Judge Me Not

by John D. MacDonald

Once he had showered and toweled himself dry, he wondered whether he’d stay or head back for the city. It was Sunday night. He padded into the kitchen and inspected the larder. Couple of cans of soup, one of beans, one of spaghetti. Sunday, October what? Last Sunday was the twenty-first. That would make it…

  He grinned and snapped his fingers. His grin was a bit shamefaced. Today was his birthday and it was the first time he had thought of it. Thirty-one today. Oddly, it made the larder look most inadequate. A man owes himself a steak on his birthday.

  Once upon a time birthdays had been part and piece of the long warm years of childhood. A dollar in an envelope from Aunt Marian. The BB rifle you weren’t sure you’d get. The deep insuck of air and the hope that every candle would go out. Every last one. And a birthday made a difference in the world, in the whole world.

  And then a birthday becomes like a milepost that you see from a train window, and if you forget to look at the proper moment, it is gone. And nobody in the wide world gives a damn whether you happen to notice that milepost or not, so celebrating is like the whistling you do on a narrow lane at night where the trees meet overhead, forming a fearful tunnel. You have buried your people, and your kid sister was in that WAC queue outside the London theater when the V-1 found them. And the lovely Ronnie who was everything to you married a dark trim little man who is doing quite well in the insurance business out in Dayton, and the last Christmas card, forwarded three times, was a heartbreaking cartoon of the lovely Ronnie and the dark man and the toddler and the baby and the two dogs.

  But a man owes himself a steak and a few drinks and, afterward, a pleasant muzziness wherein he can sit and smoke with slower gestures than usual and think long pseudophilosophic thoughts of time and life and how very dead you will eventually be when at last there are no mile-posts and no window to see them from and no train clattering endlessly on.

  Since it was his birthday, Teed Morrow dressed with special care. French linen shirt, the Shetland jacket, tawny gabardine slacks. He locked the camp, and the faint starlight made metallic glints on the gleaming black of the Ford convertible. White headlights cut a shocking hole in the night, and leaving the top up, he drove without haste toward Deron, the radio barely audible, and he told himself that he was not the least bit lonely. He told himself one time too many, and became sourly amused. Spectacle of a man kidding himself.

  Chapter Two

  For the sake of privacy, he had moved from the Hotel Deron during his second month in the city, had found a so-called garden apartment on the north edge of town, a new development on Bannock Road just off the main east-west highway. The red brick units contained four apartments apiece, each with its private entrance. The units were so placed that each apartment looked out on a reasonable amount of open space and greenery rather than onto other windows.

  Had he been living entirely on the rather meager salary Dennison had been able to swing for him, the apartment would not have been possible. But, in a period of conservatism following his father’s death, he had tied up the rather substantial inheritance so that he could not touch the principal. It brought in approximately two thousand dollars a year, and this made the difference between living carefully and living with a certain style.

  The development had the advantage of having a central switchboard and messenger service, as well as maid service for those who wanted it. He pulled in by the office and went inside. Mrs. Kidder, the slim, shy, overworked wife of the manager, was at the switchboard, behind the high counter.

  “Mr. Dennison called you three times this afternoon, Mr. Morrow. The last time he left the message you should come out to his house if you got back before ten.”

  Teed frowned and looked at his watch. A little after eight. He smiled at Amy Kidder. “Thanks, honey.”

  She blushed. “Now, Mr. Morrow!”

  “As long as your husband doesn’t catch on, we’re safe, aren’t we?”

  It was an old game between them, one that he knew delighted her, and never failed to make her blush. He winked solemnly at her, and went out and got in the car. There was annoyance at having to run out to Powell Dennison’s house just because the man happened to whistle for him, but the thought that it might be something hot, something new, muffled the annoyance.

  Powell Dennison had rented a large, ugly frame house in one of the older sections of Deron. It was zoned residential, yet surrounded by areas that had been rezoned commercial. Teed parked in the narrow driveway.

  As he went up the last step onto the porch, the front door opened, silhouetting Powell against the hall light.

  “Glad you decided to come back to town, Teed. Come on in.” The voice, like the man, was slow, warm, sincere. He was a big man in his early fifties. Hard fat had larded the athlete’s body. In the firm, florid flesh of his face, the gray eyes were level, honest, and unafraid. This man, Teed knew, had a mind so quick and so certain that, as an administrator, he could have scratched high on the tree in either private industry or state or federal government. Yet his passion was city government, his skill the rejuvenation of weary cities, his creed the potential grass-roots impact of awakened citizens. It was not his fault that he lived in an era when such dedication was poorly paid. Teed had long since decided that Powell would have continued with his work, somehow, even if it were without any salary at all.

  Powell led Teed into the high narrow living room with its ugly rented furniture, brown floral wallpaper, shallow unusable fireplace. Marcia Dennison, the elder of the two daughters, sat in an overstuffed chair, one leg pulled up under her, a book in her lap. She was twenty-three. She did the marketing, and the cooking, in addition to working five mornings a week in a local secretarial school, teaching typing classes. Though it would have been extremely simple for Powell Dennison to have found part-time work for her with the city government, it was the sort of thing that he would never do.

  Though she had never indicated as much, Teed had the strong feeling that Marcia disliked him. She was a lithe blonde, firm-lipped, with her father’s gray eyes, with his air of calmness. Wherever she sat, however she stood, she seemed to be carefully posed, as though awaiting the pop of flashbulbs, yet he knew she was not vain. He always thought that the women of the Vikings had probably been like Marcia. Lithe grace concealed the essential sturdiness of thighs, the lioness loins. She sat there, in a cashmere cardigan that was not quite right for her because the shade of yellow took luster from her hair.

  Jake, the other daughter, the dark, flashing, eighteen-year-old, the one most adored by Powell because she was like the wife who was now dead, was another matter. Entirely another matter, with her gawky ripeness, wide-lipped breathlessness, and hero-worshiping mind which had not yet caught up to bright lushness of the woman-body. She had been reading a paper spread on the floor and as Teed came in, she bounded up, came swinging toward him in jeans and T shirt, eyes bright with the ever embarrassing worship, lips smiling for him, dark hair rumpled, smoothing it now with the back of her hand, with a woman-gesture not quite right for the child mind.

  She caught his arm. “Oh, Teed. Teed, it’s your birthday!”

  Jake hugged his arm, cheek against his shoulder, round breast-firmness all too evident in its pressure against his upper arm. It was good to know that someone else had remembered.

  “And there’s a cake,” she said.

  Marcia smiled faintly. “Under pressure. I said you wouldn’t want one.”

  He met Marcia’s level glance. “But I do. And thank you.”

  “I would have made it, Teed,” Jake said, “but my cakes are godawful.” She let go of his arm and made a face, comically forlorn.

  “You can have him back in a few minutes, girls,” Powell said. “Come on into the study, Teed. I’ve got something to show you.”

  Teed had suspected for a long time that Powell had hopes of his one day marrying Marcia. Teed knew that Powell had no illusions about him, about his private life, and he guessed that Powell reasoned that, after marriage, Teed would settle down. May
be Marcia’s coolness was the result of having guessed what her father dreamed.

  Powell Dennison shut the door of the small study and pointed to a box on the table. “Have a cigar, Teed.”

  “Never use them. Thought you knew that, Powell.”

  Powell gave him an enigmatic smile. “Take a look at the contents.”

  Teed looked at the open cigar box. One cigar was missing, and through the gap where it had been, he could see the green gleam of currency. He picked some more cigars out of the top row.

  “Don’t bother,” Powell said. “I counted it all and replaced it. Five thousand in cash. I went down this morning to get in a little work. It was on my desk, wrapped in brown paper. My name printed on it in pencil.”

  Teed grinned at him. “We’ve got them worried.”

  “It looks crude, but it’s pretty smooth, Teed. No proof. No receipts. No demands. I’m supposed to quietly pocket the dough. That puts me very gently on the hook.”

  Teed ran his thumb along the edge of the box. “It will be a pleasure to take them back.”

  “I thought you might enjoy it, Teed.”

  “I’ll go out in the morning.”

  “Fine,” said Powell in the tone that meant the subject was closed. He opened his desk drawer, took out a small package, gaily wrapped. “From the Dennisons,” he said gruffly.

  “Now, Powell. You didn’t have to…”

  “Have to? Listen to the man. Come on out where the girls can see you open it. Had your dinner?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Marcia’ll fix that. And I’ll fix a shaker of stingers—a personal shaker for you, Teed.”

  Because the dining room was more than grim, the Dennisons had a snack and Teed had a pickup dinner in the big light kitchen, the present, still wrapped, by his plate. Jake shouted from the next room and Marcia turned off the lights. Jake came in bearing the cake, the light of the candles shining on her smiling lips, dark glint of eyes. They sang in the traditional way and Teed gathered in his breath and whoofed at the thirty-one candles, seemingly getting them all until, when he had no breath left, one of them flicked back into pallid life. Marcia walked to the light switch again and they blinked at the sudden brightness. He opened the package. It was a silver lighter, a good one. He took the old battered one from his pocket, leaned forward in the chair, and flipped it into the metal wastebasket beside the sink.

  Marcia came to him where he sat and put a hand lightly on his shoulder and leaned over to kiss him lightly. “Happy birthday, Teed,” she said. Her lips were cool and soft.

  Jake had walked over to the other side of him. “Happy birthday, Teed,” she said, and her voice was shaky and something had gone wrong with her eyes. Her arm went strong around his neck and her lips came down on his, lips that felt swollen and seemed to pulse against his mouth. He knew at once that this kiss was wrong, that this kiss would spoil the mood so carefully constructed. He knew that he should force it to end without being too obvious about it, and her lips had parted against his and already the kiss had lasted too long, had become too intense.

  He forced her away gently, heard Marcia’s nervous laugh. Jake stood and looked down at him, with that wrongness still in her eyes.

  “Better put it to bed, Jake,” Powell said, with too much joviality in his tone. Marcia’s eyes were watchful.

  “Yes,” Jake said, never taking her eyes from Teed’s, “there’s school tomorrow, isn’t there? And there’s a hell of a lot of candles on that cake, isn’t there?”

  “Jake!” Powell said sharply.

  She walked with too much casualness, too much hip-sway, to the kitchen door, standing for a moment, looking at them, posing in a way that was comic drama and pathos at the same time. “Good night, all,” she said, looking only at Teed.

  They were silent until the stair creak had ended, until her bedroom door had banged shut.

  Powell sighed. “A handful, that one.”

  Marcia put her elbows on the table, rested her chin on her fist. “She thinks she’s in love with you, Teed. Been mooning around lately. She’s never been—quite this obvious about it before.”

  It was a relief to have it in the open. “It puts me on a spot,” he said.

  “I know,” Marcia said.

  “What spot? What kind of spot?” Powell demanded.

  “Don’t you see it, Daddy?” Marcia said, almost impatiently. “If he laughs at her or brushes her off too hard, she’ll do something terribly silly, or terribly wrong. If he acts so that she thinks he’s encouraging her, it will just get worse. Teed has to walk right on top of the fence until she gets over it.”

  Teed gave her a grateful look.

  “By next summer,” Powell said, “she’ll be working at that summer camp, and then in September she’ll be going away to school.”

  “October to June seems short to you, Daddy. To Jake it’s like several years.”

  “I’ll have a talk with her,” Powell said heavily.

  “Please,” Marcia said. “No.”

  Later, after the dishes were cleaned up, Powell Dennison made one of his customary awkward attempts to throw Marcia and Teed together. “You see him out, please, Marcia. Teed, let me know as soon as you get back in the morning.”

  Teed and Marcia went out onto the front porch. The midnight was cool. She leaned against the railing, her arms folded against the cold. He stood with the cigar box, re-wrapped in the brown paper, under his arm.

  “I think you’re handling it very well,” Marcia said.

  “Oh, Jake? I’m not doing anything. She’s quite a kid, you know.”

  “She’s a very lusty young girl,” Marcia said remotely. The distant street light touched her pale hair, making it look silver, making it look like the smooth sheen of fast water in moonlight.

  “’Night, Marcia. Thanks for the party.”

  “Good night, Teed.”

  As he backed out the driveway he saw that she still stood there, hips braced against the railing, arms folded, shoulders slightly hunched. In some obscure way she always managed to annoy him. She was like the clear ice on a winter stream where, if you look closely, you can imagine that you see the water bubbling by underneath. Seven years of responsibility for the household. Maybe that had done it.

  Responsibility like that could do odd things to a girl like Marcia. With the death of her mother, the home could have fallen apart. Powell Dennison, with his dedication to his work, Jake, with her streak of wildness, both needed some focal point, some sane stability on which to depend. Marcia gave of herself, gave up her freedom, gave up a part of her individuality, for the sake of the home.

  And, as with all forms of martyrdom, Teed knew that the danger was that she would learn to like it, possibly had already begun to like it, to value the deep sad wells of self-pity more than the lost freedom.

  Once again he found himself thinking of the lovely Ronnie, of days long gone. Ronnie, who couldn’t wait. Ronnie, the Dayton wife of the insurance man. He knew he had been a fool to expect her to wait. There was no waiting in Ronnie. A war made no difference to her vast insatiable impatience.

  So the little dark man had grabbed her deftly a month after Teed had left. There had been two possible futures for Ronnie. Either someone married her and chained her with children, with clockwork pregnancies, or she would become a tramp—not because there was any evil in her, any coarseness—but merely because she was driven and harried and spurred on by both a strong consciousness of the passing of time, and by the delusion that there was only one way, one fundamental way of making time stand still for a little while. Teed knew the accepted explanations of nymphomania. None of them seemed to fit Ronnie. He had a symbolic picture of her in his mind. A tiny naked Ronnie running, endlessly screaming, down a narrow empty street, running by all the sleep-shops, by the window displays of bedroom suites, by the deodorant and cosmetic ads that implored her to smell better, taste better, look juicier, acquire that wanted look—while behind Ronnie bounded the tireless beast which ha
s a clock dial instead of a face, and carries the little packages of wrinkles, of gray hairs, of varicose veins, of sagging wattled tissues. In a nation where youth is a synonym of happiness, time-conscious women spend billions to cheat the hand of a clock, to prove that a calendar can lie. Teed went to sleep while playing the frayed old game entitled What Might Have Been. And Ronnie walked into his dreams, carrying a little wooden purse shaped exactly like a coffin, and one of the silver handles was actually a lipstick.

  At nine-thirty the next morning Teed turned into the drive of Lonnie Raval’s home on Roman Hill, in one of the most exclusive residential suburbs of Deron. The drive slanted up to an oval turn-around with a three-car garage beyond it, an antique lamppost on a patch of green in the middle of it.

  A small, stringy, dish-faced man wearing a white jacket came out the side door and stood waiting for Teed to approach.

  “I’d like to see Mr. Raval.”

  “Out in the back. What’s in the box?”

  “Cigars. I’m…”

  “I know who you are, Morrow, and where you work. He’s out in the back.”

  Teed walked around the garages. He glanced back. White-Jacket was following him at a careful thirty-foot interval. Lonnie Raval stood forty feet behind the garage. New golf balls were blazing white against the grass. Lonnie had an iron in his hand. He was a tanned man of medium height with strong shoulders. He was dark-haired, entirely unremarkable except for his eyes, which were long-lashed, liquid, melting black.

  He smiled at Teed. “Hi, fella! Glad to see you. O.K., Sam.” White-Jacket turned without a word and went back around the garage toward the house.

  “Trying to get more loft and more backspin,” Lonnie explained. He addressed a ball, swung hard. The ball went out in an arc that was too flat. A hundred yards down the manicured slope, a leggy brunette in a chartreuse sun suit scuffed over to the ball, picked it up and put it into the cloth bag she carried. There was something bored and petulant about her stance and her walk.

  “Now what the hell am I doing wrong, Morrow?”