A wasteland of strangers Read Free Page A

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