In an Evil Time

by Bill Pronzini

  He switched on his computer, pulled up the Chesterton file. Nice little plum for Mannix & Hollis, and mostly his baby: a 4,500-square-foot house and outbuildings in the Paloma Mountains east of town. Money no object, full creative control. Shelby Chesterton owned a Silicon Valley computer software company, had tired of living in the South Bay rat race, liked the slower pace of the North Bay, and was preparing to relocate both his company and his family to Los Alegres. He’d bought a large chunk of real estate on the mountainside, complete with a private lake, and interviewed a dozen architectural design outfits in the county before handing the job to Mannix & Hollis. Hollis had gotten along well with him from the first—they saw eye-to-eye on other subjects besides modern architecture—and he’d been given carte blanche. The result was an environmentally friendly, innovative, regionally styled home that employed elements of Maybeck’s vision with his own unique method of detailing. The Chestertons had been ecstatic. Mannix & Hollis had already gotten one other job as a result of their enthusiastic recommendation to friends. There might well be more if and when the finished house was featured in one of the trade magazines.

  Construction had begun three months ago. He hadn’t been to the site in nearly a month because of Angela and Rakubian; he checked the most recent progress report from PAD Construction. Some of the foundation slabs had been poured, but the report didn’t say which ones; the rest were scheduled for this week and next. He’d have to go up there, see for himself—

  Knock on the door. He swiveled his head as it opened and Gabe Mannix poked his bushy head inside. “Busy, Bernard? Or can I come in?”

  Bernard this morning. Other mornings it was Paul. Gag born twenty-plus years ago, when they’d worked together in the city, that Mannix refused to let die of worn-out old age. The two early-twentieth-century California architects who had most influenced Hollis’s own style, one a white Paris-trained bohemian, the other a black, mostly self-taught traditionalist, were Bernard Maybeck and Paul Williams.

  “Come ahead. You’re practically in already.” He clicked off the Chesterton file, shut down, and swung his chair around as Mannix flopped into the cubicle’s one other chair.

  “So the asshole showed up here last night.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your place, too, Gloria says.”

  “McLear Park before that. Angela was there with Kenny. He threatened her outright this time.”

  “In front of witnesses?”

  “Not unless you count Fritz.”

  “What’d he say exactly?”

  “That he’d kill them both if she doesn’t go back to him.”

  “Miserable fuck! So that’s why she’s ready to run and hide.”

  “That’s why.”

  “You’re not going to let her go?”

  “I can’t stop her, Gabe.”

  “If you don’t, you might never see her or Kenny again. Even if Rakubian doesn’t find her, she’ll go to ground so deep she won’t dare surface.”

  “It’s her decision.”

  “Is it? You know what I’d do if I were in your place. Buy a gun and use it.”

  He kept a poker face. He’d heard this before; Mannix hadn’t made any secret of how he felt. Of all the people who knew about the situation, Gabe was the one he’d come closest to confiding in. But he hadn’t been able to do it. Not before last night and not now, either.

  “Don’t you think I’ve considered it?”

  “Seriously considered it?”

  “Damn seriously.

  “And?”

  He shook his head, made a helpless gesture.

  “Yeah, I know,” Mannix said. “Suppose I do it for you?”

  “… You’re kidding.”

  “You think so? You know how I feel about you and Cassie and Angela. I wouldn’t have any qualms about it, moral or otherwise. Same as shooting a rabid dog.”

  Hollis studied him for a time, trying to decide if he really did mean it. Gabe Mannix was not an easy man to read. They’d known each other twenty-two years, worked side by side at Simmons Glenn Associates for eight before going into partnership on their own, but there was still an ambiguous closed-off part of the man he couldn’t quite figure out. Big, shaggy, easygoing, with an endless repository of anecdotes and bawdy stories … but he could also be moody, cynical, and unpredictable in his personal life. A brilliant if conventionally minded architect, with a degree from the Pratt Institute in New York, yet he preferred to handle the more mundane jobs that came their way—office buildings, shopping malls, apartment complexes—and to let Hollis have the more challenging individual designs like the Chesterton home. Twice married, twice divorced, now a confirmed bachelor and “connoisseur of one-night stands,” yet he seemed to envy Hollis’s stable relationship with Cassie. And the way he looked at Angela the past few years—wistfully, tenderly, with a sad little light in his eyes—indicated that he wished he was twenty years younger and she was somebody else’s attractive daughter.

  “I’d do it,” he said. “No lie and no bull.”

  “It’s not your fight, Gabe.”

  “The hell it’s not.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you. Not a thing like that.”

  “Meaning you don’t condone the idea?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Guys like Rakubian don’t deserve to live,” Mannix said. “Do the world a favor, take him right out of the gene pool.”

  “You sound like a vigilante.”

  “Maybe I am. Maybe you’d better start thinking like one yourself.”

  If you only knew, buddy.

  “Can we drop this now? It’s not doing either of us any good.”

  “Drop it if that’s what you want, but one of us better pick it up again. Before it’s too late.”

  “Gabe, look—”

  Mannix shoved onto his feet. “Off to the salt mines. Emerson’s bitching again about the changes in that mall design.”

  “Some work to do myself. I’ll be out pretty soon.”

  “Take your time. You’ve got more important things to worry about than pencils and slide rules.”

  When he was alone Hollis pulled up the Chesterton file again and rechecked the progress report and the site plan. All right. If the hillside work hadn’t progressed far enough or they’d poured the wine cellar slab ahead of schedule? Cross that bridge if and when.

  The rest of the plan now. Nothing specific he could use in the dossier on Rakubian, but there was enough in the nonspecifics. Massive ego. Never admits to being wrong, to any fault or deficiency. Fearless—believes he’s smarter than anyone else, indestructible. Pull all of that together and you had a literal-minded man vulnerable to the right kind of approach.

  Fitting. The son of a bitch’s own massive ego was going to help bury him.

  4

  HE still hadn’t heard from Eric when Cassie called from Animal Care at ten-thirty. She’d had her talk with Angela. Mixed results. Angela was willing to stay through the weekend whether or not the Boston arrangements were confirmed, but she refused to go to Cedar Rapids under any circumstances. A woman in the local support group had relatives in Utah who might be talked into taking her and Kenny in temporarily; she’d try to go there if Boston fell through. “Utah is a lot closer than Massachusetts or Iowa,” Cassie said, “even if it means living with strangers.” Hollis couldn’t disagree, though he wished there were some way to keep her from going anywhere at all, even for a short time.

  It was almost noon when Eric finally called. By then Hollis was fidgety and not working well. He took the call in his cubicle, and started things off wrong, in spite of himself, by saying too sharply, “What took you so long to get back to me?”

  “Hey, don’t bite my head off.”

  “Didn’t Larry give you my message right away?”

  “He gave it to me. Urgent but not serious. Angie told you about Boston, right?”

  Angie. Eric was the only one in the family who called her that. “Yes. You haven’t talked to her today?�
��

  “I tried the house just now. No answer.”

  “She’s at a support group meeting. About this Boston business. I know you’re trying to help, but—”

  “It didn’t work out,” Eric said.

  “No?”

  “I thought I had the apartment all set for her, but Jeff went stupid on me and told his folks the reason. They don’t want a woman who’s being stalked staying in their apartment, they don’t want any trouble, the usual crap.”

  Relieved, Hollis said, “It’s just as well.”

  “Uh-huh. And I suppose you want me to stay out of it from now on?”

  “I wish you would.”

  “I’d set something else up if I could.”

  “Eric—” He bit that off. “She may have another place to go,” he said, and explained about Utah.

  “Sounds okay for the time being,” Eric admitted. “So you and Mom aren’t trying to talk her out of leaving?”

  “We’re not standing in her way, no.”

  “But you don’t much care for the idea.”

  “Of course not. Running away isn’t going to save her from Rakubian.”

  “Neither is staying home where he can get to her any time he feels like it.”

  Hollis was silent. Same old pointless argument.

  The line hummed and crackled emptily. Then Eric said in a cold, flat voice, “I hate that crazy son of a bitch. I’d like to smash his fucking head in.”

  “Knock off that kind of talk,” Hollis said sharply. “You know better than that.”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same way.”

  “Violence isn’t the answer.” You goddamn hypocrite, he thought.

  “Then what is? I can’t help thinking …”

  “What? What’re you thinking?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “Listen to me, son. Don’t go getting any wild ideas.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I think you do.”

  “I won’t lose it, don’t worry.”

  “I do worry.”

  Long pause. “I’m coming home for a couple of days,” Eric said then, “and don’t tell me not to, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “The obvious reason. To see Angie before she leaves.”

  Hollis gave this a few seconds of thought before he said, “All right, no objection. When are you driving up?”

  “After my last class tomorrow. Friday traffic’ll probably be a bitch, so don’t expect me until after dinner.”

  “Call when you get close to San Francisco. We’ll wait dinner if it’s not too late.”

  After he put the phone down, Hollis sat slumped in his chair. He hadn’t seen his son in six weeks; it would be good to have him home again for a while. Make Cassie happy, too. But could he trust Eric to stay away from Rakubian? Better impress it on him again, in person, as soon as he could get him alone. If all the pieces of the new plan came together … Saturday was the target day. There was a lot to do before then, and any number of potential complications to screw up the timing and logistics. He couldn’t afford to let his hotheaded son become another one.

  Thursday Afternoon

  The Paloma Mountains, like the Los Alegres River, was a misnomer. In fact they were a spine of tallish foothills spotted with oak and madrone, green in the winter but already beginning to brown off now in late spring, that separated this valley from the lush Paloma Valley to the east. Along the lower slopes were scattered ranches, rolling cattle graze, private homes on large parcels. Farther up, where the terrain steepened, boulder-size rocks littered the hillside, the folds between rounded hummocks cut deep to form shadowed hollows choked with trees and brush, and the number of working ranches and private dwellings dropped to a widely spaced handful. Stretches of woods ran near and along the ridgeline, hiding three small lakes and miles of deer trails on the privately owned sections, hiking and horseback trails on several thousand acres that belonged to the city.

  The Chesterton parcel was better than two-thirds of the way up, one of the highest and choicest homesite locations. His seventy-two acres had cost him a couple of million; the home, outbuildings, and extensive landscaping he had planned would run about the same. Four million to Shelby Chesterton was like four thousand to Jack Hollis: He was no Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but the pile he’d made in the technology market was massive and still growing. More power to him. He wasn’t your typical high-rolling Type A corporate egomaniac; on the contrary, he was down-to-earth, surprisingly easygoing, a nice guy. Working with him had been a pleasure.

  For that reason, because he liked and respected the man, Hollis felt bad about this part of the plan. It amounted to a betrayal, and the fact that Chesterton would never know it was cold comfort. A matter of expediency, yes—the only safe and certain means open to him on short notice. But that did not make the reality taste any less bitter. Another little piece of his integrity torn away and lost because of David Rakubian.

  The road ran more or less straight at the lower elevations, turned crooked and then narrow and twisty as he climbed through stands of dusty-looking trees, rocky fields where dairy cattle grazed in the sun. He had the window rolled down and the afternoon breeze was warm, heavy with the smells of madrone, dry grass, manure. Behind him he could see the valley spread out below, the town with its east side suburban sprawl, the river, and Highway 101. From up at the Chesterton site, the view was spectacular. On a clear day you could see Mt. Tarn, San Pablo Bay, parts of San Francisco Bay, and the city’s skyline forty miles distant.

  The pitch of the road grew even sharper; on the south side the terrain began to fall away, gradually in some places, more steeply in others. He made a corkscrew turn through a cutbank, driving at a crawl now because of the blind curves and the fact that the strip of rough asphalt was so narrow here two cars could not pass abreast. This road and most of the others in the Paloma Mountains had been built in the twenties to accommodate the ranchers, and they were little used by anyone except residents and kids looking for a private place to drink beer and get laid. He and Cassie had come here more than once, nearly thirty years ago … high school sweethearts, high school heat. It was where she’d given him her virginity, in fact.

  Was it also where Angela had given hers to Ryan Pierce? The thought bothered him more than it should have and he wasn’t sure why.

  At nearly five miles by his odometer, the road split in two: the right fork dead-ending at the gate of one of the cattle ranchers, the left fork following a brushy ravine uphill. That one had brand-new gates standing wide open; the road surface there was gravel and would eventually be paved. Hollis turned in on it, raising clouds of dust that hung and shifted in the clear air like slow coils of smoke.

  The house site was another half-mile along, on a wide, deep shelf extending out from a pair of oak-studded folds. Four leveled and graded acres that in another six months, if the weather cooperated, would contain the main house—two-storied, redwood and fieldstone with a cross-gabled roof and an interior of sharp-angled walls and huge rough-sawn boxed beams; five outbuildings in the same general style but with subtle alterations to make each one unique; and an eighty-foot-square stone terrace and swimming pool, tennis courts, and two formal gardens. Right now the acreage was a jumble of earthmoving equipment, dump trucks, pickups, office trailer and toolsheds, portable toilets, stacks of lumber, piles of rock and gravel and dirt, Pete Dulac’s twelve-man crew, and all the other components of a medium-size construction site.

  Hollis found a place to park near the trailer and attached, steel-reinforced sheds. The noise level was high: grinding gears, pounding engines, backup beepers, men shouting. It must have been a bitch getting some of the trucks and equipment up here, Hollis thought as he went looking for Pete Dulac. The teamsters, especially those who’d hauled the cats and scoops and trailer up East Valley Road, were really earning their pay on this job.

  Dulac found him before he was halfway to where the main house was staked out a
nd partly slabbed. PAD Construction’s owner was a burly, jowly man in his late fifties, the 49ers cap he habitually wore tilted back on his head, a tool belt slung around his waist. He’d worked for the old man once, long ago, but that wasn’t the reason Hollis favored him whenever he could. Dulac was the best and most reliable general contractor in the county. He seldom finished a job late or overbudget; drove his crews hard, but no harder than he drove himself.

  “Saw you pull in,” he said. “How they hangin’, Jack?”

  Damn sour joke now, but Hollis went along with it. “A little lower every day.”

  “Wait till you get to my age. Come up for a reason?”

  “Just a look-around to keep Chesterton happy.”

  “Well, we’re still pretty much on schedule.”

  “Never any doubt of that.”

  “I’ll be in the trailer for a few minutes,” Dulac said. “Give a holler if you want me.”

  Hollis roamed the site, stopping once to talk to a workman, another time to feign an inspection of a foundation slab, a third time to enter one of the portable toilets. What urine he could produce caused a burning and flowed in thin interrupted spurts, as if his bladder were on some kind of timer switch. Frustration made him slam his hand against the inner wall, and when he came out a man working nearby gave him an odd look. He pretended not to notice.

  From there he wandered back to the excavation for the big wine cellar. Forty by sixty feet, cut deep into the shale rock of the hillside; all the digging finished, the walls and ceiling shored and framed with plywood. The floor slab hadn’t been poured yet, he saw with relief. The hard-packed dirt was overlaid with loose plywood sheets.

  Inside, he bent to lift one of the center sheets and then squatted with his back to the opening. He knew that they hadn’t hit bedrock anywhere on the site, but he had to be sure the earth wasn’t too rocky here for easy digging. He burrowed two fingers into the pack, sifted dirt between his fingers. It would take a pick and shovel easily enough, but there was no way of telling for certain how far down he’d be able to go. Just have to take it on faith that it would be far enough without too much effort.