Bill Pronzini - A Wasteland of Strangers

There was hardly room for one person, much less two, up close to where most of the media people were congregated. But we were determined and we made room. One of the men I accidentally jostled turned and gave me a piercing look. I was about to answer him in kind when I recognized him. Douglas Kent.

I altered my expression to a smile and said to him, “You remember me, don’t you, Mr. Kent? Zenna Wilson.”

He leaned closer, squinting. I drew back. His breath... well, he simply reeked of liquor. He wasn’t very steady on his feet, either. Really quite intoxicated, to the point where he hadn’t bothered to shave today, or, for that matter, to bathe. I find public drunkenness disgusting; uncleanliness, too. There is no excuse for either one. Even so, I decided that Christian charity was called for in Mr. Kent’s case. Everyone knew the poor man had a drinking problem. And after all, he had written that inspiring editorial based on what I’d told him about the stranger in our midst.

“Ah, Mrs. Wilson,” he said. “Of course I remember you.”

“We’ve spoken several times, but only met in person two or—”

“In tongues, eh?”

“Excuse me?”

“Spoken in viper tongues.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Not to worry, dear lady. What’s your opinion of all this?”

“Well, it’s very exciting, isn’t it?”

“Exciting. Oh, yes. But it will be a good deal more exciting once the gladiators arrive.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I know so. Absolutely positive of it. The Romans had the right idea, by cracky.”

“Romans?”

“Death struggles on the floor of the coliseum. All thumbs down. Blood spilled while the hungry legions roar.”

I glanced at Helen. She had no more idea of what he was talking about than I did.

The ride from Pomo General to the police station takes a little less than fifteen minutes. I talked Thayer into riding up front with Verne, and I sat in back with the prisoner. I kept watching Faith, but for his part, I wasn’t even there. He sat with that ramrod posture, his big, shackled hands between his thighs, and stared straight ahead in stony silence. None of us had anything to say. The quiet in the cruiser had an odd, stagnant quality, like a pocket of dead air just before heat lightning.

When we neared the center of town the media lights were visible from a distance, a wash of brightness against the restless banks of tule fog. I could tell from the cars packing Main and the side streets that the waiting crowd had grown even larger. I tensed as Verne turned down Water Street, toward the municipal pier. The crowd seemed orderly enough, but that didn’t mean it would stay that way.

“Look at that, will you,” Verne said as we reached Park. “Must be a hundred and fifty people, maybe more.”

Thayer muttered, “Damn three-ring circus,” but he didn’t sound worried or unhappy. If anything, he was eager. Anticipating the grinding cameras and exploding flashbulbs, probably.

Faith sat forward, his hands balling into fists. I sensed rather than saw the trapped-animal desperation in him again.

Verne made the swing onto Park. Heads and bodies had swiveled in our direction; arms lifted, fingers pointed. I could see mouths moving as though in an exaggerated pantomime.

“Pull up even with the entrance,” I said to Verne. “You and I get out first and come around front and back. Leo, you stay inside until we’re on your side.”

“You don’t have to tell me procedure, Novak.”

“I’m not telling you anything. I’m reminding you.”

“You’re the one who needs reminders, not me.”

“Don’t start up again.”

“It’s not a dead issue,” he said, “just remember that. I don’t care what Seeley says.”

We rolled past the gawking faces, into the outspill from all the lights. The glare seemed unnaturally bright. Half a dozen Minicams were on us like huge, hungry eyes. Thayer had his head turned toward the window glass, toward the cameras; I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he was wearing his official expression, the one with flared nostrils and upward-jutting jaw.

The cruiser stopped. The door beside me clicked as Verne flipped the toggle to unlock.

We were almost there.

Standing close to the front of the gathered rabble, I patted Roscoe on his little hammer head.

“How you doing in there, pal?”

“Same as you’re doing out there, pal.”

“All set to lose the Faith?”

“Knock off the puns. We have serious business here.”

“Very serious business here. Avenging Storm.”

“Not a bad title for a book.”

“I won’t be around to write it.”

“You never know. First-person account of a sodden newspaper hack who goes cunningly bonkers after the murder of his beloved town punchbag, anthropomorphizes his old man’s—”

“Big word for a little gun.”

“—I say, anthropomorphizes his old man’s .38 to the point of holding interior philosophical discussions with it, and the two of them exact their vengeance in front of a couple of hundred eyewitnesses and an eager TV audience of many thousands. Socko stuff.”

“Not really,” Kent said. “All we’re doing is following in giant footsteps — imitators, not innovators. Nobody’d publish it.”

Voices rose around us in an excited roar. I looked and said, “Ah, the cop chariot enters the arena at last.”

“Americans and Romans,” Roscoe said pityingly, “you can’t have your metaphors both ways. How many fuzz with Faith?”

“Three. And only one of you.”

“I’ll still get off first.”

“You’d better. Look, they’re climbing out.”

“I can’t look, I don’t have eyes.”

“Shut your muzzle.”

“Then I can’t get off at all.”

“Here they come. Ready, pal?”

“Ready, pal.”

“Heigh-ho, here we go.”

Roscoe and me, and Jack Ruby makes three.

I was intent on John Faith lifting his huge body from inside the police cruiser, Chief Novak on one side and Sergeant Erickson on the other and Sheriff Thayer standing off a couple of paces with his attention shifting between the prisoner and the TV cameras, when somebody bumped into me from behind, It was a hard, lurching bump, hard enough to nearly knock me down. I glared at the man who’d done it, who was now pushing past me.

Mr. Kent.

I hadn’t even known he was here. Drunk as usual, that was obvious. How he could function with so much—

Hey, what was he doing? Staggering out onto the brightly lit sidewalk, making a beeline toward Faith and the officers. Pulling a shiny object out of his pocket—

Oh my God’

“He’s got a gun!” I yelled it at the top of my voice. “Look out, he’s got a gun!”

It all seemed to happen at once, everything jumbled and compressed into one long, bulging moment.

I heard the warning yell, saw the man coming toward us, recognized him, saw the handgun he was bringing to bear, heard someone else shout and a woman scream and feet and bodies beginning to scramble out of harm’s way — and on automatic reflex I threw a shoulder into Faith to take him from the line of fire, then lunged to meet Kent. I deflected his arm downward just as he squeezed off. The pistol made a flat crack that was lost in the bedlam around us, the bullet going harmlessly into the sidewalk, chipping pavement but not ricocheting. I battered Kent’s wrist with my right hand, clawing for the weapon with my left. It came loose from his grasp, but I couldn’t hold it; it fell with a clatter and by accident I kicked it with my shoe. Then I had both hands on his coat and I jerked him off his feet, flung him down hard. But I lost my balance as I did that, slipped, fell on top of him. A grunt, the whoosh of his breath, and he went limp under me.