Bill Pronzini: Blowback

“Hello,” she said warily.

“Hello.”

“Something I can do for you?”

“I was just admiring the peacocks.”

“Them? Nasty strutting parasites.”

“If you feel that way, why do you keep them?”

“My late husband fancied 'em.” She smiled without humor. “Come to think of it, they had plenty in common. He was kind of a nasty strutting parasite himself.”

“Do you sell their feathers?”

That got me a narrow look. “What for?”

“Well, some people use them for home decoration.”

“Do they?”

“I think so. Like cattails or pampas grass.”

“You want to buy some?”

“No. I was just wondering if you'd sold any recently.”

“To who?”

“To anyone.”

“I got better things to do than sell peacock feathers.”

I glanced again at the single dropped feather. More to myself than to her I said, “I guess it'd be easy enough for someone to stop and pick a few up. Just reach through or climb over when there was nobody around.”

“You think so, do you?”

“It's possible.”

“Well, you just get that idea right out of your head, mister. I got dogs too. Mean dogs.”

I smiled a little. “Don't worry. I haven't got any plans along those lines.”

“No?”

“No. Sorry to have bothered you, ma'am.”

“Tourists,” the woman said, and stalked off.

I got back into the car. Probably nothing in it, I thought. Why would hijackers or potential murderers take the time to gather peacock feathers? Still, it was an angle, and worth mentioning to Cloudman.

In the village I found a parking place half a block from The Pines Hotel and made my way back to it along crowded sidewalks. The lobby was dark and mercifully cool, with pegged floors and Victorian furnishings and the largest antique roll-top I had ever seen in a corner behind the hotel desk. Through a rectangular doorway on the left I could see part of a long, narrow bar; a sign above the doorway said in old-style lettering: Gold Rush Room. Clever.

The guy on the desk wore a Western shirt, complete with green sleeve garters, and an air of professional hospitality. I asked him for the number of Charles Kayabalian's room, and he said he would see if Mr. Kayabalian was in and whom should he say was inquiring. When I said my name he smiled as if pleased by the sound of it and went to a small switchboard and plugged in. I heard him announce me; then he listened, said “Yes sir,” turned and indicated an extension phone on the counter. So I picked up the receiver on that, thinking that the attitude of The Pines Hotel was more big-city than old-fashioned Mother Lode. I could have gotten in to see the mayor of San Francisco with less ceremony.

“Mr. Kayabalian?”

One of those deep Melvin Belli voices said, “Yes. Thank you for coming. But you've caught me just out of a shower; can you give me ten minutes?”

“Sure.”

“I'll meet you in the bar if you like.”

“Fine. I'm wearing slacks and a blue knit shirt.”

“Ten minutes,” he said.

I hung up and went over through the rectangle into the bar. The walls were decorated with a lot of gold-rush paraphernalia and memorabilia: sluice pans, hand picks, a red miner's shirt tacked up like a crucifix, kerosene lanterns on iron brackets, frontier handguns in glass cases, old photographs and claim deeds and maps, a wooden grave marker with the inscription Here Lies a Lady Named Charlotte, Born a Virgin and Died a Harlot which may or may not have been authentic. There were three high-backed redwood booths along one wall, only one of which was occupied by two men working on tall glasses of draft beer. The bar itself was deserted except for a man down at the far end, and I was ten paces inside before I realized that I knew him.

Sam Knox.

He was sitting motionless, both arms folded on the bartop, staring sightlessly into a half-empty glass of bourbon or Scotch or Irish whiskey. His face was set in dark, brooding lines, and he had the look of somebody adrift inside himself, the look of a guy who has been doing a considerable amount of solitary drinking. I wondered if he had been here since leaving the camp in midmorning; I had not seen the Rambler wagon on the way to or from Sonora, or when I had driven in a few minutes ago, but he could have had it parked all along on a side street.

I went down there and got up on a stool next to him. He did not move, did not seem to know I was there. His eyes, unblinking, might have been made of dark glass. The bartender came over and asked me what I'd have, and I told him a bottle of Schlitz. I waited until he brought it, and then I made a little noise clinking the bottle against my glass and said to Knox, “Hello, Sam. Good to see you again.”

It took three or four seconds for him to react. Then he blinked once and moved his shoulders and brought his head around. Unlike Talesco, there were no marks on him-or at least none that I could see in the dim lighting. He stared at me blankly, blinked again, and finally his eyes unclouded and recognition seeped into them.

“The hell you want?” he said. The words were distinct, un-slurred, but there was a coarse, raspy quality to them, like a wood file on a piece of bark.

“Not a thing. I just came in for a beer and saw you sitting here.”

“Don't want company.”

“Drinking alone's not much of a pleasure.”

“Pleasure,” Knox said. “Shit.”

“Where's your friend Talesco today?”

“Hell do I know?”

“Well, I haven't seen him around the camp.”

He squinted at me. “No? You see her around?”

“Who? Mrs. Jerrold?”

“Yeah.”

“Not since early this morning.”

“Told him. Warned him, the stupid bastard.”

“About Mrs. Jerrold?”

“All his brains between his legs. Stupid.”

“Why did you warn him about her?”

“Stupid,” Knox said. “Never knew how stupid.”

“Has he been seeing her on the sly-that it?”

But he was not listening to me now. He wrapped one of his big hands around his glass, drained off the whiskey, slammed the glass down again. He mumbled something that I couldn't understand; then: “Stepped aside for him. Best friend, noble gesture. Bullshit.” Mumble. “Good woman, not a bitch, but she wanted him. Him.” Mumble. His face seemed to darken, although it was difficult to tell in that light, and his lips pulled into a crooked, angry slash. “Won't let him get away with it, not any of it. Fix him good this time.”

He was working himself up into a dangerous state; I thought with belated alarm: Christ, I handled it all wrong, I should know better than to provoke somebody who's been drinking the way he has. I put a hand on his arm, gently. “Take it easy, Knox-”

He shrugged my hand off and then pushed back from the bar with such sudden force that the legs of his stool tilted out from under him; the stool fell clattering. Knox staggered, threw out an arm, and I felt fingers like hooked steel prongs bite into my shoulder. He lurched into me, almost knocked me off my own stool. Flecks of saliva and the stale whiskey heat of his breath buffeted my face.

I wedged the left side of my body against the bar, shoved him off with my right shoulder, trying to steady him-but that was a mistake too. He took it as an aggression and leaned back toward me and swung wildly at my head.

And just like that, I was into it.

His fist missed me by a foot, but I could feel the wind of it: he was bull-strong. My groin knotted up and I twisted sideways and came off the stool onto my feet while he was trying to set himself for another swing. Somebody shouted. Knox swayed, made rumbling sounds in his throat, and put his head down and charged me. I side-stepped him easily enough-the liquor had made him reckless but turned his reflexes sluggish-and hit him over the collarbone with the flat of my left hand. He lost his balance, skidded into the bar, caromed off with his head jerking up to look for me, and he was wide open. I did not want to do it, but he had left me no choice; if I let this go on he would tear up the place, and maybe me along with it.