King Cole

by W. R. Burnett

  The Colonel glanced at Read questioningly, as if asking for his help, then he continued: “Haven’t you anything to say, Cadet Cole? You’re an intelligent boy; one of our best, scholastically. You know right from wrong as well as we do. Do you want hours of quad? Do you want to have your liberty restricted for the rest of the year? Do you want to see yourself at the bottom of the merit list when you’ve always been at or near the top?’’ The Colonel leaned forward. “Do you want to be excluded indefinitely from participation in all extracurricular activities, including athletics?”

  Johnny squirmed.

  “This and more will happen to you, my boy, if you don’t do your duty. Look at your father: Governor of our great State. Do you suppose he wasted his time drinking whiskey and… and associating with low, immodest girls? Do you suppose, putting him in your place by some superhuman stretch of the imagination, he’d let some silly childish scruples deter him from doing his duty? He’d know it was to the best interests of the school and the student body for him to tell. A man who will get liquor for boys and pander to their worst instincts is no better than a snake. He's your enemy and mine. Why protect him?”

  Johnny squirmed, raised his eyes to his father’s face as if looking for encouragement or condemnation, then in a husky voice he asked:

  “You mean, Colonel, that I can’t play basketball, or baseball, or be on the track team next year?”

  “That’s what I mean. We simply can’t grant favors to boys who won’t cooperate.”

  Johnny looked at his father again. Read avoided his eyes.

  “No,” said Johnny.

  “You mean,” said the Colonel, gaping, “that in spite of everything, and with your father here, you decline to help us?”

  “I won’t tell.”

  “That’s final?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Read cleared his throat.

  “Johnny,” he said, “are you sure you know what you’re doing? Take a little time now. This is serious. Are you absolutely certain you haven’t got anything to say to the Colonel?”

  Johnny hesitated, staring uneasily at the floor.

  “Yes,” said the Colonel; “think how your father must feel about all this.”

  Read again avoided Johnny’s eyes. He felt that he wasn’t playing fair, that he was piling it up on Johnny; but it had been absolutely necessary that he say something.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” said Johnny with an effort. “I just won’t tell.”

  “Captain Davies, see that Cadet Cole is confined to quarters. That’s all,” said the Colonel, sharply.

  When Johnny and the Captain had gone, Read said:

  “He’ll never do any good here now, Colonel. He loves athletics. Send him home on sick leave Wednesday. Then we’ll see what can be done.”

  The Colonel got up stiffly. He was very much disappointed in the Governor.

  “As you wish.”

  Later, Read climbed the stairs to Johnny’s room in the dormitory. Read was so pleased that he could hardly contain himself. Johnny had stood the gaff like a man. This school was no place for him. Johnny already had more sense than either the Colonel or the Commandant.

  Read knocked. Johnny opened the door. Read saw another cadet sitting doubled up on the bed, crying.

  “Hello, Dad,” said Johnny, glancing a little timidly at Read. “I wanted to tell on your account. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

  “What’s the matter with that boy?”

  “That’s my roommate, Simp Simpson. He squealed. They talked to him about his mother and he squealed.”

  Read glanced hurriedly at his watch.

  “I’m sorry, Johnny,” he said, “but I’ve got to go. You’re coming home Wednesday. We’ll find a better school for you.”

  “What! You hear that, Simp? I’m going home! Good Lord, Dad; you’re all right. I thought you were mad at me. I thought you wanted me to tell old Pom-Pom… the Colonel, I mean…” Johnny blushed heavily.

  “No; I don’t like snitchers any better than you do. But I want to have a serious talk with you, Johnny, when you get home. This kind of thing won’t do at all. You ought to know better.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again. Really, I won’t. It wasn’t even fun. It was disgusting.”

  On the way back Read sat smiling.

  “Wait till I tell Gregg about this,” he crowed.

  III

  Read ate his dinner quickly at a big restaurant and roadhouse at the edge of town. The proprietor, Tom Biggs, was prominent in the American Legion, a big fat rugged ex-topsergeant, a friend of Sullavan’s and an energetic Read Cole man. On state occasions he sometimes served on the Governor’s Staff, and would appear in an immaculate uniform studded with medals. In uniform he was very martial, as stiff and domineering as the goose-stepping Germans he had hated so some years back. In civilian clothes, surrounded by the patrons of his big and popular restaurant, he was all smiles and geniality.

  His eyes had popped when Read appeared, followed by Barney, who was carrying two guns now and was as nervous as Read was calm.

  “I’m in a hurry, Tom,” Read had said.

  “Yes, sir. Right this way, Governor. We’ll fix you up in a private room. Nobody will know you’re here. I don’t think anybody noticed…”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Fix me up a table in the hall, Mr. Biggs,” Barney had said, and had shrugged when Read laughed.

  Now Read was through with his dinner and sat glancing at the papers the waiter, overawed and nervous, had brought him. One paper had a long crowing article entitled: Exodus of Radicals. It irritated Read and he flung it aside. Why must people be such asses? In another paper he read that Asa Fielding had gone into hiding; that there had been serious rioting in Youngstown; that the Mayor of a northern city had declared openly his sympathy with the so-called Vigilantes; and that the election of Read Cole was now almost certain. A Cincinnati paper, always conservative, said that now all the ”better element” could sit back with a sigh of relief; Read Cole was as good as re-elected, and so peace and prosperity would be assured for Ohio.

  Read laid the paper aside and stared at the smoke rising from his cigarette. It was not as easy as that, he meditated. He was not elected yet, far from it. And if he was elected, things would be about the same. There would be no great upheaval; no overnight change for the better; things would go along as before and pretty soon the very papers now shouting so loudly for him would be putting him on the pan, forgetting that “peace and prosperity were now assured.”

  Men, Read had found, lived by their passions, their instincts, their prejudices. They were not rational animals at all. Read had few illusions. He expected the worst from men. Consequently, he was hard to shock; was able to retain his balance through events that would seriously upset other men. He had seen “idealists” and reformers crumple up all around him. He had had a surfeit of them when he was working on the progressive legislation which he had finally jockeyed through an indifferent House and Senate by methods known to all politicians, great and small: vote trading, sandbagging, even mild forms of blackmail. The reformers had quailed at the unmistakable signs of venality and selfishness they had discerned in the legislators; the reformers had their heads in the clouds; they would never try to deal with reality until it hit them in the face. They were no good on earth; pretentious and even dangerous windbags almost to a man. Read disliked the lot of them.

  There was a knock at the door. Barney came in.

  “You told me to tell you when it was eight o’clock, Governor,” he said.

  “Thanks. We’ll get started. I want you to drive me to Major Bradley’s.”

  Tom Biggs came in, smiling and rubbing his hands together.

  “How was your dinner, Governor?”

  “Excellent.”

  “Fine. Fine. The chef almost fainted when I told him who was here. He was afraid he couldn’t fix you up anything good enough. Now, now. Put your money right back in your pock
et. You can’t pay for anything here. It won’t work. Golly, Governor, but you surely stood them on their, ears up at Steelton. Boy, I’ll say the gang at our Post was delighted. Know what they did? They took a flag the Rainbow Division brought back from France and draped it around your picture. Was they sure enough coming up over the seats after you?”

  “It looked like it.”

  Barney cut in.

  “They was, and here he goes driving around all over the country with just me along. It’s too much responsibility for me, Governor. I could hardly eat my dinner.”

  “Control yourself, Barney. A good Irishman like you!”

  “Don’t think I’m scared. There never was a man could scare me. But I don’t like the responsibility, that’s all.”

  “Say the word, Governor,” said Biggs, “and I’ll send you over a real bodyguard. The boys from the Post would get a big kick out of seeing you didn’t get hurt. And you wouldn’t, with that bunch of Indians around!”

  “The newspapers exaggerate things,” said Read, getting up. “Many, many thanks for your hospitality, Sergeant Biggs.”

  There was a joke between them. Biggs smiled, remembering, then his smile widened at the incongruity, as he said:

  “Not at all, Private Cole.”

  When they were outside and Barney was holding the door open for him, Read said:

  “What’s that bulge on your hip, Barney?”

  “That’s a forty-five, Governor.”

  “Be careful you don’t hurt yourself with it.” Barney got into the driver’s seat muttering to himself.

  When they drove up to the gate of the Bradley estate they found it locked. Barney, who had got out as usual to open it, swore loudly and, coming back to the car, viciously tooted the horn. He was nervous and his nervousness always manifested itself as irritability. He wanted to get the Governor inside a house where he knew that he would be safe.

  “The Major’s been reading his own newspapers, I see,” said Read.

  “You better read them, too,” said Barney, heatedly.

  Read ignored this. He understood the big Irishman.

  A man came running from the lodge and peered at them through the gate. He was new and was taking no chances. Barney took one step forward and, reaching through the gate, gave the man a shaking.

  “Open up here, you damn fool! It’s Governor Cole.”

  “Barney!” said Read, sharply.

  The big gates swung wide. Barney jumped into the driver’s seat and, still muttering, drove the car swiftly up the long tree-bordered road to the house, which was ablaze with light.

  When Read got out, he put his hand on Barney’s arm and said:

  “You’re taking this too hard. I’ll have to get Blake to drive me.”

  “Now, Governor. I wouldn’t trust you with that little brocky. I’ll settle down. Don’t you worry about

  me.”

  Read went up the steps, smiling to himself. The door was opened from within. Read saw that the front hall was full of people, getting ready to leave. The Major often had the family’s intimate friends in to “tea” on Sundays. The “tea” usually consisted of a cold buffet supper, served about five o’clock.

  The servant took Read’s hat and coat. Read hesitated. The people in the hallway all smiled and nodded, very friendly. But Read felt his usual qualms. If he lived to be a hundred he would never be at ease with these people. Behind their polite smiles was utter indifference. He knew that they considered him an outsider and that they would always do so.

  Read stood aside, smiling and nodding, while the Joneses and the Blair Meadowses and half a dozen representatives of the Freytag family filed out into the cold November night. Finally only the Major remained. He shook hands limply with Read. His usually bland pink face was sagging and grayish.

  “I’m very glad to see you, Governor,” he said. “Please talk to Eileen. She’s got me half crazy.”

  “Why, what’s wrong, Major?”

  Read was secretly appalled; the Major looked so old and hopeless and beaten.

  “It’s the Italian,” said the Major. “Wouldn’t you think one would be enough?”

  Read’s lips tightened. He said nothing. Turning slightly away from the Major, he saw Eileen and Vincent Riquetti coming out of a little room off the hall. They both looked very sober, as if something too important to talk about had happened between them. But Eileen brightened when she saw Read and came forward with her hand outstretched.

  “Oh, Read. I’m so glad to see you safe and sound. Is what the papers say true, or is it just election twaddle?”

  “Half and half.”

  “That’s what he would say, Vince,” said Eileen. “He’s a middle-of-the-way man.”

  “Very nice,” said Riquetti, bowing and showing his perfect teeth. “I wish I was more so. I really do. I’m up or down. No stability.”

  The Major snorted and turned away. Eileen glanced at him sharply; then, looking at Read, she shrugged slightly.

  “And how is Your Excellency?” said Riquetti. “Unharmed, I hope.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Read, wanting to kick Riquetti in the seat of his nicely pressed pants.

  “We were just talking about you, Read,” Eileen said.

  The Major interposed.

  “Excuse me. I’m not feeling any too well. I think I’ll go lie down.”

  Eileen glanced away from her father, her face cold and unsympathetic. The Major sighed and slowly climbed the gigantic, ornate staircase, his right hand sliding uncertainly along the polished rail.

  “Well,” said Riquetti, taking his hat and coat from a servant, “I must go. Delightful afternoon, Eileen. I hope you’ll have me again.” He extended his delicate, manicured hand. “Best of luck, Your Excellency. They tell me you are the Mussolini of Ohio. That’s nice.”

  “That’s newspaper bunk,” said Read, intentionally rude. “I’m just a plain politician.”

  “So? I’m a stranger. I don’t know these things.”

  “Vince knows two things,” said Eileen, with surprising bitterness. “Polo and women.”

  “You flatter me,” said Riquetti, laughing. “But, thanks. Goodnight, Governor. Goodnight, Eileen.” The servant opened the door. Riquetti shivered. ”How do you stand this climate? I’m freezing.” He laughed and went out.

  “Drink, Read?” asked Eileen.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Don’t look so serious. I won’t force it on you. ‘Will you come into my parlor? said the spider’.” They went into a little sitting-room at the far end of the hall, and sat down.

  “Eileen,” said Read, “don’t you think you’d better go and see if your father is all right?”

  “He’s all right.”

  “He looked bad to me. I never saw him like that before.”

  “It’s only when he can’t get his own way,” said Eileen, indifferently.

  “You surprise me.”

  “Do I? Do I seem callous? Read, you don’t know me at all. Anyway, Dad’s been putting on that performance for years.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s used to having his own way. Everybody toadies to him. From morning to night he’s the biggest frog in the pond. When he can’t get his way he has an attack of illness. He does have high blood pressure, of course, but he has had it for twenty years.”

  Read shifted uncomfortably, and glanced off across the room. Tonight Eileen’s sleekness annoyed him. Why must she always be so perfectly, so irreproachably, turned out, with every hair in place, her fingernails shining, her face artistically tinted, her lips correctly outlined; like a manikin in the advertisements? She seemed so cool and impassive in her dark sleekness, but there were signs of strain in her face if you looked closely enough. Gregg did not like her; he said that she suffered from the terrible ennui of the rich, that she belonged in Europe, and was no wife for an Ohio Governor.

  “Well,” said Read, “you know your father better than I do.”

  “I should. I’ve fought h
im for years and years. He was always disappointed that he never had a son. His brothers have six of them between them. Dad feels that girls don’t amount to much. He’s sort of Chinese that way.”

  There was a long pause, then Eileen resumed.

  “He’s never forgiven me for marrying Henry. He wanted me to marry Wallace Jones. Imagine me married to that bold businessman! Now he wants me to marry you.”

  “Aren’t you going to?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Read was irritated. He was no young lover and he and Eileen had had no wild love affair. Still it had been understood for a good many months that they would eventually be married. It was a little too much to have Eileen dismissing the whole thing in such a calm, offhand way.

  “This is news.”

  “I tried to tell you…” Eileen began; then, to Read’s utter astonishment, she suddenly got up and went out of the room, walking swiftly.

  Read didn’t know what to do. He squirmed around on his chair for a moment, then he got up, lit a cigarette, and began to pace the floor.

  In about fifteen minutes, Eileen came back. They sat down.

  “Excuse me, Read. I was afraid I was going to cry. I’m all right now.”

  Read shook his head slowly from side to side.

  “I don’t know what to think of you, Eileen. Why won’t you marry me?”

  “I’m going to marry Vince.”

  “I thought you disliked him.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “You’re too complex for me.”

  “I’m too complex for my own good. Or maybe not. Maybe I’m just a fool, Read. That’s what Dad thinks.”

  Read hesitated, then smiled wryly.

  “I don’t know what I can say. I’m sure you don’t want me to try my political eloquence on you. But, for heaven’s sake, why marry that perfumed wop?”

  “Ohio speaks.”

  Read flushed.

  “All right. Put it that way. What’s wrong with Ohio? What’s wrong with the people here?”