Bill Pronzini - The Lighthouse

Old Seth kept whooping and cackling like he was about to lay an egg. “Shoot out one of the windows, Adam! Shoot out one of the windows!” But Mitch and Hod, they weren’t into it yet. He could understand about Hod-poor bugger was still all tore up about Mandy, and so damn drunk he was wandering back and forth like he didn’t even know where he was. Well, they were all drunk-all except Adam. He hadn’t drunk as much whiskey as the others. He didn’t need no Dutch courage to prime his pump. No, sir. He’d been ready for this for a long time.

It was Mitch he couldn’t figure. Mitch had been ready for a long time, too, hadn’t he? His idea they come out here tonight and get Ryerson, make him confess, make a citizen’s arrest and haul him in to Coos Bay and dump him in that cop Sinclair’s lap. But now that they were here, into it, he wasn’t saying much, was just hanging back kind of nervous, watching. It wasn’t that he was shitfaced, no, he wasn’t much worse off than Adam was. It was like he was having second thoughts or something, like he figured maybe they’d bit off more than they could chew.

But they hadn’t bit off anything yet. Not yet.

“Bust one of the windows, Adam!” Bonner yelled.

He threw the Springfield up to his shoulder, sighted at the kitchen window, fired. Glass shattered, sprayed; the curtain inside flapped, blew out in the wind. Bonner let out another whoop and danced a little jig. Mitch stood there staring, fidgeting.

“Come on out, Ryerson!” Adam yelled.

“He’s not coming out,” Mitch said. His face was wet with mist; he wiped it off on the back of his hand. “He’ll never come out, not with his wife in there with him.”

“Then we’ll go in and drag him out.”

“That’s it,” Bonner said. He clapped his hands like a kid. “Drag him out, make him confess. How do we do it, Mitch? How do we go in and get him?”

Mitch didn’t say nothing. He was staring again, wiping his face, fidgeting.

Why, hell, Adam thought suddenly, he’s scared. He couldn’t figure it at first. He’d always looked up to Mitch, always figured him to be tough and strong, the leader type. But now… well, you had to believe your eyes. Mitch was scared, backing-down scared-there was no question about it. And Bonner’s crazy, he thought, and Hod’s drunk and that leaves just me, don’t it?

He squeezed off another shot, blew out an upstairs window this time. Bonner whooped. Mitch stared and fidgeted.

I’m in charge now, Adam thought. Yes, sir, I’m the real leader here. Give the orders, do things any way I want. Any way I want. Bust in there, drag Ryerson out, make him confess… even kill him if I want. Shoot him down like a dog if I want. And her? What about her? Nobody’s said anything about her, but she’s as bad as he is, helping him, protecting him, and all the time with her nose in the air like her shit don’t stink-what about her? Do anything I want to her, too, when the time comes.

Do what I should of done to that bitch up in Lake Oswego. Put this baby’s muzzle up against her head, let her feel cold steel against her head, make her beg a little… any damn thing I want!

He heard the second bullet whine and smash into the outside wall before he heard the shot boom. Riding the echoes of the shot was Alix’s voice: “What’s happening, what’s going on?” Her face was white, the folds of the red shirt she clutched like splashes of blood against her breasts.

Jan grasped her hard by the shoulders, pushed her down to her knees. “Stay down!” He dropped down beside her, crawled quickly to the front door, raised up to throw the bolt lock. Then he swung back toward the window in the side wall. He was more angry than anything else at this moment, but the anger was muted by an almost detached calm. The emotional scene with Alix earlier had left him drained, incapable for the time being of fear or any other strong feeling.

Outside the voices were loud, excited, the words indistinguishable now. Jan reached for the lamp cord, yanked it out of the socket in the side wall, yanked the room into darkness. Under its protective cover, he pushed himself up into a standing crouch. Behind him he could hear Alix’s breathing coming fast and ragged: she was on her knees alongside the couch.

He groped his way across the room. Alix heard him moving and said, “Where are you going?” Her voice shook but she sounded in control.

“Kitchen window. See who’s out there.”

He made his way into the kitchen. Light filtering through the window made a diffused wedge across the sink and the linoleum floor. He ducked under the sill of the window, came up on the far side, and leaned up over the drainboard to look past one comer of the curtain.

The sixty yards or so between the house and the parked station wagon were illuminated by the nightlight. Details close to the building-clumps of grass, the gravel of the path-stood out in sharp relief. Farther back, where the four men moved around in a ragged group, the shadows were longer and details were blurry, so that the figures had a kind of surreal, two-dimensional look.

Novotny was one of them. And Hod Barnett. And… Bonner? Yes, Seth Bonner, jumping around, letting out war whoops-drunk. All of them lynch-mob drunk. The fourth man was half-turned away from the window, but after a moment he shouted something and pivoted, and Jan recognized the village handyman, Adam Reese. There was a long-barreled rifle in Reese’s hands, cradled across his chest military-fashion. Light gleamed off its metal surfaces. It was the only weapon Jan could see, but that didn’t mean the rest of them weren’t armed with handguns.

Then Reese swung the weapon up, aimed it at the house, aimed it straight at the kitchen window as if he knew Jan was there watching. Jan was already falling away, throwing his hands up over his head, when Reese fired. Glass burst above him and the bullet slashed through, screeched and thudded into the metal door of the refrigerator. Shards rained down, one of the sharp edges opening a stinging cut on the back of his left hand.

In the living room Alix was shrieking, “Jan! Jan!”

“I’m all right, stay there. Get on the phone-call the sheriff. Hurry!”

His glasses were askew; he pushed them back into place and scuttled away from the sink, cutting knees and palms on the broken glass, ignoring the pain. The pantry door… was it locked? He couldn’t remember. Locked doors wouldn’t keep them out, not for long, but just a few minutes might mean everything to Alix and him. On his feet again, he stumbled over the big carton of pots and pans and dishes she’d left on the floor, almost fell, regained his footing again.

One of the upstairs windows burst, the breaking-glass sounds lost in another echoing report from Adam Reese’s rifle.

Jan’s mouth was full of thick brassy-tasting saliva as he stumbled down the steps into the cloakroom. He got the pantry door open, groped his way across to the outside door, grasped the knob. Locked. But the fact brought only a small, fleeting relief. He pivoted away from the door, staggered back into the kitchen.

“Jan!”

In a crouch he moved over into the doorway, saw the shape of Alix come out of the darkness, felt her hands clutch at his arms.

“What is it? What happened?”

“The phone… it doesn’t work. It’s dead, Jan, the line is dead!”

“What are we going to do?”

The sound of her own voice frightened her even more than she already was: it trembled, wobbled, verged on a slow-building scream. Her chest was constricted, felt as though it might burst. Fear pounded a frantic rhythm in the hollow of her throat.

“Don’t panic, for God’s sake.”

“They must have cut the telephone wires…”