All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [93]
And when they had brought the bastard in, the Boss would look him over slow, from head to foot, and then he would say, “This is your last chance.” He would say that slow and easy. Then he would lean suddenly forward, at the man, and say, not slow and easy now, “God damn you, do you know what I can do to you?”
And he could do it, too. For he had the goods.
On the afternoon of the fourth of April, 1933, the streets leading to the Capitol were full of people, and they weren’t the kind of people you usually saw on those streets. Not in those numbers, anyway. The Chronicle that night referred to the rumor of a march on the Capitol, but affirmed that justice would not be intimidated. Before noon of the fifth of April there were a lot more wool-hats and red-necks and Mother Hubbards and crepe-de-Chine dresses with red-clay dust about the uneven bottom hem, and a lot of clothes and faces which weren’t cocklebur and crossroads, but county-seat and filling-station. The crowd moved up toward the Capitol, not singing or yelling, and spread out over the big lawn where the statues were.
Men with tripods and cameras were scurrying about on the edges of the crowd, setting up their rigs on the Capitol steps, climbing on the bases of the frock-coated statues to get shots. Here and there around the edge of the crowd you could see the blue coat of a mounted cop up above the crowd, and in the open space of lawn between the crowd and the Capitol there were more cops, just standing, and a few highway patrolmen, very slick and businesslike in their bright-green uniforms and black boots and black Sam Browne belts and dangling holsters.
The crowd began chanting, “Willie, Willie, Willie–We want Willie!”
I looked out of a window on the second floor and saw it. I wondered if the sound carried into the Chamber of Representatives, where they were yammering and arguing and orating. Outside it was very simple, out there on the lawn, under the bright spring sky. No arguing. Very simple. We want Willie–Willie, Willie, Willie!” In a long rhythm, with a hoarse undertone, like surf.
Then I saw a big black car pull slowly into the drive before the Capitol, and stop. A man got out, waved his hand to the cops, and walked to the bandstand there on the edge of the lawn. It was a fat man. Tiny Duffy.
Then he was speaking to the crowd. I could not hear his words, but I knew what he was saying. He was saying that Willie Stark asked them to go peaceably into the city, to wait until dark, to be back on the lawn before the Capitol by eight o’clock, when he would have something to tell them.
I knew what he would tell them. I knew that he would stand up before them and say that he was still Governor of the state.
I knew that, because early the previous evening, around seven-thirty, he had called me in and given me a big brown manila envelope. “Lowdan is down at the Haskell Hotel,” he said. “I know he’s in his room now. Go down there and let him take a peep at that but don’t let him get his hands on it and tell him to call his dogs off. Not that it matters whether he does or not, for they’ve changed their minds.” (Lowdan was the kingpin of the MacMurfee boys in the House.)
I had gone down to the Haskell and to Mr. Lowdan’s room without sending my name. I knocked on the door, and when I heard the voice, said, “Message.” He opened the door, a big jovial-looking man with a fine manner, in a flowered dressing gown. He didn’t recognize me at first, just seeing a big brown envelope and some sort of face above it. But I withdrew the brown envelope and some sort of face above it. But I withdrew the brown envelope just as his hand reached for it, and stepped over the sill. Then he must have looked at the face. “Why, Howdy-do, Mr. Burden,” he said, “they say you’ve been right busy lately.”
“Loafing,” I said, “just plain loafing. And I was just loafing by and thought I’d stop and show you something a fellow gave me.” I took the long sheet out of the envelope, and held it up for him to look at. “No, don’t touch, burn-y, burn-y,