Rose Marie is trying something a little different, serializing a book she has written — "The Evil Men Do." Each month she will be sharing a chapter with you. As the months go by, you will be able to go back and re-read previous chapters if you wish to. This book is presented here exactly as she has written it. We welcome your thoughts on both the book itself and the process we are trying. So — jump in!

If you missed previous chapters, they can be read here: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12

The Evil Men Do by Rose Marie Zurkan

Chapter Thirteen

At the cashier's window, Stu identified himself and said he was looking for his uncle, but George's name didn't mean anything to the burly man behind the grill. "Then let me talk to somebody else," he said. The cashier, wearing an old-fashioned white shirt and sideburns, plaid suspenders and a red bow tie, pushed a button under the drawer, and another man stepped out of the back room. Another muscleman, but this one wore a well fitting silk suit. At the moment he was breathing hard, and Stu, expecting trouble, felt his stomach tighten. But the man politely asked him to accompany him to the offices located behind the cashier. When he opened the door, allowing Stu to precede him, Stu saw George, no sign of abuse visible, standing at a window and looking out. "Asked me if I knew who you were.  Told them you're my nephew," he said without turning around. "That's why they let you in. Why are you here, Stu?  Did Suzanne send you?"

"Something like that." George nodded. Stu could tell he felt nervous because of the death grip with which his hand clutched the heavy drapes at one side of the window. The man standing at George's side would have made anyone nervous, and the other man, who had let him in, joined him on George's other side. Hands clenched, Stu noticed. The air felt tense, hostile. George turned around. A muscle at the side of his mouth twitched, but other than that he appeared calm enough. What was happening here, Stu wondered. Were they holding George against his will? Could he be right? They were certainly capable of murder.

The third man in the room, sitting in a heavily upholstered chair, was frail-looking and elderly.  He pointed to one of the men flanking George. "Barry. The other one's Jimmy. You really his nephew?" Stu said he was. "Better try to talk some sense into him." He too breathed heavily, as if suffering from emphysema.  Stu realized that the chair was medical issue, a lift chair.

"I already told you." George sounded tired. "You went too far. I'm here to see you pay for what you did."

"What do you mean? What the hell does he mean?" The sick man, genuinely perplexed, his forehead a mass of wrinkles, asked Stu. "What does he think we did?"

George answered for him. "Murder, that's what I mean—don't deny it."

For a moment, Stu failed to react. Then, coming to life, hoping he didn't look as nervous as he felt, he said, "come on, George. We're getting out of here. I wish I got to you sooner, like before you came out there."

"It was your idea." George sounded hurt.

"What are you talking about?" Stu asked the question, the sick man nodded, as if in approval.

"You started it," George said, "looking into my brother's death, telling everybody it was murder, not suicide. Give me credit, Stu. I'm not stupid. I owe these guys money, my brother dies and suddenly I have the money to pay them off. All I had to do was put two and two together."

"You put two and two together and got five, you moron," thundered the man in the silk suit.  "That's what I've been telling him," he added, to Stu.

"You killed him," George insisted.

"Wait, George," Stu cautioned. "That's pretty strong stuff. You have proof?"

George failed to listen. "They laughed at me. Poor George, they said, ask your brother for the money. But when I told them he wouldn't give me the money they killed him."  He turned to Stu, his voice plaintive. "If they didn't kill him, who did?"

"Let's get out of here, George," said Stu.

George pointed a finger at the old man. "They would have killed him anyway. They were supposed to get that worthless land near where you live, Stu. A breeding place for flies if you ask me, but they want to put up a casino, and my brother said no."

The frail old man's face turned an alarming purplish red. "You—you—listen, you," he sputtered.  He addressed Stu, "I have no idea what the hell he's talking about."

"Sure you do." George sounded complacent; had he forgotten he was surrounded by men capable of tearing him apart—handily? Stu wished he'd shut up.

"Sure, at one time I expressed interest in building a casino, and I called your brother and put it to him, let's do it together, his land, my money, why not?"

"Is this true?" Stu asked.

"Sure it's true. He liked the idea. It was me—me—I was the one who decided we shouldn't do it, too much red tape. Not only that, too many bodies buried there. Aw, what's the use, why am I explaining to a snotnose like you." A growling noise emanated from deep in his throat. "How about this? You killed him yourself to get the money to pay off your debts. It was the only way, wasn't it?  Wasn't it?"

A deep cough racked his body, and one of the men grabbed his arm. "Lay off him, now, it's not good for him to get excited." He turned to Stu. "Get him the hell outta here. He doesn't know what he's talking about."

"If you didn't kill him, who did?" George asked again, still making his case. The two men each grabbed an arm. George tried, unsuccessfully, to shrug them off. 

"Leave him alone," the old man ordered. "He isn't worth getting the cops here."

"Now get outta here—don't come back." They pushed him out the door, Stu right behind him.

"I have a right--you made plenty of money out of me, I have a right to try and get it back," George objected. "I bet the tables are rigged anyway." Again, Stu wished he'd shut up, tightened his grip on George's arm, started dragging him toward the cashier. "I'll come back if I want—you can't stop me. Oh, hell, I don't want to come back. This place makes me sick. You make me sick."

Silk suit walked out, leaned forward, grabbed George's lapels, pulling him onto his toes. "I give the word, you're history. Understand?"

Stu shivered. He believed wholeheartedly the man spoke the truth, hoped George believed it too.  Silk suit opened the door, and Stu dragged George all the way out, past the cashier, through the door the cashier opened after a nod from one of the men standing in the doorway, Barry or Jimmy, Stu had already forgotten which was which, into the glittering, artificial, shoddy world beyond, Stu half expecting that someone would stop them before they reached the street. No one at the tables or slot machines gave them a second look.

To Stu's surprise, George reached into his pocket and brought out a small handgun. "Take this—I thought I'd have to use it. I would have if you hadn't been there."

"Lucky for you I was. How'd you get it on the plane?"

"In a box, checked. May as well get rid of it now, save the hassle of checking it again."

"Why on earth did you bring it?"

George stopped in the middle of the empty street. Stu noticed that a taxi was following them.  "What do you think? To shoot somebody."

"Who?" Stu felt desperate. Had George lost his mind?

"Them, of course. The ones who murdered my brother and made it look like suicide. Who else? You and I aren't the only ones who don't think Prudhomme committed suicide, are we?"

"What made you think it was one of them?" Stu asked.

"They practically told me I should do it. They wanted him dead."

"Why, because of the money or because of the marsh?"

"I don't believe what the old man said, that they're innocent. They still want to build that casino.  Prudhomme strung them along, don't ask me why. He didn't approve of gambling. About the only thing he did disapprove of. Personally, I don't think a casino is any worse than a mall."

Gambling or a mall, which one was it?  Prudhomme hadn't wanted either.

They stopped at the post office, and Stu purchased a couple of padded mailing envelopes, inserted the gun in one of them and the bullets in another, addressed them both to George and mailed them.

"Where'd you learn to dismantle a revolver like that?" George asked.

"School."

"I never learned anything useful like that."

They caught the next plane back to New York, and when they had left the strip behind, its neon lights slowly turning on, the city honky-tonks gearing up for another busy night, Stu said, "tell me why you keep coming back here. You must have a reason. I want to hear it."

George's eyes were closed, he looked asleep but was very much awake. "I was hoping to win big," he said.

"At the tables?"

"I know how it sounds. I spent so much money on the campaign, and then they wouldn't give me a job. It was Reed, he didn't want me in the firm."

"The firm's in trouble," Stu said.

"So you say. They always have an excuse." 

Stu hid his disappointment; he hoped George's story would not be limited to that whiny past that belonged only to George. He kept silent, hoping George would eventually touch on some pertinent fact.  "It was my own fault," he continued. "I tried to please everybody, my father, my brother, Suzanne, but you can't please everybody. I failed miserably. The trouble, Stu, with doing what other people tell you to do is sooner or later you forget you ever had plans of your own. You get caught up in other people's idea of what success is all about until you honestly don't know anymore what it means. Eventually, whatever plans you had, abilities you had, atrophy like an unused arm or leg. I know I must have been good at some things as a boy and later, as a man. I remember I was musical. Music is what brought Suzanne and me together. She tell you that?" Stu shook his head.  "I took cello lessons," George continued. "I was chubby, and the way I looked, sitting with the cello between my knees and strumming away on it was a joke. They all teased me, and you know who teased me the most? Your father. He could turn anything into a joke."

Prudhomme and his brothers, Stu hoped he wasn't like them. "George," he asked, "help me figure out who killed him."

George sighed.  "It was those people in Las Vegas, I told you."

Stu shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Then I can't help you," George said. "I have my own problems. Suzanne wants a divorce."

"I didn't know."

"I thought she might have asked you for advice. She likes to ask people for advice, though she never takes it."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm hoping she'll change her mind. We're not lucky in love, our family. First there was Mother, and then there was that other business—no use raking up the past, though."

Stu felt like shaking him. "Raking up the past is exactly what I want to do. What about the past?  Tell me."

George looked apologetic. "I don't really know everything. I'm a lot younger than the others, remember. I think my father figured she'd give up her plans for a career, stay home and take care of me, but it didn't work that way. She had me and went right ahead with her plans. I was a failure from the day I was born."

"What about what you said before that, what you called, ‘that other business'?"

"Oh, that. I woke up one night, and people were yelling—screaming, really—something that just never happened at our house. Of course, I knew somehow I was the cause. Even then I felt guilty all the time. That was when your father and mother lived there too and you as well. The next morning your mother was gone, and that was that. I asked where she went, but no one would tell me. You don't remember, you were a baby."

Stu was aware that the family had once lived in the same house, three generations existing side by side. Aside from a general feeling of coldness throughout his body, Stu felt nothing. He didn't remember his mother, nor did he remember the event George described. Somehow he thought, young as he was, he should remember. "I thought she died," he said.

"She left, never came back."

"Why?" Stu asked, more to himself than to George.

"I think your father had an affair." George glanced at him. "I wasn't going to tell you. Are you sorry I did?"

"No. Do you think it has a bearing on my father's murder?"

"I can't see how," George said. "Edgar or Jonah know more. They were always listening at keyholes. Still are, I bet."

"I'd rather find out some other way."

"I still think it was those guys in Las Vegas." George swallowed. "For a while there I thought you thought it was me. What made you change your mind?"

"What makes you think I changed my mind?"

That shut him up, even though Stu smiled and punched his arm to show that he was joking, and they were silent for the rest of the long journey. 

George never drove his car to the airport, preferring to take a taxi after arriving in the early hours of the morning, as he normally did, so Stu drove him home. "Come in for a minute," George pleaded.  "I see a light. Suzanne must be up. You'll be making it easier for me."

Stu had no particular desire to make anything easy for George but walked him to the door.  "Did my father keep his papers anywhere but at the office? Do you know?"

"Ask Reed, he'd know."

In the past, Stu had felt ashamed of his revulsion for Reed, who had always been kind to him.  Distant, but kind. So why did Stu feel uncomfortable in Reed's presence?  He'd felt that way from childhood. Something about the way Reed searched his face. Just as Stu's grandfather had done. Once, years ago, Stu summed up his courage and asked Reed what he saw. Reed had laughed and said he was admiring the length of Stu's eyelashes.

Leaving George at his door, Stu returned home and phoned Janet. "Suppose I said I have a surprise for you."

"What kind of surprise?"

"If I tell you it won't be a surprise," he said. "We had a good time the other day on the boat, didn't we? In spite of the rain."

"Stu, we're not kids anymore."

"I know that. That's why I want our relationship to be different now."

"What do you mean?"

"I want you to be able to say you're willing to spend the rest of your life with me, and you don't want to spend the rest of your life without me."

"I'm independent now," she said. "I intend to stay that way."

"You call working in a paint store a career? It's Carl, isn't it?"

"That's none of your business."

Stu felt like smashing something. Independent—how could she be independent, working in a paint store. Independence was an illusion, would continue to be an illusion even if she married Carl.  Which she mustn't do! He sensed Prudhomme probably felt the same way about Sharon.  These women, they had no right to be happy without them.

"You haven't changed at all," she said. "This is like—like fishing in the same old pond where the fish have died out."

She hurt him, but he deserved it. She had outpaced him, rising from the ashes of the past free and whole. A mere man, he felt dazzled by her power of regeneration.

Stu brewed himself coffee and stood at the window drinking it. The sun had gone down a long time ago, but enough light reflected off the strand, enough moonlight fell on the water, to enable him to pick out the road, the beach.

For a while after Prudhomme died, even as he started digging into the events preceding his death, Stu had wondered if he only imagined that Prudhomme had been murdered. Would he ever unearth enough evidence to convince and satisfy the police? And there was another problem. What else would he unearth if he kept digging?  Nothing would bring him back. Stu reflected on the wonder of the Prudhomme family's having dwindled down to the old man, George, Edgar, Jonah and himself. After two generations, not so long, the energy, the drive and ruthlessness had become so diluted that not one person remained fit to direct an empire, much less expand it. In Prudhomme the drive to make a mark had been strong yet insufficient in the end. George and the others had no spark, and Stu doubted he did.  Reed, not even a member of the family, possessed more drive than any of them, but to what end? And what role did Jenkins play? He resolved to find out more about him. Tomorrow, he'd ask Rose if he could take another look at Jenkins' employment application to see if he had missed anything else, but, if Reed already knew that Jenkins' statement that he possessed an MBA was a lie, what would it matter?

While Stu pondered, he gradually became aware of the progress of a dot along the cove toward him. The dot turned into a person, Janet, her jeans rolled up to the knees, Janet carrying a pail, clamming in the moonlight. So soon after their phone conversation. A moment later, he shot out the door and strode purposefully along the beach.  For once he didn't give himself time to think first, weigh the advantages and disadvantages of his actions, he simply acted. She looked up from the sand and recognized him. "Need help?"

"Sure."

The beaches on the Sound never grew waves except when the tide rolled in, like now. Then breakers crashed enough to make clamming a challenge. Janet was knocked off balance first, found herself sitting on the sand, a wave washing over her. "This is the fifth time," she said. "I'm soaked, but I have only half a dozen, and you have the same. I need more than that."

"Let's go home and dry off. Later on I'll help you get some more. It'll be calm when the tide comes in in an hour or so. What are you making, chowder?"

"Once the tide comes in we won't be able to find them. I don't have to make chowder. It was just an idea."  She made no mention of their earlier conversation.

"Let's eat them as they are then," he said. She sat on the porch and waited, and pretty soon he brought in the scrubbed clams, an opener, a bottle of wine and two glasses. "How fancy you are," she said. "My clothes are still soaking wet. I'll catch cold."

The remaining light disappeared into the darkened Sound. They got up and went into the house.  The afterglow from the sun, like smoke, filled the rooms with a visible haze. They swam toward one another through the haze.

When morning came, all the old troubles, the old worries, were still there. Stu walked her home along the beach, the Sound placid, the tide all the way in, white sails faintly visible in the distance, people who moored out there for the night. The beach is the real battleground, the surf violent and more destructive than the open sea, battles that never stopped being waged, whether you were one-celled or many-celled, two-legged or four-legged, whether you walked, swam or crawled.

He felt down because he missed Janet. His thoughts took a morbid turn. When the phone rang,  he welcomed it. The easel in its corner by the corner was having an effect on him, making him feel guilty about not painting, reproaching him for his idleness. He felt like kicking it.

"I found your number in Sharon's address book," the voice began.  It sounded young.

Stu's grip on the phone tightened. "What happened?"

"She's dead.  She died."

Dead—how could that be?"

"I'm—I was one of her students. I had an appointment, and she didn't come to the door, and she didn't answer the phone either. I waited around, then I got scared and called the police."

"That was the right thing to do." Sharon dead?  How? "What happened?"

"Mugged, in the park. They took her fanny pack, they didn't have to kill her. I hate this city.  I'm getting out as soon as I can."

"Is that what the police said happened?"

"What else?"

"Thanks for phoning me."

"I'm phoning everyone in her address book.  It's—it's something I can do."

Stu gently replaced the phone. While he and Janet were together, Sharon was being approached in the park, threatened, murdered. He should have done something, should have foreseen that something like this could happen. But what had happened?

She was seeing Roy Jenkins. Had he killed her and made it look like a mugging?

He spent the day trying to keep remorse at bay. At the end of the day Sharon's father called him. Assuming him to be a friend because his name was in Sharon's address book, he informed Stu when and where the funeral would be held.

"What was she doing in the park so late?" he asked. Stu wanted to ask him for details. Where was she, what time of night was it, but he didn't dare, feared opening questions for which he had no answer. She had been in a good mood; with Prudhomme's money she intended to travel, to see Paris, something she had not been able to do before. Stu recalled that she joked about inviting Jenkins to accompany her. How could she, when Prudhomme's money wasn't just money, but evidence that she had meant something to him.

"She has—" her father's voice sounded far away, and he cleared his throat. "She had a bunch of paintings in her apartment. Of course.  We'll keep hers, but not the others. They don't mean anything to us, you know? I'm offering them to her friend. Would you like one?"

It occurred to Stu that he'd like to have Prudhomme's painting that hung in Sharon's apartment, but her father said, "boat scene?  I don't remember one like that.  No, no boat scenes." Stu didn't know what to say, and from the silence on the other side of the phone neither did he. Perhaps he was wondering if Stu was a friend after all if he didn't even know which paintings hung in Sharon's apartment and which did not.

Stu said he would see him at the funeral and hung up. Prudhomme's painting had vanished. He shook his head to clear it but could not think of an explanation for the disappearance of a painting with no intrinsic value.

He had attended few funerals in his life.  Once people had the idea that children should be spared them. When Stu's grandmother died, he was too young to understand what it meant. Afterward, when they visited his grandfather, he wondered where she had gone, searched the house without finding her.  Nobody told him when his mother died. He wondered if Prudhomme had attended the funeral. He didn't even know where she was buried.

Check Next Month's Issue for Chapter 14