Роберт Уоррен - All the king's men

"You don't know a thing about how I feel," she said.

"Some idea–maybe," I said. "But what I came for was to ask you a question."

"I thought you came because you were so damned fond of me."

"As a matter of fact," I said, "I am. We've been around a long time together and we always got along. But that's not–"

"Yeah," she interrupted, and again thrust herself up on one arm, "everything and everybody just got alone fine. Oh, Jesus, just fine."

I waited while she sank back and turned her eyes from me across the lawn below toward the bayou. A crow was making its way across the clear air above the tattered cypress tops beyond the bayou. Then the crow was gone, and I said, "Adam Stanton killed the Boss, but he never got that idea by himself. Somebody primed him to do it. Somebody who knew the kind of man Adam was and knew the inside of how he took the job at the medical center and knew–"

She didn't seem to be listening to me. She was watching the clear air above the tattered cypresses where the crow had gone. I hesitated, and then, watching her face, went on. "–and knew about the Boss and Anne Stanton."

I waited again and watched her face as I handed those names to her, but it didn't show a thing. It simply looked tired, tired and not giving a damn.

"I found out one thing," I continued. "A man called Adam that afternoon and told him about the Boss and his sister. And some more stuff. You can guess what stuff. So he went wild. He went to see his sister and jumped her and she didn't deny it. She isn't the kind of person who could deny it. I guess she was sick of having a secret and she was almost glad not to have it any longer and–"

"Yeah," Sadie said, not turning to me, "tell me how noble and high-tone Anne Stanton is."

"I'm sorry," I said, and felt the blood flushing my face. "I guess I did get off the point."

"I guess you did, all right."

I waited. Then, "That man who called up Adam, do you have any notion who it was?"

She seemed to be turning that question over in her mind. If she had heard it, for I couldn't be sure.

"Do you?" I asked.

"I don't have any notion," she said.

"No?"

"No," she said, still not looking at me, "and I don't have to have any. Because, you see, I know."

"Who?" I demanded. "Who?" And came up out of my chair.

"Duffy," she said.

"I knew it!" I exclaimed, "I ought to have known it! It had to be."

"If you knew it," she said, "what the hell you come messing around me for?"

"I had to be sure. I had to know. Really know. I–" I stopped and stood there at the foot of the chaise longue and looked down at her averted face, which the sunlight lay across. "You say you know it was Duffy. How do you know?"

"God damn you, Jack Burden, God damn you," she said in a tired voice, and turned her head to look up at me. Then looking at me, she thrust herself up to a sitting position, and burst out in a voice which all at once wasn't tired any more but angry and violent, "God damn you, Jack Burden, what made you come here? What always makes you mess in things? Why can't you leave me alone? Why can't you? Why?"

I stared down into her eyes, which in the pain-contorted face were burning now and wild.

"How do you know?" I demanded softly.

"God damn you, Jack Burden, God damn you," she said like a litany.

"How do you know?" I demanded, more softly than before–I was almost whispering–and leaned down toward her.

"God damn you, Jack Burden," she said.

"How do you know?"

"Because–" she began, hesitated, and tossed her head in a desperate tired way like a fevered child on a pillow.

"Because?" I demanded.

"Because," she said, and let herself fall back on the cushions of the chaise longue, "I told him. I told him to do it."

That was it. That was it, and I hadn't guessed it. My knees gave slowly down, like a pneumatic jack letting down the weight of a car to the floor, and I was back in my chair. There I was and there Sadie Burke was, and I was looking at her as though I had never seen her before.

After a minute, she said, "Stop looking at me." But there wasn't any heat in what she said.

I must have continued to look, for she said, as before, "Stop looking at me."

Then I heard my lips saying, as though to myself, "You killed him."

"All right," she said, "all right, I killed him. He was throwing me over. For good. I knew it was for good that time. For that Lucy. After all I had done. After I made him. I told him I'd fix him, but he turned that new sick smile of his on me like he was practicing to be Jesus and took my hands in his, and asked me to understand–understand, Jesus!–and just then like a flash I knew I'd kill him."

"You killed Adam Stanton," I said.

"Oh, God," she breathed, "oh, God."

"You killed Adam," I repeated "Oh," she breathed, "and I killed Willie. I killed him."

"Yes," I agreed, and nodded.

"Oh, God," she said, and lay there staring up at the ceiling.

I had found out what I had come to find out. But I kept on sitting there. I didn't even light a cigarette.

After a while she said, "Come over here. Pull your chair over here."

I hitched my chair over by the chaise longue, and waited. She didn't look at me, but she reached out her right hand uncertainly in my direction. I took it and held it while she continued to stare at the ceiling and the afternoon light struck cruelly across her face.

"Jack," she said, finally, still not looking at me.

"Yes?"

"I'm glad I told you," she said. "I knew I had to tell somebody. Sometime. I knew it would come, but there wasn't anybody for me to tell. Till you came. That's why I hated you for coming. As soon as you came in the door, I knew I'd have to tell you. But I'm glad I told. I don't care who knows now. I may not be noble and high-toned like that Stanton woman, but I'm glad I told you."

I didn't find much to say to that. So I continued to sit there for quite a while, holding Sadie's hand in the silence she seemed to want and looking across her down toward the bayou, which coiled under the moss depending from the line of tattered cypresses on the farther bank, the algae-mottled water heavy with the hint and odor of swamp, jungle, and darkness, along the edge of the expanse of clipped lawn.

I had found out that Tiny Duffy, who was now Governor of the state, had killed Willie Stark as surely as though his own hand had held the revolver. I had also found out that Sadie Burke had put the weapon into Duffy's hand and had aimed it for him, that she, too, had killed Willie Stark. And Adam Stanton. But what she had done had been done hot. What Duffy had done had been done cold. And, in the end, Sadie Burke's act had somehow been wiped out. I did not exist for me any more.

And that left Duffy. Duffy had done it. And strangely, there was a great joy and relief in that knowledge. Duffy had done it, and that made everything clear and bright as in frosty sunshine. There, over yonder, was Tiny Duffy with his diamond ring, and over here was Jack Burden. I felt free and clean, as when you suddenly see that, after being paralyzed by ignorance or indecision, you can act. I felt on the verge of the act.

But I did not know what the act was to be When I went back out to see Sadie–she had asked me to come back–she told me, without me saying a word on the subject, that she would make a statement if I wanted her to. I told her that that was wonderful, and I felt that it was wonderful for I still felt clean and free, on the verge of an act, and she was putting the thing into my hand. I thanked her.

"Don't thank me," she said, "I'm doing myself a favor. Duffy–Duffy–" she rose to a sitting position on the chaise longue and her eyes had the old flash–"you know what he did?"

Before I could answer she plunged on, "Afterwards–after it had happened–I didn't feel a thing. Not a thing. I knew that night what had happened, and I didn't feel a thing. And next morning Duffy came to me–he was grinning and puffing–and he said, 'Girlie, I'll sure hand it to you, I'll sure hand it to you.' I still didn't feel a thing, not even when I looked in his face. But then he put his hand around my shoulder and sort of patted and rubbed my back between the shoulder blades, and said, 'Girlie, you sure stopped his clock and I ain't forgetting you, and girlie, you and me, we might sure get along.' Then it happened. It happened right then. It was like it had all happened that second, right in front of me instead of up at the Capitol. And I clawed at him and jumped away. I ran out of the place. And three day later, after he died, I came here. It was the only place I could come."