April Evil

by John D. MacDonald

  An hour later he looked in at Sue. She was sound asleep, a strand of hair across her eyes, fists under her chin. He looked in on Joan. She lay wide-eyed in the semi-darkness of the room. He walked over to her and she moved a bit to let him sit on the bed beside her. He took her hand. Her fingers closed tightly, convulsively, and then her hand relaxed in his.

  “I keep thinking dreadful things,” she whispered.

  “Don’t. Try to stop.”

  “He thinks he’s so old and responsible. He’s so little. He’s only eleven. There’s so much he doesn’t know and wouldn’t understand.”

  She cried. She turned and muffled the aching sounds in the pillow. She pulled her hand free. He put his hand on her shoulder and felt the tremors of her body. The only comfort he could give was to stay close to her. A long time later he walked out to the living room. The first gray light of day was over the world, a negative gray that made each leaf and branch stand out, as colorless as a faded photograph. The coming of day gave fear a different emphasis. The boy had been gone all night. He had left yesterday. The boy was gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The sun came up a little after seven in Flamingo on Friday, the fifteenth of April. A commercial fisherman, heading south down the channel through the morning mist, saw the angry round redness of it and saw how quickly it cut the mist and knew that this day would be hotter than any so far. This was May weather, not April weather. About seven hundred pounds of mullet, netted at night, made a pile that shone silver in the boat. The ancient marine engine chugged heavily and the slow bow waves spread toward the mangroves. Another half hour to the fish house. A man stood up to his waist in water on the grass flats, spin casting for trout. Birds dipped low over the water in the early light and the fisherman felt the sun heat on his cheek.

  In room eight of the Spindrift Motel on North Flamingo Beach, a bride of ten days crept stealthily out of bed and shut herself in the small blue bathroom and looked at her tear-puffed face. The morning sun glared through the glazed window that faced east. She had cried each night of her brief marriage. She wondered if it was possible to cry each night for the rest of your life. She wondered if today she would find the courage to swim out and out and out—too far to return. It was the only escape she could think of.

  Inland from Flamingo the sun awakened a young man in a station wagon parked in an orange grove. He faced the day with despair. It awakened an elderly man downtown, sleeping in a side yard under some pepper trees where he had fallen. It shone on a couple who ran hand in hand into the gentle surf and dived and came up laughing, their faces close.

  The morning light awakened Mooney. He had awakened many times during the night when involuntary movement had caused pain. His face ached. It felt hot and swollen, particularly around his mouth. He ran his fingertips lightly over torn and bruised tissue. He ran the tip of his tongue across smashed lips, and used it to gingerly wiggle two loose teeth. It took a long time to get out of bed. His body was unexpectedly sore. He straightened up and walked slowly and heavily into the bathroom.

  His face, in the mirror, was not as bad as he expected it to be. It was not as bad as it felt. The worst looking part was his left eye. There was an eggplant lump on the cheekbone, and the eye was swollen nearly shut. His lips were thick and puffy.

  It had been a strange thing. He had spent the evening drinking beer. When he had returned to the cabana, he had seen someone sitting on the steps by the door, a thickset shadow, heavy in the darkness.

  “Who is it?”

  “Parks. I want to talk to you.”

  He had felt a quick rush of apprehension but kept his voice light. “Sure. Come on in, boss.”

  He had been in bad spots before. But he had always talked fast enough. That was the gimmick. Start talking. Throw up a smoke screen of fast conversation. He knew this had something to do with Lennie. Had she been damn fool enough to tell Dil Parks?

  Parks followed him in, too closely. Mooney turned on the lights. Parks slammed the door. As Mooney turned, starting to say something, Parks hit him. He fell sprawling, scared and shocked. Parks didn’t look normal. There was no expression on his face. Mooney didn’t like the way his eyes looked. He was hit again as he started to get up. He was given no chance to talk. He tried to fight. The big arms and fists were like clubs. The room swirled and the floor hit him. Things got vague. The fists didn’t hurt any more. They felt like big pillows. Parks backed him into a corner. He slumped against Parks, his head bouncing on the thick shoulder as Parks, grunting with each blow, drove those heavy fists into Mooney’s middle.

  Mooney’s head bobbled loosely and he realized dimly that this could kill him, and he wanted to tell Parks to be careful because you really could kill a man this way. Then he wondered if Parks was quite aware of it and intended to kill him. If so, somebody should explain to Parks that the woman wasn’t worth it. But if nobody was given a chance to talk, how could you point that out?

  The room swooped down into darkness, a great sliding dip like the first big drop on the roller coaster of long ago.

  When he awakened blood glued his cheek to the floor. The door was open. Parks was gone. He managed to get to the bathroom and bathe his face. After that he was sick.

  The woman wasn’t worth it. Not worth a physical beating like this one. He stood in morning light and looked at himself in the mirror. The fat bastard had jumped him too fast, hit him just as he turned around. He’d never had a chance to fight back. Not a single chance.

  Well, there’s a lot of other towns and a lot of other agencies, and a lot of new sales to be made. Better deals than this crummy place. They sleep here all summer. They pass that same tired dollar back and forth. Time to pack and get out of here.

  He told himself it didn’t make any difference. It was just a beating. The body recovers. The swelling would go down. And things would be the same as they always had been. He told himself he was shrewd and sharp. He told himself he had a better life than anybody else he knew. Free as birds. Follow the sun.

  But he found himself thinking unpleasant things and looking at himself too honestly. Take this job. He had hit three other agencies, bigger and better agencies, before Parks had taken him on. And take the women during the past few years. Some of them were pretty seedy. Face it. Casual pickups in cheap bars.

  The jobs weren’t as good lately and the women weren’t as good. There wasn’t as much money.

  He looked at himself.

  The next job would be no good. The next woman would be no good. This had been the last good woman, the last one who would be fastidious, pretty, taut in her skin, fresh-smelling and desirable.

  You are old, Mooney. It shows now. The clown face is aging. You’ve had the good years. Now the bad years will have you. And there isn’t anyone. Not one true friend. Not one loyal woman. The bad years are coming, Mooney. They’re here. You look like hell. You look like an old man.

  The tears squeezed out of his eyes. He leaned his hands on the cold sink and looked at himself in the mirror and, from six inches away, he watched himself cry.

  The orange-red light of the morning sun gleamed on the windows of the police department sedan as Dickson parked it in front of the Piersall home. His eyes felt sandy and his body felt tired as he got out of the car. He had been due to go off at four in the morning, but he had stayed on, puzzled by the disappearance of the Piersall boy. He liked and respected Ben Piersall. He wanted to be able to do a good job for Ben. He wanted to bring good news. But all he could do would be reassure them that everything was being done. He saw Ben Piersall appear in the doorway and, as he walked up the path, Dickson tried to shape his mouth into a smile of reassurance.

  Very little of the morning light reached the utility room of the Mather house. It came through a high slit window. The rug covered the heap behind the water heater. Two flies were on the coarse fabric. They ran erratically, pausing, darting in one direction and then another. Their bodies were blue-green and iridescent. Whenever they came too close to
each other they would whirl off into mock aerial combat, their wings whining. Then they would settle again to the fabric and continue their nervous search.

  Lenora Parks awoke to the soft early sound of gentle surf. Dil was in her bed, close against her back, a heavy arm across her waist, his deep slow breathing stirring the hair by her ear. She felt a strange impersonal tenderness toward the sleeping man.

  In the last few hours they had learned a good deal about each other. She thought she had understood him completely—all the weakness and self-excuse and childishness. For the first time she had dug down into the hard unexpected core of strength underneath all that vacillation. It had awed her and made him seem like a stranger to her.

  She managed to disentangle herself without awakening him. The left side of her head, over her ear, was quite tender but she had no headache. When he had left her last night to go see Mooney she understood why he had to do it. She had waited for him. He was gone a long time. He came back with swollen hands and a look of emotional exhaustion. They had talked together for a long time. They had been completely honest with each other for the first time in their marriage. They had learned a lot about each other.

  On this morning the Lennie who had sneaked off to be with Mooney seemed like an absurd stranger. They had confessed their inadequacies to each other, their fears, their trespasses. A lot of it had hurt. But it had been an odd hurt, like a cleansing.

  Nothing would ever again be the same. Afterward, when they had made love, it had been like the first time. It was an affirmation. She had found the strength in him and knew that it was her fault that the strength had gone unused. She had weakened him by never meriting his trust, and by underlining his absurdities. She had made him a boasting clown merely by believing that that was all he was.

  This was a day for starting new and fresh … and strong. This was the day on which she would start undoing the damage. No more betrayals. No more furtive affairs. It was a late start, but not too late. God, don’t let it be too late for us. I have only him, and he has only me. No one else cares. Really cares. He has strength enough to forgive me. And so I have strength enough not to betray him again. Not to weaken him.

  The sound of her shower awakened him. When she went back into the bedroom he was sitting on the edge of the bed, scratching the side of his leg slowly. He looked up at her with caution in his eyes.

  “Good morning, darling,” she said, and saw the quick effect of reassurance. She knew they would be awkward with each other for a time.

  “Good morning,” he said. He looked at his puffy knuckles, and flexed his hand. “I can’t believe I did that.”

  “But you did.”

  “How much can I believe?”

  “Everything that was said.”

  “About the house too?”

  “The house too. We’ll let it go. We’ll let a lot of things go. We’ll let the unimportant things go.”

  “And you mean it about working down there?”

  “It should keep me out of mischief.” She saw his face tighten and wished she hadn’t said it. “I mean it would save money, Dil. I want to help as much as I can.”

  “I told you how it is. Maybe I can’t hang on through the whole summer.”

  “You will.”

  “I hope it works out.” He got up heavily and went into the bathroom. She sat and brushed her hair. She thought of how it would be. Loyal helpful wife. Faithful little wife. And, in the mirror, she saw her lip curl. It shocked her. Could this happen so quickly? After all the sterling resolutions? No, not this quickly. This was a temporary weakening. The strength would come back again.

  But it would be so damned dull.

  Was shallow excitement habit-forming? Maybe all this was phony drama, self-contrived in order to save her own face. Maybe it was over, and it would be better even to go along with Mooney.

  She laid the brush down and looked at herself. She felt icy cold inside. She looked at her body. She thought, maybe I have been too many times handled. I have known too much of lust. I have used my body as a pleasure-giving toy too many years. People don’t change like this. People are what they have made themselves, and you can’t turn back.

  But I want it to be different. I know that this is a dead end street.

  He needs me.

  But …

  Laurie Preston was awakened by the subdued clatter of dishes down in the kitchen where Arnold was getting breakfast organized. She rolled over and looked at Joe’s sallow face on the pillow. He would feel miserable when he awakened. He blew bubbles in the corner of his mouth with each exhalation and his breath was sour.

  She remembered the couple who had brought him home, and she frowned at his sleeping face. They had reminded her of the people he had been with so often in California. They had about them the illusive stench of the illicit, the illegal. Joe seemed to be fascinated by that special odor. She wondered why. Did it make him feel big? Did it make him feel important? She knew that Joe could not explain it. Joe’s mind had never gone beyond anecdote, had never advanced to the point where he could reason. He could argue wildly, but without reason. He wanted warmth, food, drink, a bed and a woman.

  She looked at him and for the first time her doubt became a strong thing. She had had many minor doubts. Since she had been in this house, since she had been exposed to new worlds, she had often become irritated at the closed shallowness of his mind. All these new things that meant so much to her touched him not at all. There was no uneasiness or self-doubt in his scorn for the new things she was learning. He seemed bleakly amused—and became impatient when she tried to explain.

  “So it’s all in a book, baby. What’s a book? It isn’t real life going on in there. Just a lot of print. Come here, honey, and let’s see how real living checks up with that book stuff.”

  And always he had been able to move her, to make the books seem unreal, to make the true reality that which she experienced in his arms.

  Until last night. He had passed out when he was brought home. When she had gone to bed at eleven he had awakened. He had wanted her. She had been unable to dissuade him. He had used her body and for the first time she had lain passive, disgusted by him, disliking the touch of him, wishing for it to be over quickly. It had been a defilement, an animal using of something that had been precious and important.

  She looked at the stranger who shared her bed, the stranger with crust of beard and bubbled mouth and acid breath, with his sleep-sweat of alcohol, begrimed nails and clotted eyes. Too often lately had she found him in the books. The people who wrote the books understood him and despised him. Steinbeck knew all about him. And Farrell. And also those long dead. He had been in all times, all places. The shallow animal, preening itself, using others, thinking only of itself and its pleasures, dead to everything significant in the world. Jaunty trousers and swagger and the glittering eye and the tattoo on the upper arm—ogler on every street corner—rapist in uniform—lyncher when the crowd was large enough—flexer of muscles—goat-boy, smug and bounding—but sidling back into the shadows, wary as a rat, when danger came.

  And like all the others this goat-youth would change, grow thick and bald. With the quick flex of muscles gone, with the eyes dulled, with belly sagging the once jaunty trousers, there would be nothing left but a dull man with dull appetites and endless repetitive anecdotes of a youth-time that, in retrospect, seemed shining and gay and eternal.

  I do not love you any more.

  Once, when she had been about seven, Laurie had been invited to a birthday party. Fourteen little girls in a big house. She had not been dressed as well as the others and her present had not been as costly as the presents the others brought. She had not known the birthday girl too well, and she had not wanted to go. They made fun of her in the cruel sly innocent way of small girls. When she had a chance she had gone into the hall, taken her unwrapped present from the pile and had let herself out through the big door. On the way home she had scaled the coloring book into an arroyo.

  It
is time to take my present back and go home, Joe.

  She looked at him for a long time. She was very fair about it. She remembered the several unexpected gestures of tenderness he had made. She remembered the best times when they had been together. She remembered the way he looked when he looked his very best. She tried to piece it all together again, and feel affection. She tried to want him physically. But it did not work.

  It was completely over.

  Goodbye, Joe.

  She got out of bed. She washed and dressed and went downstairs to help Arnold.

  Dr. Paul Tomlin was awake and heard Laurie’s quick light step as she went downstairs. He wondered how he had lived so long in that house and not missed the sound of that light footfall. It had become so necessary to him. He felt a selfish guilt at taking up so much of her time. She was young. It must be stifling to her to spend so many hours each day with a very old man.

  This existence would be perfect if Joe could be eliminated somehow. He was a jarring element. He did not fit. He spoiled the perfection of her. He was a smear of crayon across a good painting, a crack in a symphonic record. He soiled the girl. Perhaps eventually, had they not come here, he would have coarsened her beyond redemption. But that did not seem likely. There was a basic goodness and strength in the girl that made her invulnerable.

  Ronald Crown came awake all at once and remained motionless, his eyes closed. He always awakened that way, reaching out with all his other senses to fix himself in time and space. Morning light glowed dark red through the blood in his eyelids. He heard the drone of a boat.

  He remembered the Ace, the thrust, the fall.

  It had been good with the Ace. Not one of the best, but good. The pleasure in this one was not due to the time it took, because it had taken very little time. The very quickness of it had made it good. All that sturdy muscle, and the big pumping heart and the big bellows of the lungs, and all the intricate interplay of secretion and cell-building and temperature-control. All the little electric impulses of memory and thought. All stilled. By two sudden inches of steel into the nape of the neck, severing the gray bundle of fibers in the spinal cord.