That, I thought, explained quite a lot, and I was pleased to sit down with them and pass the time.
The place was dark, with some few people in it, air-conditioned cool, and a battery of bandits. We played them, after Bill got his Manhattan and I got my Coke, and they lost, but I won five dollars. So they didn’t refuse when I ordered another round. So that made it quite sociable, and it came to me if I made any pitch at all I could find out some things, especially about my release. I said: “Could I ask, with nobody else present, the deal that was made on me? We don’t speak of the caper I pulled. I mean why I was sprung.”
Nothing was said for some minutes, but something passed between them, because Bill answered, very carefuclass="underline" “Politics could be part of it.”
“Mr. Val is in politics?”
“What isn’t he in?”
I felt there would be more, and pretty soon she took it up: “Duke, no paper got your case, and we’ve felt, like Holly, that the less said about it the better. But, since you have brought it up, you just as well know that Val is in politics, and in a most peculiar way. How he got started on it we don’t really know, as he’s older than we are and at that time we weren’t acquainted with him. He’s from Prince Georges County, but went to work in the city, as a bus boy, at a place on Dupont Circle. But, as he claims, a bus boy is really a business man, being paid by waiters, so it wasn’t too much of a step when he opened his own place. It began then. He hires girls, but always a certain kind. They live in Prince Georges but like to work in the District. They vote and their families vote, which is the foundation of Val’s strength. And so far as you’re concerned, Duke, some of them have friends, like police officers. And some of them get in trouble, like cashiers. Once that happened, the rest, to Val, was nothing. One phone call would do it. In fact, we think it was done before your — caper. That the officer, Danny Daniel, who goes with that girl in the Ladyship, was simply told: get somebody, package him up, and send him. It happened to be you, that’s all.”
“Then Congressmen’ll come, today?”
“The ones he invites, yes.”
Bill said: “A free feed, a free drunk, a free ride in the papers, and them jerks would miss it?”
“Politics, then, helps business?”
Marge let that ride, but it seemed to annoy Bill. He said: “Duke, what is politics, to you? What’s the idea, as you get it?”
“Oh — moola. Grift. Combos.”
“That’s not it at all.”
He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, really focusing for the first time since we got here. He said: “It’s not even slightly the answer, and since you did bring this up, you just as well know why you’re here, and are not some place else. Politics is power. It’s power over you, over girls, over Holly, over me, over Congressmen, that they have to come when he says so. It’s power to use, power to trade, power to get more power. Don’t ask me why they want it. I don’t know and I’m not at all sure that they do. But the guy who thinks they want graft, or their picture in the paper, or something else of that kind, is playing right in their hands. Those guys like money, as Val does, as you do, as I do, as who don’t, for that matter. But with them it’s still an incident. The chain’s the main thing, the iron they rivet on you, so you have to do as they say — though of course you pretend to like it. ‘Senator, I’ll attend to it today, I’ll count it a privilege.’ It is in the pig’s eye.”
“How long am I in for?”
“What did Daniel tell you?”
“He didn’t say. He made me sign a confession, and the rest is up in the air. Until I reform is the idea, but when is that?”
“My guess would be, when Val’s work is done, in the fall. Once, with stock, there was work on a farm in winter. Now, no. As we hope.”
“You don’t seem too sure, Mr. Hollis.”
“Duke, Val is Val.”
She said: “Bill, he’s not that bad.”
“I should say not. He’s worse.”
He sounded bitter, and I wondered if he had chains on him, maybe of a financial kind. Marge switched to the farm, and I heard for the first time they had lived on it, she and Bill, as it really belonged to Mrs. Val, through inheritance, and was called Hollis Hill. They had tried tobacco, she said, but found that twenty-five acres weren’t enough for a cash crop, though, as she admitted, “perfect for the limited amount of vegetables a restaurant chain needs.” When Val took over, moved the cottage back, and put the big house up, was when trouble started, she said, “as we didn’t propose to live out back like tenants and pick his potato bugs for him.” She said the Association had been mighty glad to get Bill, “much to Val’s surprise.”
Outside, a car turned in, Bill looked at his watch, and I called for my check. I said: “One thing I still don’t get. If Mr. Val has such power, not to mention dough, Mr. Hollis, why does he need me? Why can’t he keep any help?”
“Booth comes around, that’s why.”
“John Wilkes Booth, you mean?”
“Like he did that night, before he stopped at Surrattsville to buy that pint of booze. He didn’t take it kindly that nobody opened up.”
She said: “He never bothered us.”
“Honey, I love you, and we led a right kind of life. But Duke might remember that the help sometimes don’t. They’re scared, with reason. That explain it, Duke?”
“I guess so. Thanks.”
Outside, more cars drove up, and I spotted a middle-aged couple that looked like Bill and his sister. Everyone out there looked sensible, and Bill did, and Marge. The sun was shining bright and traffic running heavy. And yet, after all that was said, and especially this last, I kept thinking, as I paid, of what Mrs. Val had said, that day by the tree, about a “tragic land.” Maybe it was all redeemed, and maybe a few hits weren’t.
Chapter VI
They coached as to what I should say, about the tractors I was supposed to be parking, the bus I was due to take, and so on, then dropped me off at Clinton, I’d say at six thirty. I found a place to eat, fooled around, and then, around dark, strolled up the road, to see if the party was over and I could come bustling in. The house was all lit up, but not many people seemed to be left that I could see, so I came on up the drive, ready to reverse gears if anything developed. It did, right at my feet, on a small headwall over a pipe that drained a low place in the grass. It was Bill, still in his light gray suit, and sounding slightly drunk. He said: “Duke, hold it, stop. Is that you? Whyncha say something?”
“Yeah. Sure. Hello.”
“Siddown. ’M in a spot.”
“What you do, swing on someone?”
“Chrisalminey, cut the comedy.”
“Pal, what’s the trouble?”
“F’ got stuff ’m to get.”
“Stuff? What stuff?”
“F’ her. F’ Holly. ’S happened, Duke, ’t last. Ankles cracked up, but bad. All swell up, jus’ awful. ’S been coming, he knew ’t was coming, ’n he would give a goddam party. ’N doctor, he’s giv’n one too, so fat chance he would come. But he give orders. He said soak’m. Soak’m in some kind stuff f’m drugstore, ’n Marge sent me, get it. ’N f’got what ’t was. ’M parked on road, ’n f’got. Look, Duke, y’ go in, start talk’n t’ Marge, ’n find out—”
“Listen, pal, was it Epsom?”
“Chrisalminey, that’s it! Aw, pal!”
“Come on, Bill, we got to hurry.”
“Yeah, but firs’ mus’ thank you.”
“Come on now, and I’ll drive.”
His car was on 5, where he’d walked back from it, and while he was finding the key, three or four taxis passed, all lit up like Christmas trees, and turned into the drive. He said: “Homer blew, ’count of Booth. Took keys with ’m, so lot a people got to use cabs. Good thing. Damn Congressmen, tighter’n a tick.”