Judge Me Not

by John D. MacDonald

  Teed wanted to tell them that Boyd was going to kill him if they didn’t stop him. His teeth chattered insanely as his head bobbed on the thick shoulder. Boyd grunted with each blow, twisting his heavy body to get the back muscles into each blow, moving in a slow, almost sexual rhythm. Broznahan, Barbara and Pilcher receded until they were tiny figures, almost too far away to see, and then the red mist drifted across them at the very moment that Boyd’s blows stopped hurting entirely.

  He came to on the Indian blanket on the living-room bed. In the moment of regaining consciousness, his knees came up hard, as high as he could draw them. It eased the pain in his middle.

  Barbara sat beside him. She wiped the sweat from his face with the cool damp washcloth.

  “Where—are they?”

  “Pilcher is in the bathroom cleaning Boyd up, darling.”

  “Could have—taken him. Sapped me, though. Couldn’t…”

  “It was my fault, darling. My fault. I should have known better than get wise with Boyd.”

  “He won’t—try to force you to…”

  She smiled without humor. “Not unless he wants to start talking soprano.”

  “Shouldn’t—talk hard that way. Jesus, I hurt. Can’t get my knees down.”

  “Don’t try yet. The last thing he did was back up fast and kick you before you could fall.”

  “Get—even sometime.”

  “Don’t think about it now.”

  “You—leave. Take my car. Leave it… City Hall lot.”

  “I’ll stay with you and see that you’re all right.”

  “Please… important. Tell Armando Rogale. Lawyer. That’ll keep them—from working me over too much. Here’s keys.”

  She took the keys, concealed them in her hand. She kissed him lightly on the forehead. “Good-by, Teed. And thanks.”

  She walked quickly and quietly out. He listened and heard the Ford start, heard her give it the gun. He grinned at Pilcher as the man came running angrily out of the bathroom.

  “She’s used to better—company, Pilcher.”

  Pilcher walked over to the bed. “Oh, how I love them wise! How I love them with a nice big fat chip on the shoulder! Morrow, you’re going to be so goddamned eager to tell us you killed Mrs. Carboy that you won’t be able to get the words out fast enough.”

  “And you’ll be wondering—how an ex-cop finds a job.”

  “Hell, boy! I forgot you’re a reformer. I was just thinking of you as a murderer. Forgive me, huh?”

  By the time they were ready to leave, Teed could stand up, but he couldn’t straighten up. And he couldn’t walk without support. He knew, from their attitude, that they hadn’t found a thing. Broznahan seemed disgruntled.

  With Boyd on one side and Pilcher on the other, they walked him out to the car. He had to take one step at a time, and he walked like an old man, unable to lift his heels clear of the ground. They put him in the back seat with a grim, silent Boyd, who held a wet folded towel against his nose.

  They drove him into town, drove him to a precinct station in West Deron, took his tie, belt, shoelaces, pocket articles and led him back to a ten-by-ten cell containing two iron bunks, a wall faucet, a pail, a tin cup and a toilet without a seat. He eased himself down onto the bunk and then lay in the only comfortable position he could find, on his side with his knees drawn up. He was almost asleep from exhaustion when Pilcher and a stranger came in. The stranger was in uniform pants and shirt sleeves. His corded forearms were covered with a pelt of red hair.

  “He’s real stubborn, Harry?” the stranger asked.

  “He doesn’t know we’re trying to help him, Mose. Just hold him for me.”

  Mose handled Teed with the same ease with which Teed would have handled a child. He swung him out of the bunk, forced him down onto his knees, facing the bunk. Mose sat on the bunk with Teed’s wrists imprisoned in red hands that were like vises.

  “Turn it up, Georgie!” Pilcher shouted. A radio began to blast music so loudly that it sounded like a sound truck was right outside the cell.

  When the blow fell, the scream tore itself out of Teed’s throat before he could think to stop it. He turned his head. Pilcher stood spread-legged behind him, grinning and swinging a regulation billy by the thong. “Little kidney massage, boy. If I’m careful there won’t be any permanent damage. But sometimes I get careless.”

  The second blow chopped into the opposite side and this time Teed suppressed the scream.

  Mose grinned at him. “Don’t make it tough on yourself, friend.”

  Teed let his muscles go slack. Then suddenly he snapped both wrists up, against Mose’s thumbs. The instant his hands were free, he lunged forward and drove his right fist into Mose’s face. The blow was feeble, glancing, but oddly satisfying. He kicked backward and his heel hit something soft. His laceless shoe fell off. They grabbed him again and the third blow drove him down into darkness.

  They shook him awake. It was dark. The single cell light was a small bulb behind steel mesh in the cell ceiling. He struck out at them.

  “Hey, easy!” Armando said. Teed wanted to roll over onto his face and weep with relief. “Come on. Get hold of my arm.”

  “We better take him to my house,” Powell Dennison said. Teed hadn’t recognized him in the gloom.

  “Wait a second, before we get him on his feet,” Armando said. “Teed, here’s your stuff from the desk. Powell, get the belt in his pants. I’ll fix up his shoes.”

  Teed licked dry lips. “I didn’t tell them anything.”

  “So we hear,” Armando said. “How many times they work you over?”

  “I don’t remember which parts were real and which parts were just dreams.”

  “You wore out some stalwart officers of the department, Teed. You even converted Pilcher. Leighton told me that Pilcher refused to touch you again. He said he wasn’t going to get in any mess where you had to kill somebody before they’d talk.”

  “Are you taking me out of here?”

  “Dennison went bail. The charge is assaulting an officer in the performance of his duties.”

  “He was trying to…”

  “Save your strength. I had a talk with the girl.” Armando slipped an arm under his. “Come on, fella.”

  Every step was torture. Every breath he took was like so many knives being forced between his ribs. He leaned heavily on the two of them, the morose turnkey following along behind.

  They went slowly up three stairs and the turnkey opened a barred door. He pulled it shut after they went through. There was a short hallway that opened into a large room. Several cops were standing around. Pilcher was there, chewing his match. Leighton stood by the doorway to the street. Everyone watched him.

  Pilcher said distinctly, “These crazy guys. Always falling down a flight of stairs or something. Feel better, Morrow?” Teed stopped walking. He pulled his arms away from Armando and Powell. He pulled himself erect and the effort dizzied him. Then, planting one foot slowly in front of the other, he walked steadily and slowly and unsupported over toward Pilcher. Pilcher took a step backward, then thought better of it. His eyes were wary.

  Teed stopped in front of Pilcher. “You,” Teed said softly, “are a sadistic sonofabitch.”

  “Now, look!”

  “You’re a poor policeman and a poor human being.”

  “I don’t have to take that!”

  “Then hit me again, Pilcher. If you don’t like the words, hit me again.”

  Pilcher looked at the cops, who were watching silently. He laughed nervously. “What are you going to do with a guy like that?” He turned away, walked quickly through an opposite doorway.

  Armando caught Teed before he fell, and they got him out to the car. Teed sat in the back seat. After two blocks he began to cry, sobbing aloud.

  “Easy, boy,” Armando said.

  He stopped before they reached the Dennison house. Jake and Marcia stood wide-eyed and silent in the hall as they brought him in and started up the stairs with him
.

  “Phone Dr. Schaeffer, Marcia, please,” Powell said. He asked to be permitted to stop and rest at the landing. Jake squeezed by them and went on up the stairs. A bedroom light clicked on. Teed could not see the bed, but he could see it in his mind. Deep and soft and white and eternal.

  After a few moments he felt as though he could make it the rest of the way. The bed lamp glowed on the white pillows. Jake had turned the bed down and she stood silently in the shadows. Her father said a low word to her and she left. Armando and Powell helped him undress.

  The doctor seemed to arrive almost immediately. He was a brisk man with a military mustache. Armando and Powell stood back in the shadows as the doctor prodded softly, expertly. “Hurt? Now breathe. Again. This hurt?”

  “Should he go to a hospital, Doctor?” Powell asked in the soft voice used in a room of the sick.

  “I… don’t think so. Who—what happened to this man?”

  “Would you be willing to testify that he was beaten?” Armando asked.

  “I’m quite busy. Testimony means appearing in court. Delays.”

  “Would you sign a statement?”

  The doctor was silent for a long moment. “Really, it’s hard to be certain about a thing like this.”

  “What damage is there?”

  “I wouldn’t care to say just yet. I’ll want samples. Urine, stool. There’ll be some bleeding. Superficial kidney damage, I would say. Of course, a severe fall would…

  “A fall where he bounced a few dozen times?” Armando asked acidly.

  Schaeffer straightened his shoulders. “I am fresh out of lances, sir, and I have no quarrel with windmills. I’ve seen this sort of work before. My work is to heal.”

  “And never stick your neck out,” Armando said.

  “Please, Mr. Rogale.” Powell Dennison said.

  Alcohol was a touch of coolness on Teed’s arm. The needle was a point of fire in the cool patch. “I’ll stop by in the morning,” Schaeffer said. “He’ll sleep until then. I’ll decide in the morning whether we should take him in for X-rays. There’s no definite rib fracture. Maybe a crack or two. This man has a very powerful body. I suspect he may snap back quite rapidly.”

  The doctor left. Powell went down with him. Teed heard their low vices on the stairs and in the lower hallway.

  Armando said, “I think you’ll stay sick quite a while, Teed. So sick they can’t haul you in again.”

  “If they started on me again I… I don’t know.”

  “You’ve made a friend, Teed. Herb Leighton. Sorry I couldn’t get you out quicker. They hadn’t booked you. Said at headquarters you weren’t in custody. Leighton had a job finding out which precinct you were in.”

  Armando’s voice went on and became a buzzing sound that made no sense. Teed hauled himself back up out of the enclosing darkness. His speech sounded drunken. “I missed that last part, Armando.”

  “I said that the Heddon woman was a little unpopular with the boys right now. They didn’t like the way she ran out. So she’s laying low for a while. I found her a place. If they try to bring that assault charge to trial, she’s willing to testify in your behalf. What the hell did you do to her? Give her religion? She must know that if she sticks her neck out for you, they’ll give her a train ride to Dannemora.”

  “Don’t… let her do it,” Teed said. His voice sounded as though it were echoing through a tunnel.

  “Hey, boy. Those ginches are expendable. She takes her own risks.”

  Teed could hold his eyelids open no longer. He was vaguely conscious of the light going out, of soft footsteps, of the closing of the room door. The pain of each breath lost sharpness. It was no longer pain. It was a deep blue light that glowed with each inhalation. It was apart from him.

  Chairs were drawn close to the bed. They all sat there, their knees touching the bed, all their shoulders touching. They all sat in the dark and watched him under the blue light. Each time the light glowed, he could see their faces, the shadowed eyes.

  “Who is this man?” they chanted softly. “Who is this man who was once a boy?”

  Voice of his father, “He is my son. He was my son.”

  Voice of the sister long dead, “My brother.”

  Voice of the lovely Ronnie, “My lover. Father of the bastard child which, because of two hundred dollars and ten degrading minutes, was never born.”

  And voice of Felice, coldly, “He is my murderer. So I am closer than the others.” Chant of the black-haired daughter, “He is my soul.” Incantation of Powell, “He is the son I might have had.”

  Whispered voice of Barbara, “He is my shame.”

  And back in the echoing caverns of his mind, in the trackless paths which lead to no open space, Teed Morrow raised his head and screamed until the neck cords stood like cables. “Who am I?” he screamed. And the answer was a shot that made no sound, send him tumbling over and over, down and down into darkness, between walls of slate.

  Chapter Eight

  “How are we this morning?” Dr. Schaeffer said.

  Aftereffects of the injection were like clouds, his mind like an aircraft that flew through them, alternating bright lucidity with the almost overpowering desire to sink back into sleep. His tongue felt as though it had been split, packed with cotton, resewed.

  “From neck to knees, Doctor, I feel like a dull toothache. The rest of me is fine.”

  “You’re like a rainbow. I can pick out six distinct colors. Hungry?”

  “Definitely.”

  “You’re on a bland diet. Milk toast, soft-boiled eggs. Yesterday’s fever is gone. You’re subnormal right now. X-ray plates show nothing.”

  “Wait a minute. Yesterday’s fever? What’s today?”

  “Friday, Mr. Morrow.”

  “Wasn’t I brought here last night?”

  “No. Wednesday night. You’ve lost a day. Can’t you remember any of it?”

  Teed frowned. “A few bits and pieces. Can I get up?”

  “This afternoon, if you feel like it. You can get dressed tomorrow. Avoid bending over, picking up anything heavy. There’s some abdominal-muscle damage. Not much, but enough to be careful about. Stop in my office Monday morning.”

  The doctor left. Teed could sense his own weakness. He shut his fists, and could not shut them tightly. After a time he heard steps on the stairs, the clink of dishes. Marcia came in with food on a tray table.

  “Good morning, nurse,” Teed said.

  She was crisp, quick, smilingly polite. She bent over him to pull the pillows up. She smelled of soap and some floral perfume. She looked as though she had been scrubbed with a harsh brush until she glowed. Viking woman.

  “Did I make the papers?” he asked.

  “I’ll get them for you. The Times played it down. The Banner News convicted you, on the front page, of drunken assault, lechery, obstructing justice. They slyly hinted that you killed Mrs. Carboy, but Mr. Rogale told Daddy that some legal eagle had gone over the story before it was printed, so there’s nothing actionable.”

  “I guess I’ve got a little dirty linen to hang on the public clothesline.”

  Her lips tightened a bit. “That’s your affair, Teed. Not mine.”

  “Marcia, are you as prim inside as you look outside?”

  “I’ll get the papers now,” she said.

  He went over the Thursday papers and the Friday morning Banner News carefully. The only important thing was to determine if Dennison had been hurt by this. He flushed as he read the editorial in the Banner News.

  “Mr. Powell Dennison is, we understand, highly regarded in the field of municipal administration. However, it appears to us that Mr. Dennison’s background has been more theoretical than practical. Many intelligent men who perform a valid function in institutions of higher education find themselves somewhat at a loss when it comes to the give and take of the everyday world.

  “It is no slur on Mr. Dennison’s standing, professionally, to raise certain questions about his capability in the
matter of employing personnel. He had known and worked with Mr. Teed Morrow in the past. So rather than select his assistant from among the many capable men who know the ins and outs of Deron politics and procedures, Mr. Dennison went far afield to bring Mr. Morrow here from some position or other in Pennsylvania. Personal loyalty is fine. When it is given more emphasis than effective administration, it becomes dubious.

  “We hold no grief for Mr. Teed Morrow. Perhaps he performs his assigned work efficiently. That is for Mr. Dennison to say. But Mr. Morrow has come here and in six months he has apparently grown to believe that because of his position, he stands apart from ordinary moral standards, and feels himself to be beyond the touch of duly constituted law and order. It is up to the courts to unravel the more intriguing aspects of Mr. Morrow’s personal habits. We can only conjecture about the known facts. One—Mrs. Mark Carboy’s automobile was found in front of Mr. Morrow’s apartment on the morning following her death. Two—When Officers Boyd and Pilcher went to Mr. Morrow’s rented camp at West Canada Lake to question him regarding Mrs. Carboy’s car, they found Mr. Morrow in the company of a notorious woman whose name has appeared on the police blotter on three separate occasions. Three—When Officers Boyd and Pilcher attempted to question Mr. Morrow, he assaulted Sergeant Boyd and broke his nose. It was necessary to use force to bring Mr. Morrow into custody.

  “We do not feel that Mr. Morrow’s actions are what we should expect of any public servant.

  “We humbly suggest to Mr. Dennison that he request Mr. Morrow’s resignation and that Mr. Morrow be replaced by one of the capable citizens of this city.