Whom Gods Destroy

by Clifton Adams

  I was tempted to look him in the eye and say, “I couldn't raise a goddamn penny,” just to see how he would look. What I said was “Ten thousand. Maybe fifteen.” And I was afraid that was being too extravagant.

  “That won't be enough,” Sid said. “A load of merchandise can come to twenty thousand.”

  God! I hadn't realized that there was that much money. But I held onto that sinking feeling and tried to make myself sound convincing. “I can raise it.” Here I was going to work the next day, and I couldn't even buy a car that I would have to have. Still, I had that feeling that I could work it out somehow. I had hold of something good at last, and it was going to take a damn hard blow to knock me loose from it.

  We left Big Prairie behind and headed south toward the river. About a mile on the other side of the river Vida turned off on a section line road, then after another mile or so we saw the house. It was a big brick place with a brick wall around it and a lot of trees. We turned off the road onto a graveled driveway. A pair of iron gates stood open, so Vida pulled up to where five or six cars were parked.

  An old lady wearing a white apron and a lace cap met us at the door and let us in. She took our hats and coats and told us that the women were in the front room and the men were in the clubroom listening to the radio. Vida went off down the hall without even a nod to us.

  “The hell with her,” Sid said. “Let's go get a drink and see if the returns have started coming in.”

  We went down the hallway and turned into a brick-walled room where five men sat around the fireplace in big leather chairs listening to the syrupy voice of an election reporter coming from a combination radio-record-player-bar. One of the men got up and came at Sid with an outstretched hand.

  “Sid, have you heard? Clyde's run away with the sheriff's race. It wasn't even a contest.”

  “We spent enough money on it,” Sid said. “What did you expect?” Then he took my arm and said, “Barney, I want you to meet Roy Foley, the sweetest damn quarterback Big Prairie ever saw. I didn't think you'd mind if I brought him along.”

  “Not at all,” Barney Seaward said. “Any friend of Sid's is all right any time.” We shook hands and he was smiling all the time, but when the formalities were over I knew that I had been sized up by an expert. Seaward was a trim, well-dressed guy somewhere in his late forties, and at first glance he seemed a quiet, well-mannered man who had somehow drifted into the wrong business and didn't quite know what to do about it. But on second glance you knew that he was as hard as gunsteel. He had regular, straight features, dark hair beginning to go gray around the temples. His complexion was dark but, in the artificial light of the room, I couldn't tell if it was a natural swarthiness or if it came from a sun lamp.

  His eyes were very sharp. He looked at Sid and I had the feeling that he could tell to the ounce how much liquor Sid had put away since noon, and I also had the feeling that he didn't like it. But he was smiling all the time, and talking, a fine picture of a perfect host. A nice guy, but I wouldn't want to put a knife in his hand and turn my back to him.

  “How's the vote going on the prohibition amendment?” Sid asked.

  “How do you think it's going? A preacher came on awhile ago and wanted everybody to thank God because the drys are winning.”

  Barney and Sid had a good laugh over that, then a squat little guy in an expensive blue suit and cowboy boots came over and said, “It looks good, Sid.”

  “It looks that way, Clyde. Barney tells me they're declaring it no-contest in the sheriff's race. By the way, I want you to meet Roy Foley, the damnedest football player you ever saw when he was in high school.”

  “Glad to know you, Foley.”

  I made myself a quick drink at the bar and we ran into Thad McErulur, the chief of police, and Joe Kingkade, the other retailer, and then we went through the handshaking again and talked some more about the election. I tried to keep my mind on who I was meeting and what was being said, because it was going to be important to me later on. But- I could feel myself winding up tighter and tighter, like a dollar watch just before the spring snaps.

  “Something wrong, Roy?” I heard Sid saying.

  “No. I just remembered I haven't eaten today. I guess I'd better go easy on the liquor.”

  “Nothing to worry about,” McErulur said. “Barney's whisky won't hurt you. He serves nothing but the best.”

  McErulur was a big, red-faced ox of a man, looking much too prosperous to be the chief of police of a hick town like Big Prairie. But that figured. Kingkade was a quiet little man in a bow tie and a sloppy blue serge suit. He nursed a coke while the others poured down Sea-ward's free liquor and I pegged him right away as the most dangerous man in the house, next to Seaward himself.

  The room was beginning to get smoky, but even so I noticed how drunk Sid was getting. I watched him pour three fingers into a highball glass, down it straight, and before it had time to hit his stomach he was pouring again. He weaved a little.

  He saw me watching him as he hoisted another shot. “You think I'm drinkin' too much.” His tongue was thick.

  “It doesn't make any difference to me. Seaward might not like it, though.”

  “The hell with Seaward,” and I could see the drunken belligerence begin to look out from behind his eyes. “You met everybody?”

  “I think so,” I said, wondering why Seaward would have a lush like Sid in his organization.

  “How about Paul Keating?”

  I almost dropped the glass I was holding, because I had begun to hope that the Keatings wouldn't show up after all. Sid grabbed my arm and hung onto it. “You got to meet Paul Keating,” he said ponderously, pulling me away from the bar. “Hell, Keating's going to be governor some day.”

  Keating had just come in from the hallway and was shaking hands with the sheriff when Sid pointed him out, but I think I would have known him anyway because he was just the kind of man Lola would marry. His suit was cut from beautiful Oxford gray flannel, but it was so conservative that it looked more like a period costume than a suit. It was single breasted and all three buttons were buttoned. His shirt collar was stiff, of course, and his tie was of the best navy silk with a small red stripe running through it. He wore an Acheson-type mustache, and I would bet my last penny that as soon as he got out of Big Prairie he would buy himself a walking stick. I hated his guts on sight.

  “Roy,” Sid said thickly, “I want you to meet Paul Keating, our county attorney. Paul, this is Roy Foley, the best damn quarterback you ever saw.”

  I thought savagely, if Sid mentions football one more time I'll hit him! Paul Keating nodded politely, but I could see distaste in those cool, supercilious eyes of his as we shook hands. I could see him thinking, Great God, another Burk Street hoodlum! But for all he knew I was a personal friend of Seaward's, and if I was, he was going to be nice to me if it killed him.

  “It's a great pleasure, Mr. Foley.” We shook hands limply, and then we stood there, looking at each other and trying to think of something to say, but the words wouldn't come.

  The Sheriff saw Keating, came toward him, and Sid and I got away.

  I should have kept my mouth shut, but there was so much boiling inside me that I had to let a little of it come out. “You boys sure bought yourselves something,” I said, “when you got that county attorney.”

  “Paul?” Sid grinned vaguely. “Hell, he's all right. Comes from a good family, got a good record. He's done a lot of good for Big Prairie County.”

  “Like what?”

  “He cleaned up prostitution, for one thing. Used to have some cribs down by the river, but things like that go bad with the churches. Anyway, bootlegging is the big business. We clean up prostitution and gambling and people figure that's doing damn good.”

  “Do you mean there are no tramps or gambling joints in Big Prairie?”

  “Sure there are tramps. And you can get a bet down without any trouble, if you want to, but it's all under control. It's a nice quiet business.”


  “Barney Seaward's business?”

  Sid was drunk, but he wasn't that drunk. He gave me a long, careful look and said, “Roy, the next time you think of a question like that, just forget it.”

  I should have been ready for it, but I wasn't. When Barney Seaward came back into the clubroom, the wives behind him, I could hear the breath whistling between my teeth as if I had been kicked in the stomach. I couldn't move as I stood there, feeling the blood draining out of my face, waiting for her to recognize me. There were others around us, but I didn't even see them. I could hear Seaward making the introductions and I could hear myself mumbling something, I don't know what. There were just Lola and me, and we could have been alone in the middle of a desert.

  She was standing so close to me that I could have touched her, and I saw the vague shock in her eyes. She moved her head slightly, as if shaking off some unpleasant mental image, and for a moment I noticed her dark hair framed the pale oval of her face, and how her mouth half smiled, uncertainly, the expression as rigid as a smile on a statue. And for that moment it was hard to believe that she was real. She was just a woman after all. Open her flesh and she'll bleed, I thought. Hurt her and she'll cry out. And only then, after I was convinced that she was flesh and blood and not a myth, did the hate begin to come. For both of us.

  I heard Barney Seaward saying something and I bowed slightly, sick inside. “How do you do, Mrs. Keating.”

  She smiled then, and I wondered if the others saw the savageness behind it. I wondered if the others had ever kicked a dog and then grown to hate it with such a viciousness that it made you weak to think about it. That's a crazy thing to think of now, I thought. But Lola would have understood.

  4

  “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT NOW?”

  “Sure. I'm all right.”

  “Here, wipe your face with this.” Sid handed me a towel and I wiped my face. Then I went over to the basin and splashed water on my face. I rinsed my mouth and I felt a little better.

  “You sure you're all right?”

  “For God's sake, yes, I'm fine. Look, Sid, will you leave me alone for a minute? Go get me another drink. That's what I need now.”

  I was giving Sid a hard time. Here he had brought an old pal uninvited to a party and the first thing his pal did was throw his guts all over the host's bathroom. But I wasn't worrying about Sid. I could close my eyes and still see Lola. I could hear her laughing at me. I leaned on the basin and tried to pull myself together.

  After a while Sid went out, and then he came back with a highball glass half full of straight bourbon. I gagged it down, and pretty soon I could feel it start burning some of the sickness away.

  “Thanks, Sid. That's what I needed.”

  Vida was waiting for us in the hallway when we came out of the bathroom. “Well,” she said coldly, “have you had enough, or won't you be satisfied until the bar is cleaned out?”

  “It wasn't Sid,” I said. “It was me.”

  Sid said, “Look, honey, why don't you take him out on the back porch for a minute? He's all right, he just needs some fresh air.”

  The corners of that red mouth turned down. “He's your big friend, why can't you take him out?” And then she said, “Oh, hell. You couldn't stay away from that bar long enough, could you?” Without looking at me, she jerked her head and started toward the back of the house.

  Friendship was all right, I thought, but this was going pretty far. If Vida was my wife, inviting her out on the back porch with another man would be the last thing I'd do. But if it was all right with Sid, it was all right with me.

  We went down the straight hall and into a kitchen and then onto a screened-in back porch. I went out and leaned against a wooden pillar, breathing deeply. The air was clean and cool.

  “Can you find your way back?” Vida asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Then I'll go back. I'll have to be ready to catch Sid when he starts falling.”

  I could see that dress, now that she had taken off the stole. It was probably expensive, but somehow Vida made it look like a streetwalker's uniform. The black material accented the pale nakedness of her arms and shoulders. It pulled tight across her small breasts, then flowed like water over her flat belly and long thighs. I said, “Sid must be crazy,” and the sound of the words shocked me because I hadn't meant to say a thing.

  She was starting for the door when I said it, but she paused and looked around. “Why?”

  “You don't have to be told that, do you?”

  It was all a mistake and I knew it was a mistake and still I couldn't seem to stop it. Maybe it was because of Lola and because I was still seeing that savage half smile of hers. And I kept thinking helplessly, Goddamn her! but there was nothing I could do, no way to hurt her, and I knew that I had to lash out at somebody, hurt somebody back. Vida was there, so I guess that's the reason I said it.

  She was quiet for a minute. Then she walked slowly over to where I was and looked hard at me. She said coldly, “Look, Roy, or whatever your name is. You're a friend of Sid's and that's all right with me. There's one thing you'd better get straight, though; it doesn't go any further than that.”

  I don't know how. I knew she was lying. But I knew. She looked like a woman who would cut your heart out if you as much as touched her. She looked hard and tough. But the moment I put my hands on her, she went to nothing.

  I pulled her to me and it was like leading a sleepwalker. And then she plastered herself against me, and those white arms went around my neck, her fingernails digging like daggers into my shoulders as that blood-red mouth found mine.

  “Roy.”

  She flowed against me, and that hungry red mouth was hot and alive. God! I thought. That crazy bastard, Sid! I could have had her right there on the back porch, but then she got my lip in those sharp front teeth and began to sink them in and I could feel the blood spurting. My blood! Instinctively, I jerked my knee up and kicked her with everything I had.

  That broke her loose. Her mouth flew open and she half doubled, her eyes sick with pain. I got my handkerchief out and wiped the lipstick and blood off my mouth. She had barely broken the skin inside my lip, but the taste of blood was still there.

  She was still pretty sick. I put my arm around her and held her up. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded. Maybe a minute went by while she dragged in deep gulps of air. I thought she was going to cry, but she fought it back.

  “Look, Vida, I didn't mean—” I started. But she cut in.

  “Let's don't talk about it. We'll forget about it and it won't happen again.” She straightened up and arranged her hair. “We'll forget about it,” she said again. Then she went back inside.

  My lip had already started puffing, but maybe it wouldn't be noticed. For several minutes I stood there in the cool night air and tried to get myself to settle down. What had just happened with Vida was in the past and I could forget that. The prospect of going back in there and seeing Lola was the thing I had to face.

  What I wanted to do was start running and not stop until Big Prairie was behind me for good. What I did was light a cigarette and go back in the house.

  “I was afraid you'd got yourself lost, Mr. Foley,” Barney Seaward said when I came in.

  “Just an upset stomach. I'm fine now.”

  Then McErulur came over and said, “How's about a little poker, Barney? Foley, you'll join us won't you? Nothing big, just table stakes.”

  Table stakes could get pretty damn big, but I figured I could hold my own by playing close to the vest. So I said, “That sounds all right with me.”

  Vida wasn't around, but Lola came into the room again and I could feel myself squeezing the highball glass hard enough to break it. Instinctively, I tried to get away when I saw her looking at me, smiling at me with that damned fixed smile of hers, but my feet could have been in cement for all the good they did me. I saw her stop for a minute to say something to McErulur's wife, then she turned, smiling, and came toward me with an unligh
ted cigarette in her hand.

  “I seem to have misplaced my lighter, Mr. Foley,” she said. “I wonder if I could bother you for a light?”

  “Of course, Mrs. Keating,” I heard myself saying. I found the matches somehow, struck one and held it for her. Even through the haze of hate I thought, She's just as beautiful as she ever was!

  “I've been trying to place you, Mr. Foley,” she lied pleasantly. “I think I have—it was Big Prairie High, wasn't it? Football, I believe.”

  I thought savagely, You remember, all right. I said, “Yes. Football.”

  “Oh, I remember now,” she smiled. “You were going to be a doctor, I believe. No, a lawyer.” She frowned slightly. “But Barney didn't mention that when he introduced us.”

  “I didn't get to be a doctor. Or a lawyer, either,” I said. Damn you, I didn't get to be anything but a fry cook.

  “A businessman, then?” she asked brightly. “As I remember, you were terribly bright in school.”

  I felt sick and didn't even try to answer it. Sure, a businessman! I make so much money I let your charity bury my old man just because a little detail like that skipped my mind.

  But, God, she was beautiful, more beautiful than I remembered. Hair as black as a witch's heart pulled back severely from the pale oval of her face. Her eyes were dark, with no questions in them. Her mouth thin and smiling as she waited for me to say something when she knew there was nothing I could say. And then I remembered that night, and the high-school kid running blindly away from the laughter, too sick with shame to cry. How Lola must have hated herself that night—but just for a little while. Only until she had found a way to justify the thing and turn the hate around and start it going in the opposite direction. But for a little while she must have hated herself almost as much as I hated her now.

  I stood there like a statue for what may have been a few seconds or an hour. Time had stopped for me. Lola brought the cigarette to her mouth and dragged on it, smiling, and behind those eyes of hers I could see her thinking, A doctor! You're a Burk Street hoodlum and that's all you'll ever be. And I saw her glance quickly at her husband on the other side of the room with an almost savage pride, a pride born of possession and ambition. I had a feeling that when she looked at Paul Keating she was looking right through him and seeing the governor's mansion.