Do Evil In Return

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 good-bye, 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 some day.” His gaze returned to Charlotte and settled there. “We’re leaving the country, Eddie and me.”

“Good.”

“Came up here to say good-bye 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.”

“O.K. O.K. 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 lights; 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.