Джеймс Кейн - Mignon

“I can see the reason, please.”

“Where does Burke live?”

He pointed beyond the back fence to a brick house facing Second Street, cater-cornered across from the market Burke had mentioned, now all shuttered up. I asked: “Can you go in the back way?”

“I have the key, as Frank has to my store.”

“Then, you have to move fast, or else—”

“I know I have to move fast!”

He shriveled me with his tone, then sat there, not looking young any more but horribly old. He passed a hand over his face, then said: “So.” And then, after some moments: “Here I am, at the end of the line.”

“That’s right,” I said, my old bitterness speaking once more. “After chasing that will-o’-the-wisp, that pot of gold you thought was under the rainbow, to hell-and-gone and back, up the river and down the lake, here you are, right where you started from, with every bale of that cotton lost — because once you burn that receipt, the rest of it’s nothing but paper. It’s what you get, my friend, for hooking up with that skunk, the one who turned on you for the sake of making some tin. There’re other things, occasionally, more important than tin.”

“Sir, by what right do you censure me?”

“The right of a man who wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for you. When you brought Mignon, I had to come too — I hated it, I tried to shuffle it off, to pretend there was no need. But here I am, and I’m telling you, if it wasn’t for what you did, we’d all three be in New Orleans, she and I would be married, and life would go on. Instead of which, you stand, and not only you but her, in the gallows’ shadow, and—”

“It may not be so simple as that.”

“It’s exactly as simple as that.”

“That cotton was made over to me by people in desperate need, people I’d helped in one way or another. They’re proud, and it was their way of paying. But they’re still in desperate need, and if there was any way I could cash in, so perhaps they could share—”

“Oh my, listen at Santa Claus!”

“I did share, as you yourself can tell.”

“And when was this noble deed?”

“I bought those boys shoes. You defended me for it.”

“... I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“What else could I do for these people?”

“Fight for their country, maybe — and yours.”

“I’m sorry, that’s impossible.”

“I hear different, Mr. Landry — very different.”

“Our country’s Louisiana. War’s over here.”

“Taylor’s fighting for Louisiana.”

“Taylor’s a fool. I look down on, I despise him, any man that asks boys to die for a cause already lost! I don’t call that patriotism, I just call it dumbness! But if, by using a trick, I don’t care how crooked, I can break out of this hell we’re in, this half-war they’ve inflicted upon us where they won’t let us fight and won’t give us peace, I can get some of their tin, to divide up with my long-suffering people, I’ll do it, I don’t care who I have to hook up with. So it’s Burke, and he turned on me, you tell me. So he did, and I’d kill him, give me the chance. But did he, any worse than the rest? Which of them didn’t turn — on me, on all of us here? I’d kill ’em all! I hate their bluebelly guts, and—”

“But not Willie, Father!”

She stood there in front of him, and he swallowed once, then said: “All right, not Willie.”

“He saved you, don’t forget.”

“... How’s Miss Tremaine?” he asked me.

“But when I opened my mouth to answer, she closed it with her hand. “Are you going?” she asked him.

“Of course I’m going. I have to.”

But he still sat there, apparently gathering his courage, and she said I should cut up the meat. She got a knife, steel, and cleaver from a drawer, and told me: “First you take off the haunch, then the loin, then the foreleg, then the neck, then the chuck, which leaves the rib in one piece — then it’ll all fit in the tub. But first, before anything else, take off the shanks — I can use them tonight for soup.” But while I was whetting the knife, he suddenly pointed outside, and that ended the meat for a while. On Second Street, up by the market, Burke was coming down, walking slow, peering around. “He’s looking for Pierre!” whispered Mr. Landry. “He must not have heard he’s dead!” As the three of us stood by the window, Burke reached the corner, which he had all to himself at this hour, looked in all four directions, and kept on. He disappeared beyond his house, but in a few seconds popped out from the back door into the yard. Then, after snooping into the outhouses, he ducked through the gates in the fences, headed for our back door. “He’ll come in with his key,” she said to her father. “You talk, and talk right — have him come up, and don’t give any sign.”

To me she whispered: “You cover him.”

By then she’d seen the gun, which I’d reloaded before coming over and strapped on under my coat. I drew it, and took position with her just by the kitchen door. Mr. Landry went to the pantry and called. It had its own partition, but was really a continuation of the hall, and the kitchen door was alongside. Burke answered, and we heard him come up the stairs, heard the trap close as Mr. Landry lowered it to cut off retreat. We looked at each other as Burke said: “Adolphe, I’m scared to death — Pierre’s not in the house, hasn’t been in all night. And — did you know? — Cresap’s in town! And I heard shots in the night! And with Pierre detesting’m so, it could mean, God forbid—”

“Real trouble, couldn’t it?”

I stepped out, chocking the gun in his ribs, slapping him up quick, and taking a Colt Navy gun that he had in one coat pocket. I handed it to her, motioned him into the kitchen, and sat him down by the table in the chair Mr. Landry had used. I told him put down his hands. “We have some talking to do. And just to start it off friendly, cast it out of your mind, all worry about Pierre Legrand. He’s dead.”

“... You lie.”

“No. I killed him. After he tried to kill me. Who told him to, I don’t know — but shooting a man asleep is a dirty Irish trick no Frenchman would ever think of.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Ask the Provost Guard.”

“And what do you want of me?”

“As to that, I’ll let Mr. Landry say.”

“Adolphe! Don’t tell me you’re in with this thug?”

“Frank, there’s things I have to ask you.”

“But your home, that you bade me come to, that you invited me into just now, no more than a moment ago, and that I entered all in good faith — where’s the sanctity of’t?”

“That bothers me, I own that up. But this is life and death. Frank, what about that receipt, the one the Navy gave you, for this cotton I made over to you?”

“Well what about’t? I have ’ t! ”

“Mr. Cresap thinks you forged the signature.”

“I forged’t? Is the fellow daft on this subject?”

“What about that pass for Mignon?”

“Well! ’Twas to be a pleasant surprise, and...”

“ Pleasant? A trip to her mother’s grave? And who gave you leave, Frank, to mess into it?” Burke’s gall in daring to use this sacred thing seemed to infuriate him more than all the rest put together, and I had to remind him it had nothing to do with the case. He hardly seemed to hear me, but he did get off the subject. “And you had Pierre kill Powell, didn’t you,” he went on in his merciless driving at Burke.

“But Adolphe, how could you think such a thing?”

“The Navy saw him, that’s how!”

“They saw — Pierre?”

Mr. Landry wheeled, said “Tell him, Mr. Cresap, what the boys said in your flat!” I repeated about the red pompon, but Burke, even when hit with the truth, would keep on screaming “Lie!” — and that’s what he did now. However, we’d got to the meat of the matter, and time was going on. I said: “Burke, put your keys on the table.”