Genesis of Evil (4 page)

Zoltan stayed home for three days. He fumed and seethed and wondered what to do. The problem revolved around the fact that no one could swear that the mall designs were Zoltan’s. Nobody had seen them except Arthur Konig, and he was in the hospital with a stroke. Zoltan doubted that Arthur would confront Winston in any case, blood being thicker than water. Zoltan didn’t know that Arthur would toss Winston out on his ear if he learned of the theft.

On the night of Zoltan’s third day away from the job, Bertuska came to him in a dream.

“Zoltan, My Son, you have been wronged,” she said, wringing her hands. “But there is a way you can extract retribution. You have forgotten the suitcase. Go to it. Look in it. Your answer is there. I love you, My Son.”

Zoltan sat straight up in bed. The sheets were soaked with sweat. His mother’s words meant nothing at first, but then he remembered the suitcase he and his mother had carried all the way from Romania. He climbed from bed and went to a rear bedroom where the suitcase lay on a shelf in the closet. He took it down, opened it and started to rummage through the contents. At the bottom, beneath some doilies and school papers, lay the book.

The cover had almost disintegrated and the pages were brittle. It was written in the ancient script of the Romanian language. Zoltan took it to the kitchen, made a pot of coffee and settled in to try and recall his mother tongue.

When the sun broke through a thick morning mist Zoltan knew the history of the Malesciu Clan. He understood for the first time what he really was. More important, he knew how to extract his revenge.

Chapter Five

Orlando, Florida — 1954

Virginia Chalfont Morgan was born into a family that made church mice look well to do. Her great grandfather on her mother’s side, Leland Ripley Chalfont III was born with a gift of gab and the ability to sell bicycles to fish. Unfortunately, he left school after the third grade and never acquired the knowledge of arithmetic necessary to hang on to any of the three or four fortunes he made during his lifetime. In fact, there was barely enough money left over from the last one to put him in the ground. The family couldn’t forget, however, that there had been money at one time, a great deal of it. So the descendants of old Leland Ripley spent most of their waking moments bemoaning their fate and trying to invent ways to rebuild the fortune.

By the time Virginia’s mother, Celeste, found someone to marry, the long line of Chalfont kin was growing thin in more ways than one. But Celeste was clever enough to realize that the easy way to get money was to marry it. So she set about seducing Andrew Morgan, of the Orlando Morgans, with an eye toward getting a leg up, so to speak, on the competition. It turned out to be an easier task than she had imagined. Young Andrew had the brains of a golf ball after thirty-six holes. There was one thing, however, that Celeste didn’t know about Andrew.

By the time little Virginia was four years old Andrew had pissed away 4.8 million dollars worth of trust fund. Most of it had gone to support the dog track. The rest disappeared into the pockets of a guy called One-Eye Jack Spiranti who spent his nights down on Colonial Drive. When One-Eye wasn’t sitting in his Cadillac Eldorado he could be found in a phone booth talking to folks long distance, most of whom were in Reno or Las Vegas.

When Andrew realized he had run out of funds he appealed to Daddy for a bit of help. But Daddy wasn’t about to turn loose any more loot, which was sure to follow the first batch down the same rat hole. In consideration of Celeste and little Virginia, however, Daddy offered Andrew a job in one of the family businesses with the stipulation that Andrew had to start the same way Daddy did. At the bottom.

What the hell, Andrew thought, a guy has to eat.

Celeste, instead of attending cotillions and soirees, found herself working at the keyboard of a super market cash register while Andrew tried to learn the intricacies of a pneumatic screw gun on the assembly line at the Ezi-Slide Window and Siding Company. It didn’t take Andrew long to realize that he had reached the pinnacle of his success. That’s when he found a new hobby—alcohol.

Celeste finally divorced Andrew after trying to cope with him for the better part of ten years. Once the smoke settled and the alcohol fumes dissipated, Celeste discovered to her surprise that she and Virginia were much better off now that they weren’t supporting a lush.

When Virginia graduated from high school she received a grant to attend Orlando Junior College. That’s what she was doing when she met Patrolman Gerhart Kable.

Gerhart Kable was celebrating his second year with the Orlando Police Department. It was almost 1:00 A.M. when the old Mustang pulled up next to Gerhart’s cruiser at a stop light on 431. Gerhart wouldn’t have paid any attention to it had the driver not leaned out the window and ejected several pints of foul-smelling liquid all over Gerhart’s right front fender. Gerhart watched the offender for a moment then flipped on the roof mounted flashers, climbed out of his car and walked around to the Mustang where the driver still sat with his head hanging out of the window and his tongue hanging out of his mouth.

“Pardon me,” Gerhart said courteously, “would you mind stepping out of your car? That is, of course, if you can find the ground.”

The blond lad looked up at Gerhart with bloodshot eyes, nodded slightly and retched once more. Fortunately, Gerhart was fast enough to save his shoes and trousers. While the Mustang’s driver fumbled his way out of the car Gerhart bent down and looked in the back window. There were four more boys and three girls in what was, essentially, a four-passenger motorcar. Gerhart raised his eyebrows, then called for another car and a tow truck. The police hauled the whole bunch, all Junior College students, down to the station. The next half hour was spent separating the drunks from the rest of them. Only a girl named Virginia Morgan and a boy named Elias Hutchenson passed the Breathalyzer test. Gerhart was convinced that both of the students were victims of circumstance, so he hauled them home and forgot the incident.

Elwood “Bubba” Jinks came home early from the graveyard shift at Tokiko Electronics. He had eaten four Super Burritos from the machine in the cafeteria an hour before and felt as if his internal machinery had burst into flame. When he swung his old Thunderbird into the driveway he came within inches of running into a Dodge Ramcharger that sat in the shadows next to his house. Elwood “Bubba” Jinks didn’t know anybody that owned a Dodge Ramcharger. Rumbling guts temporarily forgotten he climbed silently from the Thunderbird and slid into the house like a June bug through a goose. A sliver of light was visible beneath the closed bedroom door. Elwood tiptoed up to it and threw it wide open. His wife and, presumably, the Ramcharger’s owner were experimenting with a position Elwood had heretofore considered impossible.

Elwood, who had never been wrapped too tightly anyway, yanked a .45 automatic out of a dresser drawer and began shooting holes in whatever got in front of him, one of which was his wife. The terrified paramour, wishing he had stayed at home to watch the football game, yanked the sheet from the bed, spinning Elwood’s injured wife to the floor in the process, wrapped himself in it and dived head first through the closed window. Elwood riddled the casing with bullet holes as the paramour disappeared through the broken glass into the darkness. As he tried to start his Ramcharger and figure out how to get around Elwood’s Thunderbird, Elwood burst through the front door, dashed up to the truck window, stuck the muzzle of the .45 into the paramour’s ear and jerked the trigger.

The hammer dropped on an empty chamber, Elwood screamed with fury and the terrified paramour urinated on his truck seat.

Elwood and the hapless lover were still rolling fruitlessly about on the grass when the first police cruiser howled to a stop with both front wheels in Mrs. Jinks’ flowerbed. It took four cops the better part of five minutes to get the cuffs on Elwood. Ambulances took away both Mrs. Jinks and her lover, neither of whom were in any serious danger thanks to Elwood’s inability to do hardly anything with any degree of competence.

Gerhart Kable finished stuffing Elwood into a cruiser and turned to find himself face to face with Virginia Morgan, who had crossed the street for a closer view of the proceedings. When she heard the shots she looked out the window, saw the Ramcharger and the rusty old Thunderbird in the Jinks’ driveway and knew immediately what was going on. A week or so before she had witnessed the Ramcharger rocking in the driveway and feared it would roll over onto one of the door handles if the participants didn’t ease up a bit.

Virginia smiled at Gerhart and jerked a thumb in the direction of the departing cruiser containing Elwood “Bubba” Jinks.

“I would guess that Mr. Jinks is in deep trouble.”

Gerhart nodded and grinned. “You know them very well?”

“Just to say hello. They aren’t the kind of folks you invite over for tea and cheesecake.”

“I see.” It finally dawned on him why she looked familiar. “Have you been keeping your own nose clean?”

“Yep. One trip to the police station is enough for a lifetime.” She shifted from one foot to the other and looked Gerhart over carefully. Now that she was under no stress, Virginia noticed how Gerhart’s nose wrinkled when he smiled. “Uhm, would you like a cup of coffee, or something?” she inquired, looking up from beneath lowered eyelids.

Gerhart glanced at his watch, then back at the girl. “Tell you what. I’ve got a break coming in a half hour. If the offer will stand that long I’ll take you up on it.”

Virginia smiled brightly and nodded.

The courtship lasted nearly three years. Virginia’s mother was dead set against the match.
 

“Listen,” Celeste said to her daughter, “there is no money in being a policeman. At least no honest money. You are going to starve to death in an unfurnished mobile home.”

Virginia, overcome with youthful optimism, wasn’t to be deterred from her goal. “Mama, money isn’t everything. That’s all you think about. You can’t get over Granddad losing it all. It’s my life. Gerhart and I are getting married. Being a patrolman is only temporary. Before long he’ll make detective. Then, who knows? Somebody has to be the Police Commissioner. And they don’t starve to death in unfurnished mobile homes.”

“Police Commissioners are normally elected or appointed,” said Celeste, who had read up on the subject. “They aren’t promoted from patrolman.”

“Being married to a policeman is better than being married to a drunk like Daddy,” Virginia sniffed.

Both mothers attended the wedding. Virginia’s father, Andrew, was not to be found. He had been last seen almost a year earlier wandering down Orange Blossom Trail with a brown paper bag in one hand, whistling at the hookers.

Virginia’s Uncle Seymour gave her away. Celeste smiled at the right times during the ceremony and reception, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. The new couple left the next morning for a three-day honeymoon in the Bahamas. It took all of Gerhart’s savings but he thought Virginia was worth it.

Gerhart was with the Orlando Police eight years before he was offered detective. When he told Virginia he was going to turn it down, she went off like a cheap firecracker.

“What’s wrong with you?” she yelled. “Don’t you have any ambition?”

Gerhart couldn’t understand why she was so angry. “Look, you knew I was a street cop when we got married. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, when you start out. Jesus, you don’t want to stay a street cop forever, do you?”

“Actually, I do. Most of the detectives I know wish they had stayed on the street. Generally, it’s boring work. It’s not like Starsky and Hutch on television. That’s a cop show for the brain dead, anyway.”

“Patrolman is a dead-end job. Do you want to spend your life in a rut?”

“It’s what I like doing, Virginia. What’s wrong with working at what you enjoy?”

She spent the next hour explaining why enjoying one’s work was irrelevant. She said it was selfish to stay in a dangerous job. He explained that detecting was not any safer than patrolling. He told her that he was proud to be a buffer between the everyday slimeballs and the honest citizens. She pointed out that for every slimeball he nabbed, there were probably a hundred still walking around loose.

Gerhart couldn’t cope with Virginia. When he returned to the station the next morning he accepted the position. Virginia was ecstatic and spent the afternoon calling all of her friends and relatives. Gerhart resigned himself to being bored most of the time. Actually, it turned out to be only about half of the time, but he regretted the move anyway.

During the five years Gerhart spent as a detective he considered, at various times, taking an ICS course in hotel management, joining the Marines, investing in a chicken farm and once, at 3:00 A.M., sending Virginia back home to Mother. One Sunday morning, while scanning the classified section, a sidebar ad leaped off the page and smacked him between the eyes. First, he went to look at a map. That Monday he made a phone call to an acquaintance who ran an employment agency. Gerhart’s resume and a cover letter were finished on Wednesday. Gerhart sent them off and then wondered, too late, if he had done the right thing.

Two weeks later, when he walked in the door after work, Virginia snatched something from the kitchen counter and held it behind her back.