Bill Pronzini - Boobytrap

Judson gave me a hand-drawn map — actually a photocopy of one from a folder behind the bar — that showed side roads and trout pools in the area. I listened to advice from him and a couple of the others on which spots were best this year for cutthroat browns and rainbows. The most votes went to a pool labeled Two Creek Bar.

“It takes some hiking,” Rita said, “about a mile and a half crosscountry, but the terrain’s not too rough.”

“I don’t mind a good hike.”

“Two Creek’s the place to go, then.”

“I’ll give it a try first thing tomorrow.”

I bought a round of beers and then managed to slip away more or less gracefully, in deference to my growling stomach.

Chuck came knocking at the door as I was broiling a small steak and making a salad to go with it. “Mom sent me over to invite you to dinner tomorrow night,” he said when I let him in.

I gestured at my fixings. “Good thing it’s not tonight.”

“Yeah, that steak smells good. We’re having chili. Tomorrow it’ll be trout. Pan-cooked on the Weber.”

“Sounds tasty.”

“Tasty? Man, they’ll be outstanding .”

“What time?”

“Seven, she said.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Cool. She talked to Dad a little while ago.”

“Everything okay back home?”

“Sure. But they haven’t caught that asshole yet. You know, the bomber.”

“Any new leads?”

“Not yet. Dad thinks something’ll break pretty soon. You know where you’re going first?”

“Going?” Kids can switch subjects fast enough to throw an Einstein off stride.

“In the morning. Where you’re gonna fish.”

“Oh. Place called Two Creek Bar.”

“Yeah, that’s an okay spot.”

“But not one of the best?”

“Nah.” His eyes took on an anticipatory shine. “The best, the absolute best, bar none, that’s where I’m going.”

“That what it’s called? Bar None?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Dumb joke.”

“It doesn’t have a name,” he said. “Dad found it a few years ago, caught a three-pound cutthroat right off the bat. Last year I hooked one that weighed three and a quarter. Man, I can’t wait to get out there!”

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to share the secret.”

“Nah, it’s just for us. But there’s a spot I found that’s almost as good that I’ll show you. You still want to go out, just the two of us?”

“Sure. Any time.”

“How about Monday morning?”

“If we’re not too full of tomorrow’s catch.”

“Can’t ever get too full of pan-cooked trout.”

“No argument there. Okay, Monday morning it is.”

“Way cool.”

After supper I sat on the deck watching night settle around the lake. It was chilly with the sun gone and the sunset colors fading, the sky darkening into a deep, velvety indigo; there was a wind off the water now, thin and gusty, with an edge I could feel through the lined jacket I’d put on. I thought that I ought to go inside, build up the fire I’d started earlier, but I wasn’t ready to do that just yet. Nice out here, despite the temperature. Peaceful. The kind of night in the kind of setting that takes hold of your thoughts, turns them inward.

Indigo modulated into purple, then into star-hazed black. No moon yet, but the starshine was so bright it cast a whiteness over lake and trees and mountain peaks that made them seem almost pearlescent. The sky was so clear you could see the broad, awesome sweep of the Milky Way. When you deal with ugliness and evil as often as I had, for as many years, you can lose sight of how much beauty and serenity there is in the world. Places like this remind you of that fact — just the sort of reminder I needed at this point in my life. It helps put everything back into a proper perspective.

From somewhere — Judson’s, probably — I could hear music, so faint that the melody wasn’t identifiable. Otherwise, except for the soughing of the wind in the pines and the intermittent splash of a fish jumping after insects, the night hush seemed thick and palpable, a gentle pressure against the eardrums. There was a lonesome quality to both the stillness and the mountain vastness: I missed Kerry and wished she were here to share this time with me. But it was a mild sort of yearning, almost pleasurable, like the anticipation of something you want very much and know for certain you’ll soon have.

Mainly I was at ease. With myself as well as my surroundings.

All the sad, hurtful things that had troubled my life seemed far away and less important or not important at all; even Eberhardt’s sudden suicide and the bitter reasons behind it, only two months in the past and the source of so much internal chaos at the time, had a remoteness now, here, that led me to wonder briefly if I were turning callous in my incipient old age, walling myself off from the strong feelings that had always been an integral part of my nature. The answer, I decided, was no. My feelings, like a lot of my opinions, were as strong as ever; it was the interpretation I put on them, how I let them affect me, that was undergoing a change.

Mellowing. Well, maybe, but that was only part of it. There was something else, something deeper, that I was only just beginning to understand. Give it time. It would become clear to me eventually.

My, my, I thought then. Learning patience and insight, too, after nearly sixty years? Wonders never cease.

I laughed out loud, gazing up at the Milky Way. I hadn’t felt this good, this secure, in a long time.

Sat., June 29-8:45 P.M.

Damn Dixon!

I had everything planned so perfectly. Timing, setting, method, everything. And he’s spoiled it by staying in San Francisco and sending his wife and kid up here with a detective, of all things. A fucking private cop.

Does he suspect? Has he figured some of it out? I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have let his family come at all if he had an inkling that he was a target. Unless he figures I don’t know about his vacation home and my plan is to boobytrap him down there, the same as Cotter and Turnbull, and it’s his way of getting wife and brat out of harm’s way. That would explain the private cop. But if Dixon reasoned that far, then he’d also have to have a pretty good idea Donald Michael Latimer is the man behind the bombs, excuse me, destructive devices. And a pretty good idea of the rest of it, too, the reason I built the devices for Cotter and Turnbull the way I did and what’s in store for him. And he doesn’t know who or why, or else a police bomb squad would have arrived at the lake instead of the family and my name would be all over the news.

All right. He doesn’t suspect. The wife and son came up without him because he has a court date next week and he didn’t want them to have to delay their vacation, and the private cop drove them up as a favor in return for the use of somebody’s cabin, and Dixon will be driving up alone next Tuesday or Wednesday. The truth? It’s what the cop told Mack Judson and it sounds reasonable enough.

So now what am I going to do?

I can’t make up my mind. But I better make it up soon.

Option number one: Remove the device, then drive all the way back to the city and deliver it to Dixon at his house or some other place he hangs out. Risky to go after it now that it’s in place, with the woman and boy at the cabin. Risky to move it even a short distance with it armed, much less transport it over three hundred miles. I can disarm it, but that’s risky, too. Besides, it belongs where it is. It’s right where it is.

Option number two: Proceed according to the Plan. Stay put, don’t do anything except wait for Dixon to show up and claim his ticket to hell. Tuesday or Wednesday, four or five days. I can wait that long. I waited five goddamn years, didn’t I? Of course the danger in waiting is that wifey or sonny triggers the Big Boom before daddy shows. It could happen. Not too likely, not where and how the boobytrap is set, but it could happen. And if it does, it’ll be twice as difficult targeting Dixon again. Should I take the chance?