All the King's Men (73 page)

“God damn you, Jack Burden, God damn you,” she said in a tired voice, and turned her head to look up at me. Then looking at me, she thrust herself up to a sitting position, and burst out in a voice which all at once wasn’t tired any more but angry and violent, “God damn you, Jack Burden, what made you come here? What always makes you mess in things? Why can’t you leave me alone? Why can’t you? Why?”

I stared down into her eyes, which in the pain-contorted face were burning now and wild.

“How do you know?” I demanded softly.

“God damn you, Jack Burden, God damn you,” she said like a litany.

“How do you know?” I demanded, more softly than before–I was almost whispering–and leaned down toward her.

“God damn you, Jack Burden,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“Because–” she began, hesitated, and tossed her head in a desperate tired way like a fevered child on a pillow.

“Because?” I demanded.

“Because,” she said, and let herself fall back on the cushions of the chaise longue, “I told him. I told him to do it.”

That was it. That was it, and I hadn’t guessed it. My knees gave slowly down, like a pneumatic jack letting down the weight of a car to the floor, and I was back in my chair. There I was and there Sadie Burke was, and I was looking at her as though I had never seen her before.

After a minute, she said, “Stop looking at me.” But there wasn’t any heat in what she said.

I must have continued to look, for she said, as before, “Stop looking at me.”

Then I heard my lips saying, as though to myself, “You killed him.”

“All right,” she said, “all right, I killed him. He was throwing me over. For good. I knew it was for good that time. For that Lucy. After all I had done. After I made him. I told him I’d fix him, but he turned that new sick smile of his on me like he was practicing to be Jesus and took my hands in his, and asked me to understand–understand, Jesus!–and just then like a flash I knew I’d kill him.”

“You killed Adam Stanton,” I said.

“Oh, God,” she breathed, “oh, God.”

“You killed Adam,” I repeated “Oh,” she breathed, “and I killed Willie. I killed him.”

“Yes,” I agreed, and nodded.

“Oh, God,” she said, and lay there staring up at the ceiling.

I had found out what I had come to find out. But I kept on sitting there. I didn’t even light a cigarette.

After a while she said, “Come over here. Pull your chair over here.”

I hitched my chair over by the chaise longue, and waited. She didn’t look at me, but she reached out her right hand uncertainly in my direction. I took it and held it while she continued to stare at the ceiling and the afternoon light struck cruelly across her face.

“Jack,” she said, finally, still not looking at me.

“Yes?”

“I’m glad I told you,” she said. “I knew I had to tell somebody. Sometime. I knew it would come, but there wasn’t anybody for me to tell. Till you came. That’s why I hated you for coming. As soon as you came in the door, I knew I’d have to tell you. But I’m glad I told. I don’t care who knows now. I may not be noble and high-toned like that Stanton woman, but I’m glad I told you.”

I didn’t find much to say to that. So I continued to sit there for quite a while, holding Sadie’s hand in the silence she seemed to want and looking across her down toward the bayou, which coiled under the moss depending from the line of tattered cypresses on the farther bank, the algae-mottled water heavy with the hint and odor of swamp, jungle, and darkness, along the edge of the expanse of clipped lawn.

I had found out that Tiny Duffy, who was now Governor of the state, had killed Willie Stark as surely as though his own hand had held the revolver. I had also found out that Sadie Burke had put the weapon into Duffy’s hand and had aimed it for him, that she, too, had killed Willie Stark. And Adam Stanton. But what she had done had been done hot. What Duffy had done had been done cold. And, in the end, Sadie Burke’s act had somehow been wiped out. I did not exist for me any more.

And that left Duffy. Duffy had done it. And strangely, there was a great joy and relief in that knowledge. Duffy had done it, and that made everything clear and bright as in frosty sunshine. There, over yonder, was Tiny Duffy with his diamond ring, and over here was Jack Burden. I felt free and clean, as when you suddenly see that, after being paralyzed by ignorance or indecision, you can act. I felt on the verge of the act.

But I did not know what the act was to be When I went back out to see Sadie–she had asked me to come back–she told me, without me saying a word on the subject, that she would make a statement if I wanted her to. I told her that that was wonderful, and I felt that it was wonderful for I still felt clean and free, on the verge of an act, and she was putting the thing into my hand. I thanked her.

“Don’t thank me,” she said, “I’m doing myself a favor. Duffy–Duffy–” she rose to a sitting position on the chaise longue and her eyes had the old flash–”you know what he did?”

Before I could answer she plunged on, “Afterwards–after it had happened–I didn’t feel a thing. Not a thing. I knew that night what had happened, and I didn’t feel a thing. And next morning Duffy came to me–he was grinning and puffing–and he said, ‘Girlie, I’ll sure hand it to you, I’ll sure hand it to you.’ I still didn’t feel a thing, not even when I looked in his face. But then he put his hand around my shoulder and sort of patted and rubbed my back between the shoulder blades, and said, ‘Girlie, you sure stopped his clock and I ain’t forgetting you, and girlie, you and me, we might sure get along.’ Then it happened. It happened right then. It was like it had all happened that second, right in front of me instead of up at the Capitol. And I clawed at him and jumped away. I ran out of the place. And three day later, after he died, I came here. It was the only place I could come.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” I said. “I reckon we can stop Duffy’s clock.”

“It won’t stick in law,” she said.

“I didn’t reckon it would. What ever you said to him or he said to you doesn’t prove a thing. But there are other ways.”

She thought awhile. Then, “Any other way, law or not, and I reckon you know it drags that–” she hesitated, and did not say what she was about to say, then revised it–”drags Anne Stanton into it.”

“She’ll do it,” I affirmed. “I know she would.”

Sadie shrugged. “You know what you want,” she said, “you all.”

“I want to get Duffy.”

“That suit me,” she said, and again shrugged. Suddenly she seemed to have gone tired again. “That suits me,” she repeated, “but the world is full of Duffys. It looks like I been knowing them all my life.”

“I’m just thinking about one,” I declared.

I was still thinking about that one about a week later (by this time it seemed that the only way was to break the thing through an antiadministration paper), when I got the note from that particular Duffy himself. Would I mind coming to see him, it said. At my convenience.

My convenience was immediately, and I found him imperially and porcinely filling his clothes and the great leather couch in the library at the Mansion where the Boss used to sit. The leather of his shoes creaked as he stepped forward to greet me, but his body swayed with the bloated lightness of a drowned body stirred loose at last from the bottom mud of the river to rise majestically and swayingly to the surface. We shook hands and he smiled. And waved me to a seat as the couch groaned to receive him.

A black boy in a white coat brought the drinks. I took the drink but declined a cigar, and waited.

He said how sad it was about the Boss. I nodded He said how the boys all missed the Boss. I nodded to that.

He said how things were getting done though. Just like the Boss would have wanted. I nodded to that.

He said how they sure missed the Boss, though. I nodded to that.

He said, “Jack, the boys sure miss you around here, too.”

I nodded modestly and said that I sure missed the boys.

“Yeah,” he resumed, “I was saying to myself the other day, just let me get settled into harness and I’m going to get hold of Jack. Yeah, Jack’s the kind of fellow I like to have around. The Boss sure thought a lot of him, and what was good enough for the Boss is good enough for old Tiny. Yeah, I said to myself, I’m gonna get old Jack. The kind of guy I need. A square-shooter. A guy you can trust. He’ll speak the truth, fear nor fear. His word is his bond.

“Are you referring to me?” I asked.

“I sure am,” he replied. “And I’m making you a proposition. I don’t exactly know what arrangement you had with the Boss, but you just tell me straight what it was and I’ll up it ten per cent.”

“I had no complaints about my treatment.”

“Now that’s talking like a white man, Jack,” he said, and added earnestly, “And don’t get me wrong, I know you and the Boss was like that.” He held up two large, white, glistening episcopal fingers as in benediction. “Like that,” he repeated. “And don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing the Boss. I just want to show you I appreciate you.”

“Thanks,” I said with some lack of warmth.

The lack of warmth was such, I presume, that he leaned slightly forward and said, “Jack, I’m going to make that twenty per cent.”

“That’s not enough,” I said.

“Jack,” he said, “you’re right. That’s not enough. Twenty-five per cent.”

I shook my head.

He showed a slight uneasiness and the couch creaked, but he rallied with a smile. “Jack,” he said soothingly, “you just tell me what you think’s right, and I’ll see how we make out. You tell me what’s enough.”

“There ain’t enough,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Listen,” I said, “didn’t you just tell me that I am the guy whose word is his bond?”

“Yeah, Jack.”

“So you’ll believe me if I tell you something?”

“Why, yeah, Jack.”

“Well, I’m telling you something. You are the stinkingest louse God ever let live.”

I relished the moment of profound silence which followed, then plunged on, “And you think you can buy me in. Well, I know why you want to. You don’t know how much I know or what. I was thick with the Boss and I know a lot. I’m the joker in the deck. My name is Jack and I’m the wild jack and I’m not one-eyed. You want to deal me to yourself from the bottom of the deck. But it’s no sale, Tiny, it’s no sale. And it’s too damned bad, Tiny. And do you know why?”

“Look here!” he said with authority. “Look here, you can’t be–”

“It’s too bad because I do know something. I know a lot. I know that you killed the Boss.”

“It’s a lie!” he exclaimed, and heaved on the couch and the couch creaked.

“It’s no lie. And it’s no guess. Though I ought to have guessed it. Sadie Burke told me. She–”

“She’s in it, she’s in it!”

“She
was
_ in it,” I corrected, “but not any more. And she’ll tell the world. She doesn’t care who knows. She’s not afraid.”

“She better be. I’ll–”

“She’s not afraid, because she’s tired. She’s tired of everything and she’s tired of you.”

“I’ll kill her,” he said, and the perspiration exuded delicately on his temples.

“You won’t kill anybody,” I said, “and this time there’s nobody to do it for you. For you’re afraid to. You were afraid to kill the Boss and you were afraid not to, but luck helped you out. But you gave luck a little push, Tiny, and I swear, I admire you for it. It opened my eyes. You see, Tiny, all those years I never thought you were real. You were just something off the cartoon page. With your diamond ring. You were just the punching bag the Boss used, and you just grinned your sick grin and took it. You were like the poodle I heard about. You ever hear about the poodle?”

I didn’t give him time to answer. I watched his mouth get ready, then I went on. “There was a drunk had a poodle and he took him everywhere with him from bar to bar. And you know why? Was it devotion? It was not devotion. He took that poodle everywhere just so he could spit on him and not get the floor dirty. Well, you were the Boss’s poodle. And you liked it. You liked to be spit on. You weren’t human. You weren’t real. That’s what I thought. But I was wrong, Tiny. Somewhere down in you there was something made you human. You resented being spit on. Even for money.”

I got up, with my half-empty glass in my hand.

“And now, Tiny,” I said, “that I know you are real, I sort of feel sorry for you. You are a funny old fat man, Tiny, with your heart getting bad and your liver nigh gone and sweat running down your face and a mean worry on your mind and a great blackness like water rising in a cellar inside you and I almost feel sorry for you but if you say a word I might stop feeling sorry for you. So now I’m going to drink up your whisky and spit in the glass and go.”

So I drank off the whisky, dropped the glass on the floor (on the thick rug it didn’t break), and started for the door. I had almost got there, when I heard a croak from the couch. I looked around.

“It–” he croaked, “it won’t stand in a court.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said, “it won’t. But you still got plenty to worry about.”

I opened the door and walked through and left the door open behind me and walked down the long hall under the great, glittering chandelier, and walked out into the brisk night.

I took a deep drag of fresh air and looked up through the trees at the distinct stars. I felt like a million. I had sure-God brought off that scene. I had hit him where he lived. I was full of beans. I had fire in my belly. I was a hero. I was St. George and the dragon, I was Edwin Booth bowing beyond the gaslights, I was Jesus Christ with the horsewhip in the temple.

I was the stuff.

And all at once the stars I was like a man who has done himself the best from soup to nuts and a Corona Corona and feels like a virtuous million and all at once there isn’t anything but the yellow, acid taste which has crawled up to the back of the mouth from the old, tired stomach.

Three days later I got the registered letter from Sadie Burke. It read: Dear Jack: Just so you won’t think I am going to welch on what I said I would do I am enclosing the statement I said I would make. I have got it witnessed and notarized and nailed down as tight as you can nail anything down and you can do anything with it you want for it is yours. I mean this. It is your baby, just like I said.