Маргарет Миллар - Do Evil In Return

“How much?”

“Say $300”

There was a long silence before Charlotte spoke. “That would buy a great many wreaths.”

“Sure, but consider the casket.”

“I haven’t got three hundred dollars.”

“You can get it. You have a friend.”

“I have quite a few friends.”

“One special friend, though.”

“Several.”

“One very special.”

“Stop it,” Charlotte cried. “You must be crazy to think I...”

“Three hundred dollars wouldn’t mean a thing to him. Or to you. Think of poor Violet.”

“I only saw the girl once in my life.”

“But you helped kill her,” Voss said, quite pleasantly. “She came home yesterday and she says, I’ve been to the doctor only she won’t help me, I wish I was dead.”

“I think you’d better leave,” Charlotte said, trying to keep her voice steady. “This sounds like extortion.”

“Now wait a minute, that’s a nasty word. Ain’t it, Eddie?”

“It sure is. I don’t like it.”

Voss fingered the mourning band on his sleeve. “We came here as Violet’s friends because we wanted to give her a good send-off. Christ, we even got to pay a minister. How far do you think three hundred dollars will go?”

“I don’t know or care.”

“Don’t act so snotty or you will. You’ll end up caring plenty.” He turned to Eddie. “Extortion, she says. How about that?”

“How about it, that’s what I say.”

A mockingbird began to chatter from his perch on the lemon tree, abusing the invaders.

“You’d both better go home,” Charlotte said, “and start thinking up some new angles.”

“We don’t have to,” Voss said. “The angles are all there, and they ain’t nice, lady, they ain’t nice at all.”

“You’re very vague.”

“I don’t have to be vague. I can spell it out for you in straight ABC’s. There’s you, y-o-u, and there’s him, B-a-l-l-a-r-d. And then there’s my poor little Violet. Quite a threesome, eh? Eh?”

“Be more explicit,” Charlotte said. “You want me to pay you three hundred dollars because of Mr. Ballard and because you think I’m partly responsible for Violet’s suicide. Is that right?”

“Maybe. Maybe you haven’t figured the angles, though.”

“What angles?”

“Think about it.” Voss turned to his companion. “Come on, Eddie.”

“But she didn’t give us the money,” Eddie protested. “We didn’t get the three hundred...”

“You heard the lady. She don’t want to give us the money.”

“You said she would.”

“She will. She’s got to have time to figure, is all. Maybe she’s a little slow in the head. Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait,” Charlotte said. She was assailed by an obscure and terrifying feeling that the little moth of a man was threatening to eat away the fabric of her life. Already she felt naked, unprotected.

Voss turned his indeterminate eyes on her, squinting against the light that shone above the door. “You changed your mind?”

“No.” She reached her decision suddenly. “I’ve had enough of this. Get out of here or I’ll call the police.”

Eddie began to edge towards the steps, but Voss still faced her: “I don’t think so. You pore over what I said, and when you change your mind you know where I live. Only you better make it soon. I got lots of important business on the fire, see? Maybe I don’t look it but I’m a big shot, I’m a very important...”

“You’re a cheap crook,” Charlotte said. “Get out of here.”

She slammed and bolted the door and stood with her back against it until she heard the squeaking of the gate as it opened and closed again. Then she picked up the phone and dialed police headquarters. She acted on impulse, without planning what she would say or thinking of the consequences.

“Police headquarters. Valerio speaking.”

“H... hello?”

“What’s your trouble?”

“I need some kind of — protection.”

There was a voice in the background, a whining voice made harsh by whisky — “lost every damn cent of it, and then comes crying to me about it...”

“Oh, can it for a minute,” Valerio said. “I’m talking on the phone. Hello? What’s your name and address?”

“Charl...” Her throat constricted, pressing back the words: Charlotte Keating, 1026 Mountain Drive. I’m being blackmailed. The men involved are potentially dangerous, they should be arrested. No, I can’t give evidence. No, I can’t tell you why I’m being blackmailed, but it’s nothing criminal, nothing bad. I’ve been seeing a married man...

She could picture the two of them grinning knowingly if she told them, Valerio and the man with the whine, snickering together: “Seeing a married man, that’s a hot one, that’s a lulu...”

“I didn’t get the name,” Valerio said.

She hung up quietly.

She switched on the floodlights in the yard and went out to her car.

She phoned Lewis from a small café at the foot of the breakwater where they sometimes met.

I’m down at Sam’s, Lewis. I have to see you.”

“Aren’t you the same person who phoned here before? You still have the wrong number.”

How quick-witted of Lewis, Charlotte thought. Gwen might be suspicious of two wrong numbers so close together. Pretending the calls were from the same blunderer was clever of Lewis. Too clever. It suggested practice in easy deceptions.

“Please hurry, it’s important for both of us,” she said quickly and hung up before he could reply.

She waited outside in her car, watching the boats at anchor inside the breakwater. A whole city of boats, like a city of people, all lands, all classes; sleek and lavish yachts with their riding lights twinkling, sturdy fishing sloops, spruce little starboats fast as arrows, flatties and snowbirds, and weathered dinghies barely afloat.

A car drove past slowly and pulled to a stop a few yards ahead of her. Lewis got out, his shoulders hunched against the wind. She hardly recognized him. He wore a topcoat and a fedora and he had a scarf drawn high around his neck.

They walked in silence towards the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater.

“I didn’t even know you owned a hat,” she said at last.

“Now you do.”

“It’s quite a — disguise, isn’t it?”

“I couldn’t find my false whiskers. The hat will have to do.”

“Oh Lewis .”

There was no one else on the breakwater, and the only lights were feeble, from the three-quarter moon and the green signal that flashed off and on from the top of the lighthouse.

She clung to his arm, hiding her face against his sleeve. “Lewis.”

“What is it, darling? Here. Here, sit down.”

He drew her down to one of the stone benches that lined the breakwater. The bench was wet from the spray of the tide that was now ebbing, but neither of them noticed.

“Let’s have it,” he said, smoothing back her hair with his hand. “What’s the matter, Charley?”

“I’m in trouble.”

“Sorry.”

“So — are you.”

“That’s nothing new,” he said wryly. “I’ve been in trouble ever since I met you a year ago.”

“This is worse.”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know how to begin.”

“Begin at the beginning and go on until you come to the end.”

Her smile was faint, sad. “That’s from Alice in Wonderland , isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I wish I were Alice.”

“Why?”

“Then I could wake up and find it was all a nightmare, that I never really met...” She lapsed into silence, listening to the cruel crash of the water on the rocks below. “I’m being blackmailed.”