Genesis of Evil (21 page)

The Whip was managing editor, political editor, medical editor and business editor. He wasn’t the social editor. That was the exclusive domain of Shirley, Otto’s wife. But since Shirley tended to spell words of more than two syllables incorrectly, and leave out a great deal of punctuation, her stories passed through The Whip’s hands anyway. As the
Trinidad Probe
was so small, it fell to the various editors to double as their own reporters. For all practical purposes, Leander Whippet was the
Trinidad Probe
.

Otto Klein spent four years at Georgia Tech trying to set records in beer drinking and sex, knowing all along that he would never have to turn a wheel in the real world. Heinz had taken care of that with the dry cleaning business. When Otto went in to the office it was usually because he had found a cause he wanted to champion and the
Trinidad Probe
was the best way to go about it. At the age of thirty-three, he had enough money to keep himself in excellent Scotch and Camel Filters for the next 173 years, if he didn’t screw up too badly. He had few vices, save the occasional piece of strange. In his own mind he was a pillar of the community and his newspaper was a tribute to Truth, Justice and the American Way. He considered rags such as the
National Query
to be unfit to wipe the collective ass of humanity.

Shirley had no such reservations.

But she knew how Otto felt about such things so she kept the copies of the supermarket rags away from him as a matter of course—in most instances.

But when he was forced to take her new Buick to work one morning, his Infiniti being laid up with some sort of electrical gremlin, he was hardly in the driver’s seat when he saw part of a headline sticking out from under the front seat.

NEW SHOPPING MALL A KILL

Otto yanked the tabloid from beneath the seat and scanned the story. Then he tossed the rag over his shoulder and broke several traffic laws getting to the office.

“I can’t believe this,” Klein yelled as he stormed into the building waving the offending tabloid in the air. “How the hell did this dirt sheet get hold of this story before we did?”

The Whip glanced at the sheet and shrugged indifferently. “Maybe because most of it is bullshit, Chief,” he said, “and we don’t deal in bullshit.”

Klein ceased to stomp and storm and let the paper fall to his side. He took a deep breath and some of the heightened color slid back down his neck to disappear into his collar. He nodded. “You’re right. But, still, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” He grimaced. “Jesus. I hate a cliché.” He scratched his left ear, pursed his lips and pointed at The Whip. “Go see what’s going on. Even these rags need an element of the truth or they couldn’t exist.”

The Whip nodded and went out to find Gerhart.

The article in the
National Query
was, as The Whip had pointed out, mostly bullshit. Skjelgaard knew nothing of consequence about the goings-on at the mall simply because he had spoken to none of the city officials. He had tried, but when they had found out what he represented they declined to comment. So he had buttonholed a lot of citizens. Naturally, for every question asked he received a variety of answers. In the end he picked what he thought were the juiciest fables and used them for his story.

The Whip, however, wanted the facts. When he approached Gerhart, the Police Chief told him everything that he felt was in the public interest. He didn’t mention the spookhunters and their theory. He briefly considered the radon tale but realized that The Whip was too smart to buy it. When he was finished he leaned back in his chair and smiled across the desk at the editor.

“Now do me a favor,” he said. “Sit on this for a few days. I’ve engaged some outside help that I think can assist in getting all of this straightened out. When I feel the time is right, I’ll give you a call and you can get the whole story in print.”

The Whip nodded. “No problem. You’ve always been straight with me before. In fact, I wouldn’t even be here if Junior Klein hadn’t given me a shove.” He heaved his vast bulk out of the chair and sighed. “Just let me know. In the meantime, I’ll keep a lid on it and hold off Junior.” He grinned, waved a massive hand and rolled through the door.

When The Whip finished his explanation, Otto Klein dismissed him immediately. Then Klein sat and thought for nearly a half hour. He knew, of course, about the kid frying his head, and about the shooting spree and about the preacher being hauled off to jail. He knew about Gerhart’s wife and the suicide of her killer.

And then Klein sat up straight as he remembered the first meal at the restaurant and the case of the prune juice schottische that had attacked everybody who ate the chocolate mousse the night they celebrated the opening of the mall.

Otto Klein was lazy and shiftless but he was slightly smarter than the average bear. When he was finished thinking he added two and two and came up with four—and then some. His next decision was one he had never made in the past.

He was going to override The Whip.

The
Trinidad Probe
landed on the porches of its subscribers thirty-seven minutes before Gerhart hit the front door of the
Probe
’s offices. The Whip looked up to see Gerhart advancing across the room with murder in his eyes. He hoisted himself from his chair with amazing agility and backed into a corner between a file cabinet and a reference table. Gerhart stopped two inches in front of The Whip, who raised his hands in front of his face, turned his head and closed his eyes.

“Chief,” he pleaded, “I didn’t do it. Honest to Christ. It was Klein.”

Gerhart narrowed his eyes, spun on his heel and marched past Klein’s protesting secretary into the Publisher’s office. He leaned across the desk, placed his hands flat on its top and glared daggers at Klein.

“Otto,” he said in a low, flat voice, “The Whip tells me you decided to betray my confidence. Is that correct?”

Klein swallowed noisily and blinked several times in rapid succession. “Uhm, well, to tell the truth…”

“That’s right, Otto, the truth.”

Klein took a deep breath. “Yeah. I wrote the story. The Whip said you wanted him to sit on it. I decided the public had a right to know.” He lifted his chin and straightened up in his chair self-righteously.

Gerhart reached across the desktop, gripped Klein’s tie and pulled it toward him. Otto’s eyes widened. When his face was an inch from the Chief’s, Gerhart stopped pulling. “Otto,” he said quietly, “we’ve gotten along pretty well over the years. That’s because we’ve always cooperated with each other. Once in a while I ask for your indulgence. That’s because I have a town to protect. You know what I mean?” Klein nodded mutely. “Good. Now I’m going to make you a promise. Do you know what it is?”

Klein forced the lump in his throat to slide down past the knot of his tie and shook his head.

“I promise that if I ever ask you to sit on something again, and you don’t, I’m going to come over here and pound the top of your pointy little head into the floor like a fuckin’ nail. You got me?”

Klein nodded and opened his mouth but only managed to squeak.

Gerhart let go of the tie. Klein dropped face down on the desk as Gerhart stormed from the office.

Edward Walton had left Trinidad in 1974, received a degree in journalism in 1978 and gone to work for the
Tallahassee Record
in 1980. He didn’t return to Trinidad except for a few hours on Christmas and his mother’s birthday. But he subscribed to the
Trinidad Probe
in order to keep track of the bucolic rubes he had gone to school with so he could measure exactly how far he had risen above them. On the day after Gerhart dropped Klein’s face on the desk, Edward Walton read twice through the article concerning the closing of the mall. Then he stuffed the paper into his briefcase and drove to work, where he laid it on his editor’s desk.

“Okay,” the editor said. “I know this is going to kill you otherwise. Look into it. Maybe we can use it as a sidebar.”
 

Edward Walton smiled. This was going to be fun.

Norbert Hicks was working on his second cup of coffee while admiring a full-page ad for ladies’ undergarments when the phone rang. He looked at his watch. It was only 7:13. Nobody called at 7:13 in the morning.

It wasn’t Nobody.

“Hicks!” Mark Birrell yelled. “I’m gonna cut your dick off and ram it up your ass!” Hicks closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and held the receiver away from his ear. “You told me nothing was going on up there, you worthless jack-off bastard. You said you’d take care of it. You know how much money I lose for every hour that fuckin’ mall is closed? Huh? More than you make in a week. Your ass is mud! I want that mall open. Now! I’m coming up there. If it’s still closed when I get there I’m gonna stomp you into a wad so small they can bury you in a pygmy’s jockstrap!”

Hicks cleared his throat. “M…Mr. Birrell, who said the m…mall was still closed?” he stammered.

“One of my guys called and told me. It’s in all the papers, you asshole. Or can’t you read? I’m on my boat right now. We’re about ten miles off Key West. You got a marina up there, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir, but…”

“Shut up. We’ll be there between three and four in the morning. Meet me at that marina. Got it?”

“Sure, Mr. Birrell, but…”

Birrell slammed the phone down.

Norbert Hicks stared into space, dazed. Finally he realized he was still holding the receiver and placed it gently on the cradle. Then he remembered what Birrell had said and looked down at the copy of the
Tallahassee Record
that lay where he had dropped it. He bent over, picked it up and slowly turned pages until he found the small sidebar on page thirty-eight of the local section.

Norbert Hicks felt his testicles tighten, closed his eyes and groaned.

In order to be on the safe side, if there was such a thing, Hicks arrived at the marina at 2:00 A.M. He spent the next hour and a half pacing back and forth, stopping from time to time to stare off into the blackness toward the southern tip of Heron Key where he knew Birrell’s boat would enter the cove. He was checking the time again—it was almost 4:00—when he made out the red and green running lights that were barely visible above the surface of the water in the distance. As he stood on the dock and watched the lights grow larger, he found himself grinding his teeth together thinking of the abuse he had suffered from Birrell and everybody else all of his life. He remembered the humiliation through school and afterward, right up until he returned to Trinidad and showed everybody how smart he was.

After all, it was his vision that had brought the mall to life. All Birrell did was provide a little cash. Big deal. Anybody could do that. But how many men could create something like this mall out of thin air? Using only his mind?

This mall was Hicks’ mall! It should have his name in lights above the front door!

Hicks scowled and looked around as he stood on the fuel dock. He had an idea.

When the boat was within 500 yards of the dock a beam of light slashed out from it through the darkness of the cove and blinded Hicks momentarily. He shielded his eyes with a hand and waved the other briefly in the air. Whoever was at the helm cut the twin engines to an idle and spun the wheel to allow the thirty-eight-foot cruiser to slide slightly sideways toward the dock. As the craft approached the fenders, the light stayed on Hicks and someone threw a line across the open water to him as the engines reversed with a growl and the water churned at the stern. Hicks caught the line and secured it to one of the cleats next to the gas pumps. The deck hand trotted aft and jumped over the open water, hauling the stern line behind him. The searchlight swung around so the deck hand could see to tie up.

Standing now in the dark, Hicks picked up the gas hose that lay on the dock next to his feet, jammed an empty plastic bottle through the trigger to hold it open and slipped the hose nozzle through the anchor chock onto the foredeck of the boat. Then he let his gaze scan the length of the boat, looking for Birrell. When he saw the stern line made fast, Birrell stepped from the wheelhouse and glared down through the gloom at Hicks.

“Okay, asshole, what’s the story?”

Hicks climbed to the top of the service platform and jumped over the gunwale onto the deck. “It’s like they said in the paper, Mr. Birrell, the Chief of Police closed the mall down. Something to do with radon. Nobody’s here but us, and I had to sort of sneak around in order to get back here to meet you.” As Hicks talked, he made his way forward until he was standing just below Birrell.

“Nobody told you to come aboard, Hicks. Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Hicks shoved a hand into his pants pocket and looked up. “Gee, Mr. Birrell, it’s hard to talk from down here.”

Birrell made his way down the ladder to stand before Hicks with a scowl on his face. “The first thing I want you to do is get your ass off my boat. Then I want you to take me and Louis, here, to see this chicken shit Chief of Police. He’s going to open my mall up if I have to buy this fuckin’ rat hole of a town and fire the bastard.” He stopped, sniffed and looked around. Then he looked down. “What is this shit running all over the deck? Louis! Something’s leaking. It smells like…”