by Jim Thompson
“Take you before the NLRB,” I said, “on charges of penalizing an employee for union activity. But I suppose you’d call me a liar.”
“That’s right,” he nodded evenly. “I’m giving you this assignment solely because you’re the best man for the job. I mean that, Bill. You’re a good reporter and I’d hate to lose you. Your union activities don’t figure in the matter in any way.”
I nodded absently, lighting a cigarette to gain time. Someone would do it, if I didn’t. There was no question about that. The Captain had hollered frog, so jumping was the order of the day. And dammit, it would make a hell of a good story. Yes, sir, a hell of a story! Young love and sex and murder and mystery, and Christ, the color, the human interest! That Captain. You had to hand it to the decadent old buzzard. He didn’t have any more principles than those maggots in his brain, but he knew story. He knew what would sell papers.
“Well, Bill?”
“It would make a good story,” I said. “But practically anything will if you don’t give a damn about decency and—”
“Save it. Yes or no?”
Well. It was going to have to be yes, naturally; a no would get me nothing but my time—without severance pay. Still, I hated to say yes, if for no other reason than that they felt I had to say it. If there’s anything I like less than being pushed around it’s being pushed around. A thing like this—taking a shove from old Fuddy Dudley and Donald the Great—could be very bad for my reputation.
Now, surely, I thought, there should be something; you have to take it, but there must be some way of handing it back. No? Yes? Think fast, Mr. Willis.
So I thought very fast, and a very beautiful idea came to me. I heaved an enormous sigh of surrender—more apparent than real—and said that I would gladly accept the assignment.
“I suppose this is exclusively my story,” I said. “There won’t be three or four other guys backtracking or anticipating me?”
“Oh, it’s your story all right,” Mack Dudley grinned. “No one’s but yours. We’ll have his byline on every page, won’t we, Don?”
Skysmith gave him a frown, and nodded to me. “It’s all yours, Bill. Of course, we’ll be getting some side and feature stuff from the trained seals—you get ’em to work on that, Mack—but the running story will be yours.”
“That’s fine,” I said.
“Incidentally, watch yourself if you run into any of the opposition boys. If they knew what we were up to they’d jump in ahead of us. We’ll get this thing all set today, get it all lined up, and tomorrow we’ll hit ’em with it. They’ll never know what happened until it’s too late.”
“Swell. What about the d.a.?” I said. “Do I goose him today?”
“Yes—no.” Skysmith hesitated. “No, we’ll let the story be the goose. Let him sleep, see, so we can point it out. Here’s a public official who’s so damned lazy and stupid that the Star has to do his job for him. We burn his ass so hard he’s jumping sideways to put out the fire.”
“I get you,” I said. “Now, there’s one thing I’m a little worried about, Don. I don’t know whether you’ve thought about it or not, but…”
“Yes, Bill?” He smiled at me, relaxed, the conqueror magnanimous to the conquered.
“Do you suppose there’s any danger that this thing will backfire on us? It’s pretty rough, you know, a big paper landing on a fifteen-year-old kid with all four feet. The public might not like it.”
“Well”—he frowned faintly—“well,” he shrugged, “of course, we’ll have to use some judgment. We can’t go too far overboard. But leave that part to me. You just get the story, everything you think we ought to have, and I’ll check it over myself; tone it down if I feel it needs it.”
The hell you will, Donald. It’s MY story. I said, “Well, that does it, I guess. Now, I don’t phone anything in, right? I get the facts, and then I come in and write the story.”
“Right. Try not to be too late, but take as much time as you have to. Mack and I will be waiting.”
I nodded, and got up from my chair. He stood up, too, and stuck out his hand. As I’ve said, he wasn’t a bad guy, even if he was a fathead. But he had pushed me around, and I do not like to be pushed.
“Good boy,” he said. “You do us the right kind of job on this, Bill, and maybe I can swing a bonus.”
“Oh, I’m glad to do it,” I said. “I don’t expect any bonus, Don.”
I got some copy paper from my desk, and picked up a photographer. We drove to the courthouse, and I had a private chat with the district attorney. I told him about the little surprise the Star had planned for him.
He was pretty damned sore about it, and, needless to say alarmed. He was also very grateful to me for tipping him off.
8
William Willis
They didn’t have the boy, Robert Talbert, in the jug proper. There were a couple of witness rooms with a connecting door adjoining the district attorney’s office, and he was in one and a jail matron in the other.
The d.a. told the matron to catch some air, about an hour’s worth. Then, after introducing me and the photog to the boy, he went back to his office and left us alone.
The kid was about on a par with a good many teenagers I’ve seen. They aren’t watchful exactly. They aren’t exactly sullen. There is rather a look of resigned hopefulness about them: they look as though no good can possibly come to them, albeit they would certainly welcome a little and are rightfully entitled to it.
I do not recall that kids looked that way in my day. I think it must be the times, this age we live in, when the reasons for existence are lost in the struggle to exist.
He looked from me to the photographer, cautiously, trying to smile—but not too much. The kind of smile that can change quickly into a frown.
“I t-thought I was going home,” he said. “They told me I was going home.”
“You are,” I said. “You’ll get there all right, Bob. You don’t mind talking to me a little first, do you? You don’t have to, understand, but I’ll sure catch hell from my editor if you don’t.”
“Well…” He scuffed his foot against the floor. “What you want to talk about? I already told everything there was to tell.”
“But you haven’t told me,” I pointed out. “Now, let’s get busy—cigarette?—or they’ll have you out of here before I can get my story.”
He took a cigarette, and we sat down. He started talking, moving right along with it without being prodded. I took him backwards and forwards through it. I took him from the middle back and from the end to the middle. He didn’t trip up. It came out the same way each time.
He got his foot wet as he started to cross the canyon creek. While he was drying out, the girl showed up. They played around a while and then they had it. She got blood on her clothes and blamed him for it. He tried to get her to promise she wouldn’t tell her mother. She was sore, wanting to make him sweat, so she stalled. He got sore and shook her. She promised, and he went on toward the…
“Hold it a minute, Bob,” I said. “Show me how you shook her. Maybe you’d better stand up.”
He stood up and thrust his hands out, curving them as though he was gripping something. I gave the photographer the nod. He crouched down in front of the kid, and shot up at him.
A shot like that, as you may know, distorts the features, gives them a grim macabre look. With that cigarette tucked in the corner of his mouth and his hands clawing the air, the kid would look like Horrible Bill from Killerdill.
We got a few other nice poses from him while he was still on his feet, and then I had him sit down and went back to the story.
“Now, let’s see if I’ve got this straight, Bob. You cut across country to the golf links, up the other side of the canyon and through the woods and on through the fields and another patch of woods, and so on. About four miles, and you didn’t see anyone in all that distance? Either coming or going.”
“Huh-uh. I don’t think I saw anyone. I might have, but not to noti
ce.”
“Then you came to this knoll overlooking the golf links, about a quarter of a mile away, and you decided it wasn’t worthwhile going down. So you just sat down there, by yourself with nothing to do, and you stayed there for more than three hours. Why, Bob? Why didn’t you go on home?”
“I told you.” He frowned impatiently. “I told you about six times already. I couldn’t go home. I was supposed to be in school, and I couldn’t go home until it was time for it to be out.”
“Sure, you couldn’t. Of course not,” I said. “And no one could see you there, either, could they? There’s no road nearby, no houses.”
“I don’t know if anyone saw me or not,” he said. “What I said was I didn’t see anyone.”
“I see,” I nodded. “You’ll have to excuse me for having such a lousy memory, Bob. I don’t like to keep bothering you, but if I don’t get this story right I might get fired.”
“Well,” he said grudgingly, “that’s all right.”
“Now, this girl, Josie. I suppose you know she’d had intercourse several times. It was only once with you, wasn’t it? Just the one—”
“Yes! How many times I got to tell you?”
“Did you want to do it again? Did you ask her?”
“I didn’t want to do it the first time! Well, I did afterwards you know, after she started to—to—”
“What do you suppose she’d have done if you’d tried to do it again? Would she have been sore?”
“Maybe. How do I know? What’s the difference?” he said, and he brushed at his eyes. “I—I d-don’t want to talk about her. How would you feel if someone you’d known all your life, s-someone you saw every day—and—and maybe you thought they were kinda crazy and always hanging around when you didn’t want ’em b-but—”
He choked and turned his head. “She was p-pretty nice,” he said. “M-Me and Josie, well, we always liked each other.”
“Naturally,” I said. “Of course, you did. Now, Bob, what about…”
I took him through the story again. It came out a carbon copy of the earlier tellings. And was that as it should be? Or wasn’t it just a little bit odd?
Shouldn’t it, if it was the truth, vary a little from time to time?
It was like a recitation, something he’d memorized.
“Just a few more questions, Bob…As long as you were so near the golf course, why didn’t you go on? After all—”
“I been tellin’ and tellin’ you, mister! Because it wouldn’t have been any use! I could see the parking lot from up there and the caddie shack, and I knew I wouldn’t get no—any job.”
“You couldn’t be positive, Bob. You couldn’t have lost anything by it. You could have got yourself a cold drink, kidded around with the boys, while you were waiting until time to go home.”
He licked his lips, hesitantly. He talked very straightforwardly upon the main story line, what had transpired between him and the girl and so on, but these tangential angles—things of nominally minor importance—seemed to disturb him.
“I told you,” he said. “I didn’t want a drink. I didn’t want to kid around.”
“And you had some blood on your trousers? You thought someone might ask about it?”
“Yes! It was partly that, maybe. I guess it was.”
“You must have noticed the blood before you ever started to the—”
“I did notice it! I told you I did.”
“Well, as long as you didn’t want anyone to see you why go all the way out to—?”
“I had to go some place, didn’t I? An’ I didn’t say I didn’t want anyone to see me! I—well, I didn’t maybe. I guess I didn’t. But if there’d been any point to it, if I could’ve got a job or anything, I would—”
“Uh-huh. I understand. Now, you were about a quarter of a mile away from the course. You could look down and see the caddies and the players. Isn’t that right?”
“I could see ’em, but not to recognize. I could just see how things looked—that there wasn’t any use going on.”
“Then, they—someone probably saw you, too, huh? Not to recognize, but—”
“No, they couldn’t! I told you that. I could see them, but they couldn’t see me.”
“You were trying not to be seen?”
“Yes!”
“But, why, Bob?”
“I told you, mister, for gosh sake! I s-seen—I wasn’t going to unless there was some sense to it, was I, an’ when I seen—s-saw there wasn’t any, I couldn’t get a job, w-why I didn’t. For gosh sake, I keep explainin’—”
“Sure. I understand,” I said.
And I did. It wasn’t logical but it was believable, reasonable, if you put yourself in his place. He was explaining the inexplicable, a matter of feeling rather than thinking, and insofar as it could be done he was doing a pretty fair job of it. Once when I was a kid, I mixed salt in the sugar bowl, and at dinner that night—and I was the only member of the family who took sugar in tea—I spooned a gob of it into my cup. Dopey? Sure, it was, when I look back on it now. But at the time I did it it seemed perfectly right and proper. I couldn’t have told you why I did it, but I didn’t see how I could have done anything else.
Of course, that wasn’t the same as this. I wasn’t the same as this kid. He had his story down too pat. He was too straightforward in one way—upon certain points—and not enough in another. After all, as long as he was practically there at the golf links, as long and if—
“Can I go home now, mister? You said I could.”
“Sure.” I jerked my head at the photographer and got up. “I’ll speak to the district attorney, Bob.”
No, it wasn’t the same, all right. This was different. I was rationalizing, hoping subconsciously that the kid was guilty. I couldn’t be impartial. I was using him, swinging him as the club in my grudge play against the Star; I was going to knock his brains out in the course of trepanning Dudley and Skysmith, and I needed justification. If he was guilty, good. If he was innocent, bad. Very bad. That would make me a supersonic jet-propelled heel instead of the slow-flying, propeller-driven model which I had become reasonably well adjusted to.
I had another talk with the d.a. before I left. I told him I couldn’t make up my mind about Talbert. He seemed to be leveling but, well, I just didn’t know. I’d rather not say anything. After all, he was just a kid and even if he was guilty he probably hadn’t realized what he was doing. He’d just got scared, and…
“Well”—the d.a. searched my face—“I’m by no means satisfied with his story, Bill. I slept on it last night, and I’d already made up my mind before you came in this morning that he had a great deal to explain. It was my own decision, understand. I’ve never allowed myself to be coerced, and I’m certainly not going to begin now. I’m not going to railroad some youngster just to make a Roman holiday for—”
“Of course, not,” I said. “I understand, Clint. All you want is to get at the truth.”
“Ab-solutely!”
“Take it easy on him, will you, Clint? I know you will, but some of these county dicks—I imagine you’ll want to, uh, divide the responsibility, have some assistance in the questioning—”
“You don’t need to ask that, Bill. If there’s one thing I do not and have never tolerated, it’s abuse of a prisoner.”
“Swell,” I said. “I’ll just run along then, and…and you’ll get in touch with me? When and if.”
“You can depend on it.” He shook my hand earnestly. “You did me a very great favor, and I never forget a favor.”
…The kid’s teacher, a Miss Brundage, was a pretty tough nut to crack. One of those “fair” people. You could boot her in the tail, and she’d probably say you were giving her a spinal adjustment.
Yes, Robert had been truant a lot, but no more so or even as much, as a great many other boys. Yes, he did get a little out of hand at times, but he was at the restless age. Most boys went through a stage of unruliness; she’d seen very few who didn’t. And she didn’
t believe Robert felt very well. She felt that there might be a situation at home that, uh—
“Yes?” I said.
But, no. She’d only talked with Mrs. Talbert one time, and she’d never met Mr. Talbert. She didn’t know them well enough to have formed an opinion. All she knew was that they were long-time residents of the community, and everyone spoke very highly of them. They were really, she was sure, very nice well-adjusted people, just as Robert was really a very nice well-adjusted boy.
She’d come out in the corridor to talk to me, and she kept having to stick her head back in the classroom and call for order. She didn’t get it; there were just too dammed many kids jammed in too small a space. The moment she turned her back the racket started up again. Cat-calls and flying chalk and grab-assing.
I kept on talking to her. The kids kept bellowing. Her smile began to tighten up, and a glint came into her eyes. There was a rising tremoloish note to her voice, like you hear from an offtune key of c fiddle string. A tiny vein throbbed in her throat, and she almost yanked the door off its hinges when she had to speak to the kids.
I could see she was cracking up. She was just about to explode. She was irritated with me, and annoyed with the kids. She had to cut loose on someone and you know who that someone was.
The explosion came. She clouded up and rained all over one Robert Talbert who, it suddenly appeared, was just about the most wilful, sullen, uncooperative, hateful youth she’d ever come up against. “Honestly, Mr. Willis! I do want to be fair, and I’m sure he isn’t entirely to blame, but…”
She was still raving when the photographer and I left her.
I was going to stop by the principal’s office, but I remembered suddenly that he’d somehow got himself on the Star’s heel list. Some speech he’d made at a teachers’ convention one time had rubbed the Captain the wrong way. No paper in the Star chain would have quoted him or printed his name if he’d sailed the Atlantic in a salad bowl, so I passed him by.
