Meeting Evil (21 page)

Tim was enthusiastic. “You don’t have to pay me. We could shoot skeet if you’d bring a trap and the clay pigeons. Bird season hasn’t opened yet.”

John remembered the boy’s age. “If it’s okay with your mother.”

“Do you know,” said Sharon, “he refused to say anything to the police unless they promised not to tell his mother until after she got out of class?”

Tim explained. “She’s studying accounting at night school. It’s tough enough as it is: she’s pretty old to have to go back to school. I left a note if I don’t get back by the time she comes home.”

“That will only worry her more,” Sharon chided. “Can’t you see that?”

John played the father’s mediating role. “Maybe he’ll get back in time.” He smiled at Tim. “If not—” But Lang returned at that moment.

The detective appeared to be smiling under his brushy mustache. “John, you’ll be happy to know everybody’s okay at your house. The patrolman went to the door and talked to your wife. She and the kids are just fine.”

John expelled his breath and squeezed Sharon’s hand.

“Furthermore,” Lang added, briskly reclaiming his chair, “it might settle your mind to know we’re keeping an unmarked car in the neighborhood until Maranville is apprehended. We don’t think he’ll head there, but in view of what he told you, we’re taking no chances. Now, when we’re finished here, we’ll give you a lift home.”

“All right,” said John. “Let’s get this over with as soon as possible. My wife’s been alone all day. I haven’t even been able to reach her by phone for hours.”

“You’ll be glad to hear somebody’s with her there now,” Lang said smugly. “A business associate.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Did you get the name?”

“Patrolman didn’t pass that on,” said Lang, manipulating his machine.

Could it be Tess, or Miriam? Nice of them. Until Chief Marcovici’s reference to those “fine ladies,” John had not
been aware of their alleged high opinion of him. He had not made a sale in several months, and Miriam, who handled the money, had recently not been eager to advance him more funds. She liked him better than Tess did. Tess was the married partner. Miriam had been divorced many years before. In his opinion she was more attractive in personality than Tess. John was the only man currently working with Tesmir. He had no special feeling about female as opposed to male bosses, unless it would be that he preferred the former. He had always got on better with his mother than with his father. His father had worked on straight salary for almost thirty years in the payroll department of Bickford Industries before dying suddenly of a heart attack. John had never come close to satisfying him. He had not made the football team in college, nor studied law or medicine, nor even finished school.

When he got out of this thing that had consumed his entire day and called into question, in the most basic way, what he was or was not, John determined to get hold of himself and take a hard look at which opportunities might be available to him. He was still young. It was not out of the question that he go back to school and get whatever credits separated him from a degree. Should not be too many; he had put in three years, more or less. Probably have to do it nights, which would take longer than full-time, but so what? Meanwhile, maybe the real-estate market would pick up again. He could sell houses if buyers were available; he had proved that. He was especially good with the wives. Women, married women anyway, still trusted male salespeople, at least in his experience. What they wanted was someone who would demonstrate an authoritative concern for their interests, which nowadays were not confined to kitchen, nursery, and home laundry. You could and in fact
certainly should address them on electrical, heating, and plumbing matters. They would be flattered in any event, but in point of fact some were more knowledgeable in these areas than their husbands (Joanie was a better driver than he, knew more about automobiles), and all were much less likely to be competitive on such subjects with a male agent, even when, as sometimes happened, they were really better versed than John about heat pumps and bringing the circuits up to code.

He now told Detective Lang every detail he could remember of his day with and without Richie. Ironically, he recognized that he had himself performed better in Richie’s presence than when he had gone off on his own. The episode at the farm, in which his role had been so sorry before Richie and Sharon appeared, might well not have happened at all had he stayed with the car, in leaving which, abandoning Sharon, he had surrendered to feelings of selfish impatience. He had simply walked away from a situation with which he was fed up. That had been wrong at the time and got no better in retrospect.

“I did some foolish things due to panic,” he told Lang. “I thought that man was really going to shoot me. That’s why I took his gun away from him.”

“The shotgun’s been recovered,” Lang said. “Maranville left it behind when he abandoned the Smithtown cruiser.”

Tim spoke up in his eager voice. “You lucked out. It had a custom stock. It looked like big bucks.”

“Yeah,” said the detective, winking at Tim. He switched the tape recorder off. “English. Owner valued it at eight grand, though between you and I”—he was speaking to John now—“people sometimes exaggerate for the insurance claim.
Eight
thousand?”

“Handmade!” said Tim. “They can go higher than that.”

“Not with me they don’t,” said Lang, switching the machine on again.

“That’s one relief, then,” said John. “I don’t have eight thousand dollars. I haven’t got eight hundred.” At another time he might have been embarrassed to make this confession into a tape recorder, but he had the wonderful warm feeling that he was among friends here. His emotions had gone into a very vulnerable state, no doubt as an aftereffect of his ordeal with Richie, which seemed more harrowing in retrospect than when in progress. Perhaps this was the routine interpretation, but he suspected that all clichés having to do with extreme situations are true and therefore remain eloquent to the participants.

“Yes,” said Lang. “Haverford’s not going to press charges. He’ll get his gun back.”

“That’s his name?” John asked. “I didn’t even know it. I probably couldn’t even find his house again.” He stared at the detective. “It’s crazy. Nothing like this ever happened to me before.”

Lang shut the machine off again and said, with understanding, “John, that’s the way it goes with a lot of people we meet in our line of work. We get more solid citizens than bad guys, you know. And thank God, huh? You did just fine. Nobody expects you to be experienced in these things. Because how would you be unless you were one of the villains, right?” He added, with obvious pride, “Or an officer of the law.”

Sharon spoke up. “John pulled us out of some tight corners. I already told you that, but I want to make it extra clear.”

John said quickly, “Enough has been made of that. I just hope you can catch Richie soon, before he does any more damage to the human race.”

“I’d like to see you kill him!” Sharon cried.

Lang was wry. “You can be assured we’ll do everything we can to see his civil rights are protected, even if the lives of police officers are at risk. We’ll wrap him in cotton wadding and take him in so he can be sent back to Barnes Psychiatric, to be treated at taxpayers’ expense till they let him out again.”

This kind of cynicism was familiar from television crime shows, and in the past John had become bored with it. Whether or not it was justified, chronic exasperation was simply tiresome, at least in John’s existence. He might be changing now, but he did not want to dwell on the matter. He just wanted to go home.

“That’s really all I can recall,” he told Lang, nodding at the tape machine. “If I think of anything else, I can phone you, can’t I?”

“Just a couple more things, if you don’t mind, John.” Lang proceeded to ask what turned out to be a whole series of further questions, some of which John believed he had already answered. Eventually he had had enough, and he stood up.

“That’s it. I’m going home.”

“John, you’ve been very helpful,” said Lang. “I’ll get a car to give you a ride back, and you, too, Sharon.” He rose and smiled down at the boy. “Tim, Smithtown’s sending an officer for you, and your mom will be with him.”

“I just hope,” Tim said disapprovingly, “you didn’t drag her out of class.”

Lang did not respond to this. He said to John, “This is a young fellow who’s going to do all right in life, wouldn’t you say?”

John still felt shy with Tim. “Maybe we could go into the city and see a ballgame sometime,” he told the boy. “Or
whatever you like to do for fun.” He felt inept. He had been a boy himself, but at the moment could not remember what he had liked at that age. He was weary now, and it had been so long ago.

“Sure,” Tim said, and then he asked if there was time for him to have a look at the radio-dispatching room before his mother arrived.

“Bye, Tim,” Sharon said gaily as Lang led the boy out. “Keep in touch, huh?” She turned to John. “I don’t want to get you in trouble at home, so I won’t say the same to you.” She had not had time to refresh the heavy makeup, which by now was the worse for wear, but she had naturally fine brown eyes.

“I misjudged you,” John said. “I want you to know that.”

Sharon showed a brief expression of chagrin. “Yeah,” she said, “I came on to you after the car accident. I panicked. I can’t get to work without driving, see, and I just had that learner’s permit, which isn’t legal without a licensed driver in the car. My old man went away, too, like Tim’s father. I don’t know how to do anything but cocktail-waitressing, which doesn’t take any talent, at least where I work. Just legs and a butt that doesn’t look too bad in the little outfit they give you to wear.”

“You have any kids?”

“No, and that’s good, the way things have gone so far.”

John was suddenly in danger of being overcome with emotion. He already loved her as a loyal comrade in conditions of danger, as cops are said to love their partners, but at the moment this feeling had become a passion: he adored her, and all the more so for how she looked, with her unkempt red hair and her clothes so touchingly bedraggled. Now that he had received reassuring news about his wife
and family, to whom he was connected by duty, he had an impulse to run away with Sharon. Part of this was not desire but rather a need to atone for what, despite her asseverations to the contrary, he stubbornly considered to be his failures as a man.

“I really want to keep in touch,” he said. “Would you mind if I dropped in at the cocktail lounge…?”

“You stay home, John,” Sharon said, patting his arm maternally. “There’s nothing better in all the world.” She snorted. “I’m a real authority on that subject, because I haven’t got one.… I didn’t tell you the whole truth. My husband didn’t run away. He’s in federal prison. He tried to drive across the border with a spare tire full of cocaine.”

In his current state, John was not as shocked by the information as he knew Sharon expected him to be. “That’s your private business,” he said. “You’re a wonderful woman. I wasn’t suggesting anything illicit. I’d just like to know from time to time how you’re getting along.” This was a necessary lie, for actually he was profoundly in love with her at this moment, in a way he suspected she would not find to her liking. Like Richie, what she approved of in him was the husband, the father, the householder, the drone, the nontaker of risks because he could not jeopardize those and that for which he was responsible. What a convenient moral armor enveloped him!

Sharon smiled slowly. “Naw, John. Better we shake hands and go our separate ways. I hope we don’t even meet at the trial, because I’m hoping the cops kill that bastard this time.”

John nodded, but he did not want to think about that subject right now. He and she had been comrades. Surely that meant as much to her, if she would admit it, as it did to him. Tim too was a part of it. They might all go together to
some sporting event, as a team, which would neutralize any hint of impropriety.

At this point Lang returned, without Tim. “Okay, folks. The DA’s people will want to talk to you both once Maranville is caught, I know. But let’s get you both home safe and sound right now.”

“Tim’s mother get here?” John asked.

“On her way. Sounds like a nice lady on the phone. Good people out there. My wife and I have been thinking of moving out in that direction. Fresh air, and I believe prices are a lot lower.”

John was brought back momentarily to professional normality. “They are, in fact. Home prices run a good fifteen-twenty percent under what they are in town here. I’m in local real estate.”

Lang smiled down from his greater height. “Sure. Think you could find us something I could afford on a cop’s income?”

“I could locate some agent for you in the Smithtown area. We all belong to associations.”

“Anything around here would do even better, though,” Lang said. “If the price is right. I’d
rather
be closer to work if I could, and my wife teaches at Midvale Avenue Elementary.”

“I’ll get onto it soon as I return to the office,” said John. “You can never tell. Every so often a bargain comes along. Maybe a fixer-upper?”

“Worth considering,” said Lang. “Appreciate it.” He led them along a corridor and down a stairway and through a side door to a green-and-white police car waiting at the curb.

Sharon had the shorter distance to travel, so John climbed in first. Before closing the door, Detective Lang leaned in.
“John, don’t you worry about Maranville. We’ll keep that car in the neighborhood, not right in front of your house, because he might see it and take off, but it’ll be close by.”

For the first time John thought of the possibility that the same threat might apply to Sharon. He asked her, “Don’t you want protection, too? Think he knows where you live?”

“Naw.” She waved Lang off, and when he was gone, she whispered into John’s ear, “I got a gun at home. I’m just praying he shows up!”

The uniformed officer at the wheel turned and spoke through the steel-mesh barrier between front and back seats, which distinguished this car from that of the state troopers. He introduced himself as Patrolman Cardone. “Sorry about the screen.” He tapped it. “It’s the only unit free right now. We have had a lot of crime already, and the night is just starting.”