Penzler, Otto Ed v2

by Murder For Revenge

  MURDER FOR REVENGE

  Edited by

  OTTO PENZLER (ed)

  ORION

  An Orion paperback

  First published in Great Britain by Orion in 1999 This paperback edition published in 2000 by Orion Books Ltd, Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin’s Lane, London WC2H 9EA

  Copyright © Otto Penzler 1998

  The right of Otto Penzler to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Like a Bone in the Throat’ by Lawrence Block © 1998 by Lawrence Block

  Power Play’ by Mary Higgins Clark © 1998 by Mary Higgins Clark

  Fatherhood’ by Thomas H. Cook © 1998 by Thomas H. Cook

  West End’ by Vicki Hendricks © 1998 by Vicki Hendricks

  Caveat Emptor’ by Joan Hess © 1998 by Joan Hess

  Eradicum Homo Horribilus’ by Judith Kelman © 1998 by Judith Kelman

  Dead Cat Bounce’ by Eric Von Lustbader © 1998 by Eric Von Lustbader

  Angle’s Delight’ by Phillip Margolin © 1998 by Phillip Margolin

  Front Man” by David Morrell © 1998 by David Morrell

  Murder-Two’ by Joyce Carol Oates © 1998 by the Ontario Review Press

  The Enemy’ by Shel Silverstein © 1998 by Shel Silverstein

  Mr Clubb and Mr Cuff by Peter Straub © 1998 by Peter Straub

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 0 75283 439 8

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

  ABEB/Bookz v2.0

  Contents

  INTRODUCTION by Otto Penzler

  LIKE A BONE IN THE THROAT by Lawrence Block

  POWER PLAY by Mary Higgins Clark

  FATHERHOOD by Thomas H. Cook

  WEST END by Vicki Hendricks

  CAVEAT EMPTOR by Joan Hess

  ERADICUM HOMO HORRIBILUS by Judith Kelman

  DEAD CAT BOUNCE by Eric Lustbader

  ANGIE’S DELIGHT by Phillip Margolin

  FRONT MAN by David Morrell

  MURDER-Two by Joyce Carol Oates

  THE ENEMY by Shel Silverstein

  MR. CLUBB AND MR. CUFF by Peter Straub

  Introduction, by Otto Penzler

  Is there a more human emotion than revenge? In fact, does any other life-form known to us engage in revenge, or even consider it?

  Animals kill other animals for food, or self-defence, or for power, for rank within the community. But for revenge? No.

  Humans, on the other hand, have engaged in this activity through all of recorded history. There have been many motivations for seeking revenge—political and financial, for example—but it is unlikely that any desire for revenge has been more frequently dragged from the centre of a person’s soul than the anguish of lost love.

  Whether that love is taken away by a decision of the beloved or surreptitiously stolen by a rival lover, or heinously and permanently erased by a murderer of that love object, the passion for revenge springs readily into the heart to avenge that greatest of all losses. Power and money can often be acquired anew, but a lost love is almost always gone forever, and the frustration of that stolen joy may easily suggest the notion of vengeance.

  Now, it is common for good and gentle people to whisper calmly that such thoughts should be banished from the mind. What good, they ask, can come of it? Seeking vengeance cannot return the lost, stolen, diminished, or vanished object of desire.

  True, of course, else animals would certainly engage in acts of vengeance to retrieve their slaughtered pups or chicks or whatever their dead and consumed offspring are called. Mates of those once beloved that have served as meals for their predators would surely find a way to avenge their grief if they instinctively knew it would serve a useful purpose. But that is a pragmatist’s view of revenge and has no bearing on this matter.

  As there are levels of all emotions, so there are levels of revenge and the desire—indeed, the need—for it. We are not concerned here with the hard foul on a basketball court that requires an even harder foul at the opposite end of the court. This book isn’t about a petty slight that inspires an immediate response of an equally trivial nature.

  No, here we are dealing with wrongs of such magnitude that the heart fills with bile and hatred until it overflows. Such venomous fury cannot be controlled and the only suitable response is the most extreme that a man or woman can deliver: murder, or perhaps more accurately, death, because it is possible that revenge is proper and necessary and the word murder hints strongly at wrongdoing.

  The tricky part of being a single force of policeman, judge, jury, and executioner is the lack of checks and balances. There is no voice of reason, no softening influence of distance, no notion of charity. When the white-hot lava of hate spews out of the heart, the injured has no focus beyond revenge and is blind to any other consideration.

  “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” Well, it’s a pretty clear thought and it glows like the brightest neon on the brain of the avenger. There are some, of course, who recall that this was said (or at least quoted as having been said) by the Lord, not by an out-of-control, grief-consumed human being who may not be best able to plot the most appropriate course of action.

  Murder for Revenge offers different points of view. Some stories suggest (well, no, actually they shout) that revenge inevitably doubles back to the vengeful, causing greater harm than the initial injury. Other authors illustrate the comfort and justice that can be derived from unleashing the tethered rage of the innocent victim. And some even suggest that there’s something to be said for going either way, neither way being flawless; some might say this approach is kind of wimpy, but it’s pretty much the way the world works, if you ask me.

  But see for yourself the many nuances of revenge offered in this wonderful (I can say that because I didn’t write it) book. Shel Silverstein’s story/poem/tale/fable/whatever is not unlike John Dickson Carr’s locked-room lecture, in which he offers more varieties of a solution to a complex problem than most people dare dream about. Peter Straub became so mesmerized with the endlessly delicious possibilities of revenge that his short story stretched into a memorable novella. Thomas H. Cook said he hadn’t written a short story in such a long time that he didn’t know if he could even do it again and, within fifteen minutes of nonstop eating, drinking, and talking, came up with the extraordinary little gem that awaits you. David Morrell said he had just finished a story that was based on a real-life figure, causing him such outrage that he had to write it as a piece of fiction to free himself from the anger that injustice instils in some.

  However you feel about revenge, you will find a story in these pages that will support your view, and another that will make you blink and reconsider. It is a tribute to the strength of this visceral emotion that it has produced such powerful evocations of a fundamental human passion.

  Otto Penzler

  Lawrence Block

  Rapidly becoming one of the most honoured authors in America, Lawrence Block has accomplished a rare trifecta. He is equally admired by critics, readers, and his fellow mystery writers. Men like his work, women like his work, American readers like his work, readers around the world like his work. He writes tough hard-boiled novels about Matthew Scudder that have legions of fans. He writes comedic soft-boiled novels about Bernie Rhodenbarr that have legions of fans. Can the man do no wrong?

  Well, no. Stephen King once called him the
only worthy successor to John D. MacDonald, and Matt Scudder the only worthy successor to Travis McGee, which is pretty good company. Irritatingly, he is also a very fast writer, though he hates to admit it.

  When he was very young (not really that long ago), he wrote a full-length novel starting on Friday night to meet a Monday deadline. He casually mentioned once that he was going to a retreat for a month to write his next novel. I asked how it was possible to write a book that fast. His friend Donald Westlake said the biggest problem was what he would do to occupy the last two weeks.

  Block wrote one of the half-dozen best mystery short stories of the past decade, ‘By the Dawn’s Early Light,’ and the following suspense story is a worthy successor.

  Like a Bone in the Throat

  Throughout the trial Paul Dandridge did the same thing every day. He wore a suit and tie, and he occupied a seat toward the front of the courtroom, and his eyes, time and time again, returned to the man who had killed his sister.

  He was never called upon to testify. The facts were virtually undisputed, the evidence overwhelming. The defendant, William Charles Croydon, had abducted Dandridge’s sister at knifepoint as she walked from the college library to her off-campus apartment. He had taken her to an isolated and rather primitive cabin in the woods, where he had subjected her to repeated sexual assaults over a period of three days, at the conclusion of which he had caused her death—by manual strangulation.

  Croydon took the stand in his own defence. He was a handsome young man who’d spent his thirtieth birthday in a jail cell awaiting trial, and his preppy good looks had already brought him letters and photographs and even a few marriage proposals from women of all ages. (Paul Dandridge was twenty-seven at the time. His sister, Karen, had been twenty when she died. The trial ended just weeks before her twenty-first birthday.)

  On the stand, William Croydon claimed that he had no recollection of choking the life out of Karen Dandridge, but allowed as how he had no choice but to believe he’d done it. According to his testimony, the young woman had willingly accompanied him to the remote cabin, and had been an enthusiastic sexual partner with a penchant for rough sex. She had also supplied some particularly strong marijuana with hallucinogenic properties and had insisted that he smoke it with her. At one point, after indulging heavily in the unfamiliar drug, he had lost consciousness and awakened later to find his partner beside him, dead.

  His first thought, he’d told the court, was that someone had broken into the cabin while he was sleeping, had killed Karen, and might return to kill him. Accordingly he’d panicked and rushed out of there, abandoning Karen’s corpse. Now, faced with all the evidence arrayed against him, he was compelled to believe he had somehow committed this awful crime, although he had no recollection of it whatsoever, and although it was utterly foreign to his nature.

  The district attorney, prosecuting this case himself, tore Croydon apart on cross-examination. He cited the bite marks on the victim’s breasts, the rope burns indicating prolonged restraint, the steps Croydon had taken in an attempt to conceal his presence in the cabin. “You must be right,” Croydon would admit, with a shrug and a sad smile. “All I can say is that I don’t remember any of it.”

  The jury was eleven to one for conviction right from the jump, but it took six hours to make it unanimous. Mr. Foreman, have you reached a verdict? We have, Your Honor. On the sole count of the indictment, murder in the first degree, how do you find? We find the defendant, William Charles Croydon, guilty.

  One woman cried out. A couple of others sobbed. The DA accepted congratulations. The defence attorney put an arm around his client. Paul Dandridge, his jaw set, looked at Croydon.

  Their eyes met, and Paul Dandridge tried to read the expression in the killer’s eyes. But he couldn’t make it out.

  Two weeks later, at the sentencing hearing, Paul Dandridge got to testify.

  He talked about his sister, and what a wonderful person she had been. He spoke of the brilliance of her intellect, the gentleness of her spirit, the promise of her young life. He spoke of the effect of her death upon him. They had lost both parents, he told the court, and Karen was all the family he’d had in the world. And now she was gone. In order for his sister to rest in peace, and in order for him to get on with his own life, he urged that her murderer be sentenced to death.

  Croydon’s attorney argued that the case did not meet the criteria for the death penalty, that while his client possessed a criminal record he had never been charged with a crime remotely of this nature, and that the rough-sex-and-drugs defence carried a strong implication of mitigating circumstances. Even if the jury had rejected the defence, surely the defendant ought to be spared the ultimate penalty, and justice would be best served if he were sentenced to life in prison.

  The DA pushed hard for the death penalty, contending that the rough-sex defence was the cynical last-ditch stand of a remorseless killer, and that the jury had rightly seen that it was wholly without merit. Although her killer might well have taken drugs, there was no forensic evidence to indicate that Karen Dandridge herself had been under the influence of anything other than a powerful and ruthless murderer. Karen Dandridge needed to be avenged, he maintained, and society needed to be assured that her killer would never, ever, be able to do it again.

  Paul Dandridge was looking at Croydon when the judge pronounced the sentence, hoping to see something in those cold blue eyes. But as the words were spoken—death by lethal injection—there was nothing for Paul to see. Croydon closed his eyes.

  When he Opened them a moment later, there was no expression to be seen in them.

  They made you fairly comfortable on Death Row. Which was just as well, because in this state you could sit there for a long time. A guy serving a life sentence could make parole and be out on the street in a lot less time than a guy on Death Row could run out of appeals. In that joint alone, there were four men with more than ten years apiece on Death Row, and one who was closing in on twenty.

  One of the things they’d let Billy Croydon have was a typewriter. He’d never learned to type properly, the way they taught you in typing class, but he was writing enough these days so that he was getting pretty good at it, just using two fingers on each hand. He wrote letters to his lawyer, and he wrote letters to the women who wrote to him. It wasn’t too hard to keep them writing, but the trick lay in getting them to do what he wanted. They wrote plenty of letters, but he wanted them to write really hot letters, describing in detail what they’d done with other guys in the past, and what they’d do if by some miracle they could be in his cell with him now.

  They sent pictures, too, and some of them were good looking and some of them were not. “That’s a great picture,” he would write back, “but I wish I had one that showed more of your physical beauty.” It turned out to be surprisingly easy to get most of them to send increasingly revealing pictures. Before long he had them buying Polaroid cameras with timers and posing in obedience to his elaborate instructions. They’d do anything, the bitches, and he was sure they got off on it too.

  Today, though, he didn’t feel like writing to any of them. He rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter and looked at it, and the image that came to him was the grim face of that hard-ass brother of Karen Dandridge’s. What was his name, anyway? Paul, wasn’t it?

  “Dear Paul,” he typed, and frowned for a moment in concentration. Then he started typing again.

  “Sitting here in this cell waiting for the day to come when they put a needle in my arm and flush me down God’s own toilet, I found myself thinking about your testimony in court. I remember how you said your sister was a good-hearted girl who spent her short life bringing pleasure to everyone who knew her. According to your testimony, knowing this helped you rejoice in her life at the same time that it made her death so hard to take.

  “Well, Paul, in the interest of helping you rejoice some more, I thought I’d tell you just how much pleasure your little sister brought to me. I’ve got to tell you t
hat in all my life I never got more pleasure from anybody. My first look at Karen brought me pleasure, just watching her walk across campus, just looking at those jiggling tits and that tight little ass and imagining the fun I was going to have with them.

  “Then when I had her tied up in the backseat of the car with her mouth taped shut, I have to say she went on being a real source of pleasure. Just looking at her in the rearview mirror was enjoyable, and from time to time I would stop the car and lean into the back to run my hands over her body. I don’t think she liked it much, but I enjoyed it enough for the both of us.

  “Tell me something, Paul. Did you ever fool around with Karen yourself? I bet you did. I can picture her when she was maybe eleven, twelve years old, with her little titties just beginning to bud out, and you’d have been seventeen or eighteen yourself, so how could you stay away from her? She’s sleeping and you walk into her room and sit on the edge of her bed....”

  He went on, describing the scene he imagined, and it excited him more than the pictures or letters from the women. He stopped and thought about relieving his excitement but decided to wait. He finished the scene as he imagined it and went on:

  “Paul, old buddy, if you didn’t get any of that you were missing a good thing. I can’t tell you the pleasure I got out of your sweet little sister. Maybe I can give you some idea by describing our first time together.” And he did, recalling it all to mind, savouring it in his memory, reliving it as he typed it out on the page.

  “I suppose you know she was no virgin,” he wrote, “but she was pretty new at it all the same. And then when I turned her facedown, well, I can tell you she’d never done that before. She didn’t like it much either. I had the tape off her mouth and I swear I thought she’d wake the neighbours, even though there weren’t any. I guess it hurt her some, Paul, but that was just an example of your darling sister sacrificing everything to give pleasure to others, just like you said. And it worked, because I had a hell of a good time.”