A wasteland of strangers Read Free

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