All the king's men

"I'll kill her," he said, and the perspiration exuded delicately on his temples.

"You won't kill anybody," I said, "and this time there's nobody to do it for you. For you're afraid to. You were afraid to kill the Boss and you were afraid not to, but luck helped you out. But you gave luck a little push, Tiny, and I swear, I admire you for it. It opened my eyes. You see, Tiny, all those years I never thought you were real. You were just something off the cartoon page. With your diamond ring. You were just the punching bag the Boss used, and you just gri

I didn't give him time to answer. I watched his mouth get ready, then I went on. "There was a drunk had a poodle and he took him everywhere with him from bar to bar. And you know why? Was it devotion? It was not devotion. He took that poodle everywhere just so he could spit on him and not get the floor dirty. Well, you were the Boss's poodle. And you liked it. You liked to be spit on. You weren't human. You weren't real. That's what I thought. But I was wrong, Tiny. Somewhere down in you there was something made you human. You resented being spit on. Even for money."

I got up, with my half-empty glass in my hand.

"And now, Tiny," I said, "that I know you are real, I sort of feel sorry for you. You are a fu

So I drank off the whisky, dropped the glass on the floor (on the thick rug it didn't break), and started for the door. I had almost got there, when I heard a croak from the couch. I looked around.

"It–" he croaked, "it won't stand in a court."

I shook my head. "No," I said, "it won't. But you still got plenty to worry about."

I opened the door and walked through and left the door open behind me and walked down the long hall under the great, glittering chandelier, and walked out into the brisk night.

I took a deep drag of fresh air and looked up through the trees at the distinct stars. I felt like a million. I had sure-God brought off that scene. I had hit him where he lived. I was full of beans. I had fire in my belly. I was a hero. I was St. George and the dragon, I was Edwin Booth bowing beyond the gaslights, I was Jesus Christ with the horsewhip in the temple.

I was the stuff.

And all at once the stars I was like a man who has done himself the best from soup to nuts and a Corona Corona and feels like a virtuous million and all at once there isn't anything but the yellow, acid taste which has crawled up to the back of the mouth from the old, tired stomach.

Three days later I got the registered letter from Sadie Burke. It read: Dear Jack: Just so you won't think I am going to welch on what I said I would do I am enclosing the statement I said I would make. I have got it witnessed and notarized and nailed down as tight as you can nail anything down and you can do anything with it you want for it is yours. I mean this. It is your baby, just like I said.

As for me I am getting out of here. I don't mean just getting out of this cross between an old folks' home and a booby-hatch, but out of this town and out of this state. I can't stand it round here and I'm pulling out. I'll be gone a long way and I'll be gone a long time and maybe somewhere the climate will be better. But my cousin (Mrs. Sill Larkin, 2331 Rousseau Ave.) who is the nearest thing to a relative I got will have some kind of address for me sometime, and if you ever want to contact me just write me care of her. Wherever I am I'll do what you say. I'll come if you say come. I don't want you thinking I am going to welch. I don't care who knows anything. I'll do anything you say about that piece of business.

But if you take my advice about that piece of business you will let it drop. This is not because I love Duffy. I hope you will give him an earful and let him wet his pants. But my advice is to let it drop. First, you ca

Remember I am not welching. I am just giving you my advice.

Keep your tail over the dashboard.

Sincerely yours,

SADIE BURKE

I read through Sadie's statement. It said everything there was to say, and each page was signed and witnessed. Then I folded up. It was no good to me. Not because of the advice which Sadie had given me. Her letter made sense, all right. That is, the part about Duffy and the gang. But something had happened. To hell with them all, I thought. I was sick of it all.

I looked down at the letter again. So Sadie had called me an Eagle Scout. But that wasn't news, either. I had called myself worse names than that the night after I had seen Duffy and was walking down the street under the stars. But it touched the sore place and made it throb. It throbbed the worse because I knew that it wasn't a secret sore place. Sadie had known about it. She had seen through me. She had read me like a book.

There was only one wry piece of consolation in the thought. At least, I had not had to wait for her to read me. I had read myself to myself that night walking down the street, full of beans and being an Eagle Scout, when the yellow, acid taste had all at once crawled up to the back of my mouth.

What had I read? I had read this: When I found out about Duffy's killing the Boss and Adam I had felt clean and pure, and when I kicked Duffy around I felt like a million because I thought it let me out. Duffy was the villain and I was the avenging hero. I had kicked Duffy around and my head was big as a balloon with grandeur. Then all at once something happened and the yellow taste was in the back of my mouth.

This happened: I suddenly asked myself why Duffy had been so sure I would work for him. And suddenly I saw the eyes of the little squirt-face newspaperman at the cemetery gate on me, and all the eyes that had looked at me that way, and suddenly I knew that I had tried to make Duffy into a scapegoat for me and to set myself off from Duffy, and my million-dollar meal of heroism backfired that yellow taste into my gullet and I felt caught and tangled and mired and stuck like an ox in a bog and a cat in flypaper. It wasn't simply that I again saw myself as party to that conspiracy with A