All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [130]
Which was:
Tiny Duffy saying, “Jesus, and the Boss gonna put six million bucks in a hospital–six million bucks.” And lying back in the chair, eyes dreamily on the coffered ceiling, head wreathed in the baby-blue smoke from the cigarette, murmuring dreamily, “Six million bucks.”
And Sadie Burke saying, “Yeah, six million bucks, and he ain’t planning for you to get your fingers on a penny of it.”
“I could fix it up for him in the Fourth District. MacMurfee still got it sewed up down there. Him and Gummy Larson. But throw that hospital contract to Gummy and–”
“And Gummy would sell out MacMurfee. Is that it?”
“Well, now–I wouldn’t put it that way. Gummy’d sort of talk reason into MacMurfee, you might say.”
“And would sort of slip you a slice. Is that it, Tiny?”
“I ain’t talking about me. I’m talking about Gummy. He’d handle MacMurfee for the Boss.”
“The Boss don’t need anybody to handle MacMurfee. He’ll handle MacMurfee when the time comes and it will be permanent. For God’s sake, Tiny, you known the Boss as long as you have and you still don’t know him. Don’t you know he’d rather bust a man than buy him? Wouldn’t he, Jack?”
“How do I know?” I said. But I did know.
At least, I knew that the Boss was out to bust a man named Judge Irwin. And I was elected to do the digging.
So I went back to the digging.
But the next day, before I got back at the digging, a call came from Anne Stanton, “Smarty,” she said, smarty, you thought you were so smart!”
I heard he laughing, way off somewhere at the end of the line, but the tingling came over the wire, and I thought of her face laughing.
“Yes, smarty! you found from Adam how Judge Irwin was broke a long time ago, but I’ve found out something too!”
“Yeah?” I said.
“Yeah, smarty! I went to see old Cousin Mathilde, who knows everything about everybody for a hundred years back. I just got to talking about Judge Irwin and she began to talk. You just mention something and it is like putting a nickel in a music box. Yes, Judge Irwin was broke, or near it, then, but–and the joke’s on you, Jackie-boy, it’s on you, smarty-boy! And on your Boss!” And there was the laughter again, coming from far away, coming out of the little black tube in my hand.
“Yeah?” I said.
“Then he got married!” she said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Who are we talking about, smarty? Judge Irwin got married.”
“Sure, he was married. Everybody knew he was married, but what the hell has that–”
“He married money. Cousin Mathilde says so, and she knows everything. He was broke but he married money. Now, smarty, put that on your pipe and smoke it!”
“Thanks,” I said. But before it was out of my mouth, I heard a clicking sound and she had hung up.
I lighted a cigarette and leaned back in the swivel chair, and swung my feet up to the desk. Sure, everybody knew, or had known, that Judge Irwin was married. Judge Irwin, in fact, had been married twice. The first woman, the woman he was married to when I was a little boy, had been thrown from a horse and couldn’t do more than lie up in bed and stare at the ceiling or, on her good days, out the window. But she had died when I was just a kid, and I scarcely remembered her. But you almost forgot the other wife, too. She was from far away–I tried to remember how she looked. I had seen her several times, all right. But a kid of fifteen or so doesn’t pay much attention to a grown woman. I called up an image of a dark, thin woman, with big dark eyes, wearing a long white dress and carrying a white parasol. Maybe it wasn’t the right image, at all. Maybe it was somebody else who had been married to Judge Irwin, and had come to Burden’s Landing, and had received all the curious, smiling ladies in Judge Irwin’s long white house, and had been aware of the eyes and the sudden silence for attention and then the new sibilance as she walked down the aisle in St. Matthew