All the king's men

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 "Hush, hush!" she said, "you mustn't say it–for nothing was that way–and not the way Adam said–oh, he said terrible things–oh, he called me terrible things–he said if everything else was filthy a man didn't have to be–oh, I tried to tell him how things were–how they weren't like he said–but he pushed me so hard I fell down and he said how he wouldn't be pimp to his sister's whore and nobody would ever say that about him–and then he ran out the door and you've got to find him. Find him and tell him, Jack. Tell him, Jack."

"Tell him what?"

"Tell him it wasn't like he said. You've got to tell him that. You know why I did everything I did, you know what happened. Oh, Jack–" and she grabbed my sleeve and hung on, "it wasn't like that. It wasn't horrible like that. I tried not to be horrible. Was I, Jack? Was I? Tell me, Jack!"

I look down at her. "No," I said, "you weren't horrible."

"But it has happened to me. It has all happened to me. And he's gone."

"I'll find him," I said, and detached myself from her, ready to go.

"It won't do any good."

"He'll listen to sense," I said.

"Oh, I don't mean Adam. I mean–"

"Stark?"

She nodded. Then said, "Yes. I went to the place–the place out of town we used to meet in. He called me early this afternoon. I went there and he told me. He is going back to his wife."

"Well, I'll be damned," I said.

Then I pulled myself together, and headed for the door. "I'll get Adam," I said.

"Get him," she said, "get him. For he's all I've got now."

As I stepped out the door of the apartment house no the rain, I reflected that she had Jackie Burden, too. At least as an errand boy. But I made the reflection without bitterness and quite impersonally.

Finding somebody in a city in a city if you can't call in the cops is quite an undertaking. I had tried it often enough back when I was a reporter, and it takes luck and time. But one rule is always to try the obvious first. So I went to Adam's apartment. When I saw his car sitting out front I figured I had played into the blue ones. I parked my own car, noticed that the driver's door of his car was open and might get swiped off by a passing truck and was certainly letting the seat get wet, slammed it shut as I passed, and went on into the apartment house.

I knocked vigorously on the door. There was no answer. But that didn't mean anything. Even if Adam was there, he might not be willing, under the circumstances, to answer his door. So I tried the knob. The door was locked. I went down to the basement and dug out the Negro janitor and told him some cock-and-bull story about having left some stuff up there in Adam's place. He had seen me around with Adam a lot, and so he let me in. I prowled through the place, but no Adam. Then I spied his telephone. I called his office, then the hospital, then the medical-school office, then the exchange where the doctors left numbers when they weren't at their usual haunts. It was no go. Nobody knew anything about Adam. Or rather, each one had a pretty good idea where he was, but the idea was never any good. That left all the town wide open.

I went back down into the street. The fact that the car was there was fu

I thought of the bars. For it is a tradition that a man, when he has received a great shock, heads for a bar, puts his foot on the rail, orders five straight whiskies in a row, downs then one after another while he stares with uncomprehending eyes at the white, tortured face in the mirror opposite him, and then engages the bartender in a sardonic conversation about Life. But I couldn't see Adam Stanton playing that game. But I went to the bars, anyway.

That is, I went to a lot of them. A lifetime isn't long enough to go to all the bars in our city. I began with Slade's place, had no luck, asked Slade to try to hang on to Dr. Stanton if he came in, and then moved through the other establishments of chromium, glass bricks, morros, colored lights, comfy Old English worm-eaten oak, sporting prints, comic frescoes, or three-piece orchestras. Around seven-thirty I called up Adam's office and then the hospital again. He wasn't at either place. When they told me that at the hospital, I said I was calling for Governor Stark, whose son was there as a patient of Dr. Stanton, and could they please try to dig up something. They came back with the report that Dr. Stanton had been expected well before seven, that he had had an appointment with another doctor to examine some plates, but that he had not come. They had been unable to locate him at his office or at home. Would I like to leave a message for Dr. Stanton when he came in? I said, yes, to have him get in touch with me at the earliest possible moment, it was important. I would leave word at my own hotel as to my whereabouts.