Texas by the Tail

by Jim Thompson

  He would have some pretty tall explaining to do, he decided. Or maybe, since this had been such a foolishly dangerous thing to do, it was best not to try to explain. Just to say that he’d lost his temper when the checks bounced, so off he’d gone into the wild blue yonder, knowing it was crazy but doing it anyway.

  Red could understand a loss of temper. Who could understand better than Red?

  The fact was he was just feeling too damned good to be worried about anything.

  He had dinner on the plane. The stewardess was a Dallas girl, immediately stamped as such by her smartness, her glossy sophistication. She bantered with the man seated next to Mitch, a resident of Fort Worth; no yokel by any means, but a little on the drawly side, hearty and easygoing of manner. Mitch listened to them…the voices, the attitudes, of east and west…and behind him he heard a South Texas cotton grower disputing with a North Texas wheat farmer. And he was struck as he always was (when he had time to think of such things) by the amazing amalgam, the populous paradox that was this, his native state.

  Between areas, there were not only differences in accent but in language itself. A pond, for example, became a tank, biscuits were bread, cookies were cakes, afternoon was evening, carry meant escort (to carry a girl to a dance), dirty was nasty (a nasty shirt), and meat was automatically construed to mean pork, unless qualified as red meat.

  There were differences in dress, too many to be noted, yet intermingling with one another in these days of rapid transportation. There were differences in outlook, from one area to another, and these positively did not intermingle. In Houston, no Negro was admitted to a white restaurant—not even if he was a foreign potentate. In Austin, there were Negroes on the faculty of the University of Texas. In one city, a minority group had absolutely no voice in municipal government. In another (El Paso, for example), the minority spoke loud, clear, and effectively.

  That was Texas. That was not Texas. Because it was a generalization, and you could seldom if ever generalize about Texas. In so doing, you were apt to be guilty of the very narrowness you deplored. You were in a boat not-too-distant from that of the foreign viewers of popular American films, people who knew us to be a nation of sexpots and gunslingers, stopping only long enough to get sloppy drunk as we went about the business of shooting and screwing one another.

  You could still find Texans who made a brag of ignorance. They hadn’t never read no book but the Bible. They hadn’t never been out of the state in their lives. (“An’ I ain’t goin’ to neither.”) The fault was probably rooted far back in the history of the state, in an official attitude—promulgated by backwoodsy legislators—which saw little reason to keep a child in school if his folks didn’t, and who believed that eleven grades of school (instead of twelve) were quite enough for any youngster.

  Texas had raised its educational standards a great deal in recent years. But some of the old ideas still lingered, and they were by no means all bad, although some people might dispute this. Newcomers often objected to the schools’ seeming intrusion into the province of the parent. Their emphasis on manners and decorum. But their objections went unheeded, and after a time they were usually withdrawn.

  Before he was ever taught his ABC’s, the Texas schoolchild learned respect for his elders. He learned that men (gentlemen) were always addressed and replied to with sirs, and that ladies (all women were ladies) were always spoken to with ma’ams. Similarly he was taught to say please and thank you and excuse me—the rule being that you could never say them too often. He was taught courtesy and gallantry, and concern for the weak and elderly. And if he was slow in learning and remembering these teachings (no matter how brilliant he was academically) he would find himself in serious trouble very quickly.

  So, after all, then, there was one generalization you could make about Texas. You could say flatly and positively that the wanton and open flouting of every principle of decency and fair play which was becoming commonplace in other states was wholly foreign to Texas. There had never been anything like that. There never would be. Hypocrisy?—Yes, you would find that. You would find approval for it. But if a man was a bum, he had better not demonstrate the fact in public.

  In some cities of America, the streets were roamed by gangs of rowdies: overgrown louts who had been slobbered over far too long by professional do-gooders and who needed nothing quite so much as a goddamned good beating; sadistic thugs who were as whimperingly sensitive about their privileges as they were blind to their obligations, who showed no interest at all in the common privileges of soap, water, and hard work; human offal who demanded everything of their nation, and who contributed nothing to it but their plethoric progeny which a responsible citizenry was forced to provide for.

  And this scum, these outrageous brutes, prowled the streets of those American cities, knocking down wholly inoffensive citizens, publicly committing robbery, mayhem, and murder. Doing it because they knew they could get away with it, that a hundred people might look on but not a one would interfere.

  Well, so be it. But such shameful spectacles were not seen in Texas.

  No Texan would have stood idly by while a dozen slobs stomped a decent man to death.

  No Texan, regardless of whether he was nine, nineteen, or ninety, whether he was rich or poor, whether he was bigot or liberal, whether he was outnumbered a hundred-to-one—no Texan, you could be sure, would look on unconcerned while a woman was being raped.

  …At Dallas, Mitch had a half-hour layover between planes. He entered a phone booth and placed a call to Red, intending to tell her that he was running a little late. But the apartment didn’t answer, and the clerk cut in after a moment or two, advising him that Red had left for the airport a few minutes before.

  That was reasonable enough, of course, traffic being what it was. Mitch started to leave the booth, then turned and put in a call to Downing.

  It was a courtesy owing the gambler, he felt. He had taken his hard luck story to Downing. Downing was now entitled to hear the happy ending.

  “Just off for Ghent,” he said, as the gambler’s voice came over the wire. “Thought I’d tell you the news from Aix is strictly copasetic.”

  There was a heavy silence. Then a very feeble chuckle from Downing.

  “Poetry yet, huh? I think they had it the decade I missed class. Didn’t the guy get a bottle of wine poured down his throat for bringing the good news?”

  “I thought you’d never remember,” Mitch laughed. “Thanks, Frank, but I can’t make it tonight. Just here between planes.”

  Downing sighed. He said he had a little poem for Mitch. “It goes like this, pal. ‘Here I sit all brokenhearted.’ ”

  “Yeah?” Mitch smiled expectantly. “What do you mean, Frank?”

  “I mean I reversed the habits of a lifetime and tried to do you a favor. And the way it turned out—well, you better brace yourself before I tell you…”

  Mitch braced himself.

  It didn’t help a bit.

  25

  Mitch took the receiver from his ear. He stared at it, and then he put it back again; stood speechless, choked-up for a moment by the surging tide of his emotions, shaking his head over and over and over.

  “Frank…” He found his voice at last. “You’re supposed to rattle before you fang a guy.”

  “I’m sorry as hell, keed. I was just trying to help.”

  “Help?” Mitch could have slugged him. “Help how? By kicking a woman around? Doing something that the first hairy-assed caveman could have done ten times better? What the hell are you, a man or a mule, and don’t tell me!”

  “Gee,” Downing said humbly. “A promotion already. I used to be a snake.”

  “Goddammit, Frank…!” Mitch was almost shouting. Where do you get off at pulling this on me? You knew I didn’t want this muscle bit! You know I’ve always steered clear of it! I’ve got a head, by God, and I believe in using it, and if you’d just left me the hell alone, let me handle my own problems in my own way instead of acting like a
goddam public nurse—!”

  “Mitch,” Downing pleaded, “come over and shoot me, huh? Anytime. You don’t need an appointment.”

  “I think I’ll wait for a spear,” Mitch said bitterly. “With a guy like you around, we should be back using them in another week.”

  He slammed up the phone.

  He banged out of the booth, took a few angry strides away from it, and then, of course, he went right back to it again, and got the gambler back on the wire. Because Downing had tried to help, he had apologized, and after that, well, what could you do but accept it? Then, too, there was just a chance that—

  “Sorry I blew my top, Frank. Now about Frankie and Johnnie—do you suppose there’s a chance that they didn’t make the send stick with Teddy?”

  “No,” Downing said, regretfully but firmly. “Those kids do a job like di wah didy. She’d have sprouted a trolly and made like a streetcar if they’d told her to.”

  “Goddam,” Mitch sighed. “Why couldn’t they just have kept the dough for themselves?”

  “Well, that would have been stealing,” Downing pointed out reasonably. “Anyway, they knew I’d find out about it.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

  “It ain’t all bad, is it, keed? You’ll get your divorce, and you’ll never see that broad again. That’s a little something, anyway.”

  Mitch admitted that it was, and it didn’t make a damned bit of difference because he’d lost Red. He was as sure of that as he was that yesterday wasn’t today. Downing said that maybe he was low-rating Red a little; she was yar about him, so maybe she’d forget and forgive like the sweet kid she was. Mitch said maybe, and maybe yesterday was today after all. And on that unhappy note the conversation ended.

  The plane seemed hardly out of the Dallas airport before it was in the Houston landing pattern. Mitch fastened his seat belt, probing the hopeless darkness of his problem.

  Red was apparently not quite through with him yet. Otherwise she would have told him off over the phone. She meant to get through with him in person, which meant that…?

  Her voice came to him out of the past, back from the beginning and up through the years. “Don’t you lie to me. Don’t you ever, ever lie to me!” He remembered her attitude about the money, when she thought he had lied about the deposit-box cache; her dead coldness, her refusal to be swayed or persuaded. He remembered her fury over nominal trifles, because he had spoken to her sharply or thoughtlessly; frightening fits of anger which might hang on for a day or more and in which she was hardly responsible for what she did.

  He had told her a thousand lies, one piling on top of the other as he sought to cover them up. He had made her a thousand promises, knowing quite well that there was hardly a chance in the world that he’d be able to keep them. He…

  “Well, all right, then. As long as you’re not married, why, then it’s just the same as if we were. I don’t need to feel ashamed and—But it better be the truth, you hear? If you lied to me—!”

  He got off the plane and went up the ramp. As he came out into the waiting room, he heard himself being paged over the public address system. He stopped dead still, then moved toward the information desk, a sick dread welling in his heart.

  The message was from Red. A perfectly innocent one. Miss Corley was waiting for him in the parking area.

  Mitch collected his baggage and went out to her.

  She was standing at the side of the car. She was wearing a black semi-formal gown, short and low cut. Her gloves were long and white, and a white mink stole draped her shoulders, and she carried a small mesh evening bag.

  He stopped a couple of steps short of her. Not knowing quite what to say, noting her strained taut expression. Then, he made a tentative motion of taking her in his arms.

  “Don’t!” She stepped back quickly. “I—I mean you’ll muss me up!”

  “Red,” he said. “Let me explain, will you? I—”

  “No.” Her head jerked nervously. “There’s nothing to— We don’t have time to talk now.”

  “Because of Zearsdale, you mean? But we can’t go to a party with things like this!”

  “Well, we are going! We promised to go, and we will. If a person doesn’t keep his promises, he—he—” She broke off, turning away from him. “Let’s get this over with, Mitch.”

  She opened the door of the car and climbed in, the dress riding high on her legs. Mitch put his baggage in the trunk, and slid behind the wheel. He didn’t know what the right way of handling this was—if there was a right way—but he knew that what he was doing was all wrong. He should be leading, instead of following her lead. He should not, for God’s sake, be taking her to a party at a time when she was about to cloud up and rain all over him.

  He saw the small mesh bag in her lap, and started to reach for it. She snatched it away.

  “Don’t! Don’t you touch that!”

  “But—But I was just going to put it in my pocket for you.”

  “I don’t want you to! I want to carry it myself!”

  “I see,” he said. And he did see. That much anyway.

  He knew why she wanted to keep possession of the bag.

  He started the car. He guided it out of the parking lot and drove swiftly toward Zearsdale’s house. Neither of them spoke. Red seemed on the point of it, a time or two; he could sense the occasional glances which she stole in his direction, hear the hesitancy in breathing which precedes speech. But he couldn’t and wouldn’t help her out any, now that he knew what he did. So she also remained silent.

  He turned into the driveway of the oil man’s home, feeling very dead inside, and deeply puzzled, although he no longer gave a particular damn about anything.

  Why was she doing this? What kind of sense did it make to go to a party when she was planning a thing like that?

  He parked the car, and helped her out. They went up the steps together, Red keeping a little away from him. Her lips were set in a nervous little smile. The color was high in her cheeks.

  Zearsdale himself answered the door, as he had the night of Mitch’s visit. Chatting amiably, he guided them into a small reception room and offered drinks. Red shook her head, a slight frown on her face.

  “Not now, thank you. Are we the first ones here?”

  “First?” said Zearsdale.

  “Your first guests,” said Mitch, and he too was frowning a little. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone else here.”

  Zearsdale said casually that there were others around. “It’s a big house, you know. How about you? Drink?”

  “No, thanks. We’ll have one with the others, if you don’t mind.”

  “Better have something,” Zearsdale said, and then as Mitch again declined firmly, “Well, come along then. Got some pictures I want to show you.”

  Somehow, he got himself between them as they left the room. He was still between them when they entered another, somewhat larger than the first. A motion picture screen hung from a stand about halfway down the room. Near the door they had entered stood a heavy 16-mm projector.

  “Now, you sit down there, Corley. That’s right, over there!” Zearsdale pointed. “And you, miss—may I call you Red?—you sit over here, Miss Red. The others have already seen these pictures, so—Sit down, Corley!”

  “No,” said Mitch. “No, I am not sitting down, Zearsdale. I’m walking out of here, and Red is coming with me, and don’t try to stop us.”

  The room went silent. Zearsdale’s expression froze between joviality and anger, and for a moment he looked pudgily foolish as he tried to adjust to the situation. Mitch silently cursed himself.

  The mirrored ceiling above the crap table—the sudden clatter from the room above as he and Zearsdale had gambled. And then today, the way Zearsdale had thrown his weight around with Gidge Lord. Using the muscle of all his millions to make sure that he, Mitch, attended this “party.”

  How could he have missed it, for God’s sake? How could he have led Red into the trap?

  Red. He looked a
t her, so small and helpless, almost lost in the huge lounging chair. He looked at her, and her unreasoning anger—the deadly evidence of her intentions—was wiped away. And nothing mattered but getting her out of here safely.

  He smiled at her, spoke with firm reassurance. “Don’t be afraid, honey. We’ll leave now.”

  She smiled back at him tremulously. Started to rise. Zearsdale’s heavy hand came down on her shoulder, shoving her back in the chair.

  “She stays,” he said. “You’re both staying.”

  “Zearsdale”—Mitch moved toward him. “You are so wrong.”

  Zearsdale stood where he was. Red let out a little scream—a warning. Mitch started to wheel, and a fist exploded against the back of his neck and a kidney punch blazed fire through his body. And then he was yanked backwards, slammed down into a chair with spine-rattling force.

  26

  Three men stood over him. Young wiry types, preening in their toughness. Smelling faintly of pool-chalk and bowl-and-pitcher bathing. If you knew anyone who knew anyone who knew anyone, you could pick them up for a couple of bills each. But you had to catch them fast, for the man with the scythe was already reaching for them.

  One of them, at least one out of three, was destined for the death cell. The lad with the tiny head and the close-set eyes was a likely candidate. The second youth? Well, to him who passeth it out, shall be returned a hundred fold. So beat his head in—he never used it, anyway—and leave him in some dark alley with his brains spread out around him. As for the third young man (call him Pretty Boy), here surely is a victim of five-dollar sinning, for he will never spend five dollars to visit a doctor. So he also, in a different way, is a sure prospect for brain damage. Come in a little closer, look a brief distance into the future, and observe. Note the lowered trousers, the reddish stains on his shorts. Note the hard-rubber dosing gun, filled with that ol’ reliable remedy. (See our ads in your neighborhood toilet.) Note the downward thrust of the plunger, the shrill suddenly stifled scream as the stuff hits his cerebrum. That liverish-looking object that plopped to the floor is his tongue. Must these kids always bite their tongues in two! Well, half a tongue is better than none, right? Ha, ha. Anyway, why does a guy need a tongue when he’s drowning in his own blood?