Билл Пронзини - In an Evil Time

“But you don’t much care for the idea.”

“Of course not. Running away isn’t going to save her from Rakubian.”

“Neither is staying home where he can get to her any time he feels like it.”

Hollis was silent. Same old pointless argument.

The line hummed and crackled emptily. Then Eric said in a cold, flat voice, “I hate that crazy son of a bitch. I’d like to smash his fucking head in.”

“Knock off that kind of talk,” Hollis said sharply. “You know better than that.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same way.”

“Violence isn’t the answer.” You goddamn hypocrite, he thought.

“Then what is? I can’t help thinking...”

“What? What’re you thinking?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“Listen to me, son. Don’t go getting any wild ideas.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do.”

“I won’t lose it, don’t worry.”

“I do worry.”

Long pause. “I’m coming home for a couple of days,” Eric said then, “and don’t tell me not to, okay?”

“Why?”

“The obvious reason. To see Angie before she leaves.”

Hollis gave this a few seconds of thought before he said, “All right, no objection. When are you driving up?”

“After my last class tomorrow. Friday traffic’ll probably be a bitch, so don’t expect me until after dinner.”

“Call when you get close to San Francisco. We’ll wait dinner if it’s not too late.”

After he put the phone down, Hollis sat slumped in his chair. He hadn’t seen his son in six weeks; it would be good to have him home again for a while. Make Cassie happy, too. But could he trust Eric to stay away from Rakubian? Better impress it on him again, in person, as soon as he could get him alone. If all the pieces of the new plan came together... Saturday was the target day. There was a lot to do before then, and any number of potential complications to screw up the timing and logistics. He couldn’t afford to let his hotheaded son become another one.

Thursday Afternoon

The Paloma Mountains, like the Los Alegres River, was a misnomer. In fact they were a spine of tallish foothills spotted with oak and madrone, green in the winter but already beginning to brown off now in late spring, that separated this valley from the lush Paloma Valley to the east. Along the lower slopes were scattered ranches, rolling cattle graze, private homes on large parcels. Farther up, where the terrain steepened, boulder-size rocks littered the hillside, the folds between rounded hummocks cut deep to form shadowed hollows choked with trees and brush, and the number of working ranches and private dwellings dropped to a widely spaced handful. Stretches of woods ran near and along the ridgeline, hiding three small lakes and miles of deer trails on the privately owned sections, hiking and horseback trails on several thousand acres that belonged to the city.

The Chesterton parcel was better than two-thirds of the way up, one of the highest and choicest homesite locations. His seventy-two acres had cost him a couple of million; the home, outbuildings, and extensive landscaping he had planned would run about the same. Four million to Shelby Chesterton was like four thousand to Jack Hollis: He was no Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but the pile he’d made in the technology market was massive and still growing. More power to him. He wasn’t your typical high-rolling Type A corporate egomaniac; on the contrary, he was down-to-earth, surprisingly easygoing, a nice guy. Working with him had been a pleasure.

For that reason, because he liked and respected the man, Hollis felt bad about this part of the plan. It amounted to a betrayal, and the fact that Chesterton would never know it was cold comfort. A matter of expediency, yes — the only safe and certain means open to him on short notice. But that did not make the reality taste any less bitter. Another little piece of his integrity torn away and lost because of David Rakubian.

The road ran more or less straight at the lower elevations, turned crooked and then narrow and twisty as he climbed through stands of dusty-looking trees, rocky fields where dairy cattle grazed in the sun. He had the window rolled down and the afternoon breeze was warm, heavy with the smells of madrone, dry grass, manure. Behind him he could see the valley spread out below, the town with its east side suburban sprawl, the river, and Highway 101. From up at the Chesterton site, the view was spectacular. On a clear day you could see Mt. Tarn, San Pablo Bay, parts of San Francisco Bay, and the city’s skyline forty miles distant.

The pitch of the road grew even sharper; on the south side the terrain began to fall away, gradually in some places, more steeply in others. He made a corkscrew turn through a cutbank, driving at a crawl now because of the blind curves and the fact that the strip of rough asphalt was so narrow here two cars could not pass abreast. This road and most of the others in the Paloma Mountains had been built in the twenties to accommodate the ranchers, and they were little used by anyone except residents and kids looking for a private place to drink beer and get laid. He and Cassie had come here more than once, nearly thirty years ago... high school sweethearts, high school heat. It was where she’d given him her virginity, in fact.

Was it also where Angela had given hers to Ryan Pierce? The thought bothered him more than it should have and he wasn’t sure why.

At nearly five miles by his odometer, the road split in two: the right fork dead-ending at the gate of one of the cattle ranchers, the left fork following a brushy ravine uphill. That one had brand-new gates standing wide open; the road surface there was gravel and would eventually be paved. Hollis turned in on it, raising clouds of dust that hung and shifted in the clear air like slow coils of smoke.

The house site was another half-mile along, on a wide, deep shelf extending out from a pair of oak-studded folds. Four leveled and graded acres that in another six months, if the weather cooperated, would contain the main house — two-storied, redwood and fieldstone with a cross-gabled roof and an interior of sharp-angled walls and huge rough-sawn boxed beams; five outbuildings in the same general style but with subtle alterations to make each one unique; and an eighty-foot-square stone terrace and swimming pool, tennis courts, and two formal gardens. Right now the acreage was a jumble of earthmoving equipment, dump trucks, pickups, office trailer and toolsheds, portable toilets, stacks of lumber, piles of rock and gravel and dirt, Pete Dulac’s twelve-man crew, and all the other components of a medium-size construction site.

Hollis found a place to park near the trailer and attached, steel-reinforced sheds. The noise level was high: grinding gears, pounding engines, backup beepers, men shouting. It must have been a bitch getting some of the trucks and equipment up here, Hollis thought as he went looking for Pete Dulac. The teamsters, especially those who’d hauled the cats and scoops and trailer up East Valley Road, were really earning their pay on this job.

Dulac found him before he was halfway to where the main house was staked out and partly slabbed. PAD Construction’s owner was a burly, jowly man in his late fifties, the 49ers cap he habitually wore tilted back on his head, a tool belt slung around his waist. He’d worked for the old man once, long ago, but that wasn’t the reason Hollis favored him whenever he could. Dulac was the best and most reliable general contractor in the county. He seldom finished a job late or overbudget; drove his crews hard, but no harder than he drove himself.

“Saw you pull in,” he said. “How they hangin’, Jack?”

Damn sour joke now, but Hollis went along with it. “A little lower every day.”