Bill Pronzini: Boobytrap

But I didn’t let him pay; buying a second double Bushmill’s was the least I could do for him.

My fishing gear was stored on the rear porch of my flat on Pacific Heights. I drove over there from Civic Center and spent some time going through it, deciding what and how much I was going to take along. I hadn’t had my stuff out in a while; poking through the fly case, hefting the rods, checking the reels was like renewing acquaintances with old friends. Some of the equipment was almost as old as I am, and a hell of a lot more durable.

I settled on a couple of lightweight rods, one a fly rod and the other a spinning rod with a Daiwa reel, and an assortment of wet and dry flies, most of the lures being coachmans and hoppers and rooster tails. All of the gear was my own. I did not even consider mixing in any of the items I’d liberated from Eberhardt’s garage two months ago, even though his Dennis Bailey parabolic rod was better than either of mine and he’d had some fancy, beautifully tied flies that at one time I’d coveted.

Odd thing: I hadn’t been able to leave his equipment for strangers to pick over, yet I couldn’t bring myself to use any of it — on this trip and probably not ever. It was the only piece of him that I’d kept from his leavings. Both a memento and a memento mori — reminders of the life and the death of the man who had once been my closest friend and partner, who’d been a stranger I hadn’t really known at all. His suicide was two months behind me now; there had been closure and enough time for the emotional seal to set and harden. But the reasons he had died and the way he had died would always be with me, lodged like shrapnel and providing twinges now and then. In a way it was good, necessary that I would never forget: all that he was and all that he wasn’t were a lesson to me. That was why I’d kept his fishing gear, the one tangible piece of him. It was why I’d never get rid of it. And it was why I’d never use even a single item.

In the bedroom I packed the rest of what I’d need: a couple of wool shirts, two pairs of cord pants, a pair of high-topped work shoes with thick composition soles — the rocks in mountain streams are slippery and treacherous even in the summer months — and a pair of waders just in case. A light jacket and two changes of casual clothes, underwear, socks, loafers, and I was done. The thought that I wouldn’t have to wear a suit or a starched shirt or a necktie for the next week or so actually made me smile.

Simple pleasures. Those and a sense of humor are about all the armor any of us has against the demons of daylight and darkness.

I drove Kerry to SFO on Friday morning, in plenty of time to catch her noon flight to Houston. It wasn’t necessary, she said, the agency would’ve paid for a taxi, but I insisted. I also insisted on parking the car and coming inside the United terminal with her and hanging around while she checked her bags.

“Can’t bear to let me out of your sight, huh?” she said. “Are you really going to miss me that much?”

“More.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know.”

“Platitudes,” I said. “Who needs ‘em?”

“We’ll only be apart eight or nine days.”

“And eight or nine long, lonely nights.”

She gave a mock sigh. “Almost sixty years old and horny as a teenager.”

“You wouldn’t have it any other way.” I pulled her close and kissed her, not chastely.

“Whew!” she said. “No more of that or we’ll be arrested for public indecency.”

“Call me after you get to your hotel, right?”

“First thing.” She studied my face before she said, “You will have a good time in the Sierras, won’t you?”

“Sure.”

“I mean, it really doesn’t bother you, having to go off alone?”

“I won’t exactly be alone. Besides, if it doesn’t work out I can always leave early. Pick up Shameless at the cat boarder’s and the two of us’ll pine away for you at home.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“I worry about you,” she said.

“Well, don’t. I’m a big boy. And a quiet fishing trip is just what I need — you said so yourself.”

“If you approach it in the right frame of mind.”

“My frame of mind is just fine. I’ll be so relaxed when I get back you’ll think I’ve been replaced by a pod creature. Until we get into the sack, that is.”

She didn’t smile; she wasn’t feeling humorous. “I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too. Go on, get on your plane before I jump your bones again.”

She kissed me as hard as I’d kissed her and hurried away to gate security. A little worried about me, all right. But she didn’t need to be. I hadn’t been kidding when I’d said I was looking forward to the trip. I would miss her like crazy, but even so — and this was something I’d never admit to her — I expected to have a better time at Deep Mountain Lake than I would’ve had struggling among the camera-slung tourists at Cabo San Lucas.

Fri., June 28 — 7:00 P.M.

The news bulletin came over the car radio as I was heading up into the mountains east of Truckee. Explosion in the garage of Judge Norris Turnbull’s Sea Cliff home at seven-forty this A.M. Turnbull dead on arrival at Mt. Zion Hospital. San Francisco police refuse to speculate on a possible motive or link between this bombing incident and the one two days ago that ended the short, miserable life of Douglas Cotter. But the news reporter had no such qualms. He hinted at a link. Could it be the work of a mad bomber with a grudge against the law?

I laughed when I heard that. Mad bomber? Hell, no. Righteous avenger was more like it. A man with one hell of a grudge against the law, specifically Chapters 2.5 and 3.2, Sections 12303.3 and 12355 of the Penal Code and the sons of bitches who interpreted, distorted, used them like weapons to all but destroy Donald Michael Latimer.

I laughed even harder when I pictured old Turnbull lying broken and bloody with his wrinkled monkey face full of metal barbs. Always hunching forward at the trial, not like an ape but like an overgrown vulture in his black robes. Always peering down through his glasses, stern-faced, eyes like hot stones, as if he thought he was God in the judgment seat. Hunched and peered once too often, didn’t you, Judge? Passed sentence once too often, didn’t you, you sanctimonious piece of shit?

I sentence you to five years in the state prison on each count, Mr. Latimer.

I sentence you straight to hell, Judge Turnbull.

Tears rolled down my cheeks, I laughed so hard.

Two down.

Next up: Patrick Dixon.

Pat Dixon’s pride in his family seemed to be well founded. Marian Dixon was on the easy side of thirty-five, an attractive ash blonde with intense blue eyes and an air of both friendliness and self-containment. Like Kerry, a woman with plenty of inner resources. She seemed grateful that I’d consented to shepherd her and her son to Deep Mountain Lake, but she made it plain that she wasn’t convinced it was such a good idea.

“Pat says you’re a godsend,” she said as we loaded suitcases and boxes of supplies into my car. “He’s glad to have Chuck and me leave the city right now. I wish I could say the same.”

“Pretty capable guy under pressure, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but it isn’t his workload that worries me.”

“The two bombings?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, there’re several thousand legal professionals in the Bay Area, Mrs. Dixon. No reason to believe Pat’s in any danger, is there?”

“No, of course not. It’s just… oh, hell, I’m probably overreacting to the situation. I’ll feel better when he joins us at the lake.”