Джеймс Кейн - Mignon

“I haven’t said a goddam word.”

“All right then, why don ’ t you say something?”

“I’ll think it over, I certainly will.”

At last they went, carrying the corpse with them, and after I’d closed the window and bolted the door, I started back to bed. But for a moment I stood in the hall, trying to gather my wits, to think what to do next, about Burke and his deadly papers, and how to do it in time, before Pierre’s identification, when the cat would be out of the bag. And then, from above, came the whisper: “Willie, have they gone?”

“Thank God, they have.”

“Get the ladder. I’m coming down.”

“Have you been up there all this time?”

“I held the skylight on a crack.”

I got the ladder, and then she was sliding down through my arms, in nightie, slippers, robe, and beautiful smell. Then bare skin was on my hands, and time stood still as our mouths came together. I carried her into the bedroom, and nothing was there but the hunger we had for each other. Then she was up on one elbow, asking about the dead man. She said: “That wasn’t Burke they took out, it was Pierre. I saw him plain.”

“I made a mistake. I told you wrong.”

“What was Sandy talking about?”

“Oh — cockeyed scheme he cooked up.”

“I heard him say cotton.”

“Yes, he did mention something about it.”

“Willie, if I ever hear the end of that , that’s when I leap up and holler. And if you ever get yourself in it, that’s when I wring your neck. Now what was this scheme of his?”

I told her, not going into any details, and when I was done she said: “It’s out! I never want to look at cotton again as long as I live. Do you hear me?”

“I do, and cotton doesn’t attract me.”

“Because listen, Willie Cresap—”

But I still hadn’t got to the main point, and I cut her off with a kiss, telling her: “Mignon Fournet, you listen to me!”

I said our time was short, and that I had to explain some things that could mean her life as well as her father’s. I took it from the beginning — why I’d left New Orleans, what Dan had said on the boat, what I’d really meant when I came the day before, calling on her in the rain, what had gone through my mind when she told me their receipt had been signed. I told of my trip to the Eastport , and the faked-up story I’d told about the torn fifty-dollar bill. I told of my trip to the hotel, the answers I’d got from Ball, and Burke’s sudden appearance. But when I mentioned the pass, she cut in quick: “But I never asked for a pass!”

“I figured that out, myself.”

“But what was Frank thinking about?”

Her eyes, opening with disbelief, became two big black moons as I told about the receipt, how I was sure it was forged from the name on her pass, its connection with Powell’s murder, and what it would mean if found with Burke’s papers, once it became known who Pierre really was — “you’re tied in through the pass, and your father’s tied in through his articles of partnership.” And then, as an afterclap of the bitterness I’d lived with so long: “Not that he doesn’t have it coming, after what he did, using you as bait—”

“Using me as what? ”

“You heard me! As bait, to Burke.”

“Oh, how wrong can anyone be!”

She said the bait was “the Pulaski cotton, the chance to buy it in a tremendous big cache on the Sabine River, that we had to dangle at Frank, to keep him from burning his papers just from pure spite. And where I came in, why I had to be on Red River, was that I was the one who knew them, those people in Texas, those growers who hold the titles, through Raoul, before the war.” Of course, that corresponded with what Burke had said when he first started talking with Ball, and I hauled in my horns quick, especially after hearing point-blank, out of her own mouth, that she hadn’t been close to Burke. But when she started going on with more about her father, I cut it off by asking: “Where is he, by the way? I have to see him, and quick.”

“I told you yesterday. He went for venison, to the Ransdell place back of town. But sometimes, when the Indian who brings in the deer is late, he has to stay overnight, and—”

“When’ll he be back?”

“Won’t be too long after sunup.”

“Then I can see him in time — we hope.”

“... The dawn’s early light. I have to go.”

“Hold on, Mignon, not so fast — let’s get back to Powell and why he was killed. If you don’t believe it’s true, my notion about that pass—”

“Willie, I know it’s true.”

She got up, and in the graying dark started putting on the robe. She said: “And I know what has to be done. So if my father, with Pierre out of the way, doesn’t go to Frank with a gun, take that receipt and burn it, along with every title to every bale of cotton we ever thought was ours, you know who’s going to do it?”

“I am.”

“No, Willie. I am.”

She let me in in a red-checked gingham dress, the first time I’d ever seen her wearing anything but black. It was just a morning dress, but went with her color somehow, and she seemed pleased when I said how well it became her. Then she brought me into a flat that was the duplicate, in reverse, of the one I was living in, and yet was as different from it as day is from night. In place of the coconut matting, the halls had Axminster runners; in place of the mustard paint was decent wallpaper, with lords and ladies and dogs; in place of the Sunday-School smell was her smell, the smell of books, and the smell of ham frying; in place of the Prussian kings in the sitting room were books — hundreds of them, in shelves as high as your head almost covering the wall. On top, stuck around every which way, were all kinds of pictures and stuff, from photographs of her as a child to old dance programs, filled out. The furniture was old-fashioned, but nicely upholstered in tapestry. At one side was a Steinway grand, at the other a long table, with an iron stand on it, supporting a wash-boiler, with a muslin skirt on it and a spirit lamp underneath, taking the chill off. When I asked who played, she sat down and clattered the keys, saying: “That’s Mozart — Father loves Don Giovanni .”

But then: “I have to watch my meat,” and I followed her back to the kitchen. It was like mine, but looked used and had sacks and bins and canisters. She had a fire going, and in a skillet pieces of ham that she speared with a fork and turned over. She seemed proud of how she could cook, explaining: “I learned it in the convent at Grand Coteau. We were studying to be ladies, but when the war began to come on, the Reverend Mother insisted we study to be cooks.” She gave me breakfast in the dining room: stewed prunes, ham, eggs, and hominy; when I marveled at the menu, how good it was in a place overrun by the war, she said: “Don’t forget, Father keeps store. He knows where stuff is, and how to get it in.” But as I finished my coffee she held up her hand. “That’s Father,” she said. We went into the pantry; she drew the bolts of the trapdoor, I gripped it by the holes and raised it. Mr. Landry came up, dressed roughly, half a skinned deer on one shoulder. He needed a shave and was thinner, but for some reason he seemed younger than I remembered him — it could have been the way he handled the deer. Once again, I noted how strong he must be.

When he saw me, he shook hands, very quiet — not surprised, not upset, and not glad. I said I had business with him, and he said: “Very well, sir — I’ll be with you as soon as I take this carcass apart and get it down in the cistern, where it’ll be cool.” When I told him there wasn’t time for that, he looked at me sharply, dumped the meat on the kitchen table, sat in the chair beside it, and waited. I gave it to him quick, everything he needed to know, down to my killing of Pierre. I said: “They’ll identify him, sure. When they do they’ll go to Burke — they’ll question him, they’ll fine-tooth-comb his place. You’re in mortal danger, as Mignon is, for the reason—”