Free Schemers: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Novels) by Bill Pronzini Page A

“But you won’t let it happen.”
    “Won’t I? I still have nights when I just want to … give up.”
    “I know how that is, too.”
    “No, I mean …”
    “I know what you mean.”
    “Did you ever feel that way? After your wife died?”
    “Yes.”
    “Ever … you know, come close to ending it all?”
    “A couple of times.”
    “How close?”
    “Close enough.” He wouldn’t give her the details—metallic taste of the .357 Magnum muzzle in his mouth,
finger tight on the trigger, sweat pouring off him, the sudden fevered shaking that once made him drop the gun into his lap. No, that was a piece of his own private hell he’d never share with anyone.
    “What stopped you?” she asked.
    “I wanted to live more than I wanted to die.”
    “I … I’m not sure I feel the same way.”
    “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”
    “That’s not necessarily true. I think I’m a coward.”
    “You’re not a coward,” he said. “Cowards go through with it, leave the mess for somebody else to clean up.”
    “I wouldn’t do it that way, the bloody way.”
    “There’re other kinds of messes. The people you leave behind. You wouldn’t do that to your son, would you? Leave him that kind of legacy?”
    She made a soft, anguished sound. “Oh, God. Bobby.”
    “No,” he said, “you wouldn’t.”
    “I miss him,” she said, “I miss him so much. Two weekends a month … it’s so damn unfair.”
    Her visitation privileges, she meant. The ex-husband was a lawyer, the self-righteous, conniving type. He’d not only found a self-serving excuse to abandon Bryn when he learned her paralysis was likely to be permanent, he’d sued for custody of the boy and convinced a sympathetic judge to rule in his favor. He had another woman now; Bryn thought he might’ve had her even before the stroke. The plan was for the boy to have a stepmother sometime this summer.
    Runyon had met Robert Jr. once, on one of Bryn’s weekends with him last month. Nice kid, nine years old;
smart, shy, liked computers and video games and football. No question that he loved his mother, but he seemed a little uneasy around her. Wouldn’t look at her directly, as if the covered half of her face frightened him or made him nervous.
    Runyon said, “You’ll have more time with him as he gets older.”
    “Will I? You didn’t have any time with your son.”
    “Different situation. My first wife was a vindictive alcoholic—I think I told you that. She poisoned Joshua against me. After twenty years, there’s no antidote. Don’t let your ex do that to Bobby.”
    “He hasn’t. I don’t think he will. Robert can be a prick, but he cares about Bobby. And doesn’t care enough about me to hurt me any more than he already has.”
    “What about the new woman he’s with?”
    “I’ve never met her and I’m not sure I want to.”
    “Know much about her?”
    “No, except that she sells real estate. She’s been good to Bobby—he likes her.”
    “Can I ask you a personal question?”
    “Yes.”
    “Have you talked to Bobby about the paralysis?”
    “Mother to son? Yes, as much as you can to a nine-year-old about a thing like that.”
    “Let him see your face, without the scarf?”
    Nothing for a few seconds. Then, “No.”
    “Might help him understand better.”
    “It would be cruel to subject him to that. He’s just a child.”
    “Afraid of his reaction?”
    “I don’t … What do you mean?”
    “That he won’t be able to deal with it. Pull away from you.”
    “You’ve seen my face,” she said. “Half a Halloween mask.”
    Runyon had seen it only once, the first time their lives intersected, when he’d chased away a couple of smart-ass kids after one of them yanked off her scarf in a Safeway parking lot. Dim light, but it hadn’t seemed so bad to him. He said, “Eye of the beholder. It didn’t scare me away.”
    “You’re an adult.”
    “And you’re Bobby’s mother. He needs you.”
    “And he can have me,”