Bill Pronzini: Snowbound

Brodie accelerated to pass a slow-moving truck. “So far so good,” he said, to break the tense silence.

“We’re not out of it yet,” Kubion said thinly.

“Don’t I know it?”

“Hold your speed down, for Christ’s sake.”

“Take it easy, Earl. You don’t have to tell me how to drive.”

From the back seat Loxner said, “You got anything in the glove box for this arm? It hurts like hell, and it’s still bleeding.”

“No,” Kubion said.

“The bullet went clean through, but Jesus, it hurts.”

“Yeah.”

“I never been shot before,” Loxner said defensively. “That’s why I maybe froze up a little back there. You get shot like that, for the first time, it shakes the crap out of you.”

“Yeah, yeah, shut up about it.”

“Fucking security cop, fucking cop,” Loxner said, and lapsed into silence.

Brodie held the speedometer needle on sixty. “A hundred grand, maybe more, shot straight up the ass. And we’re out better than ten on top of it. Now what the hell do we do for a stake?”

“We’ll make a score somewhere,” Kubion said.

“Sure-but where?”

“You leave that to me. I’ll think of something. I’ll think of something, all right.”

The light began to go out of the somber afternoon sky at four o’clock, dimming rapidly behind a thick curtain of snow, turning the pines and fir trees into wraithlike silhouettes on the steep slopes of Hidden Valley. Distorted by the snowfall, the brightening village lights-the multihued Christmas bulbs strung across Sierra Street-were hazy aureoles that seemed somehow to lack warmth and comfort in the encroaching darkness. And the thin, sharp wind sang lonely and bitter, like something lost in the wilderness and resigned to its fate.

That’s me, Rebecca Hughes thought as she sat listening to the wind in the big, empty Lassen Drive house: something lonely and bitter and lost and resigned. A dull candle sitting in the window, waiting for the return of the prodigal. Alas, poor Rebecca, I knew her well…

She reached out in the darkness and located her cigarettes on the coffee table. In the flame of her lighter, the six-foot Christmas tree across the living room looked bleak and forlorn — colored ornaments gleaming blackly, silver tinsel like opalescent worms hanging from the dark branches: a symbol of joy that was completely joyless in the shadowed room. The furnishings, too, seemed strange and unused, as if they were parts of a museum exhibit; she had picked out the decor herself when she and Matt were married seven years before-Pennsylvania Dutch with copper accessories-and she had loved it then, it represented home and happiness then. Now it was meaningless, like the tree, perhaps even like life itself.

Turning slightly to light her cigarette, Rebecca saw her reflection in the hoar-frosted window behind the couch. She paused, staring at herself in the flickering glow. A pretty face once, an animated face, with laughter in the gray eyes and a suggestion of passion in the soft mouth. But in this moment, with her chestnut-colored hair pulled back into a tight chignon at the back of her neck, the face looked severe and weary and deeply lined; in this moment, she was a twenty-eight-year-old woman who was forty years of age.

She moved her gaze from the window, snapping the lighter shut and putting the room in heavy darkness again, thinking: I wonder who she is this time? Not that it matters, but you can’t help wondering. Probably not a valley resident; Matt has always been so very careful to preserve his saintly image here. Young, of course. Large breasts, of course, he always did like large breasts, mine never quite appeared to suit him. My God-how insanely ironic if that were the reason behind it all! I’m sorry, Rebecca, your tits are much too small, I’m going to have to find a mistress or two or twenty, you do understand, don’t you? Yes, certainly I understand, dear; I couldn’t possibly expect you to be faithful to me when my boobs are so small, I’m only sorry they didn’t grow larger so we could have had a perfectly happy marriage.

Well what difference did it make, really, why he did it? He did it, that was all. Pathetically, in her eyes-like a child who thinks he’s being very clever with his mischief; yes, like a child: pleasant, good-hearted, pious, playing an adventurous game and not quite realizing the wrongness of it, not quite realizing his own hypocrisy. When she had found out about the waitress in Soda Grove six years ago and confronted him with the knowledge, he had broken down and cried, head against her bosom, saying, “I don’t know why I did it, Becky, it just happened, and I’m sorry, forgive me, I love you,” and she had forgiven him, and four months later it had happened again; it had been happening ever since.

This particular little affair had been going on for about a month now. It had started like all the others, with a transparent excuse for not coming home in the evening, and it had progressed like all the others: Matt returning after midnight two and three and four times a week, with perfume lingering on his body and long hairs on his clothes (blond this time), falling into bed exhausted. He had not touched her, of course, since it began; he never touched her, never wanted her, never had anything left for her in any way. It would be like this for a while yet, a few more weeks. Then he would tire of the new girl, or she would tire of him, and the cycle would begin anew: an apology for his neglect, a few less than ardent nights (she had always been passionate, that couldn’t be the reason for the endless string of mistresses), expensive gifts, a period of attentiveness-and then, just when she would begin to think she had a husband again, he would call her to say that he would not be home until late…

She had not bothered to confront him again after the Soda Grove waitress. He would have told her the same thing he had that first time, and have begged her forgiveness, and have professed his love for her. And the terrible thing was, she knew he did love her in some way she could never understand and did not want to lose her. He would never, as a result, leave her for one of the girls with whom he slept. Things would have been so much easier if there had been that possibility, Rebecca often thought; the decision would have been taken out of her hands. But it would never happen, and she had simply been unable to take the initiative herself: Little Orphan Rebecca with no place to go, no particular skills, a little afraid of the big wide world beyond these mountains where she had been born and reared; who could not seem to stop believing in love-conquers-all and happy endings and other fairy tales. So she forgave him tacitly each time and remained with him-enduring, pretending. Withering.

She felt suddenly very cold, as if the wind had managed to get inside the warm house; gooseflesh formed on her bare upper arms, beneath the short sleeves of the blouse she wore. Standing, putting out her cigarette in the cloisonne table tray, she went out of the dark room to the stairs in the main hall. The bedroom she shared with Matt was at the front of the house, directly above the living room. It, too, seemed cold and dismal to Rebecca tonight-and the wide, antique-framed double bed was a kind of index of her melancholy.

She did not turn on the lights. She could see well enough in the dark: walking half-blind through life or half-blind through a familiar house, easy enough to do once you got used to it. Crossing to the walk-in closet, she took out a heavy wool pullover and slipped it over her head. Then she stood for a moment, arms folded across her breasts, hugging herself. What now? she thought. Back downstairs to sit smoking by the window? Television? Soft music? Loud music? Another book? How about a hot bath-or, more appropriately, a cold shower?