King Cole

by W. R. Burnett

  “I’ve got to put in an appearance. I won’t feel much like watching a football game. Election jitters! But I’ve got to show myself. Football fans vote.” He laughed. “Anyway, I want to keep in good with the Athletic Department. This time next year I’ll have a son on the freshman team.”

  “How is solemn old Johnny?”

  “Fine, according to last report. He’s the star of the Academy team. Doing all right in his studies, too. He’s a pretty sensible kid, I think. I don’t know which side he takes after. He doesn’t look like any of us. I think he’s got the brains of the family.”

  Gregg laughed.

  “He tickles me the way he goes around putting people in their places. He thinks I’m a nice old drunken fool. He practically told me so.”

  “Don’t exaggerate. He’s all for you, Gregg. He likes you better than anybody outside the family.”

  Gregg was pleased but said nothing. Johnny Cole was his idea of the kind of son a man should have.

  “I don’t know much about him,” said Read. “He never opens up with me. I often wonder if all fathers know as little about their sons as I know about Johnny.”

  “I can’t help you there.”

  They sat silently smoking for a long time, then Gregg finally said:

  “Read, I’m a little tight right now, been doing quite a lot of steady drinking since morning, so I feel like talking seriously. Do you mind?”

  Read glanced at his watch.

  “You’ll have to be quick about it. I’m playing hooky right now.”

  Gregg nervously lit a fresh cigarette and settled himself more comfortably.

  “N.P. sent Austeen out today. Did you know? They smell news. Can’t beat that bunch.”

  “I never met Austeen.”

  “He’s the smartest reporter in the U.S., I think. Read, just a little tip from another newspaperman; tread lightly with Austeen. N.P. has absolute confidence in him.”

  “I always tread lightly.”

  “I know you do. You always have. But that story about the sentiment in the farm districts changing by election day was a little heavy-footed. Just a little.”

  “That’s only the beginning.”

  Gregg looked at the table for a long time.

  “I see your point,” he said. “And it’s your own business. You know what you’re doing or you wouldn’t be Governor. You’ve picked your way pretty carefully. You haven’t had any Harry Daugherty to guide you. Ed Sullavan’s all right, but he’s no mastermind.” Gregg hesitated. “About Austeen. N.P. smells a rat or he wouldn’t be here. He’s a New York Jew. He’s not like us. You want him on your side, Read. You need him. Just take my tip, be careful with him.”

  “I always get along with the boys all right.”

  “I know. But he may antagonize you a little. Never mind. I’ve had my say. Just trying to help.” Gregg laughed and pulled on his cigarette, then he said slowly: “Read, I’m just tight enough to try once more to make you see the light.”

  “What light?”

  “Read, I know what this election means to you. If you’re elected against this kind of odds, you’ll be talked about for President. The Ohio boys have a way of getting the nominations. I know. But, Read, won’t you think it over?”

  Read was a little impatient now.

  “Think what over?”

  “I’m your friend,” said Gregg, “and I want to stay your friend. It would be easy for me to keep my mouth shut, you see? Instead, I’m talking. All right. Being a practical politician, you’re thinking about getting re-elected. Have you thought about the outcome?”

  “Outcome of what?”

  “Lord, I must be drunk if you have to keep asking me questions. Whether you’re elected or not your attitude is going to kick up one hell of a fuss. All the radicals will call you a Fascist. The liberals will call you worse than that. Everybody will say you’ve been bought up by the big fellows. Hundreds of thousands will hate your guts. This campaign of yours is an appeal to reaction. Did you ever think about that? You know the old world has gone bust. We’re as far from nineteen-twenty-eight as we are from eighteen-twenty-eight; farther. The system was beginning then; now it’s dead…”

  Read laughed.

  “You’ve been listening to Eagle Beak.”

  “Now wait a minute, Read…”

  “Nothing’s dead. We’ve had depressions before. Don’t be an ass.”

  Gregg called for the bill and they got up.

  “All right,” said Gregg, paying the check. “I was just trying to have my say. I’m your friend. But I wanted to be sure you knew what you were doing. Things are on the fence; they can go one way or another. In the future, I mean. You’ve always been a liberal. I just wondered if you wanted to be held responsible for a violent reaction…”

  They walked out into the gray November day. The sky was clearing a little toward the west and the sun was trying to shine. They shook hands.

  “Thanks, anyway,” said Read.

  “I’m for you,” said Gregg. “But I don’t like stuffed shirts. Never did. You’ve really got something inside that shirt of yours. Don’t lose it.”

  At four o’clock that afternoon, Read was learning that Gregg was a very shrewd man. The fellow, Austeen, did antagonize him very much. He was a smooth, slick and handsome New York Jew. He had a distinct air of superiority in spite of his ingratiating smile and his somewhat humble manner. Read could see that he thought Ohio was the sticks!

  “Let’s get back to that change of sentiment, Governor,” he was saying, smiling slightly. “That was a rather broad statement. The boss picked it up right away and here I am. We’re all interested in Ohio. It’s big stuff. Cradle of Presidents, you know.” He paused and glanced up at Read, who lowered his eyes to keep his annoyance from showing.

  Big stuff! Cradle of Presidents! What Austeen really meant, Read told himself, was that Ohio was the jumping-off place and that all Ohioans, including the Governor, were a bunch of unsophisticated bumpkins.

  “I’m not ready to talk about that yet,” said Read. “Sorry.”

  “Couldn’t you give me a little hint?”

  “Sorry.” There was a certain sharpness in Read’s voice.

  Austeen stiffened slightly.

  “Is it possible that that statement didn’t mean much of anything? Just a… you might say… political statement?”

  “You might say so.”

  “Would you like that? N.P. has considerable influence in Ohio.”

  “Mr. Austeen, I can’t seem to make you understand that I’m not ready to talk about the farm districts yet.”

  “May I print that?”

  “Why not?”

  Austeen hesitated.

  “The trouble is, I didn’t fly out here to get what anybody could get. We could wait for Parrott’s bulletins. My hunch is, you meant something by that statement.”

  “Really?”

  “Please, Governor. If I offended you, I didn’t mean to.”

  “I’m not in the habit of merely shooting off my mouth. I did mean something.”

  “What?”

  Read was losing his temper.

  “I won’t go over that again.”

  Austeen got up and offered his hand. Read shook it, then turned away.

  “There is some talk about a big push,” said Austeen, casually. “We have our tipsters, you know. In Cleveland and Youngstown and Toledo some of the leading radicals are going to take vacations till after the election. That, I think, has a certain significance.”

  “No doubt.”

  “You wouldn’t like to make a statement? Your own word will do you more good than rumors.”

  “I’ll make a statement when I get ready. General pressroom.”

  Austeen flushed slightly, then he bowed ironically.

  “Thanks very much for your kindness, Governor.”

  Read stood at the door, boiling with rage, watching Austeen walk down the narrow corridor to the outer office where the local newspapermen were wai
ting hungrily.

  Read slammed the door shut, then went back to his desk. Miss Wilson knocked and came in.

  “I have the clippings on the ‘farm district sentiment’ story all pasted up. Would you like the scrapbook now, Governor?”

  “Give it to Charley.”

  “Yes, Governor.”

  “I’m going home. Turn the Bratton correspondence over to Charley. He can handle it. Tell Representative Hayes to see the Lieutenant Governor. We’re up with our correspondence, aren’t we?”

  “Not quite. But I can take care of the rest with a little help from Mr. Parrott. If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re looking a little tired, Governor. I’ll be glad when this election’s over.”

  “So will I.”

  “And those newspapermen! You can’t go any place without stepping on them. Was that the famous Mr. Austeen, Governor?”

  “That was him.”

  “Very handsome.”

  Read glanced at Miss Wilson. So she was human, after all!

  “He seemed handsome, eh?”

  “Oh, yes. The girls in the outer office were simply bowled over.”

  Read smiled.

  “Were you bowled over, Miss Wilson?”

  “Not me! Still, he was handsome.”

  She went out a little hurriedly, Read thought. He sat vaguely wondering what Miss Wilson’s private life was like; then he got up, put on his hat and coat and went into the outer office. Harold got up, smiling.

  “These newspapermen!” he said.

  Read heard them clamoring. He went to the railing and looked. Austeen was in the center of a big group, smiling ironically.

  “What do you think of him, Austeen?” one asked, hopefully.

  “Why,” said Austeen, “my personal opinion is that he’s another George Washington.”

  There was a laugh, then dead silence. Read walked through them without a word and out into the dark, echoing rotunda. Tonight he did not glance at the tattered battle flags in their glass cases. He was trembling with anger.

  III

  Major Bradley was very proud of his den. It was a huge room thirty-by-twenty with a big brick fireplace, wood-paneled walls, and a beamed ceiling. On the walls were hunting trophies, sporting prints of trotters and runners, signed photographs of tennis and golf champions, and an enormous oil painting of Dan Patch. In the old days, the Major had owned a string of horses but in 1929 had given them up as too expensive. Also he felt that it detracted from his dignity to race horses and have the rabble betting on them. The rector of the Broad Street Episcopal Church used to talk to him about it. The rector, of course, was very careful in what he said because, after all, Major Bradley was Major Bradley; it was necessary to be in his good graces if you wanted really to succeed in Midland City.

  Read and Ed Sullavan were sitting on a huge divan in front of the fireplace. Sullavan was obviously out of his element and felt very uneasy among all these “big shots”; he tried to mask his uneasiness by laughing and talking loudly and by making sweeping gestures. Twice Read saw Yardley Meadows looking at Sullavan with distaste.

  Yardley Meadows was considered the second richest man in Midland City. The Meadows Estate controlled the huge Meadows, Hannum and Company, besides some smaller interests, and Yardley had the last word in everything. His son, they said, did not amount to much, running off to Europe annually and even writing a book and having it published and reviewed as if he were just anybody! Yardley was tall and pale with a thin ascetic face. He spoke sharply and to the point. He was extremely distant and cold, but domineering in a quiet way. He looked immaculate in his dinner coat.

  Lamont Jones was standing at the side of the fireplace, leaning his elbow on the mantel and talking to the Major, who had his bulk wedged uncomfortably into an inglenook which was much too small for him. Jones had white hair and a sallow, lined face.

  He was about sixty and had been in ill-health for nearly twenty years. He collapsed from time to time and was taken to a hospital where he generally stayed about a month. He said that he had died at least ten times but that St. Peter told him that his work on earth wasn’t done and sent him back. He was kidding, of course; but rather seriously. He really thought that the world couldn’t get along without him. He had various unpleasant mannerisms: his face twitched spasmodically and he spat involuntarily when he got excited. He was jittery and his hands shook; he made other people nervous. Sometimes he would laugh explosively; at other times he’d sit with a dismal long face, never saying a word. He had married into the Freytag family and hardly knew how much money he had. For ten years some of the younger men (including a son and a cousin) had been trying to oust him from his headship of the gas company, but somehow he always won out.

  Henry Freytag II was sitting on a lounge with John Baylor, who had driven down from Cleveland for the conference. Freytag was a big man with a heavy white mustache and a huge belly. In his dinner coat he looked enormous and as solid and immovable as a stone wall. His fat red German face was almost unlined, in spite of his fifty-odd years, and his pale blue eyes were those of a young man, both innocent and shrewd. He managed the most powerful banking firm in Central Ohio. He was ultra-conservative in every respect and admired Hitler. When he was not talking, he puffed; you could hear him breathing across the room.

  Baylor was a quiet little man with a dark, cynical face. He was self-made and had at one time worked as a cinder-sniper in a steel mill. He felt infinitely superior to the Midland City men, who had had money in their families for at least two generations; in the case of the Bradleys, four; and he was always taking little cuts at them which they resented. But they did not retaliate; it was rumored that Baylor was the richest man between Pittsburgh and the Mississippi with the exception of Henry Ford; it was not politic to show much resentment against a man like that. Baylor sat with his legs crossed and stared at the ceiling, smoking a foul old pipe. His dinner coat looked rented and his black tie was badly tied.

  Major Bradley was being jovial in his best Olympian manner, telling about his experiences on the turf. But it couldn’t last; the moral itch got hold of him, as usual, and he began to deplore the gambling. Sullavan shifted about uneasily and finally admitted grudgingly that gambling was an evil. In short jerky sentences Lamont Jones denounced race-track gambling, spitting from time to time. Henry Freytag waited patiently for Jones to conclude, not listening; then, when he got his chance, he told a long rambling story, interspersed with stentorian puffs, about a young bank teller, fine boy, who had been ruined by race-track gambling and was now serving a long term for embezzlement. Finally Baylor took his pipe out of his mouth and impatiently observed:

  “Any of you reformers ever play the stock market?”

  There was a pointed silence, then Baylor got up and knocked out his pipe into the fireplace. The others were irritated. They had heard this same observation many times before. It struck them as irrelevant. The stock market was an institution; accepted by everybody. To play it wasn’t gambling at all in the sense they understood it.

  “Quite a few boys blew their brains out and jumped out windows in ’twenty-nine if I’m not mistaken,” said Baylor, sitting down and reloading his pipe. “Fine boys, too,” he added, heavily ironic.

  Read looked at Baylor with interest. Why would a man like that let his daughters run around with a gilded gigolo like Vince Riquetti? Probably wasn’t quite as masterful among his womenfolks as he was with the male plutocrats of Midland City. Then suddenly Read remembered that his own daughter had gone to the hockey game with Riquetti that afternoon; he smiled grimly.

  “Don’t hurt a man to bet a little now and then,” said Sky’s-the-Limit Sullavan, feeling a little more assurance now that he apparently had Baylor on his side. “As long as he’s careful. Of course, it’s bad for the little fellow. He’s the one that gets hurt.”

  “Damn the little fellow,” said Baylor. “You can’t make wise men out of fools. If a man hasn’t got enough sense to value his own money, making laws about
it isn’t going to help him any. A man has got to look out for himself in this world; pick his way carefully if he’s going to end up with anything. A fool’s a fool. Run it wide open, I say, and let the State control it. You can’t change human nature. That’s the trouble with this country. Prohibition, poor old Prohibition: dead now, thank God; antigambling laws: ostrich legislation! I’ll bet none of you fellows will admit that whores are necessary to a country. We’ve got them; you know we’ve got them, but you’ll hardly admit it. No, you’ve got to break up the red-light districts and scatter the women all over the town. If you don’t see it, it isn’t there.” He paused and relit his pipe. “How we’ve all kept going as long as we have, I don’t know. The Americans just haven’t got any guts anymore. If they had, we’d have been liquidated long ago, like the Kulaks. Old Eagle Beak talks sense now and then. “

  They stared at him, appalled. Read wanted to laugh, but refrained. Ed Sullavan, out of his element, horrified, sat looking at Baylor in amazement.

  “Well, by God,” he said, finally.

  The Major recovered first.

  “Why, John Baylor,” he said, “that’s a fine way to talk with our Governor sitting there. I…”

  “Read Cole understands what I’m talking about, I think. The rest of you don’t.”

  “Oh, yes, we do,” said Freytag, puffing loudly. “We understand.”

  Yardley Meadows laughed his sour laugh.

  “I think Mr. Baylor would object to being liquidated. And what a nice way to put it!”

  Baylor looked sideways at Yardley Meadows, who did not seem as stupid as the rest.

  “Of course I’d object. I do object. I intend to hang on to mine. Yes; I do object. That’s why I’m here.”

  This threw a slight chill over the gathering. They began to look at Read as if to say: “Governor, if it’s as bad as that, you’re our one hope!”

  “No use for us to kid ourselves,” said Baylor. “If that lunatic of an Asa Fielding is elected we’d better all leave the State. He’d put the hooks into us nicely.”