Cape Fear

by John D. MacDonald

  “The chump better get a couple friends and take care of it himself. Or let him have the wife. He’ll be better off without her.”

  One man looked properly violent and comfortably shrewd. But after the question was stated, the man said, “Let your friend turn the other cheek and ask God for forgiveness for plotting evil. Let him get down on his knees and pray for the seducer to see the sinfulness of his ways and the wanton woman to find her way back to Christ.”

  Discouraged, he tried another tack. Who runs the town? Who is the big wheel of the New Essex underworld?

  A sad-faced bartender gave him a low-key lecture on that subject. “Chief, you better stay away from that television set. As far as rackets, this town is out to lunch. Nothing is organized and I hope to God it never is. There’s a couple of floating games, and there’s some girls to be found, and once in a while a tea peddler comes through, and then there’s the union strongarm stuff now and then. But there’s no boss because there’s no control of the wards. That’s where the rackets get a good hold. If you can deliver a block vote, you can hire the politicians to keep the cops off your neck and then you can consolidate. All around here is small timey, Chief.”

  “How about a man like, say, Joe Tanelli?”

  “I don’t like badmouthing the dead, but Joe was a nothing. He’d do a little fencing when there wasn’t any risk. And he’d bank a game now and then. He was just smart enough to know he couldn’t expand or somebody would step on him. We got tough, smart cops here, Chief.”

  “So who is more important than Joe was?”

  “I’m trying to tell ya and you don’t hear me or something. I’m not getting through. There are maybe three or four Joe Tanellis. Boys working the angles. A good week maybe they make three bills. What you’re talking about doesn’t happen here. This town has the lid on. I hope it’s for keeps. A long time ago I got tired of wondering when I was going to get worked over for selling the wrong brand of beer. That’s why I moved here.”

  Sam knew from the way his mouth felt that he was getting slightly drunk. “I’ll tell you what I really want.”

  “Let me tell you something first. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know nothing about what you’ve got to buy or sell. The less I know, the better I sleep at night.”

  “But—”

  “Let’s be friends. Here’s one on the house. Now, you want to keep talking, we talk women or baseball. Take your choice.”

  He drove carefully back to Harper and directly to the Kimballs’ party. It was out in their yard behind their house. Dorrie Kimball found him a cold piece of steak and heated it over what was left of the charcoal embers. It was leathery. There were a dozen couples. They were playing an intricate game that amused them vastly and left him spectacularly cold. When he had a chance he got Carol over into the shadows.

  “I was a great success,” he said bitterly. “I was overwhelmed by my own competence. It was like trying to sell dirty post cards at a Sunday-school wienie roast.”

  “How much have you had to drink?”

  “Plenty. It was an occupational hazard. I skulked through low dives, my collar turned up, my thumb on the button of my switch-blade knife. I’ve been called Doc, Mack and Chief. Oh, the hell with it!”

  “Can you do anything?”

  “I can call Sievers Monday morning. My God, this is a horrible party!”

  “Ssh, darling. Not so loud. And it isn’t that bad.”

  “How soon can we leave?”

  “I’ll give the usual signal when we can. What a ghastly piece of luck, Mr. Tanelli dying like that!”

  The drink Joe Kimball had given him seemed to be having more effect than all the others he had had. He swayed and peered down at her. “Ghastly luck for good old Joe, too.”

  “Don’t be nasty to me.”

  “I’ve got it figured out. You know what it is, don’t you? It’s the finger of fate diddling little Sammy Bowden. That good man. That noble and righteous man. Ah, how he’s slipped! Now he goes forth to hire assassins. But we can’t make it easy for him. Because then ole Sam will not be sufficiently aware of his fall from perfect grace. We gotta make him roll in it. We have to impress it on him so he won’t forget it.”

  “Darling, please.”

  “Law and Order Bowden, we all called him around the office. The next best thing to the second coming. His strength was as the strength of ten because his grail was full. The brittle type. He could break but not bend. He would never compromise with his honor. And what a pitiful sight he is these days. Slinking through the slums, picking pockets, drinking canned heat, bumming dimes. They say that any day now he’s going to be arrested for indecent exposure.”

  The crack of her small hard palm against his cheek was loud and shocking. The sting made his eyes water. He looked down at her and she did not look angry or hurt. She stared up at him quite calmly.

  “Hey!” he said.

  “Drinks or no drinks, I don’t think it is an awfully good time for us to start feeling sorry for ourselves, dear.”

  “But I was just—”

  “Mad at yourself for not being able to do something entirely out of your line and contrary to what you believe in. So you were starting to roll in bathos, rubbing it in your hair.”

  “That’s a sneaky right you’ve got there, pardner.”

  “Well, were you?”

  “I guess.”

  “I need a lot of strength to lean on at this point. Up until a few minutes ago there’s been plenty.”

  “It’s back now. Resume leaning.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “Enraged, furious and plotting revenge,” he said, and kissed the tip of her nose.

  To his astonishment she began to cry, thoroughly and helplessly. When she had begun to quiet down he learned the reason for the tears. It had upset her to strike him. All our emotional reactions are becoming shrill and raggedy, he thought. Tension is washing the sand from under our castle walls.

  On Monday morning the local branch of Apex gave him the information he needed in order to phone Sievers in California. Mr. Sievers was not in the office, but he would call back. It was eleven before Sam could place his first call because of the time differential, and three before Sievers returned the call.

  Though the connection was clear, Sievers had a sound of remoteness, of lack of interest.

  “Heart attack? That’s too bad.”

  “It makes it pretty awkward for me, Sievers.”

  “I can see how it would.”

  “Who shall I contact for the same … kind of service?”

  “I don’t think there’s anybody else to go to.”

  “What do I do?”

  “It might be set up some other place. Some people might be sent in. It would cost more and it would take some time.”

  “Can you help me with it?”

  “I’m pretty well snowed under out here. And … frankly, I’m on a different basis here, Bowden. I mean that was a personal arrangement. I can’t do anything officially. Not along that sort of line. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “I did what I could. You had a bad break.”

  “Maybe I can find somebody on my own.”

  “I don’t think you can. And it would be a bad risk. You might better just … get your people out of the way.”

  “I … I see.”

  “Sorry I can’t be more helpful.”

  It was a most unsatisfactory conversation. And it meant the end of a possible line of defense. They would have to fall back to another defensive position.

  He talked it over on Monday night with Carol. She took it more calmly than he had anticipated.

  “I know that it makes a certain kind of sense,” she said, “but we will be so dispersed. Nance and Jamie down at camp. Bucky and me off God knows where. It leaves only you and that frightens me, darling. What good will any of us be if something should happen to you?”

  “I’m going to be the most devout coward you eve
r heard of, honey. I’ll take a room at the New Essex House and I won’t go out after dark, and I won’t open the door unless I know damn well for sure who has knocked.”

  “And then suppose nothing happens? When do we come back? When do we know it’s over?”

  “I don’t think he’s going to be very patient when he gets out. I think he’ll make a move and I think he’ll make it at me, and I’m going to make certain it will be unsuccessful, and if he does, then we’ll have the evidence that will send him back for a long time.”

  “Oh, yes. For a year, or three years, and then we can have such a fine time planning just what we’ll do when they let him out again. It will be just like this month has been. Full of nervous smiles and bad jokes.”

  “It will work out.”

  “Please forgive me for asking you if it would be possible for you to stop saying that to me. It makes me feel as if you’re patting me on the head. We hope it will work out. We very truly much hope so. But there aren’t any written guarantees, are there, darling?”

  “No. We can only do everything we can. And along that line, you will be charmed to learn that tomorrow I am becoming a dashing and dangerous figure, with the help of Captain Dutton.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He is arranging the permit for me. He wasn’t as reluctant as I expected him to be. At lunchtime I go pick up a very ugly and efficient device manufactured by Smith and Wesson. And when the harness is properly fitted, it will hang right here. It will nestle in a thing called a spring-clip holster. Nobody can snatch it away, but when I reach for it properly it will, Dutton claims, jump right into my hand. Then all I’ll need will be a case of gin, a great big willing blonde and a shabby little private office.”

  She looked at him in a level way. “So many gay little jokes. And such a wide, glassy, self-conscious smile.”

  “What the hell do you want me to do? Clench my teeth and look steely-eyed? Of course I’m self-conscious about it! It isn’t exactly my line, you know. I’m scared of Cady. I’m scared the way a kid having a nightmare is scared. The thought of him makes my hands sweat and makes my belly feel hollow. I’m so scared I’m going to wear that gun and tomorrow night I’m going to take so many cartridges up on the hill that by the time I’m through I’m going to be able to draw and fire and hit what I aim at. I’m going to feel like a little boy playing cops and robbers. I’m going to feel self-conscious. And so I’ll make my forlorn little quips out of pure nervousness. But it’s going to be a lot more comfortable to be a target that can shoot back.”

  He stopped his pacing and looked at her and saw the quiet tears rolling down her cheeks. He sat beside her and took her in his arms and kissed the salty eyes.

  “I shouldn’t bellow at you,” he murmured.

  “I … shouldn’t have said what I did. I just got tired … of the frantic gaiety we coat everything with. It’s gotten to be a nervous habit, but I guess it’s the way we are.” She smiled wanly at him. “And I couldn’t stand a ponderous, humorless husband. I … I’m glad you’re getting the gun. I’ll feel better, really.”

  “Me, my gun, and my asinine chatter.”

  “I take all three. And gladly.”

  “Now, then. Back to scheduling. We leave early Friday morning. We find a place for you and Bucky. We stay there Friday night. Saturday we see the birthday girl. I stay with you Saturday night at the place we find, and Sunday I drive back into town and—”

  “Why don’t we take both cars, dear? When we go to camp we can leave the MG at the place where I’m going to stay, and then on Sunday you can drive it back to the city when you check into the hotel.”

  “Good deal.”

  “I’m going to hate being away from you.”

  “You are not alone.”

  He wore the short-barreled revolver home on Tuesday night. The harness chafed him, and he realized it would be a long time before he could become accustomed to it. He had worn it when he went back to the office, feeling vastly foolish, and suspecting that everyone who glanced at him on the street saw the suspicious bulge under his left arm.

  He stood inspection while Carol circled him. Finally she said, “I know it’s there so I can see the sort of lump it makes, but actually, darling, I guess you’re the type. You’re thin and you like your jackets cut loosely anyway.”

  “So this dish saunters in and I can see right away nobody ever has to tell her the time of day. She makes a production out of sitting down and crossing her gorgeous legs, and then she dives down into a pocketbook as big as a phone booth for midgets and comes up with a wad of green stuff that would gag a hippo. Then she leans over and starts counting out hundred-dollar bills on the corner of my desk. I was so busy counting with her I didn’t even take time to look down the front of her dress.”

  Carol struck a faintly bawdy pose and said, out of the corner of her mouth, “What did the floozy want, baby?”

  “Ah, after all the production, it was routine. She wanted me to kill a guy.”

  “You gonna do it?”

  “Tomorrow. After lunch. The joker needs killing. You see, tootsie, I got this mission. I go around killing the bad guys. The guys that got connections so the law can’t touch them, see. I’m cleaning out the filth, see. I eliminate ’em, like those knight guys used to get rid of the dragons they had hanging around with blazing halitosis. I get paid for it and the big blondes are always grateful. Real grateful.”

  “And that leer, my friend, is almost too convincing.”

  “Trudge up the hill after a while and watch me show off after I get used to this thing. Dutton says don’t aim it. Point it as naturally as you point your finger. Where’s the Buck? I don’t want him galloping into the line of fire.”

  “Liz Turner took a whole swarm of kids to the County Fair.”

  “A brave and noble lady.”

  He went up to the range with three boxes of shells, and a piece of sheeting and some twine. He tied the sheeting around a tree thick enough to simulate a man’s torso. He penciled a crude heart on the left side of the chest. At first he was discouragingly slow, awkward and inaccurate. The weapon had a flat, gutty bark, much more authoritative than the snapping of the twenty-two. He fired a couple of dozen rounds for accuracy, and then went back to the routine of drawing and firing, improving doggedly.

  Carol came up the hill and said, “You sound like a South American revolution, darling.”

  “This is trickier than I thought.”

  “Should you be so close?”

  “It’s a measured twenty feet, honey. This thing isn’t designed for potting at long range. I don’t know as I’m ready to show off, but I’ll try.” He loosened the riddled sheet and turned it around to the fresh side and refastened it.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a heart.”

  “It’s too small and it should be more in the middle.”

  “Stop bossing the job. Okay. I’m in position. And I’m half turned away from it. Hands at my sides. Casual and relaxed. When you happen to feel like it, yell ‘go.’ ”

  “Go!”

  He caught the grip cleanly, found the trigger as he wheeled, and emptied the cylinder. He put five black holes in the target, the first one in the abdominal area, one at the waist, and three fairly well centered in the chest.

  “Wow!” she said, genuinely awed. “Did one miss?”

  “No. You keep the hammer on an empty chamber. You fire the first one double action.”

  She looked slightly pale and her throat worked as she swallowed. “Maybe my imagination is a little too vivid, darling. But it seems … so horribly functional.”

  “It’s completely functional. It’s designed to be used on people. It’s designed for maximum speed and maximum killing power for its size. There’s nothing pretty about it, or romantic about it.”

  He broke the gun and ejected the cases and reloaded. “Want to try it?”

  “I don’t think so. I think I’d rather not.”

  “Does the dem
onstration make you feel any better?”

  She nodded. “It does, Sam. It really does. But it’s funny to think of you … I mean.…”

  “I know just what you mean. Lovable, mild old Sam. Dutton knows it too. And he very carefully made his point, in a roundabout way. He told me the armed forces had a lot of trouble in World War Two and in Korea with boys who would not fire their weapons. They are not certain of the basic cause. Something to do with civilization, Christian upbringing, respect for the life and dignity of the individual. He said that they get them on the cops. They’ll get a rugged kid with good reflexes who does just fine on the target range. And then he’ll get in a tight spot. He’ll do exactly as he’s been taught, right up to the point of aiming, and with his finger on the trigger. And he will stop right there, and if it is the wrong situation, they’ll have a dead cop. I don’t know about myself. I can really kill hell out of that tree, lips drawn back in a killer’s sneer. But if it was flesh and blood? I don’t know. I don’t really know. If I’d had any combat I would know. I think I could. I’ve got to make this so automatic with me that pulling the trigger is a part of the total action, and not a separate piece at the end. Then if I can start, I can go through it all the way. I hope.”

  She tilted her head and studied him. “There isn’t much pretense about you, Sam. I mean you take such long, cold looks at yourself.”

  “If you mean I don’t consider myself a dashing figure, you’re right. I am a sedentary, forty-year-old office worker, with a mortgage, a family and an insurance program. I am suited to this new aroma of violence and menace in the same way that George Gobel would feel at home as a Golden Gloves contestant in the heavyweight classification. It is a triteness to say that life makes curious and unexpected demands on you. I’m trying to face this one, but, my Indian maiden, there’s something about it that makes me feel like a white mouse in a snake pit.”