He paid cash when he was done and returned to the lobby, planning to take the stairs back to his room. The less he went out, the less likely it was that he would be seen by anyone who might recognize him. A pretty remote chance, of course, but when you’ve managed to fake your own death, there wasn’t much available explanation in the event of a unlucky encounter. The only real possibility—you must be confusing me with someone else—would almost certainly be insufficient to avoid the one person mentioning it to another, and then another, until the information reached the ears of someone in the organization who would act on it.
Still, he paused in the antique lobby, the thought of returning to the dreary little room suddenly unappealing. Who could possibly recognize, or even notice him, in the sleepy town of Arcata, perched on the edge of the Lost Coast like a ship becalmed in the Bermuda Triangle? He decided the hell with it, a walk around the plaza if nothing else. After all, when would he ever be back here? He chuckled at that, because with the kind of animosity he had riled up, the likelihood was that he would never be back anywhere, let alone Arcata. He might as well enjoy a quiet night out. It would be boring, but less boring than lying awake on the bed in that small room, eyes open in the dark, waiting for sleep, afraid of the dreams.
He went out. The smell of the forest was gone here, obliterated by the dank lees of cigarette smoke and spilled beer and wet tobacco. He crossed the street to the plaza, made a right, and walked slowly along. Many of the hobos were laughing and talking boisterously as he approached, but as he neared they grew quiet and averted their eyes, saying nothing, not even a request for spare change, as though he were a jungle cat they hoped by their sudden stillness might overlook them and choose some other prey.
He walked the perimeter of the plaza, then crossed the street back to the entrance to the hotel. He almost went inside, but paused, again gripped by restlessness, some vestigial need to see something, connect with something, in the world outside another anonymous room in another random town.
He walked slowly down the neon-dim sidewalk, parting the knots of pierced and long-haired college kids, barely noticing the unconscious discomfort that settled into the features of some of them at his approach and evaporated as suddenly in his wake. He was used to the reaction. Even when he wasn’t trying, even when he was trying not to, there was something about him that scared people. Most of them didn’t even understand why. But he did. They sensed the things he had done.
Which was why he mostly steered clear of bars. Ordinarily, the low level predators knew from a single sniff to steer clear of him, but a little liquid courage sometimes made people stupid. Plus he’d had a bad experience in a bar once, or rather, outside one. He was a teenager at the time, tough but stupid, and it had been three on one. They’d fucked him up pretty hard, and he still had a long scar at his hairline where they’d split his scalp and hearing loss in one ear from a concussion to remind him of that evening. He’d never caught up with them, and even now, all these years later, he sometimes still wished he could.
The first place he passed, Sidelines, was an obvious college meat market, loud and overcrowded. The second, The Alibi, looked as much restaurant as bar, and he’d already eaten. The third, Toby and Jack’s, had an impenetrable brick front that felt like a penitentiary. He wasn’t comfortable entering a room he couldn’t first look into, so he skipped this one, too. The fourth, Everett’s, looked okay. He stood in the doorway, his eyes scanning the room. The bouncer, a beefy, mustached man on a stool just inside the door, watched him but said nothing. After a moment, Larison gave him a collegial nod, having already determined how he would kill the man if it came to that, and moved inside.
It was nothing fancy, a honky-tonk more than a bar. Wood-paneled walls, dim lighting, a pool table, a few tables, a couch. Over the hubbub of laughter and conversation, a jukebox was playing Bob Dylan, Shelter from the Storm. The walls were lined with the stuffed heads of animals: a bison, a bear, a gigantic ten-point buck. He estimated about forty people at the bar and at the tables, and that the place could accommodate maybe twice that if no one was paying overly close attention to fire code limits.
He took an empty bar stool and scanned the room more closely. A guy in riding leathers and a greasy ponytail was running the pool table with strong, confident strokes. Another guy, similarly attired, sat watching the first guy, pool cue in hand, looking unhappy, perhaps at the thought of the money he was about to lose in a bet. He caught Larison’s eye and gave him a hard look. Larison didn’t return the look, exactly, at least not in kind. Instead, he just gazed at the guy impassively, feeling nothing, as though the guy were something inanimate Larison might if so inclined disassemble and explore. After a moment, the guy looked back to the pool table, apparently having decided pool was the safer game to play.
One of the bartenders came over, a blond, fifty-something woman with no-nonsense eyes but a warm enough smile. “What can I get you?” she said.
Larison glanced at the taps. “Steelhead.”
She filled a glass, cutting off the flow at just the right instant to prevent the foam from spilling over, and set the glass on the bar in front of him. “Four dollars.”
Larison gave her a five, then left the one she returned to him on the bar. He took a long swallow of the beer and was pleased at how good it was. Something local, he supposed.
The bartender looked at him. “Where are you from?”
Larison was surprised. The bar was crowded, and while she wasn’t alone, it didn’t look like the kind of night where the bartenders could afford to spend time chatting up their customers.
He took another swallow of beer. “San Francisco.”
She gave him a quizzical look. “Pretty long way from San Francisco.”
He shrugged. “Worth the trip.”
“What brings you to Arcata?”
“Just needed to get away for a while.” He glanced at the walls, and to change the subject said, “Are you the hunter?”
She smiled. “No, that would be my daddy. He bought this place in 1959 and I took it over ten years ago. Do you hunt?”
Larison had to resist the urge to smile. He said, “I used to.”
A bearded guy halfway down the bar held up his empty glass and called out, “Linda!” The bartender glanced over and nodded. Larison said, “Well, it was good talking to you, Linda.”
“Yes, it was.” She held out her hand. “And you are…?”
“Dave,” he said, shaking her hand. It was close enough to the truth. He had more answers if she had more questions, his legends so well-practiced he sometimes had trouble telling them from the real thing, but the bearded guy, who had apparently had too much to drink, again called out, “Linda!” and Larison was suddenly alone again.
He turned around on the stool and faced the room again, ignoring the pool players because his point had been made and there was nothing to be gained by fucking with them. He noticed a kid with short brown hair sitting alone at one of the tables, nursing a beer. There was something reserved and gentle about him, which was why Larison hadn’t noticed him initially. He always keyed first on potential problems.
He looked a little closer. The kid had beautifully smooth skin, full lips, a healthy bloom of red in his cheeks. More clean-cut than the others of similar age Larison had seen in the area, but still probably just another Humboldt State college student. He noticed Larison looking at him, looked away, then looked back. It was hard to tell from across the room, but Larison could have sworn the kid had blushed.