All the King's Men (44 page)

Her hand, which had been laid on my forearm to soothe me and pat down the steam pressure, suddenly clamped on me, driving the fingers damned near to the bone. I jumped, an even as I jumped, I heard her say, in a low, tense voice, almost a whisper, “You can make him take it.”

“He’s a grown man and he–” I began.

But she cut in again, “You’ve got to make him–you’ve got to!”

“For God’s sake!” I said.

“You’ve got to,” she repeated, in that same voice, and I was sure that the fingers clenched on my arm were bringing blood.

“You were just now giving me hell because I merely offered him the proposition,” I said, “and now you say I’ve got to make him take it.”

“I want him to take it,” she said, and her fingers fell away from their grip.

“Well, I’m damned,” I observed in the direction of the great interstellar darkness, and then peered into her face. There wasn’t much light–I could see the face, an unnatural chalk-white, and the eyes were just dark gleams–but I could tell that she meant what she said. “So you want him to take it?” I said slowly. “And you’re Governor Stanton’s daughter and Adam Stanton’s sister, and you want him to take it?”

“He’s got to,” she said, and I saw her small gloved hands clench on the railing, and felt sorry for the railing. She stared out over the coiling carpet of the river mist, as from the mountain out over the clouds hiding the dark world.

“Why?” I asked.

“I went up there,” she said, still looking out over the river, “to talk to him about it. I wasn’t sure he ought to when I went up. I wasn’t sure then, but when I saw him I was.”

Something about what she was saying disturbed me, like an offstage noise or something caught out of the tail of your eye or an itch that comes when your hands are full and you can’t scratch. I was listening to what she was saying, and it wasn’t that. It was something else. But I couldn’t catch what. So I shoved it onto the back of the stove, and listened to what she was saying.

“When I saw how he was,” she was saying, “I knew. I just knew. Oh, Jack, he was all worked up–it wasn’t natural–just because he had been asked. He has cut himself off from everything–from everybody. Even from me. Not really, but it’s not like it used to be.”

“He’s awful busy,” I objected lamely.

“Busy,” she echoed, “busy–yes, he’s busy. Ever since he was in medical school, he has worked like a slave. There’s just something driving him–driving him. It’s not money and it’s not reputation and it’s not–I just don’t know what–” Her voice drifted off.

“It is very simple,” I said. “He wants to do good.”

“Good,” she echoed. Then, “I used to think so–oh, he does good–but–”

“But what?”

“Oh, I don’t know–and I shouldn’t say it–I shouldn’t–but I almost think that the work–even the doing good–everything is just a way to cut himself off. Even from me–even me–”

Then she said, “Oh, Jack, we had an awful row. It was awful. I went home and cried all night. You know how we’ve always been. And to have a terrible row. You know how we’ve been? You know?” She insisted, and clutched my arm, as though to make me agree, to make me tell her how they had been.

“Yes,” I said, “I know.” I looked at her and was afraid for a second she was going to cry again, but she didn’t, and I should have known it, for she was the kind that did her crying on the midnight pillow. If she did any.

“I told him,” she was saying, “I told him that if he wanted to do any good–really do any good–here was the time. And the way. To see that the Medical Center was run right. And even expanded. And all that. But he just froze up and said he wouldn’t touch the thing. And I accused him of being selfish–of being selfish and proud–of putting his pride before everything. Before doing good–before his duty. Then he just glared at me, and grabbed me by the wrist and said I couldn’t understand anything, that a man owed himself something. I said it was his pride, just his pride, and he said he was proud not to touch filth, and if I wanted him to do that I could just–” She stopped, took a breath and, I guessed, a new grip on her nerve to say what she was about to say. “Well, what he was going to say was that I could get out. But he didn’t say it. I’m glad–” she paused again–”I’m glad he didn’t say it. At least, he didn’t say it.”

“He didn’t mean it,” I said.

“I don’t know–I don’t know. If you had seen his eyes blazing and his face all white and drawn. Oh, Jack–” she grabbed my arm again, and shook me as though I were holding back an answer–”why won’t he do it? Why is he this way? Doesn’t he see he ought to? That he’s the man and he’s got to? Why, Jack? Why?”

“To be perfectly brutal,” I said, “it is because he is Adam Stanton, the son of Governor Stanton and grandson of Judge Peyton Stanton, and the great-grandson of General Morgan Stanton, and he has lived all his life in the idea that there was a time a long time back when everything was run by high-minded, handsome men wearing knee breeches and silver buckles or Continental blue or frock coats, or even buckskin and coonskin caps, as the case may be–for Adam Stanton isn’t any snob–who sat around a table and candidly debated the good of the public thing. It is because he is a romantic, and he has a picture of the world in his head, and when the world doesn’t conform in any respect to the picture, he wants to throw the world away. Even if that means throwing out the baby with the bath. Which,” I added, “it always does mean.”

That held her for a moment. She turned her face from me and looked out over the misty river again. The she murmured, “He ought to take it.”

“Well,” I said, “if you want him to do it, you’ve got to change the picture of the world inside his head. If I know Adam Stanton.” And I did know Adam Stanton, and at that moment I could see his face with the skin drawn back tight over the bone and the strong mouth like the neatly healed wound and the deep-set blue eyes blazing like pale ice.

She hadn’t answered me.

“That’s the only way,” I said, “and you might as well settle for that.”

“He ought to do it,” she whispered, looking over the river.

“How much do you want him to?”

She swung to me, and I peered into her face. Then she said, “As much as I want anything.”

“You mean that?” I said.

“I mean it. He’s got to. To save himself.” She grabbed my arm again. “For himself. As much as for everybody else. For himself.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure,” she said, fiercely.

“I mean sure that you want him to do it? More than anything?”

“Yes,” she said.

I studies her face. It was a beautiful face–or if not beautiful, better than beautiful, a tense, smooth, spare-modeled, finished face, and it was chalk-white in the shadow and in the eyes were dark gleams. I studied her face, and for a moment just did that and let all the questions just slide away, like something dropped into the mist and water below us to slide away in the oily silence of the current.

“Yes,” she repeated, whispering.

But I kept on peering into her face, really looking at it for the first time, after all the years, for the close, true look at a thing can only be one snatched outside of time and the questions.

“Yes,” she whispered, and laid her hand on my arm, lightly this time.

And at the touch I came out of what I had been sunk in.

“All right,” I said, shaking myself, “but you don’t know what you are asking for.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Can you make him?”

“I can,” I said.

“Well, why didn’t you–why did you wait–why–”

“I don’t think–” I said slowly–”I don’t think I would have ever done it–at least, not this way–if you, you yourself, hadn’t asked me.”

“How can you do it?” she demanded, and the fingers closed on my arm.

“It is easy,” I said, “I can change the picture of the world he carries around in his head.”

“How?”

“I can give him a history lesson.”

“A history lesson?”

“Yes, I am a student of history, don’t you remember? And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost. But Adam, he is a scientist, and everything is tidy for him, and one molecule of oxygen always behaves the same way when it gets around two molecules of hydrogen, and a thing is always what it is, and so when Adam the romantic makes a picture of the world in his head, it is just like the picture of the world Adam the scientist works with. All tidy. All neat. The molecule of good always behaves the same way. The molecule of bad always behaves the same way. There are–”

“Stop it,” she ordered, “stop it, and tell me. You are trying not to tell me. You are talking so you won’t tell me. Now, tell me.”

“All right,” I said. “You remember I asked you about Judge Irwin being broken?” Well, he was. His wife wasn’t rich, either. He just thought she was. And he took a bribe.”

“Judge Irwin?” she echoed. “A bribe?”

“Yes,” I said. “And I can prove it.”

“He–he was father’s friend, he was–” She paused, straightened herself, swung her face from me and looked out over the river, then, after a moment, in a sturdy voice, as though not to me but to the whole wide world over there beyond the mist: “Well, that doesn’t prove anything. Judge Irwin.”

I didn’t reply. I, too, stared out over the coiling mist, in the dark.

I was aware, though I didn’t look when she turned toward me again.

“Well, say something,” she said, and I heard the tension in her voice.

But I didn’t say anything. I stood there waiting; and waiting, I could hear, in the silence, the tiny suck and lapping about the piles down in the mist.

Then she said, “Jack–was my–was my father–was–”

I didn’t answer.

“You coward!” she said, “you coward, you won’t tell me.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Did he take a bribe? Did he? Did he?” She had grabbed my arm and was shaking me, hard.

“Not that bad,” I said.

“Not that bad, not that bad,” she mimicked, and burst out laughing, hanging on my arm. The she suddenly released me, thrust my arm from her as though it were foul, and shrank back. “I don’t believe it,” she announced.

“It’s true,” I said. “He knew about Irwin and protected him. I can prove it. I have documents. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

“Oh, you’re sorry! You’re sorry. You dug it all up, all the lies–for that man–for that Stark–for him–and you–you’re so sorry.” And she began to laugh again, and swung away, and was running down the pier, laughing and stumbling as she ran.

I ran after her.

I was just about to grab her, at the end of the pier, when the cop stepped out of the shadow of the warehouse, and said, “Hey, buddy!”

Just then, Anne stumbled and I grabbed her by the arm. She swayed in my grasp.

The cop approached. “What’s up?” he demanded. “What you runnen that dame fer?”

“She’s hysterical,” I said, talking fast, “I’m just trying to take care of her, she’s had a few drinks, just a couple, and she’s hysterical, she’s had a great shock, a grief–”

The cop, heavy, squat, hairy, took one waddling stride toward us, then leaned and whiffed her breath.

“–she’s had a sock, and it has upset her so she took a drink, and she’s hysterical. I’m trying to get her home.”

His beefy, black-jowled face swung toward me. “I’ll get you home,” he allowed, “in the wagon. If you ain’t careful.”

He was just talking. I knew he was just talking to hear himself, for it was late and he was bored and dull. I knew that, and should have said, respectfully, that I would be careful, or have said, laughing and perhaps winking, that sure, Captain, I’d get her home. But I didn’t say either thing. I was all keyed up, and she was swaying in my clutch, making a kind of sharp, broken noise with her breathing, and his God-damned beefy, black-jowled face was there in front of me. So I said, “The hell you will.”

His eyes bugged out a little at that, the jowls swelled with black blood, and he lunged one step closer, fingering his stick, saying, “The hell I won’t, I’m gonna right now, both of you, by God!”

Then he said, “Come on,” prodded me with the stick, and repeated, “Come on,” herding me toward the end of the pier, where no doubt, the box was he would use to call.

I took two or three steps forward, feeling the prod of the stick in the small of my back, dragging Anne, who hadn’t said a word. Then I remember, “Listen here, if you want to be on the force in the morning, you better listen to me.”

“Listen, hell,” he rejoined and jabbed my kidney a little harder.

“If it weren’t for the lady,” I said, “I’d let you go on and bust yourself. I don’t mind a ride to headquarters. But I’ll give you a chance.

“Chance,” he echoed, and spat from the side of his mouth, and jabbed again.

“I’m going to reach into my pocket,” I said, 2not for a gun, just for my wallet, so I can show you something. Did you ever hear of Willie Stark?”

“Sure,” he said. And jabbed.

“You ever hear of Jack Burden,” I asked, “the newspaper fellow who is a sort of secretary to Willie?”

He reflected a moment, still prodding me on. “Yeah,” he said then, grudgingly.

“Then maybe you’d like my card,” I said, and reached for the wallet.

“Naw, you don’t,” he said, and let the weight of the stick lie across my lifted forearm, “naw you don’t, I’m gitten it myself.”

He reached in for the wallet, took it, and started to open it. As a matter of principle.

“You open that,” I said, “and I’ll bust you anyway, call the wagon or not. Give ii here.”

He passed it over to me. I drew out a card, and handed it to him.

He studied it in the bad light. “Jeez,” he said, with a slight hissing sound like the air escaping from a child’s balloon, “how wuz I to know you wuz on the payroll?”

“You damned well better find out next time,” I said, before you get gay. Now call me a cab.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, hating me with the pig’s eyes out of the swollen face. “Yes, sir,” he said, and went to the box.

Suddenly Anne pulled herself loose from me, and I thought she was going to run. So I grabbed her again. “Oh, you’re so wonderful,” she said, in a harsh whisper, “so wonderful–you’re grand–you bully the bullies–you cop the cops–you’re wonderful–”