The Empty Trap

by John D. MacDonald

  Now that Benny and Tulsa were back, Benny was often in the kitchens, getting in the way, demanding special service. The original prop was very simple. Lloyd searched the news stands of Oasis Springs and acquired a thick stack of fantasy and science fiction comic books. He read them. He left them in his room, in plain sight. The next time he saw Benny reading one of his comic books, he moved to where he could look over Benny’s shoulder. He stood there until Benny turned and glared up in annoyance. “What the hell you doing?”

  “Let me see it a minute,” Lloyd said calmly and picked it up, looked at the cover. “This is a pretty good one.”

  Benny’s annoyance disappeared. “Hey! You go for this stuff too? How about in here where they get this injection that turns you into a plant like?”

  “That’s pretty good. I’ve got a bunch of them in my room.”

  “You have? How about the lend of them, Rosie?”

  “Go on up and read them any time. I don’t like to loan them out. Go on up now if you want. Here’s the key.”

  He knew that would be disarming. Benny could find nothing in the room out of character. The knife was safely hidden. And there was a chance Benny would look at the balance in his checking account. The check book was in the top drawer of the bureau.

  “Bring me back the key when you’re through. I get off in about an hour and a half.”

  When he went up to the room Benny was sprawled on his bed, reading. He grinned at Lloyd when he came in and closed the door. “You got some good stuff here. You want to sleep or something, I’ll clear out.”

  “Stick around.”

  Benny read, and then he wanted to talk. He wanted to tell the best plots he could remember. He wanted to tell them in considerable detail. Then they played some gin. Lloyd played as poorly as he could. Benny won readily. When Lloyd said he was ready to quit, Benny was disappointed.

  “You seem to be a quiet type guy, Rosie.”

  “That’s the best way.”

  “I like to live it up some.”

  “I used to.”

  “So what happened?”

  “You ask a hell of a lot of questions.”

  “Don’t get sore. Me and Tulsa were talking about you.”

  “So?”

  “He says you act like you’re carrying a little heat.”

  “Could be.”

  “So you’re keeping your head down. Is that it?”

  “Could be.”

  “This your regular kind of work?”

  “It used to be.”

  “It’s a handy thing to have a trade. A job is a good place to go cool off, like. You’re among friends, Rosie. What kind of a deal was it?”

  “You still ask too many questions.”

  “So you don’t answer them, I go tell Harry you’re hot. It makes him nervous.”

  “I’d tell you to go to hell, Benny. But I’ve got a problem.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t want everybody and his brother in on it. I don’t want Tulsa and Harry in on it. I’ve got to have one contact. That’s all I need. I was working a deal in Miami. A hotel deal. I was on the desk. So I case the guests. When they’re loaded, I get the name and home town. I was working with two friends. They would call the guests and say that so and so in the home town had asked them to have the guests out to a dinner party while they were in Miami. You can take the front name right out of Dun and Bradstreet. If the guests won’t play, then my friend would say it was probably the wrong Joneses or Andersons or whatever. But if they fall for it—and you only use people with their own car—they get directions that take them about fifteen miles out of Miami. To a dark place. There they get jumped and stripped of everything. The car is disabled. My friends come back fast and I give them a room key and they work the room over.”

  Benny had been listening eagerly. “Nice!” he said.

  “We worked it a dozen times and then the cops got too close and grabbed my friends. I picked up the stuff and left.”

  “You fenced it?” Lloyd knew from that question that Benny had seen the bank balance.

  “No.”

  “What have you got? Furs? Ice? Stuff like that?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Not here, for God’s sake?”

  “I’m not that stupid.”

  “Harry wouldn’t want stuff like that around. We keep this place clean. Give them half a chance and they lift your licenses and then you’re dead. Where is it?”

  “In a safe place. I want to unload it.”

  “Do you have any idea how much it’s worth, say at retail?”

  “Maybe a hundred and fifty thousand. There’s five mink coats, and a couple of sable wraps. Diamond clips. One small string of matched pearls. One emerald ring that looks good. And a lot of junk. Watches, things like that.”

  “What do you want out of it, Rosie?”

  “What kind of a deal can you make?”

  “I got a couple of contacts. But if they come this far and it’s no sale, then they get sore at me, see? I’d want to see the stuff first. What kind of an end do I get?”

  “If you make all the arrangements and get me the money in nothing over a fifty, you can have twenty-five percent.”

  He saw the flush of greed on Benny’s face, the new brightness of his eyes. “What if the offer my friend makes is low?”

  “I’m tired of sitting on the stuff. Make this just you and me, though. Don’t bring anybody else in.”

  “Harry don’t like for us to have anything working on the side.”

  “This is different. This is just a business arrangement. I’d be paying you for a service.”

  “That’s right. But Harry would be sore anyway.”

  “He doesn’t find out from me. Unless you try to cross me. Then he finds out.”

  Benny thought it over. “My friend will take his expenses off.”

  “That’s all right. How do you get hold of him?”

  “I can make a call from down in town. First I got to see the stuff, Rosie. Where is it?”

  “I can take you to it.”

  “Where is it? In storage?”

  “I’ll take you to it. We can drive to where it is. It will take an hour and a half to get there and back. We shouldn’t be seen taking off together. How about five o’clock tomorrow morning? All right with you?”

  “Okay.”

  “See you in the parking lot.”

  Lloyd had located the place a week previously, had purchased what he needed and had left it there, well hidden. It was not in an area of big mountains. The road that led to the spot was a mere trace, winding between rocks. The actual drop was steep, one hundred feet he estimated, to the bed of the dry arroyo. It was an area of baked rock, the shimmer of mirage and the quickness of lizards. The featurelessness of the land dwarfed the drop. A single tough and stunted tree, close to death, grew at the brink of the drop, roots reaching down into the cracks in the rock for traces of moisture that had sustained it.

  They had driven toward the sunrise, and no car was in sight when Lloyd turned off the highway. The car jounced and rocked as he followed the trace, and Benny said, “What the hell, Rosie?”

  “The stuff is in a good safe place. I’ll show you. It’s not far from here.”

  He came to a relatively smooth place where he could go a bit faster. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Benny leaning forward, looking ahead. He stamped the brake pedal hard. Benny’s head thudded the windshield so hard it made radial cracks. He sagged back, not quite unconscious, making slow movements like a man under water. An automatic appeared in his hand, flat and blue. Lloyd drove his right fist against the corner of the jaw twice, and twisted the gun out of Benny’s hand. Benny still stirred weakly and subsided when Lloyd hit him across the side of the head with the barrel of the weapon. He drove another two hundred feet, parked and pulled Benny out of the car. He carried him to the edge of the drop, then went and got the heavy length of rope from the place where he had hidden it. He tied it firmly around B
enny’s chest, under the armpits, and ran a single loop under the crotch and fastened it in back. He tossed the free end of the line over a thick limb that stuck out over the dropoff at about a forty-five degree angle. He retrieved the dangling end with a long stick. A secondary limb kept the rope from sliding back to the trunk. He walked the rope back and made it fast to a stout outcropping of rock that slanted away from the brink. He pushed Benny over the edge. Benny jolted hard at the end of the rope, swung out, swung back and hit the face of the drop-off lightly and then continued to swing, face down, arms and legs dangling. He hung too low. Lloyd braced himself and pulled him higher, looping the line around the outcropping each time he had enough slack. When Benny hung four feet below the limb, he stopped. He was breathing hard with the exertion. He sat and leaned his back against the tree. Benny swung gently back and forth and finally came to rest.

  He was a grotesque sight, a small stocky man with bald spot and clown face, with dark green slacks and yellow sports shirt, with brown and white shoes. He belonged at the corner of Broadway and Forty-fifth, nursing a cigar, watching the women, digesting strawberry cheesecake.

  He did not belong in a barren land, strung up in the hot slant of morning sunlight, looking curiously like bait set out to tempt some unimaginable creature.

  Lloyd tried to feel satisfaction, to feel the hot delight of the avenger. But all he could feel was a tiredness, and a rather plaintive sympathy for the little man with his pointed and perforated shoes.

  The right hand moved first. It lifted tentatively toward the face and dropped again. He saw the eyes open slowly and close, open slowly and close again, and then spring wide open, dilating with horror. The arms and legs made curiously frantic swimming motions and the body tensed. Then the motions started him swinging and the body became rigid, the eyes clenched shut. His breathing was loud and fast.

  The eyes opened again and the head turned with great caution and Benny looked into his eyes. Benny’s face was a strange pasty green under the sunburn. “Christ!” he said. “Good Christ!”

  “I been wondering about those comic books, Benny. Have you got your anti-grav hooked up?”

  “Rosie, for Christ’ sake!”

  “Nearly all of those people can fly.” The unsheathed dagger made a silvery flash in the sunlight. Lloyd rested the cutting edge against the taut rope. “The way to teach a kid to swim is throw him into the water, Benny. I want to teach you how to fly.”

  Benny screamed. He screamed with each breath he took and then hung slack, eyes closed. He turned his head slowly and Lloyd saw him swallow. “Look, Rosie,” he said pleadingly. “I can’t really fly. Honest. It won’t work.”

  “How do we know unless we try?”

  “Rosie, you’re sick or something. Honest. Get me back. We’ll go have a beer. No hard feelings.”

  “That wouldn’t be fair. We didn’t go have a beer the other time, Benny.”

  “What other time? Who are you?”

  “You remember, Benny. Sure you do. You and Tulsa and Valerez. Tulsa killed Sylvia. Then you shoved us over the cliff in the car.”

  Benny stared unbelievingly. His mouth worked. “Wescott,” he whispered. “You couldn’t live through that. I … I saw you. That thing was a mile deep.”

  “Lloyd Wescott, Benny. All ready to teach you how to fly.”

  “Hold it! Wait. Lloyd, for Christ sake! What do you want? Look! Let me buy out. This won’t do you no good. I know how you feel. You want to get Tulsa and Harry too. Let me help you with them. You got to have help. You can’t do it alone. Look, I’ll help you nail both of them and I’ll give you twenty-five thousand bucks. I swear on my mother’s grave, I won’t cross you. Look, we had to do like Harry said. I always liked you. Honest, I felt bad having to do you like that. It was orders.”

  “You were crying while you were burning me.”

  “That was Tulsa. He’s half nuts. He likes that stuff.”

  “Where can I find Valerez?”

  “In hell. He got it in San Antone six months ago. It was a woman thing. Somebody put a knife in him. He lived maybe a week, but they’d cut his gut up too much. I’ll help you with Tulsa, honest. And Harry too.”

  “Who else has Harry got hanging around, beside you and Tulsa?”

  “Nobody. There’s no trouble. This rope is cutting me in half, Lloyd. Wait a minute. Look. Suppose all of a sudden I disappear. Then Harry will get nervous and he’ll bring some people down, just in case. Then he’ll be too rough for you.”

  Lloyd stood up and picked up a rock as big as a basketball. He dropped it over. They watched it hit and splinter. It had seemed to fall for a long time. Benny began to scream again, eyes knotted shut, arms and legs flailing. He sagged once more, panting.

  “I guess you’re going to do it,” he said dully. “I get all the breaks. I got all the luck.”

  “I’m going to do it.”

  “Will you do it another way?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Where’s my gun?”

  “In the car.”

  “From this close you could hardly miss hitting me in the head. Then cut the damn rope.”

  Lloyd placed the cutting edge of the dagger against the rope. He knew he had but to make one quick hard slash. Benny would drop away. Benny watched him. Lloyd could not bring himself to slash hard. He could not make that final decisive motion. He sawed gently, tentatively. Some of the fibers parted and then one strand popped and the two ends curled back. Benny began to scream again. The sound was lost in the emptiness of the land. He screamed and his mouth frothed and his body twisted and swung and turned.

  Lloyd then realized he had come a long way to learn something about himself. He had come a long way, and across more than two years to find out that he could not kill. He tried to tell himself this man was evil, that his crimes made him unfit to live. Lloyd’s hatred and his anger had been the margin that sustained him, that had kept him alive. He had thought he was hardened all the way through, that he could act without mercy. But there was still a softness.

  He watched Benny. The convulsions of terror went on and on. He called to him, but he could not get his attention. He realized that something inside the man had broken. He could not leave him there. He could not cut the rope. The only recourse left to him was to bring him back. He decided the simplest method was to get Benny swinging hard enough so that he could reach out and grasp a wrist or ankle. But Benny, in madness and terror, might pull him over the brink. Better, perhaps, to pull Benny up against the limb. Then he could grasp it and turn and pull himself up onto it and work his way back to the trunk.

  He pulled the crazed man up. Benny caught at the limb. He half turned and hooked a leg over it. He worked his way up until he lay flat on the limb, hugging it with arms and legs, eyes shut, each breath a sob. Lloyd waited for a long time. He called to him. Benny would not respond. He was frozen there. When Lloyd tugged on the rope, Benny held the limb more tightly. It was ludicrous to have him so close to safety and have him be so unaware of it. There seemed to be only one thing to do. Benny was securely fastened to the rope. Lloyd decided to brace himself, and pull the man free of the limb, pull him back toward the trunk. If he fell he would not fall far. He would bang against the cliff face and could be pulled up from there.

  He braced himself and pulled. The limb creaked. He pulled again. There was a sudden splintering crack, and both Benny and the limb fell. The sudden weight ripped the rope through his hands. Then the weight came hard against the full length of the rope. Some of the turns of rope had slipped off the outcropping, but the end was secure. The rope popped loudly and was limp in his torn hands. He heard the final sound, a fading hoarseness from a throat too punished to scream again. And a thick sound in the arroyo bed, a sound as of a ball of mud slapped against a stone wall.

  He looked at the end of the rope. It had parted where he had sliced one strand with the knife. He sat for a long time. Finally he walked to where it was an easy descent to the bottom. He cut the sta
ined rope free of the body. He walked thirty feet away and was sick. He covered the body with sand and stones. He buried the rope in another place.

  At nine thirty he was at work. The kitchen sounds were loud. Waiters were laughing and talking. Over all the sounds he kept hearing that final fading shout.

  8

  Two full days passed before Lloyd began to come out of it. He did his work with mechanical unthinking perfection, speaking only when it was necessary to speak. During his off duty hours he went to his room and stretched out on the bed and tried to understand why this had shocked him so deeply. He had thought it would be far different. He had visualized it all so many times. But one basic thing had been left out of his calculations—the psychic aspect of killing. The bloody destruction of the human animal. The stilling of the cleverness of the brain. And he began to understand why the murderer so often gives himself away. Even if the justification seems ample, there is a dimension to murder that cannot be sensed until after the deed. He wanted to go back and look at the place where it had happened. He wanted to try to explain to someone how it had happened, and why.

  He had thought himself capable of the same callousness he had experienced at their hands. He had been misled by his own hatred, and by the mores of the tough fiction he had read. The taking of a human life ran so completely counter to the concepts of morality that had been instilled in him as a child that self-revulsion was like a sickness in him. He had learned why some soldiers, in battle, cannot shoot.

  The exiles from Pinal Blanco had a simpler approach. Their morality was contingent on a sense of honor and pride. Their approach to life and death was primitive. He had imagined himself capable of using their philosophy as his own. But under it he was still a boy from a small town. Death was something with a sad sick smell of flowers, and the dull gleam of bronze handles, and the solemn intonations of the minister. Death was something that happened, not something to be caused.