Meeting Evil

by Thomas Berger

  She thrust herself at arm’s length, holding onto his arms. “It’s so great to see you, John! God, it’s great!” Then she hugged him again.

  John lost some of the fear that had obsessed him. These two were also a family of his, and he was deeply moved by Sharon’s obviously sincere affection.

  “I’m glad to see you, Sharon. I feared the worst.” He felt a sudden access of guilt. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do better.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked with mock severity. “Isn’t saving our lives enough for you?”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head regretfully. “I wish—” He continued to touch her but extended his free right hand to Tim, and the boy rose from his chair and diffidently shook it.

  “We’re all okay now!” Sharon said with a rush of feeling, and she began to sob. John took her in his arms again and kissed her forehead and her cheek just before the tears reached it.

  “I wish I could say I was as brave as either one of you,” he said. “I made too many mistakes.”

  “Mr. Felton,” a male voice said impatiently, “I’m Detective Lang.” He wore a brushy mustache and was seated at the table in the middle of the room. A gold shield hung on a tab from the upper pocket of his tweed sports jacket. A tape recorder sat near his forearm. “Would you like to sit down, so we can get the whole story of what happened today?” As John approached the table, Lang stood up and shook his hand.

  “Look,” said John, “I can tell you later. First I want to check on my wife and children. They’ve been home alone all day, and nobody’s reached them yet.” He had no intention of being further obstructed by the police, and started for the door.

  But behind him Lang, still standing, said, “John, please! As soon as our car gets to your house and finds everything okay, they’ll call in. Please, we got to get this bad guy, and you can really help.”

  This was the effective note to strike, all right. Now that Sharon was praising him for his nonexistent heroism, John believed more than ever that he had been disgustingly inadequate in dealing with Richie. He came back to the table and sat down in the chair that Sharon and Tim had left vacant between them. Sharon was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

  He turned to the boy. “You realize now, I guess, that I wasn’t Richie’s willing partner. But it was dumb of me to break that phone line. I don’t know why I did that. I wasn’t thinking, and it was stupid. I want you to know I’ll pay for the damage.”

  Tim consoled him. “You had a lot on your mind at the time. You were under a lot of pressure. Sharon told me what you guys had to go through all day.”

  John asked Sharon, “Are you all right? I never got a chance to talk to you alone after we drove out of town. You seemed out of it for a while, but then you really snapped back.” Having said as much, he wondered whether he should have: Richie had claimed she was on drugs.

  It turned out Richie had been right, for the wrong reasons. “I’ve got a condition I take medication for.” She smiled brightly, through smeared eye makeup. “It’s not life-threatening, just a pain in the neck, but it kicked up there.”

  “You knew from the first what he was,” John said. “That’s what gets me. I didn’t have a clue. If I had, just think, maybe I could have saved that poor girl at the gas station.”

  Sharon clasped his hand on the table. “And maybe not, too, John. He had a knife, didn’t he?”

  John shook his lowered head. “I guess. I didn’t see it. But he never threatened me, never raised a hand against me all day. You saw that. He got this idea I was his friend. I probably could have done a lot more than I did, using that against him. But I didn’t!”

  “John,” said Detective Lang. “Can we get this going in a more structured way? How did you meet this Maranville in the first place, and then try to remember as many details as you can about everything that happened afterwards.” Lang nodded at Tim and then at Sharon. “And you two can jump in at the right point if you remember something on your own. I got your original statements, but John might mention something that will trigger your own memory, either one of you.”

  John turned his hand so that he was clasping Sharon’s. “Christ, how could I know he would go into the taxi office and attack that woman!”

  “How could you know?” Sharon asked. “Nobody’s blaming you, John. So just stop this stuff! Think of what you did for Tim and me.”

  “John,” said Lang.

  “I think you two saved yourselves,” John said, “in spite of me. That’s what I think.”

  “John,” asked the detective, dancing his fingers above the tape-recorder buttons. “If you would, please?” He spoke toward the machine, identifying himself, John, Sharon, and Tim. “Now, John, when did you first encounter Richard Harold Maranville today, and did you know him prior to today?”

  John stirred in his chair, taking his hand from Sharon’s. “There’s been enough time now for your people to get to my house and report! Why don’t I hear anything?”

  Lang touched the side of the machine. “I’m sure we will any minute now. We’re giving it priority. Maybe the officer was delayed getting there.” He gazed blandly at John’s stare but in the next instant turned off the tape recorder and stood up. “Let me go check for you. I know you’re concerned.” He carefully closed the glass door on his departure.

  “The least he can do,” Sharon said indignantly. “You know, you can sue them for false arrest, and I guess he knows that.”

  “It was the state troopers who did it,” John said. “They had no choice, I suppose. Hell, several people said it was me who committed the crimes.” He immediately regretted having made the statement: Tim was probably one of those witnesses. He turned to the lad. “I don’t mean you. You had good reason.”

  Tim had been looking bored, but he now displayed a grin. “Dumbest thing I did was not go out and grab the twelve-gauge when you left it on the porch. Then I coulda shot Richie when he showed up.”

  “I’ll bet you would have done it, too.” John was sincere. “Living out in the country, you probably know about guns.” Beyond that, the boy had proved to be resolute.

  “There’s not a whole lot to know about them,” said Tim. “You just point them at what you want to hit and blast away.” He lost his grin and said soberly, “Well, there is something to learn. My dad taught me what I know. But when he left, he took all his guns with him.”

  “I was wondering,” John asked, “If maybe I bought a gun and took it out there, you might give me lessons? I’d be willing to pay you.”

  Tim was enthusiastic. “You don’t have to pay me. We could shoot skeet if you’d bring a trap and the clay pigeons. Bird season hasn’t opened yet.”

  John remembered the boy’s age. “If it’s okay with your mother.”

  “Do you know,” said Sharon, “he refused to say anything to the police unless they promised not to tell his mother until after she got out of class?”

  Tim explained. “She’s studying accounting at night school. It’s tough enough as it is: she’s pretty old to have to go back to school. I left a note if I don’t get back by the time she comes home.”

  “That will only worry her more,” Sharon chided. “Can’t you see that?”

  John played the father’s mediating role. “Maybe he’ll get back in time.” He smiled at Tim. “If not—” But Lang returned at that moment.

  The detective appeared to be smiling under his brushy mustache. “John, you’ll be happy to know everybody’s okay at your house. The patrolman went to the door and talked to your wife. She and the kids are just fine.”

  John expelled his breath and squeezed Sharon’s hand.

  “Furthermore,” Lang added, briskly reclaiming his chair, “it might settle your mind to know we’re keeping an unmarked car in the neighborhood until Maranville is apprehended. We don’t think he’ll head there, but in view of what he told you, we’re taking no chances. Now, when we’re finished here, we’ll give you a lift home.”

  “All
right,” said John. “Let’s get this over with as soon as possible. My wife’s been alone all day. I haven’t even been able to reach her by phone for hours.”

  “You’ll be glad to hear somebody’s with her there now,” Lang said smugly. “A business associate.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. Did you get the name?”

  “Patrolman didn’t pass that on,” said Lang, manipulating his machine.

  Could it be Tess, or Miriam? Nice of them. Until Chief Marcovici’s reference to those “fine ladies,” John had not been aware of their alleged high opinion of him. He had not made a sale in several months, and Miriam, who handled the money, had recently not been eager to advance him more funds. She liked him better than Tess did. Tess was the married partner. Miriam had been divorced many years before. In his opinion she was more attractive in personality than Tess. John was the only man currently working with Tesmir. He had no special feeling about female as opposed to male bosses, unless it would be that he preferred the former. He had always got on better with his mother than with his father. His father had worked on straight salary for almost thirty years in the payroll department of Bickford Industries before dying suddenly of a heart attack. John had never come close to satisfying him. He had not made the football team in college, nor studied law or medicine, nor even finished school.

  When he got out of this thing that had consumed his entire day and called into question, in the most basic way, what he was or was not, John determined to get hold of himself and take a hard look at which opportunities might be available to him. He was still young. It was not out of the question that he go back to school and get whatever credits separated him from a degree. Should not be too many; he had put in three years, more or less. Probably have to do it nights, which would take longer than full-time, but so what? Meanwhile, maybe the real-estate market would pick up again. He could sell houses if buyers were available; he had proved that. He was especially good with the wives. Women, married women anyway, still trusted male salespeople, at least in his experience. What they wanted was someone who would demonstrate an authoritative concern for their interests, which nowadays were not confined to kitchen, nursery, and home laundry. You could and in fact certainly should address them on electrical, heating, and plumbing matters. They would be flattered in any event, but in point of fact some were more knowledgeable in these areas than their husbands (Joanie was a better driver than he, knew more about automobiles), and all were much less likely to be competitive on such subjects with a male agent, even when, as sometimes happened, they were really better versed than John about heat pumps and bringing the circuits up to code.

  He now told Detective Lang every detail he could remember of his day with and without Richie. Ironically, he recognized that he had himself performed better in Richie’s presence than when he had gone off on his own. The episode at the farm, in which his role had been so sorry before Richie and Sharon appeared, might well not have happened at all had he stayed with the car, in leaving which, abandoning Sharon, he had surrendered to feelings of selfish impatience. He had simply walked away from a situation with which he was fed up. That had been wrong at the time and got no better in retrospect.

  “I did some foolish things due to panic,” he told Lang. “I thought that man was really going to shoot me. That’s why I took his gun away from him.”

  “The shotgun’s been recovered,” Lang said. “Maranville left it behind when he abandoned the Smithtown cruiser.”

  Tim spoke up in his eager voice. “You lucked out. It had a custom stock. It looked like big bucks.”

  “Yeah,” said the detective, winking at Tim. He switched the tape recorder off. “English. Owner valued it at eight grand, though between you and I”—he was speaking to John now—“people sometimes exaggerate for the insurance claim. Eight thousand?”

  “Handmade!” said Tim. “They can go higher than that.”

  “Not with me they don’t,” said Lang, switching the machine on again.

  “That’s one relief, then,” said John. “I don’t have eight thousand dollars. I haven’t got eight hundred.” At another time he might have been embarrassed to make this confession into a tape recorder, but he had the wonderful warm feeling that he was among friends here. His emotions had gone into a very vulnerable state, no doubt as an aftereffect of his ordeal with Richie, which seemed more harrowing in retrospect than when in progress. Perhaps this was the routine interpretation, but he suspected that all clichés having to do with extreme situations are true and therefore remain eloquent to the participants.

  “Yes,” said Lang. “Haverford’s not going to press charges. He’ll get his gun back.”

  “That’s his name?” John asked. “I didn’t even know it. I probably couldn’t even find his house again.” He stared at the detective. “It’s crazy. Nothing like this ever happened to me before.”

  Lang shut the machine off again and said, with understanding, “John, that’s the way it goes with a lot of people we meet in our line of work. We get more solid citizens than bad guys, you know. And thank God, huh? You did just fine. Nobody expects you to be experienced in these things. Because how would you be unless you were one of the villains, right?” He added, with obvious pride, “Or an officer of the law.”

  Sharon spoke up. “John pulled us out of some tight corners. I already told you that, but I want to make it extra clear.”

  John said quickly, “Enough has been made of that. I just hope you can catch Richie soon, before he does any more damage to the human race.”

  “I’d like to see you kill him!” Sharon cried.

  Lang was wry. “You can be assured we’ll do everything we can to see his civil rights are protected, even if the lives of police officers are at risk. We’ll wrap him in cotton wadding and take him in so he can be sent back to Barnes Psychiatric, to be treated at taxpayers’ expense till they let him out again.”

  This kind of cynicism was familiar from television crime shows, and in the past John had become bored with it. Whether or not it was justified, chronic exasperation was simply tiresome, at least in John’s existence. He might be changing now, but he did not want to dwell on the matter. He just wanted to go home.

  “That’s really all I can recall,” he told Lang, nodding at the tape machine. “If I think of anything else, I can phone you, can’t I?”

  “Just a couple more things, if you don’t mind, John.” Lang proceeded to ask what turned out to be a whole series of further questions, some of which John believed he had already answered. Eventually he had had enough, and he stood up.

  “That’s it. I’m going home.”

  “John, you’ve been very helpful,” said Lang. “I’ll get a car to give you a ride back, and you, too, Sharon.” He rose and smiled down at the boy. “Tim, Smithtown’s sending an officer for you, and your mom will be with him.”

  “I just hope,” Tim said disapprovingly, “you didn’t drag her out of class.”

  Lang did not respond to this. He said to John, “This is a young fellow who’s going to do all right in life, wouldn’t you say?”

  John still felt shy with Tim. “Maybe we could go into the city and see a ballgame sometime,” he told the boy. “Or whatever you like to do for fun.” He felt inept. He had been a boy himself, but at the moment could not remember what he had liked at that age. He was weary now, and it had been so long ago.

  “Sure,” Tim said, and then he asked if there was time for him to have a look at the radio-dispatching room before his mother arrived.

  “Bye, Tim,” Sharon said gaily as Lang led the boy out. “Keep in touch, huh?” She turned to John. “I don’t want to get you in trouble at home, so I won’t say the same to you.” She had not had time to refresh the heavy makeup, which by now was the worse for wear, but she had naturally fine brown eyes.

  “I misjudged you,” John said. “I want you to know that.”

  Sharon showed a brief expression of chagrin. “Yeah,” she said, “I came on to you after the car ac
cident. I panicked. I can’t get to work without driving, see, and I just had that learner’s permit, which isn’t legal without a licensed driver in the car. My old man went away, too, like Tim’s father. I don’t know how to do anything but cocktail-waitressing, which doesn’t take any talent, at least where I work. Just legs and a butt that doesn’t look too bad in the little outfit they give you to wear.”

  “You have any kids?”

  “No, and that’s good, the way things have gone so far.”

  John was suddenly in danger of being overcome with emotion. He already loved her as a loyal comrade in conditions of danger, as cops are said to love their partners, but at the moment this feeling had become a passion: he adored her, and all the more so for how she looked, with her unkempt red hair and her clothes so touchingly bedraggled. Now that he had received reassuring news about his wife and family, to whom he was connected by duty, he had an impulse to run away with Sharon. Part of this was not desire but rather a need to atone for what, despite her asseverations to the contrary, he stubbornly considered to be his failures as a man.

  “I really want to keep in touch,” he said. “Would you mind if I dropped in at the cocktail lounge…?”

  “You stay home, John,” Sharon said, patting his arm maternally. “There’s nothing better in all the world.” She snorted. “I’m a real authority on that subject, because I haven’t got one.… I didn’t tell you the whole truth. My husband didn’t run away. He’s in federal prison. He tried to drive across the border with a spare tire full of cocaine.”

  In his current state, John was not as shocked by the information as he knew Sharon expected him to be. “That’s your private business,” he said. “You’re a wonderful woman. I wasn’t suggesting anything illicit. I’d just like to know from time to time how you’re getting along.” This was a necessary lie, for actually he was profoundly in love with her at this moment, in a way he suspected she would not find to her liking. Like Richie, what she approved of in him was the husband, the father, the householder, the drone, the nontaker of risks because he could not jeopardize those and that for which he was responsible. What a convenient moral armor enveloped him!