Meeting Evil by Thomas Berger Read Free Book Online Page A

thicker-set. He had been husky enough to play fullback on his high-school team, but at 185 he was too small for the college squad, not to mention that his speed was not sufficient to compensate. Today he was in the neighborhood of 210, despite trying to watch what he ate. But it was rare that he exercised.
    When he looked at the ignition, he saw that the keys were missing: he could not have stranded Richie if he had wanted to.
    A moment later Richie was back, paper bag in hand and a smile on his face. He professed delight at John’s return.
    Not wishing to leave the impression that he had come back for any reason but necessity, John explained about the woman in the taxi office.
    Richie scowled. “Scum. They’re everywhere these days.” He handed the bag to John. “Help yourself. I got extra doughnuts and coffee, just in case. I’ll be right back.” He walked rapidly away.
    “Hey,” John shouted, but Richie vanished around the back of the car. John could not see where he went from there. “Goddamn him,” John said to the woman. “He’s been doing that to me all morning, and as usual I’m trapped.… Look, I hate to ask, but I assure you I’m good for the money. Could you possibly lend me the taxi fare to get home? It couldn’t be more than five bucks. I live just up the hill. I swear to you I’m a respectable person. I sell real estate, have a wife and two little kids, one just a baby. I look like this because it’s my day off and I didn’t expect to be out of the house.” He handed the bag to her.
    In a hollow voice she said, “I don’t have any money. He took it all.”
    “Richie? Are you saying Richie took your money away from you? He just
took
it?”
    She acquired more energy. “He asked me for money. He didn’t have any.”
    “Well, that’s different, isn’t it?” John said reproachfully. “I’m asking for a loan right now. If you had any to give me, and you gave it, would you say I stole it?”
    She looked at him. There was no life in her eyes. “I told you I’m afraid of that guy. He’s dangerous. I didn’t have the nerve not to give him everything I had.”
    John began privately to fume. Richie was taking forever, leaving him with this woman, who seemed quite as nutty a person as Richie himself. After all, she had begun their acquaintance by offering to have sex with him, a perfect stranger. He still did not know her name.
    “Look,” he said, “I’m John Felton.”
    Her response was mumbled.
    “Sharon?” he asked. “Is that your name?… Okay, Sharon, I’ll get your money back from him—less, of course, what he paid for the doughnuts—and everything will be all right again, you’ll see. Then I’ll drive you home. Maybe at that point you’ll lend me the cab fare. Meanwhile, maybe you have a quarter left, somewhere way down in your purse? I know my wife sometimes finds change down there.” He had spotted a public telephone set into the outside corner of a savings-and-loan building a few doors down. Unfortunately the S&L was not one of those which he recommended to home-buyers when they asked for places to go for mortgages. The ladies who owned Tesmir Realty had several other preferred institutions. Else he could have gone inside and borrowed a bill or two from one of the loan officers who would have known him.
    But before Sharon could react, Richie had returned, coming to the driver’s window and giving John the keys, his manner that of an obedient boy surrendering the family car to his father. Before he reached the passenger’s door, Sharon desperately scrambled out and jumped into the rear. She was short, so presumably would be more suited to the little backseat than Richie, but still it did not seem altogether right to John for her to give way in her own car to a stranger, though perhaps it was otherwise if Richie could be called a guest.
    But he himself was under no such restraints, and when Richie was in place beside him, John turned and said, “Let’s have