All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [260]
“Well, thanks anyway,” I said. “I reckon we can stop Duffy’s clock.”
“It won’t stick in law,” she said.
“I didn’t reckon it would. What ever you said to him or he said to you doesn’t prove a thing. But there are other ways.”
She thought awhile. Then, “Any other way, law or not, and I reckon you know it drags that–” she hesitated, and did not say what she was about to say, then revised it–“drags Anne Stanton into it.”
“She’ll do it,” I affirmed. “I know she would.”
Sadie shrugged. “You know what you want,” she said, “you all.”
“I want to get Duffy.”
“That suit me,” she said, and again shrugged. Suddenly she seemed to have gone tired again. “That suits me,” she repeated, “but the world is full of Duffys. It looks like I been knowing them all my life.”
“I’m just thinking about one,” I declared.
I was still thinking about that one about a week later (by this time it seemed that the only way was to break the thing through an antiadministration paper), when I got the note from that particular Duffy himself. Would I mind coming to see him, it said. At my convenience.
My convenience was immediately, and I found him imperially and porcinely filling his clothes and the great leather couch in the library at the Mansion where the Boss used to sit. The leather of his shoes creaked as he stepped forward to greet me, but his body swayed with the bloated lightness of a drowned body stirred loose at last from the bottom mud of the river to rise majestically and swayingly to the surface. We shook hands and he smiled. And waved me to a seat as the couch groaned to receive him.
A black boy in a white coat brought the drinks. I took the drink but declined a cigar, and waited.
He said how sad it was about the Boss. I nodded
He said how the boys all missed the Boss. I nodded to that.
He said how things were getting done though. Just like the Boss would have wanted. I nodded to that.
He said how they sure missed the Boss, though. I nodded to that.
He said, “Jack, the boys sure miss you around here, too.”
I nodded modestly and said that I sure missed the boys.
“Yeah,” he resumed, “I was saying to myself the other day, just let me get settled into harness and I’m going to get hold of Jack. Yeah, Jack’s the kind of fellow I like to have around. The Boss sure thought a lot of him, and what was good enough for the Boss is good enough for old Tiny. Yeah, I said to myself, I’m gonna get old Jack. The kind of guy I need. A square-shooter. A guy you can trust. He’ll speak the truth, fear nor fear. His word is his bond.
“Are you referring to me?” I asked.
“I sure am,” he replied. “And I’m making you a proposition. I don’t exactly know what arrangement you had with the Boss, but you just tell me straight what it was and I’ll up it ten per cent.”
“I had no complaints about my treatment.”
“Now that’s talking like a white man, Jack,” he said, and added earnestly, “And don’t get me wrong, I know you and the Boss was like that.” He held up two large, white, glistening episcopal fingers as in benediction. “Like that,” he repeated. “And don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing the Boss. I just want to show you I appreciate you.”
“Thanks,” I said with some lack of warmth.
The lack of warmth was such, I presume, that he leaned slightly forward and said, “Jack, I’m going to make that twenty per cent.”
“That’s not enough,” I said.
“Jack,” he said, “you’re right. That’s not enough. Twenty-five per cent.”
I shook my head.
He showed a slight uneasiness and the couch creaked, but he rallied with a smile. “Jack,” he said soothingly, “you just tell me what you think’s right, and I’ll see how we make out. You tell me what’s enough.”
“There ain’t enough,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Listen,” I said, “didn’t you just tell me that