Captains and The Kings (23 page)

pocket, found a fifty-cent piece and dropped it on the pile of newspapers, which all proclaimed the latest war news in huge black headlines. The little boy stared, stupefied, at the money, then at Joseph. Joseph went on, but he saw that the boy had pounced on the coin like a hungry magpie, and that he was holding it in cupped palms as surely no one had ever held the Host. Joseph looked up at the tall hills, and saw that they were appareled in the gold of early spring though yesterday they had been black and bleak and empty. Above them towered the dark purple clouds of the coming storm, and their gentle color was more intense for the contrast. Joseph could not understand why he felt a sudden and grieving yearning, a sudden and abysmal sadness, and why he thought of the little newsboy with sharper cognizance.; Mrs. Murray met him in the hall with hateful rebuke. "You are late," she said. "You have kept the gentlemen waiting." The clock chimed. Joseph was five minutes early.
Chapter 15
"Three hundred and one men you wish to keep from the draft," said the Important Personage. "That will be very costly, Ed. You will have to buy substitutes for them. The price is high. One hundred dollars apiece, at the very least. That is what they are asking now in New York. Some ask for as much as five hundred dollars and find five offers." He laughed. "I have heard that some millionaires are offering as much as five thousand dollars for a substitute for their sons! Yet you offer only twenty dollars. Come, Ed, you must be jesting." He sipped the excellent whiskey and looked at Mr. Healey with humor. "What are you saving it for? Neither wife nor children nor kin." "I was poor once," said Mr. Healey. "You were never that, and you don't know what it means. I do. I can understand why men offer their souls to the devil. You don't." They sat in Mr. Healey's library and the walls were bright gold in the stormy light. Windows were open and everything had come profoundly alive, filling the room with the scent of new grass, warming earth and steamy wind. There was a vase of hyacinths on Mr. Healey's long table, seeming to gleam with heliotrope radiance and pervading the air with perfume. "I think," said the Personage, admiring one of Mr. Healey's cigars which was held in his fingers, "that every man, if he could, and knew how, would sell his soul to the devil. That is why the devil is discreet. He'd have too many customers if he proclaimed that he was in the market for souls. Well, Ed, are you ready to put up the money?" "To you? Or to the substitutes?" "Now, now, Ed, no need to be uncivil." "You owe me a lot," said Mr. Healey. "I don't want to mention how much. That would be 'uncivil,' as you call it, and impolite. I helped you. You wasn't too smart in many ways. I didn't ask you to meet me here to discuss money for substitutes. I asked for your influence in Washington." The Personage inclined his head. "The price of my influence comes high, Ed. We have Mr. Lincoln to deal with and he abhors the reality of substitutes, though he has to accept it. The Army needs men. We've suffered great losses. Recruiting does not fill the ranks any longer. People are realizing now that war is no lark. Its price is blood and death. When you buy a substitute you buy the possibility of a man's life, and a life is all a man has. Call it a worthless life-it is still the man's life, and all he knows. Now, don't be huffy. It is true I have influence, as do others. But this is a dangerous and delicate business, Ed, and needs the aplomb of a thousand Philadelphia lawyers, not to mention their fee. If I should undertake this for you I would put myself into jeopardy. There are already disagreeable rumors about others in my position, and Mr. Lincoln is getting wrathy, to put it very mildly. If the ax falls-I don't want it to be my head, and I am sure you will understand." Mr. Healey looked at him with blunt rudeness. "How much do you want?" "Two hundred thousand dollars, in gold, not bills, not in notes, nor cheques." "You are daft," said Mr. Healey. His visitor shrugged fine brown broadcloth shoulders. "One hundred thousand." "For my whole career, if it is found out?" "For your whole career-which I could stop on a word." The visitor laughed gently. "You are not the only one who has a Bill Strickland, Ed." "But you have more to lose than I do. As you said, I have neither wife nor child." There was a sudden black chill in the library though the golden light increased in intensity against the walls. Then the visitor said in a soft voice, "Are you threatening me, Ed?" "I think we are threatening each other. Let's be sensible. I will make it one hundred thousand but not a penny more. Take it or leave it." The visitor frowned as if with pensive pain, as if musing on the infidelity of old and beloved friends who are hinting at betrayal. His face became sad. Mr. Healey smiled and refilled their glasses. The visitor sighed and said, "I will do what I can, Ed. I can't promise success-" "For one hundred thousand dollars any man would cut his wife's throat, turn traitor, become an assassin, blow up the White House. Anything. I don't pay for promises of doing one's 'best.' I've been robbed too many times by the 'best' a man can do. I pay on delivery. I will pay when all my men receive notice that a substitute has offered himself to the Army in his place, and that the substitute has been accepted. Is that clear?" "Ed, you have always made yourself eminently clear. You've never been obscure." "It is a bargain, then?" The visitor reflected, then with an air of indulgent surrender and deep brotherhood and affection, he reached across the table and shook hands with Mr. Healcy. "A bargain, though God knows what it will cost me." "You mean what it will cost me, I am thinking," said Mr. Healey. "What the hell. I wonder if my lads are worth it." "You've bought them, Ed," said the visitor. "They're yours." "Urn," said Mr. Healey, looking at his friend with sharp dark eyes. "I've learned one thing, that I have. When you buy a politician he doesn't stay bought. You have to keep on buying him." The visitor laughed. "But it's worth it, isn't it? Three hundred and one men; you'd have a hard time replacing them in these degenerate days. There's hardly a man you can trust." "It's not you that should be telling me," said Mr. Healey with a significant glance which made his visitor laugh, a rich unctuous laugh like flowing treacle. Then Mr. Healey nodded at the thin sheaf of delicate paper near his elbow. There were fine inked drawings on the papers, intricate, numbered, explained in careful printing. Mr. Healey examined them, and the patent numbers, turning them over slowly. "Yet, there is one. Yes, I do believe there is one. Thank you for the copy. Must've been a sight of work, getting them from the Patent Office." The visitor laughed again, cynically. "Well, we'll see. You aren't getting maudlin, are you, Ed?" "There's a great trouble with you, sir. You think everyone is like yourself." Mr. Healey smiled without illusion at his visitor. Then he turned his large rosy head. "I think the boyo is here now. Not that you can change my opinion, but I'd like yours, honest if it isn't too much to ask." There was a knock on the door and Mr. Healey bellowed genially, "Come in, come in!" He shifted his great bulk on his chair. The door opened and Joseph stood on the threshold and he saw the visitor, after his first glance of greeting at Mr. Healey and the first inclination of his head. Mr. Healey saw no overt change in Joseph, no sudden tensing, no change of color. He had not expected these in any event, but intuitive as he was, perceptive as he was, he felt a change, sudden and even drastic, in Joseph, as if he had received an enormous shock. Mr. Healey's little eyes widened in surprise and he was intrigued and interested. As for his visitor he merely looked with aloof and very faint speculation at the young man. Mr. Healey saw this, and an instant later his guest was slowly sitting up in his chair and was regarding Joseph acutely, and slightly frowning. Mr. Healey said, "This here's my right hand, Tom, Joe Francis Xavier I call him. Joe, be on your mark: This gentleman is our esteemed senator, Tom Hennessey, come to visit his old friend." Joseph did not stir or even appear to breathe for a moment or two. He did not look away from the senator. Then, stiffly, as if he had become wood, he bowed a little and murmured a respectful greeting, to which the senator replied with a gracious inclination of his head and a winning smile. But now the expression on his large and sensual face was puzzled. He said in his fruitiest tones, "Happy to meet you, Mr. Francis. I have heard very flattering remarks about you from our dear friend, Mr. Healey." "What're you standing there for, like a ninny, a gowp?" said Mr. Healey, becoming more and more intrigued. He looked from one man to the other. "Here's a chair, Joe. We're just having a little talk. Here's the glass waiting for you." He poured whiskey into the glass. Joseph moved to the chair and sat down. He appeared brittle, and the senator thought with surprise, Well, he has distinction at any rate, and doesn't look like a fool. But I have seen him somewhere before. I am certain of that. Joseph lifted the glass and sipped at the whiskey and Mr. Healey watched him with affection and the senator with growing sureness. This Joe was trying to avert his face, not openly, not obviously, but the senator, wise in the ways of men like a whore, saw the slight averting. Now, a man who tried to hide himself was an interesting person to the senator. Young, yes, but the senator had known clever and dangerous men who had been young in years but old in evil and trickery. He had certainly met this Joe before; he needed only to hear his voice and the senator smiled viciously in himself because Joseph had not yet openly spoken. Had old Ed been made a victim at last, and by one so much younger? The senator leaned his still handsome body back in his chair, with easy negligence, and he smiled at Joseph with all his captivating charm. "Mr. Francis," he said, and his voice was as soft and lulling as down, "haven't we met before? I never forget a face." Joseph lifted his head and faced the senator for there was nothing else to do. "No, sir," he replied. "We have never met." His eyes met the senator's straightly. The senator's ears were keener even than his eyes and he said to himself, I've heard that voice, not recently, but I have heard it. It is an Irish voice, and there is the Irish accent like my father's, and it is a strong voice and I have an impression of trees. But where, when? Now, then, this is very interesting, thought Mr. Healey and watched with acute attention. "Were you ever in Winfield, Mr. Francis?" asked the senator, leaning forward now so as not to miss the slightest change of expression on Joseph's face, the slightest hesitation in his voice. "Winfield?" said Joseph. He wondered if the savage bounding of his heart was audible in this room. His whole body felt numb and cold and prickling. He's afraid, thought the senator. But a hard-nosed Irisher who wouldn't flinch if a Sassenagh thrust a red-hot poker up his ass-that he is.
He's like my father, who would take on ten men in a saloon in a fight and never even notice if he had a broken leg or a bashed nose. So would this one, though he's lean as a starved dog-like my Dada. "Ain't Winfield near Pittsburgh?" Mr. Healey asked Joseph, who turned to him as if he were afraid that he would break if he moved rapidly. "I think so, Mr. Healey." You damned well know so, thought the senator, and his loving politician's smile did not harden. Joseph looked at the senator, at the florid face, the long Irish lip, the heavy nose, the narrow light eyes, and the waving and flowing brown hair and sideburns. Everything about him was too large, except for the eyes, too studied, too embellished, and the mouth had known too many women and the heaviness of his jowl testified to too much dining, too much wine and whiskey and brandy, and he was still as Joseph remembered him-potent and cruel and totally without any benevolence. He made the dangerousness of Mr. Healey appear as minor as the mischief of a young boy, as insignificant as a thumbed nose and a childish threat. For behind him was the power of manifest government and Joseph knew that such power was the greatest thing a man has to fear, for all it was concealed by an air of candid kindness and gentlemanly interest, and friendly ease. Now Joseph's fear was overwhelmed with disgust as he remembered that this man had desired to become the adoptive father of little Regina, and the senator saw the sudden tightening of the young man's features and saw that the fear had left his eyes. He saw challenge there, not the challenge of youth, but the challenge of a peculiar integrity. He had seen that challenge before in one or two men's eyes, and he had set out with smiling mercilessness to destroy those men. They were a menace to such as Tom Hennessey even if they had made no gesture of attack. Yet the senator recognized something in the young man which was growing more and more obvious: His resemblance to Old Tom, his father, the one man whom the senator had loved and respected and honored. Old Tom had not had this ambiguous integrity, this elusive probity, but he had had this pride, this staunchness, this refusal to cower, to retreat, to turn and run, to placate, even in the face of danger. That Joseph had recognized him not only as dangerous to others but dangerous to himself, the senator had understood almost at once. Now, how could I be dangerous to a fellow like this? thought the senator. Recognition of him? Exposure of him? He can't be much over twenty, and I think that it must be several years since I first saw him. "You were born in Ireland, I believe, Mr. Francis?" said the senator. "Yes, sir." The voice was stronger than before, and the challenge was there also. "In Carney." The senator quickened. "Carney? My father spoke of it once or twice. County Armagh." It was Mr. Healey's turn to quicken, and he stared at Joseph openly. The dread was on Joseph again, and he felt hatred for himself that he had been so indiscreet. But he said with quietness, "Armagh. Yes." The senator gazed at him, musing. Armagh. Where had he heard that as a personal name before? He would remember soon; he always remembered. He would remember where he had seen Joseph before, too. Their eyes did not move from each other and Mr. Healey watched. Then he was surprised. The senator was a mountebank and could assume any expression at will, all of them lying, and hypocritical, as needed for the occasion. But the expression now on the senator's face was unguarded and, for the first time, honest, and Mr. Healey recognized this astutely. It was as if he were remembering someone for whom he had had some genuine affection, some close emotion, some unforgotten fondness. Then, as if conscious of his own self-revealment, the senator's face almost immediately changed and became false again. Joseph rose and turned to Mr. Healey. "If you will excuse me, Mr. Healey, before supper? I must wash and change." Then he half-turned to the senator and bowed in his direction and said, "I am happy to make your acquaintance, sir." I bet you are, thought the senator, but without contempt and even with humor. I don't think you are a thief or a scoundrel, now, nor hiding from the law. But you are hiding, my lad, and I will know why, and from what and from whom. He inclined his own head graciously. "And I am happy to make your acquaintance too, Mr. Francis." They watched Joseph leave the room and shut the door behind him. "Now," said Mr. Healey, "what was all that?" "I could swear I've seen him before, and heard his voice, Ed. But I can't remember." "We don't get younger, Tom." The senator gave him an unfriendly look. "I'm not senile yet, Ed. Yes, I've seen him before. I'll probably remember." "You don't think he can be trusted? I want your opinion, Tom." "You mean you want my corroboration. Very well. He won't knife you in the back. I've-known-one or two, one at least, like that. He won't sell you out, Ed. But he's his own man. He'll never be anyone else's. When the time comes for him to move, he'll move, but he'll give you warning." Mr. Healey's own face became as florid as the senator's with pleasure and satisfaction. "That I always knew, always believed." He looked at the thin fine papers on his table and nodded his head. "But we'll see, soon. Can't always trust your own judgment." He said to the senator, "I don't want you to think I've been hard on you,