A wasteland of strangers (2 page)

"No? Why is that?"

"No-parking zone. Trucks have to swing too wide to get around the corner with another vehicle at the curb."

"Curb's not marked. No sign, either."

"The curb is marked, you just have to look closely to spot it this time of day. White paint and lettering are mostly worn off—long overdue for remarking. There was a sign, too, up until a couple of weeks ago when a drunk driver knocked it down; we're still waiting for a replacement. You can see what's left of the pole there."

"Uh-huh."

"Things don't get done as fast as they should sometimes." Rule of thumb in Pomo County nowadays, it seemed, no matter what needed doing or what had been requisitioned or how much prodding and cajoling public servants like myself were forced to indulge in. "You know how it is."

"Oh yeah, I know how it is. Do I get a ticket?"

"Not if you move your car to a legal space."

One corner of his mouth lifted. If it was a smile, it had little humor and a bitter edge. He could tell from my uniform and badge what my rank was, and he thought he was being hassled. A man used to hassles, I thought. The official kind and probably the personal kind, too.

"You don't have a problem with that, do you?" I asked him.

"No problem at all."

"Good. We appreciate cooperation."

He went around the Porsche and opened the driver's door. "You have a nice evening now, Officer," he said, not quite snottily, and folded himself inside before I could answer. I stayed put until he'd pulled out onto Main, driving neither fast nor slow. He was maneuvering into a legal space halfway into the next block when I returned to the cruiser. Ordinarily I'd have forgotten the incident then and there, as trivial and easily resolved as it'd been. But the stranger stayed on my mind all the way home. Something about him, an indefinable quality, made me uneasy. I couldn't put my finger on it and so it kept bothering me, a nagging little irritation like a splinter under a fingernail.

George Petrie

HE CAME INTO the bank fifteen minutes before closing. There aren't many individuals who can take my attention away from Storm Carey for more than a few seconds, but he was one. At first it was his size and ugliness that held my gaze; then it was his actions. Instead of going directly to one of the tellers' windows, he walked around looking at things—walls, ceiling, floor, the arrangement of desks and tellers' cages, the location of the vault. And at Fred and Arlene in the cages, and me behind my desk, and Storm seated across from me with her long beautiful legs crossed and part of one stockinged thigh showing. But no more than a brief glance at each of us; his eyes didn't even linger on Storm. First Northern is an old bank as well as a small one, built in the twenties: rococo styling, black-veined marble columns and floors, dark, polished wood. That may have been what interested him. But the one thing he seemed to focus on longest was the open vault.

My God, what if he's planning to rob us?

The thought prickled the hairs on my neck. I tried to dismiss it. There hadn't been a holdup at First Northern in the sixteen years I'd been manager; as far as I knew, the bank had been held up only once in its seventy-two years of continuous operation—in 1936, by a hay grower who had lost his farm on a foreclosure. Armed robberies of any kind seldom happen in Pomo; we're too far off a major highway to attract roaming urban criminals, and the local ones have so far confined themselves to drug-dealing, car theft, and burglary. Still, I was sure I hadn't mistaken the stranger's interest in the open vault. Plus, there was the fact that he projected an aura of restrained violence. It was in his eyes, in the set of his shoulders and the bunching of his hands, in the way he moved. A violent and dangerous man ...

He went at last to Fred's window. I tensed when he reached for his pocket, but the only thing he took out was his wallet. He was so wide he filled the window and I couldn't tell what he was doing or saying to Fred. Nothing sinister, though, because the transaction took less than a minute and when he turned away Fred wore his usual weary, dull expression.

As he passed my desk the stranger glanced again at Storm. She smiled slightly at him, the wet, tongue-tip-showing smile she reserves for too many males over the age of twenty. He didn't smile back. A few seconds later he was gone.

I realized my forehead was damp. I used my handkerchief to dry it. Storm had swung around to face me; she still wore the wet smile, but it was crooked now, faintly mocking in that infuriating way of hers.

"He make you nervous, George?"

"Of course not. It's warm in here."

She laughed. "I wonder who he is."

"I have no idea. I've never seen him before."

"So big," she said. Speculatively. "And so ugly."

"Don't tell me he attracted you."

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"For God's sake, Storm."

"Ugliness can be very appealing. The right kind of ugliness."

"Whatever that means."

"You're not a woman. You wouldn't understand."

"He looked dangerous," I said. "Violent."

"Did he?"

"To me he did."

"Maybe that's part of his appeal." She ran her hands through her hair—thick and rich brown like milk chocolate, soft as cat fur. Characteristic gesture, full of animal sexuality; it exposed the long, smooth lines of her neck, lifted her breasts high. But her brown eyes and red mouth spoiled the effect: mocking me again. "You're not jealous, are you, George?"

I didn't answer that. She knew how much I wanted her—how much of a fool I was willing to be to have her just once more. One night with Storm was better than a thousand nights of tepid passion with my darling, half-frigid wife; it put her in your blood forever. And it didn't matter that she'd slept with half the men in Pomo County since her husband dropped dead of a massive coronary six years ago. Perfect wife to Neal Carey the whole time he was buying and selling county real estate, building up his fortune, building the finest house on the north shore on prime lakefront property; never a hint of infidelity. But once he was dead ... it was as though she'd been transformed somehow into an entirely different person. One lover after another, sometimes two and three at once, parading them in and out of the big white Carey house at all hours. Married men as well as single—she didn't care. Couldn't get enough. Couldn't give enough. I hadn't been able to touch Ramona for weeks after the night Storm and I spent together, not that Ramona minded very much, of course. All her juices, what there'd been of them, had dried up before she turned forty. Her whispers in the dark were like slaps: "Don't touch me there, George. You're hurting me, George. Can't you hurry up, George?" Storm's bed sounds were shrieks, moans, four-letter words wrapped in silk and velvet. Storm . . . God, how I wanted her! But for some perverse reason she wouldn't let me near her again. Presents, promises, pleadings, phone calls, furtive visits ... none of it did any good. Did she treat her other lovers that way, too? Probably. There were times, like today, like now, when I was sure she came to the bank two or three times a month not to talk over her accounts and investments but to devil me. Wanton temptress, tease, slut—she'd been called all of those things and she was all of those things ...

"... about me, George?"

"What did you say?"

"I asked if you were thinking about me."

"No. Just woolgathering."

The mocking smile again. "Is there anything else we need to discuss?"

"Not about financial matters, no."

"What else, then?"

"You know what else. Storm—"

"I've got to run. I'm meeting Doug Kent at Gunderson's for cocktails."

"Kent? Don't tell me you're sleeping with him now ..."

"Green's not a good color on you, George. Really."

"Goddamn it—"

"Don't curse at me. You know I don't like it."

"I'm sorry. But can't you have a little pity?"

"Is that what you'll settle for?"

"Yes, if I have to."

"I don't give pity fucks," she said.

"Jesus! Not so loud ..."

"Good night, George. Give my best to Ramona."

I was angry and bitter and frustrated after she left, the way I always seemed to be when I saw her. Wanting her and hating her at the same time. Hating Ramona, too. Hating myself most of all. Almost a year since that one night in Storm's bed, and it was as if it had happened twenty-four hours ago. I couldn't go on like this much longer. And yet what else could I do, where else could I go? I had no options, not anymore. Not since Harvey Patterson's real-estate scheme blew up in both our faces.

To take my mind off Storm I got up and crossed to Fred's window. He was just finishing up his accounting; he always had it done by closing unless he had customers. I asked him about the stranger's transaction. Change for a hundred-dollar bill: five twenties. That was all. Businesses in Pomo cater to tourists even in the off-season, and with the two Indian-owned casinos operating on the north and south shores, hundred-dollar bills were common enough. He could have spent a portion of his to get change or changed it outright in a dozen places without raising an eyebrow. Why come into the bank for his five twenties?

I returned to my desk, and now what was bothering me was the stranger. What if he came back? What if he really was planning to rob us?

Audrey Sixkiller

HE WAS STANDING alone on the pier when I brought the Chris-Craft into the downtown marina. At a distance, from his size, I thought he was Dick; I couldn't see him clearly because he was in shadow between two of the pale pier lamps. Pleasure stirred in me. Dick waiting for me like that would've been an omen—a good omen, for a change. He was mostly what I'd been thinking about the past two hours, cruising from Barrelhouse Slough on the north shore down past Nucooee Point and the Bluffs to Indian Head Bay near Southport. Late afternoon, twilight, nightfall are the best times on the lake, especially at this time of year when you can have all eighty-eight square miles of it to yourself; the water softens and changes color as the light fades, the surrounding hills blur gently and lose definition, the lights wink on all around the twisting shorelines. You're alone but not lonely. It's the best place and the best time for hoping.

I cut the throttle again as I came in past the marker buoys. Now that darkness had fallen, the wind was up and making the water choppy; I had to do some maneuvering and reversing to swing in next to the long board float that paralleled the pier. When I looked up again the man had moved, was walking toward the ramp through the fan of light from one of the lamps. I saw then that he wasn't Dick and some of the good feeling went away. He came down the ramp as I cut the power and the boat's port side brushed against the rubber float bumper; he caught hold of the bow cleat and steadied her. I shut off the engine and the running lights, took the stern line, and climbed up and made it fast. He tied off the bowline before I could do it.

"Thanks," I said. "Not necessary, but thanks."

He nodded. He was quite a bit bigger than Dick, I saw now—massive, like a professional football lineman. A stranger. And not dressed for the weather: light windbreaker and no hat or hand coverings. I could feel the cold even though I was bundled up in sweater, pea jacket, gloves, and William Sixkiller's old wool cap.

"Nice boat," he said. "When was it built?"

"My father bought it in fifty-two."

"He keeps it in good shape."

"He died seven years ago."

"Sorry. You keep it in good shape."

"He taught me well."

"I've been watching your lights," he said. "Only boat out tonight as far as I could see."

"I had the lake to myself. Mostly do, this time of year."

"You go out often by yourself at night?"

"Not often. Sometimes."

"Kind of lonesome, isn't it?"

"No. Peaceful."

He was silent for a little time. The wind gusted and I heard it whispering and rattling in the sycamores and incense cedars that grew in nearby Municipal Park. The ducks and loons were making a racket over there, too; there are always flocks of them foraging around the bandstand and along the shore walk in late fall and winter.

"I've always wanted a boat," the big man said, and there was an odd, wistful note in his voice. "Maybe I'll buy one someday."

"You won't regret it. Even if you don't live on a lake like Ka-ba-tin."

"I thought this was Lake Pomo."

"Ka-ba-tin is its Pomo Indian name."

"Oh."

"Visiting here, Mr.—?"

"Faith. John Faith. Yeah, visiting."

"John Faith. That sounds as if it could be Native American."

"It's not. Lot of Indians live around here, I understand."

"Several colonies, yes. Rancherias, we call them. Mainly Pomos— big surprise, right? Some Lake Miwok and Lileek Wappo. At one time, a hundred years ago, there were fifteen thousand Native Americans in Pomo County. Now ... less than a thousand."

"You seem to know a lot about them."

I smiled. "I'm one myself."

"Is that right?"

"Southeastern Pomo—Elem. Not quite pureblood. One of my ancestors got seduced by a white man, but they still let me sit on the tribal council. My name is Audrey Sixkiller, by the way."

He didn't react to the name, as some whites do. Or make any attempt to come forward and shake hands; his were tucked into the pockets of his windbreaker. He just nodded.

"Aren't you cold, dressed like that?" I asked him.

"Forgot to bring my coat. It's back at the resort."

"Which one are you staying at?"

"Lakeside."

"Oh. Harry Richmond's place."

"Sounds like you don't much care for it. Or him."

Harry Richmond was neither a friend to Indians nor completely honest. But I don't believe in carrying tales, to people I know much less to strangers. "It's as comfortable as any on this end of the lake," I said. "Too bad fishing season is over. Barrelhouse Slough up that way is full of catfish. If you like catfish."

"Cooked on a plate by somebody else," he said. "I'm not a fisherman."

The wind gusted again. "Well, I'd better get my shopping done. The later it gets, the colder it'll be on the lake."