Bill Pronzini: Blowback

“Not since yesterday.”

“You're a goddamn liar.”

“Hey, now wait a minute…”

Harry came up, glanced at me in a disturbed way, and put a hand on this Jerrold's arm. “Take it slow, Ray. Cool down.”

“The hell I will. This-”

“Ray, ease off now.”

“Big man,” Cody said to Jerrold. He tried to curl his Up like Bogart used to do, but it only came out looking silly. “If you don't trust your wife, or me, or any of the others, why'd you go off hunting or whatever with Burroughs? You hand out plenty of freedom, and then you come in playing the outraged husband-”

Jerrold said “You son of a bitch!” and took a step forward with his free hand balling into a fist. Cody flinched, backed away, but Harry tightened his fingers on Jerrold's arm and pulled him back.

“Let it alone, Ray, come on. Go on over to your cabin, Angela's probably there waiting for you.”

Jerrold stood there with those half-wild eyes cutting away at Cody's face like sharp-pointed sticks. Cody took it all right now, but the amusement was gone and his eyes were wary. I was afraid for a moment that Jerrold would erupt again; you don't like to see a man that strung out, that near some kind of breaking point-and you particularly don't like to see it when he's carrying a shotgun that is sure to be loaded.

But nothing happened. Fifteen or twenty seconds passed, and then Jerrold said “You'll get yours, boy,” and wheeled away and stalked down along the lakeshore.

Harry said to Cody, “You'd better not push him. You can push a man just so far.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means.”

“Why don't you mind your own business?”

“What happens at this camp is my business.”

“Listen,” Cody said, “this Angela is nothing but a prickteaser. You think I'm going to mess with a fox like that?”

“You tell me.”

“Shit. Why doesn't Jerrold pick on one of the other dudes-Bascomb, for instance? She's always after him to paint her.”

“Maybe Bascomb doesn't look or act like a guy on the make.”

“Shit,” the kid said again, a little petulantly this time. Then, abruptly, he went off around the front of the cabin.

Harry gave me a faint wry smile, and we shook hands. Compact and sinuous, he had pale green eyes and a long jaw and sun-weathered features, and he was wearing his standard all-season outfit: khakis and an army fatigue cap over clipped brown hair. The weapon he was carrying was an eight-shot. 22 rifle.

“Good to see you, buddy,” he said. “I'm just sorry it has to be under these circumstances. You been waiting long?”

“Fifteen minutes,” I said. “Is Jerrold the problem you've been having?”

“Both of the Jerrolds. And Cody. And maybe one or more of the other three guys I've got staying here.”

Over in the parking circle a car engine started up, revved a couple of times, roared at seven or eight thousand rpms for several seconds, and settled into a throbbing rumble. The Italian sports job, I thought. It and Cody were a natural for each other. The engine howled again, tires spun gravel, and away he went up the county road.

Harry took off his cap and sighed and rubbed sweat from his forehead with the back of his free hand. “I've got a fan inside. Why don't we get a couple of beers and talk in there.”

“Suits me,” I said.

Harry's cabin was essentially one large room with exposed crisscrossing beams, unvarnished knotty-pine walls, and a pair of curtained-off alcoves that served as bedroom and bathroom. It had a massive fieldstone fireplace, a handmade gun rack that contained an old Marlin lever-action rifle and a Mossberg. 410-gauge pump gun, a floor-to-ceiling cabinet filled with fishing gear and an assortment of intricate flies I knew he had tied himself, orderly stacks of outdoor books and magazines on a handmade bookshelf, an old mohair sofa, two overstuffed Naugahyde chairs, a dining table made out of heavy pine with benches instead of chairs, and kitchen facilities along part of the back wall. It was a warm, comfortable, masculine room-exactly the kind you would expect a confirmed bachelor and woodsman like Harry to build for himself.

After we entered he fitted the. 22 rifle onto the gun rack, put a portable electric fan on the floor in front of the hearth, and indicated the two overstuffed chairs. We sat in them, facing the fan, and sipped at the beer. Harry wore a brooding expression; his face seemed more lined than I remembered it. But then, maybe mine did to him too.

I said, “So let's have it. What's going on here?”

He sighed heavily this time. “I'm not sure. At least, I'm not sure of part of what's going on, if anything is. The only part I'm positive about is that Jerrold is functioning on the ragged edge of a breakdown. He's been coming up here for two weeks each of the past four summers, and he's always been nervous and excitable; but not nearly as bad as this year. He's in advertising in L.A., one of these live-for-business guys.”

“I take it he's also the jealous type.”

“In spades. The kind of husband who thinks every guy is making a pass at his wife behind his back, and that she might be catching one here and there. Possessive and obsessive, and getting worse every day, the way it looks.”

“Has he got any cause here?”

“I don't know,” Harry said. “Mrs. Jerrold is a looker, goes around about half-naked most of the time; she's also the open, friendly sort. I just haven't been able to tell if it stops there.”

“She's the only woman in camp?”

He nodded. “And that just makes it worse.”

“Any trouble with her and guests in the past?”

“Not that I could tell.”

“All right, so she may or may not be playing around. But the point is, Jerrold thinks she might be, and you're afraid of what he might do if it turns out he's right.”

“That's it.”

“Well, Christ, why don't you just send the two of them packing?”

“It's not that simple.”

“Why isn't it?”

“Because I owe Ray Jerrold five thousand dollars,” he said. “I was having some problems the second year he came up here, and we got to talking, and it turned out he was willing to make a long-term loan that I couldn't get from any bank. I borrowed seventy-five hundred, and so far I've paid back twenty-five hundred. But if I throw him out, he's the kind who'd demand the rest of the money as his pound of flesh-and I just don't have it. I don't have anywhere near that much.”

I swallowed some of my beer. The fan was not doing much for the heat in there, and not doing much for me except clammily drying the sweat under my arms. “Okay then,” I said, “I can understand your position. What did you think I could do?”

“Keep an eye on things, watch Mrs. Jerrold and the rest of them and see if there really is something going on.”

“And if it turns out there is?”

“Then I send the guy packing immediately, no matter who he is. But I've got to know for sure first.”

“That part of it is all right,” I said. “What I don't care for at all is Jerrold. You said yourself he's close to a breakdown. Suppose he goes over the edge? Suppose he decides he doesn't need proof and gets it into his head to just go and let loose at his wife or Cody or some of the rest of us? That kind of thing has happened before, it can happen again.”

“Maybe it's not that bad.”

“Maybe it is.”

“Okay,” he admitted, “okay, maybe it is. That's the other reason why I want you here. I can't call in the cops and I'm not sure I can handle a serious crisis on my own. I need a man with professional experience, professional training.”

“Some favor,” I said.

“I'd pay you if I could afford it-”