Meeting Evil

by Thomas Berger

  He returned the wine jug to the coffee table. “I don’t claim to understand you in any particular.”

  Richie smacked his lips loudly after a taste of the second glassful. “It’s a manly thing on your part to admit it.” He pointed. “That’s why I’m so sold on you: you’re a man. You don’t carry a gun and club and wear a uniform because you got some kind of doubt about yourself.”

  “Look,” John said, “I’m willing to consider that you’ve had problems, a bad childhood or whatever, but—”

  “Come on, John!” Richie said gleefully. “I don’t want your pity.” He drank some more wine and assumed a quizzical expression. With his glasses and clothing, he could have passed for someone who worked at a desk in a large office full of people all with the same values.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” John admitted. “It was false. I don’t have any sympathy for you at all. I don’t care what troubles you’ve had. They’re not my fault.”

  Richie laughed. “Good for you! I haven’t got any troubles. Certain other people have claimed to have had troubles with me.”

  “Listen,” said John. “I want you to think about this.” He was still standing by the coffee table. “I’m going to call the police. They’ve got a car right in this neighborhood. They can get here immediately. Since coming to my house you appear to have acted like a civilized human being.” John took a breath. “Why not just keep it that way? What you’ve done can’t be undone, but at least don’t make it worse! I imagine you’ll just get sent back to Barnes.”

  Richie had begun to shake his head. “No, I can’t consider anything of that sort.”

  “What are you going to do, then? I’m calling the police.”

  “I’ll think of something,” Richie said negligently.

  Joan arrived. “Excuse us for a minute, Randy, please. Something’s come up in the kitchen.”

  Richie was on his feet. “Can I help?”

  “No, please, really. I just need John for a minute. If you can spare him.”

  In the kitchen Joanie said, “I don’t want to overcook this steak. If I’d known just when you’d be getting home, I’d have started the charcoal outside, and you could have taken over from there. But it’s too late now.” She shook her head toward the stove. “I’ve been knocking myself out ever since Randy called. Even managed to get the coffee service polished and the kids cleaned up, not to mention myself. Even so—”

  “Joanie,” John said, quietly but with urgency, “I want you to call—”

  “You decide,” said she, grinning. “Then I can blame you if the steak is ruined. You can take it. You just made all that money. How much will the commission come to, by the way? Also, which house?” But then she immediately threw up her hands and wailed, “I’ve got to deal with this steak!”

  “Joan,” said John, trying to catch her by the forearm, but she darted to the sink to lift the dripping meat from the colander in which it was being thawed.

  “Nice? It would be a crime to overcook it.” She replaced the steak and wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. “Where’s your barbecue apron? I don’t want to ruin this dress, God!”

  John found his apron in a cabinet drawer and unfolded it for her. It had been her gift to him and was a butcher-striped garment and not the jokey thing sometimes seen. The length was okay for her; her height was within an inch of his. Melanie, too, was taller than the average girl of her age. It was still too soon to tell about little Phil. John had to protect them. He could not risk having a gun battle on the premises. Richie would not simply surrender to the police.

  “All right,” Joan said now. “I’ll decide. I just needed the moral support. Better get back to your guest and keep him happy till he writes the check, huh?” She came to John and kissed him. “You did real good, big fellow,” imitating some cowboy-movie actor. Joan was gifted as a mimic and had amused him in that fashion over the years. There would be nothing to gain and much to lose by any further attempt to tell her about Richie.

  “The wine’s almost gone,” he said instead. “I’ll run down to Sherwood’s and pick up a bottle or two.”

  Joan pushed him back, sniffing. “You could use a shower, kiddo! And a shave and a clean shirt and pants. Meanwhile, I’ll call Sherwood’s and have them deliver. A nice Burgundy, you think? What else? Scotch?” While asking these questions, she was pushing him toward the doorway. “I’ll put the steak on hold and go keep Randy company. It would help if you could snap it up.”

  John returned to the living room. Richie was not there: he had gone for the children! But as John rushed toward the nursery, Richie emerged from the guest lavatory at the head of the hall, and they almost collided. John, absurdly, found himself apologizing.

  Back in the living room, he asked, “What’s this ‘Randy Pryor’ stuff you’ve handed my wife?”

  “It’s a name I sometimes use, a professional name, like a corporation, you know. All I’ve been telling Joanie is that you and me are doing business, and that’s true enough.”

  “Don’t ever call her Joanie,” John said.

  “You’re the boss, kiddo.”

  John bit his lip. He sat down on the couch in exactly the place he found Joan when he got home. She had neglected to take away the coffee pot and cups. He had never seen her so excited. True, had he actually had a commission coming, it would be the first in a long time, but perhaps she had forgotten what he owed Tesmir, which would have to be returned off the top. It was a cruel hoax.

  John stood up. “Get out of here.”

  “Pardon?” Richie was back in the chair, feet out and splayed.

  “You can’t stay,” John said. “You’re wanted for a long string of terrible crimes. I’m not going to serve you dinner in my house.”

  Richie wore his most charming expression, or what he probably thought was it, his left eyebrow slightly elevated above a twinkling eye. “It wasn’t you who invited me. Now, was it?”

  “I can throw you out, though.”

  Richie bowed, as it were, while remaining seated. He asked, with heavy irony, “Why don’t you consult with Mrs. Felton on the matter?”

  “Do you think she’d want you here if she knew what you did?”

  Richie’s hands were extended. “Well, John, let’s tell her everything you think you know about me.”

  He was calling John’s bluff. What good could possibly happen if Joanie were suddenly told? Her terror would inevitably obstruct anything John might try against Richie. And once the polite, even friendly illusion had been destroyed for her, and Richie unmasked, would not she and the children be in greater danger?

  John sat down again. “Would you be interested in a deal?”

  “Then you will sell me a house?”

  “I’m serious. What I’m talking about is something like this: you eat dinner, and then you leave. I don’t lift a hand against you during that time, and I don’t notify the police. You eat, and then you leave quietly.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “You accept?”

  Richie frowned speculatively. “I don’t know why I’d object. I don’t get many offers, you know. A lot of people are just basically against me. No reason. They take one look and what they see, they hate. It’s hard to deal with prejudice like that.”

  It was too much to have to listen to that sort of thing. John said, “Some more liquor will be here shortly.”

  Richie lifted his glass, with its inch of red liquid that he had been nursing since the jug was emptied. “I hope you didn’t order it for me. I’m no drinker.”

  “You drained that pint of vodka this afternoon like it was water.”

  Richie seemed surprised. “If you say so.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “If I recalled every drink I had, I wouldn’t be using my mind for anything else.”

  John suspected he might be on to something. “Do you remember anything you did earlier today?”

  “I hate to disappoint you,” Richie said, returning his glass to the coffee
table, “but there’s not much worth remembering from day to day in my life. You’d fall asleep if you had to listen to it.”

  Joan came into the living room. She smiled at Richie. “John just has to freshen up for a minute or two. I didn’t know selling real estate was heavy labor!”

  “I won’t be a minute,” John told Richie, meaningfully, and went rapidly to the bathroom, where he removed his shirt, splashed water in his armpits, and applied deodorant. He hastily stroked chin and cheeks with the electric razor. He went to the bedroom and got a clean shirt. With its tails stuck into the old work pants, the ensemble was incongruous and might annoy Joan. Therefore he had to take even more time to change trousers and to trade the ancient sneakers for decent leather shoes.

  It occurred to him that despite the need for haste, he should at least look in on the children whom he was obsessed with protecting, but he heard the doorbell just as he reached the former guest bedroom they called the nursery.

  He rushed to the front of the house, but Richie already had the door open and was accepting the bagful of clinking bottles from a short young man who John was disappointed to see was not Wally, the elder son of the family that owned the liquor store, but rather someone new.

  “Is Wally sick?”

  The deliveryman presented John with a limp bill. “Wally’s on vacation.” He rubbed his prominent nose with the back of his hand and looked past the men at Joan, nodding.

  Seeing an opportunity to get a note to the police (in which he could explain the situation and rule out a SWAT-team assault), John said, “I’ll get a pen and sign for it.” He was only worried that the new man might be unaware that though state law forbade putting liquor on the tab, Sherwood’s did it regularly for folks they knew, even if, like John, they were not frequent customers.

  But it was Richie who frustrated the effort. He briskly handed John the bag and drew a handful of loose banknotes from his pants pocket.

  “Lemme see the check again,” the deliveryman said, rudely snatching it back from John.

  “There’s plenty there,” Richie said, reversing him and literally pushing him out the door. “Keep the extra.”

  “Hey!” the guy cried. It seemed the sound of delighted surprise, not complaint.

  John put the paper bag onto the coffee table. Joan gave him a frown. “You shouldn’t let Randy pay. He’s our guest.”

  “I wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Richie said, rubbing his hands together as though warming them. “You didn’t expect to have me for dinner. What’s fair is fair.”

  Joan continued her polite protest, which depressed John. He noisily unpacked the booze so he would not have to listen. The bag yielded a quart of the most expensive bourbon, a bottle of red wine with a French name, and a white from Italy. He had not examined the bill, but it must have been for fifty dollars at least, a good deal more than he would have been prepared to pay even if the imaginary sale had been made, given their debts.

  “Then I’ll get going,” Joan said, springing to her feet.

  “Listen,” said Richie, waving a mock-admonitory finger at her, “I don’t want you to go to any trouble, now! What’s important is friendship, not food.” He seized the bourbon, thumbnailed off the material that sealed the cap, and poured himself a glassful.

  Judging from the sound, Joanie was halfway to the kitchen when she shouted back, “Need ice?”

  “No, thanks!” John did not bother to ask their guest.

  “Joanie doesn’t happen to have a sister?” Richie asked jovially, in the chair again, leaning back. He drank some whiskey. “John, I want to thank you for taking me in this way. Not many people would have done that.”

  “I didn’t take you in,” John said. “You’ve got to get out of here, do you understand?”

  Richie nodded and poured himself more whiskey. “We see eye to eye, and—”

  “No, we don’t. We’re not friends and never were. I’m only putting up with you now because I’m concerned about my wife and children.” He realized immediately that he should never have said such a foolish thing.

  But Richie asked, as if disingenuously, “Is something wrong with them? You might try sharing your problems. That’s what friends are for.”

  John made a strenuous effort to endure. “Tell me about yourself. Why do you think you’re always in trouble?”

  “My philosophy is, if you think there’s something wrong with me, then the burden of proof is on you, not me. Now, there are those who can’t take that.” Richie raised his pale eyebrows above the frame of the glasses. “They’ve got nobody but themselves to blame when things go against them.”

  “I’ve seen you in action, remember?” John had not resumed his seat. “You ought to realize that bad things are going to happen when you’re out in the world. You’re better off in the hospital. You don’t belong on the outside. You can’t control yourself.”

  “Come on, John. You can’t believe that stuff. Else why would I be a guest in your house right this minute? If I’m so awful, how come Joanie insisted I hold the baby? How come your little daughter climbed onto my lap and hugged me and wanted me to be the one who put her in bed? God Almighty, John, I never saw a dog that didn’t come right to me and put his chin in my hand. At Barnes they got patients who won’t speak a word to anybody but me, guys who look at the wall all day and would wet their pants where they sit rather than leave their place. They do what I say! I tell ‘em to go to the toilet, they do it.”

  “You’re allowed to roam around there?”

  “They don’t chain you to the wall any more and whip you,” Richie said, laughing. “Though I’ve seen some who that might help. They got some real nasty women there, with mouths like sewers. I can’t stand a bitch who uses foul language.”

  “Is that what happened with the gas-station attendant this morning? She swore at you?” John wanted to know, while at the same time he found it unbelievable that he was politely questioning a murderer, who, as the criminal himself pointed out, was an invited guest. He could not bear to think of Richie’s caressing the children, because if he did, he might hate Joanie, which would be wrong, for how could she have possibly known Richie on sight for what he was? He had appeared harmless to John when wearing the T-shirt and cap. In suit, tie, and eyeglasses, he looked not only respectable but the embodiment of all that made sense.

  The telephone rang. Joanie did not like the idea of a phone in the living room but put up with it because John insisted that he had to be always within no more than two rings of an instrument if he were to make certain sales. Strange as it might seem to those with no professional experience, there were people whom the littlest things dissuaded from a course of action, especially when the projected expenditure was in six figures.

  The phone was unobtrusively tucked behind the large ceramic lamp on the table at one end of the sofa, where in truth it proved at least as convenient for Joanie’s long conversations with relatives and friends as it was for John, who often, when the matter concerned business, would ask the caller to hang on until he could reach the little home office he had set up, again to Joanie’s complaint, in a corner of their bedroom.

  Perhaps he should have welcomed a call now, but he dreaded it.

  “John? Hi. This is Lang. The detective? How’re ya doin’?”

  “Sure.”

  “Just checking in. Our guy reports all’s quiet in the neighborhood. In my opinion Maranville’s a long way from here. In the wind, like we say. He might be demented, but these people usually have a lot of basic judgment. They don’t always go where you expect them to when they’re fugitives. They can be pretty sly. But it won’t last. It won’t take him long to do something stupid and get collared. So…”

  “Thanks,” said John. He knew he should probably say something that might give Lang a clue, but his mind was too weary now for invention, and the last thing he wanted would be to incite an assault on the house.

  “Keep your place buttoned up, windows and doors locked if they aren’t already
. Make you feel safer. But we’re not gonna forget you. The chief wants you to know he considers this a personal concern of his.”

  “You bet.” John put the phone away, behind the lamp. He had not looked toward Richie during his conversation with Lang, but he had a feeling that the man had not been much interested in it, that he could have said anything without putting himself in jeopardy. Nevertheless, he explained. “Business.”

  Richie nodded and drank from his glass. “Which hasn’t been good lately.”

  “My wife told you that?” John was furious.

  “You told me, this afternoon,” said Richie. He looked benign. “What Joanie said was how terrific you are.”

  John stared at him.

  “We all think a lot of you, man. You got a lot of support. You’re a winner.”

  “The hell with you.”

  Richie was wounded. “What brought that on?”

  “Just remember we got a deal. You eat dinner and then you leave.”

  John felt a great need to look in on the children, whom he had not seen since morning. This represented more concern for himself than for them. They were sleeping through it all, and, if he could pull it off, would stay ignorant until they were adults, whereas he could use an exposure to their innocence.

  But Joan came in at that moment. “All right, gentlemen: dinner is served.” She exchanged beaming expressions with Richie and led them to the dining room, where the table was set with the Feltons’ best china, the plates rimmed in gold, and the reserved-for-guests linen tablecloth and napkins.

  “While you’re having your soup, I’ll be doing the steak, if you’ll excuse me.” Joan addressed these remarks to the guest. “It’s the only way I know to make sure it won’t get overdone.”

  Richie was standing at a diffident distance.

  “Please.” Joan indicated a chair.

  “Right in the middle!” Richie said, extending a hand toward each of the extremities of the table. “You’re spoiling me rotten.”