Hellbox (Nameless Detective) by Bill Pronzini Read Free Book Online Page A

him a troll-like aspect. Kerry stopped, too. She felt the urge to turn and hurry away from him, but not because she was afraid. Nervous and embarrassed, yes, but not afraid—not yet.
    “Why the hell’d you have to show up here, now?”
    “I don’t understand what you mean, Mr. Balfour. I—”
    “What? What’d you say?”
    “I said—”
    He yelled, “Screwing everything up, goddamn you!” and dropped the toolbox and lunged at her.
    The sudden attack caught her completely off guard; she had no time to run or try to defend herself. He caught hold of her, threw her sideways into the pickup’s rear gate, jamming her elbow, wrenching her back, ripping loose a cry of pain and surging terror. He crowded in against her, spewing sour breath into her face. She tried to claw him, tried to scream, but by then, his body was wedged against hers and his thick hands were tight around her throat.
    Squeezing, squeezing, until his face, the trees, the daylight all faded to black—

 
    5
    It was a quarter after four when I got back to the cabin. The locked front door surprised me a little because it meant Kerry wasn’t there. I let myself in, and on the kitchen table I found a note: Out for my walk. Back soon. So she must have gone later than she’d indicated she would. Probably spent most of the day lazing around, maybe had herself a nice long nap.
    In any case, she’d been away for a while because the cabin was muggy with all the windows closed. I opened four of them to let in the light afternoon breeze, provide some cross ventilation. Then I got a bottle of Sierra Nevada out of the rattling old refrigerator and took it onto the deck.
    Cooling some now, with the breeze and the down-sliding sun. Hot day in the valley. Much of the terrain I’d explored had been open and unshaded, and I’d worked up a pretty good sweat. Tired myself out, too. I could feel the stiffness in my legs and back from all the tramping over uneven ground. I must’ve walked four or five miles, a lot more distance than I was used to.
    But I’d found a couple of likely fishing spots, neither of them on the map I’d bought in the sporting goods store in Six Pines—one along a clear, shallow, fast-moving stream, the other a tree-shaded, moss-banked pool. Plenty of trout moving in and out of that pool; you couldn’t quite see them, except as faint shadows gliding among darker shadows beneath the surface, but they were there all right. I’d figured a Blue Quill or Thorax Dun would work well in the stream, and a Gray Hackle just right for the pool. Wrong on all three counts. Or maybe the fish just weren’t biting today. I hadn’t even had a decent nibble.
    Tomorrow morning early, I thought, if I could haul my creaky old carcass out of bed in the cold light of dawn, I’d go out again. Today was the first time I’d been trout fishing in years, ever since that harrowing time at Deep Mountain Lake high up in the Sierras near Quincy. Thought I’d lost my zest for the sport, but today’s outing was proof that I hadn’t; I had just needed some time away from it, was all. If we did end up buying this place, I’d probably indulge in quite a bit of catch and release in the future. As much as I’d once enjoyed fresh trout pan-fried in butter, I’d reached the point in my life where I could no longer willingly take a life of any kind.
    I’d have one more try at talking Kerry into coming with me tomorrow. She wouldn’t have to put a line out herself, just be there to keep me company and share the experience. Convince her to try it once, and she’d be as hooked as one of the rainbows or browns I planned to catch.
    I finished my beer, went inside for another. Moved my chair to the far side of the deck, put my feet up on the rail, and sat there sipping and taking in the view. The beer and the day’s exercise made me drowsy; I nodded off for a while, until an ear-buzzing mosquito jerked me out of it. The low angle of the sun told me it must be close to six