Bill Pronzini: Mourners

More sounds in there. Words, movement.

He shifted the Magnum to his left hand, pounded on the door with his right-fast and hard, rattling it in its frame.

Scrambling noises, some kind of brief struggle. And then a woman’s voice, Risa’s, crying for help.

Runyon shouted, “Open up! Police!”

Man’s voice, exclaiming something. Another cry from Risa.

Then she screamed, a rising sound suddenly sliced off.

He felt the scream as much as heard it, as if it were something thin and hot that had pierced his flesh. He had to try to get in there. He stepped back for leverage, drove the bottom of his shoe against the panel next to the lock. No give, like kicking a wall. He yelled in frustration and kicked out again, same result, and in his half frenzy he made the mistake of trying it the other way, by lowering his shoulder and hurling his weight forward into the door. He hit it squarely, but the lock still held and the solid wood bounced him off.

At almost the same time there was a sharp snick of metal, the lock being thrown inside, and the door was suddenly yanked open. And for an instant he was looking into Sean Ostrow’s wet, wild eyes.

He still had his balance, but his feet weren’t braced and he had no time to set them. Ostrow came through the doorway in a blind rush, hit him full on and drove him backward into the hallway wall. The impact jarred him enough to loosen his grip on his weapon, nearly drop it. By the time he got his equilibrium back, Ostrow was pounding down the stairs.

The apartment door was wide open. Runyon shoved over there first, bent a look inside. Risa was down on one knee in front of a long couch, her head up and her eyes as wild as Ostrow’s. A thin line of blood made a jagged lightning slash on one cheek. She saw him and flapped one hand in a shooing gesture, saying, “I’m all right, I’m all right, don’t let him get away, he killed my sister!”

Runyon turned away immediately. He could still hear Ostrow on the stairs, the flight from the second floor to the lobby now. He shoved the Magnum into its holster and plunged down himself, vaulting over two and three risers at a time, using both hands on the railing to keep his balance. The lobby was empty by the time he reached it; so was the sidewalk out front under the canopy. He banged through the door, onto the sidewalk looking left, right, left again. No sign of Ostrow.

The Anza Street corner, the parked Ford. Runyon ran that way, slanted a look uphill. And there he was, staggering around to the driver’s door of the Taurus.

“Ostrow!”

The shout twisted the sandy head around, froze him for a second in the street. Runyon didn’t draw his piece, didn’t even think about it; he had no legal right to run around waving a loaded weapon on a city street, and it was a damn good way to get yourself shot by a passing cop or a citizen playing Dirty Harry besides. He yelled Ostrow’s name again and went charging up there.

Ostrow had no time to get into the car, get it started, get away. His freeze lasted another second, and then he broke into a run himself, uphill in the street.

Thirty yards separated them when Ostrow reached the top of the hill. He threw a look over his shoulder, saw how close behind Runyon was, and put his head down and veered to his left across Thirtieth Avenue. Brakes screeched and a minivan rattled by, the driver’s startled face framed in the side window, as Runyon reached the crest. Ostrow was running diagonally, up onto the opposite sidewalk toward where the street humped and fell away downhill. But he didn’t go that far. He cut sideways onto a narrow stretch of unpaved ground between the sidewalk and the cyclone fence that enclosed Washington High School’s athletic buildings and football field.

Ahead of him, the fence made a perpendicular jog from where it bordered the far edge of the unpaved ground, back along the edge of the sidewalk. The perpendicular section was maybe a dozen feet wide and lower than the rest of the fence, no more than six feet high, because of a tall cedar tree growing on the inside. Ostrow didn’t slow down; he hit the six-foot section at full speed, clawed his way up over the top, dropped down in an awkward stagger, and plowed into the cedar’s trunk when he tried to right himself. Exposed roots tripped him. He slid on his ass down a short grassy embankment out of sight.

Runyon didn’t slow down, either. He hit the fence just as hard, tore up his hands on the sharp jutting wire ends at the top as he heaved his body up and over. The pain was like an adrenaline rush. He steadied himself against the tree trunk, looking for Ostrow. Spotted him running along the red composition rubber track that circled the football field. Runyon avoided the cedar roots, managed to keep his footing to the bottom of the incline.

Ostrow saw him coming and veered off the track onto the broad, empty field. But he was either tiring or losing the panic-stimulus for his flight, stumbling and lurching a little now each time he cast glances over his shoulder. Runyon was winded too but running on thick, newly mowed grass was easier than doing it on asphalt and he didn’t slow, didn’t waver. The gap between them closed to twenty yards. Fifteen. Ten.

Ostrow went down.

One more backward look, and all at once his legs seemed to give out and he fell, sprawling on his side, rolled over, crab-crawled and then tried to stand up. But Runyon was right there, looming above him, the Magnum out now in case there was any fight in the man, the weapon close to his chest and his body shielding it from the street above.

No fight. Ostrow quit trying to get up and knelt there gasping, staring up at Runyon with sick-dog eyes. Damp grass clippings clung to one side of his face. A thin band of foamy drool dribbled from his mouth.

Runyon said, “Get up.”

The sandy head wobbled sideways, maybe a refusal, maybe something else. The tortured gaze shifted to the Magnum.

“Please,” he said.

Runyon was silent, working to bring his breathing under control.

“Shoot me,” Ostrow said. “Why don’t you?”

“No.”

“I want you to. I killed her, I deserve to die.”

“I’m nobody’s executioner.”

“Please, I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”

“Don’t tell me,” Runyon said. “Tell the judge and jury. Tell God.”

Ostrow flopped over on his belly, buried his face in the grass. Broken sobs came out of him-for the woman he’d killed or for himself, there was no way to tell which.

Later, after Ostrow had been taken away in handcufffs and the last of the police had gone, he had a little time alone with Risa. She was tearfully grateful to him. Told him she always would be. Told him he’d given her the closure she needed to stop grieving, get on with her life. When he was ready to leave, she hugged him tightly and clung to him for a few seconds, her body pressed against his.

She wasn’t Colleen, she was Risa. She didn’t even look much like Colleen, really. And Colleen was gone and he was still alive and Risa was an attractive woman and not married anymore. He wanted to ask if he could see her again, maybe take her to dinner or a movie. But the words wouldn’t come.

He stood rigidly in her embrace, not able to return it, not able to make himself say anything at all.

I stood on the condo’s balcony, watching the night. One of those rare, crystalline early-summer nights, no clouds and mostly windless, where both the city lights and the stars have a kind of hard metallic glitter that almost hurts the eyes.

So many stars tonight. If it wasn’t for the light pollution, you would have been able to see the Milky Way. I looked for the two Dippers, found the Big but not the Little. Kerry knew where they were, knew the names and locations of all the major stars and constellations-just one of many things she knew that I didn’t. I could identify the two Dippers and Venus, the evening star, but that was about all. Star clusters were just that to me; I looked at them, tried to imagine horses, birds, dogs, lions, fish the way she did, and couldn’t seem to form the right pictures. Orion, Ursa Major, Gemini, Cassiopeia were just names to me.