Bill Pronzini: With an Extreme Burning

Driven to a third alternative?

Too much guilt, too much pressure? And suppose her lover had let his mask slip and she'd seen him as he really was?

Dix stopped walking.

What if it hadn't been an accident at all?

What if she had missed that turn on Lone Mountain Road on purpose?

The Brookside Park La Quinta Inn was just off the freeway, less than four miles from the university. Big place, three separate buildings, over a hundred rooms; visiting football teams put up there in the fall. Crowded on this late-summer Saturday: most of the parking slots were filled and twenty or thirty adults and children were making noise in the motel pool. Dix parked behind one of the shuttle vans near the lobby entrance. And sat there watching people go in and out.

I don't want to do this, he thought.

But he was there now, and the need to know was stronger than his fear of the truth. Get it over with. He prodded himself out of the car, across to the entrance.

Inside, the air-conditioning had been turned up high; the cold air was a shock. There were two clerks behind the desk, a middle-aged man and a young woman, both wearing La Quinta blazers. They were attending to three customers, one of whom was talking loudly about a restaurant that specialized in mesquite-grilled steaks. Dix hesitated, then sat down on a piece of lobby furniture. He couldn't do this with other people nearby.

It was five minutes before the customers left and the male clerk disappeared through a doorway behind the desk. Dix stood, went quickly to where the young woman was tapping at a computer terminal. Her professional smile wavered slightly when she glanced up at him. He thought: I must look like the wrath of God.

“May I help you, sir?”

“I hope so. I'm trying to find out …”

“Yes?”

The rest of the words wouldn't come. He reached for his wallet, fumbled it open to the photograph of Katy. It was a color portrait photo taken by Owen Gregory as part of a Christmas-gift package two years ago. Quite a good likeness not only in the physical sense but in that it captured Katy's vivacity, even hinted at her puckish sense of humor; Owen was the best professional photographer in Los Alegres. Dix held the wallet out so the young woman could see Katy's image.

“Do you recognize this woman?”

The clerk squinted close, lifted her head again. Her smile had gone. “No, I'm sorry, I don't know her.”

“Never saw her before? You're certain?”

“Well, you know, I see a lot of people …”

“She may have stayed here more than once. Several times, in fact, beginning about three months ago. Weekdays, afternoon check-in … Monday, Friday …”

“Then I really can't help you, sir,” the clerk said. “I don't work weekdays. Just Saturday and Sunday.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.” Sweat seeped out of him despite the air-conditioned coolness. He brushed a drop of it off his nose. “I guess I'll have to come back on Monday then … a weekday.”

“Well …”

The male clerk came out through the doorway. The bar tag over one pocket of his blazer said that he was an assistant manager. His disapproving expression said that he'd been listening and didn't like what he'd heard.

“I'm sorry, sir,” he said, “but we don't give out information about our guests.” He turned reproachful eyes on the young woman. “Joyce knows that, don't you, Joyce?”

Dix said, “I don't mean to cause any problems, it's just that I … my wife … I'm trying to find out if she stayed here …”

“Under no circumstances, sir. That's our policy.”

The young woman, Joyce, was looking at him in a new way. A look that said she'd figured out what this was all about. A look that was half sympathetic and half pitying.

Dix turned and fled.

He was almost an hour late arriving at Elliot's. He wasn't sure why he bothered to keep the appointment at all, his present state being what it was; the prospect of polite chitchat was distasteful. But he was a man who honored his commitments, and he was already in Brookside Park, and Elliot's home was close by. One drink, he thought, quick discussion about his expanded teaching schedule, then he'd make excuses and leave.

He had trouble finding the house—another reason he was so late. He'd been there twice before, but Elliot's street, Raven's Court, was one of dozens of short, twisty cul-de-sacs that made a maze of the sprawling development. Brookside Park had been built a few years before Balboa State and had grown proportionately, if indiscriminately, from an unincorporated country tract spread out along the freeway into a full-fledged town with a population larger than Los Alegres's. The ranch-style houses and tree-lined streets looked alike to an outsider. Several of his fellow professors—those with enough tenure to afford the relative luxury—lived there because of its proximity to the university.

Elliot's front lawn had sprouted a Better Lands Realty FOR SALE sign, new since Dix's last visit. He parked in front of it, looked at himself in the rearview mirror. Gaunt and dull-eyed, but otherwise not too bad. His hair was mussed and damp with sweat; he ran a comb through it before he went up and rang the bell.

Elliot didn't seem annoyed by his tardiness. He said mildly, “I'd about given up on you, my friend.”

“Sorry I'm so late …”

“Don't apologize. You all right? You look wobbly.”

“Nerves. And this damned heat.”

“Come in, sit down. I'll get you a drink.”

The drink was gin and tonic, not too strong. Dix drank half of it in one swallow. “Oh, I needed this.”

“I don't doubt it.”

They settled in what had once been the living room and was now Elliot's study. Books and papers covered most of the furniture, were scattered in little piles on the floor: Neatness was not one of his virtues. The only uncluttered surface was a prominent wall shelf on which Elliot's own books were displayed. He took the university system's publish-or-perish edict seriously; he had published a dozen volumes in the past twenty years, most with university and regional presses, two with small New York publishers. The centerpiece of the display was the book he considered to be his magnum opus, an eight-hundred-page combination biography of the crusading San Francisco newspaperman Fremont Older and history of California journalism. Not a modest man, Elliot Messner.

Dix moved a stack of pamphlets to make room for himself on the couch. Elliot occupied his huge cracked leather armchair. It needed to be huge because he was a big man, three or four inches over six feet, weight about two-twenty. Shaggy hair and a thick beard, both flame-red, coupled with his size and rough I'll-say-what-I-please manner gave him the aspect of one of the rugged-individualist pioneers of the last century. The image may have been calculated to reflect his academic specialty, California and Pacific Coast history, but Dix didn't think so; Elliot had his faults, but role-playing wasn't one of them. He was two years older than Dix, divorced, and if you believed campus rumors, not averse to laying women teachers, TAs, and regular students whenever the opportunity arose. If this was true, at least he was discreet about it. He didn't flaunt his conquests the way some men did.

Dix said, “I didn't know you were selling your house.”

“Trying to. Not much interest so far.”

“How long have you had it on the market?”

“Six weeks. If the Democrats don't turn the economy around, I may never sell the damn place. It's not a financial decision, in case you're wondering. I'm just tired of living in a frigging tract. I never did like it here, you know. It was Grace's idea to buy in Brookside Park. Hell, I should have realized then that the marriage was doomed.”

“Where will you go when it does sell?”