Билл Пронзини - In an Evil Time

He and Cassie had had some good times here, too, after they were first married and while the kids were still young. But few enough the past ten years or so. Neither Eric nor Angela cared for the place as they grew older — too remote, the weather too often cold and misty — and Cassie had taken on more of a workload at the clinic, developed other interests. The cottage was mostly his now, and still little used. Yet he’d never been able to bring himself to sell it. He wasn’t sure why. The good memories, partly, he supposed. And because it had been Pop’s place. And because every now and then, when he felt peopled out, it became his male retreat.

Now it would serve another purpose.

Now, today, another man would die here.

No close neighbors, trees screening most of the property from Highway 1, a separate garage without windows. Oh, it was the perfect place, all right, to commit murder... no, to commit an act of self-defense. He wondered if he would feel the same about it after today, if he would ever be able to come here again. Probably not. The smart thing to do would be to put it on the market and be done with it. Another piece of himself lost. Another sacrifice.

What would Pop say if he knew? Hell, Hollis thought, he’d be all for it. Would’ve done the same thing himself, in this kind of situation — just bulled right ahead instead of planning it out, the way I almost did Wednesday night. Man of action, take the bull by the horns, kick ass and never look back... that was Bud Hollis, a monument built of clichés. He’d be proud of me, by God. More proud of me for killing a man, eliminating a threat to the family, than he ever was for anything I accomplished while he was alive or since.

Hollis slowed, made the turn off the highway onto the rutted access lane. The trees, mostly pine and cypress, were old and bent from the constant buffeting of the coastal winds; passing through them, he had a sense of retreating backward in time. The cottage added to it: redwood boards, sagging roofline, creaky pilings sunk deep into the bayshore mud and supporting both the rear deck and the crookedly attached dock, everything weathered gray and unchanged — except for the new roof — since his boyhood. As he approached, he would not have been surprised to see the old man appear in the doorway, straight-spined and unsmiling, a fishing rod in one gnarled hand and a can of Bud in the other.

He pulled up in front of the ramshackle garage, sat looking through the gap between it and the shack at the white-capped bay. The wind was strong today; he could hear it rattling and soughing in the trees, smell the briny odor of the bay even with the windows rolled up. After a time he opened the glove compartment, removed the chamois-wrapped Colt Woodsman. Sat a few seconds longer, taking stock of himself.

The sense of fragmentation was there again, and an edginess, and a hollow feeling beneath his breastbone. Emotional push-pull: resolve and repugnance, necessity and uncertainty. He’d taken a good long look into the center of himself the past few days and he had little doubt that he was a man capable, in extremis, of taking a human life. But that didn’t mean he could or would when the time came. He might freeze up again; he might shoot Rakubian dead without a moment’s hesitation. There was just no way to be sure. He would not know the full sum of Jack Hollis for another sixty minutes or so. Two o’clock, the hour of reckoning.

He went first to unlock the garage. Not much in there except the two items he’d remembered — a short-pronged pick and a rusty shovel. He’d hide Rakubian’s BMW in the garage so Gloria wouldn’t see it when she brought him out tomorrow. Then he’d drive it to San Francisco and leave it in one of the parking garages downtown — Union Square or Sutter-Stockton — and take a North Bay Transit bus back to Los Alegres. Simple. No one would notice or remember him; parking garages and buses were places that harbored anonymity.

He hefted the pick, swung it once to make sure the wood hadn’t rotted where the head was attached. He would have no trouble using it or the shovel; the summers Pop had made him do scut labor on his construction sites, to “toughen him up,” would finally serve a useful purpose. He carried the tools to the car, put them in the trunk with the other items he’d stowed in there at home this morning. Now he had everything he needed — perhaps more than he needed. The more prepared he was, the more likely he would be able to follow through.

A strong mingling of dust, must, salt damp, and dry rot assaulted his sinuses when he let himself into the cottage. It had been months since his last visit. He set the .22 on the table in the kitchen alcove, opened the folding blinds and then the sliding glass door to the balcony to let in light and fresh air. Nostalgia stirred in him as he surveyed the cramped living room and kitchen areas. Everything the same as it had been before the old man died, some of the original furnishings unchanged and unmoved. Forties Sears & Roebuck, fifties kitsch. Yellow-and-brown linoleum on the floor, worn through in places. Yellow Formica-topped dining table and matching chairs, ancient coil-topped refrigerator, two-burner propane stove. The horsehair sofa and Pop’s overstuffed Morris chair, the fabrics on both torn and showing their insides here and there. Claw-foot smoking stand, ugly lamps, faded and poorly done seascapes, the stuffed and mounted trophy fish over the blackened stone fireplace. That fireplace... it smoked no matter how clean the chimney was. On windy days it let drafts down the warped old flue that made freakish whistling, howling noises and blew ash all over the floor. “He could hear the noises now; they made him feel cold. I can’t do it in here, he thought. Outside. The sound of the shot won’t carry, not with this wind.

He stepped onto the spongy boards of the deck, rested his hands on the railing without leaning on it. A handful of sailboats whitened the bay, one close by Hog Island, the others near the anchorage at Inverness and up near the state park on the opposite shore. The tide was out; the mud stakes marking the oyster beds far to the south were visible a hundred yards offshore. Quiet here except for the wind, the chatter of gulls, the distant hiss and rumble of cars on the highway. Peaceful.

He glanced at his watch — twenty minutes to the hour — and then went back inside, leaving the sliding door open. He unwrapped the Woodsman and checked the loads, the way the old man had taught him. Set the gun on the mantelpiece, where he wouldn’t have to look at it when he was sitting down. Drink? Better not. But he went to the alcove anyway, found the half-full bottle of Bushmills in the cupboard, poured a double shot and took it to the Morris chair, and set the glass on the smoking stand without drinking from it. Later, maybe. If he needed a little last-minute Dutch courage.

The musty, closed-up smell evaporated as he sat there. Funny, though... he could have sworn that every now and then he had a faint whiff of the old man’s latakia pipe tobacco. After seventeen years? Ghost scent. Or maybe not; Pop had smoked that stubby briar of his incessantly, no doubt a major contributing factor in his fatal coronary, and old fabric like the chair’s absorbed and retained odors. Now that he thought about it, he remembered other times when he’d sat here and caught the same ephemeral tobacco scent.

Pop. Tough love — what passed for love in him anyway — but always tempered with those censorious eyes, that critical mouth, the ooze of disappointment. Tried so hard to please him, never seemed to measure up to his expectations. Like with the hunting, the fishing. You haven’t got the guts for a man’s sport . Like with his career choice. Pop had wanted him to be a builder, join him in his construction business. Hollis & Son, General Contractors. Pop’s view: building things was man’s work; designing them, “fiddling with blueprints and slide rules,” had a faintly effeminate taint. He’d wanted half a dozen strapping, brawling, sports-minded, beer-swilling chips off the same rough-hewn block; instead all Mom had given him was one medium-sized, independent, unathletic, bookish son with tendencies that in his eyes smacked of latent homosexuality. What are you, boy? A goddamn fag? In his heart of hearts he’d never forgiven his only son for being what he was instead of what he was supposed to be.