“What is it?” Chicky said, looking up at him. “New trouble?”
“Not new, just more of the same.”
Ward strode into the living room and said to Farrelclass="underline" “What do you think of it? They’re not content he’s dead. They want to put wreaths of garbage on his grave.”
Malleck sat down slowly in the straight-backed chair and looked at Farrell. “I hope this gives you an idea of what we’re up against,” he said. “Like Ward says, they’re not content with murder. They want to wreck his name and shame his wife, put a mark on that boy that will stand out like a brand the rest of his life. I just hope I don’t hear any more from you about saving this scum, Mr. Farrell. I just hope you’ve got enough sense and decency to shut up about this.”
“What is it?” Chicky Detweiller said. “What’s happened?”
Ward swore and said: “Some little whore, I forget her name, Cleo Soltick or something like that, a Hunky probably, from a long illustrious line of coal heavers and janitors. Well, she’s spreading a story that Wayne raped her.”
Farrell rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers. Grace Ward said shrilly, “They’ll stop at nothing. They should all be kept in cages like animals, if you ask me.”
Chicky Detweiller murmured, “But it’s just so preposterous, who would possibly believe it?”
“Nobody,” Malleck said. “It’s a lie, a filthy, rotten lie.”
“The girl is telling the truth,” Farrell said bitterly. “The little Hunky from the illustrious line of coal heavers is speaking the Gospel. So it’s back to the conference table, ladies and gentlemen, you need another angle, another approach, another bagful of lies.”
A silence settled deeply in the room, and it seemed to Farrell that the faces staring up at him were marked with a curious similarity; it was a marine look, he thought, a fishy look of pallor and open mouths and bulging eyes. But a nervous stir suddenly dissolved the silence, and the expressions of communal shock and incredulity dissolved with it.
“What’s that?” Ward said in a soft, careful voice. “What did you say, John?”
“Just that she’s telling the truth.”
“What are you trying to do?” Malleck said. “What are you trying to pull here?”
“Well, if you ask me,” Detweiller said angrily, “I think...”
“Keep quiet,” Ward said, gesturing impatiently with his cigarette and dismissing Detweiller’s comment as if it were a digression in a business meeting. “Go on, John,” he said. “Let’s have the rest of it. I’m damned curious to know what’s behind all this.”
“Norton told me what happened,” Farrell said wearily. He sat on the arm of the sofa, lit a cigarette and tossed the match toward an ashtray. “It was the night we went to the Chiefs’ clubhouse. Norton was holding the girl during the fight. He stayed behind when the rest of us left. He lost his head and raped her. Tonight he called her with the hope of making amends somehow, of straightening things out. She told him to meet her in Raynes Park. She didn’t tell him Duke would be there.”
There was another deep silence in the room, an underwater stillness. Then Malleck said: “When did he tell you this?”
“Tonight.”
“After he’d been beaten up?”
“Yes. While Detweiller was getting you.”
“He confided in you, eh?” Malleck said slowly. “After you’d refused to help him, after you turned your back on him. After all that you become his bosom buddy, the one guy in the world he feels he can trust with this confession.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Farrell said. “I asked him what happened. When the story fell apart, he did too.”
“You mean you land of beat this thing out of him?”
“He told me what happened, that’s all.”
Detweiller was frowning and rubbing a hand along his jaw. “Then you knew this all along, eh, John? While we’re talking about ifs and ands and buts you had the real story. Why in hell didn’t you speak up?”
“I hoped I wouldn’t have to.”
“Well, this puts a funny light on tilings,” Detweiller said. He drank the few remaining drops from his drink and set the glass on the coffee table. “I mean, I’ve got no brief for Duke, but he probably did feel that he had a right to go after Wayne. It’s a normal impulse, I suppose, if...” The words dribbled away as he became aware that Malleck was staring at him.
“I don’t think Farrell’s got the real story,” Malleck said, and got slowly to his feet. “I think he’s lying.”
“I do, too,” Grace Ward said. She spoke with desperate vehemence. “It’s an impossible story. Wayne wasn’t that sort of man. I can’t imagine what reason you have for blackening his name this way.”
“Just a minute now,” Ward said, patting her shoulder absently. “Easy does it.” He smiled at Farrell, but he was apparently controlling himself with an effort; a pulse was swelling and falling rapidly in his left temple, and the smile didn’t soften the lines of tension around his mouth. “John, we’re men with a certain amount of experience in the world, and we should be able to look at this matter reasonably. Now let’s assume this thing happened just as you say. Let’s accept as a fact that Norton confessed to raping this girl. Are you morally certain that Norton would be a reliable witness against himself? As I say, we’re men of a certain amount of experience. But Norton was different. He was an innocent and naive sort of guy, which was to his credit. Totally wrapped up in his home and family. He was in a kind of backwater at his bank, not very close to the meanness and bitchiness in the world. What I’m getting at is this: in spite of his confession, are you sure he raped this girl? After all, she’s a tough little cookie. You can be sure it wasn’t her first time, start with that. Can you be sure she didn’t make it happen? Leading him on with a lot of tricks, and then persuading him that she had been a, well, unwilling partner to the whole thing?”
“No, I can’t be sure,” Farrell said. “But it’s not my job to judge his or her motives.”
“One other thing then,” Ward said quietly. “Norton was close to a state of shock from a brutal beating. And probably half out of his mind from a mistaken sense of guilt. Supposing under those circumstances he’d blurted out that he’d embezzled funds from his bank. Or had been having an affair with your wife. Would you accept these fantasies as Gospel? Or would you consider his condition before making any judgment?”
They were not new arguments to Farrell; he had used them all himself.
Ward watched him for a few seconds in silence, and then said: “You’re going to the police, eh? And tell them what Norton told you?”
“Yes,” Farrell said.
“Oh, no, you’re not,” Malleck said, his arms swinging out from his sides. “You got to come through me, and you aren’t man enough for that.”
“Now hold it!” Ward said sharply. “I’m not through. You’re determined to go to the police, then, John. You feel it’s your duty to support this girl’s story and provide a loophole for the hoodlum who murdered Norton? Is that your position? I’d advise you to think carefully before you answer.”
“I’m going to tell the truth.”
“We can’t stop you, of course,” Ward said.
“Maybe you can’t, but I can,” Malleck said.
“If you did stop him, you’d be doing him a favor,” Ward said quietly.
No one spoke for an instant; and when Ward struck a match the sound seemed to rip through the close fabric of silence.
“What do you mean?” Malleck said slowly.
“John, you’d better listen to me before you leave,” Ward said, standing up and buttoning his coat with his free hand. Then with his shoulders hunched forward and his face set in hard, purposeful lines, he said without heat or bluster; “I told you I intended to fight for what’s important to me. I wasn’t just making conversation, as I’m going to show you.” There was no hint of threat in his voice; he might have been reading the minutes of a routine meeting. “First of all, no one here believes your story. Malleck doesn’t, Grace and I don’t, and neither do the Detweillers. We don’t believe for a second that Norton made the confession you claim he made. And the police won’t believe you either. So I’m not concerned about whatever pipe dreams you tell them. For your own good — which I’m frankly not much interested in — you’d be wiser not to take that story to the cops. You won’t hurt us, you’ll just hurt yourself.”