Up close, the illusion suffered. There were the small scars, and the bright, cold, predatory eyes, and the restless, reckless flavor of all the bad ones. Lee, worried about what he might be up to, had tried to question him. Though Danny fended off the questions with smiling ease, Lee caught an impression that surprised him. Whatever Danny was doing, he was slightly shamefaced about it, as though it did not fit his own picture of himself.
And whatever Danny was doing — it had brought Keefler here on this hot afternoon. Keefler seemed sleepy and reasonable. But too anxious to lump Lee with Danny.
“Look, Mr. Keefler. Danny went in the wrong direction. He started early. Maybe it’s too late for anything to be done. I don’t know. But I didn’t go in that direction, and you didn’t go in that direction. We got out of the Sink.”
Keefler raised one eyebrow. “We?”
“You and me, Mr. Keefler.”
“Let me get this.” He pointed at Lee’s chest and then his own. “You want to put us in the same bundle. But it doesn’t work that way.”
“Why not?”
“Because I come up by myself. You got your way bought for you. With stinking money from a hood brother and stinking money from a big mobster. You want to lump yourself with somebody, you fit with Danny, not with me.”
In the moment of shock before anger came, Lee felt astonished at the sudden bitterness and the unreasoning anger of the man. When Lee’s anger was complete, he did not let it change his voice or his expression. “I was under the ridiculous impression that we were reminiscing, Mr. Keefler. You are sitting on my porch in a chair I bought, dropping ashes on a porch I painted. You are a parole officer. I am an instructor at a state educational institution. I’ve tried to be pleasant to you for Danny’s sake. If you have questions, ask them. But from now on, watch your mouth and your manners.”
Keefler stared at him for long seconds. Then he chuckled and said, “Now if you aren’t the one!”
“Ask your questions.”
“Sure, but first I’ll make my little speech. They keep telling me it’s a free country. It don’t mean a thing to me if you wave your education in my face. Not a thing. There’s a fence, see? Right across the middle of the world. I’m on one side. And the Bronson boys are on the other. You both got records. You’re both in the files. He’s got a thicker file. I’ll talk to you just the same way I talk to anybody on the other side of that fence. I got a right to talk to anybody I want to. And you are going to play it my way. If you don’t like my way, and if I think maybe you’re hiding something, I go over to that school you work at, and I got my hat in my hand and I ask them a hell of a lot of polite questions about you, and if when I’m through there’s anybody left over there that doesn’t know you got a brother who’s a three-time loser who put you through school on stolen money, it’s going to surprise both of us. And they’ll know your brother has busted his parole and he’s on the loose and he gives you fancy presents. And they’ll know you got picked up on an assault charge and it got squashed because the guy who showed up to squash it was the smart shyster who worked for Nick Bouchard. If they still love you over there, I’ll see you get pulled in for questioning, and I’ll see it happens often, and I’ll make sure it comes when you should be teaching like they are paying you for. Now if you think they’ll still keep paying you for teaching after all that, you can pop off some more about my mouth and my manners. To Johnny Keefler, you are one of the Bronson boys, and both the Bronson boys stink. End of speech.”
Anger had suddenly become much too expensive. A luxury. He straightened the papers on the card table and he was annoyed with himself to see that his hand was shaking. He saw the factor he had missed in Keefler’s personality. The man was not entirely sane. He was perfectly capable of doing exactly what he threatened. He would do it knowing well that he would gain nothing but the satisfaction of smashing the orderly life of Lee Bronson. Perhaps, before the loss of the hand, he had been merely a tough cop with a streak of sadism. Lee knew he had no important contacts, no place he could go and ask that Keefler be pulled off him. He knew that the only thing he could do was crawl. And it was humiliating even with the rationalization that it was but to placate a madman.
He looked down at the stack of themes, and spoke in an expressionless voice. “He came here on the afternoon of July twenty-fifth. He was too well dressed to be still working for Grunwalt. He was driving a gray two-door, a recent model. Maybe a Dodge or a Plymouth. He stayed from about three-thirty to five-thirty. We had some drinks. I wondered what he was doing. He wouldn’t tell me. He admitted he wasn’t at Grunwalt’s. I asked if Rich knew about that. He said it was all fixed. I asked him if he’d gone back with Kennedy and he said no.”
“Now you’re being a good boy, but it’s a lot of crap you’re handing me. He’s your brother. If he was onto something, he’d tell you.”
“I can only give you my word that he didn’t. My wife was with us all the time. She’ll tell you the same thing.”
“Where’s your wife?”
“She’s due back any minute. In fact, she’s a little late.”
“I got the time.”
“Don’t lean on her, Mr. Keefler. She’s not used to...”
“You forget easy. I’m doing this my way, Bronson. Where is Danny now?”
“I haven’t any idea.”
“You act like you want to make it hard for yourself. We’ll get him anyway. He broke parole. So he owes the state seven years and seven months. There’s no way in the world he can get out of that.”
“I’ll tell you one thing. It doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound like him. He’s smarter than that.”
Keefler gave a snort of contempt. “That clown isn’t smart. No three-time loser has brains, professor. Here’s how smart I am. Rich and those other guys were carrying too big a load. So they’re told to turn over so many files apiece to me, and make it the rough ones. From Rich I get your brother and a few others. He briefs me on them. They’re all doing fine, he says. Danny Bronson is checking in like he should. No trouble with Danny. No trouble at all. He gives me the big words. Fine adjustment. Social conscience. Crap! I ask when he’s due in, and Rich says he phones in. I ask if he ever stops over to see him on the job and Rich says it might embarrass the men to go drop in on them. First I go check on where he’s living. I find he moved out of that flea bag room early in July. There’s a violation right there. Change of address without notification or authorization. No forwarding address. Then I go to Grunwalt. Bronson, sure. Worked here for six weeks. Quit the end of June. As far as Rich knew, he was still working there. So he’s a wise guy, and I’ve decided he’s had too much fresh air and he’s due back inside to think it over. So I drift around town, asking who’s seen him. Nobody. While I’m looking he phones Rich on schedule, a local call. By then I’ve told Rich off, told him how the wise punk was kidding him. Maybe over the phone Rich breaks into tears or something, telling the poor fella how he’s let his friends down. That call came in last Monday. I’m still looking. He’s on the tape now, with a pick-up order out for him. I got the rest of my punks hacked into line. They jump up and say sir. Rich and those other clowns are too soft. I’m going to get Danny and he’s going to go down on his knees and he’s going to beg and he’s going to blubber, and then he’s going back to Alton for violation of parole, and by God, he’s going to stay there. Your smart brother wasn’t a damn bit smart, Bronson.”