Bill Pronzini - Hellbox

There were quite a few people wandering among the vendor tables in the flea market. Kerry suggested we go in and see what they had for sale.

“More useless junk, probably,” I said.

“They might have some local produce. Flea markets usually do.”

I turned into the lot and we wandered around among the two dozen or so vendors sweltering under awnings and umbrellas and not doing much business. A lot of junk, all right, but Kerry was right about local produce; she bought a carton of ripe strawberries and some vegetables. I didn’t expect to buy anything… until I spotted an old guy who had a bunch of old paperback books spread out on a table and in boxes underneath. I hadn’t brought along anything to read, figuring on just an overnight stay, but now that we were going to be here for a few days, I would need some escapist entertainment. Most of the paperbacks were westerns in ratty condition, but I rummaged up a couple of mysteries by Fredric Brown and Day Keene, pulp writers I’d read and admired.

We didn’t stay long-too hot out in the open field. After we left, I drove us a few miles up the county road to where a small lake was tucked in among the pines, around the lake, then back into Six Pines. We made a brief stop to pick up some additional groceries, did a little roaming in the hillsides above the town, and finally headed up-valley to the rented cabin. Enough exploring for one day.

The cabin faced west, into the blistery eye of the sun, so we stayed inside, sipping cold drinks and reading until early evening. Kerry made a light supper, and by then it was cool enough to eat on the deck. Afterward, we sat and watched the sun fall below the westward mountains, the sky taking on a smoky red color. A light breeze kicked up and it was much cooler as dusk began to settle.

“Nice day,” Kerry said. “Just about perfect except for that little incident in the cafe.”

“Jerks everywhere. The other locals seem friendly enough.”

“I thought so, too. The more I see of Green Valley, the more I like it. If Emily wasn’t coming home Sunday, I wouldn’t mind staying over the Fourth. The parade and picnic sound like fun.”

“Well, we could stay for that and drive back early Saturday.”

“Yes, we could, but the traffic is sure to be horrendous. Anyhow, we don’t have to decide yet. Let’s just take it one day at a time.”

“I’m all for that,” I said. “What I’d like to do tomorrow is check out the river and the trout streams.”

“Go right ahead. No fishing for me.”

“You might enjoy it if you’d just give it a try.”

“Stand in an icy stream and murder some poor trout? I don’t think so.”

“I don’t keep or eat them anymore,” I said. “Catch and release.”

“The hooks still tear up their mouths. I just don’t see the fun in it.”

The fun was in tramping through the woods, communing with nature, as much as in testing your skill with a fly rod. But I’d made that point to her before and it wasn’t worth repeating. You either had the fishing gene or you didn’t.

After a time she said, “Shall we go ahead and make an offer before we leave? Or should we wait until Emily sees the place?”

“She’ll like it all right, but there’s no need to rush. If we seem too eager, the owners may try to hold out for their asking price.”

“But you do want to make an offer?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Then we’ll come back up next week with Emily and do it then. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

She nodded and smiled. “We really are going to love it here,” she said, as if the offer had already been made and accepted and the property was ours. “Beautiful views, peace and quiet, and only three hours from home. What more could we ask for?”

PETE BALFOUR

Verriker again. Verriker and those sons of bitches Ramsey and Lucchesi. Humiliating him in the cafe in front of all the locals and tourists. He could imagine what it’d been like in there after he stomped out. Verriker saying in that loudmouth voice of his, “There he goes, folks, there goes the Mayor of Asshole Valley,” and everybody hooting it up then, even the goddamn tourists, hooting and making fun of him behind his back.

Verriker, Verriker, Verriker.

He kept seeing that smug face, hearing that cackling laugh burn in his ears like acid. Saw that face and heard that laugh no matter where he went, in his truck, in his own house, in his sleep. Christ, how he hated that bastard! He’d never hated anybody as much as he hated Ned Verriker.

The only way he could breathe again, start living a normal life again, was to get rid of the hate by getting rid of the poison from that mayor label. But how? There wasn’t any way. Not as long as Ned Verriker was alive, there wasn’t.

As long as Verriker was alive.

But what if he wasn’t anymore? If Verriker was dead, the label would die with him. And so would the laughter. And Pete Balfour wouldn’t be a joke anymore.

Payback.

Payback in spades.

The notion came into Balfour’s head just like that after he got home, and he couldn’t of got rid of it then if he’d wanted to. And he didn’t want to. He’d never killed anybody before, nothing human, just deer and ducks and old man Henderson’s cat that kept coming around and making Bruno bark half the night so a man couldn’t sleep. He never wanted to kill anybody so bad before. But he had a real hunger for Verriker’s blood. Imagined him on the ground, the blood running out of him, eyes all wide and starey like a gutshot buck.

Verriker dead.

He grabbed up an invoice pad and a felt-tip from the table next to his chair, wrote Verriker dead half a dozen times in big black letters. The words looked good written down like that. Looked fine.

So fine that he said them out loud. “Verriker dead, Verriker dead.” Sweetest taste he’d had in his mouth in a long time.

That afternoon, sitting in his easy chair with his feet up and a cold Bud in his hand, he thought about ways to do it. A gun, sure, that was the simplest, and he had plenty to choose from. He liked guns, liked the feel of them, the recoil, the smell after he’d triggered off a round. He had revolvers, a couple of deer rifles, a regular pump shotgun and a sawed-off, the Bushmaster assault rifle and Sterling MK-7 semiautomatic pistol that he’d bought from that black market Russian, Rosnikov, who Harry Logan had steered him to down in Stockton.

But hell, he couldn’t do it with a gun, not any kind. If he just went out and shot the son of a bitch, no matter how careful he was, he’d be the number one suspect. Everybody knew how he felt about Verriker and having that mayor tag slung around his neck. Bugger turned up shot, the county cops’d come straight to his door. Same if he used a knife or a hatchet or a hunk of firewood.

Accident.

That was the ticket. Make it look like an accident. Accidents can happen to anybody, any time. They couldn’t blame Pete Balfour if he was nowhere around when Verriker had a fatal one.

Took him the rest of the afternoon and a full six-pack to work out a plan. It was a good one, slick and not too risky, and it’d fix Verriker better than a gun or some other weapon. The only problem with it was he wouldn’t be there to see it happen, but that was all right. He could live with that as long as Verriker died with it.

Verriker’s wife, Alice, would get it, too, but Balfour didn’t care about her. She was almost as vicious and mouthy as her husband, with a tongue as sharp as a razor. Humiliated him once herself, he remembered, that time in high school when he’d hit on her before she started going with Verriker. Laughed at him in front of a bunch of other girls, called him Frogface and told him his breath smelled bad, why didn’t he go home and drink a gallon of Listerine? Bitch. She had it coming to her same as Verriker did.