Whom Gods Destroy

by Clifton Adams

  “Get out,” the sweating cop said. The two of them got my arms and started walking me across the graveled parking lot, toward the rear of the courthouse.

  Big Prairie's courthouse is a three-story, red-brick affair, with the county jail on the top floor and the county and city offices down below. They hustled me through the rear entrance and down a hall, then we stopped in front of a frosted-glass-paneled door and the sweating cop knocked. In black letters beginning to peel on the frosted glass, there were the words: Thaddeus M. McErulur, Chief of Police.

  McErulur was in his shirt sleeves, sitting behind a battered desk, when we came in. His long, horselike face looked as hard as a granite slab. He leaned slowly across the desk, jutting out his big chin. “You lousy punk bastard,” he said harshly. “Foley, you're going to be one sorry punk before this day is over!”

  “When this day is over,” I said tightly, “Big Prairie is going to be looking for another gutless ape to take over the police department!”

  The sweating cop shot that hammer-like fist into the small of my back again and the wind went out of me.

  The telephone rang as I was picking myself up. McErulur picked it up, answered it, and the grin suddenly left his face. “I tried to get in touch with you, Barney,” he said worriedly. “Hell, how was I to know?” He listened some more, his long face getting redder all the time. “Sure, Barney. There was no fuss, none at all—”

  “Like hell,” I said. “Everybody on the block knows I was hauled out of the rooming house by your cops!”

  The sweating cop was about to let me have the fist again, but McErulur shook his head. “All right, Barney. Whatever you say.” He hung up, looking at me with a new kind of hate. “Get him downstairs,” he said to the cops. “I'll let you know later what to do with him.”

  They took me out into the hall again and then we went down a flight of stairs to the basement. “In here,” one of the cops said, opening a door to a naked, window-less room. That was when I saw Mefford and Cox.

  They came down the stairs at the other end of the hall, handcuffed, two uniformed cops behind them.

  “Get going,” the sweating cop said. His partner gave me a shove and I stumbled into the room. The only furniture in the room was a long plank table and four straight chairs. I dropped into one of the chairs and sat there raging. I had risked my neck for nothing! I'd hijacked a liquor truck, killed two men, and two goddamn farmers had ruined everything!

  The sweating cop sat on the edge of the table and shook out a cigarette. “What's the matter, Foley?” he said sourly. “Did you see somethin' that upset you?”

  “Lay off,” the other cop said. “Let McErulur take care of this.”

  “Don't worry about your partners,” the sweating cop went on, “they'll be taken care of, all right.” He laughed.

  I looked at him. “What partners?”

  “You goin' to tell us you never saw the two farmers before? That ain't the story they're tellin'. They say a whisky truck was hijacked and you ramrodded the job. They say you killed a couple of men. Now ain't that a hell of a thing for a man's partners to do, turn on him like that? You want to know how we caught up with you? Your partners were stealin' you blind, Foley,” he said grinning. “All that liquor you went to so much trouble to get, they were haulin' it away in broad daylight!”

  Then the door opened and McErulur and Barney Seaward came into the room. McErulur jerked his head and the two cops went out. Seaward came over to the table, his face, white with rage. He put his hands on the table and stood there glaring at me.

  “Take it easy, Barney,” McErulur said softly. “We can take care of it.”

  Barney wheeled as if he had been stabbed. “You took care of it all right! You and your dumb cops. The whole thing would be in the headlines right now if I didn't own the newspaper.” He turned back to me. “You punk, I should have killed you in the beginning!”

  “That would have been smart,” I said. “Kill me, then kill Sid, then kill the man who pulled the trigger for you! Where's the end to it? How long do you think you can get away with a thing like that?”

  His hand darted out like a snake, but I hardly felt the sting as it whipped across my face. “You're the big man in Big Prairie!” I said. His rage seemed to have spilled over on me. “All right, keep on killing and it won't make any difference how big you are. The Crime Bureau will get you, Barney. They'll take you to McAlister and strap you in the two-thousand volt chair and you'll squirm just like anybody else.”

  He would have killed me right then if he had had something to do it with. Then the door opened and Paul Keating came into the room.

  Barney turned on Keating. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “I was out of the office when McErulur tried to get me,” he said, not quite able to hold Barney's gaze. He took off his hat and put it on the table and I saw that his hands were shaking.

  “Do you know what it's all about?” McErulur said.

  Keating reached for a cigarette, not looking at me. “Not all of it.”

  “I'll tell you what it's all about!” Barney bit out. “This sonofabitch is the one that knocked my liquor truck off last night.”

  “Him and a couple of farmers,” McErulur put in. The other two are down the hall spilling their guts. They say Foley killed Barney's driver and guard. We've got it all down in writing.”

  “Bring it to court,” I said. “I'll wreck your organization and let it fall around your shoulders!”

  “It'll never come to court,” Barney said savagely, “because you're not going to live that long, Foley!”

  But then Keating said, “Wait a minute, Barney.”

  “I've waited long enough,” Barney grated.

  I had an idea then, and I knew that it might be the break that I wanted. “What about Sid?” I said. “You've already waited too long on him. How do you think I was able to hijack your truck in the first place? Who do you think gave me all the information I needed?”

  Barney's face wasn't a pretty thing to see.

  “You've got Sid to take care of,” I said. “Who's going to do it for you, Barney?”

  “You,” Paul Keating said.

  It was strange, but at that moment the county attorney seemed to me the strongest man in the room. In spite of anger, in spite of fear, his mind kept working, and he turned to the chief of police and said, “McErulur, send in a stenographer. I think Mr. Foley wants to make a statement.”

  Seaward's head snapped around in surprise. He wasn't used to having the play taken away from him. But almost immediately he began to see what the county attorney was thinking. He thought about it and, slowly, he began to relax. “By God!” he said, and it was almost a whisper. Then he sat in a chair and I could almost see the senseless rage going out of him.

  “You'd better do it, Thad,” he said finally, not looking at the chief of police. “Send in a stenographer.”

  McErulur looked at me, at Barney, then, with a bare hint of a shrug, he went out.

  A few minutes dragged by in uncomfortable silence, then there was a knock on the door and a uniformed cop came in with a portable typewriter.

  “Take this down,” Barney said. “I, Roy Foley, of my own free will, do confess to shooting and killing two men on the night of June First, Nineteen Hundred ...”

  Barney read the full confession after he had finished dictating it, then nodded for the cop to leave the room. He shoved the original and two carbon copies across the table.

  “Sign it.”

  “And if I don't?”

  “You won't live to see the outside of this room. And we both know I'm not bluffing, Foley.”

  “And if I do sign it?”

  “Everything will be as it was before. You take care of Sid just the way we planned it, then you get out of Big Prairie. The confession is my insurance.”

  “What about Mefford and Cox?”

  “They're my worry.”

  I put my name to the original, and then to the three carbons. God! I t
hought. I hope nobody has found that recorder!

  “What now?” I said.

  Barney leaned on the table, his face sober, his voice deadly serious. “Foley, I've got all of you I can stomach. I expect trouble in this business, but not from punks. I want you to get out of my sight while you're still lucky enough to be alive.”

  I stood up and Barney sat there, his face hard, looking at nothing. “I'll read about Sid in tomorrow's papers,” he said. “And if I don't see it in tomorrow's papers, I'll know what to do with this confession. I'm not bluffing, Foley.”

  I could hardly believe it. I stood up, walked toward the door, and neither of them said a thing. I looked back once before I left the room and Barney was sitting there staring at his fist. Keating was watching me with a quiet viciousness, pleased with the way he had taken care of me. I prayed the recorder would be just where I had left it!

  All that liquor.- I couldn't allow myself to think of anything except picking up the pieces and hoping that the pieces would be enough. I walked out of the courthouse and down the steps and stood for a moment on the sidewalk experiencing the overwhelming relief that a condemned prisoner must feel at a last-minute reprieve. My knees were weak, there didn't seem to be enough air to fill my lungs.

  I turned, looked back at the courthouse and almost laughed. We'll see who's a punk! I thought. We'll see, Barney!

  I took the rooming-house stairs two at a time, and the hammering in my chest became almost unbearable as I reached my room, grasped the knob and shoved the splintered door open. Relief almost knocked me down. The room hadn't been touched. I went to the closet and the recorder was still there. The microphones were still under the table, the lead wires hadn't been tampered with.

  For the first time in almost a day I thought of Lola. I thought of her with anger and hate—but not with fear. We'll see, I thought! Now we'll see!

  I looked out the window and saw that Max and Joel had either been called off the job or they had lost me in the confusion with the cops. It took less than an hour to get everything set. I had to have two recording machines to make copies of the tape. A music store would be the best bet. Rent the machines, make the copies myself, and then I could be sure that there were no leaks.

  I made four copies. One I put in a safe-deposit box, addressed to the State Crime Bureau. I dropped the other three in mail boxes, one addressed to Lola and marked “personal.” Laugh, Lola! Play this and realize how completely I can wreck you. Then laugh if you can!

  There was only one thing left to do. I had to kill Sid, and I had to do it exactly the way Barney and Keating had planned it on the tape. By the time they got copies of the recording, by the time they got machines to play them on, the murder would be a fact.

  12

  THE BRIDGE, THE ARROYO, THE APPROACHES were all exactly as Barney had described them. It was nearly morning and still cool. The highway traffic was sparse and scattered, so I stopped on the bridge for a few minutes and inspected the wooden approaches. From the middle of the bridge the rocky bed of the arroyo was about forty feet straight down, but it would be practically impossible to blast a car through the reinforced concrete at that point. Back under the wooden approaches there was a narrow shelf about ten feet down, but beyond the shelf there was a sheer drop all the way to the bottom of the dry wash.

  The thing would have to be judged carefully. There were less than a hundred feet to the western approach, and both it and the bridge were narrow, with just enough room for a car on either side of the center line.

  It was perfect except for one thing—in case of an accident there was a damn good chance of both cars going through the railings! A thought hit me then and left me cold. Maybe that was what Barney had figured on! And the more I thought about it the more I knew I was right. The bastard! I thought. Sure, that was the reason he hadn't bothered to be so careful. It explained a lot of things that had been only vague half-questions until now.

  Had Barney ever really believed that I could be bluffed out of Big Prairie after doing a job like this for him? I doubted it. Had he ever really believed that I would be satisfied with five hundred dollars—or even five thousand? Like hell he had. He had agreed to the thing because it was an easy way of getting rid of me and Sid in one sweep. And at the same time he could tighten his hold on Keating by bringing him in on the murder.

  I thought, If you did come out of the accident alive, Foley, do you think he would let you go and forget about it? Not in a hundred years! Killing you is an inconvenience and risk that he hoped to avoid—but he wouldn't side-step the job if it became necessary. He didn't side-step it with Sid.

  But you overlooked something this time, Barney, I thought. The recorder!

  That thought made me feel big, and the knowledge that I might end up at the bottom of the arroyo with Sid couldn't dampen the feeling. It was a chance I had to take.

  About a half mile up the highway I pulled up in front of a service station, a sagging, green-painted frame building with two gas pumps in front and a scattering of wrecked cars at the back. A beefy, red-faced man wearing big overalls came out of the building and I said:

  “You Carter?”

  “Why?”

  “I'm supposed to pick up a truck here.”

  “Ah—” He made a small, meaningless sound. “You better drive around to the back,” he said. “You can leave your car in the garage for a while.”

  I drove around to the rear and waited until Carter backed an ancient Dodge three-quarter ton out of the garage, then I pulled in. I looked at my watch and it was almost nine-thirty.

  I took the Dodge back to the section line road, just beyond the bridge, and waited.

  Traffic picked up a little, but it was still scattered and nothing to worry about. I could look out across the prairie and see the cars coming from a long way off. A hammering would start in my chest every time I saw one, and I'd think: This could be Sid! And, in my mind, I'd slam that Dodge into gear and start barreling for the bridge. And every time I'd think: Christ, it can't be done! We'll both be killed. The bridge is too goddamn narrow!

  Every time, after the car had passed, I'd have to choke the panic down and get set again, watching for that red convertible.

  It was strange, but I hardly thought of Sid as a person at all. He was a way out. He had to be killed—Barney had decided that—so what difference did it make who did it? The only thing that mattered now was whether or not I managed to come out of it alive. Up to that point, everything was perfect, clean, all loose ends tied together. The thing staggered me, every time I thought of it. A murder plan, complete in every detail, designed by Seaward and Keating in their own voices. God, how the crime bureau would love to get their hands on that recording—and how Seaward and Keating would know it! Until the murder was a fact, I was holding an empty gun and that would scare nobody.

  Traffic began to pick up on the highway, and as the minutes dragged by I began thinking, What if Barney got suspicious? What if he decided not to send Sid to Ardmore after all? And, even as I was thinking it, I saw that convertible of Sid's, top down, roaring across the prairie like a red comet.

  I was wound up, I guess. I had slammed the Dodge off the section line road and onto the highway before I realized that I even had it in gear. I had the Dodge up to forty in second gear, then slammed it into high and was reaching for fifty by the time I hit the approaches on my side. That red convertible was coming at me like something out of a nightmare, and crazy panic seized me as I thought: It can't be done! The second you sideswipe him you'll go through the railings! I heard myself cursing savagely.

  Then I seemed to grow cold as I heard the tires leave the rattling boards of the approaches and slam growling onto the concrete of the bridge itself. Fleetingly, in those lightning-like seconds, I realized that Barney had understood me even better than I had understood myself. He was a man who understood hate, and greed, and maybe he even knew about Lola. Maybe Barney himself had run from something once. Maybe even the great Barney Seaward had been la
ughed at, had felt his insides crawl. It was a new thought, but not startling, because how else could he understand that there are times when a man would rather die than fail again.

  Roy, you're the funniest thing!

  In that last split second it was Lola that I thought of. Not Vida. Not Seaward, and not Sid. It was Lola and I could hear her laughing. It was the last thing I thought and the last thing I had time to think.

  It happened too fast to understand. I had the Dodge wide open, roaring straight down the middle of the bridge. Sid must have been making seventy when he first hit the approaches. He didn't even seem to see me. He didn't let up on the accelerator, he didn't tramp his brakes, and I knew in the back of my mind that he was too drunk to know or care what was happening. Sideswipe him! That's enough!

  I seemed frozen to the steering wheel. I couldn't move, and that red convertible came at me like a trick shot of a car hurtling out of a movie screen. I must have closed my eyes for a moment, instinctively trying to brace myself for the shock.

  The shock didn't come. I heard the ear-splitting crack, like a high muzzle velocity gun exploding. I opened my eyes in time to see the convertible blasting through the gaping hole in the railings. It hit the shelf below and bounced, then it fell end over end down to the bottom of the arroyo. I braked to a stop about fifty yards beyond the western approach, my stomach trying to push its way into my throat. There wasn't a scratch on the Dodge.

  I heard another car braking to a stop behind me, and then the sound of running on the highway. I shoved myself out of the Dodge and a man was leaning over the railing, his face pale, looking down at the wreckage.

  “Geez,” he said softly. “I saw it from almost a half mile up the highway.” He turned to me, looking as if he was going to be sick. “This sure is your lucky day, buddy. If he'd sideswiped you, you'd have gone right through the railing with him.”

  That was the thing that kept gnawing at me. Another car was squealing to a stop on the other side of the bridge, and I finally found my voice. “How about you going down and seeing if there's anything you can do,” I said. “I'll find a telephone and call an ambulance and the highway patrol.”