William Gay: Twilight

Turn the lights on. I can’t see where I am.

You in my front room and you ain’t been here thirty seconds and you done givin me orders.

Breece wandered around in the halfdark and finally seated himself in a bentwood rocker by the fire and spread his hands to the warmth of the heater. He seemed ill at ease, someone who must soon be off.

Turning colder, he said awkwardly.

What can I say? It’s December. But I could of stuck my head out the door and told that. You didn’t have to drive all the way out here to give me a weather report.

Like I told you, it’s business.

If it’s whiskey business, you’re shit out of luck. They cleaned me out last week. The fuckin revenuers. I’m under indictment again. Out on bond. The son of a bitches just won’t let me be here lately. Somebody’s got it in for me. I’ve paid these goddamned local laws enough money to buy a farm in Georgia and the niggers to work it and not a word of warning do I get. They didn’t even fool with the county. You know what they done? A nigger come walkin up out of the woods and Isold him a pint. He shoved it in his hip pocket and walked back down in that holler. A nigger in woreout overalls and bustedout shoes, and I thought he’d been down there diggin sang or somethin. Then when the feds came in a big black car with their warrants, there set the son of a bitch right in the front seat wearin a suit of clothes and a necktie. The front seat. Black as the ace of spades. The slick son of a bitches. Who’d of thought they’d send a nigger?

Breece’s eyes had adjusted to the halflight from the open hearth, and by it he was covertly studying Sutter’s face. Sutter wouldn’t have noticed anyway. He seemed to be abstractedly talking out of a store of rage he’d laid by and a hot but unfocused anger burned in his eyes.

It was the first time they had ever talked face to face and Breece divined in a moment of dizzy revelation something about Sutter that no one had noticed before. Why, he is mad, Breece thought. He’s not what people say about him at all. He’s not just mean as a snake or eccentric or independent. He’s as mad as a hatter, and I don’t know how they’ve let him go so long.

What is it you want, anyway?

Someone has something that belongs to me, and I’m being blackmailed. I’ve got to have it back, and I think you’re the man to get it for me.

Sutter was rolling a cigarette. Who is it?

Well, there’s two of them in together, I think. A brother and a sister named Tyler. The girl is the one who actually approached me about the money, but I know for a fact the young man is the one who stole the article out of my car. That’s what I want back, and I’m willing to pay for it.

The article. Yes.

Say I try to do it for you. Do I get to know what the article is, or do I just wander around finding things that look like they might have belonged to you?

Of course, you’ll know what it is.

Then let me in on it.

All right. Some photographs were taken of myself and a…young lady. They are potentially very damaging. The photographs are of a very incriminating…a very intimate nature. The young woman is connected politically, and they are threatening to go to her husband if I don’t pay them fifteen thousand dollars. I’ve been in a quandary. If anything goes wrong, my position in this community will be ruined.

This story was so monumentally absurd that Sutter did not even take offense at being lied to. He was even a little impressed. The idea of Fenton Breece doing things of an intimate nature to a politically connected young woman while someone else took potentially incriminating photographs was so far beyond the realm of probability that he permitted himself a small smile.

Of course, we both know that’s bullshit, he pressed on. But it’s your business what you done and what specie of animal you done it with. Pictures then. And you want em back. If they’re as bad as you say, why don’t you just give them the fifteen thousand dollars. That’s chickenfeed to you. What do you think, I’m goin to do it cheaper? I ain’t no bargain basement, ain’t runnin no sales.

Breece was silent for a time. He seemed unused to speech, as if he’d gone too long without the companionship of the living. He studied a bit and then he said, I flatter myself that I know something of human nature. I can read people. Ifit were simply a matter of the fifteen thousand dollars, I’d pay it and be done with it. However…there was something in the Tyler woman’s eyes. It was clear she means to ruin me. She’ll take the money and then want more. Or perhaps they’ve already had copies of the pictures made and she’ll show them about anyway. There was a vindictiveness in her face. Utter viciousness.

This utter viciousness, where do you reckon it came from? Wait a minute. I’m gettin an insight into human nature. Let me guess. You was doin things of an intimate nature to this Tyler gal, and then your attention wandered to this gal who was politically connected, and the Tyler gal got pissed and aims to run you out of the undertakin business.

It’s not necessary to ridicule me.

Then quit actin like I’m a goddamn fool. Quit jerkin me around and get on with it. Make me an offer or get the hell out of here.

Very well. I’ll give you the money. All fifteen thousand dollars, half now and the rest when I have the pictures. I’m sure you could use a sum of money like that in your…legal difficulties. I’ve had no experience in that area, but I’m sure that would buy several lawyers.

Judges is what I’m shoppin for. And why are you goin roundabout like this if she offered to sell you the pictures straight out?

I told you. She wants to ruin me.

Sutter had an actual insight of his own then into human nature. He gave Breece an acute look. It’s not just the pictures, he said. They’ve got some kind of a deathlock on you and you want it off. You want me to kill them.

No, no, certainly not. I can’t condone murder, hire murderdone.

Sure you can. You just don’t want to know about it. You don’t even want to say it. You keep dancin all around it. You want me to do it for you.

You must be aware that you have a certain reputation. Your words would carry more weight than mine. Perhaps violence wouldn’t be necessary. Perhaps you could just talk to them.

Perhaps I could.

Breece was hesitant. How many…how many people have you killed?

You don’t owe me for them.

Will you tell me that if I tell you something of my own past?

What is this, you show me yours and I show you mine? I don’t care about your past. And whatever I done, I done it because it was what I had to do at the time and it’s yesterday’s news anyhow.

I’m aware you killed Conkle. I could hardly have avoided knowing that. Breece hesitated, studying Sutter warily. But this was business, and money had been promised. He didn’t have it on him, and that weighed in his favor.

You killed Conkle and laid a poker in his hand so you could claim self-defense. But Conkle was righthanded and you put the poker in the left hand. How smart was that?

In the warm halflight Sutter was smiling. I knowed he was righthanded.

Say you did? Then why did you mess up?

Sutter’s voice grew confidential, conspiratorial. I’ll let you in on a little secret. I didn’t mess up. I did it on purpose.

Why would you do a thing like that?

I don’t know. For sport, maybe. For sport? What the hell kind of an answer is that?

For sport, you know what sport is, don’t you. Anyway, I done it. And I’d not have even as sorry a piece of shit as you thinkin I didn’t know whether a man I was about to kill was righthanded or lefthanded.

Well. I was just curious. I killed someone myself once, while I was still in college. I killed a whore in Memphis.