The Fiend (11 page)

T
he note was neatly printed in black ink:

 

Your daughter takes too dangerous risks with her deli­cate body. Children must be guarded against the cruel haz­ards of life and fed good, nourishing food so their bones will be padded. Also clothing. You should put plenty of clothing on her, keep arms and legs covered, etc. In the name of God please take better care of your little girl.

 

She stood for a minute, half paralyzed with shock. Then, when her blood began to flow again, she reread the note, more slowly and carefully. It didn't make sense. No one—not even Sheridan, who'd accused her of everything else—had ever ac­cused her of neglecting Mary Martha. She was well fed, well clothed, well supervised. She was, moreover, rather a timid child, not given to taking dangerous risks or risks of any kind unless challenged by Jessie.

Kate refolded the note and put it back in the envelope. She thought,
it can't be a mistake because it's addressed to me and my name's spelled correctly. Perhaps there's some religious crank in the neighborhood who's prejudiced against divorced women, but it hardly seems possible now that divorce is so common.

Only one thing was certain: the letter was an attack, and the person most likely to attack her was Sheridan.

She went out into the hall and telephoned Ralph MacPherson's office. “Mac, I hate to bother you again.”

“That's all right, Kate. Are you feeling better today?”

“I was, until the mail came. I just received an anonymous letter and I think I know who—”

“Don't think about it at all, Kate. Tear it up and forget it.”

“No, I want you to see it.”

“I've seen quite a few of them in my day,” Mac said. “They're all the same, sick and rotten.”

“I want you to see it,” she repeated, “because I'm pretty sure it's from Sheridan. If it is, he's further gone than I imagined. He may even be—well, committable.”

“That's a big word in these parts, Kate. Or in any parts, for that matter.”

“People are committed every day.”

“Not on the word of a disgruntled spouse. . . . All right. Bring the letter down to my office. I'll be here until I leave for court at 1:30.”

“Thank you, Mac. Thank you very much.”

She dressed hurriedly but with care, as if she were going to be put on exhibition in front of a lot of people, one of whom had written her the letter.

Before leaving the house she made sure all the windows and doors on the ground floor were locked, and when she had backed her car out of the garage she locked the garage doors behind her. She had nothing left to steal, but the locking habit had become fixed in her. She no longer thought of doors as things to open; doors were to close, to keep people out.

She usually handled her small car without thinking much about it, but now she drove as she had dressed, with great care, as though a pair of unfriendly eyes was watching her, ready to condemn her as an unfit mother if she made the slightest mis­take, a hand signal executed a little too slowly, a corner turned a little too fast.

She headed for the school playground, intending to tell the girls that she would be late picking them up. She had gone about three blocks when she stopped for a red light and saw, in the rear-view mirror, an old green coupe pull up behind her. Kate paid more attention to cars than most women, especially since she'd been living alone, and she recognized it instantly as the car she'd noticed parked outside her house the previous after­noon.

She tried to keep calm, the way Mac had told her to:
Don't jump to conclusions, Kate. If you thought Sheridan was driving that car, why didn't you go out and confront him, find out why he was there? If it happens again—

Well, it was happening again.

She opened the door and had one foot on the road when the light changed. The left lane was clear and the green coupé turned into it and shot past her with a grinding of gears. Its grimy windows were closed and she could see only that a man was behind the wheel. It was enough. Sheridan was following her. He may even have been waiting outside the house while the postman delivered his letter, eager to watch its effect on her. She thought,
Well, here it is, Sheridan, here's the effect.

She didn't hesitate even long enough to close the door. She pressed down on the accelerator and the door slammed shut with the sudden forward thrust of her car. For the next five min­utes she was not in conscious control either of herself or of the car. It was as though a devil were driving them both and he was responsible to no one and for no one; he owned the roads, let others use them at their own risk.

Up and down streets, around corners, through a parking lot, down an alley, she pursued the green coupé. Twice she was al­most close enough to force it over to the curb but each time it got away. She was not even aware of cars honking at her and people yelling at her until she ran a red light. Then she heard the shrieking of her own brakes as a truck appeared suddenly in front of her. Her head snapped forward until it pressed against the steering wheel. She sat in a kind of daze while the truck driver climbed out of the cab.

“For Chrissake, you drunk or something? That was a red light.”

“I didn't—see it.”

“Well, keep your eyes open next time. You damn near got yourself killed. You woulda spoiled my record, I got the best record in the company. How they expect a guy to keep his rec­ord with a lot of crazy women scooting around in kiddie cars?”

“Shut up,” she said. “Please shut up.”

“Well, well, now you're trying to get tough with me, eh? Lis­ten, lady, you'll be damn lucky if I don't report you for reckless driving, maybe drunk driving. You been drinking?”

“No.”

“They all say that. Where's your driver's license?”

“In my purse.”

“Get it out.”

“Please don't—”

“Lady, a near accident like this happens and I'm supposed to check on it, see? Maybe you've got some kind of restriction on your license, like you're to wear glasses when you're driving, or a hearing aid.”

She fumbled around in her purse until she found her wallet with her driver's license in it. On the license there was a little picture of her, taken the day she'd passed her test. She was smiling confidently and happily into the camera.

She saw the truck driver staring at the picture in disbelief. “This is you, lady?”

She wanted to reach out and strike him between the eyes, but instead she said, “It was taken three years ago. I've been— things have happened to me. When you lose weight, it always shows in the face, it makes you appear—well, older. I was try­ing to think of a nicer word for it but there isn't one, is there? More aged? That's no improvement. More ancient, decrepit? Worn out? Obsolete?”

“Lady, I didn't mean it like that,” he said, looking embar­rassed. “I mean—oh hell, let's get out of here.”

A crowd had begun to gather. The truck driver waved them away and climbed back into his cab. The green coupé had long since disappeared.

The two girls, on Mike's orders, were sitting on a bench in an area of the playground hidden from the street by an eight-foot oleander hedge. Mike was lying face down on the grass nearby, listening to a baseball game on a transistor radio. Every now and then he raised his head, consulted his wrist watch in an authori­tative manner, and gave the girls what was intended to be a hypnotic glance.

They had both been absolutely silent and motionless for seven minutes except for the occasional blink of an eye or twitch of a nose. Mike was beginning to worry about whether he actually had hypnotized them and how he was going to snap them out of it, when Jessie suddenly jumped off the bench.

“Oh, I hate this game! It's not even a
game,
seeing who can stay stillest the longest.”

“You're just sore because Mary Martha won,” Mike said air­ily. “I was betting she would. You can't keep your trap shut for two seconds.”

“I can if I want to.”

“Yackety yak.”

“Anyhow, I know why you're making us sit here.”

“O clever one, do tell.”

“So none of your buddies going past will see you baby-sitting. I heard you tell Daddy you'd never be able to hold up your head in public again if they saw you playing with two little girls. But Daddy said you had to play with us anyway. Or else.”

“Well, I wish I'd taken the
or else,”
Mike said in disgust. “Anything'd be better than looking after a pair of dimwitted kids who should be able to look after themselves.
I
didn't need a baby-sitter at your age.”

Jessie blushed, but the only place it showed was across the bridge of her nose where repeated sunburns had peeled off layers of skin. “I don't need one either except I've got sore hands.”

“You're breaking my heart with your itty bitty sore hands. Man, oh man, you get more mileage out of a couple of blisters than I could get from a broken neck.”

“If I won the game,” Mary Martha said wistfully, “may I move now? There's a bee on my arm and it tickles me.”

“So tickle it back,” Mike said and turned up the volume of the radio.

“My goodness, he's mean,” Mary Martha whispered behind her hand. “Was he born that way?”

“I've only known him for nine years, but he probably was.”

“Maybe some evil witch put a curse on him. Do you know any curses?”

“Just g-o-d-d-a-m, which I never say.”

“No, I mean real curses.” Mary Martha contorted her face until it looked reasonably witchlike. Then she spoke in a high eerie voice:

 

“Abracadabra,

Purple and green,

This little boy

Will grow up mean.”

 

“Did you just make that up?” Jessie asked.

“Yes.”

“It's very good.”

“I think so, too,” Mary Martha said modestly. “We could make up a whole bunch of them about all the people we hate. Who will we start with?”

“Uncle Howard.”

“I didn't know you hated your Uncle Howard.”

Jessie looked surprised, as if she hadn't known it herself until she heard her own voice say so. She stole a quick glance at Mike to see if he was listening, but he was engrossed in the ball game, his eyes closed. She said, “You won't ever tell anyone, will you?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die. Now let's start the curse. You go first.”

“No, you go first.”

Mary Martha assumed her witchlike face and voice:

 

“Abracadabra,

Yellow and brown,

Uncle Howard's the nastiest

Man in town.”

 

“I don't like that one very much,” Jessie said soberly.

“Why not?”

“Oh, I don't know. Let's play another game.”

From the street a horn began to blow, repeating a pattern of three short, two long.

“That's my mother,” Mary Martha said. “We'd better wake Mike up and tell him we're leaving.”

“I'm awake, you numbskull,” Mike said, opening his eyes and turning down the volume of the radio. Then he looked at his watch. “It's only a quarter after twelve. She's not supposed to be here until one.” He rolled over on his back and got up. “Well, who am I to argue with good fortune? Come on, little darlings. Off to the launching pad.”

“You don't have to come with us,” Jessie said.

“No kidding? You mean you can actually walk out of here without breaking both your legs? I don't believe it. Show me.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Yes, you shut up,” Mary Martha added loyally.

The two girls went out through the stone arch, arm in arm, as if to show their solidarity against the enemy.

Mike waited a couple of minutes before following them. He saw Mrs. Oakley standing on the curb talking to them, then Mary Martha and her mother got into the car and Jessie turned and walked back to the playground, alone. She was holding her head high and her face was carefully and deliberately blank.

Mike said, “What's the matter?”

“We're not going to the Museum today.”

“Why not?”

“Mrs. Oakley has some errands to do in town. Mary Martha didn't want to go along but she had to.”

“Why?”

“Mrs. Oakley won't leave her at the playground alone anymore.”

“What does she mean, alone?” Mike said, scowling. “
I'm
here.”

“I guess she meant without a grownup.”

“For Pete's sake, what does she think I am? A two-year-old child? Man, oh man, women sure are hard to figure. . . . Well, come on, no use hanging around here anymore. Let's go home.”