The Criminal (8 page)

He wouldn't say that that Talbert kid was any worse than the rest. At least, he wouldn't say it at first. But he got around to it. Yes, sir, that Talbert was a real bad one, the ringleader of the crowd. Should have locked him up long ago…

The photographer and I went over to the Talbert neighborhood. I went from door to door, and while I didn't hit pay dirt at every house I still got plenty. The kid had lived there all his life, fifteen whole years. Any kid will pull some out-of-the-way stunts in that time, or if he doesn't he might as well. He'll still be accused of them.

So…

So there were windows that had been broken and trash barrels set on fire and ugly words chalked on sidewalks. There were little girls who'd been chased ("and we hadn't done
anything
") and a woman who'd seen someone peeking in her bathroom window ("and I'm almost positive now that I think about it…") and an old maid who'd been followed home from the station one night, and she
was
positive period.

There was a lot more evidence in the case of
Friends and Neighbors
vs. Robert Talbert, but I see no need to set it down here. It was about par for the course, about what you might dig up on me if you visited around my childhood neighborhood-and
if
I was in jail on suspicion of murder at the time of your inquiry.

It's amazing, you know, honestly amazing, that any crime is ever committed. Because I've never yet talked to the associates or acquaintances of a miscreant who didn't know all along that he was a thoroughly bad egg. He didn't
act
right, you know. He couldn't look you straight in the eye (or he looked too straight). He talked too much (or he didn't talk enough). Oh, they knew he was a crook all right, knew he was about to pull a fast one. So why didn't they stop him, why didn't they mention their suspicions? Well…

You tell me.

Talbert hadn't gone to work, naturally, and he and the missus were both home. They'd been expecting the boy's release all day, and she blew her top at the news that he was being held indefinitely. I'd been sure she would; you could see the sub-surface hysteria in her eyes, hear it in the high-pitched, too-rapid speech. She'd probably always been a little flighty, and the menopause hits that kind hard.

Mr. Talbert tried to comfort her-he looked like he could stand some comforting himself-and she turned on him. It was his fault! He'd driven Bobbie to it! Always nagging and scolding and picking on the boy. Treating him like a man when he was only a baby.

"You drove him to it! Yes, you did! Y-You…!"

Talbert took it as long as he could. Then, he began to unwind. She hadn't made a home for the boy. She was always chasing around, gossiping with the neighbors, instead of taking care of the house. She hadn't acted like a mother should. She'd embarrassed and shamed the kid so much with her doggone nuttiness that he was afraid to bring any friends to the house. He'd had to meet them outside, and they were the wrong kind, naturally, and-.

The photographer started shooting them. They clammed up fast, shamed and scared, realizing, I guess, that in taking out their peeves on each other they'd as good as admitted the boy's guilt.

Talbert told us to get out. He seemed to mean it, so we did.

We went a few doors down the street to the Eddlemans', the parents of the dead girl.

They'd been assuaging their sorrow with a bottle, and they'd had enough to be pretty talkative. Oddly enough, or at least it seemed odd to me, they were reluctant to knock the kid. They didn't see how Bobbie could have done a thing like that. Of course, if he
had
done it, he ought to be-

"But I'd hate to think he did," Eddleman said. "It's kind of hard to believe that he did. I never cared much for the kid, y'understand, one of these close-mouthed kind that acted like it'd bust his ribs if he laughed. But…"

"I know what you mean," I said. "I suppose he'd just about have to be like that, don't you? I don't know much about his parents, but I imagine they could get a kid down in time."

His eyes flashed, and his big red face turned a shade or two redder. "You got something there, mister," he grunted. "That old man of his, old frozen-face, there ain't a soul I know that'll say a good word for him. He's just plain damned mean, get me? And quick tempered! Why, just the other day, now, I tried to pass a little joke with him- remember, Fay, I told you about it-and I actually thought he was going to murder me!"

"That's right, Mr. Willis," Fay Eddleman nodded vigorously. "That's exactly the way he is. And his mother! An absolute lunatic, if there ever was one. You can be going along, minding your own business, and here she'll come, and-and she'll just act awful! Just say the dirtiest, craziest things she can think of!"

"Oh, she's nuts all right," Eddleman said. "Crazy as a bedbug. But she can't hold a candle to the old man. A regular maniac, and he's a crook, too. I sold a house to a party one time that'd done some business with him, and he said…"

We talked a while longer; they did, rather. And you probably know the conclusion they reached.

He'd done it all right, they decided. He'd tried to assault the girl once before, and there'd been plenty of other indications that he was a murderer in the making. They'd seen it coming on for a long time. He was guilty as hell, the dirty little skunk, but his parents were guiltier. They were
really
responsible and they ought to be punished right along with him.

…The photographer and I took a quick whirl through the shopping center. That wrapped it up. I told the photog to pull me three extra prints on each of the pictures. Then, I let him go and went home to my apartment. I wrote the story there, or, rather, it almost wrote itself, making an original and three copies. I sorted the various pages out, and read back through it.

It was something, believe me. There hadn't been any thing like it since the
Graphic
folded. I thought of what Skysmith was going to say, and I laughed out loud. I read back through the thing again.

That kid… Jesus, this was going to be pretty bad for him! But-well, I hadn't invented anything, had I? I hadn't exaggerated? No (I answered myself), I hadn't.

The dirt was there, and I'd dug for it. Dug pretty hard. But I hadn't put a gun to anyone's head. I'd simply talked and let them talk, spilling out the dirt that was in them.

I poured myself a drink. I gulped it down and had a few more. I went back through the story again. And this time the doubts, the hunch, I'd had that morning began to grow. These people thought the kid was guilty. The people who knew him best, his own parents, thought he was guilty. There wasn't any real evidence, when you tried to pin it down. It was the sort of stuff you might dig up on almost any kid. Still- well, what if it was? It wasn't anything to his credit, was it? It certainly didn't prove he was innocent, did it?

And so many people felt the same way about him. And he'd acted pretty damned shifty when I'd talked to him. He had this story down too pat. He was too straightforward… and not straightforward enough. He hadn't seemed very sorry about the girl, just sort of dull and defiant. And…

Well, he could be guilty as easily as not. I wouldn't say that he was, but I wouldn't say that he was innocent, either.

I fixed myself a bite to eat, and had a few more drinks. The phone rang repeatedly and I let it. It would be the office, Dudley or Skysmith, wondering what the hell had happened to me. I wasn't ready to go in yet, for several reasons.

A messenger arrived with the extra prints of the pictures. I sorted them into stacks and put them with the dupes on the stories.

The phone rang three times and stopped. I picked it up and dialed the d.a. He said the kid was cracking. He'd sent the detectives out to dinner, and they'd work on him some more afterwards.

"I imagine we'll have 'to bury him," he said, "I'm surprised we haven't been hit with a writ before this."

"So am I," I said. "Where are you taking him, Clint?"

"Well… You really want to know, Bill?"

"No," I said. "I guess I don't. I don't know anything. Just call me at the office when you have the news."

…It was about ten o'clock when I went in, a little more than an hour before the presses started to roll on the early morning edition. Only a few dog-trick men were scattered around the big city room. Dudley had given up and gone home, but Don Skysmith was still in his office. He jumped up, scowling, when I walked in. "Jesus, God, Bill, what the hell kept you? Is that the story? Well, give it to me, for Christ's sake!" He yanked the pages out of my hand. I sat down across the desk from him, and pulled the early-morning dummy in front of me. He grunted, startled. He let out a howl and slapped the desk with his hand. "For God's sake, Bill! What the hell is this?" "Yes?" I said. "Is there something wrong, Mr. Skysmith?" "Something wrong! Why, goddammit"-he thrust the story at me-"are you out of your goddamned mind? Get out of here! Get out there to a typewriter, and do this like it should be done. You know damned well we can't-"

"Mr. Skysmith," I said, "that story will run exactly as it is written. Exactly, understand? In fact, I'm going to see it through the composing room and onto the presses."

"
Huh?"
He stared at me, open mouthed. "Are you-"

"Yes," I said, "it will run as written, Mr. Skysmith, or it will not run at all."
Push me around, will you, you phony?

He said I was crazy, again, I was out of my goddamned mind. He scrubbed at his forehead. "Look, Bill. I-I-" His lips trembled in his taut, pale face. "I know how hard you must have worked on this. I k-know how it is when you're a reporter and you knock yourself out on something and t-then some desk man tells you it-it- Just let it go, Bill, and I'll take care of it. My wife's pretty sick and I was in kind of a hurry to-"

"Donald," I said. "Your majesty. The story runs as is."

"It can't! It- What the hell you mean, calling me-?"

"You wanted dirt," I said. "You got it."

"Goddamn you, I didn't want anything like this! I told you we had to use some judgment, we had to be careful! This is-is-it's outrageous! We'll get a bad reaction from it. We're pulling the switch on the kid. Why, goddammit, the Captain would blow his top if-"

"Suppose we leave it to the Captain?" I said.

"
What?
You know we-"

"Call him up," I said. "Tell him you tried to push the wrong guy around, and he's got you over a barrel. Tell him…"

I told him what to tell the Captain. The story would go into the
Star
as it was written. Otherwise, I'd give it to the three opposition papers. They'd print it if they thought we were going to. In any event, and
if
they did tone it down, our scoop would be shot. The Captain was looking forward to this surprise party. He meant to run the other sheets off the stands. Now there wouldn't be any surprise, and the
Star
would probably do a little running itself.

"Oh, yes," I said, "you might also tell him I've got the confession on ice. Ask him if he'd like to see it in the
Star
after
it comes out in the opposition."

His mouth moved wordlessly. Slowly, he sank down into his chair.

"Y-You-you won't get away with this, Willis! I'll get you and that lousy d.a. if-"

"You mean you're going to admit you're a sap?" I said. "I don't think you will, Donald. The Captain might forgive a bit of faulty judgment-over-enthusiasm-but he doesn't have much use for chumps. It's almost a phobia with him, you know. He hates 'em like crazy. Now, sons-of-bitches, he doesn't mind. He-"

"Like you, huh? Like you for example."

"Oh, well," I said. "I wasn't asking for compliments… May I?"

I pulled the story and art across the desk. I took a pencil out of my pocket.

He said, "Bill… why, Bill? What's it all about?"

"You pushed me around," I said. "I do not like to be pushed around." Especially by a man who never was a real newspaperman.

"But-but I didn't! I haven't! I've never meant to, anyway. God, you don't hold Dudley against me, do you? I have to back up my city editor."

I didn't answer him. I bent over the papers.

His desk drawer opened; there was the scrape of metal against glass and the smell of whiskey.

He said, "What are you doing, Bill?" And I looked up.

"I'm writing heads," I said, evenly. "I'm captioning pictures. I'm fixing up the dummy. Pretty handy, huh? No need to bother with copy men or picture desk or news editor. I can get the stuff and I can write the stuff, and then I can carry it right on through the mill and I can do it better than any son-of-a-bitch in the shop. I could even set it up on the lino, if I had a card, and I could lay it out on the stone. I don't need to take anyone's word for what's right. I can tell them. Because I'm a newspaper man, get me? An all around, two-handed man. It's all I've ever done, all I ever want to do. Take me away from newspapers and I'd die, and I'd want to die. And you can't understand that, can you, Skysmith? You can't because you're not a newspaper man. You're just a punk who got the breaks. A college boy who lucked himself into a Pulitzer and rode it for all it was worth. You're… well, skip it."

He took another drink, hesitated, and pushed the bottle across the desk. I pretended not to see it.

"I see, Bill," he said, quietly. "I'm beginning to understand why…"