Chapter 2
Paul Moran stood up from his desk at The Blade and stretched. He had just finished his feature story for next week's paper and he looked down at it still in the typewriter. Tomorrow he would work on the news stories, the time-tested news stories they ran once a week in The Blade. He also had to do the thing about the new supermarket, but that could be done tomorrow.
Paul was tall, slim, and flat-bellied. At thirty his dark hair showed no gray and had receded only into a slight widow's peak that gave more character to his face. His cheeks were a little hollow and the bones in his face stood out. His face had not reddened from time, even though he had been a moderately heavy drinker for several years. He was not a problem drinker, but he drank a lot because he enjoyed it.
Thornton, California, was too near San Francisco to have a daily newspaper; there weren't enough advertisers to support a daily-two had already failed. The Blade had been in Thornton before the two dailies had tried, and it was still there, prosperous and making money. If The Blade went daily it, too, would go into the red; but remaining a weekly it was a good investment for Samuel Carlson, owner and publisher.
Samuel Carlson was not primarily a publisher; in fact, publishing was only a sideline with him. He had been in land most of his life and he was still in land. When he had graduated from Harvard in 1931, he came west to try his luck. His father, a successful New Hampshire farmer, had given him ten thousand dollars just for getting through Harvard, and he had come to California. Later in the thirties his father ran afoul of the Depression, but Samuel did not offer to help him because he believed in free enterprise and manifest destiny; his father had taught it to him.
The old man shot himself in 1936 and Samuel had cried.
Paul Moran did not like Samuel Carlson. He worked for him, was on his payroll, but he did not agree with the older man on much of anything. Particularly he did not agree with him on free enterprise and manifest destiny ... when it had pertained to his own father and a bullet in the head.
But Paul did not think too much about that. He got along with Carlson and Carlson got along with him. Carlson considered him a red-hot and Paul knew where the older man stood. They sometimes had a drink together at Carlson's and talked about the weather or the San Francisco 49'ers; Carlson was a pro-football fan.
The only reason they had drunk together or conversed at all was because Paul had become engaged to Carlson's daughter, Margaret, a few months before. Carlson had never warned him off the times he had taken Margaret out when she was home from school, and he had not warned him off when Margaret came home in February after she had tired of Stephens College in Missouri.
Paul thought Carlson like him, liberal or not. He could have fired him any time he pleased in the last three years, even though Gerald Pierce, the editor, had hired him in the beginning. Carlson was the boss and he could have given him his walking papers if he had been of the mind to.
Carlson was a pretty strange duck, Paul thought, as he fished for a cigarette in his vest (he was a thin, hard man who liked vests). He found the pack, pulled out the cigarette, and lit it. Pierce was a liberal, personally, but wrote right-wing trash for the paper. Stanley Hopkins, the young advertising manager, was a liberal but he got a lot of business for the paper and anyone would have expected him to hold his job because of that. The people in production and the front office had no politics, as far as Paul knew. But to old man Carlson's credit, he had three red-hots on the staff in the three top positions and it didn't seem to bother him a damned bit. Perhaps he didn't have much use for Democrats, but he did have use for men working for him who did a good job. Samuel Carlson was a hard but honest man who understood something about the world and about living.
Paul wondered if he were excusing Carlson because he was his prospective father-in-law. He wasn't. He didn't have any use for the bastard, but he had been fair with his help....Even if he wouldn't let them write what they wanted to write, it was his paper.
He had also been fair to Paul Moran. He could have thrown him off the place when Paul had come to take Margaret out, but he hadn't. He had introduced his daughter to every important man's son in eight counties but he had given Paul a decent chance. Maybe that was part of his rules of free enterprise. The best man wins. Tough for the guy who was a little bit weak, but what the hell!
Paul smiled a little when he thought of Margaret's father. He would probably have been a liberal in 1860 because he wouldn't have put up with slavery and he wouldn't have put up with dissolution of the Union.
Now he was a forthright enemy of the labor unions, but he had never had a major strike in any of his holdings because, at the last moment, he would bargain.
Samuel Carlson was a very practical man who didn't like reality but was aware that it was there and faced up to it.
Paul Moran drew on his cigarette and wondered if he could be as strong if he were in the older man's shoes.
Paul walked to the window and looked out onto Union Street. It was the main street of Thornton, and he had many times wondered why it hadn't been named Main Street. Perhaps it had, a long time ago, and Samuel Carlson had changed it because he read Sinclair Lewis.
Paul saw Evette Warwick moving down the sidewalk and he watched her carefully. She swung her arms as she walked and there was a single book in her hand. Just one book. She always carried one book after classes at the J.C.
He hated Evette. There were many reasons that he did, but the main one was because she had cheapened him and he could never forgive her for that.
Last spring, just a year ago, he had been one of her beaus. Beaus, he thought; he had been one of her lovers. Evette had been eighteen then and a freshman at Thornton J.C. She used to come by the newspaper office often and he had met her there. Her physical presence had attracted him first; didn't it always? And he had gone with her to the drugstore to have a Coke or some damned thing. He didn't remember. She wasn't old enough to go to Amsterdam's for a drink, but she was past the age of consent. No San Quentin quail, Evette; not when Paul had met her. Before that? He didn't know about that, but he had heard things.
He started going out with Evette-to San Francisco, to Jack London Square in Oakland. Her mother and stepfather never seemed to give a damn when she got home. Her stepfather was Harry McPherson, the attorney in town who made a living. The rest of them did not make it, but McPherson was very successful and owned a large home. He was even Samuel Carlson's attorney, and that alone made you a big man in Thornton. And McPherson was also a part-time builder of tract houses when he was not practicing law.
After their fourth date, Evette had come over to Paul's place to see it ... and she stayed there that night. He had not planned this, but it happened. He had never known a girl like Evette in his life and he doubted that he ever would. He had never thought it possible for a woman to drain him completely, to carry off all his energy, but she had. Then she had asked him why he was tired.
Her big breasts and wide hips had urged him on and on and on until there was nothing left in him, and she had wanted him to make love to her again.
But he knew that she, too, was tired, even though she did not admit it.
They went on seeing each other for a while, a few more times. There were reservations Paul had about Evette, one of them being that he was a friend of her real father. Not a friend of McPherson, but of Roy Warwick. However, there was little identification in his mind with Evette and Roy. He never thought of them as father and daughter, probably because Roy never mentioned her.
Then Evette got harder to see; she was always busy with something or somebody else. His desire and need for her grew, even as she appeared to lose interest in him. He wanted to marry Evette then.
But she avoided him, avoided him to be with eight other men, and it began to drive him a little crazy. He wanted her, needed her, but she no longer wanted him. She had to have others, new lovers, and he was one of the old.
After that, he had dated Margaret Carlson during the summer and at Christmas vacation. When she came home for good in February they dated frequently, and he had asked her to marry him in April, two months ago.
Margaret was tall and slim, her hair was dark, her complexion fair, and she was the daughter of the richest man in the county, his boss. Margaret was a beautiful girl in the sense that high-fashion models are beautiful, even though she did not dress in their chic style. Paul was glad of this. She had a quiet, personal charm that others did not immediately recognize. He was very fond of Margaret but he did not love her. Paul had asked her to marry him even though he was not in love with her.
He doubted if Margaret loved him. Then why were they engaged?
He did not know why; perhaps it was because there was a very good chance that they would learn to love each other. Perhaps it was because they were both of an age when they desired to be married. Perhaps they had both been lonely. Perhaps they had both loved someone else who had not returned that love.
Paul had been a friend of Roy Warwick, Evette's real father, for a long time before he had ever gone out with Evette. He had seen her in the newspaper office but he didn't know who she was at that time. Roy and his wife, Ann, had been divorced for ten years or more, and she had married Harry McPherson. Evette had only been eight or nine years old when Roy and Ann had separated.
Roy was the town drunk, but Paul had been a drinking friend of his for the five years he had been in Thornton. When he first came to town he met Roy Warwick and liked him from the start. Outside of Gerald Pierce, editor of The Blade, he was the only man Paul came in contact with who had read much or thought much.
Samuel Carlson, Margaret's father, was the most successful man in town, but he had never read Malraux or Joyce, or Glenway Wescott, either.
Roy Warwick had read more than Paul, and Paul respected a man who had done this, because he had spent a large segment of his life reading. Someday he hoped to do a serious novel but that day never arrived, it seemed. Perhaps he was too lazy, perhaps he did not have the ability or talent; he was never sure. All he was sure of was that he never seemed to do it, even though he probably wanted to, more than anything else.
Paul liked Roy Warwick a lot. Sometimes he did not enjoy being with Roy, particularly if he was very drunk. But most of the time he enjoyed sitting, drinking, and talking with Roy.
He didn't know why he couldn't associate Roy with Evette. He was her father, but not in Paul's time. Harry McPherson had been Evette's father for as long as Paul had been in town. Roy never talked about his daughter and Paul didn't mention her to Roy, not even when he had gone with her.
Paul watched the immediate image of Evette as she moved closer to his window. He looked at her bright golden hair and at her large breasts and at her slim legs; legs too slim for her heavier body. She was almost a Rubens model, almost Helene Fourment, if Helene had had lighter hair and not been quite so tall. He felt a slow movement within himself, a twitching sensation, and he hated himself for it but could not stop it. He wanted her body now as much as he ever had. It was a cheap, dirty need that moved through him but he wanted her just the same, and no amount of pious talk or pious thoughts or plans to marry Margaret could change that. He wanted to wallow in the filth of Evette Warwick more than anything else in the world.
When she was almost past the window, Evette looked up suddenly. "Hi, Paul."
He nodded, standing with his hands in his pockets and looking down at her.
"I don't see you around much any more," she said.
"No, I guess not."
"Why don't you call me some time, Paul? I never hear from you any more." He did not answer.
"Just because we had a little misunderstanding once shouldn't make any difference ... or do you think maybe sweetie-pie Margaret might not like it?" Evette paused. "Maybe I should tell her about you. Maybe I should tell her how good you were. Or have you already shown her, Paul? Have you-"
Paul whirled away from the window and walked to the other side of the room. He sat down at his desk and stared at the feature story he had written about a local grocer who had finally graduated to the supermarket class with the same store he had started with. He pulled a fresh cigarette from the pack in his vest pocket and lit it.
Stanley Hopkins came into the back office. He wore a light-gray suit even though it was still a little early in the year. He was only twenty-three, seven years younger than Paul, but he was a very good ad man. He was a little bit overweight, mostly around his chin line, but would not yet be called fat.
"Pow!" he said, "that wild duty."
Paul looked at him questioningly.
"Out there on the sidewalk."
Paul got up and left the office. He went to the washroom and bathed his face in cold water. Every man who came in contact with Evette caught the same disease. She primed every man in the world who saw her.
That wasn't much good. That made for a lot of trouble and it would be Evette's trouble, too. One of these days someone was going to do something to that girl. Someone would do her up so that she wouldn't be able to sing out, "Come on, let's do it again ... unless you're too tired."
King Virdon stood on the sidewalk in front of Greshin's department store, a block down the street from The Blade office. He stood with his hands on his hips and his stomach sucked in. He was six feet two and had weighed two hundred two and three-quarter pounds that morning on the scales in the county sheriff's office. King wore a skin-tight pinkish-gray uniform that was tightest across the chest and in the seat and crotch of the trousers. It was not completely a standard uniform, since he had had the shirt, with the size eighteen collar, cut down to fit his chest snugly; and the trousers, actually well-tailored slacks, had been purchased inside of Greshin's for thirty-five dollars.
King Virdon was a deputy sheriff at Roseboro County, first deputy. Thornton had a city police but their authority ranked second to the county sheriff's office. Clinton B. Bowers had been elected sheriff for five consecutive four-year terms, and it did not seem reasonable that he would ever be defeated within his lifetime. The first two times he ran he had been opposed and won by a landslide. The last three elections no one had bothered to run against him.
Eight years before, King Virdon came home from the Navy and had been undecided as to whether to go to college or learn a trade. He did neither, since Clinton B. Bowers was a friend of his father, or had been a number of years earlier, and Bowers appointed King a deputy sheriff. Today King was first deputy, the highest non-elective rank that could be held in the sheriff's office.
King Virdon was twenty-nine years old and a very proud and vain man. His life never actually lived up to his expectations but he never let anyone know it. His forty-four-inch chest and thirty-inch waist helped maintain his confidence, even though his waist would have measured two inches larger than that if he had not held it in.
King privately enjoyed being a bully, although he rarely let that part of himself be seen. He was never overtly a bully; he was a surreptitious bully, a bully in little things, forcing people to do his will although never having to use physical pain or the threat of it.
He was a big man with a big chest and he made the most of it. His tight clothes made him look lean and hard and hungry, even though massive. In his whole life he had never been completely sexually satisfied and it discolored his philosophy of sex and of women. His desires and wishes in life had been mainly frustrated. When he was in the Navy he had wanted to become a petty officer, even third class, but he had failed at that. He was never promoted beyond seaman, first, even though he had had enough intelligence and a good enough record for becoming a petty officer.
Perhaps an officer had not liked him; perhaps it had been bad luck, but King Virdon left the U.S. Navy with a bad taste in his mouth.
Being part of the sheriff's office in Roseboro County was important, more important than being a meager Naval petty officer. King often reminded himself of this and prided himself in the fact that he had risen to first deputy due to merit promotions ... and a little bit of luck along the way. He was a hard industrious police officer who never did anything the easy way, and was critical of any man in the sheriff's office or in the city police department who did. Of course he was not directly involved with the city police force, but he could be critical of them anyway.
King Virdon was a thorough and honest cop, even though he was a bully and, sometimes, a cheat and a liar in other phases of his life. He was a complicated young man who did not understand himself or others, but had very set opinions about both.
King Virdon was a first-class bastard, but he tried not to let this interfere with his job; he tried never to slough-off when he worked, even if it was a dull task. Sometimes he used his position in the sheriff's office to gain certain advantages for himself ... and he always felt guilty about it later.
King stood in front of Greshin's department store with his closed hands on his hips, his right hand a little above the holstered thirty-eight police special. His shirt moved evenly with his breathing, and his necktie, neatly knotted in a four-in-hand, was tucked inside his shirt.
He saw Evette Warwick coming down the sidewalk on the sunny side, his side, with the sun touching her golden hair. He watched her move her generous hips from side to side and he surveyed her voluptuous body for perhaps the hundredth time in the last few years, since she had grown into full-fl-edged womanhood.
Evette excited him every time he saw her. He felt that she was his perfect match physically and he longed for a woman like that. A man with his body should have a woman like that, he knew. But the other women in town with fine bodies were all married to thin, sickly-looking men or fat ones, and the men with the true man's body were always somehow married to anemic, flat-chested women. It wasn't sound biological reasoning. King Virdon needed a woman like Evette.
Only one thing bothered King as he watched the girl approach him: she had never given him a tumble. Evette did not apparently like him and he did not know why. She had never liked him, not even when he had first come home from the Navy eight years ago, when she had been a punk kid and had no body at all. A lot of girls, even ones her age, had crushes on him. He had been nearly a Mr. America in his tight sailor suit, and the ribbons on his chest hadn't hurt either. But Evette hadn't paid any attention to him then and she didn't now. The little kids, boys and girls alike, had gone in for some hero worship, but not Evette. That had been right after her mother and father had separated, maybe a couple of years afterward, he couldn't remember for sure.
King watched her near him and he felt his breath come shorter and faster. That was a dumb thing, he thought; that was the way high-school boys acted. He tried to take his eyes away from her and look at something else, but he was not able to do that.
She came nearer and nearer and his body became more tense. He sucked his stomach in a little harder and brought his jaw out some.
"Hi, Evette," he said.
Her eyes met his glance for the first time, it seemed, and she did not appear either surprised or glad that he was standing there.
"Oh, hello, King," she said nonchalantly.
She continued her pace, starting to pass him.
"Say, Evette."
She stopped, hesitatingly, as though she would move on again almost immediately.
"There's a great double-bill playing at the drive-in over in Webster tonight," he said.
"So? Outdoor movies bore me."
"We could take a drive."
She smiled nastily. "Not with you, dear boy."
"What's the matter with me?" he snapped.
"You want me to tell you all the things? Or just a couple of dozen?"
His right hand flashed out, reaching for her arm, but she moved away from him quickly. It was only two feet that she had moved, but it was as good as five hundred yards. If King reached fur ther for her, people would see and wonder. A police officer, a first deputy, couldn't be seen doing that in public.
"You don't have any right to talk to me that way," he cried.
"I've got every right. I'm a free American citizen and I'm expressing an opinion." She paused. "And my opinion of you is that you aren't enough man for me."
Evette turned abruptly and continued down the street, swaying her hips and making her buttocks rise alternately, almost like pistons in a two-cylinder engine.
King Virdon clenched his fists and stared at her, and Evette began to laugh, not looking back, continuing on her way down the street. She laughed harder with each step, cutting deeper into King Virdon's vanity, his area of fear.
Tears sprung to the young man's eyes, burning the tender flesh. He swallowed hard and brushed one hand quickly to his eyes, pretending dirt in the air had momentarily interrupted his vision.
He crossed the street quickly, still rubbing his eyes as though there was something in them. She had cut him where he lived, as expertly as any lamb-castrator had ever executed his trade. He walked rapidly in the opposite direction and on the other side of the street from Evette. He was trying to flee the pain and, even as he tried, he knew that flight from a blow already landed was not possible.
He came to Amsterdam's restaurant and went inside quickly to the protective darkness he knew was there. Amsterdam's was the only quality restaurant in Thornton and had the only bar that was not in the saloon class. King went to the neat, freshly polished mahogany bar that had only two customers now, and sat down by himself at the end nearest the door. He was off duty and was not infringing on the county's time by coming here. Things like this were important to him, even though telling the truth or outright cheating in other matters were not necessarily important.
"Hello, King," the fat middle-aged bartender said. His hair was receding and, even in the dim light, there was a gloss to the skin on his head.
"Yeah, George, make me a bourbon and water. A double, I guess." He paused. "I just got off duty ten minutes ago."
"Sure, King. You never drink on the job."
"That's right."
George pulled a bottle of bond bourbon off the back bar and began to mix King Virdon's highball, even though King had not indicated a preference for "call" whiskey; but George had a respect for the law, a law that had never given him or the management of Amsterdam's any trouble. After spending several hours at Amsterdam's, King's tab never went beyond two dollars. It was a house rule for anyone in the sheriff's office, although it didn't pertain to the city police, and no one from the sheriff's office had ever objected, including the conscientious cop, King Virdon.
George put the drink in front of King and King lifted it a little and nodded to the bartender.
"Luck, George," he said and swallowed from his double bourbon. The whiskey was the best in the house, but a double of hundred-proof bourbon was still a double slug, and the little water mixed with it had small effect on the burning sensation in King's mouth and throat. But it felt good.
He put the glass down and pursed his lips. "Nothing like a little cough medicine for a cold, George."
"Yeah." Balding George dried bar glasses with a clean, highly bleached towel. His hands moved quickly, making the glasses shine. It was a job he enjoyed doing, King thought; it was something to keep him busy when business was slack. There was very little else to do behind a bar when there were no customers, particularly when all the routine chores had already been done earlier.
"Why don't you have one with me?" King said, "and put it on my tab."
A slow smile crossed George's face. "Don't mind if I do, King." He laid down the glass and towel he was holding and mixed himself a drink from the same good stock. But he used only one shot. "Long night ahead. Have to go easy."
"Sure," King said. "I'm off duty but you're on for a long haul now."
"Yeah. I just came on. Have to go easy." He took another quick sip. Everything George did, from mixing a drink to drying glasses to having a drink, was done quickly and nervously.
The front door opened and King half-turned his head towards it, hoping it wasn't Clinton B. Bowers and some of his political friends. It wouldn't look right, he thought, for the first deputy to be sitting at the bar having a drink with the bartender, even though off duty.
King had little to worry about. It was Stanley Hopkins, The Blade's ad man who was a little bit fat, and Paul Moran, the reporter on the paper. Moran was a very thin man, almost but not quite skinny, King thought. He didn't weigh much and his face was thin and sunken under the cheekbones, but there was a hardness about him King did not like. Moran reminded him of the little skinny guy on the J.V. football team who made it and later became a star halfback on the varsity. He had not been heavy enough to be a football player but he had made it anyway.
King did not like Paul Moran. He was not from Thornton; he had come from San Francisco five years before to go to work for The Blade. He didn't spend much time with the general run of people and he was friendly with fat-face Hopkins, whom King did not like, Gerald Pierce, the editor of The Blade, whom King did not like either, and Roy Warwick, the town drunk. Moran had also made some time with Evette a year or so before, and King did not like that much either.
King didn't like skinny men with small chests who wore vests and looked hard. A man should carry a body that looked like a man's, not a corpse's.
He laughed a little as he pulled on his drink.
"What's so funny, King?" George said.
"Nothing. Just something I thought about."
Stanley Hopkins and Moran sat down several stools away from King and George went to take their order. They both asked for whiskey and water and got bar whiskey in their drinks. They talked for a moment or so; then Stanley said in a higher-pitched voice, "That Warwick kid is real wild duty."
Paul Moran did not answer.
"Every time I see that little bitch," Stanley said, King Virdon swung off his stool quickly and moved to where the other men sat.
Stanley looked up at him, puzzled.
"I don't like that kind of talk," King said. "I don't like it at all."
"I wasn't talking to you, big boy," Stanley said.
"Don't get smart with me."
"Why don't you go catch a child molester," Stanley said.
King's hand flew out and slapped the fat young man across the mouth. He fell back against Paul Moran.
Paul eased Stanley up and moved off his stool slowly. He came around his friend's back and eyed King Virdon.
"Don't hit people, cop," he said.
"I didn't like what he said."
"I don't give a damn what you don't like. You touch him again and I'll knock your brains out."
"Don't talk to me that way."
"I'm not talking to you any way. You just struck a man and you have no right to do that. You're a police officer. If you want to keep your job, keep your hands to yourself."
"You want to fight me, Moran?"
"If I fight you, you won't have a job in the morning. Even a cruddy politician like Bowers wouldn't keep a man who gets into barroom brawls."
King Virdon bit his lip, clenching and unclenching his big hands.
"Now I just did you a favor, fellow," Paul Moran said. "I did you a big favor. If you still want to fight, I'll go outside with you; but I think you'll be way ahead if you just leave."
"If I wasn't a deputy sheriff-" King spat.
"But you are," Moran said. "That's the point. If you don't understand it-"
King swung around abruptly, grabbed into his pocket for money, threw it on the bar, and hurried out the door.
He hadn't been able to put up with what the little fat guy from the paper had said about Evette. He talked about her as though she were the town slut or something. Even though she had never given King the time of day, he knew a real woman when he saw one. Just because a girl had the breasts and hips that all women should have, it didn't give the fat little s.o.b. the right to make dirty cracks about her.
But Evette shouldn't act the way she did. It wasn't good. She didn't understand things like that, but the way she twisted her hips gave a lot of men ideas. She didn't know she was doing it, but what about the little fat guy and his dirty mouth?
If she didn't look out, somebody might make trouble for her.
Some sex fiend might even ... might even try to kill her.
At that moment, King Virdon didn't know: Someone was going to kill Evette Warwick.