Bill Pronzini - Savages

“Nothing. She swears she doesn’t know where Jerry’s hiding now, but I’m not so sure. Neither is Daddy.”

“Where do you think he might be?”

Ashley raised a hand and a pointing finger. “Turn left there at the corner. That’s Fourth Street.”

Runyon turned left.

“I don’t have a clue,” she said. “About where Jerry is, I mean. But Daddy thinks he’s still around somewhere in the area, that he’ll set more fires, hurt more people, if he’s not caught pretty soon.”

When Runyon stopped in front of Battle Hardware, Ashley gave him a quick smile and a brief thank-you for the ride and hurried into the store without a backward glance. He watched her out of sight before he drove away. Smart-ass seductive on the one hand, grimly serious on the other. And no dummy, poor grades or not.

Question was, was she also a liar?

H e had to stop two people to get directions to Basalt Street. Not worth the trouble, as it turned out. When he reached the semi-industrial area on the west side of Highway 5, found the street and the run-down frame house at number 600, there was nobody there to talk to except for a barking German shepherd in a fenced side yard. Father drinking up his unemployment benefits, mother at one of her two jobs, Sandra at the Hair Today Salon where she worked as a stylist. Trying to talk to the Parnell girl in that kind of business environment would be an exercise in futility. He could look her up later in more private surroundings.

K elso wasn’t at the Belsize farm, but he’d been there not long before Runyon’s arrival. Mrs. Belsize told him that. She came hurrying from the chicken coop when he rolled into the yard, a big woman in khaki pants and sweat-stained shirt, gray haired, round cheeked, and still angry.

“That deputy,” she said, “he poked around all over the place, every building. Thinks we’re hiding Jerry somewhere. He’s got it in for my boy, for no reason that makes good sense. I don’t blame Jerry for running away from him.”

“Kelso have a search warrant?”

“No. Did he need one?”

“To conduct a search of your property he did.”

“Well, I wish we’d known that. John would’ve run him off damn quick.”

“Where’s your husband now, Mrs. Belsize?”

“Back in the corral with the horses. You want him?”

“Not necessarily.”

“What’re you doing here anyhow?” she demanded. “You think we’ve got Jerry hid up in the hayloft, too?”

“I thought Kelso might be here.”

“Why you looking for him?”

“Because he’s looking for me.”

His bandage seemed to register on her for the first time. Her face softened slightly; so did her voice. “How’s your head? That blow give you a concussion, they told us.”

“Mild one. I’m all right now.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it. You don’t blame us for what happened?”

“Not at all.”

“Last thing we need is some damn personal injury lawsuit.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not litigious.”

“Glad to hear that, too.” Heavy sigh. “Shame you didn’t get here with that subpoena of yours half an hour sooner on Friday night. Maybe poor Manny’d still be alive.”

Runyon said he wished he had, too.

“A subpoena, of all things. As if Jerry don’t have enough grief.”

“It’s just a piece of paper requiring him to appear in court, that’s all.”

“I know that. Don’t you think I know that?” She sighed again, wiped her damp face with a man’s handkerchief. Her gaze seemed drawn to the larger of the two barns. “Why anybody would do such a terrible thing, go to all that trouble to get John and me away from here so they could kill Manny-that’s what I don’t understand. He was a good man, a family man. Got along with everybody.”

“Including your son.”

“They were friends, by God. Jerry no more done that to Manny than he can fly like a bird.”

“She’s right, mister,” John Belsize said. “Make no mistake about it.”

Runyon had seen him coming, the man’s slatlike body moving in long, hard strides across the yard. He stopped next to his wife. They were about the same height, but she was at least a foot wider. His stance was both aggressive and protective, which seemed to make him the dominant partner.

“I don’t doubt you believe your son is innocent, Mr. Belsize.”

“Meaning you do doubt he is.”

“I don’t have an opinion one way or the other. What I think doesn’t matter anyway.”

“That’s for goddamn sure.”

She said, “John,” not loud or sharp but with iron in her tone. It scraped the edge off Belsize’s temper; you could see him back off. Runyon revised his opinion as to which of them was dominant.

“We don’t know where Jerry is,” Belsize said, evenly this time. “That’s what we told Kelso and that’s the truth.”

“What would you do if you did?”

“Don’t make any difference because we don’t.”

“You was out at the workers’ camp yesterday, before the fire,” the woman said. “Deputy told us you was.”

“I was there.”

“With that girl, Sandra Parnell.”

“Yes.”

“Told us there was marijuana in that trailer where Jerry was hiding,” Belsize said. “Claimed Jerry was smoking dope out there. I don’t believe it. His mother don’t, neither.”

“There were roach butts in the trailer. I saw them myself.”

“Somebody else smoked them. Jerry’s a good boy, clean-cut. Don’t you suppose we’d know it if he was the kind of wild, crazy kid Kelso says he is?”

“What I don’t understand,” Mrs. Belsize said, “is why he went to that girl for help.”

Runyon said, “She’s his girlfriend.”

“No, she ain’t. Not anymore.”

“Since when?”

“Couple, three weeks ago. He broke up with her.”

“Good thing, too,” Belsize said. “I never liked her much.”

“No? Why not?”

“Just didn’t. Fast. One look at her, you knew she’d spread her legs for anybody that asked.”

“John.”

He shut up again.

Runyon asked, “Why did Jerry break up with her?”

“He wouldn’t say,” Mrs. Belsize said. “Just said he found out some things and she wasn’t the girl he thought she was and he didn’t want nothing more to do with her.”

“He was real angry about it, too,” Belsize said. “So if he was scared enough to hide from Kelso, how come he went to the Parnell girl instead of us? Why’d he put his trust back in her all of a sudden?”

Philomena Ruiz lived in East Palo Alto, on a shabby street a block and a half from Highway 101. Mixed neighborhood, Hispanic and black. Small, old, close-packed houses with tiny yards, many of them barren except for scatters of kids’ toys. When I got out of the car I could hear the constant thrum of freeway traffic, smell the faint stink of exhaust emissions and diesel fumes.

A youth about sixteen sporting a sparse patch of chin whiskers opened the door to the Ruiz house. The suspicious look he gave me didn’t go away when I asked for Mrs. Ruiz.

“Ma ain’t here,” he said. “She’s working.”

“When will she be home?”

“Six thirty, seven.”

“I’ll stop by again around seven thirty.”

“Nah. Seven thirty’s when we eat.”

“I’ll make it around seven then.” I handed him one of my business cards. He looked at it as if he’d been presented with a small dead animal of unknown origin. “Tell her it’s about Mrs. Mathias.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Nancy Mathias. One of her employers.”

“Yeah,” he said, and shut the door in my face.

I drove back across the freeway into Palo Alto. It was like crossing a thin line of demarcation between poverty and affluence. Over here there were stately homes on large lots. Wide lawns, gardens, plenty of shade trees; fences, and locked gates. No wonder East Palo Alto was a simmering pot of anger and resentment and despair that now and then spilled over into violence. You couldn’t blame the mostly poor residents, living as close as they did to all the things they could never have, the lives they could never lead. All those hungry faces pressed against an invisible glass wall peppered with invisible signs: Look, but don’t touch. Keep out except by daylight invitation.