All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [261]
“Yeah, Jack.”
“So you’ll believe me if I tell you something?”
“Why, yeah, Jack.”
“Well, I’m telling you something. You are the stinkingest louse God ever let live.”
I relished the moment of profound silence which followed, then plunged on, “And you think you can buy me in. Well, I know why you want to. You don’t know how much I know or what. I was thick with the Boss and I know a lot. I’m the joker in the deck. My name is Jack and I’m the wild jack and I’m not one-eyed. You want to deal me to yourself from the bottom of the deck. But it’s no sale, Tiny, it’s no sale. And it’s too damned bad, Tiny. And do you know why?”
“Look here!” he said with authority. “Look here, you can’t be–”
“It’s too bad because I do know something. I know a lot. I know that you killed the Boss.”
“It’s a lie!” he exclaimed, and heaved on the couch and the couch creaked.
“It’s no lie. And it’s no guess. Though I ought to have guessed it. Sadie Burke told me. She–”
“She’s in it, she’s in it!”
“She was in it,” I corrected, “but not any more. And she’ll tell the world. She doesn’t care who knows. She’s not afraid.”
“She better be. I’ll–”
“She’s not afraid, because she’s tired. She’s tired of everything and she’s tired of you.”
“I’ll kill her,” he said, and the perspiration exuded delicately on his temples.
“You won’t kill anybody,” I said, “and this time there’s nobody to do it for you. For you’re afraid to. You were afraid to kill the Boss and you were afraid not to, but luck helped you out. But you gave luck a little push, Tiny, and I swear, I admire you for it. It opened my eyes. You see, Tiny, all those years I never thought you were real. You were just something off the cartoon page. With your diamond ring. You were just the punching bag the Boss used, and you just grinned your sick grin and took it. You were like the poodle I heard about. You ever hear about the poodle?”
I didn’t give him time to answer. I watched his mouth get ready, then I went on. “There was a drunk had a poodle and he took him everywhere with him from bar to bar. And you know why? Was it devotion? It was not devotion. He took that poodle everywhere just so he could spit on him and not get the floor dirty. Well, you were the Boss’s poodle. And you liked it. You liked to be spit on. You weren’t human. You weren’t real. That’s what I thought. But I was wrong, Tiny. Somewhere down in you there was something made you human. You resented being spit on. Even for money.”
I got up, with my half-empty glass in my hand.
“And now, Tiny,” I said, “that I know you are real, I sort of feel sorry for you. You are a funny old fat man, Tiny, with your heart getting bad and your liver nigh gone and sweat running down your face and a mean worry on your mind and a great blackness like water rising in a cellar inside you and I almost feel sorry for you but if you say a word I might stop feeling sorry for you. So now I’m going to drink up your whisky and spit in the glass and go.”
So I drank off the whisky, dropped the glass on the floor (on the thick rug it didn’t break), and started for the door. I had almost got there, when I heard a croak from the couch. I looked around.
“It–” he croaked, “it won’t stand in a court.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said, “it won’t. But you still got plenty to worry about.”
I opened the door and walked through and left the door open behind me and walked down the long hall under the great, glittering chandelier, and walked out into the brisk night.
I took a deep drag of fresh air and looked up through the trees at the distinct stars. I felt like a million. I had sure-God brought off that scene. I had hit him where he lived. I was full of beans. I had fire in my belly. I was a hero. I was St. George and the dragon, I was Edwin Booth bowing beyond the gaslights, I was Jesus Christ with the horsewhip in the temple.
I was the stuff.
And all at once the stars I was like a man who has done himself the best from soup to nuts and a Corona Corona and feels like a virtuous million and all at once there isn’t anything