Strangers

on O'Bannon Lane was not merely coincidental. Something was happening at the Sharkle house.
        In spite of temperatures in the mid-twenties and wind gusting to thirty miles an hour, a crowd of about a hundred had gathered outside the police barricade - on the sidewalks and on the lawns of the corner houses. Passing traffic on Scott Avenue was slowed by gawkers, and Stefan had to drive almost two blocks at a frustratingly slow pace before he found a parking space.
        When he walked back to the crowd and became part of it, seeking information from the well-bundled onlookers, Father Wycazik found that they were for the most part a friendly and strangely excited group. But creepy, too. Not blatantly weird. In fact, they were ordinary people-except for their totally insensitive fascination with the tragedy unfolding before them, as if it were as legitimate a source of thrills as a football game.
        It was definitely a tragedy, and one of a particularly horrible nature, which Father Wycazik discovered a minute after he joined the crowd and began to ask questions. A florid-faced, mustachioed man in a plaid hunting jacket and toboggan hat said, "Jesus, man, don't you watch the goddamned TV?" He was not the least restrained because he did not know he was talking to a priest; Stefan's topcoat and scarf concealed all evidence of his holy office. "Christ, fella, that's Sharkle down there. Sharkle the Shark, man. That's what they're callin' him. Guy's a dangerous loony. Been sealed up in his house there since yesterday, man. He shot him two of his neighbors and one cop already, and he's got him two goddamn hostages who, if you ask me, got about as much chance as a fuckin' cat at a Doberman convention."
        

        
        Tuesday morning, via Pacific Southwest Airlines, Parker Faine flew into San Francisco from Orange County, then caught a connecting West Air flight to Monterey. It was an hour's trip up the California coast on PSA, a one-hour layover in San Francisco, and then only thirty-five minutes to Monterey. The journey seemed shorter because one of the other travelers, a pretty young woman, recognized his name, liked his paintings, and was in the mood to be enthralled by his burly charms.
        In Monterey, at the small airport rental agency, he hired a vomit-green Ford Tempo. It was an offense to his refined sense of color.
        The Tempo's tempo was satisfyingly allegro on flat roads but a bit adagio on the hills. Nevertheless, he required less than half an hour to find the address Dom had given him for Gerald Salcoe, the man who had stayed at the Tranquility Motel with his wife and two daughters on the night of July 6, and who had thus far been unreachable by both phone and Western Union. It was a big Southern Colonial manor house, hideously out of place on the California coast, set on a prime half-acre, in the shade of massive pines, with enough elaborately tended shrubbery to employ a gardener one full day a week, including beds of impatiens that blazed with red and purple flowers even now, in January.
        Parker swung the Tempo into the majestic circular driveway and parked in front of broad, flower-bordered steps that led up to a deep pillared veranda. In the shadows of the trees, there was sufficient gloom to require lights indoors, but he saw none at the front windows. All of the drapes were tightly shut, and the house had a vacant look.
        He got out of the Tempo, hurried up the steps, and crossed the wide veranda, voicing his objection to the chilly air as he went: "Brrrrrrr." The area's usual morning fog had cleared from the airport, permitting landings, but it was still clinging to this part of the peninsula, bearding the pines, weaving tendrils between their trunks, muting the impatiens' brilliant blooms. Winter in northern California was a more bracing season than in Laguna Beach, and with the added damp chill of fog, it was not at all to Parker's taste. He had come dressed for it, however, in heavy corduroy slacks, a green-plaid flannel shirt, a green pullover that mocked Izod-Lacoste by featuring a goofy-looking appliqudd armadillo on the breast instead of an alligator, and a three-quarter-length navy peacoat with sergeant's stripes on one sleeve: quite an outfit, especially when accented by Day-Glo-orange running shoes. As he rang the doorbell, Parker looked down at himself and decided that maybe sometimes he dressed too eccentrically, even for an