Panic by Bill Pronzini

Author:Bill Pronzini [Pronzini, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Lennox; Jack (Fictitious Character)
ISBN: 9780394474915
Google: u3dhOZxQmncC
Amazon: 0745189423
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1971-12-31T18:30:00+00:00

Seventeen

When the last burning edge of the sun vanished in the flame-streaked sky to the west, the harsh desert landscape softened into a serene and golden tableau. Gradually, almost magically, the horizon gentled into a wash of pink and the pale sphere of the moon rose, the desert turning vermilion now—as if infrared light were being cast over it. Shadows lengthened and deepened, and there was an almost reverent hush across the land.

Vollyer stood on a high shelf of rock, the binoculars fitted to his eyes, and turned in a slow pirouette until he had described a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. It was like looking at a particularly vivid three-dimensional painting: the motionlessness was absolute. He lowered the glasses finally, reluctantly, and climbed down to where Di Parma sat drinking from one of the plastic water bottles.

Wordlessly, Vollyer sat beside him and pressed his hand up under his wishbone. The ulcer was giving him trouble again, not enough to hamper him seriously but just enough to be annoying —like an omnipresent but not especially painful toothache. As if that wasn’t enough, his eyes still ached, and even now, with darkness approaching rapidly, they were still watering. Ruefully, he looked down at the dusty, torn material of his expensive trousers and shirt, the now-filthy-gray cashmere of his jacket lying with Di Parma’s suit coat and the knapsack in the dust at their feet. I must look like hell, he thought; I must look like something off the Bowery in New York. I wonder what Fine-berg, the tailor, would say if he could see me now—or one of those bow-and-scrape waiters in the restaurants along the Loop back home. No man can be cultured or refined or genteel—or even respectable—when there’s dirt on his face and a rip in his pants. One of the game’s little axioms.

Di Parma said, “Nothing, right?” in a dull voice.

“Nothing,” Vollyer answered.

“Now what do we do?”

“We don’t have much choice, Livio.”

“You mean we spend the night out here?”

“That’s right.”

“Oh shit, Harry.”

“We’ve come too far to backtrack to the car now.”

“Snakes come out at night,” Di Parma said, and his voice was that of a complaining child. “I don’t like snakes.”

“You haven’t seen any snakes yet, have you?”

“They don’t move around during the day. Night’s when they hunt. It’s too hot in the daytime.”

“Tell me some more about the desert.”

“I don’t know anything about the desert.”

“You know about the snakes.”

“I told you, I don’t like the goddamn things,” Di Parma said, as if that explained it.

“You can see a long way on the desert at night, isn’t that right?” Vollyer said. “When the moon is up, it can get to be just as bright as day, isn’t that right?”

“I don’t know,” Di Parma said.

“It’s right,” Vollyer told him. “We’ll sleep in shifts. Because of the snakes and because Lennox and the girl might try moving after dark, figuring to cross us up.”

Di Parma drank again from the water bottle. He said, without looking at Vollyer, “How long are we going to stay out here looking?”

“Until we find them.

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