April Evil

by John D. MacDonald

  “Sally, this is the Ace.” They nodded at each other. “Big bastard, isn’t he?”

  The Ace seemed to fill the kitchen. He was well over six feet, tall and he was broad all the way down, with hardly any suggestion of a waist. He was in his early forties. The top of his head was shiny-bald, sun-reddened, surrounded by kinky ginger hair. His brows and nose and lips were thickened by early years in the ring. His jacket was expensive and well cut. His eyes were small and blue and bright. He looked as though he could have been an ex-pro-football linesman turned salesman.

  “Whatever you got there, it smells good,” Ace said.

  “It’s a beef stew like.”

  Harry Mullin made two drinks, gave one to Ace and they carried them into the living room.

  “Nice deal. Pretty here. With the lights on those bushes. Where do I bunk?”

  “There’s two down that hall. Take either one.”

  “I’ll get the bag later. If I decide to come in on this.”

  “You want the story now. Okay. The month before I crashed out, I got to know one of the new fish who’d just come in. He figured with me being in there four years already and being a lifer, I’d know all the scores. He was in on armed robbery, a supermarket in Evanston. He’d come in from the West Coast and it was the first thing he tried and he’d hooked up with the wrong guy so it went sour. He was all set on what he’d do when he got out, and he knew I couldn’t ever be paroled so he thought it was safe to talk it over with me.

  “It seems when he was out on the coast he had this good friend named Joe Preston. Preston was always getting into small time trouble. But Preston talks about some rich doctor in this town here, here in Flamingo, that he’s related to. Preston and his wife leave. This fish, his name is Irv Dingle, gets a letter from Preston. Preston brags about the rich doctor relative. He says he and his wife have moved in with the old boy. He says the doctor doesn’t believe in banks and he’s made a killing in land and has maybe a million bucks in cash in the safe in his house.”

  “Sure. A million bucks. Ten or fifteen thousand.”

  “Wait a minute. Four years didn’t soften me up. After Riverio hid me out I started thinking about it, wondering if it could be true. So I had Riverio run a check. He had somebody come over from Miami and look around. It gets checked a half dozen ways and it adds up to a minimum of a half million. Cash. It could be a hell of a lot more. He lives in a big stone house. The Preston couple and some old jig live there with the doctor. I couldn’t get the dope on the kind of box, but it was put in twenty years ago.”

  “Then a torch and a can opener ought to do it.”

  “That’s your business. But like I said, Riverio checked.”

  “I’ll believe that. But why doesn’t he assign it?”

  “Because he hasn’t got the people any more. There aren’t many people around to handle it. He’s been going legit. He’s had his orders to go legit. The top-side wouldn’t have liked it for him to hide me out, or even make this check, but as I said, he owed me a couple of favors. Now we’re clear. I got to the cash I had stashed, and I’ve got enough to swing this thing. That was what Dingle was after in Evanston, the cash to finance this thing. Now I want to know if you’re in.”

  The Ace picked up his glass and walked to the jalousied windows and looked toward the dark bay. Finally he shrugged big shoulders. “Sure.”

  “That’s good. You’re a good man with a box. There aren’t many good ones left.”

  “But no killing.”

  “No killing.”

  “I’ve never been in on a score where there was any. And I don’t want to start. That’s why I don’t like working with the kid.”

  “I can hold him down.”

  “How do you want to do it?”

  “The easy way. Get in and take over the house. Maybe if we rough the old man up a little, we can open the box with the dial. We’ll study the map and lay out a route. I figure Tampa would be a good place to split up.”

  “How do you cut it?”

  “Expenses out and the balance three ways.”

  “Are you sure the cash is there?”

  “I know this much. When he was selling off land a few years back, the bank used to send a guard right along with him, right to his door, when he was taking the cash home. What does that sound like?”

  The Ace grinned. “It sounds sweet.”

  “This will go like cream and silk. All I worry about is why it hasn’t already been knocked off. Maybe the talent doesn’t get around this way.”

  Sally came to the door and said they could eat any time. The men went out to the booth in the kitchen alcove. She served them big portions of the steaming beef stew. The three of them ate in silence. After Ace had pushed his plate away and sugared his coffee, he said, “How did you make it out? I heard a lot of stories.”

  Harry looked at Sally. She kept her eyes down. He shrugged and said, “No harm in telling you. You know, they gave me those consecutive sentences. The way I worked it out, if I could live to be a hundred and sixty-five, I might get out. So the day I went in, I started planning. I kept my head down. If you make no trouble, you get to move around more.

  “I decided right away I wanted no part of any big crash. That hostage business is no good. It never works out. I had to get out of there all by myself, all alone. And I did. But it took four years. I figured up once I spent twelve thousand hours thinking and planning. You think that hard, something has to give. And I couldn’t try a long-shot chance, because that would foul me up if I was caught. It had to be as sure as I could make it.”

  “That’s a maximum-security prison.”

  “You’re telling me no news, Ace. I finally decided the best deal was with the state road trucks. They save money for the state by using the prison shop and prison labor. There’s a tough smart inspection squad that checks each truck in and out. Once in a while they get some old crock of a truck that needs a lot of welding on the frame. I spent a whole year making the right contacts in the repair shop. I couldn’t get in there myself. No lifers in the auto shop. It took a lot of organizing and a lot of pressure. It went wrong a couple of times. But not wrong enough to make anybody suspicious. The timing just went bad. It finally worked right. I got into the shop and hid behind a locker until I got the signal. Then I got under a truck and pulled myself up underneath. My contacts had welded a couple of handles up under there, and a bar I could rest my weight on. They’d built skirts on the side so I was up out of sight. I took the chance. The squad looked under the truck but they missed me when the state driver took the truck out. That damn driver was a cowboy. That bar nearly broke my back.

  “I’d got out from under the truck and made a phone call, still wearing the dungarees I put on in the auto shop, and been picked up and was forty miles out of town before they even knew I was gone. They still don’t know how I got out. Big mystery. Big headlines. They won’t know until somebody spots those handles and that bar, and maybe they never will.”

  “Very sleek,” Ace said.

  “But it can’t ever happen again. I couldn’t ever get out again. They’d watch me too close. And here’s news for you. I’m never going back in again. They’re never going to shut any gates on me again. I’m out for good. This deal is going to work. I’m going to make it work. And I’m going to live fat until I’m ninety, live in a place where I can keep my thumb on my nose. I’ve lost too many times. And I’ve lost too many years.”

  Ace leaned back. “When you talk like that I don’t like this so much.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You used to kid around. You used to make it the easy way. Now you’re all strung up. You’ve got the shakes.”

  “Maybe I’ve changed.”

  “I don’t like the shakes.”

  “When we place the bet, I won’t be shaking.”

  Ace stood up. “Don’t be.”

  “Sit down!” Ace shrugged and sat down. “I’m running this. Anything that sounds like an order, I give it. May
be you better get out right now.”

  “Don’t get your ass in an uproar.”

  “In or out. Come on. If you’re in, you take orders.”

  “The older you get, the meaner you get. All right. I take orders. Now I get my bag. Then I unpack. Then I make a drink. Okay, chief?”

  Harry relaxed visibly. “Okay, Ace.”

  The two men sat up after the woman had gone to bed. They talked of old names and old places. They were like two mercenaries speaking of lost battles in a war in which they didn’t believe. The list of the fallen was long.

  After Ace had gone to bed, Harry Mullin sat alone, a Havana station whispering over the radio. He finished a last drink and went to bed. The woman lay asleep in the restless moonlight, dark leaf shadows moving against the contours of her soft sleeping body. Mullin thought of the money. He thought of it with heat and ferocity. He thought of the money with a special intensity. With his thoughts at that peak, he awakened the drowsy and acquiescent girl.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Dr. Paul Tomlin stood at the window in his dressing room which adjoined his second floor bedroom. He wore an ancient and comfortable dressing gown. It was ten o’clock on Tuesday morning, the twelfth day of April—a warm windy day. He stood looking down at the girl who, with trowel in hand, grubbed patiently at the flower bed in the corner of the wall.

  Dr. Tomlin was a tall, straight, lean, knotted old man with large, veined, blotched hands, wattled throat, hard shelf of brow, thin white hair with a faint yellowish tinge to it. He felt a warmth within him as he watched the girl. She was on her knees, faded blue jeans taut across round young buttocks, her hair dark gold in the sun as she worked away. The flowers were growing for her, as they had never done for Arnold. Since she had come here the food had become more varied, more pleasant. Furniture appeared in more pleasing arrangements. The entire house seemed lighter and more alive.

  He remembered the day the couple had arrived, a cold day of rain two days after Christmas. The fat-pine fire Arnold had built crackled in the study fireplace. Arnold had come in, dark face both thoughtful and dubious to say, “They’s a couple of young folks here says they’s kin to you, Doctor. Name of Preston.”

  He remembered a letter that had come nearly two months before, a letter written in pencil, mailed in California, and signed Joseph Preston. It had traced the remote relationship. Joseph Preston was the grandson of the doctor’s wife’s half-brother. The letter had said that Joseph and his wife might drive east some time to visit. The doctor had not answered the letter. Now they had come. He knew he could not turn them away without seeing them. But he could certainly turn them away after token greetings.

  Annoyed, he told Arnold to show them in. He stood up, his back to the fire, and waited for them. Arnold ushered the young couple in. They looked ill at ease. The young man came forward with forced joviality, hand extended. “I’m Joe Preston, Doc. I guess we’re related.”

  Tomlin took the hand and released it quickly. “Distantly, I believe.” He did not like the look of Preston. He had a weak, narrow face. His sideburns were long and the dark hair was long above his ears, combed heavily back. He wore a ranch shirt and jeans with the belt buckled on the side.

  “You’ve got a nice place here, Doc. This is Laurie, my wife.”

  “Forgive me, but I detest being called Doc, if you don’t mind.” He nodded at the girl, half smiling. She stood just inside the doorway, her body tense, unsmiling. She was of medium height, sturdy in her cotton skirt and light sweater. Her hair was brown and sun streaked, her face broad but pretty, lightly freckled.

  “Come on, Joe!” she said with quiet firmness. “Come on!”

  “Wait up, honey. We only just got here.”

  “I want to leave right now. He doesn’t want us here. He didn’t answer the letter. You can see by the way he acts. Don’t be so …”

  “Hold it!” Joe Preston snapped.

  Dr. Tomlin found himself liking the girl on sight. There was something about the way she stood, something about the strength in her face and her eyes that reminded him of his long-dead wife when she had been a young girl.

  He smiled and heard himself saying, “Yes, please to ‘hold it.’ Won’t you both sit down, please?”

  “See?” Joe said to Laurie and sat down before she did, sighing expansively, legs spread, elbows hooked on the chair arms.

  The girl sat on the edge of a straight chair.

  “Are you on your way through?” Tomlin asked.

  “I thought I’d look around right here,” Joe said. He made an expansive gesture. “The West Coast is shot. Too full of people. All crawling over each other trying to find jobs. This looks like a better deal, Doc … Doctor. For a while we didn’t think the old heap was going to make it, but it got us all the way across the U. S. and A., didn’t it, baby?”

  The girl nodded. She looked at the doctor and blushed and looked away. The doctor thought, with some surprise, she is sensitive. This is embarrassing her. She knows what he is and what he’s doing and she doesn’t like it.

  In that moment he became curious about Laurie. It was as though some buried and forgotten part of him awakened. It was a painful rebirth. The death of his wife and child had been a blow from which he had never entirely recovered. He had wanted solitude, and found it. For years he had lost himself in work. Since retirement he had lived apart here in the stone house, with books and music and memories of a past so distant that now the memories were fragile, soft-hued, like the dry brown flowers pressed in old books. He waited patiently for death in the old house. He was both resentful of and intrigued by his stir of interest in the girl.

  He heard himself say, “You two could stay here for a little bit while you look around. A few days.” He heard Arnold’s astonished grunt in the dimness of the hallway beyond the study.

  “That’s damn white of you, Doc … tor.”

  “We appreciate it very much,” the girl said in a low voice.

  That was the way it had started. And the two of them had lived in the house ever since. And he was not sorry. Not for one minute had he been sorry. In the beginning Arnold had grumbled as much as he dared about the extra work. But as Laurie took over more and more of Arnold’s unwelcome duties, that complaint faded away.

  Joe Preston was no good. On his regular trips to town to “hunt up a job,” he managed to return dulled by beer, steps heavy on the stairs. He had no conversation, and only the most rudimentary manners. Some stirrings of primitive conscience made him try to “help out,” but his efforts were fragmentary and soon forgotten. He seemed to have the attention span of a small child, but all the sexual energies of a healthy young ram. And he was in ram heaven. A solid roof, a lot of food, a firm-bodied young wife and the privilege of sleeping until noon.

  For some time Paul Tomlin wasn’t able to draw the girl out. When at last she began to talk he found that his plaintive hope had been correct. She had sharp native intelligence. She’d had very little schooling. Her manners and her sensitivity were innate. And this was a house of books and of music. This was a house of a thousand new doors, all open to her. It both pleased and amused the doctor to see the avidity with which she entered the new worlds, to sense her hungriness for new intellectual experience. He subtly guided her reading, the music, their conversations. At dinner Joe Preston would gulp his coffee and leave the table, glad to be away from conversation that bored him.

  Laurie had taste and imagination. It was fun to talk to her. It underlined a loneliness within himself that he had never suspected.

  He remembered the things she said. “I don’t dig this Bartok. I mean I think I see what he’s trying to do, but I don’t think I like it.”

  “What do you think he’s trying to do?”

  “Make music into arithmetic. Sometimes the notes sound like … like a roof where a bunch of icicles hang off. They’re all different lengths, and different sizes, but they’re all icicles. There isn’t anything to melt them. I don’t mean music has to be schmaltzy. But �
�� there has to be more than tricks.”

  Or—“Maybe I can see what this Hemingway is doing, Doctor Paul. He could take the very same scene and by describing it a different way each time he could make you feel different each time, make you feel like the people in the scene feel. That keeps him from having to try to tell you what the people are thinking.”

  Or—“The thing I like best in the books and in the poetry and in the music is when all of a sudden something comes up that makes you feel all prickly, the back of your neck and the backs of your hands, and you can’t breathe deeply. It’s like you recognize something you knew all along. Is that what they try to do to you?”

  “That’s what they want to do, yes. But few people ever respond that way. Too few people, Laurie.”

  They talked together a great deal. Paul Tomlin was able to ignore the depressing presence of Joe Preston for the sake of the delight he took in watching this girl grow and unfold and flourish. She made the more immediate relatives, Dillon and Lenora Parks, poor things indeed. As she grew in stature, the efforts of his guidance became more visible. He began to feel possessive, and also felt growth and change within himself.

  He became more resentful of Joe’s claims on her time and her body and her emotions. The quiet evenings would end when Joe would, with surly insistence, take her off to bed. It seemed shameful to him that this perceptive girl, this sensitive organism, should be chained to crassness, vulgarity and appetite.

  One March day as they sat together on the garden bench, Paul Tomlin asked her about her husband.

  “How did you meet him, Laurie?”

  She looked at him and looked quickly away, and he suspected that she sensed the disapproval behind his words. She shrugged. “I was in a little town named Crystal, California. I was with my aunt. She’s dead now. She was run over last year. I was seventeen, and I had to quit school. I worked in the lunch room in the bus station. Joe came to town with a crew. They were mapping some kind of irrigation project. I went out with him a few times. He got into trouble and they fired him. He was stranded there. He seemed so helpless. He wanted to get married. So … we got married.”