by Jim Thompson
In making her home with Edie Dillon, she was, it seemed to her, killing two birds with one stone. It was not only Edie’s daughterly duty to provide for her mother; she was financially obligated to do so. By staying with her, Mrs. Fargo could collect the debt which she and her son had incurred during her stay at Lincoln’s house.
She explained this to Edie on the day she moved into the hotel; quite innocently, if a trifle stupidly. And Edie, while she tried to make allowances for her mother’s incipient senility, was infuriated. From the beginning the arrangement was off to a bad start, and it progressed rapidly from bad to worse.
Edie was having a hard time making ends meet. She needed every cent she could lay hands on, and every bit of her available time was required for her paying guests. She was willing to take care of her mother, even without gratitude. But if she wanted to place herself in the rôle of someone collecting a debt, she would have to take what went with it. She would give her as good food and room and attention as she gave any other boarder. But her privileges would end there, as those of the other boarders did.
She would not allow her to nose around the kitchen and boss the DeHart girl. She would not allow her to nag at her son.
Mrs. Fargo was drawing a widow’s pension of almost thirty dollars a month, and she had a small sum laid away. But, while she had ever a ready dollar for the church and its manifold excursions against the heathen, she had never a nickel for her own doctor bills, patent medicines, toilet articles, and similar things.
She tried to explain the why of this to her daughter. She had to give to the church. (That was her explanation of that.) She had to hold on to all the money she could get, because what would she do if the government took a notion to stop her pension? (And that explained that.) It was all very clear to her, and she could not see why anyone else should be puzzled by it.
She didn’t see that there was anything for Edie to get mad about. And, anyways, if that DeHart girl didn’t waste so much stuff and if that young un, Bobbie, wasn’t always teasin’ for money and wearin’ his clothes out almost before he got ’em unwrapped, why…
One day, when Myrtle was visiting her, the old woman revealed the story of her abuse to the banker’s prissy wife. Edie wouldn’t let her open her mouth about anything. She wouldn’t buy her medicine no more. Bobbie was always doing things to plague her. The DeHart girl had given her a bowl of oatmeal with a fly in it.…
Myrtle rushed downstairs to confront Edie with her crimes, and such was Edie’s state by this time that she threatened to pull her sister’s hair if she heard another word from her.…Myrtle had a big house, and more doggone time on her hands, apparently, than she knew what to do with. Let her take care of her mother for a while and see how she liked it.
So Mrs. Fargo moved to Alfred Courtland’s home, and she remained there a little less than two weeks. She never knew exactly why Myrtle suggested that she move on to Sherman’s. On the morning of her departure, she went downstairs and found Myrtle lying on the lounge with two black eyes and a split lip. She said that she had fallen down the cellar steps the night before, and she’d been thinking maybe her mother would be happier out in the country again.
Mrs. Fargo said that she liked it there, all right, but Myrtle said, well, she’d better try it at Sherman’s, anyway. After all, she wouldn’t know whether she liked it or not until she tried it; and she kind of felt like it might be best.
So the old woman moved to Sherman Fargo’s farm, and whatever her complaints were before, they were doubled now. There were three kids to nag at, instead of one—three to make her upset—and Josephine was even less appreciative of criticism than Edie. She might skin them alive herself, but she wanted not one word as to their management from Mrs. Fargo. And Sherman, for one of the few times in his life, sided with his wife. He owed her something, he admitted, for turning the place over to him and, by God, she had a home there as long as she wanted one. But she’d have to keep in mind whose house it was. She’d made everyone step around in her home. Now it was her turn.
Mrs. Fargo was frightened. She couldn’t go back to Edie’s. Nor to Myrtle’s, either, she realized now. If Sherman should turn her out—if that mysterious and unpredictable thing, the government, should cease sending her the pension…
From a cranky and demanding attitude, she swung to the other extreme. Normally a hearty eater, she took to remaining away from the table. And when she did go, she ate only the things there were the most of, those that were cheapest. She even asked what they would prefer that she take, and when Sherman angrily demanded whether she thought she was at the goddamned poor farm, her fright became almost apoplectic.
When she was not eating her stingy meals, she remained in her room, making and remaking her bed, cleaning things over and over, demonstrating that she was a clean and able-bodied guest who would be no trouble to anyone.
But there was no satisfying these strange people who were her son and his family. Just as her economy at table displeased them, so were they angered by her attempts to keep out of their way.
She would sit far back in the corner of the living room on the hardest chair, her hands folded, scarcely breathing. And Sherman would suddenly emit a stream of curses and ask her what the hell she was afraid of. He would demand of Josephine and the children what the hell they’d been doing to the old lady; and Josephine sulked, and the kids despised her. Sherman would force her to drag her chair up close to the stove, to keep warm. And when she sat there sweating, but afraid to move, he would scowl and curse the more and perhaps get up and stamp out of the room.
She did not know what to do. She was afraid to eat and not to eat. Afraid to talk and not to talk. Afraid of being in the way and out of the way. Afraid.
One day she was sitting in the middle of the living room. She was sitting still, but now and then her arms jerked and her hands fluttered. She was not talking or smiling or frowning. But her lips moved and she grimaced, both smiling and frowning.
A team drove up in the yard, and a moment later Josephine waddled to the door.
“Is Pearl here,” said Philo Barkley.
“Pearl?” said Josephine. “Who’s that?”
Mrs. Fargo wondered who it was, too. It had been so long since she had heard her own name that she had forgotten it.
Then, suddenly, it came to her. He was asking for her. And she cried out to him in an excited voice, “Here I am, Bark. Right in here.”
Josephine hollered at her not to bust a blood vessel, and ushered the ex-banker in. Then, shooing the children away, she closed the door on them. Josephine was a proud woman, although it was not many an opportunity she had to show it. She had as much manners as anyone, she guessed, even if she did come from the sand-hills.
“Well, how are you, Pearl?” he said, sitting down.
“I’m not any…I’m fine, Bark.”
“I’ve been meaning for a long time to come an’ see you. Meant to see Link before he passed on. I wanted him—I wanted both of you to know I didn’t hold nothing against you.…”
Mrs. Fargo nodded. “We felt awful bad, Bark.”
“Yes,” he said. “Well, it’s all behind us now, Pearl.…You know, Pearl, we’re kind of getting on, ain’t we?”
“Yes, we are, Bark.”
“Seems like the old friends are dropping off one by one. Seems like the old friends and relatives that are left ought to kind of stick together.”
Mrs. Fargo nodded that this was true.
As with everything else, there are relative degrees of slowness. In comparison to his sister-in-law, Barkley arrived at a point with the speed of a race horse and his mind was as fast as blue lightning. He droned on and on, repeating himself again and again, before she realized that he was asking her to come and live with him.
“B-but, Bark,” she stammered, blushing, “I’m quite a lot older’n you are, an’—”
“Maybe in years, Pearl. But—”
“An’ I ain’t any good in a family way no more, an…an’…”
“I didn’t mean that,” said Barkley, frankly. “Can’t see no sense to it. We’re both old enough so’s there wouldn’t be talk, if that’s what you’re thinking of.”
“Well—well…” said Mrs. Fargo. And a great load seemed to slide from her shriveling body. “Bark, I—”
“I just figured we’d be comp’ny for each other. You could keep house, run it just like you would your own. And we could go to church together of a Sunday, and—an’ I thought it would be kind of nice for both of us.”
Mrs. Fargo could not trust herself to speak. She could not speak, anyway. Her vocal cords had become momentarily paralyzed from sheer joy and relief. She could only look at him, hoping that he would not go away before she could answer.
And Bark looked at her and understood, for he was slow himself. He drew out his pipe and filled it, spending some five minutes in the tamping and igniting of the tobacco. When he had it going satisfactorily, a matter of another five minutes, he looked at her again.
“Think you’d like to come, Pearl?”
She bobbed her head.
“When?” he inquired.
And, as though the word were magic, Mrs. Fargo found her voice.
“Now, Bark. Now. Take me now, Bark. Now. Now. Now!”
…So he took her, then, and from all accounts the arrangement was a happy one for both of them.
They were comp’ny for each other, and she kept the house and ran it like it was her own. And on Sundays they went to church together—and it was kind of nice.
Sometimes she wish’d he’d break loose with a good cussing spell. But since that wasn’t his way, she never complained about it.
She guessed she probably wasn’t perfect herself.
27
In a side-street bar in Mexico City the partners of O’Hara and Gallagher, gun-runners, Chink smugglers, and lately copper miners, were having some after-breakfast drinks. Gallagher’s leonine head was swathed in bandages and his wiry little partner kept looking at him anxiously.
“You sure you’re feelin’ all right, Gallagher? You don’t look yourself, somehow.”
The big man nodded vaguely. “I—I’m all right.”
“That was a nasty crack you took. Don’t know why I can’t ever teach you to duck when these brawls start.”
His partner picked up his glass, frowned at it, and set it down again.
“Well,” continued O’Hara, “this time next week we’ll be on our way to the Straits Settlements. With a cool hundred thousand, American, in our jeans. We’ll let old man Anaconda do the mining and we’ll take the fun. Come on—let’s drink on it.”
“I don’t drink.”
“Ha, ha. That’s the best yet, Gallagher!”
“Why do you keep calling me Gallagher? That’s not my name.”
The little man smirked. “Well, now, if it comes to that—”
“Who are you?” His partner knocked back his chair and stood up. “What are we doing together? Where am I?”
O’Hara leaped up. “Now, take it easy, fellow. Everything’s all right. You just stopped a beer bottle with your bean last night, and—”
The big man looked incredulously at the calendar behind the bar: Octobre Tres, diez y nuevo catorce. Seven years!
“I’ve got to get out of here!” he yelled. “I’m Robert Dillon!”
28
Attorney General-Elect Jeff Parker tore the letter he was reading into shreds and dribbled them into the wastebasket. He was angry and considerably hurt. Letters like that took the heart right out of a man. Here he’d worked his head off to get them a fine new road, and now they were kicking about it. They were complaining that their customers were by-passing Verdon and driving into the big cities!
Well, he was out from under their thumbs now, thank gosh. From now on, they’d have another legislator to kick at.
He strolled into the parlor of his hotel suite, helped himself to a large drink of whisky, and took it over to the window. Looking down upon O Street, he drank, rocking back and forth on his high heels.
It was beginning to snow, and the sight of it sent a reminiscent chill through the little attorney’s body. He was plenty glad he was where he was. It would be terrible to be out there like that poor darned tramp, wondering where your next meal was coming from, where you were going to sleep that night.…
Frowning sympathetically, Jeff studied the tramp, noting the hungry way he kept looking across the street at the opulent façade of the hotel. It was too bad that things like that had to be. The fellow looked like he might have amounted to something at one time or another. He looked sort of familiar—
An ejaculation of mixed surprise and dismay slipped from his lips. The glass almost slipped from his hands. Why, golly! No wonder he looked familiar!
He hesitated for a moment. Then, impulsively, he turned and picked up the telephone:
“There’s a man standing across the street. A thin, black-haired, rather pasty-faced fellow. I think if you’ll glance out the door you can see him…”
“Yes, Senator,” said the clerk, curiously, “I see him.”
“I want you to send a bellboy across the street and have him brought up here. Bring him up the back way if you like.”
“Oh.…Well, all right, Senator.”
“Just tell him Jeff Parker wants to see him.”
He hung up the receiver and watched while the bellboy skipped across the icy street.
Three minutes later Grant Fargo was ushered into the room.
“Well, Jeff,” he smiled weakly, as they shook hands, “great minds seem to run in the same channel. I’ve been waiting all day, hoping you’d come out.”
“Why, why didn’t you come over?” demanded Jeff, and immediately realized how foolish the question was.
Grant shrugged. “Looking like I do?”
“Well, you could have called me.”
“Not without a nickel.…By the way, I see you have a drink there.”
“Oh. Why certainly, Grant. Excuse me. Help yourself to anything you want.…Uh, could you eat anything?”
“Anything,” confessed Grant.
He picked up a bottle and glass, and Jeff turned to the telephone. While he was talking to room-service, he heard the bottle gurgle into the glass three times. And when he turned back around, he found Grant sitting down, nursing almost half a water-glass full of whisky. The ex-printer saw his look and smiled thinly. Deliberately, while the attorney tried to conceal his dismay, he killed the drink at a gulp and reached for the bottle again.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said.
“Oh, no. Not at all,” denied Jeff hastily.
He was wondering already what in the world had prompted him to reveal himself to Grant. He was unwilling to admit that he might have been moved by the desire to show off to the man who had always jeered at him and snubbed him. So he decided it was because he and Grant were both members of the Fargo clan and it was the duty of one Fargo to help another.
“A man that’s been through what I have needs a drink,” Grant was saying.
“Uh—what have you been doing with yourself, Grant?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” Grant’s mouth worked bitterly. “That lousy Sherman and the old man booted me out of town right in the middle of a depression. Turned me loose in the world with hardly enough to live on a week. Hell, I never had a chance to get started any place. I was sick. All the people I used to know had forgotten me.…Well, you see how it turned out.”
“You knew your father had died?”
“And goddam good riddance,” nodded Grant. “It’s the only thing the son-of-a-bitch ever did for me.”
Jeff shook his head. “You shouldn’t talk that way.”
“Who the hell are you to tell me how I should talk?…Oh, hell, I’m sorry. But you don’t know how it’s been, Jeff.” Grant brushed a tear of self-pity from his eyes. “I hadn’t done anything. I don’t care what anyone thinks, I didn’t—I didn’t—”
“Of course
you didn’t,” said Jeff quickly. “That’s all settled and forgotten. Uh—what are your plans now?”
“Can you lend me ten dollars, Jeff?”
“Why, yes. I think so. What—”
“I want to go back, Jeff. I’ve got to go back. Ma’s all by herself now and we’ll get along fine. She’ll help me get back on my feet and I can get a job on the Eye again, and—and everything will be all right, Jeff. You don’t know how it’s been all these years. Wandering from place to place. Broke, friendless. Your own folks t-thinking that you’re a mur—”
He choked and slopped his glass down on the table. He buried his face in his hands, sobbing convulsively.
“Now, now,” said the attorney, touched. “Everything’s going to be all right, Grant. Just pull yourself together.”
Although he was somewhat out of touch with Verdon and did not know of Mrs. Lincoln Fargo’s living arrangements, he was not at all sure that he was doing the wise thing in helping Grant to return. On the other hand, he did not see how he could refuse. The Fargoes were such goshdarned funny people. They might not wish to have anything to do with Grant themselves, but they could easily take it as an insult if he refused to assist this renegade member of the clan.
He decided that he would have to help the former dude. He would send him back in style. If the Fargoes didn’t want him around, they could tell him so themselves.
Grant cleaned up the tremendous meal Jeff had ordered, and started drinking again. By the exercise of a great deal of insistent tact, Jeff got him to bathe and shave; and while he was thus occupied, he sent down his frayed suit to be pressed and spotted. He also sent out for new underwear, socks, a shirt and tie.
When Grant was re-dressed, Jeff looked him over approvingly.
“Now you look like the real Grant,” he declared roundly. “Of course, we’ll go out in the morning and get you a new suit and an overcoat and whatever else you need.”