Джеймс Кейн - Galatea

He went on: “It’s worse than you think, Webster, because Lucas is really decent. He warned Valenty, and he’s got the memo to prove it, notes typed up by his girl, that he was heading for trouble if he went through with any such scheme of having a child that could kill his wife. He’ll take the stand, sure — if I’m silly enough to ask him. And on top of that he’s too nice. He’s got something on her, and I don’t know what it is. So he’s the guy, Webster, she’s picking a personal feud with.”

“He’s the guy to lick just the same.”

“But why make herself trouble?”

I thought that over, pointed out she already had trouble, and Lucas wouldn’t pull any punches just from her pulling hers. Then I asked him: “You heard of Doc Kearns?”

“Not that I know of, no.”

“Fight manager. Had Dempsey.”

“Oh. Jack. Yes.”

“Beautiful boxer, Dempsey, one of the best in the business. But also a socker, see, the best in the business. Well, making him box was safe. But letting him sock was dough. So the doc gave him his head, and, brother, how it worked. Of course they were taking a chance, because Jack could stop one, same as anyone else. And, as a matter of fact, he did. Firpo lowered the boom, and Jack all but went out before he climbed back in the ring. But he won. That was before I was born, but they’re still talking about it. Listen, Mr. Brice, you got a socker. Goddam it, let her sock.”

“I wish I thought she could?”

“Could? She has. My heart’s still jumping at the swings she landed today — and a heart can’t be fooled. And besides, you heard what she said. This is her case — not some case you dream up tonight.”

“It’s your neck too, Webster.”

“And my heart, especially that.”

So he let her sock, and by the time she was done, the middle of the next afternoon, it was clear for the whole world to know that in her mind at least the scene on the tank was just one more chapter of “something ordained from the beginning, except that Duke intervened.” All that time Lucas was quiet, not objecting, hardly seeming even to listen. When it came his turn to question her, he got up, stood studying his fingernails, and then spoke very easy: “Just one or two points, Mrs. Valenty. First, was there or was there not a pregnancy?”

“That was a fine invitation to be a mother, wasn’t it, now, Mr. Lucas? What would you have said? No, there wasn’t a pregnancy.”

“Did your husband tell you, after the call you overheard, of the warning I gave him then? About the consequences he’d face if you did incur pregnancy and he took no surgical steps to protect you?”

“...No, he did not.”

Suddenly the points she had piled up looked sick. But he was polite as he asked her: “Later, judging from the pictures, a child was possible?”

“I guess so, I—”

“Yes or no, please.”

“I could have had one, yes.”

“And you still refused?”

“I didn’t want one no more.”

“Your improved health, you testified, came after Duke Webster’s arrival, and in fact was due to his help. If, as you say, you no longer wanted a child, you must have had some reason not connected with health. Was this reason Duke Webster?”

She skinned back her lips, so her teeth flashed mean. She said: “Mr. Lucas, when a man treats me that way, so even you own up you warned him, do I have to run into his arms the minute I’m restored, and holler ‘oh goody goody, now I can have a baby’? Is that what I have to do?”

“The question, Mrs. Val, is whether Duke Webster was the reason for your later refusal to have a child. Please answer yes or no.”

“Quit telling me what to answer.”

“I’m not telling you what to answer, Mrs. Val. I am telling you that your failure to answer, to give me a simple yes or no, will be pointed out to the jury, to be weighed by them in its bearing on your guilt.”

She had got red when she flashed her teeth, but now little by little, as the seconds dragged on and the place was still as a tomb, she turned gray, chalky white. Then: “For the love I bore — for the love I bear — a clean, decent boy — who showed me the way — to health, hope, and God — my answer has to be — yes, yes , YES.”

She was on the floor, with the count started, but Lucas was still polite. He said: “One more thing, Mrs. Val. Webster, in his testimony, said your husband — up on the ladder this is — shot at a — at an animal . Did you become aware of such a creature, Mrs. Val?”

“I wasn’t listening to Duke.”

“No, you were engrossed with your pictures, I noticed. But let’s get back to the tank. Did you see any animal at that time?”

Only little by little, as her eyes got bigger and bigger, did she realize that this was the case against us. No matter what had gone before, about Hollis Valenty or anyone else, if I were low man on the ladder and had actually fired that shot, it all boomeranged against us. She said, half crying: “What are you talking about, Mr. Lucas? It was too dark to see that night.”

“Did you hear an animal, Mrs. Val?”

“I was in prayer, Mr. Lucas.”

“Can you name the animal for us now?”

“No. No, Mr. Lucas, no.”

“That’s all, Mrs. Val.”

Lucas, winding it up, was nice to us and more. He wasn’t called to the stand, but more or less told it all anyhow. He said: “I have no doubt that the general trend of her life was just as Mrs. Val says. Val Valenty I counted a friend, but I couldn’t rest with my conscience if I didn’t tell this jury he was exactly the kind of man he has been depicted here in this court. He was staunch, fanatical, in his loyalty to all who succumbed to his will, and it is my belief, in spite of what Mrs. Val says, that had she agreed to the child, he would have spared no expense, trouble, or care to pull her, as well as the child, safely through Once she thwarted him, however, he became hard, and every word she has repeated, of his call to me, was spoken just as she told it, and I gladly add to her story, if it helps her case at all, the warning I felt compelled to give him that he was heading into something serious — ‘one hell of a spot’ were the words I used, according to my secretary’s notes at the time — if he persisted in his intention.”

He stopped, studied his nails in a way that seemed to be habit, and went on: “I’m perfectly willing to believe in the decency of her love for Webster. I allege no impropriety. Life is replete with instances of conscience ruling the heart, and this may well have been the case here. But you are not asked to judge a moral question, to decide if a wife, driven by fear, by hate, by love, by the great wave of circumstance, has the right to kill as one way out. If that were all, the case would be simple, if dangerous, for let us admit the annals of crime are replete with instances of juries who found for the wife. You, however, are asked to pass on a question of fact: did the husband, though it was the wife who was driven, who feared, hated, and loved, who first conceived of the tank, as we know from credible evidence, as an instrument of death — did the husband, on one afternoon’s caprice, reverse the course of the wave and attempt the deed the wife had plotted against him? Did he, because of Webster’s quick intervention, fall into his own trap?

“I don’t believe it. Waves never reverse. They invented one-way traffic. If any falling was done, into a waiting trap, it was Webster who fell, and into a trap that continued to hold him long after that fateful night. I wish now to point out to you three strange aspects of this most peculiar case.”

He had raised his voice a little, but now let it drop and took a handkerchief out, a clean one, neatly folded, from his left-hand breast pocket. He crumpled it, passed it from palm to palm, and shoved it in his right-hand side pocket, where Val had kept the gun.