Bill Pronzini: Vixen

“Yes.”

“He’ll be here pretty soon,” she said.

“Then I’d better leave.” Runyon extended the shopping bag. “You can give this to Bobby and wish him a happy birthday from me.”

Bryn hesitated. “No, he should have it from you. He’ll want to thank you personally. He’s in his room — I’ll fetch him.”

She hurried away to the rear of the house. Standing still while he waited made Runyon fidget; he moved over to the living room doorway. Soft music was playing in there, one of the quieter classical pieces Bryn favored. A tray of canapés had been set out on the coffee table, and there were three or four gaily wrapped presents — her birthday tribute to Bobby — neatly arranged on one end of the couch. He stepped back into the hallway, slow-paced back and forth until Bryn returned with her son.

Bobby was ten today. He’d grown another half inch or so since Runyon had first met him, still a gangly kid who would probably stand well over six feet when he reached his full growth, his hair longer now and combed in a more conventional fashion than the spikily gelled style he’d favored back then. He hadn’t lost any of his shyness, at least not around Runyon. He was smiling and seemed glad to see him, but there was a reserve in both his greeting and his off-center gaze. The bond that had developed between them during Runyon’s investigation of the brutal murder of Francine Whalen, Robert Darby’s mistress cum fiancée, and that had lasted for a while after Bryn won the second court battle for the boy’s custody, hadn’t been strong enough to last. Devolved into a polite and increasingly distant relationship as they spent less and less time in each other’s company.

Bryn steered them away from the living room and into the dining room — table set for three, crystal glassware and good china — and the aromas of something cooking in the oven wafting in from the kitchen. Bobby opened his gift at the cleared end of the table. Two Nintendo video games, Star Fox Command and Metroid Prime Hunters, that the salesman in the computer store in Stonestown had recommended to Runyon. The boy seemed pleased with them, and his thanks was genuine enough, but it lacked any real excitement and only a tepid warmth. Probably saving his enthusiasm for whatever his mother had given him, whatever his father brought.

A brief hug, and Bobby took the video games away to his room. Bryn cast a look at her wristwatch for the third or fourth time. Runyon said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be going now.”

“I wasn’t worried,” she said, trying not to look relieved, “it’s just that it would be awkward. You don’t like Robert and he doesn’t like you...”

“No need to explain.”

She went with him to the front door. “Jake,” she said as he started out, looking past him to the empty street. “Next time, call first before you come over. Okay?”

“I will.”

But he wouldn’t, because there wouldn’t be a next time. He knew it and so did Bryn.

Their relationship, even the friendship part that had included Bobby, had come to an abrupt and irredeemable end.

Home for Runyon since his move to San Francisco was a drafty, sparsely furnished, one-bedroom apartment on Ortega Street, off Nineteenth Avenue. His first actions when he let himself in were habitual, done each night without thinking: turn the heat up, switch the TV on for noise, put a kettle on to boil for tea, check the landline answering machine and his laptop for messages. No calls, no e-mail that needed an immediate reply.

In the refrigerator he found a package of Swiss cheese slices and another of pressed ham that hadn’t gone green yet, buttered two pieces of stale but still edible bread, and made himself a sandwich he didn’t want. His appetite was light at the best of times and the scene with Bryn had killed what little hunger he’d had tonight, but you had to eat. The human engine, like the mechanical one in the Ford, wouldn’t run long or far without regular injections of fuel.

When the tea was ready, he took cup and sandwich into the living room and ate in front of the TV. Old movies were all that he watched because he wasn’t into sports and everything else had endless commercials, laugh tracks, halfwits making fools of themselves in so-called reality shows, bogus cops solving sensationalistic hour-long psychodramas, and macho types firing off automatic weapons, blowing up cars and buildings, and spilling excess amounts of blood and gore. The only vintage film showing at the moment, an old musical with Bing Crosby, didn’t hold his attention. The final split with Bryn was still on his mind.

Not that it had had much of an emotional effect on him. The finish had been coming for some time now. Tonight had been nothing more than a kind of pro forma good-bye.

Her ex-husband wasn’t a major factor, just the catalyst that had snapped the last connecting thread. Didn’t really matter, but Runyon couldn’t help wondering if she’d take Darby back on a temporary or permanent basis. Possible, he supposed. That old fine line between love and hate: one that had turned into the other could turn back again if the circumstances were right. How much Darby had changed, how remorseful he was, how willing and able to deal now with her facial paralysis. And the deciding factor: how much Bobby would benefit from a reconciliation. The boy’s welfare was first and foremost to Bryn and always would be.

Whatever her feelings for Darby, whatever her plans for the future, they no longer included Jake Runyon. That much was clear. She’d needed him desperately for a while, and in his bitter loneliness he’d needed her almost as much. But the bad time for both of them was over, past history. She’d always be grateful for his help in regaining custody of her son, but gratitude only went so far. There’d never been much else between them except the mutual damage control, nothing deep enough to cement a lasting bond. Now that she and Bobby were a solid package deal again, having Runyon around was probably a painful reminder of a period of suffering that had brought her to the brink of self-destruction. Time to burn her bridges, time to move on.

He’d miss her a little, but nowhere near as much as he missed Colleen. Miss Bobby, too — a nice, sensitive kid, the kind of son he’d like to have had. But the missing would be only temporary. The truth was, Bobby had never been and could never be anything more than a surrogate for Joshua, his own painful reminder of the failed relationship with his son. Bobby was better off without him; he was better off without Bobby. Better off alone, now that he’d made some measure of peace with himself...

When the phone rang — his landline, not his cell — his first thought, because he’d been thinking of her, was that it might be Bryn. He came close to not answering it. They had nothing more to say to each other, and the only other landline calls at this time of night were either wrong numbers or late-lurking telemarketers.

Wrong on all counts. He picked up on the sixth ring, mainly to shut off the clamor, and a man’s thin, nervous-sounding voice, unfamiliar at first, said tentatively, “Mr. Runyon?”

“If you’re selling something—”

“No. I remembered your name, I looked in the phone book...”

He recognized the voice then. “Ken Beckett?”

“Yeah. I... I have to talk to somebody, Mr. Runyon. I don’t know anyone else.”

“What’s on your mind?”

Pause. Then, “Not on the phone, okay? I can’t talk about this on the phone.”

“Are you home? I can come there—”

“No! Cory’s out now, but she might come back any time.”

“Meet me somewhere, then.”

“I can’t do that, either. She locks me in at night when she goes out.”

“Every time?”