Bill Pronzini - With an Extreme Burning

“Have you got a few minutes? I'd like to talk to you.”

“I have to go out pretty soon. An appointment.”

“This won't take long.”

“All right. Come on in.”

Owen declined the offer of a drink, went to perch on the edge of a chair in the living room—stiff-backed, his big hands gripping his knees. Dix occupied the sofa across from him.

“What's on your mind, Owen?”

“Cecca. She's always on my mind, it seems.”

“… Yes?”

“You know how I feel about her. It's no secret.”

“Yes?” Dix said again.

“I have to know this, Dix: Is there something between you and her? Are you … involved?”

“What makes you think that?”

“The way the two of you acted at Jerry's Saturday night, for one thing. And the way she's been toward me lately—cold, distant. That's not like her, not at all.”

“She has a lot of things on her mind,” Dix said.

“What things?”

“Losing one close friend and half the family of another in less than a month. You're not that insensitive, are you, Owen?”

“Of course not. It's been a terrible time for all of us. But that isn't what I mean. I'm talking about her personal attitude toward me, as if I'd done something to her. As if she'd be glad if she never laid eyes on me again.”

“I'm sorry if that's how you feel, but—”

“It's not just how I feel,” Owen said, “it's the way things are. And you haven't answered my question. Are you and Cecca involved?”

“No. Not the way you mean.”

“What other way is there?”

“You don't have to sleep with a woman to have a rapport with her.”

“Is that all it is with you two? A rapport?”

“That's all it is.”

“You swear to that?”

“If it's what it takes to convince you, yes, I do solemnly swear I am not having an affair with Cecca Bellini.”

“Then it's something else,” Owen said. “Or somebody else.”

“I don't think she's romantically involved with anyone. In fact, I'm sure she's not.”

“Would she have told you if she was?”

“I think so, yes.”

“What is it, then? Why has she turned against me?”

“Maybe you're misinterpreting her actions—”

“I'm not.”

“All right, then maybe it's that you're coming on too strong. Hanging around her all the time, calling her, dropping over at her house uninvited. Back off a little. The last thing she needs right now is to be pressured.”

“I can't help it,” Owen said miserably. “I think about her all the time, I dream about her, I can't stand not being near her. Dix, what am I going to do?”

His expression was even more rumpled; he looked like a big, gangly kid getting ready to bawl. Dix had always regarded him as something of an Inadequate Personality—likable, but emotionally underdeveloped. (And wasn't that a joke, him sitting in judgment of another man's inadequacies? In some ways he was an IP himself. Too many ways.) In the past he'd viewed Owen with compassion; you made allowances for your friends. But sitting here now, he could no longer work up any sympathy for the man. No feelings other than wariness, a lingering mistrust, and a vague dislike.

All of this an act, part of some sly ploy? Owen the tormentor, a cunning madman laughing behind his poor, fumbling, IP façade? It was possible. Anything was possible, no matter how bizarre; that was one lesson Dix Mallory had learned well in recent weeks. And even if Owen were as harmless as he'd always believed, his weakness was much less tolerable than it had been in the past. He sat diminished in Dix's eyes. Maybe, Dix thought harshly, because he himself sat diminished in his own eyes.

He said, “I don't have any advice for you, Owen.” He meant to keep his voice neutral, but the words came out sounding cold. “Except what I said before. Back off, give Cecca some breathing room.”

“I don't know if I can.”

“If you care about her, you will.”

It took him a few more minutes to pry Owen off the chair and out of the house. Five-ten by then: almost time to leave. He'd been calm enough before Owen's arrival; now he was keyed up, restless. The little scene they'd just played bothered him, and not only because he was uncertain of Owen's motives or his discovery that in any case he no longer cared for the man. Owen's questions had made him face something he'd been avoiding: his own feelings for Cecca.

He had told the truth about their relationship, but it was less than the complete truth. They were not involved, and yet they were. Bound by more than just their shared torment—a growing closeness, stirrings and yearnings that he sensed in her as he felt them in himself. Neither was yet ready or willing to bring it out into the open, to add another complication to their lives; and he wasn't sure he could handle a deeper relationship so soon after Katy's death. But the feelings, the capacity, were there, want them or not. Owen, whatever his motives, had cut straight through to the heart of the matter.

EIGHTEEN

Buckram Street was two blocks long and ran up the side of a hill at a steep slant. The houses in the lower block were small bungalows and ranch-style homes, on quarter-acre lots; the houses in the upper block were fewer and larger, mostly white frame and brick over stucco, built on half- to one-acre lots. Louise Kanvitz's property was one of the two biggest parcels, at the top on the east side—a two-story frame house with a partially enclosed front porch, surrounded by trees and shrubbery. The front yard was a cactus garden littered with exotic, and not very tasteful, wrought-iron, wood, and cement sculptures. A Jeep Wrangler was parked in the driveway. But what caught and held Dix's attention was the Ford station wagon drawn up at the curb in front.

The wagon was Cecca's.

He drove on past, made a tight loop where the street dead-ended at a patch of woods that crowned the hill, and braked to a stop behind the Ford. What was she doing here? On the same mission he was, probably. But she shouldn't have come alone, without telling him and without bringing along anything that had the persuasive power of the Beretta. She was inordinately afraid of guns; she'd made Chet sell two handguns and his hunting rifles after they were married. That was another reason Dix had wanted to confront Kanvitz alone.

He hurried through the garden, up onto the porch. There was an old-fashioned doorbell, the kind with a button inside a recessed circle like a nipple on a miniature breast; he pushed it. Chimes, not very melodious. He waited, but the front door stayed shut. He pushed the button again, and when that also didn't bring anybody, he moved over to a nearby window. Drawn shade behind chintz curtains; he couldn't see inside. He worked the bell a third time. Still no response.

The restlessness in him had given way to a formless unease. He left the porch, followed a path through the cactus garden and along the side of the house, paralleling the driveway. At the rear the path right-angled toward a set of steps that led to a porch entrance. He climbed up there and knocked on the screen door. Listened to silence, knocked again, listened to more silence.

On impulse he opened the screen and tried the inner door. It was unlocked. He pushed it open, took a cautious step inside. Service porch, an archway on his left opening into the kitchen. Both the porch and the kitchen were empty. The house was still except for the faint hum of a refrigerator.

“Hello,” he called. “Hello?”

Silence.

“Cecca? Louise? It's Dix Mallory.”

He thought he heard something this time, movement somewhere toward the front. Footsteps? He couldn't be sure because the sound wasn't repeated. His unease deepened. He slid his hand into his jacket pocket, closed fingers around the Beretta, then walked all the way inside, letting the screen door bang behind him.