Everyone was watching Ward as he spoke, and it seemed to Farrell that they were hungrily absorbing warmth and reassurance from his air of casual, almost contemptuous confidence.
“First of all, it’s your unsupported statement that you left that clubhouse before Norton,” Ward said. He waited until he saw that Farrell understood what he meant, and then he smiled faintly. “Don’t look so startled. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. Secondly, it’s your unsupported statement that Norton confessed to raping that girl. There are no other witnesses. It’s your testimony, yours alone, that will smash his reputation, and turn his memory into something shameful and dirty. So why are you doing it? Why are you supporting this little whore’s preposterous charge? Let me tell you this: anyone with an ounce of brains won’t have to look far for the answer.”
Farrell shook his head. “You’ve really surprised me, Sam.”
“Go to the police,” Ward said coldly. “They’ll put two and two together. And if they’re slow about it we’ll give them a nudge in the right direction.”
Malleck suddenly caught Farrell’s arm in his big heavy hand. “I get it now,” he said slowly, and his face was shining with an almost exultant excitement. “You been lying from the start. It wasn’t Norton who raped that girl. It was you.”
“I gave you a chance,” Ward said quietly. “I suggested we be reasonable. But you’re stuck, I see now. You’re turning your back on us because you’ve got to. Do you think I believed your big talk about duty and principle? Like hell. And neither will the cops. You’re trying to save those two sacks of human garbage because it’s the only way you can save yourself. You raped that girl and then talked her into pinning it on Norton. And what price did you pay? Simply to back up her story and save her precious little boy friend. It’s so obvious I’m surprised you tried to shove it down our throats.”
Malleck shifted his grip to the lapel of Farrell’s coat. “Oh you bastard,” he said softly. “You miserable bastard. I’m going to give you something to take with you to the cops.” He drew his right fist back slowly, holding Farrell away from him with a straight left arm.
Farrell welcomed the disgust and anger flowing through him. “Try it,” he said.
But before Malleck could swing Detweiller grabbed his shoulders and pulled him away from Farrell. “Now let’s cut this out,” he said, in a high, anxious voice. “Fighting won’t help things.”
Malleck turned on him furiously, slapping his hands aside with a chopping motion of his arm. “You rabbit,” he said. “You been trying to crawl over to his side all night.”
“No, you’re wrong,” Detweiller said, backing away from the rage in Malleck’s eyes. “I’m with you — look, there’s nothing to be mad about.”
Malleck struck him across the face with the back of his hand. “Don’t move, stand there,” he said. And as Detweiller stood helplessly before him, arms hanging limply at his sides, Malleck struck him again, using the palm of his hand this time, and the force of the blow knocked Detweiller back against the couch. He sat down abruptly and awkwardly, the marks of Malleck’s blows searing his gray face. Chicky put a hand on his arm but he drew away from her, blinking his eyes rapidly.
“I haven’t said anything tonight,” she murmured gently. “It was your chance. Why didn’t you take it?” Her eyes were grave and sad as she studied the shame in his face. She seemed unaware of the others in the room.
“You didn’t go to New York to meet Ginny for the theater,” he said in a low, choking voice. “You went in to spend the night with Dick Baldwin, the fearless newshawk, the big deal.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Why did you go?”
She said sadly, “You always ask the wrong question. Why don’t you ask why I came back?”
“I was afraid to.”
Malleck laughed softly and glanced at Farrell. “If you were thinking of him for help, there’s your answer.”
Farrell picked up his hat and coat. He knew what would happen when they cut the foundation from under his story. But with that cold and sickening knowledge there was an ameliorating revulsion and anger. “I feel sorry for all of us,” he said slowly. “We’re responsible for what happened here. But you don’t have the guts to face it. It isn’t easy, God knows, but you’ll find some day it would have been easier to face it now than face yourselves in your mirrors the rest of your lives. Can’t you see what you’re doing? You’re conspiring in a he that may cost another life. And you’re doing it righteously, indignantly, because you’re home-owning, child-rearing, one-hundred-and-fifteen-percent solid citizens. The boy doesn’t deserve a break, you yell in righteous anger. Can’t you get it through your heads that it’s not our business to give him a break? We’re not judges. We’re souls in the eyes of God Almighty, an isolated and responsible human unit in the eyes of the law. We have no privileges, only rights. And he has rights too. That’s what you’re denying him — his rights under a system of living that you’d be the first to praise at the drop of a gavel at a Rotary luncheon. You can’t see what should be precious to you because you’re too damned busy counting your blessings and making sure that they’re not encroached on by anyone who doesn’t meet the requirements of your tidy little club.”
Farrell stared around the room, breathing slowly and deeply. The anger was flowing out of him, and in its place was an emotion he couldn’t quite define: it was close to peace, but still closer to resignation.
“You might ask yourselves just what kind of a life you’re protecting tonight,” he said quietly. “Is it simply a pleasant home, a freezer full of food and the bills all paid up? We’ve got that, sure. But isn’t there anything else? Something we might defend and feel grateful for even if we were cold and hungry and broke? It seems to me there is, must be. And when a showdown comes along you’ve got to put that above the comfort and pleasures, all the trimmings and extras, the icing on the cake.”
Farrell was turning to the door when Detweiller got heavily to his feet and said, “Hold it, will you, John? We can take my car, it’s faster than that heap of yours.”
Farrell stared at him, struck with a giddy fear that he hadn’t heard correctly. “What’s that?”
“I’m going with you.” Detweiller was very pale. Chicky reached up and took his hand and he gripped it tightly. “I saw you leave the clubhouse before Norton. Maybe I’ve got enough guts to say so.”
“Have you gone crazy?” Malleck said, staring from Farrell to Detweiller. “Are you both nuts? You go down there together and you’ll blow this thing sky high. We had it all fixed up. It was all safe.” There was a strange fear and confusion cracking the hard flat planes of his face. “Sit down, sit down, both of you. We got to talk this over.”
“What does this mean, Det?” Ward asked. It was the voice of an old man, slow and heavy and tired.
“It may mean he’s learned something,” Chicky said.
“What has he learned?”
Chicky smiled at him but her brown eyes were very cold. “Maybe that you can’t prove you’re a man by acting like an animal.”