The Just And The Unjust Page 30

  'I haven't time,' Abner said. 'We resume it one-thirty.' He looked at his watch. 'I'll run down to the Acme and get a sandwich, I guess.'

  'Can I give you a lift? I'm going that way.' Abner was sorry that he had not brought his car. 'All right, thanks,' he said. He took up his hat from the bench and Jesse opened the door.

  'Yes,' Jesse said, when they were out in the rain, 'we haven't reached any agreement yet. One attitude is that Mr. Rawle is personally responsible, and we'd better clean house. I don't know how fair that is.'

  They got into the car and Jesse started it. He had the old man's driving habit of doing dangerous things-calmly and ill-considered things with great care. He came out the drive into Academy Street without looking for oncoming cars; but when he got himself in a position where such a car, if there were one, would have the most trouble to avoid hitting him, he stopped and peered around. Slowly starting again, he then observed a car turning in half a block ahead. He was well out toward the middle of the street, so when he put his brakes on with no warning and no apparent reason, a laundry truck that left the kerb and came up close behind had to swing away, missing him by a miracle. The shaken driver yelled through the rain, 'Whyn't you stick your hand out, stupid!' but Jesse was not perturbed. He said to Abner, 'Strike you Rawle's to blame?'

  'I don't know,' Abner said, somewhat shaken, too. 'I suppose you have to trust someone. I should think the point would be what was best for the school system. Whether this shows Rawle isn't able to run things —'

  'You like him?'

  'Why, yes,' Abner said. 'I hardly know him.' He felt himself stiffening again; for it crossed his mind that Jesse, who knew all about Bonnie's position, might think — Abner didn't know what, exactly.

  'Would you be interested in helping him?' Jesse said. He had been driving faster; and, passing a car, he cut in in front and carefully slowed down. Abner instinctively looked over his shoulder. Collecting himself, for the other driver had fortunately been paying attention and was able to get his brakes on in time, Abner said, 'Well, sure. But I don't see exactly what I could do.'

  'There's one thing,' Jesse said. 'If we have a hearing, it would be more or less formal; a lot of testimony and so on. Would you care to act as his counsel?' Turning his attention soberly from where he was going, he looked at Abner. 'I don't think you'd be expected to do it for nothing,' he said. 'It would take time and be a good deal of trouble. We couldn't afford much; but —'

  'I don't mind about that part of it,' Abner said, rubbed the wrong way again, 'but I'm not up on the law in the case. It would be all new to me; and I don't see how I'd be much use to him.' He paused, trying to keep still; but Jesse continued to drive without looking where he was going, so Abner said hastily, 'Car coming out there, Jesse.'

  'Oh. Thanks. Didn't see it.' Jesse avoided the car by a few inches. 'Well, what I was thinking, Ab, was that, after all, you were the one who prosecuted Field. It wouldn't really be a matter of law, I think. It's knowing how to question witnesses and so on. I think you could do him a great service. Mrs. Ballinger and I are pretty much alone at the moment; but I don't think we'll be helpless by any means. The Department of Public Instruction can be brought in on it; and I know Ed Holstrom, the County Superintendent, thinks Rawle's a good man. Well, would you think it over and let me know, Ab? We're meeting again this evening, and Holstrom will be there then.' He slowed down in the thickest traffic of Broad Street; and Abner said, 'This will do me fine, thanks, Jesse. Why, I don't know that I need to think it over. I'll do what I can.'

  Jesse said, 'Well, I certainly appreciate that, Ab; and I know Rawle will. I'll tell them, if it's all right with you.' He stopped, holding up a long line of cars, and Abner jumped out.

  'I'll call you later, then,' Jesse said.

  One or two of the drivers behind began to blow their horns indignantly; and Abner waved a hand, and crossed the pavement to the Acme Lunch. With the immediate pressure of Jesse's presence removed, he could not understand why he had said he would — except that it was hard to know what else to say when you were asked to help a man who was in trouble.

  7

  In the Acme Lunch there was one vacant place at the end of the counter. Going to it, Abner found that Everitt Weitzel sat next to him. Everitt was finishing a bowl of cornflakes and milk. Peering up sideways, he said, 'Well, Ab, coming down in the world?'

  In court, in his neat tipstaff's jacket, Everitt had an air of authority and importance; but when he put the jacket in his locker, he put the air away with it. He was an obliging and gentle old man. The minor court-attendant jobs were dealt out to the deserving and necessitous. It was policy, since the purpose was vote-getting, to select a member of some lodge or association who was well-liked and who, through illness or misfortune, badly needed the small salary. As a likeable person, as the recipient of political favour, as a sufferer from considerable troubles, the selected man tended to be affable but anxious, to be free with little jokes and slow to contradict, to be philosophic and yet melancholy because of his life's ups and downs.

  Everitt said, 'That Jesse you were with? I noticed him there upstairs this morning. I guess Field's making a lot of trouble for the School Board. Well, if a fellow wants some of that, he ought to take them a little older; that's what I say. Get a superior article, too. They ought to be properly developed for best results.' His amiable coarseness had the sad overtone of age, the half-heartedness of a discussion now purely academic, in which he obligingly catered more to what he knew was the normal interest of other men than to his own. 'They going to fire Mr. Rawle?' he asked. 'I don't know,' Abner said. 'How about some service here?'

  'Willard's sick to-day,' Everitt said. 'There's more than one man can do. Hey, Al, you got company!'

  The boy in the dirty chef's apron who was pressing half a dozen hissing pats of meat on the hot griddle with a spatula turned his sweating face and smiled. 'Be right there, Mr. Coates.' Abner said, 'A ham and egg sandwich and some coffee.'

  'It's mainly a matter of politics,' Everitt said. 'Perhaps it shouldn't be; but it is. Somebody has an eye on Rawle's job. That's the size of it. I don't think Mr. Hobbs gets along very well with Jesse.' The workings of the system which had found him his own job were familiar to Everitt, and he was cautious about criticizing them; but a man had a right to speak his mind. As long as he didn't get too positive (as though he were trying to run things), and didn't make remarks that, if repeated, would offend and anger those to whom he should be grateful, he was free enough.

  Abner watched the progress of his ham and eggs in a skillet over the gas flame. He said, 'I don't know, Everitt.' Everitt's art of being meek, but with dignity, was a good art, and took skill and judgment; but, supposing he had any skill and judgment, Abner wondered if he wanted to use it that way — to get and keep a job. His situation there, he saw, had points in common with the situation he had got himself into with Bonnie. In both cases he wanted what he wanted, but on his own terms. When you were as old as Everitt, you probably found that what you wanted could never be got that way. The only things you could have just the way you wanted them were those things you could give yourself.

  Everitt coughed and said, 'Got to be getting back up there. Can't start without me! Think it will go to the jury this afternoon?'

  'I hope so.' A plate bearing the sandwich rattled down on the counter in front of Abner. 'What's your hurry?' he said, feeling that he had not been very cordial to Everitt, whom he liked. Everitt patted his back gently, turning away. 'Don't move as fast as you do', he said. He made a gesture with the old umbrella that had been leaning against his stool. Peering out the wide window, he said, 'Looks to me like it's easing up.'

  Following him five minutes later, Abner found that the rain had stopped. The warm air was grey and still, almost as wet as rain. Water ran in the gutters of Broad Street, and Abner looked at the weathervane, an elaborate little iron banner, on the cupola of the county office building. It remained pointing south-east, so the rain was probably not over
. Abner crossed behind the courthouse and walked up under the silent, dripping trees to the door at the arch.

  In the depressing gloom of the hall, Hugh Erskine methodically chewing a tooth pick, waited by the bars of the passage to the jail. 'Ab,' he said, 'that Field business was a rotten thing! I never would have thought it of him! Warren says he only got a year —'

  Hugh wheeled around, hearing steps in the passage. Unconsciously he touched a hand to his left armpit; and by the mechanical gesture he showed that there under his coat was strapped a holster with an automatic pistol. Hugh did not ordinarily bother to go armed; but it might have occurred to him that these prisoners of his, whom he was about to acknowledge taking into his own hand, were in as desperate a case as men can be. The grill opened and the warden came out carrying his book. He and Hugh bent over the open page on the radiator top while Hugh signed.

  Abner went up the passage to the door of the Attorneys' Room. It was crowded. Joe Jackman sat in the corner with Bob Fuller, thumbing over the pages of a thick brief. Pete Van Zant was still there, talking to John Clark. Abner saw George Stacey and Mark; and Jake Riordan telling them something. Mr. Servadei was speaking to Bunting by the fireplace. At the telephone by the lavatory door were two city reporters. A hubbub of conversation arose. 'Suppose you had to bring five or six separate suits —'

  'I ought to go over to the office, but if I do my girl will have something —'

  'That on for argument? I thought I saw —'

  'I always found him a very fair fellow to deal with. Can't control his client, I guess —'

  'Yeah, but won't equity leave them where it found them —'

  'If that's constitutional, I give up —'

  'John, you're the attorney for Saratoga Township, aren't you. Well—'

  'You don't know how they're going to construe the crazy thing —'

  'Listen, that's setting up a new statute of limitations—' Mr. Servadei in his soft somewhat accented voice was saying to Bunting, 'Mr. Bunting, I want to tell you how much I appreciate —' The reporter at the telephone, the receiver pressed to one ear, his hand covering the other, proved to be expostulating loudly, 'No! This is Duffy; Duffy, at Childerstown courthouse! Now, give me the city desk —'

  In the lavatory Abner found himself face to face with Harry Wurts who was drying his hands on a paper towel. 'Ah!' Harry said, 'don't think nobody saw you! Making peace?'

  Abner said, 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

  'And how was Mr. Gearhart this fine morning? His usual candid upright self? God damn, boy, you must want to be the county's chief hired assassin bad!' He threw the crumpled towel in the waste basket. 'Oh, now you're getting to know him, I suppose you find he's been cruelly misjudged? Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace? Well, has the hugging started?'

  The morning had been a trying one; and Abner could feel, like bruises in his mind, numerous sore points at which the touch of a thought made him wince. Harry's taunting tone, provocative both because Harry meant it to be, and because, in ways Harry probably never dreamed of — that trick of quoting verse or something made you tired — stirred anger. Abner thought a moment of giving him a short hard jab in the mouth; but to do that he would have to let his temper go and, as his sore and subdued mind could tell him, bruise himself farther and make himself more trouble. With a great effort, Abner said indifferently, 'Not yet.'

  Abner had seen how impossible it was to start a brawl here, with the next room full of people, and with court about to resume. He saw now from Harry's expression that Harry had thought of it, too; that Harry, for reasons best known to his secretive, sensitive self, hoped Abner would start something. Harry was ready to take a sudden punch in the jaw as the price of getting Abner into an absurd and humiliating position.

  Since they were looking each other in the eye, Harry probably realized that Abner had grasped his intention. He looked sheepish; and Abner, baffled a moment, knew then from the sensation on his own face that he himself was looking the same way. In fact, it was no more Harry's nature to pick a quarrel than Abner's; and if Harry felt like quarrelling, there was a reason; and the reason could only be that Abner was himself provoking — no doubt because of those qualities, or some tricks of manner or attitude derived from them, which Judge Coates had mentioned last night.

  Harry said in a not-quite-natural voice, 'Kidding aside, Ab, you going to run for D.A.?'

  'I honestly don't know who's running,' Abner said.

  'If Jesse knows what's good for him, he'll run you. Hell, Ab, don't let the racket get you down! Onward, Christian soldiers!' He turned to the door.

  'Thanks for the kind words,' Abner said, conscious of a considerable triumph, if not over Harry, over himself. 'But if you're marching as to war, you'd better button your fly, hadn't you?'

  8

  'Oyez,' said Nick Dowdy, 'oyez, oyez —'

  He crouched, bent forward over his desk, supporting himself by the gavel with which he had just struck the block, blinking up at all the people on their feet. 'The several courts this day holden are open in their entirety!' He let himself plump the short distance into his seat and smiled contentedly at Abner.

  Judge Vredenburgh who had been standing, too, straight and stiff, now held up his glasses, polishing them, and said, his chins down, his eyes up, addressing Joe Jackman, 'Note that the defendants and their counsel are in court.'

  To Everitt Weitzel, he said, 'You may call the jury.' He put the glasses on and sat down, looking about the well of the court, where in renewed movement everyone else was sitting down. 'Mr. Wurts!' he said, and beckoned to Harry, who came up to side bar where they whispered to each other a moment.

  Turning, Harry said, 'Stanley Howell, take the stand.'

  During the recess Howell had slicked his hair with water. His cheap and badly fitting brown suit seemed to have been brushed or somehow made a little neater. With a qualm at the futility of it, Abner supposed Howell had done what he could according to a reformatory boy's forlorn idea of recommending himself. Above the buttoned coat, under the plastered hair, Howell's furtive, unfirm little mouth and wild sick-looking eyes made the effort repulsive and unconvincing.

  Harry, waiting while the jury was seated, compressed his lips with ironic resignation. Harry meant (and perhaps he was right) that, given anything like an even break, he could get his man off; but who could get Howell, a person like Howell, off? Harry fingered the cropped hairs of his smudge of reddish moustache. He looked at the jury with an appraising eye, marshalling his faculties for an engagement that he was too wise to expect to win. Whoever had advised Howell to get Harry—Abner suspected that it was Mr. Servadei's firm had not advised Howell badly. Howell had to fight. There was nothing to be gained by throwing himself on the mercy of the court; for that chance was open only until Leming had taken it. There was nothing the Commonwealth wanted from Howell but his life; and, Howell's choice was between pleading guilty (a plea which would not be accepted) and throwing his life away at once; or pleading not guilty and forcing them to come and take it. They were coming; and Harry had found no way to stop them; but Howell for his last money had bought the only chance; and if, in the long run, it did him no good, in the long run money saved would be no good to a dead man, either.

  Harry turned a cool reprehensive gaze on his client. Raising his voice so that the sounds fell strong and clear, struck out like the round opening notes of a solemn composition, he said, 'What is your full name?'

  The jury had settled itself and grown as quiet as it is possible for twelve human beings to be. For them, the name might be Cain; and since they could feel no reasonable doubt that they looked at a participant in murder, Harry's distant, level manner was the right one. To pretend to be defending an innocent man only invited scorn, if the jurors believed him sincere, because he was such a fool; and if they believed him insincere, he invited their anger, because he showed in that case that he thought he was smarter than they were. Harry's tactic wa
s to put it to the jurors that he was a shrewd man, and they were shrewd, too; and they all disliked Howell; but more than they disliked Howell, they loved justice, he and they. Harry phrased his formal questions — where Howell had been born and raised; where he lived; how long he had known Leming and Basso and Bailey; just when he moved to the Rock Creek bungalow; and who was there.

  These monotonous facts, the bare names and dates, bored the jury. In most cases they could not or did not carry any exact earlier statements in their heads, so whether Howell gave answers agreeing with what Leming or someone else said mattered little to them. They already knew that Howell was acquainted with these people. They knew about the bungalow and who was there. They began to cross and uncross their legs, to scratch their noses and ears. A boy like George Stacey might have seen these symptoms with dismay; but Harry bore them calmly, with ease and assurance; figuring, Abner supposed, that when he got ready to interest them they would welcome it, less alert to contend.

  Harry said, 'Now, Howell, before we go any further, the Commonwealth has introduced in evidence, C.X. eighteen —' He extended his hand to Joe Jackman, who searched his desk a moment, found the right papers, and gave them to Harry. 'Thank you,' Harry said. 'This' purports to be a statement made by you on May sixth, last. Will you look at it?'

  Howell said, 'Yes; I guess you would have made a statement, too, if you —' Here was the chance he had been waiting for; and he snatched it with a convulsion of face and mind, his words tumbling over each other in his hurry to take his own part.

  Harry said sharply, for he had to keep Howell from assuming the ridiculous role of injured innocence, 'Just answer the question!'

  'That is the statement,' Howell said sulkily. Abner could see that he hated and feared Harry; and it was a hard thing when you hated and feared the man you had to cling to.