A Wasteland of Strangers

by Bill Pronzini

  “I’m through listening, Audrey. I don’t want to hear any more. Either you shut up or I’ll put tape over your mouth. I mean it. You want your mouth taped shut?”

  I didn’t; I shook my head.

  “All right, then. Be quiet.”

  He was pacing again, as he’d done most of the morning. Earlier it had been for exercise and to work off nervous energy; he’d slept some, too, and he seemed stronger. Now the pacing was the result of tension and frustration. As I watched him I thought again of how warriorlike he was at times, even dressed in slacks and shirt and an old corduroy jacket that was too small across the shoulders and chest. The Ruger automatic inside his belt added a renegade touch. John Faith: warrior, renegade, misfit. A man apart, a man shunned.

  Nearly five hours of exhausted sleep had renewed my strength as well. The headache and throat soreness were mostly gone; only a stiffness in my legs and lower back bothered me, discomfort that would’ve been worse if John Faith hadn’t let me unbind my ankles and walk for a short time. He’d also given me milk, and bread and cheese to eat. Until these past few minutes, there had been little conversation between us. The night had invited as much intimacy as a man and a woman with too many fundamental differences and too few similarities could share. The pale morning light that seeped into the lodge caused us to pull away from each other. In a sense it was like a one-night stand between strangers: closeness and urgency in the dark, and in the morning, distance and embarrassment at having opened yourself up, even a little, to someone you didn’t know.

  “John,” I said, “I’d like to walk again.”

  “No.”

  “My toes are starting to get numb.”

  “Tape’s not that tight. Ankles or wrists.”

  He’d bound my hands more than an hour ago, in front of me as he’d promised. I lifted my arms; with my fingers splayed away from one another and the tape joining the wrists, my hands looked like an obscene caricature of the Christian symbol of prayer. I lowered my arms again, clasped my fingers between my drawn-up knees.

  Something creaked and scraped in another part of the lodge, the dining room or beyond, at the side. John Faith heard it, too; he stood still with his head cocked, listening. The sounds weren’t repeated. Rats, probably. They were everywhere in the old building, in the walls and under the floors; now and then you could hear them scurrying, gnawing. He’d been wise to put the food up next to him while he slept. The candlelight alone wouldn’t have been enough to keep hungry rats away.

  He said, “Going to take another quick look outside.”

  “He’s not coming, John.”

  “Couple of minutes is all I’ll be gone. Don’t try taking that tape off your ankles.”

  “I won’t.”

  He moved off through the archway, into the dining room. Enough daylight penetrated so he could make his way without using a flashlight. Only one candle still burned, the one on the chair near where I sat. Through its guttering flame I watched John Faith meld with the shadows beyond the archway. I leaned forward then, reached down to my ankles, but not to try picking at the tape. It would be foolish to disobey him at this point. All I did was rub the insteps in an effort to improve circulation—

  A chain of noises jerked my head up. Thumps, scrapes, a sharp thud, and then a muffled, harsh voice that was not John Faith’s—all from the far end of the dining room or in the room beyond. I sat up straight, staring in that direction. Silence again. Then footsteps. And then John Faith reappeared in a slow, stiff walk, his hands out away from his body at shoulder level. He wasn’t alone; somebody moved close behind him, half hidden by his bulk and by shadows.

  He was two or three paces into the lobby when I heard him grunt and saw him stagger forward, off balance—shoved hard in the back. The other man was still just a dark shape standing spread-legged, both arms extended in front, objects clutched in both hands, making them seem unnaturally elongated. In the next instant a flashlight beam stabbed out through the gloom, and in its back glow I saw the hard set of the man’s face.

  “Dick!”

  He didn’t answer or even glance my way. The light held steady on John Faith, who had caught his balance and was turning around, slowly, his hands still out away from his body.

  “Go ahead, you son of a bitch,” Dick yelled at him, “make a try for that gun in your belt. Give me an excuse.”

  The tone of his voice caused chills to run over me. Implacable, choked with rage. He’d meant what he said.

  John Faith knew it too. He stood rigid.

  “I ought to do it anyway. If you hurt her—”

  “Dick, no! He didn’t do anything to me. It was Mateo Munoz … he’d have raped and maybe killed me if … Dick, John Faith saved my life!”

  Silence, clotted and electric. None of us moved; I was not even breathing. The stop-time seemed to drag on and on—

  “All right, Faith,” Dick said. Different tone, closer to his normal one. Controlled again. “You dodged a bullet this time. Literally.”

  I let out the air burning my lungs and sagged back against the cushions. As relieved as I was that Dick had found us, that there’d been no more violence and the long night was finally over, I felt sorry for John Faith. Very, very sorry for him.

  Richard Novak

  I ORDERED FAITH to take the gun out of his belt, left hand, thumb and forefinger, and set it on the floor—set it, not drop it—and then kick it over to me. He followed orders with such deliberate care, almost like a pantomime, that I wondered if he was mocking me. I couldn’t be sure, so I let it go. I squatted to pick up his weapon, slip it into my jacket pocket—not taking the light off him for an eye flick. Then I told him to lie facedown, hands clasped behind him. And even then I wasn’t taking any chances. I leaned over his body from behind and to one side, laid the muzzle of my service revolver against the back of his skull; held it there while I squatted again, lowered the light, unhooked the handcuffs from my belt, and snapped them around his wrists. He didn’t move the entire time.

  A quick frisk—no other weapon—and then I began to relax a little. I went to Audrey and shone the light on her. Bruise marks on her throat, but otherwise she seemed unharmed. She said as I started to strip the tape off her wrists, “How did you find us? How did you know to come here?”

  “I didn’t know. I’ll explain later. You tell me about Mateo Munoz. And Faith, how he got all the way over here.”

  She told me. I had her repeat some of it so I could get all the facts straight in my mind. Mateo Munoz, for Christ’s sake. Smart-ass troublemaker with a record of minor offenses graduated to the big time now—kidnapping, assault, attempted forcible oral copulation. Made the mistake of bringing her here, where Faith happened to be hiding, and Faith had stepped in on her behalf. All right. Give him that much credit. And Faith had been brought here in Audrey’s boat; his arrival was what Harry Richmond had witnessed yesterday morning. But it hadn’t been Audrey driving the boat and she didn’t know who’d helped him. The only thing Faith had told her was that a person he claimed was a doctor was supposed to come back today, before noon, to take him away, and hadn’t shown.

  I finished freeing Audrey’s hands while she talked, began on her ankles. Every few seconds I shifted my gaze to Faith, but he still lay as I’d left him. Lucky to be alive in more ways than one; he was like a cat with extra lives. Lucky for both of us. In those first few seconds after I got the drop on him and prodded him into the lobby, when I’d seen Audrey bound the way she was, I’d come close to blowing him away. Very close. If she hadn’t cried out as she had, I think I would have. It put a quivering in my belly remembering how close I’d come.

  I unwound the last strips of tape, lifted Audrey to her feet, and helped her walk until she could do it without support. Then I left her and flashed my light around. On a second couch was a scattering of items that included medical supplies. Might be something there to identify the accessory, I thought. But a quick inspection told me nothing, and there was no time and this wasn’t th
e place for a thorough examination. Sheriff’s department could handle that; they had lab facilities and the township didn’t. Nucooee Point was their jurisdiction, anyway.

  Faith hadn’t moved more than a few inches if he’d moved at all. I drew my revolver again, went over and told him to stand up. He didn’t give me any trouble. The way he raised himself to his feet, the stain of fresh blood on his shirtfront, the bandages I’d felt when I frisked him confirmed that he was wounded and hurting. Medical attention for him first thing; from now on everything would be strictly by the book. I read him his rights and he responded with a grunt, nothing more. Grunts were all I got when I tried to question him, too. His face was tight-pulled and showed nothing of what was going on behind it. I had the feeling he’d put shackles on himself, his emotions, that were as binding as the handcuffs pinching his wrists.

  Now we were ready to move out. I told Audrey to lead the way, let her reach the dining-room entrance before I motioned Faith to follow. And I followed him at a distance of several feet, with my weapon and flashlight on him the whole way. The outside door stood open, the way I’d left it, letting in wet, gray daylight. The open door was the second thing that had alerted me to the fact that the lodge was occupied; the first was the fresh tire marks in the muddy ground out front.

  In the past few minutes the rain had slackened to a mistlike drizzle. The three of us slogged through wet grass and mud around front, out past the chain barrier to where I’d left the cruiser at the edge of the driveway. I unlocked the rear door, stood off a few paces while Faith folded himself inside, then threw the door shut and went around and flipped the dash toggle that locks the rear doors automatically.

  Audrey was standing behind the cruiser. She beckoned to me, and when I joined her, curbing my impatience, she said, “I want to say something before we leave.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “All the hours I spent with him, we talked quite a bit. He swears he didn’t kill Storm.”

  “Sure he does. Did you expect him to admit it?”

  “I believe him, Dick.”

  “Why? Because he saved your life?”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “He also kept you there against your will.”

  “He thought it was his only chance. Self-preservation is so strong in him, it clouds his judgment in a crisis. That’s why he hit you and ran Thursday night.”

  “He ran because he’s innocent, not because he’s guilty.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t buy it,” I said.

  “Dick, it could’ve been Mateo Munoz who killed her. You can’t deny the possibility.”

  “I don’t deny it. If it was Munoz, we’ll find it out once he’s in custody. But first he’s got to be found, and we’re wasting time standing around here talking about it.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I just wanted you to know how I feel.”

  “Okay. Now I know.”

  Inside the cruiser I radioed in to Lou Files, who works the desk on Sundays. I gave him a fast rundown and then a series of instructions. Two officers to be dispatched immediately to meet us at Pomo General. Notify Leo Thayer and request deputies to stake out the lodge in case the accessory decided to show up after all, and to gather evidence for lab analysis. Notify Burt Seeley; he could take care of alerting the D.A. Pull the jacket on Mateo Munoz and notify the FBI office in Santa Rosa that he was wanted on a kidnapping charge, then put out a pick-up-and-hold order on him through the Justice Information System’s computer hookup. Lou didn’t waste time with questions; he said he’d handle it and signed off.

  I cradled the handset. For a few seconds I sat motionless, feeling suddenly limp. Tension release. It happens like that sometimes, all at once.

  Audrey touched my arm. “Are you all right, Dick?”

  “Just getting a second wind.”

  I reached out to the ignition. She sat back, then turned her head to look at Faith through the steel mesh that bisects the interior. I found myself doing the same in the rearview mirror. He sat in the middle of the seat, ramrod straight; his face was still tight-pulled, expressionless. Pile of stone, I thought. All except for his eyes. They were the only things about him that seemed alive. And I didn’t much like what I saw in them.

  Not hate, not anger, not fear—nothing as simple as any of those emotions. They were the eyes of a hunted and trapped animal, the kind of animal that would do anything, even chew off its own leg, to be free again.

  Jay Dietrich

  THERE WEREN’T ANY other reporters at the police station when Chief Novak radioed in his bombshell. Nothing had happened on the Carey homicide in over thirty-six hours, and with there being no connection between it and the Banner shooting, the newspapers and TV stations had shifted their people elsewhere. The only reason I was at the station was my promise to Mr. Kent to stay on top of the situation. I’d finished my personal account of the Carey murder last night, and this morning I’d made a few improvements and then faxed hard copies to the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat and both the Chronicle and Examiner in San Francisco. So I was just hanging around, waiting for something to happen and watching the 49ers beat the Saints on Jake Maddow’s portable TV. I went to school with Jake and we’re pretty good friends, otherwise he wouldn’t have let me watch the game with him while he was on station duty. The Chief didn’t like his officers lazing around even when things were Sunday slow, but he hadn’t been in all day and Jake didn’t have any work to do, so he figured there was no harm in sneaking his portable in. He’s a big 49ers fan, Jake is.

  Anyhow, when Lou Files came hurrying in to tell Jake the news I was right there with my ears flapping. Jake rushed out on orders to meet the Chief and his prisoner at Pomo General, and Mr. Files went to do whatever else he’d been told to. I tried to pry more details out of him, but he wasn’t talking. He said I should keep the news under my hat for the time being, but since I don’t wear a hat and he didn’t wait for an answer, I didn’t feel honor-bound to obey him. News is news, after all. And the public has a right to know when something big breaks. Any good reporter knows that.

  Besides, this story was all mine. My first exclusive. If the capture of John Faith and all the other sensational stuff that went with it didn’t earn me a job on a bigger paper than the Advocate, I might as well give up on a career in journalism and join Pop in his printing business.

  I drove straight home and made quick calls to the Chronicle and Examiner and PD and didn’t tell any of the editors I talked to what’d happened until I had a promise from each to run a bylined story by me, either the one I’d already faxed or the next one I wrote on John Faith’s capture. That’s what Mr. Kent would’ve done. He always said to be aggressive, don’t take any junk from anybody. Only, he used a stronger word than junk. He may have a drinking problem and be a curmudgeon and have a cynical outlook on things, but he knows the newspaper business backward and forward. He worked on a lot of sheets in his day, including some major ones like the Houston Chronicle and the Pasadena Star.

  I owed him a lot, even if he did treat me like a dumb kid sometimes, so before I headed out again for the hospital, I took the time to ring him up and tell him the news. He didn’t sound too happy about it, but that’s Mr. Kent for you. He never sounds happy about anything. He did say before we hung up that I could write all the news accounts and sidebars on the Carey homicide and Faith capture for the Advocate, so that’ll be one more feather in my reporter’s cap. I don’t care what his problems are or what anybody says about him, underneath it all he’s a great guy.

  Douglas Kent

  SO STORM’S MURDERER was still alive and kicking. John Faith, whose name suited him about as well as a virginal white gown would have suited his victim. The strange beast. The stranger in our midst. Bigfoot. The Incredible Hulk. Frankenstein unbound. The destroyer of beauty, the extinguisher of flames, the slayer of dreams. Alive, alive-o.

  I built myself another vodka-with-a-hint-of-orange-juice and returned to the sofa in the parlor, on whi
ch I’d been sprawled before the call from Jaydee. Roscoe was on the coffee table, comfortably arranged on a copy of the current Advocate (whose cheap ink was doubtless staining his smooth walnut butt, no sexual connotation intended). As I stretched out again and lit an unfiltered wheezer, he studied me critically with his lone eye.

  “You’re glummer than before, pal,” he said. “Bad news?”

  “The worst. The son of a bitch is still alive.”

  “Which son of a bitch is that?”

  “John Faith, naturally.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “All Jaydee knows is that Chief Novak found him over at the Nucooee Point Lodge and arrested him.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Roscoe said. “He’ll probably get the death penalty.”

  “Au contraire. Prosecutors need to prove special circumstances to plunk a murderer in the hot squat nowadays.”

  “‘Hot squat’ is slang for the electric chair,” he pointed out reasonably. “California’s preferred method of offing the offers is the gas chamber.”

  I didn’t feel like being reasonable. “I don’t feel like being reasonable,” I said, blowing carcinogens in his eye, “so don’t give me any bullshit semantic lectures.”

  “Bullshit dialectical lectures.”

  I sighed. “You’re a gun, for Christ’s sake. Guns aren’t supposed to be the voice of reason.”

  “Well, excuse me. Where were we?”

  “Special circumstances. Too hard to prove in a case like this. Crime of passion. Twenty years to life, that’s all the cretinous bastard will get in a court of law.”

  “Sad but true. Ergo?”

  “What the hell do you mean, ergo?”

  “Sometimes a great notion, pal.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning I have a great notion.”

  “Is that so? What sort of great notion?”

  “A name just popped into my head. Or it would have if I had a head. A name out of the past. A flash of history, a name to reckon with.”