Files, who works the desk on Sundays. I gave him a fast rundown and then a series of instructions. Two officers to be dispatched immediately to meet us at Pomo General. Notify Leo Thayer and request deputies to stake out the lodge in case the accessory decided to show up after all, and to gather evidence for lab analysis. Notify Burt Seeley; he could take care of alerting the D.A. Pull the jacket on Mateo Munoz and notify the FBI office in Santa Rosa that he was wanted on a kidnapping charge, then put out a pick-up-and-hold order on him through the Justice Information System’s computer hookup. Lou didn’t waste time with questions; he said he’d handle it and signed off.

I cradled the handset. For a few seconds I sat motionless, feeling suddenly limp. Tension release. It happens like that sometimes, all at once.

Audrey touched my arm. “Are you all right, Dick?”

“Just getting a second wind.”

I reached out to the ignition. She sat back, then turned her head to look at Faith through the steel mesh that bisects the interior. I found myself doing the same in the rearview mirror. He sat in the middle of the seat, ramrod straight; his face was still tight-pulled, expressionless. Pile of stone, I thought. All except for his eyes. They were the only things about him that seemed alive. And I didn’t much like what I saw in them.

Not hate, not anger, not fear — nothing as simple as any of those emotions. They were the eyes of a hunted and trapped animal, the kind of animal that would do anything, even chew off its own leg, to be free again.