“Better company than most people. You don’t bother them, they don’t bother you.”
We rested again at the crumbling terrace wall, then picked our way across to the south corner of the lodge. I kept glancing back at the lake, just to make sure no other boats came along. It looked wide and wind-blown from here; the homes and town buildings along the west shore were like miniatures about two inches high. I tried not to think about the long trip back across, alone, in Ms. Sixkiller’s boat. Or of anything else that might happen later on. The major thing was getting John inside where it was safe.
The way in was on the south side — a service door that opened into a storeroom off the kitchen. The door was covered with plywood, but the first night, Anthony and Mateo had pried it off with a crowbar and then busted the door lock; afterward they’d put the plywood back up with the nails in their original holes, so unless you got up close and started messing around, you couldn’t tell the section was loose.
I showed John, and together we stripped off the plywood. “I’ll put it back up when I leave,” I said, and he nodded and we went inside.
Dark, musty, and dusty. Muggy hot in the summer, cold on Halloween night and almost as chilly now. I switched on the flashlight. Empty shelves and cobwebs jumped out and jumped back as I swung the beam around and we moved ahead into the kitchen. There wasn’t much left in there, just a couple of long metal tables and some old sinks and exposed piping. The door to the walk-in freezer was half open. Selena’s boyfriend, Petey Dexter, had locked her in there for about ten minutes on Halloween and she’d been so pissed when he let her out she’d tried to kick him in the balls. We all thought it was pretty funny at the time. Somehow it didn’t seem so funny now.
Across the kitchen was an archway that led into the dining room: more cobwebs and a bunch of stacked-up folding chairs. We’d taken some of the chairs into the big, wide lobby and arranged them in front of a fieldstone fireplace that must’ve been six feet across. The rest of the lobby was a mess. It was gloomy in there, but threads of daylight came through cracks in the plywood covering the tall front windows and let you see enough so you could move around without tripping over things. Candle stubs and beer cans and cigarette butts and bags from Mickey D’s and other crap that we should’ve taken with us was thrown around on the moldy carpet. Rats and mice had been at the bags; they were all torn up. They’d been at the two old leather couches that’d been left behind, too, pulling out stuffing to make nests with or something. The front desk and the cubbyhole thing for mail and keys that’d been behind it were just a lot of splintered boards; Mateo, wasted on crank and Green Death, had broken them up with the crowbar the first night. Made so much noise we were all afraid somebody driving by on the highway would hear. Anthony and Mateo — the Loser Brothers.
John was wobbly again after the long walk, sweating and breathing hard. He nearly collapsed onto one of the couches, dust puffing up around him like smoke in the flash beam. Some little pelletlike things that were probably turds bounced off onto the floor. I said, “Might be mice nesting inside there,” but he didn’t seem to care. He laid his head back and sat there with the blankets all tangled around him.
“You okay, John?”
“Weak. Wound’s bleeding again.”
“Want some more of the peroxide?”
“Yeah.”
He untangled himself, and I held the light so he could see to work off the bandages. Blood gleamed on them and on the wounds. He poured peroxide on and it frothed and hissed the way it had on the boat, only it didn’t seem to hurt him so much this time. He taped on more of the gauze pads, and when he was done his face was white and dripping sweat.
“All you’ve done for me, Trisha,” he said then, “I hate to ask for more. But it’s either that or my chances aren’t much better than they were before you found me.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Peroxide and plain pads won’t be enough to keep the wounds from infecting. I’ll need other stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Not sure. I’ve never been shot before.”
“I’ll get whatever you need. Maybe I can look it up in a book or something...”
“Might be a better way.”
“Like what?”
“One that gets you out of it and puts somebody else at risk. I hate the idea, but I’d also hate sitting here and rotting.”
“What’re you talking about, John? What somebody else?”
“You know the blond waitress works nights at the Northlake Cafe? Lori?”
“Lori Banner? Sure, I know her. But—”
“She had some nurse’s training. She’d know what you need to treat gunshot wounds and where to get it.”
“What makes you think she’d help?”
“Just a feeling. If there’s anybody else in Pomo besides you who thinks I’m innocent, it’s Lori.”
“You want me to talk to her?”
“If you’re willing to take the chance.”
“Like, just come right out and tell her you’re alive and wounded and where you are?”
“No. Go slow, feel her out... no details until you’re sure you can trust her. And don’t say anything about helping me get over here. You happened to be snooping around and you found me by accident.”
“Okay. If it’s what you want.”
“It’s not what I want. It’s what I’ve got to have to survive.”
“More food, too, right? And some clothes?”
“Right. Lori can bring them if she agrees to come.”
“Don’t you want me to come back?”
“No. Not unless Lori refuses.”
“Why not?”
“You know why not.”
“Don’t keep telling me how much trouble I can get into, all right? I’m already in trouble, man. Seventeen and knocked up, remember?”
Even in the poor light I could see he really hated all this, really did care about me not getting in trouble on account of him. It made me even more sure I was doing the right thing. Not many people cared what happened to me. Not Anthony, for instance. A stranger like John was a better friend than my own freaking boyfriend.
I gave him back his wallet. The flashlight, too; I didn’t need it and he might. “You just rest easy, John,” I said then. “Everything’s gonna be okay. No kidding. It’s gonna be okay.”
He didn’t say anything. He sat there staring at nothing, staring at shadows, while I made my way out.
Harry Richmond
One good thing about Storm Carey getting herself killed — it’s been a boon to business. I didn’t even mind losing most of a night’s sleep, what with cops and reporters and rubberneckers showing up in a steady stream until well past two A.M. and that TV helicopter making an ungodly racket and the police search teams with their bright lights along the northwest shore and in the sloughs above the Carey place. Why, I felt like a celebrity there for a while. First time in my life, and I don’t mind saying I liked it just fine.
Novak and Sheriff Thayer came out first, asked questions, and then hunted through what Faith left behind in cabin six. I could’ve told them before I let them in with my passkey that they wouldn’t find a thing, but of course I didn’t. Nobody’s business but mine that I’d been in there hunting myself on Friday, after Novak left. Pathetic, what that mean, snotty bastard carried in his only suitcase. Puzzling and annoying, too. Couple of shirts, one pair of slacks, one pair of jeans, some underwear and socks. Nothing else except for a tangle of dirty laundry. No personal items. No valuables. Yet he’d had that big wad of money in his wallet. What’d he spend it on, if not clothes or men’s jewelry or electronic gadgets or a decent car? That’s what I’d like to know.