by Jim Thompson
This was bait. Beynon didn’t rise to it. Doc waved it at him again.
“You’ve received five thousand dollars from me, from my wife rather. I agreed to pay fifteen thousand more. Frankly—” Doc turned on his sincerest look, “frankly, I don’t think that’s enough, Mr. Beynon. We didn’t get as much out of this job as we hoped to, but that’s no fault of yours. And…”
“Three people have been killed so far, McCoy. Whose fault would you say that was?”
“Oh, now—” Doc spread his hands. “You mustn’t feel…”
“Car—your wife told me that no one would be killed. She swore to it.”
“I’m sorry. I imagine she was simply trying to spare your feelings. But getting back to the subject…”
“It’s still murder, McCoy. How many more will there be before all this is over? If it is ever all over. How many more lives will I have on my hands?”
Doc hesitated, started to attempt some soothing comment. Then he leaned forward a little, spoke with abrupt bluntness. Beynon, he said, had best stop fretting about others. He had, or would have, plenty to worry about on his own account. “It’s just a matter of time until the Beacon City job is pinned on me. When it is, the man responsible for my pardon—you, in other words—will have some very tough questions to answer.”
“And there’s just one answer for them. That I’m a murderer and a thief.” Beynon looked at him strangely; a dully wondering look. “So you did anticipate it. You knew exactly what it would cost me. My career, disgrace, disbarment. Maybe a long stretch in prison myself. You knew all that, and yet—yet…”
“Now, you’re exaggerating the situation,” Doc cut in smoothly. “You’ll have an uncomfortable time of it, but it won’t be nearly as bad as that. You’ve got a lot of friends, a simon-pure reputation. It’s an accepted fact that you’ve never taken a dishonest dime in your life. Under the…”
“Never a dime, McCoy?” Beynon laughed thickly. “You wouldn’t say I’d taken about thirty of them?”
“I was saying,” Doc said, “that under the circumstances you should come through this fine. About the worst you can be charged with is gross bad judgment.”
He paused, frowning slightly as Beynon laughed again. Faintly, almost lost in the night breeze, he heard a metallic squeak. The opening—or perhaps the closing—of the car’s trunk.
“Bad judgment,” he repeated, his eyes holding the parole chief’s. “Now, that’s not so terrible, is it? It shouldn’t be so hard to face considering that instead of fifteen thousand more, you’re getting—well—twenty-seven and a half?”
“Twenty-seven and a half, eh?” Beynon nodded gravely. “Twenty-seven thousand, five hundred just for facing that. And how much do you think I should have McCoy, for facing myself?”
“Nothing,” Doc said. “Not a damn penny.”
He was tired, weary of coddling Beynon. He saw no reason to. The man wasn’t going to do anything rash; he wasn’t going to do anything period. He simply wanted to whine—make a big display of the conscience which had been conveniently asleep at the time he had sold out his office.
“You’re a crook,” Doc went on. “A particularly rotten kind. Now, stop fighting the fact. Just accept it, and make the most of it. Believe me, you won’t find it so bad.”
“I see.” A skull’s grin wreathed Beynon’s haggard face. “You see us as two of a kind, is that it?”
“No,” Doc said equably, “you’re much worse than I am. You knew the kind of man I was—and I’ve never pretended to be any other kind. You knew, if you’re not a complete idiot, that I play rough when I think it’s necessary. You didn’t have to give me a pardon; no one twisted your arm. You did it for money, and damned little of it at that. The kind of money that—yes?”
Beynon’s grin had widened. He said softly, “Now, aren’t you mistaken about that, McCoy? Wasn’t there another factor involved, and did I have a choice?”
“I don’t know what it would be.”
“No,” Beynon nodded slowly. “No, you really don’t, do you? I was certain that you did, that it was a put-up job. I was convinced of it, despite some very wishful thinking to the contrary. But now—a small drink, Mr. McCoy? Or, no, I think the circumstances call for a large one.”
With grave courtesy, he slopped whiskey into Doc’s glass. Then he filled his own, pursing his lips sympathetically as Doc brushed the drink aside. “I don’t blame you a bit, sir. Oh, believe me, I understand your feelings. You might say they were identical with my own at one time.”
“I’m in a hurry,” Doc snapped. “What are you talking about?”
“You still don’t see it? Well, perhaps it will help if I mention the word blackmail.”
“Blackmail? What…”
“A highly original kind, Mr. McCoy. Almost an attractive kind. To elaborate, one is forced to go along with the wishes of the blackmailer, whether or no. But the mailed fist—or should I say the muddy fist?—also contains a prize; something delectable indeed. One is even allowed to sample it generously, by way of making sure that it is worth the cooperation which one is forced to extend…”
He let his voice trail away. He waited deliberately, prolonging the delicate torture, deepening the sickish heart-tightening suspense. Then, although nothing more needed to be said, he resumed talking. He spelled the thing out, speaking with a false sympathy that was worse than any hatred. Speaking with lewdly gleaming eyes, his wide mouth salaciously wet.
He’s drunk, Doc thought. He’s lying. He’s sore, so he’s striking back, digging at the one spot where it will hurt.
In the whispering twilight there was a minutely exploratory movement of the screen door. His attention riveted on Beynon, Doc didn’t hear it.
“Take it a little at a time,” Beynon was saying. “Approach the matter from all sides. One—” he held up a finger, waggled it in pseudo-courtroom fashion. “One, we have an extremely attractive woman, one who has thoroughly demonstrated her desirability. Two—” he put up a second finger, “we have the woman’s husband, probably the most skillful bank robber in the country, who is serving a long prison sentence. Three—” another finger, “we have a powerful politician, a man who is in a position to free the robber husband. Why should he be freed? Well, naturally, to rob a bank, thus leaving the woman and the politician comfortably fixed for life, the ill winds peculiar to public office notwithstanding. Secondly—would you care to guess at a second—but by no means the lesser—motive, Mr. McCoy? No? Very well, then…”
His voice purred on, pushing and twisting the knife; moving Doc McCoy off balance, hacking away at the one thing he had trusted and believed in.
“Consider, Mr. McCoy. Our robber is notoriously ingenious and deadly. He is also devoted to his wife. If he lost her to another man, he would quite likely kill both of them at the soonest opportunity—at the end of his prison sentence, that is. This didn’t appeal to them at all, of course. Yet unless they gave each other up and resigned themselves to a life of modest or no comforts, there was only one alternative. To free the bank robber, let him make them wealthy, and then, having lured him to an isolated spot such as this…”
Beynon leaned forward, his voice dropping to a harsh conspiratorial whisper. “Then, Mr. McCoy, when he is off guard, when he is no longer sure of where he stands, whether he is captured or captor, when, being sure, he still would not dare to move; then, Mr. McCoy—kill him! ”
Doc heard the screen at last. Heard it close—firmly, with no attempt at silence.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Carol move out of the shadows. And he saw the gun, held very steady, in her hand.
Was it pointed at him? If he moved, would it be pointed at him—blasting him into oblivion before his move could be completed?
It would, he was sure. Carol was practical. She could be as merciless as he. Undoubtedly she had heard much if not all that Beynon had said. If she thought that he, Doc, believed the man—and was he so hard to believe? mustn’t there be a great deal of tru
th in what he said—if she thought that he believed Beynon, and was about to act accordingly…
He didn’t know what to do. With extreme cleverness—or with drunken, conscience-stricken truthfulness—Beynon had so fixed things that any move or no move could be fatal.
“This—this is stupid,” he said, his voice amused but deeply sincere; making the words at once a statement and a plea. “Did you really think I’d fall for a sucker pitch like that?”
“A trick question,” Beynon pointed out promptly. “You don’t know whether it is or isn’t a sucker pitch. To be fair, neither do I. Obviously, I believed little Carol—our Carol, shall I say?—at one time. But with three men killed in spite of her promise that there would be none—well, was just that one promise of hers a lie or were all of them? Another thing…”
“That’s enough,” Doc broke in. “It was a good try, Beynon but…”
“Another thing—” Beynon raised his voice. “She may have been entirely sincere and truthful with me. It may be that she just didn’t know there would be three murders—in addition, of course, to your own. But seeing my dismay at the killings, and fearful that I might be a frail reed to tie to…”
It was wicked, cruel. And still he wasn’t through. Beaming falsely, he drove home the final nail in Doc’s cross of doubt.
“Carol, sweetheart—” Beynon pushed back his chair and stood up, extended one arm in an embracing gesture. “I hope you won’t think ill of her, Mr. McCoy. After all, you were locked up for a long time—your first separation since your marriage, wasn’t it?—and she’s a healthy, vigorous young woman with perhaps more than her share of…”
Carol let out a low moan. She came at him with a rush, and jammed the gun into his stomach. And the room rocked with its stuttering explosions.
Beynon shrieked wildly; it sounded strangely like laughter. He doubled at the waist, in the attitude of a man slapping his knees; then collapsed, dead, riddled with bullets, before his body completed its somersault.
The gun dropped from Carol’s fingers. She stood very straight, eyes squeezed shut, and wept helplessly.
“He-he was lying, Doc. The mean, h-hateful, dirty—! I wish I could kill him again…!”
“There, there now. Don’t let it throw you.” Doc held her in his arms, caressed her with hands that were still damp with sweat. “I’ll get you a drink of the booze here, and…”
“He was lying, Doc! Y-you believe me, don’t you? There wasn’t anything at all like—like he said.”
“Of course there wasn’t,” Doc said warmly. “I never thought for a moment that there was.”
“I—I was just friendly. J-just pretended to be. I couldn’t help it. I had to be nice, make him want to know me, or he wouldn’t have…”
It was a moment before Doc realized that she was talking about only the one facet of Beynon’s story: her supposed or actual infidelity. That was all that bothered her, all that she was denying. Which must mean there was nothing else to deny.
It was a comforting thought, and he hugged her to him fiercely with a kind of shamed ardor. Then he realized that if the undisputed part of the story was false, the other must be true. And he had to fight to keep from shoving her away.
“T-that’s why I didn’t want to come here, Doc. I—I was afraid he’d say something—m-make up a lot of lies, just to get even with me, and…”
Doc sat down on a chair and pulled her onto his lap. Smiling lovingly, he got her to take a drink, gently dried her tears with his handkerchief.
“Now, let’s look at it this way,” he said. “You wanted to get me out. The only way you could do it was to compromise him, so—wait, now! There had to be something between you. After all, if you didn’t have a club to swing over his head, how…”
He broke off. The look in her eyes stopped him. He forced a laugh which sounded reasonably genuine, then stood up, lifting her in his arms.
“A very clever man,” he smiled. “It’s hard not to admire him. But I think we’ve let his gag bother us enough, so suppose we forget it?”
Carol brightened a little. “Then you do believe me, Doc?”
“Believe you?” Doc said warmly. “Now, why wouldn’t I believe you, my dear?”
He carried her upstairs and laid her down on a bed. She clung to his hand when he started to straighten, made him sit down at her side while she told him how she had compromised Beynon. It sounded reasonable. Doc seemed satisfied. Urging Carol to try to rest, he went back downstairs and lugged Beynon’s body down into the basement.
It was the work of a few minutes to bury the corpse in the coal bin. Afterward he stood at the corner sink, scrubbing his hands and arms with gritty mechanics’ soap, drying them on a handful of waste cloth. Then, lost in thought, he remained where he was, a brooding shadow in the near blackness of the basement.
Carol. Why couldn’t he accept her explanation? Beynon was a hard drinker at times. Carol had had to call at his apartment to talk to him. So, playing upon his weakness, she had got him so drunk that he passed out. And he was still dead to the world early the next morning when she slipped out of the place. That was all she had had to do, except, of course, to make sure that she was seen coming and going by the elevator operator and desk clerk. That was all—more than enough. For a man of Beynon’s prominence—the head of the state’s pardon and parole board—to have the wife of a notorious criminal in his apartment for an all-night stay…
Nothing else was necessary, so doubtless nothing else had taken place. As for the bribe money—well, as long as Beynon was stuck, there was no point in refusing a bit of salve.
It all fitted, Doc thought. Yet piece by piece, item by item, he could knock it apart. His mind moved around and around in a circle, disbelieving each time it was on the point of believing.
He was ready to admit that his shaky faith was a personal thing. As a professional criminal, he had schooled himself against placing complete trust in anyone. And as a criminal, he had learned to link infidelity with treachery. It revealed either a dangerous flaw in character, or an equally dangerous shift in loyalties. In any case, the woman was a bad risk in a game where no risk could be tolerated.
So…
Abruptly, Doc broke the agonizing circle of his thoughts. He stood off from himself, standing this fretful, teetering creature that he was now alongside the suave, sure and unshakable Doc McCoy; and the comparison made him squirm.
Now, no more of this, he lectured himself; he smiled softly. No more, either now or later.
Carol had mopped up the kitchen. Now she was at the oil stove, measuring coffee into an enamel pot. Doc walked over to her and put his arms around her. She turned hesitantly, a little fearfully, and looked up into his face.
Doc kissed her enthusiastically. He said mock-seriously, “Madam, were you aware that you had a damn fool for a husband?”
“Oh, Doc! Doc, honey!” She clung to him, burying her face against his chest. “It’s my fault. I wanted to tell you the truth right back in the beginning but…”
“But you were afraid I’d react exactly the way I did,” Doc said. “That coffee smells good. How about some sandwiches to go with it?”
“All right. But shouldn’t we be beating it out of here, Doc?”
“Well,” Doc grinned wryly, “of course, I wouldn’t recommend an indefinite stay. But there’s no great rush that I can see.” He sauntered over to the refrigerator, peered inside and lifted out a butt of baked ham. “Beynon wouldn’t have known exactly when we’d show up. Therefore, he’d have made sure that no one else dropped in on him tonight.”
“I guess I shouldn’t have killed him, should I, Doc? It’s going to make things tough for us.”
Doc laid plates and silver on the table. He set out butter and bread. He said that Beynon’s death was regrettable but unavoidable; when an accessory to a crime collapsed so completely, there was nothing to do but kill him. “I don’t know just how tough it’ll make things for us. Maybe not at all. But it certainly forces us to ch
ange our plans.”
Carol nodded, and lifted the coffee from the stove. “Want to put the cream on for me, honey?” she said; then, “Just how will it change them?”
“Well, here’s the way I add it up.” Doc sat down at the table, and carved meat onto their plates. “Our car must have been spotted on the way up here. At least we have to assume that it was. Still playing it safe, we can’t rule out the possibility that someone got a look at us. Maybe some kid stalking a rabbit near the road, or a nosy housewife with time on her hands and a pair of binoculars…”
“It could happen,” Carol agreed. “We change out of these duds, then. Leave our car here and take Beynon’s.”
“Right. We try to make it appear that the three of us have gone off somewhere together, and that we’ll be coming back. But—” Doc took a sip of his coffee. “Here’s where the rub comes in. We don’t know what Beynon’s plans were, his appointments. For all we know he may have been due to see or call someone tomorrow morning, or someone may have been scheduled to see or call him here. Then there’s the livestock—that’s the real tip-off. When Beynon shows up missing, without having notified his part-time hired hand—” Doc shook his head. “We’ll have to get off the road. We can’t risk it a moment longer than we absolutely have to.”
“No, we can’t, can we?” Carol frowned. “We hole up with someone, then?”
“What gave you that idea? Who would we hole up with?”
“Well, I just thought that if—weren’t you supposed to have a good friend out this way? Somewhere near Mexico, I mean? You know, that old woman—Ma Santis.”
Doc said, regretfully, that he didn’t have. Ma Santis was on the other side of Mexico, the Southern California side. At least, it had been rumored that she was there, although no one seemed to know where. “I don’t know that she’s even alive, but it’s my guess that she probably isn’t. When you get as well known as Ma Santis and her boys, people have you cropping up around the country for years after you’re dead.”
