Маргарет Миллар - Do Evil In Return

“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.

She left the motel at sunrise the next morning and by eight o’clock she was at the California border. Here, inside a bridgelike 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 file 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.”

“It is not President Truman, madam. It’s the fruit fly. These diagrams on the wall here illustrate the life cycle of the fruit fly...”

“Fruit fly. Now I’ve heard everything. Hurry up, Tommy, Janet... Not one of us moves an inch till all those cherries are eaten. Fruit fly. Next maybe you’ll start searching my dog for fleas. Maybe the dogs in California don’t have fleas. They got butterflies, maybe, gold butterflies... Hurry up, Tommy.”

The little boy addressed as Tommy, after a sly glance at the inspector, cautiously slipped half a dozen cherries down the front of his shirt. He caught Charlotte’s eye and instantly assumed an expression of unassailable virtue.

Charlotte turned away, suppressing a smile. She noticed then, for the first time, the car that had stopped at the third gate. It was Easter’s car, but Easter wasn’t in it. He was standing beside a poster, watching her. She didn’t look at him. She looked at the poster. It showed how many millions of dollars of damage a pair of fruit flies could do.

He said, “Cute kid, that Tommy.”

“Are you following me?”

Easter shook his head. “If that isn’t just like you, Charlotte — there’s one main north-south highway and you think everyone behind you is deliberately following you.”

“I don’t think everyone is. Just you.”

“My dear Charlotte, I have to get home, too. I was hoping 101 would be big enough for both of us.”

An inspector approached, opened the back door of the car, and glanced around. “Any citrus fruits, lemons, oranges, limes...?”

“No fruit at all.”

“How about that box of cherries you bought at Grant’s Pass?” Easter said. “Cherries are teeming with fruit flies.”

“I didn’t buy any cherries,” Charlotte told the inspector. “This man is just trying to delay me.”

“I have to check up anyway,” the inspector said. “May I have your trunk keys, please?”

She handed him the keys, and he went around to the back of the car and opened the trunk.

“See you later,” Easter said, and climbed back into his car. He honked the horn as he went past, and waved his hand at her.

She kept the speedometer at seventy-five for the next hundred miles, but she didn’t catch up with Easter. She didn’t even know why she wanted to, except to prove to him that though she was a woman she was just as efficient and skillful a driver as any man.