All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [29]
“No man,” Judge Irwin said, and stood up there straight in the middle of the floor, “has ever been able to intimidate me.”
“Well, I never tried,” the Boss said, “yet. And I’m not trying now. I’m going to give you a chance. You say somebody gave you some dirt on Masters? Well, just suppose I gave you some dirt on Callahan?–Oh, don’t interrupt! Keep your shirt on!”–and he held up his hand. “I haven’t been doing any digging, but I might, and if I went out in the barn lot and stuck my shovel in and brought you in some of the sweet-smelling and put it under the nose of your conscience, then do you know what your conscience would tell you to do? It would tell you to withdraw your endorsement of Callahan. And the newspaper boys would be over here thicker’n bluebottle flies on dead dog, and you could tell ’em all about you and your conscience. You wouldn’t even have to back Masters. You and your conscience could just go off arm in arm and have a fine time telling each other how much you think of each other.”
“I have endorsed Callahan,” the Judge said. He didn’t flicker.
“I maybe could give you the dirt,” the Boss said speculatively. “Callahan’s been playing around for a long time, and he who touches pitch shall be defiled, and little boys just will walk barefoot in the cow pasture.” He looked up at Judge Irwin’s face, squinting, studying it, cocking his own head to one side.
The grandfather’s clock in the corner of the room, I suddenly realized, wasn’t getting any younger. It would drop out a tick, and the tick would land inside my head like a rock dropped in a well, and the ripples would circle out and stop, and the tick would sink down the dark. For a piece of time which was no long or short, and might not even be time, there wouldn’t be anything. Then the tock would drop down the well, and the ripples would circle out and finish.
The Boss quit studying Judge Irwin’s face, which didn’t show anything. He let himself sink in the chair, shrugged his shoulders, and lifted the glass up for a drink. Then he said, “Suit yourself, Judge. But you know, there is another way to play it. Maybe somebody might give Callahan a little shovelful on somebody else and Callahan might grow a conscience all of a sudden and repudiate his endorser. You know, when this conscience business starts, ain’t no telling where it’ll stop, and when you start the digging–”
“I’ll thank you, sir–” Judge Irwin took a step toward the big chair, and his face wasn’t the color of calf’s liver now–it was long past that and streaked white back from the base of the jutting nose–“I’ll thank you, sir, to get out of that chair and get out of this house!”
The Boss didn’t lift his head off the leather. He looked up at the Judge, sweet and trusting, and then cocked his eyes over to me. “Jack,” he said, “you were sure right. The Judge don’t scare easy.”
“Get out,” the judge said, not loud this time.
“Those old bones don’t move fast,” the Boss murmured sadly, “but now I have tried to do my bounden duty, let me go.” Then he drained his glass, set it on the floor beside the chair, and rose. He stood in front of the Judge, looking up at him, squinting again, cocking his head to one side again, like a farmer getting ready to buy a horse.
I set my glass on the shelf of the bookcase behind me. I discovered that I hadn’t touched it, not since the first sip. Well, to hell with it, I thought, and let it stand. Some nigger boy would get it in the morning.
Then, as though he had decided against buying the horse, the Boss shook his head and passed around the Judge, as though the Judge weren’t a man at all, or even a horse, as though he were the corner of a house or a tree, and headed for the hall door, putting his feet down slow and easy on the red carpet. No hurry.
For a second or two the Judge didn’t even move his head; then he swung round and watched the Boss going toward the door, and his eyes glittered up there in the shadow above the lamp.
The Boss laid his hand on the doorknob, opened the door, and then, with his hand still on the knob, he looked back. “Well, Judge,” he said,