April Evil (21 page)

And like all the others this goat-youth would change, grow thick and bald. With the quick flex of muscles gone, with the eyes dulled, with belly sagging the once jaunty trousers, there would be nothing left but a dull man with dull appetites and endless repetitive anecdotes of a youth-time that, in retrospect, seemed shining and gay and eternal.

I do not love you any more
.

Once, when she had been about seven, Laurie had been invited
to a birthday party. Fourteen little girls in a big house. She had not been dressed as well as the others and her present had not been as costly as the presents the others brought. She had not known the birthday girl too well, and she had not wanted to go. They made fun of her in the cruel sly innocent way of small girls. When she had a chance she had gone into the hall, taken her unwrapped present from the pile and had let herself out through the big door. On the way home she had scaled the coloring book into an arroyo.

It is time to take my present back and go home, Joe
.

She looked at him for a long time. She was very fair about it. She remembered the several unexpected gestures of tenderness he had made. She remembered the best times when they had been together. She remembered the way he looked when he looked his very best. She tried to piece it all together again, and feel affection. She tried to want him physically. But it did not work.

It was completely over.

Goodbye, Joe
.

She got out of bed. She washed and dressed and went downstairs to help Arnold.

Dr. Paul Tomlin was awake and heard Laurie’s quick light step as she went downstairs. He wondered how he had lived so long in that house and not missed the sound of that light footfall. It had become so necessary to him. He felt a selfish guilt at taking up so much of her time. She was young. It must be stifling to her to spend so many hours each day with a very old man.

This existence would be perfect if Joe could be eliminated somehow. He was a jarring element. He did not fit. He spoiled the perfection of her. He was a smear of crayon across a good painting, a crack in a symphonic record. He soiled the girl. Perhaps eventually, had they not come here, he would have coarsened her beyond redemption. But that did not seem likely. There was a basic goodness and strength in the girl that made her invulnerable.

Ronald Crown came awake all at once and remained motionless, his eyes closed. He always awakened that way, reaching out with all his other senses to fix himself in time and space. Morning light glowed dark red through the blood in his eyelids. He heard the drone of a boat.

He remembered the Ace, the thrust, the fall.

It had been good with the Ace. Not one of the best, but good. The pleasure in this one was not due to the time it took, because it had taken very little time. The very quickness of it had made it good. All that sturdy muscle, and the big pumping heart and the big bellows of the lungs, and all the intricate interplay of secretion and cell-building and temperature-control. All the little electric impulses of memory and thought. All stilled. By two sudden inches of steel into the nape of the neck, severing the gray bundle of fibers in the spinal cord.

That had been good and the change in the other two had been good also, the way they looked at him. The uneasiness. The aroma of fascination. The way people speak in lower voices when they stand outside the cage of the tiger.

He opened his eyes and stepped quickly out of the bed, with no morning slowness, completely alert and coordinated. As he showered he grinned at the perfection of his own judgment of Mullin’s reaction. Mullin would not try it alone. Mullin needed him. So Mullin could take no action against him. The odds had changed a great deal. Just Mullin and the woman were left.

Today was the day. He felt a fresh rising excitement. Between now and when he slept again, a great deal would happen. It would be a full day. Things could not be planned ahead. This one would have to be planned from moment to moment.

When Sally Leon awoke she heard someone humming in the kitchen and realized it was Ronnie. She heard Harry running water in the bathroom. There was a sharp odor in the room. She sat up and looked at the boy. His eyes were wide and miserable. He lay on the floor as she had left him. He had wet himself and the blanket under him.

“You couldn’t help it, kid,” she said softly. His expression did not change. “Don’t be scared, kid. They’re going to leave you here. People will find you quick.”

But she saw a different image. They might not look in this house. They might not add the obvious two and two. It might be several days. And that would be too late for the kid.
Poor kid, he is probably awfully thirsty by now. Maybe Harry would let me get him something. Kids get thirsty and hungry
.

She put on a robe and went to the kitchen. Ronnie winked at her. “Good morning, glorious!”

It made her feel cold and funny to look into his eyes. “Good morning,” she said weakly.

When she opened the refrigerator he came up behind her and put his arms around her, slipping one hand inside the robe to cup her breast.

“Cut it out!”

“I can’t. I’m overcome. You’re so lovely in the morning.”

She twisted away from him and pulled the belt tighter. He laughed at her. She poured a glass of milk and took it into the bedroom. She knelt beside the kid.

“Kid, they wouldn’t want me to take that off your mouth. But you ought to have something to drink. Here’s milk. Promise you won’t yell and get me in trouble and I’ll give it to you. Promise?”

The wide eyes were on her and the boy nodded. She got the edge of the tape and stripped it off his mouth. It pulled the fine blonde hair from around his mouth and he winced with pain but did not cry out. She supported him with an arm around his back and held the glass to his lips. He drank the milk eagerly. When it was gone she lowered him again.

“What are they going to do to me?” he whispered.

“Nothing,” she said. She put the tape back, pressed it down firmly and moved away from him as Mullin came out of the bathroom. He saw the glass before she could hide it behind her.

“What the hell have you been doing?”

“I … I gave him some milk.”

He looked at the kid and then looked at her. “I guess it’s okay. He didn’t try to yell?”

“No.”

“He’s a smart kid. You are a smart kid, aren’t you? Only this morning you don’t smell so good. Sal, you want to try anything like that, you check with me first. You do that again and I’ll rough you up a little. Check?”

“Okay, Harry.”

“Why is Ronnie doing that damn singing? He feel good?”

“I guess so.”

The sun climbed higher into the deep blue of the sky. Its color faded to yellow and then to a blinding white. The white sand beaches were glaring. Tourist flesh baked in the sun. A thousand bottles of lotion were uncapped. The young couple who had run hand in hand into the water at dawn were back out on the beach after breakfast, the private beach near their motel. She lay face down on a green blanket. He poured sun-hot lotion into the palm of his hand and greased the long smooth muscles of her young back, and the round calves and the backs of her knees and the backs of the firm thighs. His hand caressed her. They talked in low voices. The girl laughed. They got up and walked back to the room, laughing together, hips bumping together awkwardly as they walked over the loose sand, his arm around her in the first sequence of possession.

The bride felt better. The days were not so bad. In the daytime she could look at him on the beach and not feel badly at all. She wanted the sun to stay high. She wanted it to be daytime forever. Then life would be good. But, as it always had, the night would come, and she thought about it and felt chilled, even in the sun heat.

The bright day moved slowly along, like a carnival float going down a gay holiday street.

In the Mather house the three of them, Ronnie, Mullin and the woman, wore white canvas work gloves. They went from room to room rubbing their hands over everything that had been touched. Mullin kept them taut. He wanted no mistakes.

“And from now on you keep the gloves on until you’re out of the house. Get it?”

“That’s the fourth time you’ve said so,” Ronnie said.

“I’ll say it four hundred times. They’ll identify the Ace. They don’t have to be able to identify us. It’ll give us more time. Sal, did you do the medicine cabinet?”

“Yes,” she said wearily.

“Ronnie, go get the car gassed and have them check the tires and under the hood.”

After Ronnie left, Mullin put Sal back to work in the kitchen. Keeping the gloves on, he turned on the radio. After five minutes of music the eleven o’clock news came on.

“A city-wide search continues for Toby Piersall, eleven-year-old son of Benjamin Piersall, prominent local attorney. The boy left his home on Huntington Drive some time last evening. It is feared that the boy has been kidnapped.”

He listened to the description and the rest of the report. There was no mention of road blocks. He cursed his bad luck in having the boy recognize him. He wondered why Ronnie was taking so long. He wondered if he’d been picked up. The whole thing was getting fouled up. It had looked easy. Maybe he had planned this one too close. Maybe it would have been better to move right in on it as soon as they hit town. Or at least as soon as the Ace had arrived.

His stomach was knotted up and his hands shook. He knew this was the worst time. It would be better when they began to roll. Then there would be an outlet for tension. Waiting was bad. Waiting was the worst.

He heard Ronnie drive in. He went to the front windows, gun in his hand. Ronnie was alone. He put the gun away. The tension made him yawn.

When the phone rang again in the Piersall house, Ben grabbed it quickly. “Yes?”

“Ben, this is Lennie.”

“Oh.”

“Have you heard anything yet about Toby?”

“No. Nothing at all.”

“I’m terrible sorry, Ben. I hope everything will be … all right.”

“Thanks, Lennie.”

“About last night. That was pretty messy. I know it must have been horrid.”

“It seems like longer ago than last night.”

“I guess it would. I know how worried you are. I don’t want to bother you, Ben. But I’ve got a crazy thing I want to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Call it self-punishment or something. I don’t know. But I want to go see Uncle Paul and tell him the whole thing.”

“That won’t help any.”

“I know it won’t. It’s like burning a last bridge. I know he won’t forget it or forgive it. He isn’t that type. But I want to burn our last bridge. Then we’ll know we’ve only got our
own feet to stand on. We’ll know there’s no pot of gold in our future. I don’t think it has done us any good, planning on that money. So I want to put it out of reach for keeps.”

“This doesn’t sound like you.”

“I know it. I want to know what you think.”

“As a lawyer?”

“As a person. I don’t know how to explain it. We’re going to try to … start fresh. But it’s going to be hard for both of us.”

“If you think it would help, then go tell Doctor Tomlin. He suspects anyway. It might even give him a little respect for you.”

“I want Dil to come with me.”

“Does he want to?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t told him yet. But I think he’ll understand. We’re trying, but it’s … so hard, Ben.”

“It will be.”

“Don’t you think it’s time I grew up, though?”

“If you can manage it. If you don’t get bored.”

“That’s a low blow.”

“I meant it to be. Would you mind if we cut this short? I want to keep the phone clear.”

“Of course. Goodbye. And thanks.”

“Good luck, Lennie.”

Joan put her hand on Ben’s shoulder. “What did she want?”

“She wants to confess. To Doctor Tomlin. For the good of her soul or something. She’s trying hard to turn over a new leaf.”

“Somehow I can’t get very interested in whether she does or doesn’t. Somehow I can’t get the least bit interested in her problems. They seem rather small to me today.”

“We ought to hear soon.”

Joan shuddered. “They’re searching the beaches. That makes me feel sick. Searching the beaches.”

“Not only the beaches. Empty houses, fields, everywhere. Dan says even little kids sometimes get legitimate amnesia. They’ve broadcast his description all over the place, honey.”

She spun violently away from him, shoulders hunched. She stumbled in the doorway as she left the room. He felt a weary
helpless exasperation. What could you do? What could you say? Everything sounded wrong. There had to be an end to this. Some sort of ending. It couldn’t go on this way.

Joe Preston got up at eleven thirty. He had slept beyond his hangover. He felt dulled and tired and very very hungry. He guessed that he would be doghoused for a time. But what the hell. That was a nice couple. And the girl had gone for him. She’d made that pretty clear. You had to have some friends. You couldn’t stay locked up forever in this stone barn. Even in jail you could have friends.

As he reached the landing he saw Laurie coming up the stairs toward him. She walked through a slant of sunlight and she looked very good to him.

“Hey!” he said and she started in surprise.

“Oh, you’re up.”

“You look lush, angel.” He caught her wrist and pulled her close to kiss her.

He expected reluctance. He expected her to look hurt and weepy. He did not expect the reaction he received. She yanked her hand away so violently that he nearly toppled down the stairs. She backed away from him, circling him on the landing. “Don’t touch me!” she said in a quiet deadly voice. “Don’t
ever
touch me!”

“Honey,” he complained, “just what in the world is …”

“Be quiet. Don’t whine at me. Just leave me alone.”

He watched her go up the rest of the stairs, sturdy hips pumping under the cotton skirt, head high, not looking back. He scrubbed his head with his knuckles. He felt abused. What made her so mad? He’d just tied a package on. Not too bad a one, considering. What got into her all of a sudden?