Nothing but the Night

by Bill Pronzini

  “As a matter of fact, there is. Buy me a drink.”

  “I can’t today. I have a lunch.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of lunch. After work”.

  “I don’t know, Jenna—”

  “Say five-fifteen. Meet me in the square, by the duck pond, and we’ll go to Santucci’s or the Hotel Paloma.”

  He hesitated. Thinking: You don’t want to do this. Just say no.

  “All right,” he said. “Five-fifteen in the square.”

  7

  Early in the morning Nick drove into Santa Rosa. First place he hunted up was a cheap Laundromat. All his clothes were dirty, he was starting to smell himself; time to get cleaned up, whether he went job hunting today or not. People shied away from you on the street when you looked and smelled like a bum. And nobody’d give you a job.

  He washed and dried everything he owned, one load. A woman who came in told him there was a rescue mission on Fourth Street and how to get there. He didn’t like standing around, waiting in line with a bunch of poor buggers who stank worse than he did, all that hopelessness and despair, but he needed a place to shower and shave. Missions were good for that. Decent meal, too.

  He got inside finally. Sat through the usual religious stuff, not even listening to it. Once he’d believed in God, but not anymore. If there was a God and He was somebody who’d let Annalisa be hurt the way she’d been, suffer so much, Nick didn’t want anything to do with Him.

  Shower, shave, breakfast, and he was out of there before eleven. Section nearby of antique shops and restaurants, so he tried that first. Then he went downtown, different part of Fourth Street. Then out to a big junior college campus. Then across town until he came to a mall called the Montgomery Village Shopping Center. Stores, eating places, bus stops, service stations; pedestrians, salesclerks, newspaper vendors, drivers waiting at stoplights. Holding the plastic-encased sketch up at eye level, saying, “You know this man? You ever see him anywhere?”

  Same thing he always got. Head shakes, blank stares, dozen different versions of no. Now and then a sneer or muttered curse. People walking away from him, some of them in a hurry, a few with a quick glance back as if they were afraid he might start chasing them. Like he was some kind of crazy person. Made him feel frustrated and alone, like always. As alone as if he were standing on top of the Continental Divide instead of on a crowded street or mall.

  He knew what it was made them act that way. Fear. Fear of him, what he might do or know. Fear of the unknown face in the sketch. Sometimes it gave him a funny sense of power, like he really did know something they didn’t—kind of feeling those religious nuts who went around handing out leaflets and yelling about the end of the world must have. Like Nick Hendryx was different from everybody else, stronger, smarter, somebody who could do things they couldn’t.

  Mostly, though, the way they acted left him with the urge to shout, “Hey, don’t run away from me. I don’t want anything from you except a little help, a little understanding.” But he never said anything like that. He’d never begged in his life, and he never would. Not even to find the man in the sketch.

  Midafternoon. A young fat guy out at Montgomery Village looked at the sketch, and something changed in his eyes. “You know him?” Nick said, but the fat guy shook his head and started away. Nick went after him, grabbed his arm. “You know him,” he said, not a question this time, and the fat guy said, “No, I thought for a second I did, but I don’t.” Nick said, “Please don’t lie to me, it’s real important,” and the guy said, “I’m not lying, I don’t know him, leave me alone,” and pulled his arm away and got into a car and drove off fast. Nick would’ve chased him, but the Mazda was parked too far away. All he could do was watch the direction the fat guy took—and wonder.

  Soon as he got to the Mazda, he left Montgomery Village and went in the same direction. Big intersection, no sign of the fat guy’s car. Which way? Then he saw a sign with a name on it, Paloma, and an arrow pointing south. He turned that way because the light was green and he had to go somewhere.

  Road took him down a long, narrow valley bordered by wooded hills, packed with vineyards and wineries and fancy homes. He didn’t pay much attention to it beyond that. He’d liked places like this, green, quiet places, when he was with Annalisa, but they had nothing to do with the life he was living now. He kept thinking about the fat guy, wondering if he’d recognized the face in the sketch.

  Paloma turned out to be an old California mission town clogged with tourists, even on a weekday afternoon. In the middle of town was a big tree-shaded square, surrounded by a mission and a fort and a bunch of expensive-looking shops. Nick found a parking spot for the Mazda, went out walking and showing the sketch.

  Same blank here. No signs of recognition or of the fat guy. Even so, he had a good feeling about this town. Nothing to get excited about, not yet, but a feeling with hope in it. Spend the night somewhere close by, come back in the morning, and if the feeling was still good, start job hunting. Too late in the day for that now.

  After a while he got tired of walking around and around the square and went into it and sat down on a bench opposite a pond with floating ducks and a stone bridge across it. A steady stream of pedestrians came along the connecting paths, and whenever somebody passed his bench, he got up and flashed the sketch.

  Sun went down, and it got a little chilly. Time to start moving again. Find someplace to eat and then someplace to sleep out in the country. He was thinking that when the woman came along one of the paths. Tall brunette about thirty, nice looking. She stopped at the near end of the bridge and stood there as if she was waiting for somebody—kept glancing at her watch. Nick pushed off the bench again, taking his time because his legs were stiff and his back muscles tight. Somebody else to show the sketch to.

  Then he saw the man. Cutting across from one of the other paths to join the brunette. Guy wasn’t there, then he was, and then Nick was seeing his face—clear and straight on, from a distance of five or six feet.

  It was like being kicked in the groin. He pulled up short, felt his eyes pop with a sudden bulging pressure. Thought he’d made a sound, grunt or gasp, but neither of them looked his way. He backed off a couple of steps, stood staring as the brunette linked her arm through the guy’s and the two of them moved off across the bridge.

  Nick couldn’t get his breath. Blood-pound in his ears was like the ocean during a storm, a wild roaring that was hate and excitement and thankfulness and a dozen other feelings all wrapped up together.

  Him. Man in the sketch, the face he lived with every day, that haunted his sleep, that he’d been hunting for so long. No doubt of it, no mistake. Bastard who’d hurt Annalisa—right here, not fifteen feet away.

  It was him!

  8

  “Cam, do you know that man standing at the bar?”

  It took a few seconds for the question to register. Jenna had leaned close across the little table, close enough so he could smell the spiciness of her perfume and the gin on her breath; had laid her hand over his, long fingers gently squeezing. Her touch, her scent, were sensory stimuli that acted as a verbal delay. When the meaning of her question got through, Cam stiffened and looked up and away from her, shifting his body and guiltily withdrawing his hand.

  “What man?”

  “The thin one in the corduroy jacket. He keeps looking over here. Staring is more like it.”

  The bar at the Hotel Paloma was softly lit and crowded; Cam had to squint and eye-roam to pick out the man Jenna had indicated. Not looking their way now, just standing at the far end of the bar. Alone, apart, a mug of draft beer in one hand. Then the head moved, the eyes shifted, and he was staring right at them. Cam felt a small twinge of anxiety. Unwarranted, because he’d never seen the man before and there was nothing threatening about him, despite the intensity of his stare. Wiry rather than thin. Thirty-something, dark-haired, clean-shaven, wearing faded trousers and a workman’s shirt with an old cord jacket. Just a guy having an after-work beer.r />
  “No,” he said, “I don’t know him.”

  “Neither do I. He doesn’t belong in here.”

  “Why not? You mean the way he’s dressed?”

  “He looks like a day laborer.”

  “Come on.”

  “Or a refugee from a homeless shelter.”

  Her attitude nettled him. “Don’t be an elitist, Jenna. So what if he’s blue-collar? He has a right to drink where he pleases, same as we do.”

  “Why here? Draft beer is three dollars a glass.”

  “Jenna, what difference does it make?”

  “I don’t like to be stared at.”

  “Why should it bother you? You’re a woman men stare at.”

  “Not that way. Besides, it’s mostly you he’s interested in.”

  “Me?”

  “Watch him when he looks again. Follow his eyes.”

  She was right. The eyes were fixed on him next time—he was sure of it. It shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did. Someone who knew him, knew he was married and that Jenna wasn’t his wife?

  “You see?”

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” he said.

  “Why don’t you go ask him what he wants.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “I’ll do it, if you’d rather.”

  “And make a scene? What’s the sense in—”

  “He knows we’re talking about him,” Jenna said.

  “What?”

  “Look at his body language.”

  The man had turned aside, was standing stiff-backed with the mug at chest level. Cam had the impression of a person poised on the edge of either flight or decision. Jerkily, the stranger lifted his mug, took a quick sip, moved to the bar and set it down—it was still half full—and pushed his way through the crowd. He didn’t glance their way again before he disappeared through the lobby entrance.

  Jenna said, “Well, that’s a relief. As long as we don’t find him hanging around outside when we leave.”

  Cam said nothing. He drank the last of his martini, letting the gin bite on the back of his tongue before he swallowed.

  “Weirdos,” she said moodily. “Everywhere you go these days. Half of them ought to be in prison. The other half ought to be exterminated.”

  The casual malice in the words shocked him. “You can’t mean that.”

  “Can’t I? We’d all be better off.”

  “Christ, Jenna. Just do away with masses of people who don’t conform to some arbitrary norm?”

  “Of course not. I mean the real weirdos, the dangerous misfits.”

  “Criminals? Mental cases?”

  “Anyone who commits a violent act—murder, rape, assault—no matter what the reason. Zero tolerance. It’d eliminate stalking and spousal abuse, among other problems.”

  She was smiling, making light of it now, but there was nothing amusing in the concept. Besides, she was serious enough; the passion was there beneath the smile and the bantering tone.

  He said, “It’s a crazy idea. Look what happened the last time something like that was done.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. Last time?”

  “Germany, Austria, Poland. Six million Jews died because Hitler considered them dangerous misfits.”

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  “It’s exactly the same thing.”

  “No, it isn’t. What the Nazis did had a racial and religious basis. I’m not advocating genocide, for heaven’s sake.”

  “What would you call destroying masses of people simply because they’re different?”

  “Not different, destructive. Menaces to society. Sick, evil, worthless individuals. I call getting rid of them a benefit to the common good. The only sensible way to preserve life and liberty for the rest of us.”

  “The ‘normal’ ones.”

  “The productive, nonviolent ones.”

  “Where do you draw the line, Jenna?”

  “Between them and us? I just told you—”

  “I meant the line between sick and healthy, evil and good, productive and nonproductive.”

  “I’ll tell you where I draw it. Anyone who tries to hurt me, anyone for any damn reason, doesn’t deserve to go on living. Give me the chance, and I’d make sure he didn’t.”

  “That sounds pretty bloodthirsty.”

  “Does it? I’m not kidding, Cam.”

  “You’d take someone’s life for a small offense?”

  “If it was intentional, if he hurt me—yes.”

  “No extenuating circumstances?”

  “None. Zero tolerance.”

  He shook his head. He’d had no idea she harbored such hard-core fascist ideas. “I just don’t agree.”

  “Well, maybe that’s because you’ve never been hurt. You know the definition of a liberal, Cam, somebody who’s never been mugged.”

  “I’ve been hurt,” he said.

  “Attacked, physically assaulted by a weirdo?”

  “No, but—”

  “No buts is right, my handsome friend. Until it’s happened to you, you’ll never understand what it’s like and your point of view doesn’t carry much weight.”

  “Meaning it has happened to you?”

  “That’s right. And no, I don’t want to talk about it.” She put her hand on his again; her touch seemed cooler now, almost cold. “Let’s get off this subject, shall we? Have another round and discuss more pleasant topics. What were we talking about before? Fenwood’s new cabernet franc, wasn’t it? Or had I gotten around to inviting you to dinner?”

  “Dinner?”

  “I guess I hadn’t. Saturday night at my place.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No. Who else is coming?”

  She laughed. Her nails, long and plum colored, stroked the backs of his fingers. “Don’t be naive. Just the two of us, naturally.”

  He didn’t say anything. Out in the open now, like something bright and alluring laid on the table between them. All he had to do was pick it up.

  But he didn’t. If the invitation had come before the little episode with the staring stranger, before the conversation about dangerous misfits and the new and less than appealing side of Jenna it had revealed, the temptation would have been hard to resist. Now … no. There was nothing like a dose of harsh reality to keep your libido in check.

  He said, “I think I’d better pass.”

  Her violet eyes showed disappointment. In him, he thought, as well as in his answer. “Can’t get away?”

  “Other plans,” he lied.

  “Sunday, then? Next weekend?”

  “I … don’t think so, Jenna.”

  “No? I’m very good, you know.”

  “Good?”

  “In the kitchen, among other places.”

  Euphemisms. Game playing. It had the reverse effect of what she’d intended; it turned him off completely. “I’m sure you are,” he said.

  “But you’re not interested in a demonstration.”

  He smiled and shrugged. The smile felt stiff on his mouth.

  “So be it,” she said, but her words had an edge now. “Shall we have that second drink?”

  “Not for me. It’s after six, and I should be on my way. But I’ll buy you another if you want to stay—”

  “No point in that. I don’t like to drink alone, and I’m not in the mood to be picked up tonight.” She gathered her coat and purse. “Walk me to my car?”

  “Sure.”

  Outside, Jenna paused to glance both ways along the sidewalk, across the street at the shadowed square. He found himself doing the same. Both of them looking for the man in the corduroy jacket, as if he’d actually be lurking somewhere waiting to pounce on them. Silly on his part, but perhaps not so silly on hers. He wondered again what it was in her past that had made her so wary of strangers, built such a virulent hatred of “dangerous misfits.”

  She took his arm as they quartered across to the square, foll
owed one of the lighted paths through its center. At her Lexus, waiting while she unlocked the door, he felt pretty good about the way he’d handled her overture, at not weakening to it. Now if he could just—

  Jenna turned without warning, leaned her body close to his, slid her arms around his neck, and kissed him. A hard, passionate kiss, letting her tongue flick between his lips. It surprised, dismayed, excited him, as she must have intended it to, and shattered his self-congratulation the way heat shatters glass.

  “The invitation is still open,” she said. “Call me after you’ve thought it over. Or I’ll call you.”

  9

  Guy who’d hurt Annalisa lived in Los Alegres, in the next long narrow valley west of Paloma. Thirteen miles of two-lane road winding through low foothills, flat farmland. Following him was easy as waiting in the dark Mazda for him and the brunette to leave the hotel bar. Guy’s car was a silver BMW with a personalized license plate: WINEMAN. And there was plenty of traffic on the road and in Los Alegres.

  Town was bigger than Paloma but not as big as Santa Rosa. Had a river slicing through it, an old-fashioned downtown, a west-side residential district that stretched up into another set of low hills. That was where Wineman lived, on one of the hillside lots. Crooked street, sprawly house with a gated driveway, shade trees in front. Couple of acres of prime real estate. Rich bugger. Seeing that made Nick hate him all the more.

  He drove up to where the street—Ridgeway Terrace—dead-ended, turned around, and rolled by the property again. BMW was in his garage now. Front door of the house was open, and a blond woman and a little girl were standing on the lighted porch, waiting for Wineman.

  Yeah, that figured. Wife and daughter. Nick had had a feeling the brunette Wineman’d been drinking with wasn’t his wife. Something about the way the two of them were sitting in the bar, their—what was it, body language? Something about the woman herself. Classy, but with an edge like shined-up steel. Big shot like Wineman could afford the best of everything, including a piece on the side. Get away with everything he did, son of a bitch like that.

  Until now.

  Nick let the Mazda drift to the curb a short way downhill, at the edge of Wineman’s property where there weren’t any streetlamps. No cars on the street, nobody on the sidewalk when he got out and walked back uphill, taking his time, just a guy out for an evening stroll. One of the gate pillars had a number on it: 74. No nameplate. Wineman. Bastard’s name or what he did for a living?