He spat again. “There’s just one thing that makes me a mite forlorn—and that’s the hypocrisy. Why, once the very judge that condemned me had eaten venison I shot just the week before and ate it right at the dining-room table in his own house and it was bought with his own money by his own cook. The hypocrisy is the canker in the soul of the American people. Why, just look at your case, son. What did you do? You did what everybody knows he’d do if he got the chance—you were offered a nice bit of juicy tail and you took it. At your age, son, the loins’re raging, and all the rules in the book don’t make a never-no-mind. I bet that the very judge who is going to put you away for years of your young life, if he got the offer from those two little plump-assed young girls you told me about, if that same judge got the offer and he was certain sure nobody was around to see him, he’d go cavorting with those plump-assed young girls like a crazy goat. Like the judge who ate my venison. Statutory rape.” Dave spat in disgust. “Old man’s rules. What does a little twitching young tail know about statutory? It’s the hypocrisy, son, the hypocrisy, son, the hypocrisy everywhere.”
Joe Kuntz appeared at the cell door and opened it. “Come on out, Jordache,” Kuntz said. Ever since Thomas had told the lawyer Uncle Harold had got for him that Joe Kuntz had been in there with the twins, too, and Kuntz had heard the news, the policeman had not been markedly friendly. He was married, with three kids.
Axel Jordache was waiting in Horvath’s office with Uncle Harold and the lawyer. The lawyer was a worried-looking young man with a bad complexion and thick glasses. Thomas had never seen his father looking so bad, not even the day he hit him.
He waited for his father to say hello, but Axel kept quiet, so he kept quiet, too.
“Thomas,” the lawyer said, “I am happy to say that everything has been arranged to everybody’s satisfaction.”
“Yeah,” Horvath said behind the desk. He didn’t sound terribly satisfied.
“You’re a free man, Thomas,” the lawyer said.
Thomas looked doubtfully at the five men in the room. There were no signs of celebration on any of the faces. “You mean I can just walk out of this joint?” Thomas asked.
“Exactly,” the lawyer said.
“Let’s go,” Axel Jordache said. “I wasted enough time in this goddamn town as it is.” He turned abruptly and limped out.
Thomas had to make himself walk slowly after his father. He wanted to cut and run for it, before anybody changed his mind.
Outside it was sunny late afternoon. There were no windows in the cell and you couldn’t tell what the weather was from in there. Uncle Harold walked on one side of Thomas and his father on the other. It was another kind of arrest.
They got into Uncle Harold’s car. Axel sat up in front and Thomas had the back seat all to himself. He didn’t ask any questions.
“I bought your way out, in case you’re curious,” his father said. His father didn’t turn in the seat, but talked straight ahead, at the windshield. “Five thousand dollars to that Shylock for his pound of flesh. I guess you got the highest-priced lay in history. I hope it was worth it.”
Thomas wanted to say he was sorry, that somehow, some day, he’d make it up to his father. But the words wouldn’t come out.
“Don’t think I did it for you,” his father said, “or for Harold here …”
“Now, Axel,” Harold began.
“You could both die tonight and it wouldn’t spoil my appetite,” his father said. “I did it for the only member of the family that’s worth a damn—your brother Rudolph. I’m not going to have him start out in life with a convict brother hanging around his neck. But this is the last time I ever want to see you or hear from you. I’m taking the train home now and that’s the end of you and me. Do you get that?”
“I get it,” Thomas said flatly.
“You’re getting out of town, too,” Uncle Harold said to Thomas. His voice was quivering. “That’s the condition Mr. Chase made and I couldn’t agree with him more. I’ll take you home and you pack your things and you don’t sleep another night in my house. Do you get that too?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Thomas said. They could have the town. Who needed it?
There was no more talking. When Uncle Harold stopped the car at the station, his father got out without a word and limped away, leaving the door of the car open. Uncle Harold had to reach over and slam it shut.
In the bare room under the roof, there was a small, battered valise on his bed. Thomas recognized it. It belonged to Clothilde. The bed was stripped down and the mattress was rolled up, as though Tante Elsa were afraid that he might sneak in a few minutes’ sleep on it. Tante Elsa and the girls were not in the house. To avoid contamination, Tante Elsa had taken the girls to the movies for the afternoon.
Thomas threw his things into the bag quickly. There wasn’t much. A few shirts and underwear and socks, an extra pair of shoes and a sweater. He took off the garage uniform that he had been arrested in and put on the new gray suit Tante Elsa had bought for him on his birthday.
He looked around the room. The book from the library, the Riders of the Purple Sage, was lying on a table. They kept sending postcards saying he was overdue and they were charging him two cents a day. He must owe them a good ten bucks by now. He threw the book into the valise. Remember Elysium, Ohio.
He closed the valise and went downstairs and into the kitchen. He wanted to thank Clothilde for the valise. But she wasn’t in the kitchen.
He went out through the hallway. Uncle Harold was eating a big piece of apple pie in the dining room, standing up. His hands were trembling as he picked up the pie. Uncle Harold always ate when he was nervous. “If you’re looking for Clothilde,” Uncle Harold said, “save your energy. I sent her to the movies with Tante Elsa and the girls.”
Well, Thomas thought, at least she got a movie out of me. One good thing.
“You got any money?” Uncle Harold asked. “I don’t want you to be picked up for vagrancy and go through the whole thing again.” He wolfed at his apple pie.
“I have money,” Thomas said. He had twenty-one dollars and change.
“Good. Give me your key.”
Thomas took the key out of his pocket and put it on the table. He had an impulse to push the rest of the pie in Uncle Harold’s face, but what good would that do?
They stared at each other. A piece of pie dribbled down Uncle Harold’s chin.
“Kiss Clothilde for me,” Thomas said, and went out the door, carrying Clothilde’s valise.
He walked to the station and bought twenty dollars’ worth of transportation away from Elysium, Ohio.
Chapter 10
The cat stared at him from its corner, malevolent and unblinking. Its enemies were interchangeable. Whoever came down in the cellar each night, to work in the hammering heat, was regarded by the cat with the same hatred, the same topaz lust for death in his yellow eyes. The cat’s night-long cold stare disconcerted Rudolph as he put the rolls in the oven. It made him uneasy when he was not liked, even by an animal. He had tried to win the cat over with an extra bowl of milk, with caresses, with a “Nice, kitty,” here and there, but the cat knew it wasn’t a nice kitty and lay there, it’s tail twisting, contemplating murder.