South of Heaven

by Jim Thompson

“And?”

  “And I’m sure obliged to you,” I said, still not looking at him. “Here I thought I was flat broke, and all the time I.…”

  “Don’t do it, Tommy. I’m warning you, don’t do it.”

  “Uh, do what?” I said.

  “You have no job on the line. I’m through with you, and so is Higby. There’s nothing for you out here anymore. And when I say nothing I’m including that little whore you’ve been seeing.”

  “She’s not a whore! I don’t care how it looks—what anyone says—she’s not a.…”

  “She isn’t, huh?” He chuckled grimly. “Then I wonder why almost a dozen welders visited her after chow last night, I wonder why they claimed she was the best they ever had.”

  I gulped, feeling like I’d received a hard kick in the stomach. Feeling all the blood drain out of my face.

  Welders. They were all well-heeled, carrying heavy. They wouldn’t have needed to wait until payday.

  “Tommy.…” There was a pitying note in Four Trey’s voice. “I’m sorry, Tommy. I wish I hadn’t had to tell you that.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “What the hell, anyway?”

  “That’s it. What the hell? It’s hard for you to believe now, but this is the best thing that could have happened to you. You’ll meet some nice girl later on, and.…”

  “Do you mind?” I said. “Do you mind if we just don’t talk about it? For God’s sake, why do you have to keep talking about it? I mean if that’s the way it is, why…why.…”

  “Sure,” Four Trey said softly, “whatever you say, kid.”

  We didn’t talk much after that. I promised to write him after I was settled, and he promised to write me. He said maybe he’d come to see me after the job was buttoned up, and I said I’d count on it. Then, the deputy opened the door and said that time was up. So Four Trey and I shook hands, and I went back to my cell.

  For a time, I felt about as lousy as a man can feel. Even the fact that I was getting out of jail didn’t cheer me up. After what Four Trey had told me about Carol, I didn’t think I could ever feel good again. I had the blues so bad that I didn’t even glance at the package of magazines and stuff that the turnkey tossed through the bars. And then, right when I was at my glummest, I suddenly laughed out loud. I laughed and I got mad, so sore that if Four Trey had been there right then I think I would have socked him.

  Because he’d lied about Carol. All I had to do was think about it a while, and I knew he had lied.

  Those welders wouldn’t be lining up for any pipeline whore. Most of them had wives and families, and they’d just come from those wives and families. They’d have to be a hell of a lot harder up than they were now before they went for a woman, and when they did it wouldn’t be the kind you’d find out here. They had too much at stake, too much to lose by fouling themselves up.

  Well, sure, there might be one nut in the group. There’s always someone who just doesn’t know when he’s well off. But a dozen? Never! Four Trey had laid it on a little too thick.

  I bunked in early after supper, the light being too poor for reading or writing. For that matter, my mind was too full of plans for Carol and me and that forty-five hundred dollars to think about anything else. So I just lay there in the semidarkness, listening to the distant sounds from the street, smoking and day-dreaming—if a guy can day-dream at night—and putting all sorts of schemes together.

  Four Trey hadn’t said just when they were setting me free. But I figured that it would just about have to be by tomorrow night, or, at the very latest, by breakfast the next morning. I would have been in custody seventy-two hours by then, which was as long as I could be held on suspicion. They’d have to either charge me with murder or release me. And since they apparently didn’t have a case or they had a more likely suspect.…

  Well, anyway, I was getting out. Four Trey wouldn’t have kidded me about that. He couldn’t tell me exactly when, probably because he knew how the law would feel about a character who backtalked and roughed-up a cop. He knew they’d give me a hard time as long as they could get away with it. But I was getting out.

  I fell asleep at last, dreaming about Carol and going to college and God knows what-all. Smiling when I thought of how surprised she’d be when I showed her the forty-five hundred and told her to start moving because we were going to get long-gone from pipeline camps, and we were going to stay gone.

  I had a hell of a good sleep that night. Most of the night, that is. The one time I didn’t came around three in the morning, when Four Trey’s sardonic face suddenly loomed up before me; a bitter, contemptuous face with eyes as cold as ice. I squirmed under their stare, silently mumbling a question: Why was he looking at me like that? And his reply came to me as clearly as if he had been real, right there in the cell with me, instead of a dream.

  “I know she’s not a whore. Now, give me the rest of it.”

  “The rest?”

  “You heard me, you lousy punk! The real reason you’re coming back!”

  I said, “What the hell are you talking about?” Then, I said, “Ouch!” because I had sat up abruptly, bumping my head on the bunk above me.

  I rubbed my skull drowsily, wondering what had awakened me, the dream gone from my mind for the moment. Then, I snuggled back under the covers and went to sleep and I was still sleeping when the turnkey called me for breakfast.

  About an hour after breakfast, he took me to a shower room, and I had a bath and a shave while he looked on.

  After that I was taken before a judge and charged with first-degree murder.

  16

  Like most public officials in that area, the county attorney held his job as a sideline. He was a rich man, rich from cattle and oil, and most of his time was spent taking care of his wealth. His being county attorney was just a gesture at public service or civic responsibility or some such thing—whatever a man calls it when he takes the credit for something that others do for him. His next step up probably would be some kind of state office, then maybe the governor’s chair or congress. Right now, the duties of his office were being carried out by a couple of young deputies, and he was pretty irritated with me for insisting on seeing him.

  “What the hell’s eating on you, Burwell? The boys made a clear-cut case against you, so naturally you were booked. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “But the case isn’t clear-cut! It could easily have been an accident.…”

  “We don’t think so. Frankly, I’d have killed the son-of-a-bitch myself if he’d hung around this town much longer. Caught him kicking a horse one time. But the way you went about it…well, that’s bad. If you’d killed him in a fair fight, I’d have stood in line to shake your hand, but.…”

  “I didn’t kill him! We’d made up our differences!”

  “Mmm?” He glanced at a paper on his desk. “We’ve got a witness who swears you didn’t make up with him. Fella named Wingy Warfield. He claims Lassen offered to shake hands with you and you refused.”

  “But Wingy’s a loudmouth! He’ll say anything to hear himself talk! What actually happened was…was.…”

  “Yes?” He squinted at me thoughtfully, seemingly caught by something in my manner. “What’s the matter with you, Burwell?”

  “Matter?” I said. “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve got a big-plenty of reason to hold you. Even I know that much, and I don’t know a Goddamned thing about evidence. But you act like you were absolutely sure of being freed.” He waited, continuing to squint at me. “Someone promise you something, boy? You just tell me who it was, and I’ll skin the ass right off of ’em!”

  Well, of course, I had been sure of getting out, but I couldn’t say so in view of Four Trey’s warning. So I mumbled around a little bit, saying that naturally I didn’t think they could hold an innocent man, and I was innocent, by gosh! And he stopped staring at me and began to fidget again.

  “For God’s sake, boy!” He suddenly cut in on me. “That’s the way it is, so th
at’s the way it is! Got yourself a lawyer yet?”

  “I think so,” I said. “I think there was a lawyer when I went before the judge this morning, but.…”

  “Oh, that shitass! I mean a real lawyer.” He glanced at his watch, then rose abruptly, rocking in his boots. “Well, no hurry about it, I guess. You don’t come to trial for almost seven weeks yet.”

  He rammed a ranch-style hat down on his head and started around the desk. I stood up, too, and he dropped an arm around my shoulders and walked me to the door with him.

  “Now, tell me, son,” he said, pausing on the threshold and turning me around to face him. “Did you kill that son-of-a-bitch or not?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “I certainly did not kill him.”

  “Real sure about that, now? You’re not lyin’ to me?”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “I’m not lying.”

  His eyes bored into mine, seeming to look right through me and out the other side. At last he sighed and scowled, rubbing his face with a knotty-looking hand.

  “Too Goddamned bad,” he grumbled. “If you were guilty, you could plead to second-degree or manslaughter; I’d certainly agree to it. Did I tell you I saw him kick a horse one time?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “I believe you mentioned something about it.”

  “But, of course, if you’re actually innocent.…” He shook his head, scowling, then brightened a little. “Well, you just get yourself a good lawyer. I’ll help you if need be. A good man ought to be able to beat the pants off of these boys of mine.”

  I said I sure hoped he was right. Then, despite the jam I was in, I laughed out loud. I just couldn’t help myself.

  He gave me a startled look, kind of offended, you know. Then he laughed, too, giving me such a hard clap on the back that I was almost knocked from my feet.

  “That’s what I like to hear!” he boomed. “Show me something that a good laugh or a stiff drink won’t cure, and I’ll put in with you. What the hell, anyway? What’s the use crying when you can laugh?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “What’s the use?”

  “You’ve got money in the bank, right? A nice little stake? So, all right, then. Even if you’re convicted you’ve got no problem. Just flash a little of the long green in front of the Parkers, and they’ll have you home ahead of the jury!”

  I said, yes, sir, again, and he gave me another clap on the back and told me to keep my dauber up. Then, he hurried off somewhere, on his own private business, I suppose, and I went back to my cell.

  Years later, I told a prospective publisher about that county attorney and some of the other people I’d bumped into in the Texas of those days. And long before I’d finished talking, he was shaking his head. People didn’t act like that, he flatly assured me. There were no such people. That’s what the man said, and I didn’t try to talk him out of his ignorance. But he couldn’t have been wronger.

  There were such people; a big plenty of ’em. Quite a few of them made the history books, and at least two of them, Bud and Sis Parker, became governors of the state.

  They were brother and sister, Bud and Sis. Ignorant and lowdown crooked, they had a homespun quality and a folksy gift of gab which got the vote every time. Bud was governor first. When he got impeached, Sis Parker ran for his job, and she went into office on a landslide.

  The two of them ran the statehouse together. The joke was that they worked shifts, one of them selling pardons while the other was off-duty. It wasn’t quite that bad, of course, but no one did time in Texas if he had a few thousand dollars for the Parkers. Some criminals supposedly bought pardons before they pulled a job, charging it off as business expense.

  Well.…

  That was the way things were in those days. And the prospect of buying a pardon after being convicted didn’t cheer me up any. At the very best, I’d be in jail for weeks to come and when I thought of what would be happening to Carol during those weeks…! I couldn’t eat lunch or supper, just sipping a little coffee and almost gagging on it. I smoked three packages of cigarettes, lighting one as fast as I finished another. Fretting and worrying and wondering what the hell had gone wrong.

  Four Trey had been so sure that they were going to free me. Yet how could he have been? What could he have known that they didn’t know here? Why couldn’t he have told them right then and gotten me out immediately?

  The more I thought about it, the more confused I became. My head began to ache like it was going to split, and I knew I was going to be in a bad way if I didn’t put my mind on something else. But knowing it was a lot easier than doing it. It was no good trying to read; I’d go through a dozen pages without having the slightest idea of what they were about.

  I began to pace the floor, back and forth; back wall to door, side wall to bunk. I stopped, finally, my legs weak from all the turning and twisting; stood leaning against the wall with my eyes closed and the wind pouring over my face like water.

  It felt good, the wind. It was something I knew, a familiar friendly thing; the steady Texas wind, which had gone with me wherever I had gone. And it brought back memories of all those places: McCamey, and rigging high-line towers, my pants so stiff from alkali water that they could stand by themselves; a casing-crew out of the town of Chalk, and seeing a guy’s head pinched off when a line buckled and looped; a derrick-dismantling job in the field west of Big Springs, swinging from the top of a one-hundred-and-twenty-foot rig and knocking out the cross-bracing until it jigged like a drunken dancer. A honky-tonk in Four Sands, and a man who sat at the same table every day. A man with snowy white hair and an obscenely youthful face—a face like a dirty picture.

  He spoke to no one. He hardly moved, except to raise his cheese glass of white-corn whiskey or his jelly glass of chocbeer chaser. He simply sat there staring down at the floor—and listening. To the wind, it seemed like. Listening to the wind and never quite hearing what he was listening for…

  I sat back down in my bunk. I picked up paper and pencil and began to write. By the time I had finished, my headache was gone and I was able to sleep. Which was all that I really wanted. What I wrote wasn’t important, from any angle, and I balled it up and threw it on the floor. But it went something like this:

  A while ago as I sat here, counting the

  cracks in the floor,

  Trying to blot out the future, to forget

  all that happened before,

  I heard a baby crying, and I saw a face

  I’d known.

  But the kid was dead and the face and

  head were crying there alone.

  Wailing in infinite sorrow, sucking its

  finger tips

  Till nothing was left but the marrow

  and the feebly gnawing lips.

  (But maybe it’s the wind, kid./

  (Maybe it’s the wind.)

  The devil and a bearded saint peeked

  through the door at me.

  The devil had a smoky taint, the saint

  a golden key.

  The devil laughed, and he said to him,

  “I keep all whom I take.”

  And he bound me there to that very

  chair with a ten-foot rattlesnake.

  (But maybe it’s the wind, kid./

  (Maybe it’s the wind.)

  Yeah, maybe it’s the wind, kid, that

  aching hungry breeze/ That blows all hell

  loose through the lid of one contagious

  sneeze/ Or it could be the woman’s scream

  when the club came down on her back/ Or

  the starving hounds on the grassy mounds

  where the dead fight off their attack/

  Or the gasps for breath as the rope

  brings death while mob-fire turns bodies

  black/ Or the mad men, the bad men, the sad

  and the glad men who bring rape and murder

  and sack/ Where the bombs explode and the

  shells erode where sinned-against have sinned./

  (
But maybe it’s the wind, kid./

  (Maybe it’s the wind.)

  17

  It was mid-morning when I awakened: I lay with my eyes half-closed for a time, letting the sunlight seep gradually under the lids, putting the day off as long as possible. At last I yawned, stretched and looked around, then suddenly sat up with a start.

  The cell door stood open. A man in boots and a blue serge suit was leaning against the wall, reading the poem I’d written the night before. He went on reading, giving me a half-nod without looking up. When he had finally finished (and he took his time about it), he shook his head wryly and tossed the paper back to the floor.

  He shouldn’t have done that. No one should ever treat a writer’s work disrespectfully. If he does it, all right. But never do it yourself. He’ll like you a lot better if you spit in his face.

  “How are you, Burwell?” he said. “Darrow’s the name, Ben Darrow. I’m the sheriff here.”

  “I’m all right,” I said, “and I know who you are. I’ve heard quite a bit about you, sheriff.”

  I turned around to the sink and began to wash up. He grinned at me in the mirror, blue eyes glinting in his tanned face. A good-humored, intelligent-looking man in his thirties whom I might have liked under different circumstances. I stared back at him coldly, and he chuckled and winked at me.

  “Good news, Burwell. You’ve been cleared.”

  “Wha…!” I whirled around, my heart doing a big flipflop. “You…you really mean that? You’re not just kidding me?”

  “Now, of course, I’m not. The boys had the evidence to let you go last night, but I was out of town and they decided to play it cute. God knows why…” he shook his head, frowning, “since they certainly didn’t have any love for Lassen. But I can promise they’ll never do it again.”

  “But I have been cleared?” I insisted. “There’s no doubt about that?”

  “Absolutely none. Three witnesses swear that Lassen was fooling around the dragline when the bucket dropped on him. He must have triggered something, I suppose, or.…”