Meeting Evil: A Novel

by Thomas Berger

  “Right in the middle!” Richie said, extending a hand toward each of the extremities of the table. “You’re spoiling me rotten.”

  “Wait till you’ve tasted the food. You might change your tune. Please sit down and begin.”

  “You’re not having soup?”

  “Now, don’t you worry about me!”

  John felt like the outsider. As such, he took his seat while the guest was still standing. The soup steamed before him in its bowl. It was recognizably the canned chicken-noodle favored by Melanie, whom he had shown how noisily to suck up the strands of pasta while crossing one’s eyes. This had not won applause from her mother.

  Joan appeared in the kitchen doorway. “The wine, John, the wine.”

  So he had to get up and go fetch the bottles from the living room and find the corkscrew under the clutter in the drawer of the sideboard. By the time he had opened the bottle of red wine, Joanie was back with a filled salad bowl. “We’re starting with white,” she reproachfully told him.

  “My fault,” Richie said, with a little contrite shrug. “I was drinking red earlier. I don’t know anything about wine.”

  John looked bleakly at the two of them, the stars of this grotesquerie, then dutifully opened the white wine and poured a glassful for Richie. Joan went to the kitchen. Richie began to drink soup from a dainty spoon.

  John had eaten nothing since breakfast cereal, but he certainly had no appetite now. In the suit and tie and especially the glasses, Richie looked genteel enough, and his features might even be called patrician, insofar as John understood the term, which would seem to apply principally to the nose, longish but narrow and poreless, and eyes on the small side. Where had he gone to shave and acquire the clothing? And what of the automobile parked outside?

  “I’m sure you stole the car,” John said in a voice designed not to penetrate the kitchen doorway, beyond which Joan anyway was making a clatter. “You robbed somebody, took his car and his money, and bought the clothes, maybe? Or stole them, too? But the glasses, I can’t figure them out.”

  “I like the way they feel.” Richie jiggled them with a hand to either temple-piece. “I just wish I could see better through them. Driving here wasn’t easy.”

  “They’re not your prescription?” John told himself that nobody stole someone else’s glasses. In this situation, he did not wish to serve as waiter, his normal spousely role when his wife did the cooking, but somebody had to do it, and he would not suffer Richie’s volunteering.

  But when he stood up, bowl in hand, Richie said, reaching, “If you’re not going to eat that…” John let him exchange it for the empty bowl. Why not?

  Joanie entered with a napkin-covered platter and a narrow dish containing a hard new stick of butter, as opposed to the easy-spread tub margarine that was routine. He had not known any was in the house; this must have been frozen.

  Richie chided her affectionately. “Hot rolls? Joanie, you shouldn’t have.”

  She lowered the dish and looked from John to the empty bowl before him. “Aren’t you the hungry one? But you can’t have seconds. You have to leave room for what’s coming.”

  She was talking to him as if he were one of the children. At the same time, he was touched to realize that however valid her other reason for giving herself no soup, the fact was that the two servings would have exhausted the only can. Which meant that their criminal guest had got every drop of it.

  Richie nibbled daintily at a roll until Joan returned to the kitchen, at which point he devoured the rest of it in one bite and reached for another. While attacking the butter, which was still so hard that it tended to fragment against the dull blade, he said, “I’m starved. I had quite a day.”

  “I know. I was there,” John said softly, though he had a feeling that Joanie would not have heard him had he shouted. “Sharon and Tim and I were just telling the police about it.”

  Richie helped himself to more white wine. “This is better food than I’ve tasted for a long time. They feed you like a dog at Barnes.” He gulped the remainder of the soup and packed it down with a third roll. He groaned in pleasure while reaching for a fourth. “Be around here for long, and I’d be as heavy as you, John.”

  “But you won’t be here after this meal,” said John.

  “Almost forgot these!” It was Joanie, bringing the wooden-handled steak knives. “You might want to sharpen them, John. They are pretty dull by now.”

  “Joanie,” Richie said, “I can’t keep my hands off these rolls.”

  She looked genuinely pleased, but in point of fact Joan did not like to cook and ordinarily resented any special notice paid to a meal of her making, with the idea that she was thereby being identified as no more than a housewife.

  It was therefore a kind of remonstrance when John said, “We had the children before Joan could go on for her master’s. But she wants to go back to school as soon as the baby is a little older.”

  She made no acknowledgment. “Would you mind, John, bringing out the vegetables? I have to concentrate on the steak now.”

  He found the bowlful of peas-and-carrots on the counter next to the microwave, the bell of which rang as he approached. He opened the door and withdrew the hot potato puffs. But Joanie, returning, stopped him from carrying them out in the plastic container. She had a dish ready.

  “Did you sharpen the steak knives?”

  “How could I?” he asked sharply. “You just mentioned it, and then said get the vegetables.”

  “Is everything okay with you?” She peered narrowly at him.

  His response was bluff: “Why, sure!”

  “It just seems like you ought to be in a better mood.”

  “I am in a good mood,” said he. “I’ve just had a long day.”

  “You’ve had a kind of nutty day, if you ask me.” She said it with obvious affection, a hand at the small of his back. “You leave without saying goodbye, and those crazy phone calls—what were they all about? I didn’t even understand the last one. I guess you were joking—?”

  “Sorry about trying to clown around,” John said. “I realize I don’t have much talent in that direction. It was just—”

  She pushed him toward the doorway. “Get that stuff out there before it’s cold, willya please?”

  In the dining room Richie asked, “So you’re not the boss in the family.”

  John picked up a steak knife and tested its edge with the ball of his thumb: the dumb way, he was aware, and occasionally he cut himself, yet he continued to do it.

  Richie took notice of what he was doing. “Here’s the only test.” He pressed his own knife against the tablecloth and cut a long slit in it.

  In the next instant John realized that Richie had used the back of the blade and done no damage to the cloth, but while watching the episode he had convulsively cut his own thumb, and it was bleeding. Still smirking over his trick, Richie, it could be hoped, had not yet seen the wound. John turned quickly and returned to the kitchen, where Joanie was just sliding the steak, on the foil-covered pan, into the broiler compartment at the bottom of the stove.

  “Just cut myself,” he said self-pityingly to her bent back. “The knives are plenty sharp.”

  “There’s Band-Aids in the drawer. I’ll get one for you.”

  John did not need her nursing. He knew exactly where the tin was kept—they had several, each on hand at another place in the house where Melanie might suffer some slight damage in daily misadventures—and got one of the slenderer of the selection of bandages offered. Meanwhile, the profusion of blood from the slit in his thumb was, as always, remarkable. He saw his spotted trail on the floor. After cleaning the wound with a dampened paper towel, he went along, crouching, to wipe the vinyl tiles.

  When he returned to the dining room, the white-wine bottle was empty and only one potato puff remained on the serving plate. The peas-and-carrots, however, looked untouched.

  Richie put both hands flat on the table and drummed them for a moment. “It might no
t be my place to ask this, John, but what are you doing in this line of work, anyway? You haven’t been making much money at it. Besides, it’s mostly a woman’s game nowadays, isn’t it?”

  Only by exerting the maximum in self-control did John manage not to blow up at the question, which had already been asked, though perhaps not so candidly, by some of his in-laws and, of course, by his own father not long before the man died.

  Richie went on: “It’s just that you could do so much better.”

  John could not help it. “At crime? Killing people, hurting people? Taking their property?”

  “You could do a lot of good in the world and make a buck, too, so far as that goes. You’re a born healer, John. You’ve done more for me in a couple of hours than all the quacks in all the years.”

  John could not have explained to himself why he made a sincere response. “My father wanted me to be a doctor. He never had the least idea of what my aptitudes were, if any. Just be a doctor, because that’s impressive as well as profitable. Don’t be what he was, working in the same office of the same company all your life. Well, the latter was easy enough to manage. But to be a doctor you have to begin with premed: I couldn’t even get past the basic chemistry course.”

  Richie frowned. “I’m talking about an inner thing, not the lies they teach in medical school. You’d be wasting your time taking courses.”

  The comment served to remind John, once again, that it was surely a waste to speak sincerely about anything with a madman. He could now smell the meat under the broiler. It was nauseating.

  Richie went on, leaning over his empty plate. “You serve the truth.”

  Against his better judgment John said, “Then why don’t you listen to me? Give yourself up.”

  Richie seemed to be thinking this over. After a moment, however, he said, “One thing is certain: it’s a waste of time for all concerned when I’m in Barnes.”

  “But when you’re there, people don’t get hurt.”

  The corners of Richie’s thin mouth rose, but whether or not it was in good humor John could not have said. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

  “For God’s sake, you killed somebody there?“

  “I had some trouble once,” Richie said, staring at John.

  “It was self-defense.”

  “Yet they released you?”

  Richie threw up his hands. “It was their idea, not mine. I have a very low opinion of them, if you want to know.”

  “The doctors?”

  “If you think about it,” said Richie, “we’re all human. Where do some people get off setting themselves up as better?”

  “Yeah,” said John.

  Joanie came in with the steak, which at another time would have been John’s idea of a spectacular feed (it came from Uncle Phil’s private source of aged beef) but now was seen as disgustingly big and thick and oozing with pinkish fluid. It lay on a platter which she held at a distance from her body, for she had divested herself of the apron.

  “Golly,” Richie said as she deposited the dish on a silver trivet between him and John.

  John could not bring himself to go find the proper carving knife. Before Joan could object, he sawed off a hunk of meat with his steak knife (which, though it had been sufficiently sharp to slice the skin of his thumb, was dull at this job) and dropped it on Richie’s plate.

  Joan brought the candlesticks from the sideboard, found matches in a drawer, and lighted both candles, which were virgin. Had they dined alone, she would have switched off the overhead fixture, a modest four-branched chandelier, but fortunately did not do so now. She sat down at the other end of the table, facing John. Richie was on his right and her left.

  John wondered what she would say when she saw that only one potato puff remained, or that his plate was as clean as when it had been put down, his glass empty. But if she noticed any of these phenomena, she left it unmentioned. She reached for the bottle and gave herself some red wine.

  Richie had politely waited till this moment. He began to cut his meat into small squares.

  Joan lifted her glass. “Okay,” she said. “A toast to the sale. I want to hear all about it.”

  John raised his glass and drank air. “How much should I cut you?” he then asked, steak knife and fork hovering over the meat.

  Joanie shrugged. “It got so late by the time I heard from you, I had a snack when the kids ate. Then this excitement.” She pinched her fingers at him. “Real thin.”

  Richie meanwhile was chewing each little cube by itself, making a quick, emphatic event of it.

  Joan looked from one to the other with a big smile. John’s sightline to her, unless he leaned to the left, was narrow, between the two candles. It was up to him to invent the story. “It’s the Murchison place.”

  “I don’t even think I know about that one,” said she. “Has it been listed long?”

  His knife had grown no sharper. It was impossible to cut a reasonably thin slice, so he stopped trying. He realized that Joanie did not really want any steak.

  “A long, long time. Tess and Miriam had given up on it.”

  Joan waited for more, but not getting it, smiled at Richie. “I’m sure you’ve got your plans.”

  Maliciously John said, “I imagine you heard all about his plans when you had coffee.”

  Joan looked fondly at Richie. “Fact is, I think I did most of the talking. We never did get around to his business. He’s the rare man who’s interested in what someone else says, a woman no less.”

  So that was it: Richie as feminist.

  “He’s in pharmaceuticals,” John told her.

  “I’m impressed,” said Joan. “Just the word, to begin with.”

  Richie seemed to brood for a moment, but then laughed cheerily.

  “You haven’t mentioned your family,” said Joan. “You know your way around children!”

  Richie took a while to answer. “I used to be married. But she didn’t want kids.”

  “Some people are like that. That’s their right. Now with us, it was a calculated decision to go ahead and have the family and postpone the rest.” Joan shrugged. “Not that I don’t sometimes regret it, but—”

  Richie asked, “What I wonder is why John doesn’t go into some field where the income is more certain.”

  John was utterly taken by surprise, but if Joanie was embarrassed by the rudeness of the comment, she did not show it.

  “That’s just lately, with the downturn. John’s made good money and will again. He’s a terrific salesman.”

  John was moved. He could not recall ever having heard her defend him in public before. When members of her family were snide, she avoided the issue, went to the bathroom or whatever.

  “He’s got tremendous potential he hasn’t yet used,” Richie said. He speared a cube of steak and masticated it rapidly, waving his fork. “I’m trying to get him to listen to some proposals of mine.”

  “Really?” Joan smiled at her husband.

  “The risks would be all mine, I assure you,” Richie went on. “But I happen to see great possibilities.”

  Joan asked John, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  John looked away.

  “I can put him in the way of something big, Joanie,” Richie said. He put his fork down and swiveled his head, surveying the room. “Do you want to live here forever?”

  Once again Joan showed no evidence she was offended. “I’ve been after John just lately to look for something farther out, with more land between us and the neighbors, cleaner air.” She glanced at John. “Weren’t you out in the country someplace today?”

  The phone was ringing. John went into the kitchen, where he answered on the wall-hung instrument.

  “John. Lang again. There’s reason to think Maranville checked into a Red Wing Motel this afternoon, just off the motorway at Exit Eleven, using a driver’s license and credit card name of Charles F. Brookhiser. Earlier in the day, right here in town, Brookhiser reported he was robbed by a perpetrat
or answering Maranville’s description. Got his car and wallet with everything in it. Motel’s the nearest to where the Smithtown cruiser was abandoned.”

  “Thanks,” John said when Lang paused for a breath.

  “There’s more. Short time later a big fire broke out at the Red Wing. Took hours to put out, and the motel was just about totaled. Management and the volunteer fire department out there suspect arson. A burned body was found in the room Maranville checked into. Desk clerk’s the last person reported who saw him. They’re getting dental records from Barnes Psychiatric.”

  “It’s him, all right,” John said. “That’s exactly what he would do.”

  “Better hold off on the celebrations, though. Be on the safe side.”

  “I know it’s him. Anybody else get hurt?”

  “Early in the day, and business wasn’t too great, luckily. That part of the unit was empty except for a man next door, who was out at the time. And not back yet. They will talk to him when he returns. But it looks good for our side.”

  “You said he would just have been sent back to Barnes.”

  “You got it absolutely,” Lang said.

  “He’s finished now, though,” said John. “I know that was him who got burned. You can call off the stakeout of my house.”

  “We’ll wait for the confirmation, but meanwhile it’s a bad night for law enforcement so far: felonies all over the place, all at once. If we get a call out your way, like a routine thing, disturbing the peace or something, they might give it to that car, but it wouldn’t take him out of the neighborhood.”

  “Sure,” said John. The situation would not change. If he had apprised Lang, it could only have led to a hostage arrangement—which did not exist at present—and an assault team would arrive sooner or later. What that would mean in terms of psychic damage (not to mention the possibility of physical harm) to his babies and his wife could be imagined. He still respected the police, even after the manhandling by the state troopers, but he had convinced himself that he must not look for their help in his extremity. By now he felt selfish about it.

  When he returned to the dining room, Joan excused herself and left the room, presumably heading for the lavatory. She seemed to be walking steadily. She had not drunk much wine.