Bill Pronzini - Spook

The skit Emily had lobbied for, and gotten to perform in with Carla Simpson, was called Evening Carolers and featured a wintry street scene — cotton batting and white confetti doing duty as snow — and a dozen or so kids in snowsuit costumes going from door to door singing “Silent Night” and “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” It was the right venue for her, the one she should’ve been picked for in the beginning. She had a clear, sweet voice and she liked to sing — a fact neither Kerry nor I had known until recently, when she began to come out of herself and regain optimism, put trust in her new life. One night we’d heard her singing in her bedroom, to the accompaniment of one of her CDs: wounded little bird learning how to be happy again. It hadn’t taken much praise and encouragement for her to overcome her shyness and do some warbling in front of us; and now, up there on the stage in front of several hundred people, she was radiant and you could tell even at a distance that she was having a fine time. Natural-born performer.

After the show, when kids joined parents out front, she hugged Kerry and me and said, “I’m so glad you’re here,” as if she’d been worried right up to the last minute that one or both of us would back out.

“So are we,” I said. “You were pretty terrific up there, kiddo.”

“Honest? I missed a couple of high notes. But so did Carla.”

“Couldn’t tell it from where we were sitting.” Kerry gave me a wink that said, How would you know, you have a tin ear. I ignored it. “How about singing those three carols for us on Christmas Eve, see if you can hit the notes you missed?”

“What, the whole group?”

“We don’t need the whole group. Just you.”

“Well... maybe.” But her smile said the suggestion delighted her.

The Simpsons came up. “We’re heading home to get things ready for the party,” Lorraine said. “Emily’s coming with us, right?”

“Right,” Kerry said.

Carla said, “Great. See you both around five.”

When they were gone again, the two children in tow, I said to Kerry, “Party? What party?”

“You’re a nice man and a good father, you know that? And I love you.”

“Never mind the soft soap. What party?”

“The Simpsons are having a little Christmas get-together at their place, kids and adults both. And before you start grumbling and grousing, Pm going to be as nice to you as you were to Emily just now. I’ll go by myself and tell them how sorry you are to miss it but you had some urgent business to attend to downtown.”

“You’re really willing to do that?”

“Well, I don’t like to lie, but it’s better than listening to you grumble about having to endure another party.”

I kissed her, by way of thanks. But in the car, on the way downtown, I began to feel a little guilty. I asked how many people were going to be at the Simpsons’; she said she thought twenty or so. Twenty or so, a third of them kids — not so bad, really. What’re they having to eat? I asked then. Canapes, cake, ice cream, she said. Eggnog? Eggnog, sure, what would a Christmas party be without eggnog.

It was the eggnog that did it. I like the stuff, entirely too much. Hard to find and therefore easily avoidable most of the year, but the holiday season is a different story. “All right,” I said when I pulled to the curb in front of Bates and Carpenter’s building. “You won’t have to lie for me. I’ll bite the bullet and go to the Simpsons’.”

“If you want to,” she said. “Entirely up to you. I should be there no later than five-thirty.” She slid out of the car, then leaned back inside to wink at me again before she hurried away, a big, broad wink this time.

Sneaky woman. She’d planned it this way all along.

I drove over to O’Farrell, found parking on the street for a change, went into my building. The office door was locked; Tamara must’ve gone out somewhere. I was smiling, thinking about Emily and her pageant performance, Kerry and her devious little ways, anticipating the Simpsons’ eggnog if not the Simpsons’ party, as I keyed the door open and walked in.

My high spirits made the shock even greater. It was like passing through a doorway from heaven into hell.

Nobody moved, nobody said anything.

It took me a few seconds to absorb the scene, assess it, come to terms with it. The blood on Tamara, the display of weaponry, the look on the stranger’s face built a virulent mixture of sickness and profound outrage. I made an effort to keep it from showing, to maintain a neutral expression to match the one Jake Runyon wore over in my desk chair.

The telephone rang.

In the frozen silence the noise was explosive. We all jumped, stared; the tension in the room seemed palpable, pastelike. Sweat had already begun to run on me, warm and slimy, like the feel of a snail track.

“Don’t touch it,” the guy with the gun said, “let it ring.”

Two, three, four...

“No, wait a minute, maybe it’s those bastards at Human Services. You, Tamara, pick up over there. That s who it is, you tell them get over here right now, make up some excuse, just get them here.”

She hesitated. Most of the blood on her face and blouse appeared to be darkening, coagulating. From a not-too-recent wound on her left temple, under the hairline. In some pain, from her expression, but alert, clear-eyed. And in control.

“I’m all right,” she said, as if reading my thoughts.

“Answer the fucking phone!”

She lifted her extension. The only item other than weapons and ammunition left on my desktop was the other phone; the gunman picked up at the same time with his free hand.

Don’t let it be Kerry, I thought. Please, God, don’t let it be Kerry.

Tamara gave the agency’s name, listened, said, “No, Mr. Bauer, he’s not here. Not expected back today.”

Sam Bauer, head of Coast States Insurance’s claims department.

“Soon as he comes in tomorrow, right, I’ll tell him.” Pause. Then, with a bitter edge just before she disconnected, “Merry Christmas to you too.”

The receiver on my phone clattered down, hard enough to bring a single ring from the bell. He said to me, “You, you’re Bill?”

“And you’re Thomas Valjean.”

“Smart guy. Everybody’s so goddamn smart in this place. Close that door, lock it again, hurry up.”

I closed it, locked it. As I turned, my eye caught Runyon’s; our gazes locked. He’d been in deadly force situations before, just as I had, but this had to be something new for him too — unstable, heavily armed man bent on a destructive siege. Valjean radiated hate; you could almost smell it in the office along with the stink of sweat and gun oil. On full alert, all his senses heightened. Everything in his favor, nothing in ours. Death was a heartbeat away. And the three of us had no means of communication except by eye contact and maybe careful gesture, nothing to rely on except instinct and luck and the hunger for survival.

I said to Valjean, “What’s this all about?”

“You’re such a smart guy, you figure it out.”

“My fault,” Tamara said. “He called before he showed up, started ragging on me, and I slammed his ear.”

“Not your fault,” Runyon said. “He was coming anyway.”

“That’s right. I was coming anyway.”

“Why?” I said. “Why us?”

“Why do you think? You sicced the cops on me. You and those Human Services bastards.”

Runyon said, “I told him that’s who hired us. Department of Human Services.”

Valjean jabbed the gun in my direction. “Straight talk or more bullshit?”

“Straight. They’re our clients.”

“Who do you deal with over there? I want a name.”