John D MacDonald - The Executioners (aka Cape Fear)

by The Executioners (Aka Cape Fear)(Lit)

  When Nancy had run down, Jamie gave a sketchy account of his adventures. There was a wise guy in his cabin, and so Jamie had put the gloves on with him and Mr. Menard stopped the fight after Jamie had knocked the other boy down twice and now they were friends.

  He'd passed his junior lifesaving. He had killed a snake with a stick. He was making his own bow for archery. Out of lemon wood. You had to scrape it with pieces of glass, and you made your own cord out of winding linen thread and then rubbing beeswax on it.

  After lunch Sam went out and got the presents out of the car. Nancy was delighted with everything.

  There were the traditional small consolation presents, one apiece for Jamie and Bucky. Consolation for it being somebody else's birthday.

  Carol, by arrangement, took Bucky off and left Sam at the table with Nancy and Jamie so he could tell them about the new arrangement. They could know their mother and Bucky were at The West Wind in Suffern, but they were to keep it to themselves.

  Nancy asked if she could tell Tommy, and Sam told her she could. In the event of serious emergency they could phone their mother in Suffern, and phone him either at the office or the New Essex House.

  Jamie looked somberly at his father and said, "It's just like running away, isn't it?"

  "You hush!" Nancy said.

  "Never mind, Nance. Yes, son. In a sense it is. But I'm not hiding. I'm going to be careful, but I'm not going to hide. They put women and children in the lifeboats first."

  "Tommy and Mr. Menard keep telling me to stay with the other kids all the time," Jamie said.

  "I wish that dirty prisoner would come to camp. We'd fix him, boy. We'll all get stones and we'll all throw at once.

  Those stones'll plunk him right in the head. Then we'll tie him up and take him in the kitchen and run him through the brand-new meat slicer that cost a hundred and twenty bucks, Mr. Menard said."

  "Jamie!" Nancy said.

  "Don't say such terrible things."

  "Now she's fifteen does she get to give me orders?" Jamie demanded.

  "When you come up with an idea guaranteed to spoil her lunch, she has a right to object."

  "And I'll set it to slice him real thin," Jamie said darkly.

  "I too think that is enough of that line of speculation, young man. You kids have the picture now. Don't either of you get careless. The man has a car. He's out of jail. When he finds the house closed, he can easily find out in the village where you kids go in the summer. I know he knows Nancy by sight, and I'd guess he knows you by sight too. Ready to go? Your mother and Bucky will be out in the lobby."

  "It's funny to think about nobody being home," Nancy said. She touched her father's arm shyly as they stood up.

  "Will you please be real careful, Daddy."

  "I will."

  On Sunday night Sam had dinner in the grill room at the New Essex House by himself, and then went into the bar for a nightcap before going up to bed. He stood at the bar and nursed his drink and felt very alone in the world. At the end of the drive that went up to the side entrance of The West Wind, he had stopped and looked back and waved. Carol and Bucky, standing close together on the green grass of the lawn, waved back. He drove the little car too fast all the way back to New Essex.

  A booming voice in his ear startled him.

  "Out on the town, Sam?"

  He turned and looked into the wide, smiling face of Georgie Felton, and tried to register enough pleasure to avoid rudeness.

  Georgie Felton was a real-estate broker and a highly successful one. He was a large and solid fat man, of heavy-handed humor and an impenetrable hide. He treated women with an overwhelming air of courtly gallantry, which, by the time of the second meeting, became curiously spiced with rather coarse innuendo. With men he was the traditional jolly boy.

  He belonged to a staggering number of civic and service organizations. In the background was a round Angela Felton and four small round Feltons. He would be called Georgie until the day he died. Carol could not stand him. She could not understand how he could be successful. When they were house hunting he had taken her to see houses so remarkably unsuitable that she suspected he was making an obscure joke. But Georgie was very serious.

  "Hello, Georgie."

  Georgie clapped him on the right shoulder and said, "Benny, get Mr. Bowden another of whatever he's having."

  "No, really."

  "Come on. If you're still on your feet, you can handle another one. What brings you into town tonight? Big date with a mysterious blonde?"

  "I'm staying here at the hotel."

  Georgie's eyebrows went up.

  "Oh, ho! Sam, old buddy, it happens to the best of us. You can't get along with 'em and you cant get along without 'em. One little wrong word and there you are. Doghoused."

  Sam felt intense irritation. He certainly had no intention of telling Georgie his troubles.

  "It isn't like that, Georgie. Two of the kids are at camp, and so we closed the house and Carol is taking a little vacation with our youngest."

  Georgie nodded in a sage way.

  "You hear a lot about that, Sam. A marital vacation. Get out of each other's hair for a while." He gave Sam a lecherous wink and elbowed him so hard in the ribs he knocked him off balance.

  "But I've never been able to talk Angie into it. Teach me how to arrange it, Sammy boy." And he threw his head back and laughed. He nudged Sam again.

  "You got something lined up yet, old buddy?

  Want to borrow Uncle Georgie's little black book?"

  "No, thanks, Georgie."

  Sam blocked the next nudge.

  "You got in the wrong business, Sammy boy. I'll tell you, there's something about walking through a nice new house that brings out the best in a pretty little woman. You'd be surprised at some of the ones I run into, laddy."

  "For God's sake, Georgie, stop ramming that elbow into me."

  "What? Well, pam me all over the place. I guess it's one of those habits. Now there's some stuff right over there against the wall. That off-the-shoulder deal. You like that?"

  "It's nice. And the man with her has shoulders on him."

  "Let's you and me go to a real live place. It's dead in here."

  "I'm sorry, Georgie. I'm going to go up and read awhile and go to bed."

  "Aw, come on, pal. We could..." Georgie stopped abruptly. Sam looked at him. Georgie was moistening his lips and looking down into the front of Sam's suit coat. Sam looked down and saw the butt grip of the gun. He fixed his coat quickly to hide it.

  "What the hell are you carrying that thing for?"

  Georgie asked in a beefy whisper. His expression was shocked.

  "It's like this, Georgie. There's a man gunning for me. He might show up any time."

  Georgia looked around nervously.

  "You're kidding."

  Sam looked at him solemnly.

  "We lawyers make enemies, Georgie."

  "Is... the man in town?"

  "He might come through that door any minute."

  Georgie edged back.

  "Well, I'll be go to hell."

  "Don't talk about it to anyone, Georgie."

  "No. No, I sure won't." He looked at his wrist watch.

  "I'll be running along. Nice to run into you, Sam." He was backing away as he spoke.

  Sam's pleasure in the incident faded quickly. Georgie would talk. Georgie would tell everyone he ran into. He finished the unwanted drink and went up to bed.

  Nothing happened on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. Sam followed his cautious routine. He called Carol twice from the office. She had a determined cheerfulness plastered over her tension and her loneliness. But the camouflage was imperfect. On Wednesday morning there was a long, chatty letter from her.

  She described the other tenants in the hotel. She had found a tennis partner, a rangy, powerful girl whose husband was a Marine captain on overseas duty. Her game was rusty but it was beginning to come back.

  Bucky had shown such an interest she had foun
d him a small racket and she was teaching him the basic strokes. He was learning quite quickly. Bucky was contemptuous of the poor television reception in the lounge. There was a good loan library in the big drugstore in the town. And she missed him. They both missed him and missed the house and missed the campers.

  On Thursday afternoon he decided that he had had enough of waiting and wondering. It was time the white mouse ventured out of the hole and found where the cat was.

  He arrived at Nicholson's Bar on Market Street at six o'clock. The bar part was a narrow room with striated plywood walls painted dark green, with bar stools and the edge of the bar upholstered in green imitation leather. There were mirrors and chrome and tricky lighting on the back bar. It had a scuffed, worn look. The plastics and paint were not holding up well.

  The mirrors and the chrome were peeling. The television over the bar was on and there was an out-of-order sign on the jukebox. There were three men sitting at the far end of the bar, heads close together, talking in low, important voices. There were no other customers at the bar.

  Beyond the bar part was a wider room, a cocktail lounge. The daylight did not reach back to that room.

  Two amber spots were angled at a small, empty platform which held a midget white piano and a very battered set of drums. In the reflected glow he could see two couples at two tables in the lounge. A waitress leaned against the frame of the wide doorway between the bar and the lounge. She wore a dark-green uniform and a soiled white apron. She was a washed out sandy blonde and she was picking at a back molar with her thumbnail.

  The bartender stood endlessly polishing a glass and watching the television screen. Sam took a stool on the curve of the bar near the door, then, feeling selfconscious, he moved to the end stool around the curve where, by sitting sideways, his back was to the wall and he could see the door.

  The bartender drifted over to him, looking at the screen until the last possible moment. He wiped the bar in front of Sam and said, "Yes, sir?"

  "Miller, I guess."

  "Coming up."

  He brought the beer and a glass, 'picked up Sam's dollar, rang it up, put a half dollar and a nickel on the bar.

  "Pretty slow?"

  "Always is, this time of day. We do a late business."

  "Has Max been in lately?"

  He saw the bartender look him over more carefully.

  "What Max do you mean? We got a lot of Maxes."

  "The bald one with the tan."

  The bartender pulled at his underlip.

  "Oh, that Max.

  I seen him one time lately. Let me think. Sure, it was last Saturday night. He was in, oh, maybe ten minutes. Two fast shots and gone. He had some trouble, you know. He slugged a cop and they put him in city jail for thirty days."

  "How about Bessie McGowan? She been in?"

  "She's always in. I wish to hell she'd pick another spot for a change. If you know her, you know how she gets. She ought to be coming in any time now."

  One of the men at the other end of the bar called him and the bartender walked away. Ten minutes later, when Sam was thinking of signaling for another beer, a woman walked in. She could not have selected anything to wear which could have made her look more grotesque. She had on white pumps with four inch heels, skintight black bullfighter pants, a wide white leather belt with a gilt buckle, a tight sweater blouse in a red-and-white horizontal candy stripe. A woman with a perfect figure might have been able to carry it off with a certain amount of theatrical success.

  But this was a woman in her middle years, with a mop of hair so abused by dyes that it was the color and texture of sun-bleached hemp. She had a puffy chipmunk face, square red lips painted boldly on. Her waist was surprisingly narrow in contrast to the wobbling massiveness of hip, the vast and doughy contours of the barely credible breasts. It was alarmingly obvious that she wore nothing under pants and blouse except an uplift bra that stanchly focused and aimed the great breasts dead ahead like fire-control direction on a battleship. She walked in an almost visible cloud of musky perfume, and she dangled a white shoulder bag from a single finger, so that it nearly dragged on the floor. She was grotesque, ludicrous and incredible. Yet there was nothing pathetic about her. She was carrying on her own gallant war against time in her own way. She was in the great bawdy tradition of the mining camps and the frontiers.

  She plopped the white bag on the center of the bar and, in a voice worn by tobacco, whisky and long use into a texture that was like a stage whisper by a baritone, said, "Jolt and water, Nick."

  "The check come?" the bartender asked warily.

  "Yes, yes, the check came. The check came. Here you go, you suspicious louse. Hit me with the grandpa today." She slapped a five-dollar bill on the bar.

  As he reached for the bottle the bartender said, motioning toward Sam, "Friend of yours asking after you, Bessie."

  She turned and stared at him and then walked over to him. Up close she gave that curious larger-than-life impression that accomplished actresses know how to project. He saw that her eyes were large and gray and exceptionally lovely.

  "My Gawd, a man who stands up. Sit down, old friend, before I die of shock." She sat on the stool next to him, and studied him, puzzled.

  "Honest, I got to watch these blackouts. Usually I can come up with a clue. But I draw a big blank. Clue me, Louie."

  The bartender put the shot glass of whisky, a glass of water and her change in front of her.

  "Well over a month ago, Bessie. You were out at one of the joints on the shore east of town. With a bald man named Max. You told me this was your favorite spot."

  "It's going to stop being anybody's favorite spot if Nick and Whitey keep on being so damn chintzy about money all the time. I remember that Max. So I was with him. It figures. But what the hell were we doing talking to you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You've got a haircut and clean fingernails and a press in your suit, mister. You talk like your folks sent you to college. You could be a doctor or a dentist. Max would talk to bums. Nobody but bums. You gentlemen types made him ugly."

  "So since you recommended the place, I thought I'd stop and get a drink."

  "So you thought you'd stop and get a drink." She looked at him with a compelling and horrible coquetry.

  He gingerly moved his arm to get it away from the pressure of a giant breast and said quickly, "Seen Max around lately?"

  "No, thanks. He was in jail. I guess he's out now. I like my fun. Christ, everybody knows me knows that.

  I got a little income and I get along. I'm what you call friendly. I've seen a lot of people, and I've been a lot of places. And I can put up with a lot. Who's perfect? But let me tell you about that Max Cady. He's all man. I got to give him that. But he's mean as a snake. He doesn't give a damn for anybody in the world but Max Cady. You know what he did to me?" She lowered her voice and her face hardened.

  "We were in my place.

  I'm curious about him. You know. You want to know about people. So I'd been asking him and all I get is the brush. So there we are and I fix him a drink and I say, "Let's stop the runaround, Maxie. Fill me in. Brief me. What's with you? Tell Mama."" She knocked off the shot, took a sip of water, and yelled at Nick for a refill.

  "What does he do? He beats up on me. On me! Bessie McGowan. Right in my own place, drinking my liquor, he gets up out of one of my chairs and he thumps me all over the place. And grinning at me all the time. Let me tell you, the way he was going at it, I thought he was going to kill me, honest. And then all the lights went out.

  "At dawn I wake up. I was on the floor, and I was a mess. He was gone. I crawled to bed on my hands and knees. When I got up again, I got to a mirror. I had a face on me like a blue basketball. I was so sore all over I couldn't move without yelping. I got the doc over and told him I fell downstairs. I've never yelled cop in my life, but I was close. Three cracked ribs. Fortythree bucks dental. I looked so awful it was a week before I stirred out of the place, and even then I was walkin
g like an old lady. It's a good thing I'm strong as a horse, mister. That go-round would have killed most women. And you know, I don't feel exactly right yet.

  When I read about his trouble, I sent out for a bottle and I drank it all myself. He isn't a human being. That Max is an animal. All I did was ask questions. All he had to do was say that he wanted me to shut up."

  She drank her second shot, and when she called Nick back he ordered another beer.

  "So he's no friend of yours, Bessie."

  "If I saw him dead in the street, I'd buy drinks for the house."