Cape Fear

by John D. MacDonald

  “But you’ll try it?”

  “I’ll put it up to the people in Charleston and ask them to see what they can do. There’s a chance she never did go back home, you know. But she probably did. There’s the kids. I wouldn’t be too hopeful about this, Mr. Bowden.”

  “If it doesn’t work out, Captain, couldn’t you still force someone to leave town?”

  Dutton nodded. “We’ve done it, not frequently. The last time was three years ago. This is a fairly clean town. Cleanest of its size in the state. That doesn’t mean spotlessly clean, Mr. Bowden. But it means that we’ve kept the syndicate type of operation out. We let a few small-time operators stay in business, because there’s always a certain level of demand. When they try to get too big, or when they try to move in on legitimate enterprise or rough up the tax-payers, we crack down quick and hard. When a syndicate operation tries to move in, we give our small-time operators protection. In return they contribute to both political parties and to the Police Benevolent Fund, and they keep us advised on any floaters who come to town and start looking around for a score. I’m speaking frankly and off the record. The proof can be found in the F.B.I. statistics. We have a low index in nearly every classification of crime. Twenty years ago we had one of the highest in the state. The Christer set continually tries to nail us for playing footsie with our tame rascals. We keep the little devil we know in business and keep out the big devil we don’t. But you can’t make them see that. It’s safe to walk the streets at night in New Essex. That’s enough for me. I know we’re doing a job. Three years ago two of the big Chicago–Miami–Las Vegas types rolled into town with their sunglasses, their pigskin luggage, their lavender Cadillac and a pair of the kind of blonde secretaries who can’t quite type. They took suites at the New Essex House and started to circulate. They wanted to sell syndication to our tame operators. Chief Turner and Mayor Haskill and Commissioner Goldman and I had ourselves a conference. We put ten of our best men on that quarter. We interpreted the law our own way. Leave them alone and we’d have trouble. Big bad trouble.

  “So we gave them trouble first. They couldn’t turn around without breaking some ordinance they’d never heard of. We bugged both suites and that gave us some more leads. Both times the blondes left the hotel they were picked up and brought in and fined heavily for soliciting, and given the usual blood tests and physicals. You never saw two madder ex-showgirls. It took four days and fifty-six hundred dollars in fines before they gave up. We checked the route they took out of town and alerted the county boys and the state boys. They were grabbed four times for speeding before they hit the state line. Speeding and drunken driving. They all had licenses, and we lifted all but one so there’d be one driver left, one of the girls to get them over the state line. They haven’t been back. But sooner or later somebody will try again. There’s money here. And where there’s money you can sell organized vice.”

  “You couldn’t do that to Cady?”

  “It could be done. It would take a bunch of men and a lot of time. I checked him over myself while he was in the shop. He won’t scare and you can’t hurt his dignity because he hasn’t got any.”

  “Will you do it?”

  Dutton balanced a yellow pencil on a thick index finger, looked sharply at Sam and said, “No.”

  “Can you give me a reason, Captain?”

  “I can give you a lot of reasons. One: We’re up to a hundred and thirty thousand population. We have the same size police force, in man power but not in equipment, that we had when there were eighty thousand. We’re undermanned, underequipped, underpaid and overworked. When something pops I have to call men back on duty and apologize to them because we can’t pay all the overtime they have coming. The mothers keep marching on City Hall because we can’t put more men at school crossings. Two: This is something that, as a lawyer, you can understand. It would set a curious precedent. We used extralegal methods and a lot of time and man power to avert a definite threat to the whole city, not to just one individual. Were we to do this, there would be questions asked. If he should employ the right shyster—forgive the term—it could get damn hot around here. The men I would assign would be very curious about this extra duty. Three: You are not a resident of this city. You work here, but your home is not here. You pay no city taxes. Your firm does, but this is not the business of your firm. As an individual, you pay no fractional part of my salary.”

  Sam flushed and said, “I didn’t know it would sound—”

  “Let me finish. Lastly, I got a look at the man. He looks clever. He doesn’t seem to be in any murderous rage. I think he’s just trying to pressure you a little. But I don’t want you to go away from this office thinking you’re getting no cooperation at all. If this Cady steps out of line anywhere inside my area of authority, I will see that the arresting officers and the judge are properly informed. And they will whack him with the stiffest deal the law allows.”

  “Thank you very much, Captain. Have you got time to listen to what else he’s done so far?”

  “I’d be very interested.”

  Sam told him about Sievers and about the dog.

  Dutton leaned back and frowned and rubbed the eraser end of the yellow pencil against the side of his nose. “If he made Sievers that fast and shook him that easy, then he’s got a talent for the game. Do you have any proof about the dog?”

  “No. But after talking to him, I’m certain.”

  “That’s outside our boundaries, of course.”

  “I know that.”

  Dutton thought a few more moments. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bowden. I can’t offer you any more than I’ve already told you I’d do. If you’re genuinely alarmed about this, I suggest you pack your family off somewhere.”

  “We’ve talked about that.”

  “It might be a good idea. He’ll get tired of his game and leave town after a while. Let me know any new developments.” He stood up and held his hand out. Sam thanked him and left.

  At three in the afternoon, as he was passing Bill Stetch’s office, he glanced in and saw that Bill was alone. On impulse he went in and told him the whole story. Bill was shocked and sympathetic and completely without any constructive suggestions. Sam had the curious feeling that Bill did not want to be pulled into the situation in any way. He had an air of holding himself apart.

  “That poor, durn dog. There’s some vicious people in the world, Sammy.”

  “Cady is my special nomination.”

  Bill leaned back, eyes thoughtful. He was a giant of a man, red face, pure white hair, blue eyes. His desk chair and his clothes were specially made. He had an air of bumbling joviality, but Sam had learned years ago, back in C.B.I. Headquarters, that Bill’s manner concealed a mind that was intricate, devious and wonderfully shrewd.

  “It puts you in a pretty uncomfortable position,” Bill said.

  “And it’s doing some funny things to me. I’ll be damned if I could ever see myself going to the police and politely asking them to do something unlawful.”

  Stetch chuckled. “That old glamour girl holding those scales and taking a peek every little once in a while under her blindfold. And Samuel Bowden is her most avid worshiper. A lot of kids feel that way about it, but it’s a damn rare man that can … continue the infatuation.”

  Sam felt that he was being patronized, and it annoyed him. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t get indignant, Sammy. Hell, when it was just Dorrity and Stetch, I knew we needed some noble motives around here, so we could retain our sanctimonious manner. After you worked with me in India I sensed you were our boy, and it couldn’t have worked out better. Mike Dorrity and I are a pair of licensed pirates. We needed a balance wheel. One with starry eyes.”

  “Now, dammit, Bill, I don’t like—”

  “Hold on. You’re a partner. You do a hell of a fine job. You more than hold up your end. We’re damn pleased we took you in. It was a smart move. But there’s some parts of this business you can’t handle, and we don’t give you a ch
ance to handle. Mike and I dirty our hands with that. It’s the loophole division. We’re well paid to find the loophole, regardless of the equities of the matter at hand.”

  “Like that Morris option last year?”

  “Just like that Morris option last year.”

  “I thought that stank.”

  “And it did, boy. That’s why I took it away from you before you lost us a client. And handled it myself.”

  “You make me feel like a damn neophyte.”

  Bill shook his head. “You’re not. You’re a smart attorney, Sammy. And you are a very rare article. You are a good man who believes in himself and what he is doing. Every law firm ought to have at least one in the shop. Too few do. So pay no attention to a cynical old bandit. We don’t actually steal. Sometimes we show other people how they can steal, but it doesn’t happen too often. Keep your regard for the lady with the scales. But don’t get too appalled at yourself when you ask the police for an extralegal favor. Life is a continual process of compromise, Sammy. The idea is to come out the other end still clutching a few shreds of self-respect. End of lecture for today. I hope you solve your nasty little problem.”

  When he was back in his own office, Sam sat behind his desk and thought of himself with contempt. The dreamer with the starry eyes. An amateur Abe Lincoln. Criminal lawyers made spirited defenses of known murderers. And were not thought unethical. So a man gave an option on land in good faith. Then he learns he can get more. So he comes in with his hat in his hand and says, “Show me how this can be broken.” So you find a technicality and you break the option. He’s a client. He pays for service.

  But it was a contract made in good faith, and from the viewpoint of equity, the technicality is an absurdity.

  Stop bleeding, Bowden. You’re all grown up. Stop marching around waving all your little flags. Cady shoots your kids while you cry onto your diploma and look through all the dusty books for a way to slap his wrist legally.

  He phoned Apex and left his number for Sievers.

  At quarter to six as he was leaving, Sievers phoned and they made arrangements to meet in ten minutes at a bar three blocks from Sam’s office. Sam phoned Carol and said he would be late. She said the children were all right, that Bucky had had another crying spell about Marilyn when he got home from school, but it didn’t last long. All of them had gone to the creek with Jamie and Mike to find a stone. She had taken her big straw purse with her. They’d found a nice stone and had had a horrible time carrying it all the way back.

  Sievers was standing at the bar when Sam walked in. He nodded and waited until Sam had a drink and then walked to a rear booth far from the jukebox and across from the men’s room.

  “I talked to Captain Dutton today. He won’t do anything.”

  “I don’t see how he could. If you swung a hell of a lot more weight than you do, it might be managed. But he’d still be reluctant. By the way, he’s a top cop, that boy. Quiet and easy and hard as stones. Do you want to go ahead with what we talked about?”

  “I … I think so.”

  Sievers had a thin smile. “No more talk about the legal way?”

  “I’ve had enough of that kind of talk today to last me quite a while.”

  “You’re sharpening up.”

  “Because of what has happened. Friday he drove out and poisoned my dog. The children’s dog. There’s no proof. Saturday he came to the boat yard, bold as brass.”

  “He’ll soften up.”

  “Can you do what you said?”

  “It can be done right for three hundred bucks, Bowden. I won’t dig up the talent myself. I’ve got a friend. He’s got the right contacts. He’ll put three of them on him. I know the place, too. Out in back of 211 Jaekel Street. There’s a shed and a fence near where he parks the car. They can wait in the angle of the shed and the fence.”

  “What … will they do?”

  “What the hell do you think? They’ll beat hell out of him. With a couple of pieces of pipe and a bicycle chain, they’ll do a professional job. A hospital job.” His eyes changed, became remote. “I took a professional beating once. Oh, I was a hard boy. I believed that short of killing me they couldn’t hurt me. I was going to bounce right back like Mike Hammer. But it doesn’t work that way, Mr. Bowden. It marks you through and through. It’s the pain, I guess. And the way they won’t stop. The way you hear yourself begging and they still won’t stop. The guts and the pride run right out of you. I wasn’t worth a damn for two long years. I was perfectly healthy, but I had the jumps. I had them bad. I wasn’t ready to have anybody start hurting me like that again. Then I started to come back. It happened eighteen years ago and even today I’m not sure I got all the way back to where I was. And I’m tougher than most. There isn’t one man out of fifty—and understand, I’ve seen these figures work—who is ever worth a damn after a thorough professional beating. They have rabbit blood for the rest of their lives. You’re doing the right thing.”

  “There isn’t any chance they might kill him by accident?”

  “These are professionals, Bowden!”

  “I know that. But it could happen.”

  “Once in ten thousand times. Even so, we’re clear. The orders go through too many channels. Even if anybody gave a damn, which they won’t, it couldn’t be tracked back to you.”

  “Do I give you a check?”

  “Good God, no! Cash. When can you put it up?”

  “Tomorrow, as soon as the banks open.”

  “Bring it here at the same time tomorrow. I’ll begin to move on it tonight.”

  “When do you think it will happen?”

  “Tomorrow night or Wednesday night. No later.” He finished his drink, put his glass down and slid out of the booth.

  Sam looked up at him and smiled crookedly and said, “Does this sort of thing happen often? I’m pretty naïve, I guess.”

  “It happens. People get too wise. They have to be straightened out, and sometimes this is the only way you can give them the word.”

  “That’s one of Cady’s favorite expressions.”

  “Then he’ll be real pleased.”

  “At what?”

  “To get the word.”

  He saved all three stories until both the boys were in bed and Nancy was in her room studying for her last exam of the year. Carol listened, her face quite still and remote. They sat side by side on the living-room couch. She sat with her legs folded under her, her round warm knee pressing against his thigh. She kept turning her silver bracelet around and around on her wrist.

  “So you’re going to pay three hundred dollars to have him beaten to within an inch of his life.”

  “Yes. I am. But don’t you see, it’s the only—”

  “Oh, darling, don’t try to explain or apologize. I don’t mean it that way. I’m gloating. I feel wonderful about it. I’d mow lawns and do other people’s laundry to get that three hundred dollars.”

  “I guess women are more primitive.”

  “This one is. This one definitively is.”

  He stood up restlessly. “It’s still a wrong thing to do. It’s wrong that it should be possible to do a thing like this.”

  “How?”

  He shrugged. “Suppose a disappointed client decided I needed similar treatment? If he had the right contacts, he could get the job done. It makes the world sound like a jungle. There’s supposed to be law and order.”

  She followed him and linked her arms around his waist and looked up at him. “Poor Samuel! Darling, maybe it is a jungle. And we know there’s an animal in the jungle.”

  “I can’t make myself clear. If this is the right way to handle it, then the foundations of my life are pretty creaky.”

  She made a face. “I’m creaky?”

  “Only in places. I mean my professional life.”

  “Can’t you see, you great goose, that this isn’t a logical situation? Logic leads you to a dead end. In a thing like this you proceed on instinct. And that’s woman’s best tool. And I
know you did exactly the right thing. I would have done it. I wish I could have arranged it instead of you. You are a very good man, darling.”

  “I am hearing that just a little bit too often.”

  “You don’t have to growl at me!”

  “All right. I’m a good man. I’m paying three hundred dollars to put another man in the hospital.”

  “And you’re still a good man. You suffer so much. Stop all the philosophical theories. Just help me rejoice because now I’m not afraid any more. And it is a very good thing not to be afraid. I’m a little bit afraid because it hasn’t happened yet, but after it does, I am going to be the gayest wife in town. If that makes me a bloodthirsty witch, so be it.”

  After Carol was asleep he got quietly out of bed and moved over to the chair by the bedroom window, pulled the blinds up with silent cautiousness, lighted a cigarette, and looked out toward the silvery road and the stone wall. The night was empty. His four incredibly precious hostages to fortune were in deep sleep. The earth turned and the stars were high. All this, he told himself, was reality. Night, earth, stars and the slumber of his family. And the other thing that had seemed so valuable was just a dusty and archaic code which enabled men to live closely together in reasonable peace and safety. In olden times the village elders punished those who broke the taboos. And all of the law was a vast, top-heavy superstructure built on the basic idea of the group enforcing the punishment of the nonconformist. It was a tribal rite, with white wigs, robes and oaths. It just did not happen to apply to his own situation. Yet two thousand years ago he could have sat in council with the elders and explained his peril and gained the support of the village, and the predator would be stoned to death. So this action was a supplement to the law. Thus it was right. Yet when he got back into bed, he still could not accept his rationalization.