Bill Pronzini - Boobytrap

A hell of a burden to even think about. But I’d dealt myself into this and I had better be prepared; the name of the game was survival.

On the edge of town I made a quick stop at a convenience store, to buy a couple of nutrition bars and a large container of coffee. I needed the coffee in order to stay alert. In the car again I shuffled through my collection of maps, found the one for San Mateo County, and looked up Bluffside Drive. It was off Highway 1 a couple of miles south of the town proper, a squiggly line that meandered through what looked to be open country, ran along close to the ocean for a short ways, and then dead-ended. Not much more than a mile in total length. Could be a lot of houses out there, could be only one or two.

Sipping coffee, I drove on through town to the coast highway and turned south. It was overcast here, as it often is along this coastal stretch no matter what the time of year. No fog tonight, though, just a lot of high gray clouds that gave the Pacific a sullen, monochromatic aspect and a stiff wind that roughened and whitecapped it. Bad luck there. Fog, particularly the kind of thick mist that obscures shapes and deadens sounds, would have given us another advantage.

After a mile and a half by the odometer I slowed to make sure I didn’t miss the highway sign for Bluffside Drive. No problem on that score; I spotted the sign in plenty of time to ease into the turn. Three houses were clustered on the south side near the intersection. I peered at the roadside mailboxes as I slid past. On one of the boxes was the number 75 in reflector yellow, which meant that 850 was some distance farther along, close or “closer to the ocean.

There weren’t any more houses in the immediate vicinity. Cypress trees and then a field of artichokes on the south. On the north, several acres of pumpkin vines stretching seaward. Pumpkins are a major crop in the Half Moon Bay region. The town holds a pumpkin festival every fall to celebrate the harvest; Kerry and I had come down for it once, watched the judging for the largest of the season. First-prize winner had been a 960-pound monster—

Mind wandering. Stay focused!

I passed another house, then a fairly good-sized farm. The farm address was 400. Ahead the road hooked left and appeared to run along a line of low bluffs; I could hear the pound of the surf when I reached that point, even with the windows shut. Once I negotiated the curve, in the crook of which was a windbreak of bark-peeling eucalyptus where a long-gone ranch or farm had been, I had a clear look along the last quarter of the road. Three… no, four houses, set well apart from one another on the ocean side.

Immediately I pulled off onto the verge, into the shadow of the eucalyptus grove. The houses were all small, built of salt-grayed wood or cinder block and showing signs of minimal upkeep; the nearest had a yardful of rusting junk cars. Not much vegetation around or between any of them, their back sides openly exposed to the mercy of the Pacific and its sometimes violent winter storms. From what I could see from this vantage point, the low bluff walls were sheer; even if there was a beach down below, and paths leading up from it, you’d be in full view once you got to the top. The logistics weren’t any better on the inland side. Mostly open fields; some trees, some cover, but not enough to hide a car for a lengthy surveillance or to shield a man crossing from there to the houses.

Once I’d taken all that in I put the car into a U-turn, not too fast, and drove back around the curve to where I’d seen a track leading in among the trees. A farm road once, overgrown now and blocked after about thirty yards by the remains of a wind-toppled tree, but it would serve my purpose well enough. I made sure Bluffside Drive was empty and then reversed onto the track and in far enough to clear the road and shut off sight of the pumpkin farm to the east.

The first thing I did then was to unclip the .38 and slip it into my jacket pocket. For the next couple of minutes I sat finishing the coffee and sifting through options. One way or another, I had to find out which of the houses was 850 and whether or not it was occupied. The easy way was to drive down there past them, check the mailboxes, turn around where the road dead-ended, and drive back — a traveler who’d lost his way. That would work well enough in most circumstances, but not this one. Latimer knew me and my car; if he was watching, or if the sound of the car passing caused him to look out, he might recognize it. I could not take that chance with Chuck’s life in the balance.

Wait until dark? It would be less of a risk then, but still not one I was willing to take. Besides, full dark was at least an hour away. I couldn’t just sit here that long, waiting and not knowing if I was right to even be here.

One other option, as far as I could figure, that might work all right if light and angle and distance were what they needed to be. But it would take some time and I owed the Dixons a call first, to let them know the situation.

I tapped out Pat’s fax-line number; he answered instantly. “Christ, we’ve been frantic,” he said. “Is Latimer there?”

“I don’t know yet.” I explained it to him, and he groaned and cursed when I was done.

“What’re you going to do? You can’t just drive by…”

“I don’t intend to.” I told him what I had in mind. “We’ll keep this line open. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“Hurry, will you?”

I laid the handset on the seat, got out and locked the door and then opened the trunk and took out the cased Zeiss binoculars I keep in there. Finding a route through the trees to the south took about three minutes. When I got to where I had an unobstructed view of the houses I adjusted the focus on the glasses and scanned the mailboxes first, one after the other. The binoculars were powerful, 7 X 50; I saw the boxes clearly, but the only one where the angle was right — the nearest — had no number on its visible side. I moved right as far as I dared, then back the other way from the road, but that didn’t work, either. I still couldn’t make out a number.

I studied the houses themselves. The one I wanted was not the closest; in addition to the junk cars, its yard was strewn with kids’ tricycles and wagons. The second in line showed pale light behind curtains drawn over both front windows. The door to its detached garage was closed and there was no vehicle in sight. Number three appeared dark and uninhabited, with shutters up over its facing windows; no car there, either. Number four also showed light — one window uncovered, the other with drawn blinds — and the butt end of a vehicle was just visible at the far corner of the porch. The distance was too great and the angle just a little too oblique for me to be able to read the license number, but the car seemed to be a station wagon and the color was definitely blue.

Number two or number four if he’s here, I thought. If I could just get a better angle on the mailboxes…

Beyond the eucalyptus was an open, rocky field, and off to the east about forty yards the ground rose into a projection some twenty feet high and sheer-sided where it fronted the ocean, like the prow of a ship. I went in that direction, working my way to the eastern edge of the grove, paralleling and passing beyond the projection. Only the roof of the fourth house was visible from that point. Fine — if the fourth house was Latimer’s.

Decision time. In order to get to where I could crawl up the sloping back of the projection I would have to cross better than twenty yards of open ground. And that would put me in full view, if at a long and oblique angle, of anybody looking out from inside the second house. Twice, going and coming back. But there was no other way to do it that wouldn’t involve a prohibitive amount of cross-country maneuvering on private property.