Epitaphs

by Bill Pronzini

  DeKuiper said, “Lookee here, Chet. Company.”

  Nothing from Valconazzi.

  “Sit. Over there.”

  Those words were for me, and he punctuated them with a hard shove toward one of the chairs. Old corduroy-covered thing, stained and dirty. I could feel my skin crawl where it came in contact with the upholstery.

  DeKuiper remained standing. It was the flat automatic he held pointed at me; my .38 was tucked into his belt. Both of his massive hands, I saw then, were puffy and cut around the knuckles. I looked at his eyes. They were clear, hard—nothing wild in them or in his bearded lumberjack features. A while back I’d had to deal with a berserker holding a roomful of people hostage; DeKuiper wasn’t in that category. He was in control of his faculties, knew right from wrong. Hate and rage were what seemed to be driving him, not psychosis. Point in my favor. Even a violently rational man is a hell of a lot more predictable in his actions than a homicidal crazy.

  I said, “Why, DeKuiper?”

  “Mean Chet there?”

  “For one. Bisconte for another.”

  “Found that bastard? That why you’re here?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Sure,” he said. “But I found him first. Better detective than you, huh?”

  “Melanie Harris,” I said. “Right?”

  “Right. How’d you know it was me popped Bisconte?”

  “You left some ink residue on the sink. Printer’s ink.”

  “Smart,” he said, nodding.

  “If I figured you for it, so will the police.”

  “Think so? No real connection, me and Bisconte. Or me and Chet.”

  “There’s Melanie Harris.”

  “Uh-uh. Told her forget me. She will.”

  “Doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “I called the sheriffs department before I left Bolinas. Gave them your name, told them I was coming here.”

  “Think I buy that, pops? No way. Called cops, wouldn’t be here yourself.”

  I let it go. You can’t run a decent bluff without leverage. “Why kill Bisconte? Wasn’t roughing him up enough?”

  “No. Had it comin.”

  “Why? What’d he do to you?”

  “Nothin to me.”

  “To Gianna, then. Is that it?”

  “Not him. Chet.”

  “Chet did something to her? What?”

  DeKuiper’s mouth changed shape, quivered—an odd, tragic expression on that Bunyanesque face. “Killed her. Didn’t you, Chet?”

  Faint moan from Valconazzi; no words.

  DeKuiper went over and kicked him in the belly. Valconazzi grunted, moaned louder; his body spasmed into a fetal position.

  “Didn’t you, Chet?”

  “Accident ...”

  “Accident, my ass.”

  “Swear to God ... accident ...”

  “Tell him how she died, Chet.”

  Whimper. DeKuiper kicked him again.

  “Tell him.”

  “Bathtub ... accident ...”

  “He drowned her,” DeKuiper said.

  “In a bathtub?”

  “His cottage, his tub. Sick fucker’s into S&M. Likes hurt women, hold heads under water, pretend drownin ’em. Fantasy shit, gives him big thrill.”

  “Accident,” Valconazzi said. “Swear to God ... please ...”

  “Screwin her in tub, held head under too long. Right, Chet? What you told me? She fought him but he thought only actin, didn’t let her up in time.”

  Jesus Christ.

  DeKuiper said, “Tried revive her, him and Bisconte. Too goddamn late.”

  “Bisconte was there when she died?”

  “Whole time. Other room, waitin his turn. Two of ’em brought her there from ranch, big night fun and games.”

  I said nothing. There was nothing to say.

  “Got drunk afterward,” DeKuiper said, “tryin figure what to do. Know what they decided?”

  “I can guess.”

  “Yeah. Take Gianna somewhere, bury her. Pretend whole thing never happened. Figured nobody’d find out. Figured wrong.”

  “Is that why you shot Bisconte? Because he was there when she died, because he helped bury her body?”

  “Wasn’t gonna kill lousy pimp bastard, not at first. Just pound him. His fault. Had to open his goddamn mouth.”

  “What did he say?”

  The odd, tragic expression again; and in his eyes, a kind of animal hurt. “Didn’t care she’s dead. Just another whore, he said. Not to me, by God. Special, real special. Told him that, then showed him how special.”

  He loved her, I thought. As deeply as any man can love any woman. Vengeance is what this is all about—blood vengeance.

  “So now what?” I asked him. “Now you kill Valconazzi too? And then me?”

  Shrug. “Maybe not you, pops.”

  That was bullshit and we both knew it. He had no intention of letting me walk away from this alive.

  I said, “Why’d you bring him here? Why not just work him over at the cottage, shoot him there?”

  “Too many people around, too much noise. Lucky nobody heard me do Bisconte. More private here.”

  “How about afterward?”

  “After what?”

  “After you kill him. The body.”

  “Got that covered.”

  “Sure you do. His body and mine?”

  Shrug.

  “So when does it happen? Now?”

  “Not now. Plenty of time, hours yet.”

  “Hours? Why drag it out?”

  “Make sure everything’s quiet out there,” he said. “Midnight, earliest, before we leave.”

  “Leave for where?”

  “Ranch. Where they buried Gianna. Chet’s gonna show us, aren’t you, Chet?”

  Valconazzi moaned again. A chill began to walk my spine.

  “Chet’s gonna dig her up for me,” DeKuiper said. “Then he’s gonna take her place.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  TICK.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Hard waiting, this—the worst kind of waiting. Nothing to relieve it; no more conversation, no sound in the room except for the faint steady drip of the kitchen faucet and the murmur of an occasional car passing out on Balboa. Twice I asked DeKuiper to turn on the TV, to have some noise in there. He wouldn’t do it. He liked it quiet, he said. Shut up, he said.

  In that kind of heavy-hanging quiet, time and its slowed-down passage consumes your awareness. You begin to imagine you can hear each second tick off in your mind, the spaces between them stretching out longer and longer. You keep wanting to look at your watch, keep fighting off the urge, and that makes you want even more to look ... push-pull, push-pull, the way it must be for a newly recovering alcoholic with an open bottle of liquor within easy reach. You sweat, fidget, twitch. Your mouth and throat turn dry and your blood thickens. After a while you want to cut loose with a primal yell just to blow off some of the tension.

  What made it even worse for me were the similarities between this situation and the Deer Run ordeal. Under the gun; trapped in an enclosed space; helpless, waiting to die. At first I felt stirrings of the posttraumatic stress syndrome I’d endured: claustrophobia, high anxiety, fear-goblins lurking at the edges of my mind. But enough time had passed—over two years now since the kidnapping, a year since the last severe stress symptoms had disappeared—so that I was able to fight off the demons, keep them at bay by an effort of will.

  The waiting seemed to have little effect on the other two. Valconazzi was fear-dazed and in too much pain; he passed out before long and stayed out, as much in self-defense, I thought, as from his injuries. DeKuiper had pulled one of the other chairs around so that he could sit watching both Valconazzi and me; and there he sat, legs crossed, comfortable, aware of his surroundings but with a part of himself turned inward. Avenger’s nerves. Insulated, cooled by icy rage and righteous hatred and thoughts of his dead love.

  Tick.

  Tick.

&n
bsp; My earlier feelings of failure and disgust had faded. In their place was a simmering anger—at myself, at DeKuiper, at Valconazzi and the dead man out in Bolinas. I channeled the anger into a buffer against the effects of the waiting, by trying to devise ways to get myself out of this bind. Bleak prospects. DeKuiper had the two guns, and age, weight, and strength advantages; jumping him would be a big risk, particularly here. The only time to try it would be if his attention was diverted. Divert it myself somehow? I couldn’t think of a way that was cunning enough to fool him.

  And if I couldn’t do anything here? Chances were, he’d make me do the driving to Marin—his Cadillac, probably, him in front with me and Valconazzi in back, or both of them on the rear seat. Work some kind of trick with the car? Slam on the brakes, swerve, cause a minor accident ... disarm him that way? Possible, but that sort of ploy isn’t as easy as they make it look in the movies, not when the guy with the gun is wise to the possibility. Signal somebody, then—a passing cop? Also not easy to accomplish.

  And if I couldn’t do anything before we got to the ranch? The odds wouldn’t be any better out there, maybe even worse. Dark, yes; no moon tonight. But there was starshine, and DeKuiper would have a flashlight, and I wasn’t familiar with the territory—didn’t have any idea of where on the property Gianna had been buried.

  Dig her up for me, DeKuiper had said. Ghoul’s work. What did he intend to do with her remains after he’d buried Valconazzi—and me—in her place? A week-old corpse ... Jesus, what could he do with her?

  Tick.

  Cockfighting, kinky sex, “accidental” drowning in a bathtub, late-night burial, grave robbing ... bizarre, all of it. I hope Pietro and Dominick never find out the full story. I hope Gianna’s mama never finds out.

  Tick.

  John Valconazzi. Did he know about the drowning, the burial on his land? DeKuiper hadn’t mentioned his name, didn’t seem to think he was involved; all right, neither did I. No son would confide a crime like that to his father. Could be, though, that John had found out about Gianna leaving the ranch with Chet and Bisconte last Saturday. Pressured him about it, got him worried enough to want to consult with Bisconte on how to handle the old man. That would explain why Chet had been looking for Bisconte on Tuesday, why he’d been so worked up and ranting at Melanie Harris.

  Tick.

  Bisconte. I’d missed him twice at the cottage yesterday; where had he been all day? Out somewhere with Chet, probably. Making arrangements to leave the area, set himself up in some other part of the state or country. He couldn’t hide out in Bolinas indefinitely; they’d both have wanted the pressure off from that.

  ... Tick.

  Ashley Hansen. Another “accident”? Or a genuine accident? One or the other; I couldn’t see it as a premeditated homicide. Accident. Yeah, accident ...

  ... Tick ...

  On and on like that: random thoughts, sweating, fidgeting, while the seconds seemed to tick off more and more slowly in my mind. Until, finally, a kind of numbness began to spread through me—mental and physical both. Internal defense mechanism, like the one in Chet that had let him pass out. I welcomed it. Closed my eyes to help it along.

  I was in a waking doze, my body still, when I heard DeKuiper stirring in the other chair. Instantly I was alert again. I watched him get up on his feet, stretch his big frame; watched him watch me.

  “Time, pops,” he said.

  I rubbed grit out of my eyes, looked at my watch—the first time I’d allowed myself to do that. Twelve minutes past midnight. Nearly three hours since I’d first come in here.

  DeKuiper moved over to where Valconazzi lay inert, nudged him with the toe of his shoe. “Wake up, Chet.” Valconazzi groaned, but his eyes stayed shut. “Wake up, time we see Gianna.” Another groan, a curling of the battered body, the eyes still shut. This time DeKuiper kicked him, brutally, in the groin area. Valconazzi screamed, tried to roll away, and DeKuiper kicked him again, and that second kick turned his body and put his back to me.

  I came up out of the chair without thinking about it and charged him.

  But it was as if I were moving at a retarded speed, like somebody trying to run underwater; muscles stiff from tension, joints creaking. The only thing that moved fast was my brain. He heard me coming, swung around before I could get my hands on him, and cracked me alongside the head with a rigid forearm. The blow drove me sideways into the wall, off that into a sharp edge of something that bit into my rib cage and made me yell. I went down on one knee; tried to stand and couldn’t seem to get any leverage. Buzzing hum in my head ... I shook it, looked up ... and there was DeKuiper, crowding in close with one leg raised and swinging forward. I dodged too late. The point of his shoe slammed into my chest, brought another cry out of me, knocked me over backward.

  I pushed at the floor, hurting, trying again to get up. He stood looming above me and I could see his mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying until the buzzing in my ears thinned out.

  “... Stupid, pops. Old bastard like you.”

  Yeah. Stupid old bastard like me.

  If I’d had my gun right then I would have shot him dead. In cold blood, with no compunction at all.

  HIS CADILLAC WAS IN one of the garages off the alley. Valconazzi couldn’t walk out there; DeKuiper made me support him, one arm around his middle; he sagged against me, so I had to half carry him. The smell of his fear and his hurt was rancid. There was nobody in the alley except a prowling cat, no lights now in any of the apartment windows opposite. DeKuiper swung the garage door up, went in and opened the Caddy’s rear door. Told me to lay Chet on the backseat. I did that. When I was done I had trouble taking in enough air; my chest ached where he’d kicked me and one of my ribs hurt like hell when I breathed in—bruised or cracked from that sharp edge.

  DeKuiper had opened the trunk. Along the wall nearest him was a clutter of tools, among them a long-handled shovel. With his free hand he tossed the shovel into the trunk, slammed the lid—not taking his eyes off me the entire time. Then he motioned with the automatic for me to come around to the driver’s side.

  But he didn’t want me to drive; I’d been wrong about that. Too smart, too sly to put a potential weapon like the Cadillac in my hands. He pushed me in ahead of him, told me to slide over against the passenger door. A Cadillac is a wide car; there was a prohibitive amount of space between us when I got all the way over there and he folded his body under the wheel.

  “Hands in pants pockets, far as they’ll go,” he said then. And when I obeyed, “Keep ’em there. One hand comes out, you’re dead. Hear?”

  “I hear.”

  The automatic was in his left hand now; he waggled it a little. “Left’s good as my right. Shoot straight with both, no lie.”

  “I believe you.”

  “No more trouble, huh, pops?”

  “No more trouble,” I lied.

  THE DRIVE TO WEST MARIN seemed as interminable as the wait at the print shop. DeKuiper was in no hurry and he was being cautious; his speed did not exceed thirty on the city streets, fifty-five on the freeway, forty-five on the back roads. I sat hurting the whole way. Propped on a car seat with your hands jammed in your pants pockets, your back wedged in the angle between door and seat, is uncomfortable at first and then painful. But I was afraid to test him by taking a hand out long enough to flex or massage it, or even by shifting position too much. He was capable of carrying out his threat to shoot me.

  In the backseat, Valconazzi was in much worse shape. He moaned every time we hit a bump and now and then when we didn’t. Once he started to cough, couldn’t seem to stop, and ended up vomiting on the floor.

  Nobody said anything. The quiet in the car had the same strained quality as the quiet at the print shop, but with a thin current running through it. I could feel it on my skin, a tingling sensation, as if I were in contact with a live low-voltage wire.

  I watched the lights of the southbound cars, the shapes of the few vehicles we passed in the slow northbound lan
es. None of them was Highway Patrol or Marin County sheriffs department, not that I could have done much about a distress signal. I watched DeKuiper too. He seemed relaxed, but he wore a fixed expression and his eyes didn’t blink much. There was a hard, implacable look to his dash-lit profile that made me think of a mercenary soldier on his way to a mission behind enemy lines.

  Once we got through Novato there was virtually no traffic. We passed one car between there and the turnoff to the Valconazzi ranch. The sky over west Marin was still clear, star-silvered, but the darkness had a clotted quality just the same, the shadows cast by the hills and trees ink-black and impenetrable. The Petaluma-Marshall Road, lit by the Caddy’s headlights, was like a track leading nowhere through a dead landscape.

  DeKuiper muttered, “Three miles on nose,” and after the protracted silence the sound of his voice made me jump. Then he asked me, “Been out here before?”

  “Yes, but not at night.”

  “Don’t see turnoff ...”

  He missed the half-hidden turn; didn’t spot the sign until we were on the way past. He braked sharply, bouncing us around, causing Valconazzi to cry out in back. Reversed with too much acceleration, so that we fishtailed squealing into an angle across the road. “Shit,” he said, and I might have tried something then, with his attention turned briefly away from me, if my hands had been free. As it was, he didn’t give me enough time to get them clear. He made a fast gear change and accelerated again, not as heavily, flicking a glance my way as he swung us down onto the ranch road. I sat still; the automatic’s muzzle was steady on me again across his lap.

  The Caddy’s headlights picked up the closed and padlocked gate. DeKuiper stopped nose up to it, shifted to PARK. Took something out of his shirt pocket and tossed it jangling on the seat between us.

  “Chet’s keys,” he said. “One opens gate. You do it.”