Nothing but the Night

by Bill Pronzini

  “Sure it was. Meet the guy who’s going to rent your Russian River house?”

  “Right.” Gallagher hesitated, maybe thinking about asking to come inside. Didn’t do it, and that was good because Nick would’ve said no. Close himself up with Gallagher in a box like this one, and he might not be able to hold on to his cool. “Well…”

  “Why you’d ask about my car?”

  “It looks familiar. Were you at the river, our house up there, a few weeks back? A Saturday afternoon?”

  “Might’ve been. Why?”

  Gallagher shook his head. “Have you known my sister long?”

  “Not long. Met her at the house.”

  “Are you seeing her? Socially, I mean.”

  “Didn’t she say?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Nick put a smile on. “Wondering what my intentions are?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “She’s a nice woman, your sister. I like her.”

  “She said the same about you.”

  “Too bad she doesn’t say it about you.”

  “What do you mean?” Frowning. “What did she say about me?”

  “Nothing much.” Not as much as he’d tried to find out. Woman was hard to pry information out of. “Just that the two of you weren’t close. That about right, Mr. Gallagher?”

  “Yes.” Something in his voice—hurt maybe. “About right.”

  “You have some objection to me renting your place?”

  “No, no objection. But I can’t help wondering why a single man would want to live in such a big house.”

  “I like space, lots of it,” Nick said. “And the rent’s cheap for a place that size. Cat tell you I took a second job so I could afford it?”

  “Yes, she told me.”

  “When I see something I want, I go for it. Been that way all my life. Back home in Denver and everywhere I’ve been since I left.”

  No reaction. Chin up and down once, that was all.

  “You ever been in Denver, Mr. Gallagher?”

  “A couple of times.”

  “How’d you like it there?”

  “I didn’t have a chance to see much of it. I was there on business.”

  “What time of year?”

  “I don’t remember exactly.”

  “January? Lots of snow and ice on the streets in January.”

  No reaction. “I suppose so.”

  “Don’t you know? Never been there in January?”

  “No. Once when it was snowing, but I don’t think it was January.”

  Hell it wasn’t, you son of a bitch. “My wife’s still there,” Nick said. “Still in Denver.”

  “Oh, so you’re married.” Mouth twitched, nothing else.

  “Happily married, that’s right.”

  “Does Caitlin know that?”

  “She knows. I told her.” Not much, just enough.

  “And she doesn’t mind?”

  “Not the way things are, she doesn’t.”

  “What way is that?”

  “My wife’s in a hospital up there in Denver. She got hurt one night, real bad, and still hasn’t got better.”

  Hesitation. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Uh-huh. You’re sorry.”

  “I mean it. Some kind of accident?”

  “Some kind. Hit-and-run kind.”

  No reaction.

  “Head injuries from being thrown into a telephone pole. Put her into a kind of coma.”

  Son of a bitch said again, “I’m sorry. What do the doctors say? About her chances for recovery?”

  “They say she might. I know she will.”

  “You must love her very much.”

  You’ll find out how much. “That’s right, I do.”

  “Why aren’t you … I mean …”

  “Still in Denver with her?”

  “I don’t mean to pry into your personal affairs …”

  “Nothing I can do for her there. She’s got the best doctors, her folks to watch over her. Out here I can do her a lot more good.”

  “You mean by working, making money to pay the hospital bills?”

  Nick didn’t answer that. Just smiled, thin and tight.

  Smile made Gallagher uneasy, but he tried to cover up. “Did they ever catch the hit-and-run driver?”

  “Never did. But he’ll get caught. Someday he’ll pay for what he did to Annalisa. Someday soon.”

  Chin up, chin down. Phony expression of sympathy to hide what he was feeling underneath. Nick’s hands twitched and clenched. Hunger to rip Gallagher’s face off flared again for a few seconds, but he held it in check. Kept his voice steady, the smile in place.

  “Well,” Gallagher said, and his voice didn’t sound so steady. Sweating inside if not out. Getting the idea. Trying to figure a way out, maybe, standing here, but there wasn’t any way out. And maybe getting that idea, too. “Well, I hope you’re right about that.”

  “No doubt about it. So what do you say, Mr. Gallagher?”

  “Say about what?”

  “Your house at the river. Not going to stop me from renting it, are you?”

  “That wasn’t my intention in coming here.”

  “Now that you know about me, I mean. Married man with a hurt wife, hit-and-run victim, keeping company with your sister.”

  “I can’t stop Caitlin from seeing whom she pleases.”

  “Didn’t answer my question.”

  “No, I’m not going to stand in your way. Or my sister’s way. All I ask is that you treat her decently.”

  “I always treat women decently. I’d never hurt a woman.”

  “Good. That’s good.” Nervous now, couldn’t stand still. See the fear in his eyes. “Well, I’d better be on my way.”

  “I’ll be seeing you, Mr. Gallagher.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be necessary. I’ll have the rental papers sent to me, save myself a trip to Guerneville. You can move in on the fifteenth as planned.”

  “Be seeing you anyway, one of these days. Before too long.”

  Nothing to say to that. Chin up, chin down, and away to his BMW with shoulders hunched, moving fast.

  Nick watched him drive out of the courtyard. Thinking he couldn’t’ve done a better job of handling Gallagher if he’d arranged this meeting himself. Should’ve faced him, put on the pressure sooner. Now that it was on, he’d keep it that way. Keep the bugger off balance and guessing until the time was right. Because what could he do about it, any of it? Guilty offelony hit-and-run, couldn’t go to the cops. And he wasn’t the type to pick up a gun, some other weapon, and go hunting. Not him, rich big shot like him. He wouldn’t run, either. Guys who lived the kind of life he did didn’t know how to run.

  He’d be right here, squirming, still trying to figure a way out, when Nick was ready for him.

  36

  Cam poured Bombay gin over ice cubes in two glasses, making one a double, added a drop of vermouth and a twist of lemon peel to both, and brought the smaller drink to Hallie. They were in the sunroom, where they always had their predinner cocktails. Private time, just the two of them, no kids allowed.

  He sat in the other armchair and sipped, sipped again, sipped a third time before he lowered the glass. The gin cut a fiery swath through him, but it didn’t soften the hard edges the way it usually did. It would take more than one or two martinis to do the job tonight.

  He said, “I stopped at South City Apartments on the way home, to see the man Caitlin rented the river house to. That’s why I was late.”

  “Did you talk to him?” Hallie asked.

  “Yeah. I talked to him.”

  “And?”

  “Odd. A damned odd duck.”

  “In what way?”

  “Forthcoming enough, but not quite … I don’t know, a little off somehow. Sly. Things going on under the surface.”

  “You don’t think he’s—?”

  “Dangerous? No. No, I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t sound to
o sure,” Hallie said. “Lord, Cat’s taste in men. Another weirdo.”

  Dangerous. Weirdo. Cam took a longer pull at his drink before he said, “He’s married. Came right out and said so.”

  “Uh-oh. But why would he admit it?”

  “It’s no secret. Cat knows, at least he said he told her. His wife’s in a hospital in Denver. Some sort of hit-and-run accident that left her in a coma.”

  “Poor woman. Why isn’t he in Denver with her?”

  “I asked him that. He said he could do her more good out here.”

  “Did he mean money?”

  “No,” Cam said. “I don’t know what he meant.”

  In his mind he kept going over the conversation with Hendryx. Why tell him about the wife, the accident? Why ask him if he’d ever been in Denver in January? Why say the hit-and-run driver, never caught, was going to pay someday soon? It was as if—

  As if he suspects me, Cam thought.

  But that’s crazy. Why would he suspect me? In Denver twice in my life, never had an accident there or anywhere else. January. Ice and snow. One of the trips it was snowing, but it wasn’t January. I don’t think it was January. Christ, the blackout that time, the blood on my hands and shirt… but that was just a nosebleed, and it didn’t happen in Denver. Portland. It was Portland….

  What’s the matter with me? Thinking like that, as if I’m trying to convince myself I couldn’t be guilty. Beloit, that quack, would say I want to be guilty, him and his goddamn self-destructive impulses. I had nothing to do with what happened to Hendryx’s wife. If that’s what he thinks, he’s got me mixed up with somebody else.

  Has he been following me? That one time, it could’ve been him and his blue Mazda. Him in the hotel bar, too. But why would he be stalking Jenna? That doesn’t make any sense. All of it, just coincidence. But why is he fooling around with Caitlin, married man with a brain-damaged wife? Why does he want to rent the river house? He must be up to something—

  “Cam!

  He blinked, spilled a little of the martini on his pant leg.

  “For goodness’ sake,” she said, “where were you?”

  He shook his head. Brushed at the wet spot.

  “The expression on your face … as though something was hurting you.”

  He swallowed what was left in his glass, went to the liquor cart for a refill.

  “Cam?” Concern in her tone. And the old undercurrent of uneasiness that said, Lord, what is he doing to himself now? “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” he lied.

  “That man Hendryx seems to’ve really upset you. Is there something you haven’t told me?”

  He longed to spew it all out—Hendryx’s inexplicable attitude, his own paranoid fears, Beloit’s death-wish nonsense, even the near affair with Jenna. Unload it on Hallie, purge himself the way Catholics purged their sins in the confessional, find peace and absolution through her. But the words wouldn’t come. Everything was locked up tight inside him, and he couldn’t tear any of it loose no matter how hard he tried.

  “No,” he said. “No, there’s nothing.”

  37

  Fenwood Creek winery. Medium-size place, oak trees and vineyards all around, big asphalt parking lot on one side. Upper end of the Paloma Valley, near the village of Fenwood.

  Nick turned off the highway, drove down a short lane into the lot. Time by his watch was 4:35. Sign said the tasting room closed at five, so there were only a couple of cars parked on the visitors’ side. More cars in the employees’ section toward the back, next to the warehouse. White Lexus was parked there, front slot, as if the Bailey woman was looking for a fast getaway once quitting time rolled around.

  He came back, parked near the entrance. That was the only way off the winery grounds. Besides, he had a long sideslant view of the Lexus from there.

  Half hour passed. A few people straggled out and got into their wheels and drove off, none of them the brunette and none paying any attention to him. Five-twenty, and four more filed out of a door to one side of the tasting room. Brunette was among them, the one who locked up. They walked in a bunch to the employees’ section. Dark by then, but Nick hunkered down anyway when the Lexus rolled past; he wasn’t ready for her to see him yet.

  He let her and the car behind her reach the highway before he swung out of the lot. She turned south, the other car following, Nick following that one a hundred yards back. When she got into the middle of Fenwood, she cut off at a supermarket. Nick did the same, holding at the road end of the lot where he could see the Lexus and the market entrance.

  She stayed in there for a while. Regular shop, not just one or two items. Probably meant she lived fairly close by, which made it easier for him. For all he’d been able to find out, she might’ve lived in Santa Rosa or Paloma or Los Alegres. She wasn’t listed in any of the local phone books.

  Fifteen minutes, and she came out pushing a cart with two or three bags in it. Loaded the bags into the trunk. He stayed put until she was back on the highway and rolling south again, another car behind her, before he followed.

  They rode half a mile. Then she turned again, west on a side road that hooked up into the hills. Another half-mile, another turn. Narrower side road, with a steep incline after a few hundred yards. Partway up the incline, her brake lights flashed; she cut into a driveway, stopped alongside a mailbox. Nick went on past without slowing. Up over the rise, out of her sight, he found a place to make a U-turn. Waited five minutes at the roadside, timing it by his watch, then drove back at an easy twenty-five.

  His headlights picked up the mailbox and number painted on its side: 4100. Driveway led back through trees to a house with lights showing now; he had a glimpse of the Lexus parked in front as he slid past.

  Down at the intersection with the first side road, he stopped to check the signs. Black Oak and Madrone Way. 4100 Madrone Way.

  Okay. He’d found out what he needed to know about Jenna Bailey.

  Now he could start turning up the heat.

  38

  That Saturday Cam took the Hallie Too downriver for the last time until spring. The weather was cold and overcast, but with no immediate threat of rain, and he needed to be alone, on water, the salt wind in his face. Free for a little while.

  He navigated down through the Black Point narrows into San Pablo Bay and cruised along the eastern shore almost as far as the Carquinez Straits before he turned back. The bay was whitecapped, but the XLC slid through the chop smoothly and with little roll. She was such a sweet boat. Fine-tuned MerCruiser diesel, V-berth that slept four comfortably, plenty of extras, a heat and defrost system that would keep the cabin warm and dry under the worst conditions. He could have afforded a bigger, more luxurious craft than the Skagit, but not one that suited him and his needs more perfectly.

  It was late afternoon when he maneuvered into his slip at the Los Alegres marina. When he had all the lines tied, he locked everything down inside the cabin, began tarping the deck and superstructure for the winter. The marina was sheltered; even at high tide—Los Alegres River was really a saltwater estuary—and in the heaviest of storms, there was little threat of damage here.

  He was almost finished with the tarping when he noticed the man watching him from up on the seawall. He stiffened, shaded his eyes. The distance was too great for him to make out the man’s features, but the build was thin and wiry—and the car beside him was blue.

  Fear gripped him first, then dissolved under a sudden and violent surge of anger. All right, Hendryx, he thought. Let’s get this out into the open right now.

  He jumped off, ran along the float to the caged ramp, ran up the ramp and out onto the seawall. And then stopped, breathing hard, his hands clenched with such force he could feel the bite of his nails. A tic began to spasm on his cheek.

  The blue car was a Toyota.

  And the man standing beside it was nobody he had ever seen before.

  … COLD, DAMP, DARK. Smells of mold and mildew, rain and dust and mouse turds. Sound of
the rain outside, beating on the roof, wind-flung against the dormer windows. He hears it dripping, a leak somewhere inside one of the walls. Drip. Drip. Drip. He doesn’t dare shut his eyes because then it won’t be rain he’ll see and hear dripping, it’ll be something else wet, glistening. Something bright red.

  Blood.

  Downstairs, on the bed. Blood.

  Downstairs, on the bedroom floor. Blood.

  Downstairs, her dead eyes open and staring.

  Downstairs, in the red-blood night…

  39

  Caitlin said, “He really pisses me off sometimes. Showing up like that at your motel, checking up after I told him to leave you alone.”

  “Well, it’s his house, too,” Nick said.

  “Cameron hates the river house. It wasn’t you he was checking up on, it was me.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He thinks I don’t know how to run my own life. Always trying to tell me what to do, what’s good for me. He’s the last one to tell anybody how to live.”

  “Why d’you say that?”

  “He’s twice as fucked up as I am, that’s why.”

  “Seemed normal enough to me.”

  “Yeah, well, he puts on a good front. Underneath he’s a mess. Booze, depression, bad headaches—a bagful of neuroses. He’s been in and out of therapy most of his life.”

  “On account of what happened to your folks?”

  “Mostly, I guess.”

  “Must’ve been pretty hard on him, being there the night it happened. He see any of it?”

  “He says he didn’t. Says he was in his room.”

  “Don’t you believe him?”

  No answer to that. Caitlin sat staring into the fire. They were on the couch in her living room, Presto-log burning blue and green and yellow in the fireplace, him nursing a beer and her working on her fourth glass of wine. Cheap white wine out of a box—“I like it and it drives my brother up a wall, him and his wine snobbery.” Just the two of them in the house tonight. The kid, Teddy, Theodore, was staying at a friend’s place, she’d said when Nick got there. Fine with him. He didn’t like the kid much. Snotty and loud and already doing drugs at fourteen—stoned on what was probably coke one of the other times Nick had come over. Caitlin didn’t seem to notice. Too wrapped up with her own problems. Kid was his, he’d have kicked his ass black and blue.