by Jim Thompson
“How about that nigger baby, Sam?”
The crowd looked at each other, embarrassed, snickering, or outright guffawing. All at once there were catcalls from half a dozen different directions.
“Where’s them gold teeth, Sam?” and “Did you just screw that widder for her money, Sam?” and “What’d you do with them hawgs you fed your wife to?” and so on. Until everything was in an uproar of shouts and laughter and bootstampings.
I let it go on for two, three minutes, letting these here good Christians work themselves up to the proper pitch. Then I held up my arms and called for quiet, and finally I got it. But it was restless, you know. The kind of quiet you get just before a storm.
“Now, Sam,” I said, facing around to him again. “You reckon you fully understand the question, or do you want me to repeat it?”
“Uh, well—”
“I’ll repeat it,” I said, “an’ you listen closely, now, Sam. If you didn’t rape any little defenseless colored babies or beat your poor ol’ pappy to death or feed your sweet, trusting wife that you’d sworn to protect and cherish to the hawgs or—if you didn’t do none of them dirty low-down things that make me sick to my stomach to think about, how come so many folks say you did? Or puttin’ it briefly, Sam, how come folks say that you done things that would out-stink a skunk and that you’re lower down than a puke-eating dawg, if it ain’t true? Or puttin’ it still another way, are you sayin’ that you’re telling the truth an’ that everyone else is a dirty no-good liar?”
Zeke Carlton hollered, “Now, wait a minute! That’s not—” But he was hollered down before he could say anything more. Everyone was yelling for Sam to answer, to let him do his own talking. I held up my hands again.
“Well, Sam, what’s the answer?” I said. “We’re all waitin’ to hear it.”
“Well—” Sam wet his lips. “Well, uh—”
“Yeah?” I said. “Just speak right up, Sam. Why are people sayin’ those stories are true, if they ain’t?”
“Well…”
Sam didn’t have an answer. You could almost smell him sweatin’ blood to think of one, but he just couldn’t. Which wasn’t no surprise to me, of course, because how could anyone answer a question like that?
Sam kept trying, though. He was on maybe about his sixteenth try when someone flung a prayer book, hitting him spang in the mouth. And that was kind of like a signal, like the first crack of lightning in a storm. Because the air was suddenly full of prayer books and hymnals, and everyone was shouting and cussing and trying to get their hands on Sam. And all at once he disappeared like he’d been dropped through a trap door…
I sauntered on home.
I thought, well, it was just as well that I wouldn’t be on the speaker’s platform tonight at Sam’s meeting because Sam wouldn’t be there neither because there wouldn’t be no meeting because Sam wouldn’t be a candidate no more.
I thought, well, that was at least one nail out of my cross, and maybe, if I kept on being upright and God-fearin’ and never hurting no one unless it was for their good or mine, which was pretty much the same thing, why then maybe all my other problems would get straightened out as easy as this one had.
We ate Sunday dinner, Rose and Myra and Lennie and me. Rose was supposed to go home that afternoon, and I said I’d sure be proud to take her as soon as I’d rested myself a little. But naturally I didn’t take her.
I couldn’t, you know, since I could only see her one more time. Just once to do something about her. And that plan had come back to me again—the plan for doing something about her and Lennie and Myra at the same time. But it wasn’t something that I could pull off on Sunday afternoon, or any afternoon; it had to be at night. And, anyways, I had to study some more about it.
Myra called to me after about an hour. Then she came into my bedroom and called some more, shaking me until the whole bed almost fell apart. And, of course, it didn’t do no good at all.
Finally, she gave up, and went back out into the other room, and I heard her apologizing to Rose.
“I simply can’t wake him up, dear. He’s just dead to the world. Not that it’s any wonder, I suppose, considering how much sleep he’s lost.”
Rose said, yes, it wasn’t any wonder, was it?, her voice kind of flat. “Well, I really hadn’t planned on staying over tonight, but—”
“And you don’t have to,” Myra declared. “I’ll just take Lennie and drive you home myself.”
“Now, that’s not necessary,” Rose said quickly. “I don’t mind—”
“And I don’t mind taking you. I really don’t, darling. So you just get yourself ready—Lennie, go wash your face—and we’ll be on our way.”
“Well,” said Rose. “Well, all right, Myra, dear.”
They left a few minutes later.
I yawned and stretched and turned over on my side, all set to go to sleep for real. I started to doze, just started to, and I heard someone coming up the stairs.
It was a man, judging by the footsteps. I started to turn back on my side again, thinking, well, t’heck with him, it’s Sunday afternoon an’ I’m entitled to a little rest. But you just can’t ignore no one when you’re sheriff, Sunday or whatever day it is. So I flung my feet over the side of the bed, and got up.
I went out into the living room and flung open the hall door, just as he was about to knock on it.
He was a city-dressed fella, tall and thin with a nose like a fishhook and a mouth about as big as a bee’s-ass.
“Sheriff Corey?” He flashed an identification card at me. “I’m Barnes, the Talkington Detective Agency.”
He smiled, his bee’s-ass mouth stretching enough to show one tooth, and it was like getting a glimpse of an egg coming out of a pullet pigeon. I said I was plumb proud to meet him.
“So you’re with the Talkington Agency,” I said. “Why, god-dang if I ain’t heard a lot about you people! Let’s see now, you broke up that big railroad strike, didn’t you?”
“That’s right.” He showed me the tooth again. “The railroad strike was one of our jobs.”
“Now, by golly, that really took nerve,” I said. “Them railroad workers throwin’ chunks of coal at you an’ splashin’ you with water, and you fellas without nothin’ to defend yourself with except shotguns an’ automatic rifles! Yes, sir, god-dang it, I really got to hand it to you!”
“Now, just a moment, Sheriff!” His mouth came together like a buttonhole. “We have never—”
“And them low-down garment workers,” I said. “God-dang, you really took care of them, didn’t you? People that threw away them big three-dollar-a-week wages on wild livin’ and then fussed because they had to eat garbage to stay alive! I mean, what the heck, they was all foreigners, wasn’t they, and if they didn’t like the good ol’ American garbage, why didn’t they go back where they came from?”
“Sheriff! Sheriff Corey!”
“Yeah?” I said. “You got something on your mind, Mr. Barnes?”
“Certainly I have something on my mind! Why else would I have come here? Now—”
“You mean you just didn’t drop in for a little chat?” I said. “Just to maybe show me your medals for shootin’ people in the back an’—”
“I’m here to inquire about a former resident of Pottsville! A man named Cameron Tramell.”
“Never heard of him,” I said. “Good-bye.”
I started to close the door, Barnes held it open.
“You’ve heard of him,” he said. “He was known locally as Curly, and he was a pimp.”
I said, oh, I said, oh, yeah, sure, I’d heard of Curly. “Ain’t seen him for a spell, come to think of it. How’s he getting along, anyways?”
“Now, Sheriff”—he grinned at me with his eyes—”let’s not spar with each other.”
“Spar? What do you mean?” I said.
“I mean, Cameron Trammel, alias Curly, is dead, as you well know. And you also know who killed him.”
20
I had h
im come in, and we sat in the living room while he explained about Curly. It seemed that both bodies had been washed up, Moose’s as well as Curly’s. But no one was interested in Moose, whereas they were plenty interested in Curly. And the people that was interested in him was his own family, one of the best families in the South. They knew he was no good, naturally; in fact, they’d paid him to stay away from ’em. But still he was “family”—still part of ’em—and they meant to see to it that his murderer was hanged.
“So here I am, Sheriff…” Barnes forced a smile. “Perhaps we didn’t see eye to eye on everything, but, well, I’m not a man to hold a grudge, and I’m sure neither of us wants to see a murderer running loose.”
“I know I sure don’t,” I said. “If I see any murderer runnin’ around loose, I’ll arrest ’em and throw ’em in jail.”
“Exactly. So if you’ll tell me the name of the man who killed Curly…”
“Me?” I said. “I don’t know who killed him. If I did, I’d arrest him an’ put—”
“Sheriff! You do know who killed him. You’ve admitted it.”
“Not me,” I said. “You said that I knew, not me.”
His mouth pinched together again, and his eyes along with it. With that fishhook nose, his face looked like three clods on a sandbank with a plough cutting through them.
“Approximately one week ago, on the morning after Curly was killed—”
“Now, how do you know it was the morning after?” I said. “Ain’t no one can say that unless it was the fella that killed him.”
“I know this, Sheriff. I know that your friend, Sheriff Ken Lacey, openly boasted on the streets of this town that he had taken care of Moose and Curly, meaning he had killed them. And you were with him at the time of this boasting, this claim that he had murdered those two men, and you gave your hearty approval to it.”
“Oh, yeah,” I laughed, “now I remember. That was a little joke of Ken’s an’ mine. Had ourselves a peck of fun with it.”
“Now, Sheriff—”
“You think it wasn’t?” I said. “You think that a fella who’d killed two men would walk around the streets braggin’ about it, and that I, an officer of the law, would just pat him on the back for it?”
“Never mind what I think, Sheriff! The events I have described did take place, and on the night previous to them—the only night Sheriff Lacey spent in Pottsville—he stayed at the river whorehouse, and he there boasted to the inmates of the house that he had fixed Moose and Curly good and that he had taken care of them good, and so on. In other words, there is incontrovertible evidence that approximately one week before Moose and Curly were found dead, on the only night Sheriff Lacey spent in Pottsville, he did declare himself to be the murderer of the aforesaid Moose and Curly.”
“Uh-hah,” I said, making myself sound real interested. “Now, this in-con-tro-watchmacallit evidence you speak about. Would that be the unsupported word of these whorehouse gals?”
“It’s not unsupported, dammit! There’s Sheriff Lacey’s bragging the following morning, and—”
“But he was just jokin’, Mr. Barnes. I put him up to it.”
Barnes’ head snapped back, them little old eyes of his glaring at me. Then he darted it forward again, like he was going to hook me with his nose.
“Now, you listen to me, Corey! Listen to me good! I don’t intend to—to—” He broke off suddenly, shook himself like a horse shaking off flies. Then his face twisted, and screwed up and unscrewed, and god-dang if he didn’t smile. “Please excuse me, Sheriff Corey; I’ve had a rather trying day. I’m afraid I lost track of the fact, for a moment, that we’re both equally sincere and intent in our desire for justice even though we may not act and think alike.”
I nodded and said that I guessed he was right all right. He beamed and went on.
“Now, you’ve known Sheriff Lacey for years. He’s a good friend of yours. You naturally feel that you have to protect him.”
“Uh-uh,” I said. “He ain’t a friend of mine, and if there was any way I could pin them two murders on him I’d be plain proud to do it.”
“But, Sheriff—”
“He was a friend of mine,” I said. “He stopped bein’ one even before that night he came down here an’ rousted me out of bed and got me to point out the way to the whorehouse to him.”
“Then he did go there!” Barnes rubbed his hands together. “You can testify of your own knowledge that he did go to the whorehouse on the night in question?”
“Why, sure I can,” I said. “It’s the plain truth, so why couldn’t I testify to it?”
“But that’s wonderful! Wonderful, Sheriff! And did Lacey tell you why he wanted to go to the—no, wait a minute. Did he say anything that would indicate that he was going to the whorehouse for the purpose of killing Moose and Curly?”
“You mean then, that night?” I shook my head. “No, he didn’t say anything then.”
“But he did at some other time! When?”
“That day,” I said, “when I was over to his county on a visit. He said that pimps was one thing he just didn’t have no use for, and that he believed in killin’ ’em on general principles.”
Barnes jumped up, and began pacing around the room. He said that what I’d told him was wonderful, wonderful, and it was just what he needed, then, stopped in front of me an’ shook his finger sort of playful.
“You’re quite a tease, Sheriff. Almost made me lose my temper, and I’m a man who prides himself on self-control. You had this vital information all along, and yet you appeared to be defending Lacey.”
I said that, well, that was the way I was, a real card. He glanced at his watch, and asked me what time he could get a train into the city.
“Oh, you got lots of time,” I said. “Better’n a couple of hours. Best thing you can do is stay an’ have supper with us.”
“Why—Why, that’s very kind of you, Sheriff. Very kind.”
I got some whiskey out of the office, and we had ourselves a few drinks. He started talking about himself, him and the detective agency, me throwing in a word now and then by way of leading him on, and his voice began to get kind of bitter. It seemed like he hated what he was doing. He knew exactly what Talkington was, and he couldn’t make no excuses for it. It was a downright hateful outfit, and he was part of its hateful doings, and he hated himself because he was.
“You probably know what I mean, Sheriff. Even a man in your job has to close his eyes to some very bad things.”
“You’re right about that,” I said. “I have to close ’em if I want to stay on bein’ sheriff.”
“And do you want to? You’ve never thought of taking up another line of work?”
“Not for very long,” I said. “What else would a fella like me do anyways?”
“Exactly!” His eyes lit up and they began to look a lot bigger. “What else can you do? What else can I do? But, Nick—excuse me for being familiar—my name’s George, Sheriff.”
“Glad to know you, George,” I nodded, “an’ you go right on calling me Nick.”
“Thank you, Nick”—he took another drink of whiskey. “Now, here’s what I was going to ask, Nick, and it’s something I’ve worried about a great deal. Does the fact that we can’t do anything else—does that excuse us?”
“Well,” I said, “do you excuse a post for fittin’ a hole? Maybe there’s a nest of rabbits down in that hole, and the post will crush ’em. But is that the post’s fault, for fillin’ a gap it was made to fit?”
“But that’s not a fair analogy, Nick. You’re talking about inanimate objects.”
“Yeah?” I said. “So ain’t we all relatively inanimate, George? Just how much free will does any of us exercise? We got controls all along the line, our physical make-up, our mental make-up, our backgrounds; they’re all shapin’ us a certain way, fixin’ us up for a certain role in life, and George, we better play that role or fill that hole or any goddang way you want to put it or all hell is going to tumble ou
t of the heavens and fall right down on top of us. We better do what we were made to do, or we’ll find it being done to us.”
“You mean it’s a case of kill or be killed?” Barnes shook his head. “I hate to think that, Nick.”
“Maybe that’s not what I mean,” I said. “Maybe I’m not sure what I mean. I guess mostly what I mean is that there can’t be no personal hell because there ain’t no personal sins. They’re all public, George, we all share in the other fellas’ and the other fellas all share in ours. Or maybe I mean this, George, that I’m the savior himself, Christ on the Cross come right here to Potts County, because God knows I was needed here, an’ I’m goin’ around doing kindly deeds—so that people will know they got nothing to fear, and if they’re worried about hell they don’t have to dig for it. And, by God, that makes sense, don’t it, George? I mean obligation ain’t all on the side of the fella that accepts it, nor responsibility neither. I mean, well, which is worse, George, the fella that craps on a doorknob or the one that rings the doorbell?”
George threw back his head and roared with laughter. “That’s priceless, Nick! Priceless!”
“Well, it ain’t exactly original,” I said. “Like the poem says, you can’t fault a jug for bein’ twisted because the hand of the potter slipped. So you tell me which is worse, the one that messes up the doorknob or the one that rings the bell, and I’ll tell you which got twisted and who done the twisting.”
“But—but suppose the same person does both?”
“It ain’t likely,” I said. “As a fella that’s had to deal with plenty of high jinks, and god-dang if I don’t feel I’m living in a joker’s paradise sometimes. I can say that these little chores is usually divided up. But if that wasn’t the case, George, then we’ve opened up another field of obligation and responsibility. Because this fella had to eat before he could crap, didn’t he, and where did the food come from?”
We went on talking and drinking until Myra came home.
She fixed dinner for George and me, she an’ Lennie having already eaten at Rose’s place. George was real courtly to Myra. God-dang if she didn’t look almost pretty the way he shined up to her, and god-dang if he didn’t look almost handsome because he done it.
