Bill Pronzini - A Wasteland of Strangers

I didn’t like him the minute I laid eyes on him.

He made me nervous as hell, and I don’t mind saying so. Big, mean-looking. Cords in his neck thick as ax blades, eyes like steel balls, pockmarks under his cheekbones, and a T-shaped scar on his chin. The way he talked and acted, too. Cold. Hard. Snotty. Like you were dirt and he was a new broom.

He drove up in front of the resort office about four o’clock. Sports car, one of those old Porsches, all dusty and dented in places. California license plates. I was glad to see the car at first because hadn’t anybody checked in since Sunday night. Used to be around here that in late November we’d get a fair trickle of trade, even though fishing season was over. Overnight and weekend regulars, tourists passing through, route salesmen in hardware and other goods. Not anymore. Whole county’s been on a decline the past twenty years, and not just in the tourist business. Agriculture, too; you don’t see near as many pear and walnut orchards as you once did. Pomo, the county seat on the northwest shore, is still pretty much the same, on account of the large number of county employees and retired geezers who live there. But up here on the north shore, and all along the east shore down to Southport, things are bad. Restaurants, antique and junk stores, other kinds of shops — gone. Long-operating resorts like Nucooee Point Lodge, once the fanciest on this part of the lake, closed down and boarded up. For Sale signs and empty cottages and commercial buildings everywhere you look. Little hamlet of Brush Creek is practically a ghost town.

Me, now, I’ve got simple needs, and summers I still do enough business to keep the wolf from the door. But I can’t do as much as I once did — man turns fifty, his joints don’t want to let him, and that includes the joint hanging between his legs — and I can’t afford to hire things done except when I can get one of the less shiftless Indians to do it cheap. If business doesn’t improve I’ll be forced to put the Lakeside Resort up for sale, too, and move down to San Carlos and live with Ella and my delinquent grandkids and the succession of losers Ella keeps letting into her bed. And if the resort never sells, which it might not, I’ll be stuck down there until the day I die.

Blame what’s happened on a lot of things. But the main one is, Pomo County’s backwater — too far north of San Francisco and the Bay Area where most of our regulars and nonregulars came from in the old days. Lake Pomo and Clear Lake over in Lake County were fine for the lives most people led thirty years ago, but it all changed after Interstate 80 to Tahoe was finished in ’64; these days, with superhighways everywhere and jet planes that can take folks to all sorts of exotic places in a few hours, they expect more for their money than a week or two in a rustic lakefront cabin. That doesn’t necessarily apply to the enclave around Mt. Kahbel on the southwestern shore; quite a few rich people’s summer homes clustered in the little bays and inlets there, fancy boats and a country club and resort that features big-name entertainers in the summer. Closed-off pocket is what Kahbel Shores is. Up here and on most of the rest of the lake, there just aren’t enough attractions to lure visitors and keep ’em happy. Nevada-style casinos on the Indian rancherias have helped some, but not enough: Pomo County’s as far from the Bay Area as Reno and Tahoe. Besides, most of the money the day-trip and weekend gamblers bring in stays in the casinos and goes into Indian pockets. It’s not right or fair that whites should suffer while those buggers get theirs, but that’s the way it is, no thanks to the goddamn government. Anyhow, if something doesn’t happen to turn us around, and soon, this county’s liable to turn into a wasteland full of the homeless and welfare squatters (plenty of those already in Southport) and rich Indians driving fancy cars and old people sitting around waiting to croak.

Well, none of that’s got to do with this stranger drove up in his Porsche. He came into the office, and as soon as I had a good look at him I wasn’t glad any longer that he’d picked my place to stop at. But what can you do? I had to rent him a cabin; I can’t afford to turn down anybody’s business. One thing I could do, though. I told him the rate was sixty-five a night instead of forty-five. Didn’t faze him. He picked up the pen and filled out the card and then laid three twenties and a five down on top.

I turned the card around without touching the money so he wouldn’t get the idea I was hungry for it. He wrote as hard as he looked, but I could read his scrawl plain enough. John C. Faith, Los Angeles. No street address, and you’re supposed to list one, but I wasn’t about to make an issue of it. Not with him.

I said, “How many nights, Mr. Faith?”

“Maybe one, maybe more. Depends.”

“On what?”

He just looked at me with his cold eyes.

My mouth tasted dry; I licked some spit through it. “Business in the area? Or here on pleasure?”

“Could be.”

“Could be... what?”

“Business or pleasure. Or neither one.”

“Guess I don’t quite get that.”

“All right,” he said.

See what I mean? Snotty.

“Going to do some gambling?” I asked.

“Gambling?”

“Brush Creek casino’s a couple of miles down the east shore. You know about the Indian casinos here?”

“No.”

“Oh, sure. Four of ’em in the county. Video slots, poker, keno. Cards, too. Blackjack. Or if you like high-stakes games, they’ve got tournaments — Texas Hold ’Em and Omaha Hi-Lo.”

“That kind of gambling is for suckers.”

“Well, some folks enjoy it—”

“They can have it, then.”

I should’ve kept my mouth shut after that, but it’s just not in my nature. Twenty-plus years in the resort business makes a man talkative. “Wouldn’t be a fisherman, by any chance?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Great sport, fishing. Just as well you’re not, though.”

“You think so? Why?”

“Fishing season ended last week. November fifteenth.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Sure is. Lake’s still full of bass. Bigmouths.”

“Just the lake?”

“... Say again?”

“Full of bigmouths.”

That made me sore, but I didn’t let on. I’m no fool. I said, “I was only making conversation. Trying to be friendly.”

“All right.”

“If you took it the wrong way—”

“What’s a good place to eat around here?”

“You mean for dinner?”

“A good place to eat.”

“Well, there’s the Northlake Cafe. Or you might want to try Gunderson’s, if you like lake bass or seafood. Gunderson’s has a real nice cocktail lounge.”

“Which one do you prefer?”

“Well... Gunderson’s, I guess. Middle of town, block up from the county courthouse.”

“How do I get to the other one?”

“Northlake’s on the north end, just off the highway. Can’t miss it. There’s a big sign—”

“My key,” he said.

“Key? Oh, sure. I’ll put you in number six. That’s one of the lakefront cabins. That okay?”

“Fine.”

I handed him the key and he went out without saying anything else, and I don’t mind admitting I was relieved to be rid of him. I don’t like his kind, not one little bit. I wished I’d charged him seventy-five a night instead of sixty-five. Bet he’d have paid it, too. Must’ve had a thousand dollars or more stuffed into that pigskin wallet of his. Roll of bills fat enough to gag a sixty-pound Doberman.