A wasteland of strangers (13 page)

Another outrage, pure and simple. Had he put his huge, dirty hands on that poor child? Well, he must've tried; otherwise why would she jump out and run home the way she had? She's only seventeen. And poorly taught and plain foolish, I say, to let a man like that get her into his car in the first place.

I hurried into the kitchen. Stephanie was upstairs in her room, working on her papier-mache animals, and Howard was already in bed even though it was only a little past nine; tired out from his trip and in a snippy mood because of it. A good thing he wasn't down here, or he'd have tried to stop me from calling Trisha's father, which is what I did that very minute. My Howard is a good man, a good provider, but he's too easygoing, too trusting, and he expects me to bury my head in the sand the way he does. But I was born with a mind of my own. Someone has to keep vigil and speak out when the need arises, and I don't see why it shouldn't be me.

Brian Marx was home for a change, not off throwing good money after bad at the Brush Creek Indian Casino like he does most Friday and Saturday nights. He has a gambling problem—gambling is a sin, no matter what the Indians would have us believe; our pastor has spoken out against it on more than one occasion—and that's one of the reasons Trisha is as wild as she is. That mother of hers is another, running off the way she did three years ago. And with a Jew, at that! Anyhow, I told Brian just what I'd seen, without mincing words, and of course he flew into a rage. He said he'd talk to Trisha and find out what happened. He said some other things, too, but I turned a deaf ear to them; Brian Marx has a foul mouth when he's upset or has had too much to drink. I asked him to let me know as soon as he knew the whole story, but he hung up without saying he would or wouldn't and without so much as a thank-you. Not that I blame him for being rude, under the circumstances.

If the bogey did try to attack Trisha, I wonder if Brian will go after him with a gun? He has two or three rifles and a pistol, and he's hotheaded. (A wonder he didn't go after Grace and her Jew when they ran off together.) Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, but in a case like this, with the police not willing or able to do their job, well, Brian would have every right to do what ought to be done. Yes, and he'd be forgiven at the Judgment, unless I miss my guess.

Well, whatever happens, it's out of my hands now. I've done my duty and the Lord's work not once but twice today. If I don't hear from Brian by morning, I'll call him at home again or at Westside Lumber where he works. I'm entitled, if anyone is, to a full account of that poor girl's ordeal.

Lori Banner

IT WAS ABOUT ten-fifteen when John Faith walked into the North-lake. We weren't busy; eight or nine customers is all. But everybody stopped talking when they saw him, just like last night, only this time the stares were more hostile, and in one booth there was some angry muttering. I was the only one there who didn't wish he was somewhere else, like in jail or lost in the Sahara Desert—and for no good reason.

He walked back to the counter and sat on the last stool nearest the entrance. That was Darlene's station, but when I asked her if I could take him she gave me one of her looks and said, "Better you than me. I'd rather stay away from trouble." She was still miffed; she'd started ragging on me as soon as she saw the new cut and swelling on my lip, and I stood it as long as I could and then told her to shut her face and mind her own business. I didn't need any more lectures. Not tonight, I didn't.

I put on a big smile as I approached John, even though the stretch hurt my lip. Most of it was for him, but partly it was for the customers with the narrow eyes and narrower minds. I wanted them to know there was one person in Pomo who didn't believe all the crap she read in the newspaper.

"Hi there," I said. "Cold night, huh?"

"Not so warm in here, either."

"You shouldn't let 'em get to you."

He shrugged. "Coffee. Black."

"Nothing to eat?"

"I'm not hungry."

I poured a cup and set it in front of him. He took a couple of sips, and when I kept on standing there he said, "World'd be a hell of a lot better place if people quit hurting people and left each other alone."

"Is that a hint for me to go away?"

"No. I didn't mean it that way."

"Editorial's bothering you, huh?"

"Editorial?"

"I wouldn't take it too personally. Doug Kent's a drunk and a jerk and he likes to stir things up."

". .. What're we talking about here?"

"The editorial in this week's Advocate. Didn't you see it?"

"No. Something about me?"

"Well, he didn't mention you by name. I think there's a copy around somewhere if you want to read it."

"Pomo, the friendly town that just keeps on giving. No, I don't want to read it. I can imagine what it says."

"So if it wasn't the editorial, what'd you mean about—" I got it then, from the way he was looking at me, and without meaning to I lifted a finger to touch my sore lip. "Oh, this."

"Pretty swollen."

"Not so bad. It just needs some more ice on it."

"That kind of thing happen very often?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Just asking."

"Well, it's none of your business, John. And anyway, maybe I walked into a door."

"Sure. And maybe you ought to see somebody about it."

"A doctor? For a fat lip?"

"I didn't mean a doctor."

"I know what you meant," I said. "I guess you think I'm pretty dumb, huh? Just another dumb coffee-shop waitress."

"I don't think you're dumb, Lori."

"Well, you're right, I'm not. I didn't have to take this kind of job, you know. I could've been a nurse. That's what I wanted to be—a registered nurse. I almost was, too, and I'd've been a good one. I had nearly all the training."

"What happened?"

"Nothing happened. I quit the program."

"Why?"

I met Earle, that's why. He didn't want me to be a nurse; he didn't like the hours, he said, or the smell of hospitals and medicine, or women in starched, white uniforms. I loved him so much in those days, before the hitting started. I'd have done anything for him in those days, anything he wanted.

"I just quit, that's all." A guy in one of my booths called my name; I pretended I didn't hear. I asked John, "You want a warm-up on your coffee?"

"No, thanks."

I went halfway down the counter and then turned around and came back. "You know something, John?"

"What's that?"

"You were right, what you said before. People ought to stop hurting each other and everybody leave everybody else alone."

"It'll never happen," he said.

"Some of us can make it happen."

"And some of us can't. Not in this lifetime."

I really saw him then, for the first time. How sad he was inside. Big overgrown hunk like him, and inside he was as sad and unhappy as a lost little boy.

Brian Marx

I SHOULDN'T'VE GONE after him the way I did, I guess. But Jesus, Trisha is just a kid. And she had her bedroom door locked and wouldn't open it, wouldn't tell me how she came to be in that bastard's car or where Anthony Munoz was or why he hadn't been the one to bring her home—none of it. Too upset; I could hear her bawling in there. I'm no good with girls, I never know how to handle them when they get emotional. Damn Grace for running out on me the way she did. To hell and gone in Kansas City now, married to that union jerk she met down at Kahbel Shores, living the good life, and me stuck here with all the responsibility.

All I knew was what Zenna Wilson told me on the phone, and that had me half nuts, imagining the worst. So finally I ran out and jumped in the pickup and started driving. Lucky for me I didn't think to take my pistol along. Shape I was in, I might've started waving it around when I found Faith and shot him or somebody else by accident, the way it can happen when a man's armed and mad as hell and not thinking straight. Then what'd've happened to Trisha?

It didn't take me long to run him down. I barreled up Main and out along the highway, no reason for going that way except I'd heard he was staying up at Lakeside Resort, and as I was passing the Northlake Cafe I spotted his car in the lot. Parked there big as life—you couldn't mistake a low-slung job like that, in such a beat-up condition. I slammed on the brakes, skidded into the lot, and bulled inside the cafe.

I saw him right off. Sitting alone at the counter, hunched over a cup of coffee. Lori Banner was hovering around near him, saying something as I rushed up, but she quit talking and backed off a step when she saw my face. I'd heard Faith was a big mother, and he was. Hard-looking. But I didn't care right then.

I caught his shoulder and pulled him around on the stool and got down in his face, so close I could've spit on the scar like a dead white worm across his chin. And I said, loud, "What's the idea messing with my daughter?"

It got real quiet in there after that. That sudden quiet like when you mute the volume on the TV. Faith didn't flinch or jerk away. He just scowled up at me. Man, he had eyes like the guy used to play for the Bears, Mike Singletary. Linebacker eyes.

We stayed like that, eye-wrestling, for maybe five seconds. Then he said, "Who the heU're you?"

"Brian Marx. I asked you a question, mister."

"Marx. Right. Trisha's father."

"Yeah. What were you doing with her tonight?"

"Bringing her home. She needed a ride, and I gave her one."

"Ride from where?"

"Across the lake. High ground over there."

"The Bluffs? You and her . . . that's a friggin' lover's lane! She's a kid, for Chrissake!"

Everybody in the place was gawking at us. Muttering now, too. A guy behind me said something that sounded like, "Kent was right. . . worse than anybody figured."

Lori said, "Don't make trouble in here, Brian," and I gave her a quick glance. She was one to talk about trouble. Her lower lip was puffed up; Earle had belted her again.

"She's right," Faith said. "Suppose we take this outside."

Before I could say anything he shoved off the stool and brushed past me and walked out. Ignoring me and walking fast, so I had to trail after him like a goddamn dog. That was what made me lose it. I wanted to hit him, bad, and as soon as we were in the parking lot and he turned around, I went ahead and let him have it. Nailed him under the eye with my right and knocked him on his ass. Some of the others were out there, too, by then, and a guy I didn't know said, "Yeah! Serves the bastard right."

But Faith got up fast, and I set myself because I thought he was gonna bull-rush me. Wrong. All he did was flex his shoulders, then let his meat hooks hang down loose at his sides.

"I won't fight you, Marx."

"What's the matter? Afraid of it?"

"There's no reason to fight. The only thing I did was give your daughter a ride home."

"Says you."

"What does she say?"

"Never mind that. Answer what I asked you before. What were you doing with her on the Bluffs?"

"I wasn't with her. She was there with her boyfriend."

"Yeah? What were you there for?"

"No reason. Driving around, taking in the sights."

The mouthy guy in the bunch said, "Horseshit. Out hunting young girls-"

Faith glared his way and he shut up. Then he said to me, "She had an argument with the boyfriend and went and hid in the woods. He drove off and left her."

"And you found her, huh?"

"If you want to put it like that. I heard him yelling for her, saw her wandering around after he left. She was pretty shaken up. I talked to her, calmed her down, gave her a ride home. That's all."

"If that's all, why'd you stop down the street from my house? Why'd she jump out of your car and run away? You try to put your hands on her?"

"No. Who told you she ran away? Not Trisha."

"Don't matter who told me."

"It matters," he said, "because it's a lie. She didn't run, she walked fast. And I stopped where I did because that's where she told me to stop."

"She locked herself in her room, she was crying ..."

"I told you, she had a blowup with her boyfriend. Ask her, why don't you? She'll tell you the same thing."

Some of the crazy anger was starting to seep out of me. He was an ugly bugger and I wanted to keep on hating his guts, but I couldn't seem to do it. Didn't sound like he was lying. That damn Zenna, twisting things, making them seem worse than they were ... I should've known you can't believe half of what she says. And Anthony Munoz, no-good, smart-ass spic ... driving off and leaving her was just the kind of thing he'd do. How many times had I warned her about him, that he'd get her in hot water someday if she didn't watch out?

Yeah, Faith was telling the truth. He wasn't any coward either. He could've taken me apart anytime he wanted to. I knew it then and everybody else that'd come out of the cafe knew it, too. They all kept their distance, and not even the mouthy guy had anything more to say.

I wasn't yelling anymore when I said, "All right, man. But Trisha better not tell me you did anything but what you said—talked to her and took her straight home. She better not tell me you put so much as a finger on her."

"She won't," Faith said, "because I didn't."

"All right, then. All right."

And that was the end of it. I didn't say I was sorry for popping him, and he didn't ask me to. We didn't say anything more to each other. He went to where Lori was and took a couple of bills out of his wallet and handed them to her. "For the coffee," he said. Then he said, "See? Not in this lifetime," and he walked away to his Porsche and fired it up to a roar and burned rubber all the way out into the street. Pissed. Holding it in check but mad as hell underneath. Yeah, he could've kicked the holy crap out of me if he'd wanted to.

So why hadn't he?

The mouthy guy came up next to me and breathed onions in my face. "Maybe that bastard didn't mess with your kid," he said, "but he's trouble anyway. Big trouble."

"How do you know so much?" Lori said to him. She sounded pissed, too. "He never bothered anybody. All he wants is to be left alone."