But I had thought about it. Yessir, I'd thought plenty about it.
"Was you acquainted with Lennie before you married? Know that you was goin' to have a idjit for a brother-in-law?"
"Well, no, I didn't," I said. "I didn't even know that Myra had a brother until afterwards. Came as quite a surprise for me."
"Uh-hah!" Ken snorted. "Well, don't be surprised if you get another surprise some time, Nick. No, sir, don't you be surprised at all."
"What?" I said. "How do you mean, Ken?"
He shook his head, not answering me, and broke out laughing. I laughed right along with him.
Because it was a pretty good joke, you see. I was a joke. And maybe I couldn't do anything about it right now, but I figured I would some day.
Ken took a couple more long drinks. I stood up and said maybe we'd better be going. "Got quite a little walk to the station, and I want you to meet a few fellas. Be a big treat for 'em to meet a big-city sheriff like you."
"Why, now, I bet it would be that," Ken said, staggering to his feet. "Prob'ly ain't every day they get to meet a real man in a pisspot of a town like this."
"Tell 'em how you took care of them two pimps," I said. "They'll be right impressed hearin' how you took on two pimps all by yourself, and gave 'em what-for."
He blinked at me owlishly. He said, what pimps, what the god-danged hell was! talking about, anyway? I said, the pimps I'd warned him about last night-the two that were bound to try to give him some trouble.
"Huh?" he said. "What? Did you tell me somethin' like that?"
"You mean you let 'em get away with it?" I said. "Ken Lacey took dirt from a couple of low-down pimps?"
"Hah? What?" He rubbed his hand over his eyes. "Who says I took dirt from pimps?"
"I knew you didn't!" I said, giving him a slap on the back. "Not Ken Lacey, the bravest, smartest peace officer in the state."
"Well," said Ken. "Uh, you shorely spoke a mouthful there, Nick. You shorely did, and that's a fact!"
"Any other man, I wouldn't have let him go over there last night. But I knew you could stand up to those pimps if they come at you with guns and knives. I knew you'd make 'em wish they'd never been born."
Ken put a stern look on his face, like that fella William S. Hart does in the movies. He squared his shoulders and straightened up, or as much as he could straighten with the whiskey wobbling his legs.
"What'd you do to 'em, Ken?" I said. "How did you settle their hash, anyways?"
"I, uh, I took care of 'em, that's what." He gave me a lopsided wink. "You know, I-hic!-took care of 'em."
"Good. You took care of 'em for good, Ken?"
"God-danged right, I did. Them's two pimps that won't never bother a white man no more!"
He started looking around for the whiskey bottle. I pointed out that he was holding onto it, so he had himself a couple more drinks, and then he held the bottle up to the light.
"Why, god-dang! Danged if I ain't drunk almost a whole quart of whiskey!"
"What the heck?" I said. "It don't hardly show on you none." And the funny part of it was that it suddenly didn't show much.
I'd seen him drink before, and I knew how whiskey acted on him. A fairly small amount of booze, say, a pint or so, and he'd get drunk as a skunk. He'd show it, I mean. But when he went over that certain amount- and up to a point, of course-he'd seem to sober up. He'd stop staggering, stop slurring his words, stop playing the fool in general. Inside, he'd still be dead drunk, but you'd never know it by looking at him.
He finished the rest of the whiskey, and we headed for the railroad station. I introduced him to everyone we met, which was a big part of the population, and he stuck out his chest and told everyone how he'd taken care of the two pimps. Or rather, he just said that he had taken care of 'em.
"Never mind how," he'd say. "Never you mind how." And then he'd wink and nod, and everybody would be pretty impressed.
We stopped to talk to so many people that it was only a couple of minutes before train time when we got to the station. I shook hands with him and then, before! realized I was doing it, I laughed out loud.
He gave me a suspicious look; asked me what I was laughing about.
"Nothing much," I said. "I was just thinkin' how funny it was you rushing down here last night. Thinkin' I might kill those pimps."
"Yeah," he grinned sourly, "that is funny. Imagine a fella like you killing anyone."
"You can't imagine me doing it, can you, Ken? You just can't, can you?"
He said he sure couldn't, and that was a fact. "If I'd stopped to think, instead of letting that god-danged Buck get me all riled up-"
"But it would be easy to imagine you doing that killing, wouldn't it, Ken? Killing wouldn't bother you a bit."
"What?" he said. "What do you mean, I-"
"In fact, folks wouldn't have to do any imagining, would they? You've as good as admitted it to dozens of people."
He blinked at me. Then the wild sweat broke out on his face again, and a streak of spit oozed from the corner of his mouth. And there was fear in his eyes.
It had soaked in on him at last, the spot he was in. Soaked clear through a quart of booze until it hit him where he lived and rubbed the place raw.
"Why-why, god-dang you!" he said. "I was just makin' talk! You know danged well I was! I never even seen those pimps last night!"
"No, sir, I bet you didn't." I grinned at him. "I'd bet a million dollars you didn't."
"Y-you-" He gulped. "You m-mean you did k-kill-"
"I mean, I know you're a truthful man," I said. "If you said you didn't see those pimps, I know you didn't see 'em. But other folks might think somethin' else, mightn't they, Ken? If those pimps' bodies was to crop up some place, everybody'd think that you killed them. Couldn't hardly think nothin' else under the circumstances."
He cussed and made a grab at me. I stayed where I was, grinning at him, and he slowly let his hands drop to his side.
"That's right, Ken," I nodded. "That's right. There ain't a thing you can do but hope. Just hope that if someone did kill those pimps that no one ever finds their bodies."
The train was coming in.
I waited until it came to a stop; and then, since Ken seemed too dazed to do it by himself, I helped him on.
"One other thing, Ken," I said, and he turned on the step to look at me. "I'd be real nice to Buck, if I was you. I got kind of a funny idea that he don't like you very much as it is, so I sure wouldn't do no more talkin' about makin' him peck horse turds with the sparrers."
He turned back around again, and went on up the steps.
I started back through town.
9
I'd been thinking it was about time to do some political campaignin', since I had a pretty tough opponent coming up for a change. But I figured there'd been enough going on for one morning, what with Ken's big talk; and anyways, I just didn't have a campaign plan this time.