Rapists wore ski masks.
Rape wasn’t uncommon in Pomo County. The home invasion kind was, but still, it happened elsewhere — it could happen here, too. Young woman living alone, a man with a sick sexual bent decides to take advantage—
If you’d like some company...
My God. The stranger on the pier tonight?
Big, and a little odd. And I’d told him we didn’t have much serious crime in Pomo. I hadn’t told him I lived alone, but when I’d said I had to take the boat home or walk two miles and another two back in the morning, the inference had been there. He’d been gone when I returned from Safeway with my groceries, but he could’ve been lurking somewhere, watching; he could’ve followed the running lights on the Chris-Craft — Lakeshore Road does what its name implies, follows the water-line all along the northwest shore — and seen where I docked and that the house was dark; he could’ve watched the house and when no one else came he’d have known for sure I was alone...
But I was jumping to conclusions. It didn’t have to be the stranger; it could be anyone, a resident as well as an outsider. And what if I hadn’t scared him off permanently? What if he came back, tonight or some other night?
I was still angry, angrier than before, because whoever he was, he’d made me afraid. That was the one thing William Sixkiller had never let me be, that I hated being more than anything else. Afraid.
In the front room I peeked out again through the drapes. Lakeshore Road was as deserted as before. I sat on the couch and picked up the phone. If I called the police station to report what had happened, it would mean patrol cars, questions, neighbors being woken up... people knowing I was afraid. But I had to tell someone, and that meant Dick. He was the only one I could talk to right now.
I tapped out his number. And it rang and rang and rang without answer.
Where was he, for heaven’s sake? Why wasn’t Dick home at 1:40 in the morning?
Part II
Friday
George Petrie
Ramona said, “I asked you a question, George. Where were you last night?”
I heard her that time, but the words didn’t register right away. I had so damn many things on my mind. My head felt stuffed, the way it does when you have a bad cold. I couldn’t concentrate on any one thing. It was all churned together, pieces here and there breaking off like swirls of color in a kaleidoscope; hang on to one, focus on it for a few seconds, and then it would slide back into the vortex and there’d be another and the same thing would happen.
“Well?”
“Well what, for Chrissake?”
“You don’t listen to me anymore,” she said. “You act as if you’re alone half the time we’re in the same room.”
“Ramona, don’t start—”
“‘Ramona, don’t start.’” Like a goddamn parrot. Hair all frizzy after her shower, nose like a beak jutting at me, mouth flapping open and shut, open and shut. And that dressing gown of hers, green and red, white feathery wisps at the neck and on the sleeves. Wings, feathers, bright little bird eyes... a scrawny, scruffy, middle-aged, chattering parrot. What did I ever see in her?
“What did I ever see in you?” I muttered aloud.
“What? What did you say?”
“Nothing.” Sip of coffee. Bite of toast. Glance at my watch even though I know what time it is. “I’d better get to the bank.”
“It’s only eight-twenty,” Ramona said. “I want an answer first.”
“Answer to what?”
“God, you can be an exasperating man. Where you were until after two o’clock in the morning. On a weeknight.”
The squawking and screeching echoed inside my head, making it ache. My eyeballs actually hurt from the pressure.
“George. Where were you?”
“At the Elks Lodge, playing cards.”
“Until two A.M.?”
“Yes, until two A.M. Pinochle. I lost nine dollars and had four drinks and then I drove home. Does that satisfy you? Or do you want to know who else was in the game and who won and how much and how many drinks each of them had?”
“You don’t have to yell—”
“And you don’t have to interrogate me as if I were a fucking criminal.”
Her mouth pinched until it wasn’t a mouth any longer, just a bunch of hard ridges and vertical creases. Kissing that mouth was like kissing two strips of granite. Was it ever soft, even on our honeymoon? I couldn’t remember her lips ever being soft.
“At the breakfast table, George?” Hard and tight like her mouth. “That kind of language at eight-twenty in the morning?”
For a few seconds I lost it. Couldn’t stop myself from saying, “That’s right, you don’t like fucking, do you? In any way, shape, or form, verbal or physical.”
She reacted as though I’d slapped her. Good! Up on my feet, in such a spasm I jostled the table and spilled the coffee, to hell with the coffee and her, too.
“How can you say things like that to me? I won’t stand for it, I won’t be abused. You’ll be sorry if you think—”
I went out and slammed the door on the rest of the squawking and screeching.
In the Buick I lit a cigarette. I don’t smoke much anymore, but I needed something to try to calm down. My head... how was I going to get through the day? And the weekend coming up? And next week, and the week after, and the week after that?
Ramona, Storm, Harvey Patterson, that stranger yesterday... them and the rest in this town, all the people with their small minds and small ways. And me stuck here in a dead-end job and a lousy marriage, wanting a woman I couldn’t have, a hundred other things I couldn’t have. Facing a future that could be even worse, a genuine hell on earth. It could happen.
If that stranger robbed the bank, it would happen.
I told myself for the twentieth time it was a damn-fool notion. The stranger didn’t have to be what he looked like; he was probably gone by now and I’d never see him again. But I kept right on imagining the worst.
I couldn’t stop him if he walked in and showed a gun. I’m not brave, I don’t own a gun myself or even know how to fire one. Fred and Arlene would do what they were told and so would I. We’d hand over the money in the cash drawers, the money in the vault, and chances were he’d get away with it.
And then there’d have to be an accounting.
Bank examiners, within hours.
It wouldn’t take them long to find the shortage. A day, two at the most.
Covered it as best I could, but no one can doctor bank records cleverly enough to fool an examiner. It was just a little more than seven thousand dollars, only I didn’t have the cash to replace it and no certain way of getting that much on short notice. The house was mortgaged to the hilt, the Indian Head Bay property Ramona had inherited wasn’t worth enough to support a loan, Burt Seeley poor-mouthing when he turned me down, Storm laughing in my face, and there was nobody else except maybe Charley Horne. Yearly audit was still three months away; the Indian Head Bay property had to have sold by then, priced rock-bottom the way it was. It had to. But I couldn’t cover the shortage now without going begging to Charley Horne, and he doesn’t like me any more than I like him after that zoning flap four years ago when he tried to expand his Ford dealership. He might loan me the money at an exorbitant rate, but more likely he’d tell me to go to hell. I’ve been afraid to find out because he’s my absolute last resort. If he turned me down—