The Just And The Unjust Page 20

  And so the indictments piled up. The district attorney's office saw the prisoners, and talked to witnesses and listened to complaints. They arraigned the guilty pleas in Miscellaneous Court; and prepared the others for the grand jury. The county officers brought in to them the non-support and desertion cases; prisoners became eligible for parole, and the parole violators were picked up. Keeping step with it all (or sometimes a little behind) the papers to be signed and the forms to be filled kept accumulating — recognizances; petitions for appointment of counsel, for approval of bills of expense, for attachment, for condemnation and destruction of contraband, for support and to vacate support, for writs of habeas corpus ad prosequendum and ad testificandum; the criminal transcripts; the warrants; the waivers of jury trial — anyone ought to be glad to get rid of all that. Not to mention the endless hours in court while you asked formal tedious questions to foregone conclusions, while you waited for juries to make up their rambling minds, for his Honour to get through in chambers, for absent witnesses to be found and produced, for court to open and court to adjourn — 'My God!' thought Abner. 'What a way to spend your life!'

  Abner drove home. As he left the car at the front steps he heard Lucius, calling from the stables, 'Say, Mr. Abner, you come here just a minute?'

  'No, I can't!' Abner said. 'What do you want?'

  'See this mower, see here?'

  'Do you think I have telescopic sights?' Abner called. 'What did you do, break it?'

  'No, sir!' said Lucius. 'It wasn't getting enough spark. I just —'

  'I'll bet you did!' Abner said. He walked down the path through the clumps of overgrown spirea. Lucius had the old lawn mower, powered with a gasoline engine, out on the flagstones before the stable doors. He lifted one greasy hand and scratched the tight fuzz on his head. 'Go on; turn it over,' Abner said.

  'It don't do no good,' Lucius said. 'I been working on it all afternoon. They electrocuted those men yet?'

  'Not quite,' Abner said. 'I see in the paper yesterday where you said —'

  'Go on; turn it over!'

  Lucius gave the lanyard a jerk. The flywheel went around; the exhaust coughed. 'Got any gas in it?' Abner said. 'If you have, the feed line's choked.'

  'Yes, sir —' said Lucius. He paused and said, 'Perhaps I don't have quite enough in. It goes better, you don't fill it too full.' Turning, he went toward the stable door. 'Get a little bit more,' he said.

  Abner bent down and unscrewed the cap of the fuel tank. It was empty. To Lucius, coming with a gallon glass jug of gasoline, he said, 'So hot to-day, it must have all evaporated^ Goon. Fill it up, and it'll go all right. But you won't have time to cut any grass now.'

  'Well, that beats all!' Lucius said. 'I put some in there the first thing I did. Mr. Abner, that man those gangsters kill, I guess he struggled some?'

  'He never knew what hit him,' Abner said. He crossed over and went in the back door and through the kitchen. Honey said, 'You be here for supper?'

  'Not to-night,' Abner said. 'Did you get my shirts done?'

  'No, to-day I didn't. 1'll do them this evening. We're doing downstairs to-day.'

  'I've got to have one right now.'

  'There!' said Honey. 'I knew you would! I seen this morning you hadn't no shirts left in your chest of drawers! Then Miz' Boorse wanted I should —'

  'Well, just do one now, will you? I've got to get away. I've got to get a bath —'

  'If I can I will,' Honey said. 'Lucius hammered something with my new electric iron. I think he broke it. I have to use that old one. It's a long time heating; but I guess I can use it —'

  'Well, will you please hurry up?' Abner went through the pantry into the back hall.

  A radio voice, in the middle of a news broadcast, came from the side porch. It was five minutes of six, and if he were going to pick up Bonnie at six-thirty he hadn't much time. Speaking louder than the radio, Mrs. Boorse said, 'I'm sure I heard a car, Philander. It must have been Ab.'

  With a feeling of compunction or guilt — he had not come home to luncheon, and now he was going out again — Abner, who had planned to dress first, hesitated. There was no reason why he shouldn't go out; and there was nothing he could do; and if he stayed, his father would soon fret, preferring to be left alone rather than to feel that Abner or anyone else was obliging himself to sit there. Just the same, the thought of the old man waiting all day; and, it was plain from Mrs. Boorse's remark, asking if Ab hadn't come home yet, was — his father would have hated the word and hated the fact; but it was touching. In his present turmoil of mind, Abner would as soon have avoided his father; but he went through the living-room and out the doors to the porch.

  'Now! There he is!' said Mrs. Boorse. She arose with her customary blunt obtrusive tact. 'I'd better see what Honey's doing about supper—'

  'See what she's doing about ironing a shirt of mine, will you, Aunt Myrt?' Abner said. 'I've got to go out.'

  'Oh,' said Mrs. Boorse. 'You won't be here?'

  'I've got a date,' Abner said. To his father, he added, 'I told Bonnie I'd take her out.' Since this was something the Judge would presumably approve of, Abner tried to feel less inconsiderate. 'How do you feel?' he said.

  'All right,' Judge Coates said. He snapped off the radio. 'Hot, to-day. Must have been hot in the courtroom. Getting on?'

  'We had Leming. He did all right. Harry climbed all over him, but he couldn't shake him any. It's pretty much in the bag, I think.'

  'Never know about a jury,' Judge Coates said.

  'That's right,' Abner agreed. 'We'll keep our fingers crossed; but I wouldn't give a great deal for their chances.' With his own problems at the front of his mind it was hard to find things to speak casually about. He said, 'John Clark wanted to know if he could come to see you, by the way —'

  'I know. He came. What's this about Marty resigning? What I thought?'

  'Yes,' said Abner. 'He told me at lunch.' He added quickly, 'I'll have to get a move on.'

  'He could do worse,' Judge Coates said. 'Yes. Mustn't keep a lady waiting. Give Bonnie my love. Where are you going?'

  'Out to Candy's, maybe.'

  'The quarry? Jesse Gearhart's brother, Mike, with some friends about your age, went swimming there one night thirty years ago; and Mike hit his head on a rock, and that was the last thing he ever did.'

  'You wouldn't know the place now,' Abner said. 'A fellow named Walsh bought it and put a fence around it and built some bath houses, and has it all full of flood lights at night. It was better before.'

  'Well, don't go in too soon after dinner,' Judge Coates said. 'You'll get cramps.'

  2

  Bathed and dressed — his shirt still smelling of the iron, and a little damp — Abner was only five minutes late. Cousin Mary lived in one of the dozen small houses on what was called Hillside Crescent, a new street laid out in an arc across a pasture behind the old Ormsbee place. The development had occasioned a lot of legal fuss; first, over the title; and then between the borough and the promoters about sewers; and street paving. For Childerstown lawyers it was a picnic; and even Harry Wurts had joined in the general barratry long enough to name the project Cowflop Gardens. An aftermath of mechanics' liens still occupied Mark Irwin and George Stacey in Common Pleas. Jesse Gearhart was interested originally; but was supposed to have dropped out when the trouble began.

  As far as Abner could tell, nobody made any money; for though the Ormsbees got a good price, they took notes instead of cash for the land. The houses, all new, all different — that is, different from each other — were built to prize-winning plans for low cost housing in a variety of materials. They were necessarily small, almost miniature — small areas cased with brick or field stone, cramped wings and gables of stucco or white clapboarding. Most of them had foundation plantings of miscellaneous mean evergreens, and the new curved street was set out with sycamore saplings, several of them now dead.

  Abner halted his car at the clean new cement kerb along which grew a little grass and
many weeds. Jared, junior, was in the front yard trying to coax his brothers, the twins, within range of a revolving lawn sprinkler. He sang out, 'Hello, Ab! Bonnie's taking a bath.' He was an obstreperous brat at an unattractive age, and made short work of any sympathy you might feel for him because of his father's misbehaviour.

  Cousin Mary showed herself at the screen door in the shadow. 'Want to come in, Ab?' she called. 'Bonnie will I be right down. She was helping me get the kids' supper. Junior, don't do that! Now, just turn the hose off! It's simply wasting water. Harold, why don't you and Philip play in the swing? You'll have to go to bed pretty soon.' She held the door open, so Abner, though he did not want to come in,' was obliged to.

  Putting down on the nearest table the dish and dishtowel she had been holding, Cousin Mary found and lit a cigarette. The little living-room was in great disorder, partly the natural work of three small boys in crowded quarters, partly Cousin Mary's own lackadaisical neglect — a way of letting it be seen that it was all more than she could face. There were one or two pieces of good furniture, though much battered and too large for the room; things salvaged from the wreck Jared had made of his affairs and hers. These were supplemented with painted and poorly upholstered junk from Wister's, the cheap Childerstown 'home furnishings' store. Abner did not claim to have much taste himself; but it seemed to him that Cousin Mary had none at all — unless, of course (and when you knew her it was not impossible), she deliberately let her surroundings be ugly and depressing, so that, while always brave and silent about it herself, her setting would protest her hard life.

  Abner sat down with constraint. On a heap of old magazines on the table lay a copy of the afternoon's Examiner and Abner could see the two-column headlines: 'Leming Called to Stand by Commonwealth.'

  'Coates Questions Zollicoffer Defendant. Witness Says Basso Fired 2nd Shot.' The story began: 'Continued this morning before Judge Thomas Vredenburgh in Oyer and Terminer, the Zollicoffer murder trial was high-lighted by the examination, conducted by Assistant District Attorney Abner Coates, of Roy Leming, one of the...'

  Abner, reading at an angle, read no further. The recount could be of no interest to him now, since this was the last criminal case he would ever help to prosecute. The thought represented, he realized, a new decision, arrived at while he was thinking of other things; but if he were going to quit, he might as well quit at once, as soon as May Sessions ended. That would give Marty more time to break in someone else, someone Jesse wanted. Casting his mind about, trying to think of someone Jesse might want, no name occurred to him; and Abner was aware of a certain grim pleasure at Jesse's predicament. Jesse might find getting someone on short notice harder than he thought; not because the work required rare abilities, but because it did require experience; and, like the post of justice of the peace, most men with the experience and judgment to make them desirable in the office used that experience and judgment to say no. Let some sap with political ambitions take the work and the worry and the responsibility! With Marty resigning, Jesse might find himself in a tough spot, and that was all right with Abner.

  The little reverie of revenge held him only a moment; for he saw then with a jolt what was wrong with that picture of Jesse at his wit's end, and Jesse properly sorry that he didn't have Abner. It might be all right with Abner, sulky and disgruntled; but one thing you could be sure of was that Marty, who never had, never would let anyone down. To imagine that Marty, because of his own interest or ambition, would throw up a job for which he had assumed responsibility, that he would resign without being sure that he had left his office in competent hands, was impossible for anyone who ever knew Marty. If Abner were there, Marty might have planned to resign after September Sessions, leaving Abner, without too much work on hand, to fill the office to which, in November, barring a practically impossible upset, he would be elected.

  Abner coloured. That he had come so close to doing, that he had actually been deciding to do, a thing like that was a fact; and yet it was the kind of dirty trick he himself would not excuse a man for doing. He had never understood how a man could do such a thing; and if that mystery were now cleared up — the doer's own object engrossed him; he never saw what a louse he was — it did not make the things done any better. Abner's plan was to make Marty bear the brunt (to say he didn't mean it that way simply showed that, as well as a sorehead, he was a fool). Marty would have to abandon his plans for the moment, and perhaps for the next four years. He might think it was his job to solve Jesse's difficulties by running again; and if Marty thought it was his job, that was what Marty would at any cost do.

  Cousin Mary said, 'How's Cousin Philander? Does the heat bother him? I meant to go up thereto-day. I didn't have a minute—' Not waiting for answers, she gabbled along quickly, shaking ashes from the cigarette on to the frayed and wrinkled chintz of the couch. 'It was just too hot to do anything. I simply took the children this afternoon and went to the movies — it's the only cool place in town. Oh, Ab; look at this, will you? Do I have to do anything about it?'

  She got up and went over to a flimsy little green-painted writing desk, emptied out several pigeon holes, and came back with a letter. 'It's not legal, is it?'

  Abner, unfolding it, saw the more or less expected words: 'Dear Madam : We have repeatedly brought to your attention...'

  'No,' said Abner, 'it's just a letter. It's not legal, if you mean, is it a process; but, if you don't pay them they can — '-Well, I can't pay them at present. What ought I to do?'

  'If you tell them that, and offer to pay a little, they'll probably agree.'

  'Well, Ab,' Cousin Mary said, 'like a lamb, would you answer them? If they got a letter from a lawyer, they might stop bothering me.'

  'I don't know exactly what I could say to them,' Abner said. 'What they want is their money, I'm afraid —'

  'Oh, Ab, write them anything! I mean, I'm sure if they saw your letterhead, they'd realize that they'd better be careful!'

  Nothing would be served by telling Cousin Mary that she was the one who'd better be careful, so Abner said, 'I could write them that you're unfortunately unable to settle in full; but —how much could you give them?'

  'Ab, I don't see how I can give them anything now. You'd better just tell them they'll have to wait until September, or better say, October.'

  'Couldn't you give them a couple of dollars? You know, they don't pay much attention to what you say unless you do something, too.'

  'I don't see how,' Cousin Mary said. Her face settled in hurt, resentful lines. 'Bonnie has a little money; but I won't ask her for it. It isn't right. She hardly has anything for clothes and things —'

  Abner did not like her air of virtuous abnegation. During nine months of the year Bonnie earned a fairly good salary in Mr. Rawle's office at the high school; and if she hardly had anything for clothes and things, there was a reason for that, and not a very good one. Abner didn't mean to minimize Cousin Mary's expenses; but what she did with her money was a puzzle — a feat of bad management. You could not blame her for taking the children to the movies on a hot afternoon, and doubtless stilling their subsequent clamours at Lloyds' soda fountain. Only in the meanest, most trifling sense could it be said to run to money; but that was where the money went, just the same. It was not possible to ask her to account for it — some of Bonnie's salary for last month, which she probably received when school ended Saturday, must be what Bonnie was mentioned as having; probably all Bonnie had been able to keep for her own use for six months or more; and keeping it might make her mother short. But how about the money, always fifty and often a hundred dollars, that Judge Coates provided for Cousin Mary every month? Abner folded the letter and slipped it in his coat pocket. 'I'll send them something,' he said, 'and tell them you'll take it up in September.' Cousin Mary said, 'Oh, Ab! I don't want you to do that! There's no reason why you should —'

  'Look, Mary,' Abner said, 'you've got to pay them sometime.' But the fact was, of course, that Cousin Mary didn't feel the obligation. By a n
ot uncommon sleight of mind, time passing was made to eliminate the element of honesty or dishonesty. She would not steal from a shop counter (or, not to be arbitrary about a matter in which the district attorney's office had seen circumstances alter cases; she would not, unless the opportunity appeared ideal and her need very great); but if a shop wanted to let her have things, she would take them without considering too seriously how she was going to pay. When the bill was presented, it actually seemed to her unfair, the inconvenient reopening of a closed and half-forgotten transaction for which she now had nothing to show, anyway. Abner said, 'They can make things pretty unpleasant for you.'

  Yes, they could! Nobody knew it better than Cousin Mary. They had the outrageous power; and that was now the point. Cousin Mary was furious with them; yet, in spite of the way they were acting, they had the effrontery to expect her to pay them!'Well, I wouldn't give them a thing!' Cousin Mary said. 'Not one red cent! They were anxious enough to carry an account for me, heaven knows!' She crushed out her cigarette. 'Now, don't give them much, Ab. They don't deserve it.'

  The quick click of heels upstairs sounded; and, lowering her voice, she added, 'Don't say anything to Bonnie about it, will you? She'll just want to use her own money; and I don't want her to. Were you going out to the quarry swimming? I hope you'll both be careful. You know, it was out there, you wouldn't remember, I think it was the year you were born — yes, it was; I remember Edith couldn't go anywhere that summer — that Michael Gearhart broke his neck. It was the most shocking thing. He was such a good looking boy, and much nicer than Jesse —'

  'Yes, Father told me,' Abner said. 'But I never heard of anyone else getting hurt.'

  The footsteps started downstairs; and, turning his head, he could see Bonnie — her white shoes and slender bare legs; the short full skirt of a yellow frock sprigged with white flowers. She had a jacket of yellow linen over her arm and carried a loose bag into which she was tucking a bathing cap of white rubber. 'Hello,' she said, 'I'm sorry.'