Judge Me Not

by John D. MacDonald

  “What’s wrong, Teed?”

  “When things are finished, I like them to stay finished. If you’ve got anything to say, say it. If not, get your clothes on and go home.”

  “Teed, I…”

  He tensed and raised a hand. “Shut up. Listen!”

  The car had slowed on the highway. The camp and the two parked cars were not visible from the highway. He heard the faint whimper of rubber on the hard surface, the change of motor noise, and knew that the car was turning in.

  There was no need to warn Felice. She scrambled out of the bed, snatched up her clothes. She darted, ludicrous in frightened nudity, toward the bathroom. A shoe fell and she dodged back, snatched it up, biting hard on her under lip, her eyes wide and scared. He took her purse and gloves and glasses off the bureau, stopped the door as she started to slam it, shoved the articles into her arms and pulled the door shut.

  He took a deep breath and walked slowly toward the door. The car had stopped in the blocked lane. Two men got out, came quickly toward him. He stared hard at them and wanted to laugh, yet something choked off the laughter. In the shaped rubber masks that covered their heads, they looked like twins. Familiar twins. And then he realized that the masks represented Mortimer Snerd, he of the buck teeth, receding chin, owlish, harmless, stupid stare. And the automatic that one held, glinting oily blue in the afternoon sunlight, seemed to beam toward him a ray of cold invisible light. The light was focused on his belly and the spot it touched was cold.

  The twin Snerds came close. A whisper cannot be identified or remembered. “Turn around and walk in slow.”

  “So she set this up for you? Where’s your camera, boys?”

  He walked in, heard the quick rustle of movement behind him and tried to move quickly forward, away from the expected blow. It hit the back of his head and it was oddly like one of the tumbles of childhood, where the skull raps smartly against the unforgiving sidewalk. He rocked toward the wall on drunken joints and they grabbed him expertly. Every touch hurt and he cried out as they twisted him, flung him onto the bed. As he started to recover, to bring into play that massive strength that he knew how to use, he was rapped again, driven down right to the edge of blackness like a kite that dives toward the earth only to recover at the last moment, struggle painfully back up. When he tried to use his arms again, he found that his wrists had been lashed to the two bedposts. He tried to kick, but it was like kicking under water, and they tied his ankles quickly.

  The twin masks hovered over him, swaying like comic balloons. His head was steadied and glass grated against his lips. Warm whisky filled his mouth and his nose was clamped, a hand fastened tightly across his lips. He had to swallow in order to breathe. Twice he managed to blow the liquor out of his mouth, but time after time he was forced to swallow. Alcoholic skyrockets exploded in the back of his mind. There was a faraway commotion, a woman’s shout of anger or pain, but it was of no importance.

  There was a whisper that said, “Slower, or he’ll heave it.”

  Liquor roared behind his eyes, like a train in a tunnel. The tunnel began to slant downward toward the bowels of the earth. The train rushed on, faster and faster, out of control, rocking on the tracks, whistle shrilling, heading for the final and inevitable…

  He woke up in shuddering, cold-sweat darkness. He sat up, spinning, liquor-sick. His mouth was a loose numb area. The bed swung twice, slowly, the way a pitcher winds up, and then did a gut-wrenching outside loop, spilling him out onto the harsh grass rug that scraped his face and his naked hip. Grass rug. That meant the camp. Damn fool to get so stinking. How did it happen? He went slowly across the rug on his hands and knees. It was cold. He shivered violently, but could not stop sweating. His head butted the doorframe. He turned a bit to the left and crawled out onto the porch, spreading out with his naked chest on the cold boards, his head over the edge of the porch. He fingered the back of his tongue and was sick, wrenchingly, agonizingly, meagerly. He lay for a time, panting with exhaustion, then crawled back to the door.

  With his fingers on the doorframe he pulled himself erect. When the camp swung dizzily, he hung onto the doorframe with all his strength, his eyes tightly shut. When it steadied a bit, he reached around the frame, opening the door with his arm, finding the light switch.

  Light exploded against the windy night. He stared in at the naked woman on the floor near the bathroom door. Her back was toward him, legs drawn up.

  “Got drunk with old F’lice,” he said out loud.

  He blundered through the doorway, lost his grip on the frame. The camp tilted and he ran across the room, big arms flailing. His shoulder smashed against the back of the single overstuffed chair, and he went over with it, smashing a table, hitting his elbow painfully against the wall.

  He sat up, rubbing his elbow. “Take it easy,” he said. He grinned. “Who shoved me? You shove me, Felice?” He looked at her. Now he could see her face. Her dark horrid face, her staring eyes completely white-rimmed, the blackened tongue swollen so that it held the jaw open. Like a face you make to scare people. A face to send kids screaming to mamma.

  “Cut it out, F’lice,” he said petulantly.

  He crawled over to her. He put his hand on her hip. It took long seconds for the chill message to come back from his hand, crescendo in his brain. He pulled his hand back and stared at it. “Felice is dead,” he said, forming the words precisely with his numbed lips.

  Got to think. Got to figure out what happened. Got to get sober, boy. Sober up fast. Shower. No, the lake. Colder and faster. Come on, boy. Get into that water.

  He fell twice on the way down the path. When he got to the dock he made no attempt to dive. He merely walked off the end. He floundered clumsily, and slowly precision came back to his muscles. When he hauled himself, gasping and shivering, up onto the dock, the memory of the two Snerds slid quickly into his mind. He walked up the path. His car was there. Hers was gone.

  He walked in and closed the door. He was still unsteady on his feet, still nauseated, yet his mind was beginning to work. Choice one—get dressed and drive to the nearest phone and report it to the troopers.

  “Yes, sir, two men wearing Mortimer Snerd masks came in and…”

  How nice that would be! Teed Morrow and the mayor’s wife. Teed Morrow, still too loaded to walk anybody’s chalk line. That would be dandy. A nice slap across the mouth for Powell Dennison. A scandal so fat and juicy that Powell’s findings in regard to municipal graft would have all the effect of a penny whistle in a whirlwind.

  Somebody knew she was coming out to the lake. Somebody knew he was meeting her there. And, to make the frame nice and tight, it was equally obvious that someone else was due to arrive and find him still out like a light, the body on the floor.

  He trotted out and got in his car, swung it around without turning the lights on, backed it carefully down to the porch. He opened the trunk compartment and left the lid up.

  Touching her was more difficult than he had thought it would be. Though most of her body was flaccid, there was the beginning of stiffness in her arms and legs. When the lid was up, the trunk light was on. He tried to move too quickly through the doorway with her, and one of her ankles rapped smartly, sickeningly on the doorframe. He shut his jaw hard, turned her legs a bit, and walked out with her, down the porch steps. He put her on her side on the floor of the trunk, facing out, then pushed the body back as far as it would go. He found that by bending her knees, he could wedge her bare feet in the corner just in front of the upright spare tire.

  Her clothes, ripped and torn in removal, were in a clutter on the bathroom floor. He picked them up, mentally checking off each item to make certain he had everything. Her suit was lime yellow, the blouse white, the shoes of yellow canvas with cork platform soles. The heavy glasses were in her purse. He put all her belongings in the trunk compartment with her. As he lowered the lid the trunk light went out and he no longer had to look at her expression of fixed, horrid surprise, at her bruised throat.
r />   He moved the car fifty feet from the porch, still in darkness, and then went back into the camp. He held his feet in the shower to remove the grime and then inspected his clothes. They had been removed as brutally as hers. He dressed quickly in khaki trousers, flannel shirt, leather jacket. Once dressed he righted the fallen chair, carefully picked up the pieces of the ruined table, put them in the fireplace and crammed paper under them, then lit it. He dumped the three red-smeared cigarette butts on top of the flames.

  He was making his third inch-by-inch inspection of the camp for anything that might have been overlooked when he heard the car and saw the headlights swing into the lane. He walked out onto the porch, squinting into the lights, forcing himself to smile.

  “Who is it?” he called when the motor had been turned off. The car lights went off.

  “Seward from Deron Times, Morrow. We had a hell of a time finding this place. Been wandering around these hills for hours.”

  Two men appeared in the light from the open doorway. One of them, a fat stranger, had a big camera case slung over his shoulder. Teed recognized the other, a slim, sharp-featured leg man from the Times named Ritchie Seward. He was on the City Hall beat. It was largely due to the editorials and features in the Times that enough public feeling had been aroused to force through the new City Manager-Mayor form of government for Deron.

  “What cooks, boys?” Teed asked, trying to make his voice less thick.

  Seward came up on the porch and shook hands. “Damn if I know, Morrow. I got an anonymous tip that you could break a big story for us tonight. It was a hell of a dull night. Wife’s gone to a hen party. So I picked up Carl Engalund here and we came out. Don’t tell me it was for nothing!”

  “I don’t know anything hot, Seward,” Teed said. “Come on in and have a drink anyway.”

  Teed stumbled slightly as he followed them through the door. Seward turned and gave him a bright-eyed stare as Engalund went over to warm the seat of his pants at the fire. “Little ahead of us, aren’t you, Morrow?”

  Teed grinned. “A little, I guess. Been having a private celebration. Yesterday was my birthday.”

  Engalund said, “Hell of a thing. A setup like this and you make it a private party. What’s the matter with that City Hall quail, Mr. Morrow?”

  “Too close to the flagpole, Carl. Bourbon all right, with plain water?”

  “Fine.”

  The kitchen adjoined the living room. Teed dropped a glass. It smashed on the floor. As he kicked the pieces aside, he saw Seward staring out at him with bright-eyed speculation. Teed made two drinks and took them in. “I’m sitting this round out, boys.”

  Seward sat on the bed. Engalund took the overstuffed chair. Teed sat on the cane-bottomed chair, straddling it.

  Seward took a long pull at his drink. “How is the battle going in the Hall?” he asked.

  Teed shrugged. “We’re nibbling at them. I don’t know how worried Raval is, though.”

  “A guy like Raval,” Seward said, staring down into his drink, “you’ve got to remember where he came from, how he climbed his little ladder. He drew two years in reform school and that made him smart. He’s never even been booked since. He’s proud of that, Teed. Like those famous television stars, Costello and Adonis, he wants to look and act legitimate.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “Just this. A pocketbook pinch doesn’t hurt that rascal half as much as public condemnation as a crook. He bought his way into the Sandoval Golf Club. Goes to Miami every winter. Keeps his twin daughters in a plush private school. Now Raval knows and I know and you know, Teed, that all you can do to him is cut him down a little. Like a weed in the garden. He’ll grow back. You can force him out of power in city government, and he’ll still have a fine fat take off fifty other things. And when you and Dennison get tired or move on, Raval will climb up into the saddle again. I’m being practical, not cynical. So why won’t he stand still for it? You can’t hurt him badly.”

  “Won’t he stand still for it?”

  “Of course not. He’s got delusions of decency, Teed, and he’ll become very indecent before he’ll stand still for a public smear. I’ve been watching him a long time. We had a guy in town, Jaimey Bell. Jaimey Bell owned a tavern with a back room full of slots and a crap table upstairs. Nothing fancy. He told a reporter from the Times that he was going to testify before the grand jury and that he was going to name a certain big shot in town. Now everybody knew who he was going to name as the guy he had to split with. It wouldn’t have hurt Lonnie a bit. The money went through too many hands before it got to Lonnie’s. But it would have meant a certain notoriety.

  “Jaimey was sitting at his kitchen table at midnight drinking a glass of milk and somebody shoved a shotgun through the kitchen screen and blew half his head off.”

  Teed forced a smile. “A warning, I take it?”

  “With you and Dennison, Lonnie can’t be that crude. But he can be very ingenious. You know why I came fifty miles on an anonymous tip?”

  “Why?”

  “I thought some of Lonnie’s people had set you up to be knocked over. Maybe a morals rap. Something like that. If so, I was going to try to do my best to cover you, because the future of our fair city is damn important to me and you’re Dennison’s right hand. I’m glad I was wrong. So I’m saying this, Teed. Watch yourself. Please watch yourself. Don’t give them an opening. Any kind of an opening. Don’t even get a parking ticket if you can help it. That station house is full of people who would like to bounce you off the walls until you confess you started the Chicago fire.”

  “I’ll… be careful,” Teed said. For a moment he was tempted to tell what had happened. But that was something Ritchie Seward couldn’t cover up, and Teed couldn’t explain adequately enough to convince even the most sympathetic cop.

  “Bottoms up, Carl,” Seward said, setting his empty glass aside. He stood up. “Thanks for the drink, Teed.”

  Teed stood up too. “Would you do me a favor, Ritchie?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “I think I’ll stay out here tonight. That will make me a little late getting in in the morning. I’ll go to an appointment I have at the courthouse instead of direct to the Hall. Would you please phone Dennison in the morning and let him know?”

  “Glad to.”

  Teed stood on the porch as they swung around and drove out, heading back toward the city. He waved, and when they were out of sight, he sat down on the porch steps and buried his face in his hands. He took deep, shuddering breaths. Only luck had kept them from arriving much earlier. In a way it was an omen. Perhaps the luck would hold. He wondered what had become of Felice’s car, and why they had driven it away. Maybe to make it look as though she had come with him in his car.

  He had to complete the rest of it. Finish out the run. He got into his car and, leaving the camp lights on, drove at a carefully legal rate of speed down to the city. At the north edge of the city he turned right, drove down through the mill area, past the railroad yards. He parked in shadows near the city dump, his lights out. He was on a back street, a barren street without houses. A smoldering dump fire made a drifting stench. The street was a block from the main highway, and high enough above it so that garish billboards screened the dump, showed their illuminated message to the speeding night traffic. A paper girl with impossible breasts and ripe smile of seduction endlessly poured beer from a misted bottle into a stemmed glass. A wild-eyed rabbit raced forever across a highway, illustrating the fleetness of a gasoline.

  On the far side of the highway, on a hill, were six radio towers. The red lights outlining skeletal structures were unblinking. The six top lights blinked on and off in puzzling, off-beat cadence. The cold steering wheel was sticky under his hands as he sat there.

  He remembered the damnable trunk light. As soon as he lifted the lid it was going to go on. He pulled the hood release, opened the hood, used the blade of his pocketknife to pry one terminal off the battery. Then when he opened the
trunk, lifting it high, no light went on. She was in darkness. He took the clothes and the purse first, walked quickly around behind the high billboards. Far on the other side of the city a revolving beacon at the airport swept quickly, faintly across him at regular intervals. A can rolled under his foot. He scattered the torn clothes, emptied the purse on the cinders. The sweeping light touched the black-rimmed glasses and he smashed the lenses under his heel. The light touched the familiar red billfold. He took the thin sheaf of bills out of it, rubbed his palms on it to smear prints, tossed it aside. He took the cork-soled shoes, moved back and found damp earth that would take an impression. Wearing the shoes on his hands, he bent over and made two clear prints in a moist place before throwing the shoes toward the scattered clothing.

  The body had stiffened a great deal. It seemed far heavier than before. As he tried to lower it gently, it slipped out of his wet hands and fell heavily. The sweeping light touched her face for an instant and he knew that he would never forget it. He tore her watch from her wrist and could not force himself to try to remove her rings. He found a rusted tin can. He pushed the bills and watch into it. He bent the lid back, then threw the can as far into the dump as he could. It hit with a thin sound lost in the noise of a freight going by. He wiped his wet hands on the thighs of the khaki trousers and walked blindly back to the car, remembering to stay out of the billboard lights. He left behind him the tanned body that had been so precise in love-making, the eyes that had been watchful, the lips that had kissed his.

  Teed fixed the battery terminal and got behind the wheel. The paper girl smirked at him. The rabbit watched him with Ritchie Seward’s bright eyes. The red lights beat out an inaudible rhythm.

  When he was a mile from the camp the rain started. He turned out the lights, undressed in darkness, slid quickly into an exhausted sleep that was like death itself.