The Transgressors

by Jim Thompson

  She could have it all. If nothing went wrong.

  And something did.

  The murder of Joyce Lakewood.

  Her brutally beaten body was discovered by her landlord when he called to collect the rent. Since days had elapsed since her murder, the exact time of death—or even a close approximation thereof—could not be established. But it would be positively stated that she had died between ten o’clock one night and six o’clock the following morning.

  Tom Lord had no alibi for that time.

  He had an excellent motive for killing her.

  19

  Deputy Sheriff Buck Harris and his family lived in a five room and lean-to cottage near the railroad tracks. It was, in fact, on the railroad right of way, a circumstance which had aroused no end of joshing around the sheriff’s office. Deputy Nate Hosmer claimed that you couldn’t get in the door without showing a ticket. Deputy Dill Estes declared that Buck could sit in his privy and snatch striking paper from passing trains. Deputy Hank Massey stated (as gospel truth) that he had started to bed down at Buck’s one night and climbed into a carload of Brahman steers. Massey went on to relate that he’d really been in trouble when he hit the Fort Worth stockyards. The suspicious pen wranglers declared that they’d heard stories like this before; they was always gettin’ in a Big Sands beef that claimed to be an innercent visitor at Buck’s house. And if he really wasn’t a steer, how come he was hung like one? How come he had the business portion of a Bull Durham sign? Well, they had him there, o’ course; didn’t see no way of talkin’ hisself out of that one. “Reckon I’d be canner beef right now, if a Association detective hadn’t come along. He seen I wasn’t branded proper, so he made ’em send me back.”

  Buck took the joshing good-naturedly, chuckling and grinning behind his hand. Maybe he felt like his pa had, that you should never mention rope in the hangman’s house, but you couldn’t tell it if he did. There fellas were his friends. If they weren’t they wouldn’t be joking with him.

  He hadn’t invited any of them to the house in years, but that had nothing to do with hurt feelings. It was just that he and Miss Mamie were awful short of money, and what with so many kids in the house, there wasn’t much room for outsiders.

  Buck stopped on the corner above his cottage, studying it covertly while he rolled himself a cigarette. It didn’t look too bad, he decided. Not bad at all for a former section-crew house. He’d bought it from the railroad for a couple hundred dollars, and then practically rebuilt it. The land wasn’t his, of course; couldn’t own a chunk of the right of way. But there was an understanding that he would kind of keep an eye on the railroad’s property, so the rent was practically nothing.

  He sealed the cigarette with his tongue, closed the end with a deft twist, and tipped it into his mouth. He flicked the head from a kitchen match and touched it to the cigarette; spewed blue smoke from his nostrils.

  Tilting the hat back from his forehead—a high, sensitive forehead—he reassessed the house with his fine gray eyes:

  Not bad looking at all. Couldn’t hardly tell what it had used to be. Look better if it was a different color, but a light paint wouldn’t be very practical so close to the tracks. And the railroad had its own ideas about paint. He’d had a choice of red or mucklededung yaller, so he’d taken the yellow.

  Naturally that started another round of joshing. Deputy Hank Massey said the house was in the pre-zack location where the train crews cleaned out the shitters, and the mucklededung yellow was the inevitable result. “That’s gospel fact,” asserted Hank solemnly. “I leave to the boys here, if it ain’t.”

  “I’ll swear to it on a stack of Bibles,” said Dill Estes. “Why the year afore you settled down there, Buck, they was sixteen gandy dancers killed by flying turds.”

  “You laugh if you want to, Buck,” said Nate Hosmer severely. “People laughed at Noah when he told ’em the flood was comin’, and this is per-zackly the same proposition.”

  Buck grinned and chuckled, a hand held over his deformed mouth. These fellas were his friends, and there was no reason to get riled. Repaint the house red? Well, that probably wouldn’t change nothin’. The boys would just say that the engineer had the nose bleed, or that the conductor had the bloody piles, or—or somethin’. Seemed like they always had something to say, and he never did. He could think of plenty—he had the words up there in his head—but he couldn’t say ’em. Almost seemed like they got as fouled up as them teeth of his.

  It was late in the season, late afternoon of a fall day. But the weather was only pleasantly cool, and Buck’s children were out in the yard. There were four of them, all girls, rocking sedately in the homemade lawn swing. The oldest was thirteen, and the youngest was six. All wore white anklets and strapped patent-leather sandals. All wore crisp calico dresses of the same pattern. Miss Mamie bought cloth by the bolt, and made the dresses up in batches. The shoes were passed on from one child to another, Buck repairing them himself. Even from this distance their mouths reflected an occasional golden glint; sparkled with the elaborate handiwork of the orthodontist. And the sight made Buck’s heart swell with pride. The job was just about done for two of the girls, and in a few years more they’d all be sitting jake. Even now, even with those gold frames on ’em, they had just about the prettiest teeth you ever saw. Why those girls were so pretty, Buck thought proudly, you’d never guess they were his kids!

  One of them saw him and spoke to the others. Arising from the swing, they came to meet him. They walked two abreast, since the dirt path was narrow, the youngest girls in front and the oldest in the rear. They came to a stop, beaming at him shyly, and dipped their knees in a semicurtsy.

  Buck had never decided whether he should tip his hat to them, so he just kind of fumbled it around on his head. They said, “Good evening, sir,” to him, and he said, “Evenin’, girls,” to them. (Afternoon is always evening in the South and Southwest.) They regarded one another for a moment; the girls gravely shy, Buck squirming with an excruciating mixture of pleasure and embarrassment. Then the girls curtsied again and went back up the path; the youngest in the front, the oldest in the rear, the little belts of their dresses spanking them in decorous unison.

  “Dawgonnit!” yelled Buck, in silent exuberance. “Now, ain’t that somethin’!” And mentally he slapped his thigh with his hat.

  Buck had worked for Old Man Billy Boy Bentley’s 3-B Ranch before he became a deputy. His pa had been the ranch’s smith and crumb-boss [bunkhouse custodian], and when Pa got drunk and burned himself up in his own forge, Old Man Billy Boy took charge of Buck. Buck was ten years old at the time; he’d only been to school one three-month term. But Billy Boy took him into the ranch-house parlor, sort of banging and poking him along with his cane, and handed him a book from the rows of glass-sheltered cases. “Now, start readin’,” he commanded. “Start in right there where I’m pointin’.”

  Well, Buck couldn’t read, of course; he didn’t even know his A-B-C’s. But Old Man Billy Boy whanged him with his cane and yelled that he was just being stubborn. So Buck began rattlin’ off the first stuff that came into his mind; mixed up snatches of stuff he remembered from school.

  “C-A-T spells man; G-O-D, dawg; six and nine is eleventy-three—”

  “Yeow!” yelled the old man. “Hul-ly Jeez-ass!” He hit Buck over the head so hard that he practically drove him through the floor. Then, word by word, he read the passage aloud, while Buck followed the course of his pointing finger.

  This above all, to thine own self be true…

  Billy Boy interpreted the passage as meaning that a fella had better do his grabbin’ and gettin’ while he was still of an age to do it. Elsewise, when he became old and porely, he’d have to go around suckin’ other folks’ eggs (and thus be false to ’em). There was no time or no sense to crawling before you walked, or walking before you ran. You had to start running right off, without no fartin’ or snortin’. “We just got this world, then the fireworks, boy. Just this world, then the f
ireworks, and we ain’t long for this world.”

  By a process of memorizing, Buck learned to read before he could spell, before he had any real notion of what he was reading. He became familiar with the appearance of the words, learning to recognize them when he saw them again. And in no time at all, he was reading. Similarly, he learned practical arithmetic and the other essentials of a basic education. He was never allowed to slack up. The slightest sign of doing so brought a whanging from Billy Boy.

  According to Billy Boy’s own story, he’d started ranching with nothing but a satchel and a six-shooter. He’d stuffed the satchel with one hand and warded off objectors with the other; and he hadn’t stopped until the satchel was full and no complainants were left. The story was approximately true, in a figurative sense. Many of the great cattle dynasties had been founded by downright banditry. Now a very old man, he frequently regretted his one-time high-handedness, and suspected its wisdom. But he still didn’t spare Buck. Buck must learn to accept himself as he was, and make the best of it; and no self-pity.

  “Hul-ly Jeez-ass!” he yelled, when Buck dribbled and splashed his food. “You look like a cow farted bran in your face!” And when Buck’s eyes moisted a little, and his big Adam’s apple gulpily traversed his throat, Billy Boy whanged him and cursed him. “Don’t you pucker up on me, boy! Wouldn’t look like a tit-suckin’ mule if you didn’t want to! Doin’ it just to spite people!”

  Buck understood—mostly. The old man was helping him all he could in the only way he knew how. There was no proper dentist in Big Sands at the time—certainly nothing in the way of an oral surgeon. Anyway, the ranch was almost a half-county out of town, and months sometimes passed before anyone drove or rode in.

  Miss Mamie had been raised on a small and perpetually profitless spread adjoining the 3-B. And being neither needed nor wanted there, she hired on as a kitchen flunky for Billy Boy. Buck took a shine to her right away, and she took one to him. She seemed oblivious of his mule’s mouth. He seemed unaware of her one milk-eye and her slightly withered left arm. Briefly, all the elements of a romance were present, but it never came to a natural fruition. Billy Boy watched its slow blooming, and impatiently took charge. They was just about the two ugliest people in the world, wasn’t they? They didn’t think no one else was going to marry them, did they? Well, what the hell was they waitin’ for, then?

  They were married. Long before the children began to come along, Buck was making plans to move into town. But Billy Boy was prodding him, jumping in ahead of him, before he could act. He’d spoken to the sheriff about Buck; the 3-B swung a lot of weight in the county. So Buck had himself a deputy’s job.

  Billy Boy tried to give him a cow to take with him, but Buck declined. His neighbors might object to a cow, he pointed out, and he didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot.

  During his first several months in town, Billy Boy frequently called at the house, always with some gift from the ranch. Once he’d brought a hind-quarter of beef, and another time it was two huge home-smoked hams, and another time it was something else. All this was highly acceptable to a man with a modest salary and bills that stretched into infinity. Buck acknowledged the gifts with gifts of his own: an expensive bridle, two quarts of rare whisky, and so on. And abruptly the old man stopped coming to the house.

  Buck hoped he hadn’t made him angry. He hoped and believed that Billy Boy had simply been giving him a final lesson, and that he’d passed with colors flying:

  When anything was done for him or given to him, he must repay it in kind. He must, because he was completely without good looks and personality, without any of the traits and attributes which attract the consideration of others and serve as their own reward.

  That was what the old man had always taught him: That he was as ugly as sin and as bright as hell with the fires put out. In himself, he had nothing to offer but a strong back and a weak mind.

  Thus, Old Billy Boy’s lesson…or what Buck thought of as a lesson. He never forgot it until Tom Lord came along.

  Tom never joshed him like the other fellas did. Instead, Tom talked to him, and he talked to Tom. Without constraint, without putting his hand to his mouth, he could talk to another human being. And the wonder of it was almost too much for his inhibited hide to hold.

  The fellas were always kind of hanging around Tom; a grin or a few words from him and they seemed kind of set up for the day. Yet, when he could do it tactfully, Tom would pass by the others and cotton up to him.

  Buck thought it might be a mistake at first. He thought maybe Tom was just a hell of a nice guy who couldn’t feel easy unless everyone else did. He thought of every possible reason why Tom couldn’t really want any truck with him. And then, joyously, he at last conceded the incredible truth. Tom liked him. Tom wanted him for a friend. Tom, the doctors’ son, the chief deputy—one of the smartest men in town and the best-lookin’ to boot—Tom had chosen him for a friend! And why would Tom do that unless he and Buck had something in common? Unless Buck had at least a little of what he had in himself.

  There was a mutual worship between Buck and his family. But it was, in the main, silent. Buck and his wife could hardly pass a “good evening” with each other without blushing. The girls conversed with one another when they were alone, but they had little to say at other times. Then Buck became Tom’s friend, and the situation changed. At last there was talk. And the voice most frequently heard was that of Buck himself.

  “Had a long talk with Tom Lord today,” he would announce casually, as he sipped his supper coffee. “Tom wanted to know what I thought about…” And the girls would listen, awesome-eyed, prompting him with shy questions, as he told what Tom had said to him and what he’d said to Tom. And Miss Mamie’s withered arm would twitch and squirm with pleasure at her husband’s happiness.

  Buck had seen the need for an R & I bureau as soon as Tom had, but he felt it would be presumptuous of him to mention it before Tom. After all, Tom was the chief deputy, and it was up to him to have the first say in such matters. Meanwhile, he could be preparing himself for the time when the topic was raised, and Tom would want his opinions and help.

  When it became apparent that Tom wanted nothing from him, as regarded the Bureau, except noninterference, Buck was naturally let down. But he was by no means angry with his friend. The sheriff was constantly riding Tom lately. Tom was nervous about getting everything right, and you couldn’t blame him if he got a little short.

  Nothing could change the way he felt about Tom. Nothing could be allowed to change it. Tom was his best friend, the only friend he’d ever had. And if he didn’t have that friendship—!

  Suddenly, he didn’t have it.

  Suddenly, it was gone, leaving a terrifying emptiness. And there was nothing to fill it but the memory of a vicious and inexcusable beating.

  In his lean-to “study,” Buck sat at his packing-box desk and stared dully at the pile of books on the floor. The local library, still operating on its pre-boom budget, had had none of the books he’d wanted, so he’d sent away for them, feeling a little frightened every time he bought a money order. There were volumes on criminal investigation, on fingerprinting and photography, on handwriting, toxicology, ballistics, and criminal law. One of the books alone had cost him twenty-five dollars. The total cost ran to well over a month’s salary. He wished he could stop thinking about them; brooding in a way that somehow connected them insidiously with the four newcomers to town.

  Ostensibly, the four were hunters—which they easily could have been. Quite a few easterners drifted out here to hunt during the fall and winter months. They had arrived in town a few days ago, and one of them had immediately become bedridden with the flu. This left the others at loose ends; so they loafed restlessly around town. Not staying together, as friends might be expected to, but each of them more or less going his own way. Talking idly to different people, buying coffee in one place, and a bottle of beer in another, and shooting a game of pool in a third. And when the sick man r
ecovered, another member of the party became ill. So the hunters still did no hunting—except the kind they had actually come here to do.

  Buck knew who the four were, just as he had known who Pellino was. He had pored over the mug books every bit as often as Tom Lord, and he had treasured every scrap of information having to do with Tom—the Highlands lease swindle; Tom’s suspicions that Highlands was gangster controlled. So he knew who the four were, and why they were here. Pellino had fallen down on a highly important job. These men, his known associates, were forced to take over. The job was too big to delegate, so big that no one of the men could or would accept the responsibility for it. Otherwise, such top-echelon men as these would never involve themselves directly. And having been forced to, they would do no fooling around when they found the game they had actually come here to find.

  Buck’s eyes strayed again to the discarded pile of books. To his castoff friendship. He thought of the cost of the books—of his other and infinitely greater loss—and he thought of the four men, and their thick casually displayed rolls of bills.

  Angrily, frightened, Buck tore his eyes away from the books. Huh-uh. No, by gum! He’d pay Tom off—but he’d do it himself. He wouldn’t pass the job on to someone else, and take money for doing it.

  There was a timid knock on the door; his wife’s shy voice. “Mr. Buck?”

  “Yes, ma’am…” Buck came to his feet. “Come in, Miss Mamie.”

  She entered, carrying a cup and saucer in her good hand. She said, “I thought you might want a cup of coffee, Mr. Buck,” and Buck accepted it with a mumbled, “Thank you, Miss Mamie.”