Do Evil in Return

by Margaret Millar

  “All right, I’ll guess that she gave you some information and you asked her not to tell me for some reason. You’re quite a devious character, Charlotte, in spite of that honest pan, that let’s-put-all-our-cards-on-the-table look.”

  “You’re awfully quarrelsome, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t think so. I get along all right with other people.”

  “So do I. By the way, I don’t very much like being leaped at from behind trees. It’s cute and boyish and all that, but it gives me a pain.”

  His teeth gleamed white in the darkness. “I’ll have to keep on giving you a pain if I can’t get any other reaction.”

  Sullivan’s was a long narrow building made of logs, with Acme on Tap written across the front window in green neon. Inside, a middle-aged man in levis was playing two nickel slot-machines, alternating between them with such quick precision that he seemed to be working a machine in a factory rather than enjoying himself. At the bar two men were studying a racing form, checking selections with a pencil, conferring in whispers, checking again. Sullivan’s had an air of deadly earnestness.

  The bartender was young and bored.

  “Beer for me, please,” Charlotte said.

  “Make it two.” Easter flipped a coin on the counter. “Things slow tonight, eh?”

  “Slow every night at this time. It’s too early. The afternoon drunks haven’t had a chance to sober up and come back again.”

  Easter sipped his beer. It tasted metallic. “I see O’Gorman’s not around anymore.”

  “He quit last week. You a friend of his?”

  “We have a lot in common.”

  “I heard just tonight that he’s back in town,” the bartender said.

  “Good. I’d like to catch up with him again.”

  “I figure it’s just a rumor, though. This guy that claims he saw him said O’Gorman was driving a new Ford convertible. O’Gorman’s car was an old Plymouth that couldn’t do fifty if it was going downhill. You don’t get rich tending bar, believe you me.”

  “Funny if he’s in town and didn’t call me. I’m kind of disappointed.”

  “Yeah?” The bartender blinked. “I wouldn’t be too disappointed.”

  “If he shows, tell him Easter is looking for him, Jim Easter.”

  “He won’t show. He stuck me with a bum check for ten dollars. That and the convertible don’t make sense, unless the car’s hot.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “A cop, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t want any trouble here.”

  “You won’t get any.”

  “That’s a promise, I hope.” He ambled down to the other end of the bar and began talking to the two men who were bent over the racing form.

  “So that’s the real reason you came up here,” Charlotte said. “Not to talk to Violet’s sister, but to look for O’Gorman and Voss.”

  “Both. There was an off-chance that O’Gorman might be stupid enough to come home. In fact, he may not even know there’s a warrant out for him and Voss. The last report I had on O’Gorman was that he was heading north. He sold his ’38 Plymouth at Crescent City for a hundred and fifty dollars. That’s about fifty dollars less than the list price, and after the deal was closed the new owner got a little suspicious about it. He called the local police and they called us.” He drained his glass. “This is the first I’ve heard about the Ford convertible, though. It makes it fairly certain that he’s around here someplace, not to stay, probably, but to do a little showing off in front of the home town folks.”

  “How could he buy a new car? He had no money.”

  “He has now. What I’d like to know is where he got it. Any ideas?”

  “No.”

  “Sure of that?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Not even one tiny idea?”

  “No! What are you getting at? I—you’re confusing me. You don’t think that I gave O’Gorman the money? I didn’t. When I went there, he and Voss had already gone.”

  “Let’s be confused together,” Easter said lightly. “You know, I went to a lot of trouble for the privilege of buying you a beer.”

  “Trouble?”

  “Of course I didn’t think it would end up the way it did. I’m an incurable optimist. I figured that you would drive up here with me and give me a chance to parade my wit and charm etcetera, and we would return home, you with the first flush of love on your cheeks, and me feeling the same way as I did when I started. As I do now. Well,” he added, “it didn’t work out.”

  “I’m beginning to see a little light.”

  “Yes? Tell me about it.”

  “It concerns a doctor I know called Bill Blake.”

  “Blake? Yes, I believe I know him, too.” He was smiling. “In fact we went to college together. I introduced him to the girl he married.”

  “You also introduced him to the idea of calling me up and offering to . . .”

  “Well, don’t get sore about it.”

  “I’m not sore. I’m boiling.”

  “You ought to be flattered.”

  “You planned everything.”

  “Not quite everything,” he said dryly. “I underestimated your obstinacy, or whatever quality a woman like you has that makes it impossible for her to see what’s good for her.”

  “You’re good for me, are you?”

  “I am,” he said. “Ballard isn’t.”

  “Please leave him out of this.”

  “How can I? You think you’re in love with the man.”

  “I think so and I am.”

  “You intend to marry him.”

  “When it becomes possible, yes, of course I’ll marry him.”

  “The thought makes me sick.” He ordered another beer, but when it came he didn’t drink it. He kept tracing a letter with his forefinger on the mist that appeared on the outside of the glass. B, B, and then again, B. “I have an interesting theory about you, Charlotte.”

  “Have you?”

  “I think the reason you picked Ballard is because you unconsciously wanted to avoid marriage. By falling in love with a man who couldn’t marry you anyway, your problem was solved for you, at least temporarily. Until his wife dies. Or something.”

  “What do you mean, or something?”

  “Just or something.” He erased all the B’s from his glass with one swipe of his palm. “People do die, you know. Like Violet.”

  She stared at him, her eyes hostile. “If you’re implying that Gwen Ballard might possibly kill herself, I assure you you’re wrong. She isn’t the type.”

  “You know her, then?”

  “She’s been a patient of mine for a year.”

  “Well,” he said. “Well. That’s very interesting. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been tempted to slip a little prussic acid in her cough medicine.”

  “No,” she said steadily. “I’ve never been tempted. And I consider the remark incredibly boorish.”

  His face had gone suddenly grave. “I’m glad it shocked you. It was intended to. If anything ever happens to Mrs. Ballard, you’ll be hearing lots of remarks like that. You’re asking for them. You’re not only her doctor, you’re her husband’s girlfriend. That’s boorish too, eh?” When she turned away without answering, he added, “I suggest, very seriously, that you turn Mrs. Ballard over to another doctor.”

  She was too proud to tell him that she had already tried. “Thanks for the advice.”

  “You have a lot to lose, Charlotte. Stop leading with your chin. . . . Now I suppose you’re sore again.”

  “I’ve never stopped. You’re simply—simply impossible.”

  “Now that’s a silly remark,” Easter said patiently. “I’m the most possible man you know.”

  “I want to leave.”
r />   “The door’s open.” He saw her hesitation. “What’s the matter, afraid of the dark?”

  “No!”

  “Well, go on. Leave.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  “By the way if you want to get in touch with me, I’m staying at the Rose Court Motel. That’s where Miss Morris works. I thought it would be a nice place to stay. She’s such an interesting character.”

  Charlotte walked to the door. She felt Easter’s eyes on her back, and she wondered if her stocking seams were straight.

  16

  At the motel, there was a light in Mr. Coombs’s office but the door was closed and the blinds were drawn. A radio was turned on inside, a crime program, Charlotte thought as she drove past and heard the loud, heated voices and the eerie background of organ music.

  She parked the Buick in the carport beside Number Four. She was still breathing hard, angrily, as she unlocked the door of the cabin and fumbled for the light switch on the wall. Before her hand reached the switch the light clicked on, as startling as a flash of lightning.

  “Surprise,” Voss said with a low satisfied chuckle. “Hey look, Eddie. She’s surprised all right, ain’t she?”

  “She sure is.” Eddie grinned self-consciously and stroked the lapel of his green and brown plaid coat. They were both wearing brand-new outfits that were almost identical. Plaid suits, with vests, and brown suede loafers, and ties with the picture of a half-naked woman hand-painted on each.

  With a motion so swift that Charlotte had no time to forestall it, Voss reached behind her and slipped the bolt into place across the door.

  She didn’t try to unbolt it. She made no physical movement at all.

  “Surprised, eh?” Voss repeated. “I kind of thought you would be.”

  “Get out,” she said, “or I’ll call the manager.”

  Voss made a half-circle around her and sat down on the luggage rack at the foot of the bed. “The manager? That’s a hot one. Why, Coombs is an old school chum of Eddie’s. That’s how we come here. Eddie wanted to drop in on Coombs and say goodbye, and maybe show off his snazzy new outfit.”

  “Who’s a show-off?” Eddie muttered. “Say that again. Who’s a show-off?”

  “Oh, take a joke, can’t you, and stop interrupting me. Like I was saying, we came to pay Coombs a little social call, and I just happened to glance at the register in his office and see your name. I figured I better wait around and find out what’s your angle.” His eyes roamed the room. “Not a bad little dump, eh, Eddie? But this is peanuts compared to how we’ll be living someday.” His gaze returned to Charlotte and settled there. “We’re leaving the country, Eddie and me.”

  “Good.”

  “Came up here to say goodbye to the folks, and then we’re heading for better climes, like they say.” He paused, frowning. “Hey Eddie, take off your hat. Ain’t you got no manners? And offer the lady a chair—she looks like she could use one.”

  Eddie took off his hat. He had a new duck-tailed haircut, the kind affected by some of the gangs of juve­niles Charlotte had seen on Olive Street.

  She said, “I’ll stand, thank you, and Eddie looks better with his hat on.”

  “Don’t act so snippy. Remember, we still have some information about you that wouldn’t do you much good if it got around the right circles.” But he didn’t say it threateningly. He was smiling, in fact, and the smile broke into a chuckle, as if he had some secret and wonderful joke. “The right circles. Oh dear, oh dear. I guess my sense of humor gets the best of me sometimes.”

  Eddie was laughing too, in a feeble, puzzled way, as if he didn’t know what the joke was, but was willing to go along for the ride.

  “Yes, sir,” Voss said. “It’s better climes for Eddie and me.”

  “Where did you get the money?”

  “We earned it. That’s a good one, eh, Eddie? We earned it.”

  The two men began laughing again, gleefully, like a couple of boys who had outwitted a parent.

  “I don’t claim to be extra smart,” Voss said at last, wiping his eyes. “Just lucky. For once I was in the right place at the right time and I got the right answers.”

  “Answers to what?”

  “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you exactly how it happened. Eddie and me was walking up the

  street and suddenly the guy in front of us started to toss thousand-dollar bills in the air, and Eddie and me picked them up. How’s that?”

  “Fine,” Charlotte said. “I wouldn’t count on those better climes, though.”

  “Yeah? Why not?”

  “There’s a warrant out for your arrest. Easter’s looking for you.”

  “Easter? The cop?”

  “Yes.”

  Voss’s face crinkled up in incredulity and outraged innocence. “We haven’t done anything. What would he be looking for us for? We’re innocent.”

  “Maybe about the old man,” Eddie said. “Maybe the old man died.”

  “We didn’t touch the old man,” Voss said. “We was out on the porch having a friendly little argument when suddenly, oops, he starts to vomit, the vomit got bloody.” He broke off, frowning. “Damn near turned my stomach. So the old man died, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, they can’t pin any rap on me. I wouldn’t demean myself bumping off a two-bit pickpocket like Tiddles. Murder’s a sucker’s racket.”

  “So is robbery. You stole my purse.”

  “Purse?”

  “You didn’t plan to steal it, you meant only to frighten me. When I went down to Olive Street that first night to see Violet, you were afraid that I’d changed my mind about helping her dispose of the baby. That baby was valuable to you; as long as Violet was carrying it she was a means of making money for you. So you headed me off while I was talking to the old man Tiddles. You were waiting for me when I got home, intending to scare me off. But when you saw my purse you couldn’t resist stealing it, could you?”

  “I didn’t steal any purse,” Voss said, with a sly glance at Eddie.

  The cigarette hanging from Eddie’s lip gave a nervous wiggle. “Me neither! Me neither, I tell you.”

  “Who said you did?”

  “You looked at me.”

  “Sure, I looked at you. I look at everybody. I got eyes, ain’t I?”

  “You don’t have to use them creepy.”

  “Okay, okay. I apologize that I got creepy eyes. That suit you?”

  “No, it don’t suit me. You looked at me like I stole that purse. I don’t like it.”

  “Stop flapping your tonsils. That’s what this dame wants, don’t you get it? She wants you to talk your way into a trap.”

  Eddie turned his scowl towards Charlotte. “Where’s this trap?”

  “There is no trap,” Charlotte said. “I told you the police are looking for you. If you’re sensible, you’ll give yourselves up. You’ll have a chance to prove your innocence.”

  “How can I prove my . . .”

  “Shut up!” Voss yelled at him. “Shut up!”

  “Sure. But how can . . .”

  “Come on, let’s get out of here.” Voss was almost hopping up and down in his excitement. “Come on, step on it.”

  “Sure. Sure.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Charlotte said. “But you’ve made so many already that one more won’t mat­ter.”

  “Yeah?” Voss unbolted the door. “You make your mistakes, sister, and I’ll make mine. Come on, Eddie, get the lead out of your seat.”

  “Where are we . . . ?”

  “Shut up!”

  Voss closed the door very quickly as if he was afraid that Charlotte would follow them out, screaming. Ten seconds later she heard the car shoot past with a grinding of gears. She opened the door and went out, in the hope of catching the license number. But Voss had cut the car l
ights; she couldn’t even tell which direction he took on the highway.

  Mr. Coombs trudged, yawning, out of his office. “Thought I heard a car.”

  “So did I.”

  “Some friends of yours were here a while back. They get in touch with you?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Local boys who made good, from the looks of them. Funny thing, I never thought Eddie had the brains to make good. It goes to show . . . Well, about time for me to be closing up and getting my beauty sleep, ha ha.”

  “I’d like to use the phone first, if I may.”

  “Private call?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll stay out here then. I never like to eavesdrop. Bad business, eavesdropping. Bad business, and bad for business.”

  She called Sullivan’s bar, but Easter had already left, and the man who answered the phone at the Rose Court Motel told her that Mr. Easter, in Number Twenty-one, hadn’t come back yet.

  There was nothing to do but wait. She sat down at Mr. Coombs’s desk and picked up the current issue of Thrilling Love Comics. She felt like weeping, for the innocents like Mr. Coombs, and Violet and Gwen, and for the lost and twisted people like Voss, and the angry, stupid ones like Eddie O’Gorman.

  17

  She left the motel at sunrise the next morning and by eight o’clock she was at the California border. Here, inside a bridge-like structure were three gates guarded by state inspectors in uniform.

  Charlotte slipped into the empty middle lane and stopped. At the gate on her left a woman with four children and a dog were standing beside an old station wagon with a New Jersey license. They were all, including the dog, eating cherries out of a box as if their lives depended on it.

  Between bites, the woman registered her complaint. “You can take cherries from Wyoming to Idaho. You can take cherries from Idaho to Oregon. But you can’t take cherries from Oregon to California. No. California, they take cherries from you.”

  “Madam,” the inspector said, “we’ve gone into that already. We did not take any of your cherries. We gave you the privilege of eating the cherries here at the border.”

  “I paid for those cherries and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t take them with me. It’s a free country. Just who does President Truman think he is? Either he steals my cherries, or he forces my kids to eat them so fast they maybe’ll get the colic.”