All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [236]
She clutched my arm with both hands, as though to support herself. “Jack,” she exclaimed, “Jack!”
“What the hell?” I asked, and shoved the door shut behind me.
“You’ve got to find him–you’ve got to find him–find him and tell him–” She was shaking as if with a chill.
“Find who?”
“–tell him how it was–oh, it wasn’t that way–not what they said–”
“For Christ’s sake, what who said?”
“–they said it was because of me–because of what I did–because–”
“Who said?”
“–oh, you’ve got to find him, Jack–you’ve got to find him and tell him and bring him to me and–”
I grabbed her, hard, with a hand on each shoulder, and shook her. “Look here!” I said. “You come out of this. Just stop jabbering a minute and come out of this.”
She stopped talking and stood between my hands, in my clutch, and looked up at me with her white face and shivered. Her breathing was shallow, quick, and dry.
After a minute, I said, “Now tell me who you want me to find.”
“Adam,” she said. “It’s Adam.”
“Now why do I find him? What’s happened?”
“He came here and said it was all because of me. Of what I had done.”
“What was because of what you had done?”
“He was made Director because of me. That’s what he said. Because of what I had done. That’s what he said. And he said–oh, Jack, he said it–”
“Said what?”
“He said he wouldn’t be paid pimp to his sister’s whore–he said that–he said that, Jack–to me, Jack–and I tried to tell him–tell him how it was–and he pushed me and I fell down on the floor and he ran out–he ran out and you’ve got to find him, Jack–you’ve got to and–”
And she was off again on the jabber. I gave her a good shaking. “Stop it,” I commanded. “Stop it or I’ll shake your teeth out.”
When she had quieted down again and was hanging there between my hands, I said, “Now start slowly from the start and tell me what happened.” I led her over to a chair and pushed her down into it. “Now tell me,” I said, “but take it easy.”
She looked up at me for a moment as though she were afraid to begin.
“Tell me,” I said.
“He came up here,” she began. “It was about three o’clock. As soon as he came in the door I knew something terrible had happened–something terrible had already happened to me today but I knew this was another terrible thing–and he grabbed me by the arm and stared in my face and didn’t say a word. I guess I kept asking him what was the matter, and he held my arm tighter and tighter.”
She pushed the sleeve up and showed the bruise marks halfway down the left forearm.
“I kept asking him what was the matter, and all at once he said, ‘Matter, matter, you know what’s the matter.’ Then he said how there had been a telephone call to him, how somebody–a man–that was all he said–had called and told him–told him about me–about me and–”
She didn’t seem to be able to go on.
“About you and Governor Stark,” I completed it for her.
She nodded.
“It was awful,” she whispered, not at me, but raptly, to herself. And repeated, “It was awful.”
“Stop that and go ahead,” I ordered, and shook her.
She came up out of it, looked at me, and said, “He told him about me and then how that was the only reason he was ever made Director and how now the Governor was going to dismiss him as Director–because he had paralyzed his son with a bad operation–and how he was going to get rid of me–throw me out–that was what the man said on the telephone, throw me out–because of what Adam did to his son–and Adam heard him and ran right over here because he believed it–he believed it about me–”
“Well,” I demanded savagely, “the part about you is true, isn’t it?”
“He ought to have asked me,” she said, and made a distracted motion with her hands, “he ought to have asked me before he believed it.”
“He’s not a half-wit,” I said, “and it was there ready to be believed. You’re damned lucky he didn’t guess something long back, for if–”
She seized me by the arm and her fingers dug in