Bill Pronzini: Bones

“You're doing that now.”

“I'll do it worse if you're not around.”

It was noon when we got back to the city. I drove to Pacific Heights-doing it automatically, without consulting Kerry. But she didn't seem to mind. Inside my flat, she went to make us some fresh coffee and I sat down with the box of Harmon Crane's papers. I reread the letter carbon. I reread the fictionalized confession. I reread the carbon one more time.

I was still bothered. And I still didn't know why.

Kerry had brought me some coffee and was sitting on the couch, reading one of my pulps. I said to her, “Let's play some gin rummy.”

She looked up. “Are you sure that's what you want to do?”

“Sure I'm sure. Why?”

“You get grumpy when you lose at gin.”

“Who says I'm going to lose?”

“You always lose when you're in a mood like this. You don't concentrate and you misplay your cards.”

“Is that so? Get the cards.”

“I'm telling you, you'll lose.”

“Get the cards. I'm not going to lose.”

She got the cards, and we played five hands and I lost every one because I couldn't concentrate and misplayed my cards. I hate it when she's right. I lost the sixth hand, too: she caught me with close to seventy points-goddamn face cards, I never had learned not to hoard face cards.

“You're a hundred and thirty-seven points down already,” she said. “You want to quit?”

“Shut up and deal,” I said grumpily.

And the telephone rang.

“Now who the hell is that?”

“Why don't you answer it and find out?”

“Oh, you're a riot, Alice,” I said, which was a Jackie Gleason line from the old “Honeymooners” TV show. But she didn't get it. She said, “Who's Alice?” The telephone kept on ringing; I said, “One of these days, Alice, bang, zoom, straight to the moon,” and got up and went into the bedroom to answer it.

A woman's voice made an odd chattering sound: “Muh-muh-muh,” like an engine that kept turning over but wouldn't catch. But it wasn't funny; there was a familiar whining note of despair in the voice.

“Mrs. Kiskadon? What's the matter?”

She made the sound again, as if there were a liquidy blockage in her throat and she couldn't push the words past it. I told her to calm down, take a couple of deep breaths. I heard her do that; then she made a different noise, a kind of strangled gulping, that broke the blockage and let the words come spilling out.

“It's Michael… you've got to help me, please, I don't know what to do!”

“What about Michael?”

“He said… he said he was going to kill himself…”

I could feel the tension come into me, like air filling and expanding a balloon. “When was this?”

“A little while ago. He locked himself in his den last night after that Marin policeman left, he wouldn't come out, he sat in there all night doing God knows what. But this afternoon… he came out this afternoon and he had that gun in his hand, he was just carrying it in his hand, and he said… he…”

“Easy. Did you call his doctor?”

“No, I didn't think… I was too upset…”

“Have you called anyone else?”

“No. Just you… you were the only person I could think of.”

“All right. Is your husband in his den now?”

“I don't know,” she said, “I'm not home.”

“Not home? Where are you?”

“I couldn't stay there, I just… I couldn't, I had to get out of there…”

“Where are you?” I asked her again.

“A service station. On Van Ness.”

“How long have you been away from your house?”

“I don't know, not long…”

“Listen to me. What did your husband say before you left? Tell me his exact words.”

“He said… I don't remember his exact words, it was something about shooting himself the way his father did, like father like son, it was crazy talk…”

“Did he sound crazy? Incoherent?”

“No. He was calm, that awful calm.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No, no, nothing.”

“What did he do?”

“Went back into the den and locked the door.”

“And then you left?”

“Yes. I told you, I couldn't stay there…”

“How soon did you leave?”

“Right away. A minute or two.”

“So it hasn't been more than fifteen or twenty minutes since he made his threat. He's probably all right; there's no reason to panic. You go back home and try to reason with him. Meanwhile, I'll call his doctor for you-”

“No,” she said, “I can't go back there alone. Not alone. If you come… I'll meet you there…”

“There's nothing I can do-”

“Please,” she said, “I'll go home now, I'll wait for you.”

“Mrs. Kiskadon, I think you-”

But there was a clicking sound and she was gone.

I put the handset back into its cradle. And left it there: I couldn't call Kiskadon's doctor because I didn't know who he was; she hadn't given me time to ask his name.

When I turned around Kerry was standing in the bedroom doorway. She said, “What was that all about?”

“Kiskadon threatened to kill himself a while ago. His wife is pretty upset; she wants me to go over there.”

“Do you think he meant it?”

“I hope not.”

“But he might have.”

“Yeah,” I said, “he might have.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Go, for God's sake.”

I went.

The green Ford Escort was parked in the driveway when I got to Twelfth Avenue and Lynn Kiskadon was sitting stiffly behind the wheel. She didn't move as I pulled to the curb in front, or when I got out and went around behind the Ford and up along her side. She didn't seem to know I was there until I tapped lightly on the window; then she jerked, like somebody coming out of a daze, and her head snapped around. Behind the glass her face had a frozen look, pale and haggard, the eyes staring with the same fixed emptiness as the stuffed rodents in Angelo Bertolucci's display cases.

I reached down and opened the door. She said, “I didn't think you were coming,” in a voice that was too calm, too controlled. She was one breath this side of a scream and two breaths short of hysteria.

“Did you check on your husband, Mrs. Kiskadon?”

“No. I've been sitting here waiting.”

“You should have gone in-”

“I can't go in there,” she said.

“You have to.”

“No. I can't go in there, don't you understand?”

“All right.”

“You go. I'll wait here.”

“You'll have to give me the key.”

She pulled the one out of the ignition and handed me the leather case it was attached to. “The big silver one,” she said. “You have to wiggle it to get it into the lock.”

I left her, went around the Ford and over onto the porch. I had just put the house key into the latch when I heard the car door slam. I didn't turn; I finished unlocking the door and pushed it open and walked inside.

Silence, except for the distant hum of an appliance that was probably the refrigerator. I went into the living room by a couple of paces, half-turning so that I could look back at the doorway. Lynn Kiskadon appeared there, hesitated, then entered and shut the door behind her.

“I couldn't wait out there,” she said. “I wanted to but I couldn't. It's cold in the car.”

I didn't say anything. Instead I went through into the hallway and along it to the closed door to Kiskadon's den. There wasn't anything to hear when I put my ear up close to the panel and listened. I knocked, called Kiskadon's name, and then identified myself.

No answer from inside.

Lynn Kiskadon was standing behind me, close enough so that I could hear the irregular rhythm of her breathing. There was a knot in my stomach and another one in my throat; the palms of my hands felt greasy. I wiped the right one on my pantleg, reached out and turned the doorknob. Locked.