Bill Pronzini: Blowback

“I wouldn't take your money, Harry.”

“Will you do it?”

I did not like any of it much, but I liked even less the prospect of driving back into San Francisco and waiting there for Tuesday and the pathologist's findings from the sputum test. There was really not much difference, I thought, in facing a potential metastasizing tumor or a potential psychotic-and yet, forced up against it, I would take the psychotic every time. I wondered if other men would feel the same way; I wondered if, despite more than twenty years of military service and city police duty that had involved no small amount of personal danger, I was in some ways a coward.

And the hell with that. In some ways we're all cowards.

“Yeah, I'll do it,” I said. “But I don't know how long I can stay. I've got to take care of some… business in San Francisco fairly soon.”

“The Jerrolds are supposed to leave for home on Saturday,” Harry said. “Could you stick it that long?”

You can call Dr. White from here, I thought, don't forget that. Call him on Tuesday afternoon. Then No. Worry about then when the time comes.

“I'll stick it as long as I can, Harry.”

He nodded. “Thanks, buddy,” he said. “I won't ask for any more than that.”

The cabin Harry gave me was Number Three, well up into the trees toward the center of the camp and positioned back into a kind of niche that had been hollowed out of the slopeside. You could not see any of the lake from there. It was shady, a little cooler, very quiet except for the natural sounds of birds and squirrels and summer insects. Random shafts of sunlight slanted down to the needled ground, hard and yellow and solid-looking, like spires of pure quartz gold.

Inside, the cabin had an old blackened wood-burning stove, twin rollaway beds, a table and two wooden chairs, a rattan settee and a rattan captain's chair, a standing water cooler in one corner, and a heavy insulating mat rug on the floor. Against one wall was a cabinet sink and a two-burner kerosene cookstove; a closed door at the rear led to the shower and toilet facilities. Short on luxury, long on simple comfort. I could have lived there the year-round with no trouble at all.

I had packed a single bag with a few things before leaving my flat, and I put it down on one of the beds, along with my fishing gear. Harry set the bag of groceries he'd insisted on carrying on the side of the cabinet sink. Then we went out again and sat down together on the porch steps.

I said, “I'm going to need to know a few more things.”

“Whatever I can tell you,” he said.

“How long has this thing been building with the Jerrolds?”

“Ever since they came in a week ago yesterday.”

“He was strung out when they got here?”

“It looked like it to me.”

“Were all your other guests here then?”

“All except Walt Bascomb. He came on Sunday.”

“Okay. If Angela Jerrold is playing around, would Cody be the most likely candidate?”

“Probably. He's the kind of pretty boy a lot of women go for, and he can be damned charming when he feels like it. He'd be liable to make a pass at her out of sheer boredom, if nothing else. He doesn't like it here-not even a little bit.”

“So I gathered.”

“He tell you about himself?”

“Enough. So why do you let him stay?”

“His old man is good for three hundred a week if I keep him here and keep an eye on him. I need the money, buddy, it's as simple as that. The old mercenary ethic.”

“What about the others?”

“Well, Bascomb is a commercial artist, from your town, and a decent enough guy. Keeps to himself mostly-paints a little, fishes a little. He split up with his wife not long ago; one of the reasons he's here, I think, is to get himself over it. He doesn't strike me as the type to initiate a pass, particularly now, with a married woman; but then again, I'm not sure he'd shy away from one thrown at him. If Mrs. Jerrold wanted him badly enough, she could probably have him.”

“Considered opinion, Harry: Is she on the make?”

“All I can do is guess. You'll be able to draw your own conclusions when you meet her.”

“I'll take yours for now.”

“Then the answer is yes, but she's choosy about it. I guess maybe I don't blame her, with a man like Jerrold for a husband. I've seen him go after her the way he went after Cody a little while ago, right out of the blue, no provocation or warning signs.”

“Did he get physical with her?”

“No.”

“You think he ever does?”

“Not while they've been here, anyway. She walks around half-naked, like I told you, and she'd show marks if he was slapping her around.”

“How about this Knox and Talesco? That's their names?”

“Right, Sam Knox and Karl Talesco. Well, the same is true with them as with Bascomb. But who knows what goes on inside people's heads?”

“Cody said the two of them are practically inseparable.”

“Yeah, they've been good friends for years.”

“You known them long?”

“Ten years. They run a freight line out of Fresno.”

“They been here the same time as the Jerrolds before?”

“No. Ditto Cody. And this is Bascomb's first season.”

“Either or both of them married?”

“Knox used to be. Talesco's like me, an old bach.”

“For what it's worth, Cody thinks they might be closet gays.”

“Oh bullshit,” Harry said. “Guys like Cody give me a pain in the ass. They see two men together a lot, close friends, right away they think there's got to be something sexual between them. Knox and Talesco are as straight as you and me.”

“Fair enough. Now, who's in which cabin?”

“Cody's in Two, Knox and Talesco in Four, Bascomb in Five, the Jerrolds in Six.”

I nodded, and then I said I would spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around the camp, seeing what I could see, meeting Mrs. Jerrold and the others. “Will you be at your cabin?”

“Working in the shed, probably,” he said.

“Well, I'll drop down later. If I haven't found out anything, there's always those old times to kick over.”

“Make it around six-thirty,” he said. “I caught three fat bass this morning and I thought I'd fry them for supper.”

“Sounds good.”

When he had disappeared into the trees, I went into the cabin and took off my shirt and washed some of the sweat off with water that was piped in directly from the lake. There was a small sign in the bath alcove, and another over the cabinet sink, that told you this and reminded you not to drink any of it. I took a lightweight knit pullover out of my bag, slipped it on, and recombed my hair; the image the mirror gave back to me looked presentable enough, if a little drawn and a little tired.

Outside again, I made my way through the pines, following the narrow path that wound through the camp. Cabin Four seemed to be deserted; Knox and Talesco were apparently still out on the lake. Cabin Five also appeared deserted, and I would have moved on if, in the stillness, I had not heard the soft sound of a woman's laughter. It came from behind the cabin, and it was followed by the murmur of a man's voice; then there was silence again. I hesitated, because if something was going on back there, I was not sure I wanted to walk in on it. Still, I did not like the idea of circling around through the trees to where I could spy down on the rear of the cabin. Maybe part of the reason I didn't like it was because it was stereotypical; the other part of the reason was that I might make enough noise for them to hear me.

So I went along the side of the cabin, quietly, and stopped before I reached the rear corner and listened again. Silence. A fat green fly drifted lazily through a beam of sunlight; a small brownish-yellow chipmunk stared down at me from a low bough on a lodgepole pine, forepaws tucked under its chin in a way that made it seem to be meditating. High up in one of the other trees, an unseen jay screeched like a whiskey-voiced harridan. Behind the cabin, still nothing. All right, I thought-and I backed off a couple of steps, made enough noise with my feet to send the chipmunk scurrying out of sight, and then walked out to where I could see them.