The Just And The Unjust (24 page)

Harry said, 'Now, Leming, you admitted the police records of your arrests during the last ten years —'

Bunting said, 'Do we have to have all that again?'

'The Commonwealth's anxiety to get its witness off the stand is readily understandable,' Harry began, but without much spirit 'I object!' Bunting said. 'Mr. Wurts is now testifying himself, your Honour.'

'On the contrary, I am trying to conduct a cross-examination, and the district attorney has no business to interrupt it constantly!'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'I must ask both of you to come to order. No more by-play, please! If you have further questions for this witness, Mr. Wurts, put them promptly. The jurors have had a very hot and uncomfortable afternoon, and ought not to be kept here unnecessarily.'

Harry said, 'My only endeavour is to get through, your Honour. Leming, did you ever conduct any sort of business during these years — I mean, apart from crime; or did crime take all your time?'

'I manufactured dice,' Leming, who saw that Harry knew all about it, said.

'Loaded ones, I presume.'

'Well, if they wanted loaded ones, and they pay the price for them, I can make them, too.'

'You mean you supplied big gambling operators with loaded dice?'

'Big operators don't need no loaded dice,' Leming said, smiling indulgently. 'They only watch nobody playing with them brings any. With straight dice, by like the law of averages, they got to win.'

'I hope we will all bear that in mind,' said Harry to the jury. 'In short, when not engaged in any definite crime, you made dice.'

'I had other jobs,' Leming said. 'I told you some of them. I was an iron worker, cement finisher — well, numerous things —'

'Yes, numerous things is right,' Harry said. 'That will be all, thank you.'

'Mr. District Attorney,' Judge Vredenburgh said, 'have you any questions? Or is there anyone else you want to put on whose examination could be disposed of very briefly?'

Bunting shook his head, and Judge Vredenburgh continued: 'I think, then, we will suspend at this point. The jury may be withdrawn until to-morrow morning.'

While the courtroom emptied, Abner sat watching Bunting pack his briefcase. 'Want to see me about anything before court to-morrow?' he said. 'I told Arlene I'd try to get down.'

'I'll ring you there if anything comes up. What did you make of the Mason boy?'

'He's all right, I think. He looked like a decent kid.'

'Well, maybe his father's a perfectly decent person, too. If you're seeing Jesse, you might bear that in mind.'

'I'm not going to have any row with Jesse.'

'If you do, you're a damned fool,' Bunting said. 'So don't be. Good night.' He crossed the empty well of the court and went into the Judge's chambers.

In the Attorneys' Room Harry Wurts had taken off his coat and necktie. He lolled on the window ledge in his limp shirt. 'And then I said to him,' said Harry, '"My son," I said, "the world is full of sin and sorrow, of trial and tribulation; and the heart of man is heavy, and we know not what to believe — '''

Joe Jackman said, 'This is still you talking?'

Paying no attention, Harry levelled his finger at George Stacey and Nick Dowdy, whose mouth hung open as he watched. '"Receive this truth!"' said Harry, '"Remember it! Mark it! Write it in letters of purest gold! Amid the storms of adversity, in the heyday of triumph, at the hour of decision, in the article of death, say to yourself, as now I say to you:
The wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the grease
!" I thank you!' Carrying his coat and tie, Harry marched out the other door.

'He ought to be on the radio,' Joe Jackman said bitterly. The closing door reopened, and Mark Irwin came in. 'Hello, toss-pot!' Joe said. 'Here it is. That's the whole thing.' He lifted one section from a stack of sheets bound in blue paper, glanced at the title page, and handed it over. 'Thanks a lot,' Mark said. 'Hello, Ab. Going to the Nyces'?'

'No,' said Abner. 'So long, Joe.'

He went out into the hall and down to the back entrance. The windows of Mrs. O'Hara's sitting-room in the jail were open and boxes of petunias grew between the bars. There was no breeze, but the sun, declining at last, made everything look cooler. There were shadows across the paving of Court Street. Abner walked down to the gaping Romanesque arch of the door to the three-story, shabbily stone-faced Gearhart Building. He went into the hall, and up the wide, much worn wooden stairs. At the head of them was a window with a drawn yellow shade against which the sun blazed full. Abner passed the open office doors of the Childerstown Building & Loan Association. Next to them was a closed door marked
Childerstown Water Company
. At the end, giving access to the rooms at the front of the building, were double doors of ground glass with black lettering half faded and flaked off:
Michael Gearhart's Sons
.
Real Estate & Insurance
; and, lower down,
Walk in
. Abner walked in.

FIVE

1

THE double doors opened into an anteroom, from which, on the far side, other doors opened. The anteroom was lumbered up with golden oak furniture — desks for a couple of stenographers; filing cases; straight chairs around a circular table. On the walls hung a bird's-eye view of Childerstown in 1890, a stuffed salmon, and the colour print of a painting by Frederick Remington. Between the windows stood a rubber plant, almost eight feet tall and famous in Childerstown offices — most of the girls grew or tried to grow something; but Hazel Finch (not exactly a girl, since her hair was white. She had been thirty years in the Gearhart office) and her rubber plant had never been matched.

Neither Hazel Finch nor anyone else was there now; but a moment after Abner closed the door, Jesse's voice sounded from the corner room. 'Who's that?' he said.

'Hello,' said Abner, stepping to the door.

Jesse Gearhart sat at his desk opposite an old-fashioned safe whose front was decorated with dim gold banderoles and a murky pastoral scene. The desk top was heaped with papers and letters piled around a miscellaneous collection of gadgets; bronze ink stands and pencil racks; two telephone instruments; an onyx ash tray with the gilt figure of a naked girl dancing on the edge; a brass clock mounted in a miniature ship's wheel; two volumes of the State MANUAL and one of WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA between book ends that were replicas of the Sphinx; a bronze elephant with a howdah lettered G.O.P. on its back; all half-buried. In the centre, before him, Jesse had cleared a space in which he was writing a letter.

He said, 'Come on in, Ab. Let me finish this, will you.' He nodded at the chair to his left in the corner formed by the corner of the building, a five-sided bay window. Seating himself, Abner could look down Broad Street to the north; the building fronts giving way to tree tops; and, far away, to the lower fields and woods; and farther still, backing the narrow vista, to the blue hills — light blue where the slopes were gentle; darker blue where they were steep.

Jesse's pen scratched rapidly. Above Jesse's head hung the photograph of some political dinner, the long white tables lined with guests, all sitting back and turning their faces so they could be seen. On the wall beyond was a big framed photograph of former President Harding with a personal inscription to Jesse. Abner let his eyes rest a moment on Jesse himself, then. Jesse's wide head was tipped forward, but not far enough to hide the tired-looking eyes as they moved from word to word with the moving pen. Abner supposed that Jesse was about fifty-five; and it could be seen that politics were hard on a man. It was a waiting game, with all that meant in delays and postponements, in negotiations never quite finished, in nursing plans, in working things little by little. There was never any rest; and the rewards, as far as Abner knew, were neither very great nor very certain. In state politics the party chairman of a safe county had some importance, for safe counties were never too numerous; but Jesse probably had enemies among his nominal friends, and these must have succeeded in keeping him down. Though not old enough to pay attention to it at the time, Abner knew now that Jesse had little, and perhaps nothing, to do with his father's appointment to the Superior Court. That, and Judge Coates' subsequent nomination on the state ticket, was all done over Jesse's head, presumably through Judge Coates' friendship with the Chief Justice, and the Chief Justice's advice to the Governor. Abner supposed that the size of it was that Jesse was gladly allowed to manage the county and get out the vote; but in larger affairs he carried no special weight.

Jesse folded the sheet and put it in an envelope. Licking the flap, he said, 'How's your dad, Abner?'

'Pretty well,' Abner said.

Jesse sealed the envelope and put a stamp on it. He said, 'Good. Glad to hear it. You know, my father had a stroke. He got over it, almost entirely. If the Judge is better now, he'll go on getting better, ten to one.'

'I hope so,' Abner said.

Jesse pushed his chair away from the desk and tilted it back. 'See that Mason boy?'

'Yes. Jake brought him around.'

'What did you think of him, Ab?'

Abner said, 'He looks like a nice kid.'

'He's a son of George Guthrie Mason, the National Committeeman, you know. He's a fine man. He was certainly upset when he called me. The boy just sent him this telegram saying he'd been in an accident and was in jail — he was coming home from college. The boy's mother was frantic, of course. Mr. Mason called me up at seven this morning.' This was all understandable and could be viewed with sympathy. In such circumstances, anyone would and ought to do what he could for anyone he knew. Abner nodded. He swallowed down the unreasonable discomfort Jesse's words caused him — Jesse's unphrased but present and detectable alacrity to serve, and real pleasure at the chance, must be the irritant. This George Guthrie Mason, this National Committeeman, this fine man (and doubtless this rich man, this man of influence, this man worth pleasing) could be imagined looking at the date line of the disturbing telegram, finding out right away what county that was, racking his brain for someone from there he might have met sometime. Suddenly Mr. Mason (all men in his position had phenomenal memories) would place the inconsequential county politician. It just showed you! You should always be genial to such small fry; it was little trouble and took little time and they appreciated it. So here was what's-his-name, Gearhart or something, by George Guthrie Mason himself brought to the telephone at seven o'clock in the morning; and tickled pink to find that Mr. Mason remembered him perfectly, and when he thought of Childerstown, thought of Jesse at once; and of course Jesse would find out about it, of course he'd see the boy had the best lawyer, of course he'd speak to the district attorney —

Abner made himself say, 'I think there may be a good chance we won't have to hold him. Marty's arranged the coroner's inquest for the day after to-morrow. He probably told you. He's probably seen the police report by now.'

'How's Pete working out as a J.P.?'

'As far as I know, we've always got along with him fine.'

'You've had some trouble with Earl Foulke, though, haven't you?'

'I think Foulke's made Marty pretty mad once or twice. He goes off half-cocked, and then we have to straighten it out. But they seem to like him, down there; so I guess we'll just have to put up with it.'

'Not necessarily,' Jesse said. 'A younger man who was popular would have a good chance, I think. Do you know Albert Greer?'

'I think I've met him,' Abner said. 'Isn't he the one who has the lumber yard at Jobstown? You see his coal trucks around all the time.'

'No, that's his brother, older brother,' Jesse said. The ready, encyclopaedic information was part of Jesse's business. 'Bert's at Middlebrook. Real estate. He's been handling that development out by Candy's quarry —' Reminded that he had thought of going there with Bonnie to swim to-night, and that it was getting later, Abner inclined his head a little so that he could see the clock on a column before the
Examiner
office. Maynard Longstreet, a straw hat on the back of his head, his coat over one arm, and under the other a batch of copies of his newspaper which he was not above delivering himself to the newsstand by the Childerstown House on his way home, let the screen door to the office slam and came down the three steps to the sidewalk.

Jesse said, 'Bert's as smart as a whip. I think he'd run. I hoped you knew him. Anyone down around there, Jobstown, Middlebrook, Saratoga, you think would be good?'

To find himself gravely consulted by Jesse on such a matter made Abner want to laugh, and yet at the same time there was a sort of annoyance in it — what kind of a damned fool did Jesse take him for? If this Bert Greer wanted for some reason (generally it was a curious little vanity, a perverted self-importance that sought gratification. The trifling perquisites and fees would not pay a busy or able man for the time required) to be a J.P., it was nothing to Abner. Abner said, 'I don't know anyone who'd want to bother with the job, Jesse.'

As soon as he had said it, Abner saw that it was a lapse in tact or judgment. Simulating cordiality or friendship toward a person you did not like was taxing. However tough on the surface, however cynical and designing (Jesse surely filled that bill), at heart the parties to the make-believe were as sensitive as young girls, suspiciously looking for affronts and expecting rebuffs. Unless you were a good natural deceiver and could throw yourself into a part with the sincerity of being pleased to play it well, you were out of luck. Abner knew that he had no talent for that kind of thing.

But at that kind of thing Jesse was past master. The anger in Jesse's eyes, when he jumped, by taking what Abner said the wrong way, to the right conclusion that Abner had no use for him, was scarcely disclosed before it was gone. Fruit of a lifetime of dickering, Jesse's control was as good as a saint's. Jesse was slow to wrath. If you let yourself be angered when somebody, whether clumsily or with intention, said something to anger you, what was that but letting him tell you what to do? He called the tune, and at his word, you like a fool danced.