Reprisal

by F. Paul Wilson

  He had decided yesterday that he would have to get closer to obtain that final ten percent of certainty. For he insisted on being completely sure before he pointed his finger at a man. A little disconcerting to break out of his usual daily routineespecially on a Wednesday afternoon when his time was always tightly budgetedand wander the grounds looking for a mysterious stranger, but he reminded himself he was doing this to protect Lisl.

  But he had found him and now little bursts of excitement twitched in his nerve endings as he edged closer. This was almost like private detective work, like being Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe for a day.

  He noticed that although the man in question worked well with the others, he didn't seem completely a part of them. He talked with them, laughed at their jokes, but didn't seem to truly belong. Ev had the feeling that there was something within the man that kept him forever one step removed.

  Like me.

  "You get any closer, mister, you gon' fall in."

  Ev was startled by the voice. As the other groundsmen laughed, he glanced up and smiled at the big shovel-wielding redhead who had spoken.

  "I don't mean to disturb your work."

  "Oh, you ain't disturbin' nothin'. But you sure ain't helpin', neither."

  Ev wasn't sure if there was an undercurrent of hostility in the man's voice, or if he was just pulling his leg.

  "I was just curious as to how deep in the ground you had to lay the hosing."

  "Shoot! Ah don' know 'bout you, man, but Ah ain't abouta lay mah hose in the ground, Ah kin tell you that! Nossir!"

  Amid renewed laughter, Lisl's groundsman looked up at Ev with his clear blue eyes. He was down on. his knees, adjusting a coupling.

  "Aren't you Professor Sanders?"

  Ev was somewhat taken aback at being recognized.

  "Why yes."

  "I thought so. Well, Professor, down here we don't have to bury the hose too deep at all. A few inches will usually do. But up where you get a deep freeze, you've either got to lay the hose below the frost line or drain the system every fall."

  Ev could tell by the trace of a northern accent in the man's voice that he knew about cold winters. He studied the face, looking for that last ten percent of certainty, but couldn't find it. And up close, the nose was all wrong.

  The man shot a glance at the redhead.

  "I'm surprised at you, Clancy," he said. "How'd you let that remark about freezing hose get by?"

  Clancy smiled. "Ah guess Ah was too shook up thinking 'bout havin' to wait till fall to get man hose drained."

  And in that instant, as Lisl's groundsman laughed with the others, Everett found what he'd been looking for. It was in the eyes. When he smiled, his lids, eyes, and eyebrows crinkled in a way that was identical to the photo.

  "Thank you," Ev said, hiding his satisfaction.

  "You clear on all this now?" Clancy said.

  "Yes. I've learned precisely what I came to know."

  He hurried back to his office, intent on calling the State Police immediately, but by the time he reached his desk he'd had second thoughts. Everyone had secretsLord knew, Everett had his own. Did he have a right to do the State Police's work for them and expose this man's?

  The question plagued him the rest of the afternoon. He'd almost come to the decision to tear up the slip of paper with the state cop's name on it when he saw Lisl in the hall. She glanced at him, gave a quick wave, then turned away. She'd been acting that way for nearly a week. Almost as if she were avoiding him. Had he done something to offend her? He couldn't think of anything. But seeing her reminded him of just how disturbed this groundsman must be. He remembered how upset Lisl had been by that phone call in the middle of her Christmas party. It had ruined the whole day for her. The memory of her distress the following week angered him.

  Perhaps his fingering this man as her tormentor might change her opinion of Ev. He knew she thought of him as a very stiff and very dull man. Which he was. Ev was the first to admit it. He was no fun. But maybe Lisl would warm up to him a little if he did this for her. He didn't want much. Maybe a smile, a touch on the arm once in a while. There was no warmth in his life, hadn't been any for too long.

  A little warmth. That wasn't too much to ask.

  Ev stepped back into his office and dialed the number the detective had given him. A motel switchboard answeredthe Red Roof on the edge of town. The operator rang the room half a dozen times, then said that Mr. Augustino wasn't in. She offered to take a message. Ev told her he'd call back later. He wanted to make sure the detective got the information firsthand.

  He closed up his office and took the number with him. He'd call again from home.

  I must have Lisl on the brain today .

  Ev stood at his living-room window and looked down on the street. He'd been passing by a moment ago while cleaning up after dinnereight ounces of baked chicken, a cup of frozen peas, and a small can of corn nibletsand could have sworn he'd seen Lisl passing under the streetlight below. But when he'd looked again, she was gone. Must have been someone else. After all, what would Lisl be doing wandering around down here? She was probably out having dinner with that Losmara fellow. And after dinner they'd probably go back to his place or hers and

  He glanced at the clock on the wall, then at his watch. They both read 7:32. He knew it was the right time because he checked them regularly against the Weather Channel's clock. Time to go. The meeting didn't start until 8:00 but Ev always liked to get there early and grab a cup of coffee while the urn was still fresh. Especially since he'd forgone his after-dinner coffees and cigarettes to save them for the meeting. Heavy smoking and coffee drinking were the rule at the meetings, and he didn't want to go over his daily limits.

  The Weather Channel had said there was a possibility of rain so he put on his raincoat and stuffed his Totes rain hat in the pocket. He made a last check of the apartment, made sure all the dinner dishes and utensils were put away, then headed for the street.

  As was his custom, he stopped at Raftery's front window and watched the drinkers inside for exactly one minute. As he was turning away he caught a flash of blond hair down the street. For a moment he thought it was Lisl standing in a doorway. But when he squinted through the darkness for a better look, he saw nothing. /

  He continued on his way, wondering why Lisl would be on his mind like this. He knew he'd been thinking about her more than usual, but that was because of the photo the detective had shown him. At least he hoped that was why. Ev was well aware of how prone he was to obsessions. He didn't want her to become one. Not Lisl. Not a colleague.

  He continued on his way. It was only a few more blocks to the St. James Episcopal Church. When he got there, he bypassed the imposing granite front steps and went around to a small wooden door on the north side.

  "There!" said Lisl, unable to resist gloating. "There's his big bad secret. A clandestine meeting in the church basement."

  She rubbed her chilled hands together as they stood in a shadowed doorway across the street from the church. The excitement of following Ev along the darkened street, of ducking out of sight every time he paused or turned around, had left her feeling a little wired.

  She glanced at Rafe, who had remained silent since Ev had entered the church.

  "Come on, Rafe," she said. "Cheer up. Don't take it so hard because he didn't sneak off to some gay leather bar. You can't win them all."

  "What do you think our friend Everett is doing in there?" Rafe said finally.

  "Who knows? Maybe he's a deacon or something."

  "Has he ever struck you as a religious man?"

  Lisl considered that. She couldn't remember Ev ever referring to God, even once. She didn't know of many people who got into higher math and still believed in God.

  "No. But we both know from last week that his apartment is a model of frugality, sobriety, and orderliness. I don't think it's much of a leap to accept him as a churchgoer."

  "Perhaps not. But I'm still not convinced he's not hiding somet
hing."

  "Give it up, Rafe. He's one of us. He's a Prime." She liked the idea of recognizing Ev as an official member of the club.

  "Maybe. But I won't be convinced until I know what's going on in there."

  "It's a church , Rafe."

  "I'm aware of that. But I'm also aware that churches traditionally allow civic and community groups to use their basements and function rooms. I wonder what group is in the basement tonight?" .-

  "What difference does it make?"

  "For all we know it could be a self-help group for child molest-ers or transvestites or"

  "Really, Rafe. Must you?"

  She couldn't see his face in the darkness, but she hoped he wasn't wearing that sardonic half smile of his. They stood there in silence for a while and watched other figures approach the church and enter the side door; men outnumbered women three to one; they were mostly middle-aged but a few looked barely out of their teens; some came in pairs but the vast majority arrived alone. By 8:10 the flow stopped.

  "Well, what do you think?" Rafe said when it seemed that everyone who was coming had arrived. "I counted a couple of dozen. An unwieldy number for a good orgy."

  "You know, Rafe, you're impossible at times."

  "I don't mean to be. I just want to know. Knowledge is power, as they say."

  "Then go over there and find out."

  "No. I want you to go. Because if I come back with a tale of some wild Satanic rites, you'll think I'm putting you on. You see for yourself and then come back and tell me. Whatever you say, I'll believe, and that will be that."

  More sneaking around. Lisl didn't like it, but now her own curiosity was aroused. If Ev wasn't attending a church meeting in the basement of St. James every Wednesday night, what was going on down there?

  "Okay. I'll take a look. But then that's it. If it's nothing screwy, we drop this whole thing and get off the poor guy's back. Agreed?"

  "Agreed."

  Lisl hurried across the street to the looming shadow of the church and went directly to the door she had seen Ev use. She didn't pause. If she did she knew she might actually think about the silliness of this whole evening and what she was doing and reconsider it.

  She pulled open the door slowly and saw a deserted stairway. She entered and tiptoed down the two flights to the basement. She saw light and heard voices at the end of the hallway and cautiously made her way along until she found the meeting room. The doors stood open, spread wide into the hall like wings. She peered into the room from a safe distance.

  Folding chairs were set up in short rows facing the opposite end of the low-ceilinged room. Most of the chairs were occupied and the few people left standing were sliding into the rows to get a seat. Everyone held either a cigarette or a Styrofoam cup of coffee or both. The air was already thick with smoke; clouds of white billowed in the glare of the naked fluorescent bulbs clinging to the ceiling. Ev was seated at the end of the last row. Alone.

  Lisl hung back in the dimness of the hall and watched.

  A balding man stood at the head of the group. He too had a cup of coffee and a cigarette. He was speaking but the words were garbled. Lisl crossed the hall to hear him. She slipped behind the nearer open door and listened. She had a clear view of Ev through the slit between the wall and the door.

  "the same faces as usual here. Our 'regulars.' But we haven't heard from some of you in a long time. We all know why you come here, but I think some of you old-timers hang back too much, thinking we know all about you. But we don't. So how about it? How about one of you founding members getting up and giving us the benefit of your experience?"

  He waited but no one moved. Finally he pointed to the back row.

  "Everett. How about you? We haven't heard from you in a long time. How about it?"

  Ev stood slowly. He looked uncomfortable. He cleared his throat twice before speaking.

  "My name's Everett," he said, "and I'm an alcoholic."

  Knotting the fingers of her hands together, almost as if in prayer, Lisl leaned toward the strip of light before her and listened.

  Everett was nervous at first. He hadn't done this in a while, but he was overdue for some testimony. It was time.

  His nerves eased as he began talking. He knew the patter of his story like he knew basic calculus. He'd told it often enough.

  "It started for me when I'm sure it started for most of youas a teenager. I wasn't a drunk right away. That took time, and lots of practice. But the warning signs were there, right from the start. All my friends drank now and again when we could liberate some booze from our folks or persuade some stranger to buy us a case of beer, but I always seemed the happiest when we could get some and the most disappointed when we couldn't.

  "And once I started to drink I couldn't stop. I didn't realize it then, but when I look back now I can see that even as a kid I didn't know how to stop. The only thing that kept me from seeing it then was the fact that our supply was always limited. Our purloined booze always ran out before I could get myself good and sick.

  "My fraternity house at Emory fixed that. We bought beer by the keg and I got thoroughly ripped on a regular basis. But only on weekends, at our parties, where I became something of a legend for the amount of alcohol I could put away. During the week, though, I managed to keep up an A average. I was the envy of my peersthe honor student who could party with the best of them. This was in the mid to late sixties, when pot became the campus drug of choice. But not for me. I was too ail-American for that hippie locoweed.

  "Not that I didn't try it. I did. At one time or another along the way I've tried everything. Plenty of times. But I remained loyal to my friend the bottle. Because nothing else could ever find that special spot within me that needed touching. Only booze could reach that place and soothe it. I was at Woodstock, and like too many of the people there, I don't remember much about that weekend other than endless rain and oceans of mud. I had to see the movie to find out what it was really like. But I wasn't wrecked on pot or mescaline or the bad brown acid that was going around. Oh, no. That would have meant I was some hippie freak with a drug problem. Not me. I had my friend along. I was wasted on the case of bourbon I'd brought from my good old home state of Kentucky."

  He shook his head as he thought of the years that followed. So much pain there. He hated dredging it up, but he had to. That was what this was all about. He couldn't allow himself to forget the misery he had caused himself and others.

  "You can all guess how the rest of the story goes. I graduated, got a job with a technical firm that had just moved into the Sun Belt, began working in computer technology. In those days it took a roomful of equipment to do what a desktop PC does today. If I were still with the company today, I'd probably be a millionaire. But the booze used the pressures of the job to tighten its hold on me.

  "Then I fell in love with a wonderful woman who was made foolish by her own love for me. Foolish enough to believe that she could be more important to me than my old friend the bottle. Little did she know. We married, we started a life together, but it was a menage a troismy wife, me, and the bottle. You see, I still thought of the bottle as my friend. But it was a jealous friend. It wanted me all to itself. And slowly but surely it poisoned my marriage Hntil my wife gave me an ultimatum: her or the bottle.

  "Those of you who have been there can guess which one I chose."

  Ev took a deep breath to fill the emptiness inside him.

  "After that it was a steadily accelerating downward spiral for me. I lost one job after another. But my superiors always gave me a decent recommendation when they let me go. They thought they were doing me a favor by helping me hide it from the next company that had the misfortune to hire me. This prolonged my intimate relationship with my friend the bottle because it delayed my inevitable bottoming out.

  "And did I ever bottom out. I went through detox three times before I finally realized that my friend of twenty years wasn't really my friend. He had taken over my life and was destroying me. The bottle wa
s in the driver seat and I could see that if I didn't take back the wheel, he was going to run me off a cliff.

  "So that's what I did. With the help of AA, I took back control of my life. Complete control." He smiled and held up his coffee cup and cigarette. "Well, not complete control. I still smoke and I drink too much coffee. But everything else in my life is under strict control. I've learned to manage my time so that there's no room left in my life for booze. And there never will be again."

  He considered mentioning his daily challengestanding outside Raftery's Tavern every time he passed and staring in the window for exactly one minute, daring the booze to try to lure him inbut decided against it. Someone else here might decide to try the dare and lose. He didn't want to be responsible for that. He figured he'd said enough.

  "So that's it. I've been dry for ten years now. I went back to school, got my doctorate, and now I'm doing exactly what I want to do. I'm back in the driver seatfor good. Thank you for listening."

  As he sat down to a round of applause, he thought he heard hurried footsteps in the hall outside. He heard the upstairs door slam. Had someone left while he was speaking? He shrugged. It didn't matter. He'd spoken his piece, done his share. That was what counted.

  Lisl composed her emotions as she crossed the street. Ev's story had shocked and moved her. Before tonight he had seemed little more than a collection of compulsive mannerisms. Mr. Machine. Now he was a person, a flesh-and-blood man with a past and a terrible problem, one he had been able to overcome. He'd beaten the bottle, but he didn't trumpet it around like some recovering alcoholics on the faculty; it was Ev's private victory, one he'd kept to himself. Lisl was proud of him, and suddenly proud to know him. And if he wanted his past kept secret, it was safe with her.

  She stopped on the sidewalk before the shadowed doorway.

  "Let's head back to the car, Rafe."

  He stepped out into the light and looked at her expectantly.

  "Well?"

  "Well, nothing. It was a prayer meeting, that's all. Just a bunch of people sitting around reading from the Bible and stuff like that."

  Rafe only stared at her. She hooked her arm through his and started them walking back the way they had come. His voice was very soft when he spoke.