Meeting Evil

by Thomas Berger

  A bouncing red ball followed by a little dog suddenly appeared in the street. Had he been driving any faster, he would most assuredly have killed the animal. As it was, he stood on the brakes and just missed the dog, which continued on its heedless way to the opposite gutter, where it snatched up the ball with its teeth.

  Richie saw a small girl on the nearby sidewalk. He beckoned to her to come to the passenger’s window.

  “You ought to watch for cars,” he said. “Your pet could have gotten hurt, and you wouldn’t like that, would you?”

  Close up, her face was somewhat blurry when seen through his borrowed glasses. “No,” said she. “I’m sorry.” A few strands of dead grass clung to her dark hair. She was probably a tomboy and had been rolling around with the dog.

  “You oughtn’t be outside anyway, now it’s getting dark,” Richie told her. “Pick up your doggie and show him to me.” She proceeded to bend down and do so. The animal, some kind of poodle mix, was still holding the ball in its mouth. Richie slid across the seat to where he could reach out the window and rub the dog’s black nose. “Good boy,” he said, and then to the girl, “You take him in now.”

  “I will.” She turned and went toward a nice-looking house with a porch from the ceiling of which hung, on chains, an old-fashioned swing. Earlier in the year, in the heart of real summer, the people inside probably came out and sat in the swing in the evening, maybe with glasses of lemonade. Richie had had no personal experience of that, but knew it well from TV commercials: some kindly old gramps, accompanied by a freckle-faced kid like this one and a dog. Nicest kind of setup imaginable. He grew angry as he thought about the many things that had degenerated from the olden, golden times, and drove out of this neighborhood at a much faster speed than he had heretofore used, for now that he had saved the dog’s life, he knew he had acquired immunity for a while against all troubles. That’s how it worked. You paid your way or had to answer for it. John would agree with that.

  The darkness was coming quickly now, and even with the headlights switched on he saw too little at night in the country and thus tended to fall into a state of dispiritedness. If it was bad now, think of what it would be in the middle of winter, say a late January evening, dark since late afternoon, the chill penetrating to the bowels, the cold air painful from nose to lungs, no people at large, all inside in warm, lighted houses from which you were excluded, you all by yourself, in permanent exile, uncared-for; they encircled, insulated by loved ones. Could he be blamed for being hurt by the flagrant injustice of it?

  Now that the effects of his meal were diminishing, Richie began to have negative thoughts. While other people might take him for the most decisive of men, he was not always as confident as he seemed. He knew he was basically always right, but he was not without second thoughts as to the best means to the desired ends. He was often too soft; he realized that. He should not have allowed himself to be talked out of shooting the cop outside the barn. No good could come of it. In future he should not allow John to bully him morally and cause him to compromise on principles. It was impossible for a policeman to be other than an enemy, and there could be no sense in not mercilessly exploiting any advantage you had over someone who never missed an opportunity to do you dirty when fortune ran the opposite way.

  As he drove through the night, on the dead-black back roads on which the only light came from his headlamps, Richie decided that with the first police car he subsequently encountered (which would probably not happen until he reached the next town, unless he got lucky), he would pretend to be lost and would ask for directions, and when the cop started to speak, would shoot him point-blank in the face. It was essential that the man see it coming, if only for a split second. Blam! In his last instant of life, he knows he has been suckered, has done a lousy job, couldn’t even protect himself, dies in disgrace, not honor. Brave men should piss on his grave. It took no courage to bully people when you wore a gun and a club and handcuffs and were part of a big nationwide army, paid to interfere with anybody you decided to bother. What took bravery was Richie’s way of life: standing alone against all comers, never giving an inch—except of course for friendship, and then being ready to go all out.

  He was pleased when he at last came to an interesting road that held more promise of life. Looking down it, he could see, within half a mile, an area of light and movement. Having driven there, he pulled into the parking lot of a medium-sized shopping center with discount pharmacy, liquor store, supermarket, women’s-wear, and others, all open but none crowded at this hour. Though he did not need money at the moment and had better things to do, he amused himself by quickly assessing some of these stores as to their vulnerability to robbery. Supermarkets had more and more people to maintain surveillance from high offices, either eye-balling or with monitor TVs, and some liquor-store managers kept guns beneath the registers. He would not have feared a toe-to-toe gunfight but hated the thought of being blindsided while he turned to another customer. The paint store might be easy to knock over, but who could say how good a day they had had, how much was in the till? The discount drugstore might offer better possibilities. There was sure to be a woman at the register. The prescription department was usually too far in the rear for the pharmacist, who was always busy anyway, to see clearly up front.

  Richie looked hard for a police car, for cops always spent a lot of time around shopping centers, on the take, naturally, but before he could spot one he saw a lighted telephone booth at an outside corner of the supermarket, and he went there and asked Information (now called by another name by an annoyingly perky female voice) for the number of John Felton, giving the address he had maintained in his flawless memory.

  He used the telephone credit card from Randolph J. Pryor’s wallet. The first ring was answered by a woman with a voice in complete contrast to that of the operator. It was ladylike even when suggesting some anxiety.

  “I hope I’m not bothering you at mealtime,” he said, “but I have business with John.”

  “I’m sorry,” said she. “I just don’t know where he is. He’s been out all day. I’m worried.”

  “Don’t be!” said Richie. “He’s fine. He spent the day with me. I just bought a real nice house from him. He stands to make a sizable commission.”

  “Oh, God. I was mad at first. Then when hours went by without hearing, I got worried. I was even going to watch the TV news to see if there had been a big accident, but wouldn’t you know, our set chose that moment to stop working—and the batteries in the little radio were dead.” She chuckled. “But this is great.”

  She had whined too much: Richie did not like that. Nevertheless, he laughed grandly. “Well, ma’am, he was in good hands with me. I’m a business executive, being transferred up here from down South.”

  “Oh, that’s terrific.” No doubt her excessive emotion was due to the relief with which he was able to provide her. “I was really worried. He called a couple of times early on, and talked sort of crazy, which isn’t like him, and it made me mad at first.”

  “I’m sure he was just joking,” Richie said. “He wanted it to be a surprise, and I’m sorry now if I blew the whole thing. I just wasn’t thinking.” He cleared his throat for effect. “This is a pretty good-size sale. John was real excited.”

  “Must have been,” said the woman. “He doesn’t ordinarily joke very much. But he hasn’t made a sale in a while. We can really use the money.”

  “Speaking of money,” Richie cried, “that’s just why I’m calling, uh, Mrs. Felton—you are Mrs. Felton?”

  “Please call me Joan.”

  “Fact is, I guess John was so excited he forgot to take the deposit check. I discovered I still had it after leaving. I sure would like to get it to him so there’s no possibility of somebody else buying the place behind my back. I called his office, but it’s closed by now.”

  “Are you nearby?”

  “Maybe halfway between there and Hillsdale.”

  “So he was out there,” said Jo
an. “Funny, I never knew Tesmir to list properties so far out.… If you could give me an address where John can pick up the check—he should be home soon.”

  “I’m heading for the city.”

  “Well, would you mind dropping it off here? It’s on the way. But I’m awfully sorry to put you to the trouble.”

  “No problem,” said Richie. “I assure you.” He pretended to need the address.

  “John might beat you home. Who shall I say…?”

  “Pryor,” said Richie. “Randolph J. Pryor.”

  “You turn at the second light on High. That’s Bacon, and you—”

  Richie politely interrupted. “Thank you, ma’am. I’ll try to find it.”

  “Mr. Pryor,” Joan said, “if you were trying to get this number earlier and it was busy, my three-year-old had the phone off the hook. She does that. I’m sorry if it happened.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Richie said and hung up before he got too suspicious about why she was always apologizing. He liked women to be modest, but there was something wrong with demanding forgiveness for damages that had not been done, and he wanted to preserve the elation evoked by the new idea, which was so intense as to make him forget what the previous plan had been, recalling it only vaguely as, en route to the exit, he passed a parked police car, the driver of which was drinking from a cup and took no apparent notice of him.

  III

  THE nightmare, or at least the worst phases of it, had begun to come to an end, and much more quickly than it had developed. First there was a jurisdictional dispute among the various police forces, and though John was “booked” at the state-police substation, he was soon taken, still manacled, to his own town, actually a medium-sized city, for arraignment, and his pleasure in going home, or anyway closer than he had been to home all day, was, once he began to recognize landmarks outside the windows of the car, almost immediately soured by the humiliation of returning in handcuffs. Suppose someone he knew saw him? He had watched with scorn the captured criminals who hid their faces from television news cameras as they were herded toward jail, but now was grateful for their example.

  “Could you please handcuff me in front?” he asked Brocket. “Or to yourself? I think I have a right to cover my face.”

  “I can see why you would be ashamed,” Brocket said, ignoring the request.

  But things suddenly began to go John’s way when they reached city hall, one wing of which was occupied by police headquarters. Beneath the building was a parking garage for official cars. Trooper Franklin, still at the wheel, drove down the ramp and into a far corner of the underground enclosure. There was no need for John to hide his face: only some local officers were in attendance.

  In the elevator, which traveled only one story but so slowly that the trip seemed eternal under the prevailing conditions, one of the local cops murmured something into Brocket’s ear.

  “Huh?” Brocket asked in apparent disbelief, shaking his large head, turning to glance back, raising his brow, at Franklin. He was clutching John’s right elbow. John was still handcuffed at the small of his back.

  Nothing further was said by anyone until the delegation, which attracted stares from a few corridor passersby (none of them reporters), went inside a large corner office and faced an incongruously frail-looking man wearing a gold-buttoned blue uniform and a white shirt the collar of which was slightly too large for his neck.

  “Hi, John,” said he, putting out his hand. “I’m Chief of Police Marcovici.” He scowled at Brocket. “Take those cuffs off.”

  “Chief, he’s our prisoner.”

  Marcovici’s scowl grew darker. “That’s going to quickly change, Officer! This man should not have been collared in the first place. He’s been well vouched for. The lady came in who was a fellow captive. She not only cleared him of any possible suspicion, but she says he’s a hero, for God’s sake. The fugitive we want has been identified as Richard Harold Maranville. He was just released from Barnes Psychiatric, first thing this morning. He’s got a sheet it takes all day to read.”

  Brocket was shaking his big head. “What about all the so-called eyeballs?”

  “I don’t know how long you been in law enforcement,” said the chief, “but if it’s half as long as me, you know how questionable all witnesses are, I’d say especially those people who claim to have seen the whole thing, whatever that might be, if only a fender-bender.”

  Brocket shrugged and admitted the truth of that sentiment. He unlocked John’s cuffs. “What were we supposed to do?” he asked the chief. “We got the call.”

  The chief put his hand out again to John but spoke to Brocket. “I’m a good friend of your superintendent. We’ll do this informally. I’m going to tell him you and your partner did a fine job.”

  “Appreciate it. I’m Brocket. My partner’s Franklin.”

  “You owe me one,” the chief said amiably, then to John, shaking his somewhat benumbed hand, “We’re real sorry about this. The young lady’s right down the hall, and they brought the boy in, too. He’s settled down now and says you’re okay. He got you wrong at first, he says. Also the fine ladies at your place of business gave you a report that should make you feel good; they think the world of you. Mrs. Marcovici, my wife, knows Tess Masterson from the businesswomen’s association.” He grasped John’s shoulder. “We’re all proud of you, John. You’re one of our own. Now, if you don’t mind going down the hall and giving my men all the information you can on this Maranville.” He took his hand away. “You deserve a lot of credit for doing what you did with him. He’s got one of the worst records I’ve ever seen. In and out of one penal facility or another since he was a teenager. Lately he’s been working one of those fake deals at Barnes: ‘antisocial behavior due to an explosive personality disorder.’ They treat them with drugs for a while and let them out as cured. You see what happens. Maranville’s a lot worse than when he went in. In the past he’s assaulted a lot of people and pulled a lot of robberies, usually getting very little money but hurting as many people as he can, but he’s never committed a homicide until today. Not for want of trying, though. He’s cut people real bad, and once he beat a man with a baseball bat, so savagely the victim’s brain-impaired. He’s the kind who should be burned, but no: we’ll go all through this again in a few years when they let him go still another time.”

  “Excuse me, Chief,” said Trooper Brocket, “we’re gonna need some paper on the transfer.”

  Marcovici said nothing but with a finger directed the trooper to one of the uniformed men who stood in wait.

  Brocket spoke at John’s side. “No hard feelings. It’s the job.”

  John felt light-headed. He nodded at the trooper, whom he could see clearly in the physical sense but who seemed morally a blur.

  “Now, if you don’t mind going down the hall with this officer,” Marcovici said, pointing at another man in uniform, “we can—”

  “My family!” John said. “Richie was heading for my home. Have you checked on my family?”

  “Let me just get the latest on that,” said the chief, reaching for the phone on his desk and stabbing at one of the buttons on its panel.

  “He was driving a Smithtown police car,” John said.

  Marcovici winced and waved, and spoke into the telephone. John had now emerged fully from his momentary stupor and was exercised once more.

  The chief said rapidly, “Okay, okay, get going! The man is justifiably concerned.” He hung up. “Seems they’ve been trying to phone for quite a while, but the line’s been busy, and—”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” John shouted, “what good are you people, anyway? You don’t send a car there, when some maniac is roaming the streets?”

  “Now, take it easy, John,” Marcovici said, waving a pencil. “Let me set your mind at rest on one matter. The Smithtown car was found abandoned, just off the motorway at the Costerton exit. That’s a good thirty miles from here, and there haven’t been any reports of car thefts out that way.” The chi
ef smiled. “Anyway, one of our cars is probably at your home by now. You live right near DeForest Park, I understand. Nice area. Your people will be okay, I guarantee. How many children do you have?”

  “Two,” John said impatiently. “Look, can’t I go right there first and see them, then come back here?”

  “We really have to nail this thing down,” Chief Marcovici said, coming to him and taking his elbow, though with a lighter touch than Brocket’s. “If you don’t mind, John. I know how bad your day has been, but—” With his free hand he was signaling to the remaining uniformed officers.

  These men surrounded John as if he were still a prisoner and inexorably escorted him out the door and along a corridor to a roomful of shirt-sleeved men, some uniformed, some not. In a far corner was a partitioned enclosure, with a door paned in frosted glass. It was closed and bore no identification.

  One of his escorts opened the door, and John saw Sharon and Tim for the first time since the episode at the barn. Sharon took him unaware with a cry of delight and a hug that was quite forceful for a woman of her size.