Free The Lighthouse: A Novel of Terror by Marcia Muller Bill Pronzini Page A

where he stood, Seth Bonner was nursing a highball; old Seth must have come in while they were playing the last game.
    “Hey, Seth,” he said, “how’s it going?”
    “Hell of a question to ask a man just lost his job.”
    “Tough about that,” Hod said sympathetically.
    “People from California,” Bonner said. “Goddamn college professor. Mr. Jan Ryerson, he says the first time he come around. What kind of name is that for a man? Jan?”
    “Man can’t help the name he’s given.”
    “Comes all the way up here, takes my job away from me, and for what? Write some damn book. Bookwriter with a name like that, he’s probly queer.”
    “Not with a wife like he’s got. She’s a looker, Seth.”
    “Don’t mean nothing,” Bonner said. “Lots of ’em go both ways, down there in California. Besides, he probly married her for her money. Her father’s some big mucky-muck politician. That’s how they got hold of the lighthouse.”
    Hod shook his head, paid Barney for the two Henry’s, and carried them back to the pool table. Queer—that was a laugh. What did Bonner know about queers? Or anything else, for that matter? He was half cracked, and living alone out at the lighthouse the past three years had only widened the crack. Maybe it was a good thing those people had come up from California. Now Seth had a decent place to live and his sister Emma to take care of him, whether he liked it or not.
    Another thing, too. Hod remembered the way that big blond Ryerson had kicked Red the other day, and how he hadn’t backed down from Mitch afterward. Never mind that he was a college professor; he had guts. Probably tough when push came to shove—that quiet type could fool you. Mitch must have sensed the same thing, because he hadn’t tried to push it with Ryerson, hadn’t said much about the incident afterward. Queer? Not that one. No way.
    Adam was still hopping around, right foot, left foot, cradling his cue stick across his body like it was that Springfield 30.06 he kept in his van. “Losers rack,” he said, and Hod said, “Yeah, yeah,” and fished the balls out of the return slot and racked them for Adam’s break.
    That was when Mitch came in.
    Hod knew right away something was wrong. It was the way Mitch moved, hard and angry, and the way he was banging his fisted hands against his thighs. One long look at his face, when he got close enough, and Hod could tell that whatever it was, it was bad. Real bad.
    And it was. “Red’s dead,” Mitch said.
    “Dead? Christ, Mitch, what—?”
    “Run down in the road not far from my place. An hour ago.”
    “Chasing cars again?”
    “No. Wasn’t any accident.”
    Adam said, “It wasn’t? What was it?”
    “Murder, that’s what it was. Son of a bitch ran him down deliberate.”
    Hod said, “Jesus, who did?”
    “That bastard from California, the one out at the lighthouse. Ryerson.”
    “How do you know? You see it happen?”
    “Enough of it. I was just coming out of the house, getting ready to come over here.” Mitch slammed his hands against his thighs in a hard, steady rhythm. “Red screamed,” he said. “When Ryerson hit him . . . he screamed. You ever hear a dog scream?”
    “No,” Hod said. His throat felt tight.
    “Just like a woman. Knocked him into them bushes alongside the road, screaming all the way. Big car like that . . . he never had a chance.”
    “That new Ford wagon?”
    “That’s the one,” Mitch said. “No other like that around here. It was Ryerson, all right.”
    “He didn’t stop?” Adam asked.
    “Didn’t even slow down. I told you, he done it on purpose. Saw Red out running the way he liked to do, swerved over, and picked him off like a jackrabbit. Poor old dog was dead when I got to him, head all bashed in. Poor old dog. He never hurt nobody in his whole life.”
    Hod said, “But why? Why would Ryerson do a thing like that?”
    “Red nipping at him last week; words we had over it. He seen in his headlights it was