Wicked Angel

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  “But Jack,” said Alice insistently, “has said he’ll control himself better and better as he grows older—for his own sake. You must hope, Mark!”

  “For what?” he said drearily. “For the day I die? That’s all I have to look forward to. And always, I’ll have to watch Angelo until he’s a man, and has left home, and then I’ll just be waiting, waiting for any day—”

  “Don’t, Mark!” she cried. “You’ve forgotten. Kathy is going to have another child! Think of that child, Mark. I know it will be a wonderful child, and that it will make you happy, and help you to forget Angelo.”

  He sat, slumped, on the bench and looked at his crossed ankles. And then Kennie Richards was there, concerned at what he saw. He went to Alice and put his hand on her shoulder, and she tried to smile at him, but could only sob.

  Kennie had known who Mark was from the moment of introduction, but with his kind subtlety he had also known that Alice did not want him to identify himself as a former classmate of Angelo’s. He turned his sorrowful and understanding eyes on Mark, as he stood with his hand on Alice’s shoulder, and some intuition told him that they had been speaking of Angelo Saint, and were devastated in consequence.

  Alice rose, brushing away her tears. “I have a train to make in less than two hours,” she said. “And I have to take Kennie home first. His foster parents will be worried about him; they moved back into the City, so I won’t have to take him far. Mark,” she added, “did you hear what I said?”

  He looked up at her from the depths of his gray agony, and then got to his feet. “Alice,” he said, “I wish you’d visit us. I wish you’d come, sometime.”

  “I will,” she replied. “I honestly will. I expect to be with Kathy when the baby is born in October.”

  He watched the tall girl and the tall boy walk away together, and it seemed to him that only they were real and that his wife and his son were half-remembered dreams without reality. He went back to his lonely house. He was not hungry. He made a large drink for himself, and then sat in the gathering darkness until the whiskey quieted him. Then he took another drink, and then another, in a sort of frenzy, until he slept, stupefied.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jack McDowell had told Mark Saint that psychopaths were absolutely unable to feel any deep and genuine emotion of love or liking for anyone but themselves. All their apparent life-serving virtues and sympathies were imitated, their love, facile though it was, was given but to those who could serve, flatter or be of value. But, Jack had said, there was as much difference among psychopaths as there was among all other natures. Some were homicidal, and these were responsible for a series, over a long period of time, of secret inexplicable murders committed for no apparent reason, not even for gain. Some were afflicted with paranoia, and in consequence were suspicious and hostile and incorrigible, never making the synthetic adjustment to society that the more intelligent of their kind accomplished, for their intelligence was inferior. Some never physically injured anyone in their lives; their attacks on others were mental and spiritual, with a complete refinement of cruelty. Some suddenly so lost all control of themselves—and absence of control when feeling one of their few genuine emotions, rage, was typical of them—that they committed mass murders in their berserk frenzy, and often within a short period of time. “Such as that seventeen-year-old-boy in Philadelphia, recently, who got a gun somewhere and killed five people whom he had never seen before, in as many minutes.” Some were actually insane, but no more than in any other group.

  But all were distinguished by a passionate narcissism, a monstrous and overwhelming vanity, and by an eternal watchfulness that that vanity was never threatened and that their power over others was never diminished. Keep the average psychopath assured of unswerving adoration, convinced that not only was he in the very center of his own world but in the very center of others, and he was comparatively harmless except to those who helplessly loved him. There, he was ruthless; there he spared no exploitation; there he had not even a superficial pity; there, he exerted all his power for delicate torture. Oppose him never—and this was true of all psychopaths—except when showing him that it was to his material or immediate benefit. Psychopaths were raw cynics.

  “I would say,” Jack had stated, “that perhaps all infants are partial psychopaths in their way, but as they grow into childhood their moral nature, endowed by God, begins to assert itself. This never happens in the true psychopath.”

  When exposed by others for what they were, they were never ashamed. They were only monstrously affronted and outraged; they never forgave. They waited for their opportunity to avenge the insult to themselves. For the intelligent psychopath was quite aware he was not like other men; this did not embarrass him or cause him any guilt. For he always considered himself the superior one, who must never be scorned or reviled, judged by the standards of others, or expected, in his emotions, to be as contemptibly “soft” and stupid and weak as others. He was, above all else, his own law.

  “Would you say it was infantilism?” Mark had asked.

  “No. Many people retain infantile traits, such as dependence, bad temper, weakness, constant demands to be assured that they are loved, resentment of authority and responsibility, without being at all psychopathic. If you mean infantilism only in the sense that some are atavists, born without a moral sense and conscience, throwbacks, then that is an entirely different thing.” He added, “Infantile people can often become comparatively adult, and they are capable of real and genuine love and emotional concern for others, and often feel guilty, honestly guilty. And they can often rise to heights of self-abnegation, to the astonishment of others. These are not true of the psychopath. It is an odd thing, too—infantile people frequently become alcoholics. Psychopaths rarely do, for they want, at all times, to be in command of their power over others. But, I warn you: it is very hard to detect a psychopath; sometimes even the best of psychiatrists can’t do it, for they’re very clever and their disguise is almost perfect and they have learned the jargon of normality.”

  “And there is no doubt that Angelo is a psychopath?”

  “None whatever. I’ve told you he is the prototype of them all. I’ve never seen a better specimen, if you want to call it ‘better.’”

  So Mark, in his talks with his son when Kathy was not present, urged improvement in some overt behavior, “because you don’t want people to think you’re stupid or foolish, do you, Angelo? You—you have to deceive people; they’re easy to deceive, and when you deceive them you can get what you want from them. You understand?”

  Angelo, at those moments, admired “the old man.” Perhaps he wasn’t as stupid as he, Angelo, believed. He did not know that Mark hated himself for this gross materialism which he did not believe in for a moment; he hated himself for being a part of Angelo’s crafty and astute cynicism and self-serving—for the sake not only of the boy but of others.

  Sometimes, in his stricken despair, Mark wanted to cry out against all caution and advice: “I’m lying to you! The man who serves only himself has no right to live among human beings; he has no right to be a part of the human community! The man who exploits others, without mercy or guilty compassion, is a tiger, and should be destroyed! The man without God is a fierce animal, and should be exiled as they once exiled lepers, for he is a spiritual leper!” But he always restrained himself. He knew that a sly and amused amber gleam would come to Angelo’s eyes, and that Angelo would completely despise him, and that his danger to others would become stronger. For, though Angelo might say, as he said when he was younger, and with demureness, “Yes, Daddy,” he would not understand a single word, and what little real influence his father had over him would be lost.

  One late July weekend Mark came to the cabin to see his family. It had been very hot all these weeks; Kathy had decided it was best for Angelo not to return to the City as they usually did, coming to the cabin only for the weekends. “We’ll have an extra month, darling, though we’ll miss you,” she said to M
ark, on whom she was leaning these days. “But you can come up every weekend; after all, it isn’t far. Besides, I do feel so good and lively up here.”

  She did not drive her own car any longer, but Betty, the placid maid, could drive, and could go down to the village for replacements of food and supplies. Sometimes Kathy and Angelo would go with her. Angelo stayed very close to his mother; there was some threat, somewhere, his preternatural senses told him, and he watched his mother sharply. But she was more loving than ever, more sedulous. It was only that sometimes she had a dreaming expression in her eyes, and a slight, faraway smile, which Angelo suspected did not concern him. These were infrequent, but enough to alert his powerful animal senses.

  The family was to return to the suburb this Sunday night, Betty following in Kathy’s car, for it was time for the periodic examination and attention to Angelo’s teeth before the new term of school began. On Wednesday, Kathy and Angelo and Betty would go back to the cabin.

  “You’ve got to tell him this time, Kathy!” said Mark, on Sunday. “Even your skirts and your elastic waistbands aren’t going to conceal the truth much longer.”

  “I’ll tell him after I see the doctor; don’t be so fussy, Mark dear,” said Kathy. “I just can’t wait! I can just see him jumping for joy! And excitement!”

  “Kathy,” said Mark, “will you promise me not to tell him unless I am there?”

  Kathy looked at him quickly. “Why, what a funny expression you have, Mark! Why should I wait?”

  “I’ve told you a dozen times,” he answered, with weariness, “and it never penetrates. Look. The baby is my baby, too; I’d like to have a share in the telling. And, in another way, childbearing is a woman’s world, and Angelo is a boy. He’ll be confused; he might even be resentful. That’s normal, in older children; they don’t want to feel displaced. Now wait, Kathy. I know you’ll assure him he’ll never be displaced. But he’ll understand that he’ll have to share your love and your time and devotion, and that’s a jolt to any child. I want to be present, as a man, as a member of his own sex, to give him some moral support. Can’t you understand?”

  “All right,” said Kathy grudgingly, and with disappointment. She had envisaged a loving, secret session with her son, holding him in her arms, confiding her hopes to him, petting him, being petted in return by her “little man.” And now Mark was spoiling it! He was really very selfish. But she understood to a certain extent; after all, Mark was the father. Perhaps Mark, too, was feeling in advance another displacement in his wife’s affection. She suddenly smiled at her husband, nodded, and patted his arm. All men were still boys!

  Kathy was careful not to let Angelo know the name of the obstetrician she was visiting. He was so intelligent! He would know almost at once. As for his going with her, and seeing potential mothers in various stages of bloat, that would be embarrassing to her. So, on Monday morning, she said to him, “Darling, you must take a taxi to your dentist this afternoon. Betty is going to drive me to my doctor’s—”

  Angelo’s eyes widened. “But you were at the doctor’s only a month ago!”

  “Yes, dear. But the tests aren’t—aren’t complete—”

  He was frightened. Did she have cancer or some other mortal disease, which would remove her from his life forever? Or diabetes? There had been a boy in his class who had had diabetes; he had died! The old lady was looking fat and flabby recently, just as that boy had looked. Angelo’s fear ripened to real terror. If his mother died, then the old man would soon comfort himself! He’d bring that ugly and vicious Aunt Alicia here! He’d marry her! And then—and then—Angelo, in unaffected horror, threw himself upon Kathy so that she reeled under his weight. His eyes flooded with tears; he turned white.

  “You’ve got to tell me!” he screamed. “What’s the matter with you? What tests? For what?” He saw Alice in this house, stern Alice with her eyes which saw everything, who remembered that he had tried to kill her. She would send him away to that damned military school. She would be afraid to have him here; she would deprive him of all that he enjoyed. She hated him. His life would be over, all his pleasant, adulation-surrounded life, all his luxuries, all the pamperings, all the devotion, all the pocket-money, all the privileges. His mind blazed with his furious and terrified thoughts, his dark horrors. Alice, when married to his father, would tell him everything; women always told their husbands, the idiots. And then, it could even be confinement in some locked place! His beautiful face was convulsed. He stamped; he shrieked; he wept; he tore up and down the room.

  And Kathy looked at him and her heart melted, and her eyes swam with adoring tears. The darling, the darling, the darling! Her heart’s own love. He was afraid for her; he was frightened that she was ill; he was full of fear of losing her! He was a little man, wanting to protect her. And she held out her foolish arms to him, and he struck them aside in his panic.

  Now he was running faster up and down the room, like a caged beast, uttering the wildest and most savage of desperate cries. “No, no!” he bellowed hoarsely. “No! No! I can’t stand it! I won’t stand it!”

  And he saw Alice standing before him, unmoved, hating, loathing, and his father beside her with a changed cold face, condemning him, accusing him, pushing him away. Perhaps men would come with a straitjacket, intoning, “We know all about you; we know all about you. You tried to kill your aunt. You tried to hurt or kill Jane Whythe; you drove Kennie Richards from your school. You tripped—you injured—you hurt—all those others. All those others no one knows about but us. And now we’ve got you. We’ll take you away and you’ll live in a cell—”

  Hateful, stupid, goddam fools! They’d never understand! They wouldn’t even listen to his explanations. They wouldn’t know that he’d had to remove those people from his way, that they frustrated or laughed at or defied him or disliked him or knew all about him!

  The frenzied thoughts calmed a little. Perhaps he was exaggerating. He stopped in the center of the room, panting. His head hurt; his heart tumbled in his chest. Kathy, still holding out her arms, was a pinkish blur to him in her pretty blue bedroom. Only his thoughts, his conjectures, were real. Mark might send him away to a military school; he would! There was no doubt of it, for Alice would not have him here. But he wouldn’t be sent to—a cell, or something. After all, that idiot father of his was still his father. But a military school! The discipline, the conformity, the demanded obedience, the treating of all boys like all others! The disgusting uniforms! The regulations! And there were men there, not easily deceived women, not soft, weak women who could be cajoled and deceived. Angelo, when first he had heard mention of a military school, had enlightened himself about them by discreet questions, by studying books in the library. He had seen the photographs of the kind of retired soldiers who ruled such schools, uncompromising, quietly disillusioned, quietly strong and comprehending men. They would know all about him, these broad-shouldered, firm-chinned, cleareyed men. They would especially be warned about him by Alice and his father.

  Deceitful and cruel himself, it was impossible for him to believe that others were not like that, also. Oh, he understood that there were only two kinds of people in the world: the eating and the eaten! The soft, weak, whimpering ones; the harsh and taking and merciless ones! There were no other kinds. But all, even the weakest and most timid, were devourers.

  Only one person stood between him and the unspeakable future, and that was his mother. And she was sick; she might even be dying. He ran to her, his face awash with genuine tears, his usually rosy cheeks white and urawn.

  “You’ve got to tell me!” he screamed. “Right now! You’ve got to tell me! I can’t wait until you come back from the doctor!” And he stamped his foot violently. He seized her arm again; he shook her with great strength.

  “What’s wrong?” he shrieked. “Do you have cancer, or something? Are you going to leave me?” He was freshly affrighted by her soft, moved face, by her trembling lips, by her tears. All her features seemed to be melting together in
one quiver. She began to sob. She tried to take him into her arms. She was touched as she had never been touched before, and her adoration for her son reached the heights of blasphemous worship. Seeing all this, Angelo felt faint for the first time in his robust life; sweat appeared on his forehead, on his upper lip, spread under his white shirt.

  Again, he flung her reaching arms aside, and sprang back from her. If Kathy had not been so unbearably moved, so trembling with joy and love and worship, so overwhelmed by the sight of what she believed to be her son’s fear for her, his terror for her, his grief for her, even she would have been stopped by his awful expression, which was not the expression of a child. Even she, the fatuous mother, would have retreated under the fire of those terrible eyes, and she might have fled, understanding that here was no loving child, no son, but a monster. She would have recognized an insane and murderous rage when she saw it, a rage inspired by self-love. And, in an eruption of the instinct for self-preservation, she would have run for help, screaming, down the stairs, dreading to hear, in her panic, the following footsteps, the awful face, of a murderer.

  But Kathy was overwhelmed. She wiped her eyes; she sobbed softly, with rapture, with ecstasy, that this darling of hers, this adorable son, loved her so passionately. There were fools who warned of pampering children too much, of coddling them, of giving them everything they wished, of elevating them in their own estimations too much, of pouring endless love and devotion upon them! If only they could see her darling now, so white, so frightened for her! Then they, too, would bow their heads humbly before The Children.

  Then Kathy thought suddenly, I can’t bear for him to be so upset, so afraid. Why should any adult let a child hang in suspense, and imagine all kinds of fearful things? It’s cruel, cruel. If I keep my promise to Mark, God knows what my darling will suffer until Mark comes home tonight, and we tell Angel together! How can I do that to the very core of my heart? I’d be a dreadful kind of mother, and I’d never forgive myself.