"Now you're talking like a lawyer!" Rothman slapped his desk. "The Ironworkers are weak out here. Conway wouldn't put in the decking, and we couldn't make him."
"You could have struck the job."
"Oh, well," Rothman shrugged. "I guess I made a mistake, Lou. I understood you to say that you-"
"You heard me right," I said. "And let's not kid each other. Conway cut corners to make money. You let him- to make money. I'm not saying you're at fault, but I don't reckon he was either. It was just one of those things."
"Well," Rothman hesitated, "that's a kind of funny attitude for you to take, Lou. It seems to me you're pretty impersonal about it. But since that's the way you feel, perhaps I'd better-"
"Perhaps I'd better," I said. "Let me do the talking and then you won't have to feel funny about it. There was a riveter up there with Mike at the time he took his dive. Working after hours. Working by himself. But it takes two men to rivet-one to run the gun and one on the bucking iron. You're going to tell me that he didn't have any rightful business there, but I think you're wrong. He didn't have to be riveting. He could have been gathering up tools or something like that."
"But you don't know the whole story, Lou! This man-"
"I know. The guy was an iron tramp, working on a permit. He blew into town without a dime. Three days after Mike's death he left in a new Chevy which he paid cash on the line for. That looks bad, but it doesn't really need to mean anything. He might have won the dough in a crap game or-"
"But you still don't know it all, Lou! Conway-"
"Let's see if I don't," I said. "Conway's company was the architect on that job as well as the contractor. And he hadn't allowed enough space for the boilers. To get 'em in, he was going to have to make certain alterations which he knew damned well Mike would never allow. It was either that or lose several hundred thousand dollars."
"Go on, Lou."
"So he took the loss. He hated it like hell, but he went ahead and did it."
Rothman laughed shortly. "He did, huh? I pushed iron on that job, myself, and-and-"
"Well." I gave him a puzzled look. "He did, didn't he? No matter what happened to Mike, your locals couldn't close their eyes to a dangerous situation like that. You're responsible. You can be sued. You could be tried for criminal collusion. You-"
"Lou." Rothman cleared his throat. "You're a hundred per cent right, Lou. Naturally we wouldn't stick our necks out for any amount of money."
"Sure," I smiled stupidly. "You just haven't thought this deal through, Joe. You've been getting along pretty good with Conway, and now he's taken a notion to go nonunion, and naturally you're kind of upset about it. I reckon if you thought there'd really been a murder you wouldn't have waited six years to speak up."
"Yeah, I mean certainly not. Certainly, I wouldn't." He began rolling another cigarette. "Uh, how did you find out all these things, Lou, if you don't mind telling me?"
"Well, you know how it is. Mike was a member of the family, and I get around a lot. Any talk that's going around, I'd naturally hear it."
"Mmmm. I didn't realize there'd been so much gossip. In fact, I didn't know there'd been any. And you never felt inclined to take any action?"
"Why should I?" I said. "It was just gossip. Conway's a big business man-just about the biggest contractor in West Texas. He wouldn't get mixed up in a murder any more'n you people would keep quiet about one."
Rothman gave me another sharp look, and then he looked down at his desk. "Lou," he said softly, "do you know how many days a year an ironworker works? Do you know what his life expectancy is? Did you ever see an old ironworker? Did you ever stop to figure that there's all kinds of ways of dying, but only one way of being dead?"
"Well, no. I reckon not," I said. "I guess I don't know what you're driving at, Joe."
"Let it go. It's not really relevant."
"I suppose the boys don't have it too easy," I said. "But here's the way I look at it, Joe. There's no law says they have to stick to one line of work. If they don't like it they can do something else."
"Yeah," he nodded, "that's right, isn't it? It's funny how it takes an outsider to see through these problems… If they don't like it let 'em do something else. That's good, that's very good."
"Aw," I said, "it wasn't anything much."
"I disagree. It's very enlightening. You really surprise me, Lou. I've been seeing you around town for years and frankly you hardly struck me as a deep thinker… Do you have any solution for our larger problems, the Negro situation for example?"
"Well, that's pretty simple," I said. "I'd just ship 'em all to Africa."
"Uh-huh. I see, I see," he said, and he stood up and held out his hand. "I'm sorry I troubled you for nothing, Lou, but I've certainly enjoyed our talk. I hope we can get together again sometime."
"That would be nice," I said.
"Meanwhile, of course, I haven't seen you. Understand?"
"Oh, sure," I said.
We talked for a minute or two more, and then we walked to the outside door together. He glanced at it sharply, then looked at me. "Say," he said. "Didn't I close that damned thing?"
"I thought you did," I said.
"Well, no harm done, I guess," he said. "Could I make a suggestion to you, Lou, in your own interests?"
'Why, sure you can, Joe. Anything at all."
"Save that bullshit for the birds."
He nodded, grinning at me; and for a minute you could have heard a pin drop. But he wasn't going to say anything. He wasn't ever going to let on. So, finally, I began to grin, too.
"I don't know the why of it, Lou-I don't know a thing, understand? Not a thing. But watch yourself. It's a good act but it's easy to overdo."
"You kind of asked for it, Joe," I said.
"And now you know why. And I'm not very bright or I wouldn't be a labor skate."
"Yeah," I said. "I see what you mean."
We shook hands again and he winked and bobbed his head. And I went down the dark hall and down the stairs.
4
After Dad died I'd thought about selling our house. I'd had several good offers for it, in fact, since it was right on the edge of the downtown business district; but somehow I couldn't let it go. The taxes were pretty high and there was ten times as much room as I needed, but I couldn't bring myself to sell. Something told me to hold on, to wait.
I drove down the alley to our garage. I drove in and shut off the lights. The garage had been a barn; it still was, for that matter; and I sat there in the doorway, sniffing the musty odors of old oats and hay and straw, dreaming back through the years. Mike and I had kept our ponies in those two front stalls, and back here in the box stall we'd had an outlaws' cave. We'd hung swings and acting bars from these rafters; and we'd made a swimming pool out of the horse trough. And up overhead in the loft, where the rats now scampered and scurried, Mike had found me with the little gi- A rat screamed suddenly on a high note.
I got out of the car and hurried out of the big sliding door of the barn, and into the backyard. I wondered if that was why I stayed here: To punish myself.
I went in the back door of the house and went through the house to the front, turning on all the lights, the downstairs lights I mean. Then I came back into the kitchen and made coffee and carried the pot up into Dad's old office. I sat in his big old leather chair, sipping coffee and smoking, and gradually the tension began to leave me.