by Jim Thompson
“All right, Nick,” she said. “I’ll tell you the real reason I won’t go away with you.”
I said to never mind, I wouldn’t want to trouble her none, and she snapped for me not to dare to be rude to her. “Don’t you dare, Nicholas Corey! I love you—at least, it seems to be love to me—and because I do, I’m willing to accept something that I never thought I could accept. But don’t you be rude to me, or I might change. I might cease to love a man who I know is a murderer!”
17
I didn’t say anything for quite a spell; just lay still where I was wondering where that violin music had gone to and why I couldn’t smell the perfume no more.
Finally, I said, “Just what are you talking about, Amy?” And I was just a little relieved when she told me, just a little, because it could have been a lot worse.
“I’m talking about those two men you killed. Those, well, pimps is the word, I believe.”
“Pimps?” I said. “What pimps?”
“Stop it, Nick. My reference is to a certain night when you and I returned to Pottsville on the same train. Yes, I know you didn’t see me, but I was on it. I was curious as to why you’d be going to the river at that time of night, dressed in your very best clothes, so I followed you…”
“Now listen,” I said. “You couldn’t’ve followed me wherever I went. It was doggoned dark that night that—”
“It was very dark for you, Nick. For a man who’s never been able to see well at night. But I don’t suffer from that handicap. I followed you quite easily, and I saw you quite clearly when you killed those two men.”
Well…
At least it was better than her knowing I’d killed the other two. It didn’t tie me up with Rose in a way that I couldn’t very well get out of. Which Amy would have known was the case if she knew I’d killed Tom Hauck. And which was still the case even if Amy didn’t know about it.
For a minute or two, I almost wished I was running off with Rose and thirty thousand dollars plus, and t’heck with Amy. But my wishing didn’t last too long. Rose just naturally took too much out of a fella, she was too demandin’ and possessive, and she didn’t have much of anything to give him back. She was one heck of a lot of woman, but when you’d said that you’d said it all. A lot of woman but a god-danged flighty one. A woman who was apt to lose her head just when she needed it most, like she had with Uncle John.
I rolled over and took Amy into my arms. She swam up against me for a moment, pressing every soft warm inch of herself again me, and then she kind of moaned and pulled away.
“Why did you do it, Nick? I told you I’d accepted it, and I have, but—why, darling? Make me understand why! I never thought you could kill anyone.”
“I never thought I could neither,” I said. “And I can’t rightly say why I did it. They were just one more god-dang thing I didn’t like, that I particularly didn’t like. I’d been letting them go, like I let so many things go, and finally I thought, well, I didn’t have to. There were a lot of things, most things, that I couldn’t do nothing about. But I could do something about them, an’ finally…finally I did something.”
Amy stared at me, a little frown working up on her face. I gave her a pat on the bottom, and kissed her again.
“T’tell the truth, honey,” I went on, “I really felt like I was doing the right thing for them fellas. They weren’t no good to themselves nor nobody else and they must’ve known it, like anyone would know a thing like that. So I was doing ’em a pure kindness by fixing it so they wouldn’t have to go on livin’.”
“I see,” Amy said. “I see. And do you also feel you’d be doing Ken Lacey a pure kindness if you kept him from going on living?”
“Him especially,” I said. “A fella that mocks his friends, that hurts people just because he’s able to hurt ’em—Ken Lacey!” I said. “What do you know about him?”
“Only one thing, Nick. All I know is that you somehow seem to have arranged things so that Sheriff Lacey will be blamed for the two murders that you committed.”
I swallowed, and said I just didn’t know how she figured that. “It sure ain’t my fault if Ken comes down here an’ gets drunk, and pops off all over town about what a tough fella he is. I figure that if a fella wants to get all the glory out of braggin’, he has to take the blame along with it.”
“I don’t figure that way, Nick. I won’t allow you to do it.”
“But, looky,” I said. “Why not, Amy? What’s Ken to you, anyways?”
“He’s a man who may be falsely convicted of murder.”
“But—but I just don’t understand,” I said. “If you don’t mind about me killin’ them two pimps, why…”
“You haven’t been listening, Nick. I mind about them very much. But I had no way of knowing that you were going to kill them. In the case of Sheriff Lacey, I do know your plans, and if I allowed you to carry them out I’d be as guilty as you are.”
“But”—I hesitated—“what if I just can’t help myself, Amy? What if it’s him or me?”
“Then, I’d be very sorry, Nick. It would have to be you. But that circumstance isn’t likely to arise, is it? There’s no way you can be incriminated?”
“Well, no,” I said. “I can’t think of none offhand. For that matter, there’s a good chance them bodies will never be found.”
“Well, then?”
“Well…god-dang it, Amy, it’d be a lot better to let things go like I planned!” I said. “A whole lot better. Why, if you knew that god-danged Ken Lacey like I do, some of the mean things he’s done—”
“No, Nick. Absolutely, no.”
“But, doggone it—!”
“No.”
“Now, you looky here, Amy,” I said. “It just don’t look to me like you’re in any position to be givin’ orders. You got guilty knowledge, like they say in the courts. You know I killed those fellas an’ you didn’t say nothin’ about it, so if you try to do it later you’re incriminatin’ yourself.”
“I know that,” Amy nodded evenly. “But I’d still do it, Nick. I’m sure you know I would.”
“But—”
But I did know she’d do it, even if it got her hanged. So there just wasn’t anything more to say on the subject.
I looked at her, with her hair spilled out on the pillows and the warmth of her body warming mine. And I thought, god-dang, if this ain’t a heck of a way to be in bed with a pretty woman. The two of you arguing about murder, and threatening each other, when you’re supposed to be in love and you could be doing something pretty nice. And then I thought, well, maybe it ain’t so strange after all. Maybe it’s like this with most people, everyone doing pretty much the same thing except in a different way. And all the time they’re holding heaven in their hands.
“I’m sorry, honey,” I said. “O’ course, I’ll do whatever you want. I wouldn’t never want to do nothing else.”
“And I’m sorry, too, darling.” She brushed my mouth with a kiss. “And I’ll do what you want. As soon as things here are a little more settled, I’ll go away with you.”
“Fine. That’s just fine, honey,” I said.
“I want to very much, dear, and I will. Just as soon as we can be sure that there are no loose ends here.”
I said again that that was just fine, wondering what I was going to do about a great big loose end like Rose Hauck. Then I thought, well, I’d just have to face that problem when I came to it. And I put everything out of my mind but Amy, and I reckon she put everything out of her mind but me. And it was like it was before, only more so.
It was like nothing that ever was. Only more so.
Then, again we were layin’ there side by side. Breathing together, hearts beating together. And suddenly Amy tore her hand out of mine, and sat up.
“Nick! What’s that?”
“What? What’s what?”
I looked to the window where she was pointing, at the drawn shade with its rim of flickering light.
Then, I jumped up and ran to t
he window, and tilted the shade back. And I guess I must have groaned out loud.
“God-dang,” I said. “God-dang it to heck, anyway!”
“Nick, what is it, darling?”
“Colored town. It’s on fire.”
I guess I should have known it might happen. Because Tom Hauck was a white man, whatever else you said about him, and it looked like a colored fella had killed him. So some idjit would get the notion that “the niggers got to be taught a lesson,” and he’d spread the word to other idjits. And pretty soon there’d be trouble.
I got dressed with Amy watchin’ me worriedly. She asked me what I was going to do, and I said I didn’t know, but I was sure going to have to do something. Because a thing like this, a sheriff bein’ off fishing when trouble broke, was just the kind of thing that could lose an election.
“But, Nick…that doesn’t matter now, does it? As long as we’re going away together?”
“When?” I jerked on my boots. “You can’t name no definite date, can you?”
“Well—” She bit her lip. “I see what you mean, dear.”
“Might be a year or two,” I said. “But even if it was only six months, I better be in office. Makes it a lot easier to wrap up any of them loose ends you mentioned than it would if I was just an ordinary citizen.”
I finished dressing, and she let me out the back door.
I went back the way I’d come, down to the river, then up the river bank. And of course I didn’t keep my fishing pole with me.
I came up on the far side of the Negro section, dirtyin’ myself with some charcoal from the fire. Then, I mingled in with the crowd, beating at the flames with a wet toesack that someone had dropped.
Actually, there wasn’t a whole lot of damage; maybe a total of six or seven burned shacks. What with the recent rain and no wind, the fire was slow in starting and it didn’t have a chance to spread far before it was discovered.
I started telling some colored folks what to do, working right along with them. Then, I stood back for a minute, wiping the sweat from my eyes, and someone tapped me on the shoulder.
It was Robert Lee Jefferson, and he looked about as stern as I’d ever seen him.
“God-dang, ain’t this something, Robert Lee?” I said. “No telling what might have happened if I hadn’t been right here Johnny-on-the-spot when the fire broke out.”
“Come along,” he said.
“Why, thanks, Robert Lee,” I said, “but I don’t rightly think I can. This fire—”
“The fire is fully under control. It was under control long before you got here. Now, come along.”
I climbed into his carriage with him. We drove to his store, and there were other carriages and buggies and horses tied up outside, and there were maybe a half a dozen men waiting on the sidewalk. Important citizens like Mr. Dinwiddie, the bank president, and Zeke Carlton, who owned the cotton gin, and Stonewall Jackson Smith, the school superintendent, and Samuel Houston Taylor, who owned Taylor’s Emporium, Furniture and Undertaking.
We all went inside. We sat down in Robert Lee’s office, or I should say, everybody but me sat down. Because there just wasn’t no place for me to sit.
Zeke Carlton started the meeting by slamming his fists down on the desk and asking just what the hell kind of county were we running. “Do you know what can come of a thing like this tonight, Nick? Do you know what happens when a bunch of poor helpless niggers get burned out?”
“I got a pretty good idea,” I said. “All the colored folks get scared, and maybe they ain’t around when it comes cotton-pickin’ time.”
“You’re tootin’ well right, they’re not! Scarin’ them god-dam poor niggers could cost us all a pisspot full of money!”
“Your wife said you’d gone fishing tonight,” Robert Lee Jefferson said. “At just what point on the river were you when the fire broke out?”
“I didn’t go fishing,” I said.
“Now, Corey,” Stonewall Jackson Smith said firmly. “I saw you heading toward the river myself with a fishing pole and line. I’d say that was pretty conclusive evidence that you did go fishing.”
“Well, now, I just don’t think I can agree with you,” I said. “I wouldn’t say you was wrong, but I sure wouldn’t say you was right, neither.”
“Oh, cut it out, Nick!” snapped Samuel Houston Taylor. “We—”
“Take t’other night, now,” I went on, “I seen a certain fella crawlin’ into an empty freight car with a certain high school teacher. But I don’t think that’s conclusive evidence they was shipping themselves somewhere.”
Stonewall Jackson turned fiery red. The others looked at him, kind of narrow-eyed, like they was sizing him up for the first time, and Mr. Dinwiddie, the bank president, turned to me. He was friendlier than the other fellas. He’d stayed pretty friendly toward me ever since the time I’d pulled him out of the privy.
“Just where were you and what were you doing there tonight, Sheriff?” he said. “I’m sure we’ll all be glad to accept your explanation.”
“Not me, by God!” said Zeke Carlton. “I—”
“Quiet, Zeke,” Mr. Dinwiddie motioned to him. “Go on, Sheriff.”
“Well, we’ll start right at the beginning of tonight,” I said. “I figured someone might try to start somethin’ with the colored folks, so I got out a pole an’ line and pretended to go fishing. The river runs right in back of colored town, you know, an’—”
“Yeah, hell, we know where it runs!” Samuel Houston Taylor scowled. “What we want to know is why you weren’t there to prevent the fire?”
“Because I had to make a little detour,” I said. “I seen a fella sneakin’ away from someone’s house, and I thought maybe he’d pulled something crooked. It looked like something I ought to investigate, anyways, just to make sure. So I went up to this house, and I was about to knock when I decided it wasn’t necessary and it might be kind of embarrassin’. Because I could see this housewife inside, and it was plain to see, as happy as she looked, that there hadn’t been no trouble. Aside from which she didn’t have hardly no clothes on.”
It was just a shot in the dark, of course. Sort of a double shot. I figured that with this many Pottsville citizens involved, someone was just about bound to be two-timin’ his wife, or someone’s wife was two-timin’ him. Or else he was god-dang suspicious that she was.
Anyways, it sure looked like my shot hit home, because it was the dangest funniest thing you ever seen, the way they acted. All of ’em—or most of ’em, I should say—glaring at each other and trying to keep their heads ducked at the same time. All of ’em accused and accusing.
Mr. Dinwiddie started to ask just whose house I was referring to. But the others gave him a look that shut him up fast.
Robert Lee cleared his throat, and said for me to go on with my story.
“We can assume that you eventually reached the river, and you were there when the fire started. Then, what happened? What were you doing all the time that the rest of us were fighting the blaze?”
“I was trying to catch the fellas that started it,” I said. “They came crashing down through the underbrush afterward, trying to get away, and I hollered for ’em to halt, they was under arrest, but it didn’t do no good. They kept on running, and I chased ’em, yelling for them to stop or I’d shoot. But I reckon they knew I wouldn’t, knew I wouldn’t dare to, because they all got away.”
Robert Lee wet his lips, hesitating. “Did you see who they were, Nick?”
“Well, let’s put it this way,” I said. “It don’t make much difference whether I know who they were or not. As long as I didn’t catch ’em, their names ain’t important and it would just cause hard feelin’s to say who they was.”
“But, Sheriff,” Mr. Dinwiddie said. “I don’t see, uh—” He broke off, seeing the look that Zeke Carlton gave him. Seeing the looks of the others, his most important depositors.
Because I’d fired another shot in the dark, and it had hit even closer on targe
t than the first one.
With a couple of exceptions, there wasn’t a man there that didn’t have a grown or a semi-grown son. And there wasn’t a one of them younguns that was worth the powder it’d take to blow their nose. They loafed around town, puttin’ up a half-way pretense of working for their daddies. Whoring and drinking and thinking up meanness. Any troubles that broke out, you could bet that either one of ’em or all of ’em was mixed up in it.
The meeting broke up, hardly anyone nodding to me as they left.
I followed Robert Lee out to the walk and we stood talking together for a minute.
“I’m afraid you haven’t made yourself any friends tonight, Nick,” he told me. “You’ll really have to buckle down and work from now on, if you want to stay in office.”
“Work?” I scratched my head. “What at?”
“At your job, naturally! What else?” he said, and then his eyes shifted as I stared at him. “All right, perhaps you did have to compromise tonight. Perhaps you’ll have to again. But one or two exceptional cases don’t justify your doing nothing at all to enforce the law.”
“Well, I’ll tell you about that, Robert Lee,” I said. “Practically every fella that breaks the law has a danged good reason, to his own way of thinking, which makes every case exceptional, not just one or two. Take you, for example. A lot of fellas might think you was guilty of assault and battery when you punched Henry Clay Fanning in—”
“I’ll ask you just one question,” Robert Lee cut in. “Are you or aren’t you going to start enforcing the law?”
“Sure I am,” I said. “I sure ain’t going to do nothing else but.”
“Good, I’m relieved to hear it.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m really going to start cracking down. Anyone that breaks a law from now on is goin’ to have to deal with me. Providing, o’ course, that he’s either colored or some poor white trash that can’t pay his poll tax.”
“That’s a pretty cynical statement, Nick!”