Recoil

by Jim Thompson

“…all right. I’ll take over.”

  The microphone popped and rattled, and the announcer came back again:

  “Thank you for waiting, friends. Due to the unforeseen circumstances, which will be explained to you, Mr. Arnholt will be unable to address you tonight. I will now turn your over to Mr. Ralph Edgars, state president of the National Phalanx…If you please, Mr. Edgars.”

  “Thank you,” said another voice. “Uh—I didn’t come here prepared to talk, folks, and I’m sorry that I have to. It’s my job to tell you that I and the organization which I head in this state seem to have been pretty badly taken in…”

  He paused and cleared his throat, and the audience was as absolutely silent as this room where we sat. Even I, who had expected something like this, leaned forward, straining to hear:

  “A few minutes before Mr. Arnholt was scheduled to speak tonight, a number of documents—or I should say photostats of documents—were delivered to me on this stage. I was amazed and dismayed to find that they cast serious doubts on Mr. Arnholt’s motives for being here and on the entire series of talks he intended to make in this state.

  “Briefly, these documents tend to prove that Mr. Arnholt was launching an attack on certain textbooks so that the books of rival firms might be adopted by the state in their place. In the absence of any satisfactory explanation from Mr. Arnholt, they did prove that.

  “Under the circumstances, we local leaders of the Phalanx cancel his talk and offer you our apologies. For several reasons I will not now name the persons and firms who seem to be involved with Mr. Arnholt in this swindle. We have cleaned our own house, or will clean it shortly. It is not for us to take over the work of the courts. However, the names of these persons and firms will be made known to you shortly and proper action will be taken against them.

  “The documents, the photostats, in my possession will be presented to the state attorney general tomorrow morning. And I am authorized to promise you that they will not be pigeon-holed or forgotten. I can promise you that…”

  Doc snapped the radio off.

  He swiveled around on the stool, and waited.

  Hardesty was the first to speak. For a moment he looked as sick and bewildered and frightened as any of the others. But, then, his face tightened and he forced a laugh.

  “Well,” he said. “There goes the ball game.”

  “There it goes,” Burkman nodded slowly. “There g-goes—” And his pot belly trembled, and he put his hands over his eyes and began to cry.

  Flanders laughed harshly. “What’d I tell you, Doc? Didn’t I tell you that dumb son-of-a-bitch would screw himself up and us in the bargain? If you’d spent the same money and effort in the regular channels…”

  “How about the money, anyway?” It was one of the textbook salesmen. “Harry and me are both in for twenty-five hundred. How the hell are we going to explain a deal like this to our companies?”

  “We ain’t going to have to explain,” said the other one, bitterly. “We’re washed up. Out. We won’t be able to sell a book in the southwest for the next twenty-five years.”

  Kronup shook his finger at Doc, snarling. “Money’s the smallest part of it. We’re not only out and facin’ prosecution, but there’s no one we can turn to. Now or any time. We ain’t going to be able to keep a finger in; we ain’t going to be able to elect anyone that’s halfway reasonable. What you’ve done, Doc, is put the whole damned reform crowd in office, put ’em there for good. And I’m sayin’—”

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” sobbed Burkman. “S-son-of-a-b-bitch.…”

  “Will you shut up?” yelled Flanders. “Doc, didn’t I tell you that—”

  “I’m talkin’!” Kronup shouted. “I say this phony psychologist made a deal! I say he sold us out!”

  He shouted the accusation again, for they were all talking now; all shouting and snarling and growling at once. Frightened, surly, half-hysterical animals. Only Doc and Hardesty were silent. Hardesty was staring at Doc, a puzzled but bitter frown on his too-handsome face. Doc sat with his hands folded, looking down at the floor.

  His mouth was working; he might have been muttering to himself. He might have been, but he wasn’t. I was beginning at last to read his expressions. He was laughing.

  His mouth stopped moving, and he looked up. He shook his head and the room grew quiet.

  “Don’t be a damned fool,” he said coldly to Kronup. “How could I sell out? What would I get out of it? How could I make a deal with the reform crowd? There’s no way they could give me anything, even if they wanted to.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” said Doc. “Anyway, we don’t know how much of the deal was spilled to Edgars. A very little would be enough to get Arnholt and that’s probably all Edgars has. He’s trying to throw a bluff into us. If we sit tight and keep quiet, it may blow over.”

  There was a growl of dissent. “You don’t believe that,” said Flanders. “Arnholt’s going to sing his head off. Regardless of what Edgars has or hasn’t got in the way of documentary proof, it’s going to be enough to wash us up.”

  “We’re through and you know it,” snuffled Burkman, angrily. “All we can do now is grab what we can before the ceiling falls in on us.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Doc shrugged.

  His quietness seemed to madden Burkman. He tried to speak and his throat choked with fury. And then he was pointing at me, shaking a trembling finger in my direction.

  “You got some kind of scheme you’re pullin’ with that red-head, there. I don’t know what it is but I know it must be good, the trouble you went to gettin’ him out. You’re cuttin’ me in on it.”

  “You’re cutting all of us in on it,” corrected Flanders.

  “I’m not,” said Doc, levelly, “cutting anyone in on it. That deal is off. I’m letting Cosgrove return to Sandstone tomorrow.”

  27

  I’d been expecting that, but the cold fact of its happening jolted me. I lighted a cigarette and my hand trembled.

  “That’s pretty sudden, Doc,” I said. “Would you mind explaining?”

  “If you need an explanation,” said Doc, his voice clipped. “I’ve done a great deal for you. I intended to do a great deal more. And all I’ve asked of you is that you leave Lila alone. You wouldn’t do it. You’ve carried on an affair right in front of me. Recently, you gave her the money to buy a car for you. You intended to jump your parole and leave town with her—leave me holding the bag both ways. I’m beating you to the punch.”

  A low murmur went around the room. Kronup cleared his throat with embarrassment.

  “Say, that’s too bad, Doc,” he said. “I been hearing things out around the capitol, but—”

  “Of course, you’ve heard things,” I said. “Doc wanted you to hear them, and there was a certain basis of truth in them. Lila did buy that car for me. She has thrown herself at me. I’ve known the talk was spreading, but I didn’t know what to do. I—”

  “Well, I know what to do,” said Doc, getting up from the stool. “Gentlemen, I suggest that we get together in the morning and see what can be done about this Arnholt matter. Frankly, I can’t think clearly enough tonight to discuss it.”

  They began to get up, brushing at their clothes and moving toward the door. A few stared at me; most of them deliberately avoided doing so. For the moment Doc’s problem had become paramount to theirs.

  “Just a minute,” I said. “There’s one thing you haven’t told these gentlemen, Doc. Lila isn’t your wife.”

  The movement toward the door stopped abruptly. They stared from me to Doc, and his jaw fell slack. And then Hardesty’s voice boomed out, breaking the silence.

  “So what?” he demanded reasonably. “He couldn’t get a divorce from his wife, so he hasn’t been able to marry Lila. That has no bearing on the matter. She’s been more to him than most wives are to their husbands.”

  “Yes,” said Doc. “A great deal more.”

  “Well, we’ll all get along now,” said
Hardesty bluffly. “But I’d keep an eye on Cosgrove, if I were you. He isn’t going to like going back to Sandstone.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on him,” said Doc.

  They filed past him out the door. They were in a hurry to get out now. The news about Lila had value; some highly placed people would be very interested in hearing it.

  They didn’t know, as I did, that Doc wasn’t going to be around to face the music.

  At last, only Hardesty and Doc remained, and Doc took Hardesty by the arm and urged him toward the door. Hardesty hung back.

  “I think I’d better have a little talk with Pat. Let him know how things stand.”

  “Later,” said Doc, not looking at me. “Not now.”

  “I really think—”

  “I don’t give a damn what you think,” said Doc. “I’ll do the explaining when the time comes for it. Right now I want to get away from here.”

  Hardesty suddenly remembered something.

  “You blew this Arnholt deal, didn’t you? What the hell was the idea?”

  “I’ll explain about that, too,” said Doc. “Now, come on. We’re liable to have some callers as soon as that crowd starts telephoning. We can’t afford to get tied up here.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’ll keep,” said Doc, and he literally dragged Hardesty through the door and slammed it.

  I fixed myself a drink and sat down on the bed. Faintly, I heard the last of the cars pulling away from the front of the house. Clearly, a few minutes later, I heard the smooth purr of Doc’s sedan as it rolled out the driveway.

  I finished my drink and lay back on the bed. I felt very comfortable, relaxed, for the first time since I’d left Sandstone. I’d told Lila to beat it as soon as she made the telephone call. There was nothing to do now but take things easy.

  I lay thinking, grinning a little when I thought of the surprise that Doc and Hardesty were in for. And then I thought of Madeline and my grin went away. Regardless of what she’d done, I couldn’t take any pleasure in what was going to happen to her.

  I let my mind wander, wish-thinking, wondering if I could be wrong about her…After all, she had suggested that I go to Myrtle Briscoe and lay my cards on the table. She hadn’t insisted on it; but how could she when I, obviously, was as I was: ready to do anything that would keep me out of Sandstone. She could be working with Myrtle. She could be—and her actions with Hardesty didn’t prove that she wasn’t. She’d have had to lead him on. She couldn’t let me beat the truth out of him, perhaps even kill him. She…

  Oh, hell. How crazy could a guy get? She’d been working in Doc’s dirty racket for years, and it was an easy step from that to—But she might not have known what she was getting into. Doc would have pulled her into it a little at a time, until she was in over her head.

  I cursed and sat up. Things didn’t happen that way. They never had, so why should they begin now? My whole life had been fouled up. The best I could hope for now was to keep my parole. She was as rotten and crooked as the rest of them, and she’d have to suffer with the rest. But—

  I wished I could stop thinking about her.

  Almost twenty minutes had passed when Willie tapped on the door and came in with the telephone.

  He plugged it into the wall by the bed, and handed it to me. He went out as quietly as he had come in, and I spoke into the mouthpiece. I spoke and listened.

  “All right, Doc,” I said. “I’ll be right over.”

  I hung up the phone and took a last long look around the room. Then, I got my car out of the garage and drove straight to Madeline’s place.

  I parked my car behind Doc’s and went silently up the stairs. I listened at the door to the bedroom, and then I moved over to the other one.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Hardesty was saying, angrily. “Our end of the deal was worth twenty-five grand, and we could have wound it up in a couple weeks. I don’t see why the hell—”

  “All right,” Doc’s voice cut in. “We make that killing—the last one we could possibly make—and then I do my fade-out. How does that look?”

  “The same way it looked in the beginning,” said Hardesty. “That’s the way we planned it. If you didn’t like it, why didn’t you say something then?”

  “Things have changed since then,” said Doc. “The police are looking for Pat or will be shortly. We had to wind up the deal tonight.”

  “But you intended to wind it up tonight before they ever started looking for Cosgrove,” said Hardesty. “Why didn’t you tell Madeline and me?”

  “I had reasons.”

  “Oh, hell,” said Hardesty, disgustedly.

  “I don’t get you,” said Doc, slowly. “I’d have had two or three weeks’ overhead to pay; that’s not peanuts. I’d have had to pay several grand in past due bills that I’ve been stalling. All that would have had to come out of our end. You wouldn’t have had more than five or six g’s for your cut. What’s five or six grand to you, especially when you stand to pick up a clear five?”

  “I just don’t like it,” said Hardesty.

  “I can see you don’t. But I wonder why.”

  “Forget it,” said Hardesty. “Just forget the whole damned thing.”

  There was silence then. I raised my fist and knocked.

  “Pat?” It was Madeline.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Come in.”

  I went in and closed the door.

  Hardesty and Madeline were seated on the lounge. She was wearing a nightgown under a blue woolly robe, and her hair had been hastily piled up and pinned on top of her head. She looked like a child, suddenly roused out of a deep sleep, and she gave me a child’s questioning but trustful smile. I looked away from her to Doc.

  He’d changed clothes, and he was taking more articles of clothing from a pile of bags and packages and putting them into a suitcase which stood on a chair in front of him. He smiled at me, narrow eyed, and jerked his head at Madeline.

  “I don’t believe you two have met formally,” he said. “Mr. Cosgrove—Mrs. Luther.”

  28

  Madeline flirted a hand at me. “ ’Lo, Mr. Cosgrove,” she said in a weak voice.

  I nodded to her, dropping into a chair. “How do you do, Mrs. Luther,” I said.

  “Well,” said Doc, with a note of reproof. “You don’t seem particularly surprised, Pat.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I’m only surprised that I didn’t see it a long time ago.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You gave me a tip at the outset, that morning I bought my clothes. You’d been having an argument with Hardesty, and you told him to keep away from your wife. You wanted to be sure of what I’d overheard—whether you’d mentioned Madeline by name.”

  “I remember,” said Doc, shooting an unpleasant glance at Hardesty. “I remember very well, now that you mention it.”

  “Then there was the matter of the baby,” I said. “I didn’t believe you’d invented the story. I was sure that your wife had had a baby. Well, I’d seen Lila at pretty close range, thanks to you, and I knew she couldn’t have had a baby. So…”

  I didn’t tell him the rest; that I’d seen the striae—the marks made by giving birth—on Madeline’s body. I wanted to talk about murder, to have him and Hardesty talk about it. With Myrtle Briscoe and her boys listening in.

  Hardesty let out an impatient snort.

  “For God’s sake, Doc,” he said, “are we going to sit around here talking all night?”

  “There’s no hurry,” said Doc. “Pat’s got a right to some answers. He’s entitled to know where he stands…Pat, I believe you talked to Lila tonight?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And she told you the truth; she doesn’t have enough sense to do anything else. Do you see the spot I was in? I was desperate for money, and she fell right into my lap, waiting to be used. And when I’d used her I didn’t dare get rid of her. I couldn’t separate from a woman I was supposed to be madly in l
ove with. I knew she’d talk if she ever got out from under my thumb.”

  “And do you see the spot I was in, Pat?” said Madeline, quietly.

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “I’m not particularly interested.”

  Doc grinned and then his expression changed, and he shook his head. “Don’t think too hard of her. She doesn’t deserve it. We all make mistakes, and we all pay for them. You were only eighteen when you robbed a bank. Madeline was only eighteen when she came here to Capital City.”

  “I know,” I said. “She’s a very loyal little woman.”

  “Very, Pat. To herself, as well as me. We’ve been husband and wife in name only. She’s worked for the money I’ve given her.”

  “Would that work include murder?”

  “Eggleston’s, you mean?” He shook his head calmly. “She had nothing to do with that. He found out about our marriage and demanded money from her, and I went to make the pay-off. She didn’t know I was going to kill him. I didn’t either. I didn’t even know who’d hired him or whether he was working on his own. I didn’t have to talk with him very long, however, to realize that he couldn’t be trusted. That left me only one thing to do.”

  I nodded. That took me off the hook for the murder. Now, to wrap up the rest of it.

  Doc glanced at the hall door casually, then back at me. And there was that peculiar look in his eyes again: The one I’d seen back at the house, when Lila had left the room.

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand, Doc,” I said. “Why didn’t you go through with this Fanning Arnholt deal? Why did you set it all up and then blow it to pieces?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know!” snapped Hardesty. “I’m just lucky that there’s nothing that can be pinned on me.”

  “Well—” Doc hesitated, grinning faintly, “why don’t you make a guess, Pat?”

  “I can think of a couple of reasons,” I said. “One is that you were trying to get a few marks on the credit side of the ledger. After what happened tonight this state’s going to be as clean as a whistle.”

  “Yes?”

  “I think that’s what you thought you were doing,” I said. “What you persuaded yourself you were doing. Actually, I think you had another motive. You’d got all you could. You intended to make sure that nothing would be left for anyone else.”