Bill Pronzini - Beyond the Grave

It was a country store but without the usual charm of such establishments. The wooden floor looked grimy; the light was a peculiar jaundiced yellow; the walls a dirty beige. Rows of shelves stretched from the door to the rear where the refrigerated cases were, but they were half-empty and what canned and boxed goods stood there were in total disorder. To my left was a counter with produce in crates; most of it looked wilted or half-rotten. To my right was a checkout counter, backed by high shelves that held liquor, candy, and cigarettes. An old man with wispy gray hair and a sallow complexion stood behind it, putting a fifth of Old Crow into a paper sack. His customer had his back to me and was slipping a wallet into the hip pocket of his faded jeans. When the screen door flapped shut, the customer glanced over his shoulder; he was about forty, with a suntanned, weathered face and a full head of faded sandy hair. I smiled self-consciously and began turning the rack of snacks to give myself something to do until they'd finished their business.

“There you go, Gray,” the man behind the counter said. “Guess that should hold you for a day or two.”

“Until tomorrow, at any rate.” The younger man's words were joking, but there was an edge to them.

“Well, while the old lady's away Hear anything from Georgia lately?”

“I get a letter every week, but it's pretty old news. The dig's up in the mountains, and the mail has to be taken down to Lima to be posted. The mail service from Peru is bad at best.”

“Well, that's what you get for marrying a lady archaeologist,” the storekeeper said. “Still, I see Dora's helping you out, keeping you fed. You were at her house twice this week for dinner.”

“You see a lot, Jim.” Now the edge was back in the voice of the man called Gray.

“Enough. I see what interests me.”

Gray gave a dry, humorless laugh as he went toward the door. “If you can find anything interesting in this town, you're welcome to it.” He went out, letting the door slam hard behind him.

I stopped turning the rack and went up to the counter. The storekeeper-Gray had called him Jim-smiled at me, showing crooked, tobacco-stained teeth. “Help you, young lady?”

“I hope so. I'm looking for a man named Sam Ryder.”

“Oh, the professor.” His grin widened when I looked perplexed. “Oh, that's just what we call him hereabouts. He's the town scholar, unless you count Dora Kingman, lady up the street with the organic garden in her front yard. She writes cookbooks-natural foods, like the hippies eat. But Sam, he's a real writer. Got rooms full of books.”

“I see. Can you tell me where he lives?”

“I can show you.” He came around the counter and motioned for me to follow him outside. In front of the store he stopped and pointed diagonally across the square. “Over there, third house from the end. Red one with white trim, next to the lapidary.”

“The what?”

“Lapidary. Fancy name for a rock shop. Belongs to Gray Hollis, the fellow who was just in here buying booze.”

“A rock shop-here? Does he get many customers?”

“What he sells is mostly by mail order. Doesn't make much, but that don't matter. Gray's wife is the one who puts bread on the table-and bourbon in Gray's glass. You probably heard us talking about her; she's with some big expedition that's digging up a city in Peru.”

The storekeeper spoke matter-of-factly, as if he were discussing the recent rain shower, but underneath his words I caught a hint of malice. I'd already learned more from him about the residents of Las Lomas than I ever cared to know; heaven only knew what I could find out if I F'ressed him. But the present-day inhabitants of the area weren't what interested me. I thanked the old man for the directions and set off across the square, thinking that if I lived in the village and had a fondness for bourbon, I'd probably drive all the way into Santa Ynez to do my shopping.

The two houses the old man had pointed out-the one belonging to Gray Hollis and Sam Ryder's-were very different from each other. Hollis's was a rambling brown-frame structure with a glassed-in front porch; there were shelves directly behind the windows, and on them sat polished chunks of rock. A sign on a wrought-iron standard said LAS LOMAS LAPIDARY. The front yard was a formal garden centered around a dry fountain and edged with wagon wheels. I guessed this was the creation of Hollis's absent wife, since it was beginning to show signs of neglect.

In contrast, the yard of the small boxcar-red house next door looked as if it had never been touched by human hands. A big pine tree stood in its center; cones and needles littered the ground, fighting with the weeds for dominance. The low iron-mesh fence had bent over in places from the weight of rampaging blackberry vines. I went through the half-open gate and up a narrow path to the sagging cement porch. Two wires extended from the hole where the doorbell should be, so I opened the torn screen door and pounded on the inner one.

The man who answered my knock was short, roly-poly, and had curly bright red hair that was as undisciplined as his front yard. He didn't look like any historian I'd ever seen, but he did look like he ought to be out in the kitchen baking sugar cookies. I stared at him in surprise.

The man didn't seem to share my discomfort. He smiled as if I were an old friend whom he was very glad to see and said, “Hello. Are you looking for me?”

“If you're Sam Ryder.”

“That I am. And you are …?”

“Elena Oliverez, Gabriela's daughter.”

His smile broadened, making him look like a happy cherub. Although I remembered my mother saying Sam Ryder was in his fifties, he seemed almost boyish, with his plump features, unwrinkled skin, and curiously innocent blue eyes. If I had had to describe him in one word, I would have said “round.”

He said, “Well, for heaven's sake. How is Gabriela, anyway? I haven't talked to her since I delivered Ciro Sisneros's book two months ago.”

“Right now, she's in the hospital.” I felt a sudden rush of guilt; since lunch, I'd put Mama out of my mind. Dave, too, come to think of it.

Sam Ryder's mobile features took a quick downward turn. “The hospital? Nothing serious, I hope?”

“An ulcer. But she's going to be fine.”

“Well, that's a relief.” He stepped back and motioned for me to come inside. “Forgive me; I shouldn't keep you standing on the porch. I'm addled today-a chapter on Russian and French aggressions in the Pacific Northwest, and it's not going well.”

I followed his rot and little figure inside, thinking that even if he didn't look like a historian, he sounded like one. The room he led me into further reinforced the impression: three walls were bookcases floor to ceiling; a long parsons table covered with more books and papers sat under the front window. An electric typewriter hummed noisily on a low stand next to the table, and beside it, a cigarette smoldered in an ashtray. Sam went over and crushed it out, then pressed a button on the machine, and the typewriter went silent.

“I don't want to interrupt your work,” I said.

He moved one pudgy hand in a gesture of dismissal. “You're not, really. On top of the Russian and French aggressions, I'm having people for dinner, and I have to start preparing things. You'll stay, won't you?”

“Well…” I thought of Mama; Nick had said he would see her around five, and I had promised to come at seven, when he had a meeting to attend-something to do with one of the marathons he was running this spring.

“It's nothing formal,” Sam said. “Just a few neighbors stopping in around four. I'd be pleased if you'd join us. Gabriela fed me many times while we were conferring over Ciro's manuscript, and I was never able to return the hospitality. At least allow me to feed her daughter.”