The Transgressors

by Jim Thompson

  He continued to run for office. Since no one would think of opposing him, he continued to be elected. Why not, anyway? Where was the harm? It made old Dave feel good, and Tom could do his work for him. Tom’d been doin’ it for years, and a few more wouldn’t hurt none.

  Dave Bradley heard this talk—that Lord, not he, was the real sheriff. He was successively hurt, angry, and suspicious, and he reacted accordingly.

  He would give Lord an order, then curtly ask why he was carrying it out or accuse him of doing it in a way contrary to his instructions. Tom was gettin’ pretty big for his britches, wasn’t he? Kinda tossing his weight around. Well, maybe he’d just better do what he was told, and nothin’ else but.

  Sometimes—as today, for example—he would literally shoo Lord from his office, dismiss him from his day’s duties. Never mind about the piled-up work. He knew how much work there was, and he didn’t need no help from smart-alecks. All he asked was that Lord keep out of his way, do his loafin’ and playin’ around somewheres else.

  Lord took the abuse quietly. He knew what lay behind it, and he felt indebted for past favors to Bradley. Yet taking it, he didn’t like it. He himself had problems. In a sense, he had the same problem that Dave had: age. He was rushing toward the same void that the old man shrank back from. And Dave couldn’t see that. He would make no allowances. Like most people who demand and expect understanding, he had little to give.

  And tonight was one time when Lord had to have it.

  “I mean it, Dave,” he said slowly, for Bradley seemed not to have heard his opening statement. “I killed Aaron McBride.”

  Dave said with absent querulousness that that was no excuse. No excuse at all for Tom’s slacking off all day. “Had to kill him, you ought to of done it on your own time. County’s payin’ you a plen-tee good salary to—Aaron McBride!” he croaked, his mouth dropping open. “Why for did you do that?”

  “I couldn’t help it. For that matter, I ain’t real sure he didn’t kill himself,” Lord said, and he explained what had happened. “O’ course, it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been there on the lease. But—”

  “But you couldn’t leave him alone, could you? You was just spoilin’ for trouble with him! Couldn’t find an excuse, so you made one!”

  “Now, that ain’t so, Dave,” Lord began, and then his voice trailed off into silence. But wasn’t it so? Hadn’t he broken that spring deliberately?

  “Well?” Dave leaped on the silence venomously. “That’s what happened, ain’t it?”

  “Maybe,” said Lord slowly. “Maybe and maybe not. I didn’t think it was that way, but it could’ve been.”

  “And now he’s dead. Should’ve been here in the office workin’, but you had to go wanderin’ off and kill him.”

  “Look, Dave!” Lord said sharply. “Don’t keep”—he broke off with an effort; shrugged tiredly—“yes, and now he’s dead.”

  Bradley scowled at him, his mouth working irritably. “Ain’t you got a lick of sense, Tom? You think that beatin’ a man up and killin’ him is the same thing?”

  Lord shook his head curtly. He was aware, he said, that there was plenty of difference. “They wouldn’t hold still for murder, even if they didn’t like McBride.”

  “You just bet they wouldn’t! Probably venue you out of the county, so’s the charge’d be sure to stick. Dammit Tom,” Bradley threatened, “you just hadn’t ought to’ve done it! Don’t make no never-mind how many witnesses you got. Just one of ’em switches his story an’ says it was your fault, you’re stuck.”

  Lord hesitated. He said, finally, “None of ’em are going to switch. No one needs to know I was anywheres near McBride.”

  “Huh—how you mean?”

  Lord told him. Bradley looked relieved for a moment, and then his face began to darken.

  “You put me on a spot, Tom. Got my duty t’do, and you just about make it impossible.”

  “Wh-aat?” Lord stared at him bewilderedly; and then, comprehension darkening his eyes. “Do you really think that, Dave? That I told you this to tie your hands? You don’t think I was just trying to be fair and honest with you?”

  Bradley glowered at him. Peevishly, he skirted the question. “Been gettin’ mean for a long time, Tom. I seen it coming on, an’ I warned you about it, an’ it didn’t do no good. Wouldn’t listen to me; thought you knew more’n I did. Now—”

  “Now, I accidentally killed a man; maybe killed him. An’ if you want to see me hung for it, here I am.”

  He extended his wrists. Bradley snorted, slapped at them angrily.

  “That’s the trouble with you, Tom,” he complained. “Won’t listen to no one. Can’t say a word to you no more.”

  “Think you said just about a-plenty,” Lord said coldly, “an all t’ once it’s beginnin’ to sink in on me. Can’t keep my ears stoppered to it no more, so I reckon I better walk away from it.”

  He pushed himself up from his chair, plucking the badge from his shirt. He tossed it on the sheriff’s desk, turned, and started for the door.

  “Aw, Tom. Tom, boy.…” The old man came shakily to his feet. “You know me, Tom. I’m just so danged tired and worried I hardly know which end I’m on. I didn’t mean that—”

  Over his shoulder, Lord said tightly that he meant it. He’d had all he cared to take, and then some.

  Bradley continued to protest feebly. Protesting, he trailed after the deputy for a few steps. Then, as Lord made no answer, firmly continuing on his way, the pleading stopped abruptly and his voice became shrill with outrage.

  “All right, Tom Lord! Go ahead an’ be stubborn! Be as ornery as you danged please. But I’m warnin’ you. You just—you better listen to me, Tom!”

  “Yes?” Lord paused outside the door. “I’m listening, Dave.”

  “You just get out of line a little, an’ see what happens! Just let me hear one peep about McBride, an’ see what happens! I won’t cover up for you. I’ll pull you in so fast, it’ll make your head swim.”

  He went back to his desk, then, old Dave Bradley. He sat there, glowering and muttering to himself, his eyes slowly moistening, his withered mouth puckering. And, finally, he dropped his head into his hands and began to cry.

  Meanwhile, up near the center of town, Tom Lord was emerging from a liquor store with two large bags full of whisky.

  Back in his car, he popped the cork from one bottle and up-ended it into his mouth. He drank in great gulps, until the stuff burbled up out of his lips and ran down over his shirt. Then, he recorked the bottle, tossed it to a grinning group of curbside spectators, and sped off toward Joyce’s house.

  She heard him coming, heard his clattering attempts to open the front gate. Almost instantly, she was out of the house, pulling him out of the car and sliding behind the wheel herself.

  “You go on inside now, honey. I’ll—can you make it all right?”

  Owlishly good-humored, Lord said that of course he could make it. He couldn’t take it, but he could always make it. And walking very straight, he headed across the yard.

  By the time Joyce had put the car away, locking the lean-to door behind, he was in the kitchen, ponderously opening one bottle after another.

  “Oh, now, Tom!” She began to restopper the bottles. “Why do you act like this, honey? If you want a drink or two, fine, but you—Tom, now stop it!”

  He was uncorking the bottles again, taking a swig from each as he did so. She tried to stop him, and casually, his stiff-armed palm rocked her backward, sent her reeling and staggering across the room until the wall stopped her with a painful thud.

  The impact knocked the wind out of her, left her sickishly dizzy for a moment. As she clutched a chairback for support, Lord left the bottles and gently helped her sit down.

  “He shouldn’t have done that,” he said, frowning at the sink where he had so recently stood. “I don’t think I like him.”

  “H-He?” Joyce gasped. “What do you mean, he?”

  “Gone now,” sai
d Lord, with an expression of satisfaction. “Wouldn’t’ve been here in the first place, ’cept for your interference. Not chiding you, y’understand. City girl wouldn’t know about prairie fires.”

  He took a long drink from his glass, rolled it around in his mouth. He took another drink, nodded to her seriously.

  “Have to backfire ’em, burn off ground in front of ’em. Got nothing to feed on, they burn out. You follow me, Miss?”

  “Of course, Tom. I understand. Now—”

  “Apply the same principle with cloudburst. Just substitute liquid f’r fire. Defense always corresponds t’ the impending threat ’r disaster. Fire against fire, liquid against liquid, an’—an’—” He hiccuped, rubbed his eyes wearily. “Ver’ complex problem. Not something you c’n reduce to ten words o’ basic English. But you understand principle, Joyce?”

  Joyce assured him warmly that she did understand. She was also sorry, she said, that she had so thoughtlessly interfered with him.

  “You can have all you want to drink, dear. If there isn’t enough here, I’ll go out and get some more. Now, why don’t we go into the living room where we can be comfortable.”

  “Now, it can be told, Joyce. The hidden secret ’ve the ages is about t’be revealed.”

  “Uh-huh. Certainly, Tom; and we’ll just take the bottles into the living room with us.”

  She got him into the living room, seated him in an easy chair with a full bottle of whisky in his hand. Then, as he talked and drank, she knelt in front of him, gently loosened his shirt collar and his belt, and slid off the ridiculously small, handmade boots.

  She had seen him, taken care of him, on only one other binge. That was the day when the lease swindle had become obvious and, in effect, undenied. He had been sodden that time, drunk for a solid week. But he had not acted as he did now, on this occasion. This one had really scared her out of her pants. For a few minutes it was as though she were dealing with some terrifying stranger, instead of her drawling, kidding Tom Lord.

  Yet he seemed to be all right, now. No longer frightening, at least, and much less a stranger. He wasn’t making too much sense; still talking in that overserious way. But gradually the stranger was fading, blending with the old familiar Tom.

  “…I’ll tell you somethin’, Joyce. There is no open season on man, pop’lar opinion ’n’ practice to the contrary notwithstandin’, an’ any violation of his person’s an infringement of the natural law. You grasp that, Joyce? Ought t’be pretty simple f’r great thinker like you. Someone ’at knows what all the movie stars eat for breakfast.”

  “Aah, now, Tom,” Joyce laughed tenderly. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

  “ ’S’smatter of semantics an’ custom. Liable to vary from day t’day. Howsomever, there is certain eternal truths an’ customs, one of which, despite many interruptions, I am about to propound. T-t-to wit: The Lord law of the disintegration o’ farts in high winds.”

  Joyce laughed again, half-protestingly. Lord waggled a finger in a reproving manner.

  “Think about it,” he said. “Tragedy of the ages. Because nothin’ and no one is ever completely destroyed; simply assumes new shapes ’n’ forms. Take me now, f’r example. Ask you if I’m destroyed, ’n’ the answer is yes an’ no. Or no’n’ yes, if you prefer. Know what I’m talking about. Speakin’ from personal experience…I…I…” His eyes clouded, and he looked around wildly. “Where is it? What did you do with the bot fire?”

  “Here! Right here, honey!”

  She thrust a fresh bottle into his hands.

  He drank from it gaspingly, and his eyes cleared again.

  “Know what I’m talkin’ about. Had the clouds dropped spang on me, like cow-dab on a flat rock, with a consequent removal o’ the terrain from b’neath my well-shod feet. Can’t just hang there, can I? Defies the law o’ gravity. So I jump to ’nother piece of ground, an’ I just get dug in good there when there’s another cloudburst, and I have to jump again. An’ then there’s another one, an’—an’—” He scrubbed his face with one hand, slowly kneaded his forehead. “Used to tell us in school that where there was no ears to hear there was no sound. Same thing applies visually. Fact that folks can’t see somethin’ don’t mean it ain’t there, or if they don’t see it like it is that it ain’t. Fact that they don’t see a car bearin’ down on, don’t mean they ain’t gonna get hit. Just means they can’t see good. B-bad”—he belched—“very bad, Joyce. You can’t do that.”

  “Yes? Yes, honey?”

  “Yes, what?”

  “What is it that you can’t do?”

  “Pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time.”

  With that the stranger seemed to vanish completely, and he appeared to be himself again. Drunk, of course, but again her Tom.

  Half-kidding, apparently more amused than disturbed, he told her of his interview with Bradley and his resignation as the latter’s chief deputy.

  “The old fool!” Joyce was loyally indignant. “But don’t you feel bad about it, honey. You’re better off out of that rotten job.”

  “Out of there t’ where?” Lord asked, but Joyce didn’t seem to hear him.

  “We’ll just pull out of here, that’s what. Go to some real nice place like Florida or California.”

  “You mean I could pimp for you? Well, gee, lady, I ain’t had no experience, but I’m sure strong an’ willing to learn.”

  “Don’t, Tom. Please don’t talk like that…”

  “Or you could pimp for me,” Lord said. “I could be your he-whore.” He elaborated on this prospect, his voice rising above her pleadings and protests. “Yes, sir, that might be all right. I could get me one of them permanent waves and maybe some black silk underwear, and you could get out an’ hustle me. Hang around hotel lobbies durin’ conventions, or maybe at high-class bars. You see a likely lookin’ dame, an’ you give her the proposition.” He winked lewdly in demonstration, holding his hand to the side of his mouth. “ ‘How about a nice fella for the night, lady? I got a real hot brunette on the string that’s just itchin’ for action.’ ”

  Joyce made her face angry, her involuntarily quirking mouth severe. She said he wasn’t being a damned bit funny, and his drunkenness was no excuse for such talk. “I mean it, Tom. I’d do j-just about anything in the w-world for you. But—b-but—” She spluttered, gurgled, and, then, suddenly doubled with laughter. She rocked back and forth, still kneeling, weakly slapping the rug with her hands.

  “…so,” Lord drawled on, fiendishly, “you bring her up t’my room, and I prance around with my hand on one hip, kinda jouncin’ and flouncin’, y’ know, until her pants begin to smoke. An’ then—”

  “T-Tom, you—ha, ha, ha, ha—Tom, if y-you don’t stop, I-I’ll—aaah, ha, ha, ha, ha.…”

  Lord grinned, mercifully subsided. He dropped down on the floor with her, and they clung together, laughing, kissing, and fondling each other. At last, they were very quiet, the only sound the beating of their own hearts and the rhythm of their own breathing and the distant drip-drip of the kitchen sink. Then, without taking her mouth from his, Joyce hooked the lamp cord with her foot, yanked, and unplugged it from the wall.

  Lord didn’t know how many drink-drugged days had passed when the squat, thick-set man with the cropped hair called on Joyce Lakewood. At the time, and even for some time afterward, he was not even sure that she had had such a visitor or any visitor. Everything was clear enough while it was taking place, but the clarity was dreamlike—a brilliant light flashed on in a dark room, then snapped off again, leaving a darkness that seemed never to have been penetrated.

  It was at night, he believed, when he floated up out of a black abyss and came slowly into consciousness. Still inert, sprawled on his back, he watched with slitted eyes as Joyce pulled a robe over her body and silently opened the door of the room. She stood there a moment, pausing on the threshold while she studied him. Then, satisfied, certain that he was still knocked out, she went through the door and silently closed it
again.

  Lord stared at it intently; turning the knob, in his imagination, as she had done. He focused on it, all else blotted out of it, and the door came open. Only for an inch or two, but definitely open.

  He remembered being very pleased with himself. He remembered telling himself that any accomplishment, regardless of its nominal impossibility, could be as readily achieved by concentration. That was all you had to do, just think and keep on thinking, and what you desired would be yours.

  Now, why didn’t I start doing this sooner? he thought. I’ll have to—

  He heard the voices then, Joyce grudgingly admitting the man at the front door. Without a sound, as though responding to an electric impulse, he came up off the bed, crossed the room, and peered out into the living room.

  He was in the dark, and they were in the light, sitting conspiratorially—but by no means amiably—close together on the lounge. They were facing him, keeping an eye on the bedroom door, yet obviously unaware that it was slightly open. He could see them perfectly, even to the movement of their lips. But their voices were so low that he had to strain to hear them; could hear them clearly only at brief intervals.

  “…so how…I know? Knocked out anyway, isn’t he?”

  “…the hell you want?”

  “You know what we want. Just what we paid for.”

  “…best I could. Every…I can with him.”

  “…not enough. Not…with McBride…Don’t mind him…but stink…lot of questions.…”

  “…think he did it?”

  “…reasons…Doesn’t matter, anyway…pin him for it.…tough egg. Won’t stop until.…”

  “…won’t do it! I can’t, damn you. I.…”

  “Then, get him away from here, and…let him come back. Move him or pin him. Or we…”

  His thick forefinger stabbed painfully into her breast. Joyce winced, biting her lip as she shrank back from him.

  “Well? Think you got the idea?”

  “…got it.”

  “Hang onto it. It’s the best one you’ll ever have.…”