All That I Have (20 page)

“No, I’m not. Neither is Lyle. He’s running in the fall.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Clemmie.

“Why not? Lyle’s a good officer. He’s been with the department, I don’t know, five, six years. He’s a hard worker. He’s got this new commendation. He’ll make it look like I ain’t up to the job anymore. He believes it, too. He’ll make others believe it. I don’t know. Maybe he’s right.”

“Right?” said Clemmie. “Lyle Keen? My Lord, Lyle Keen’s not a third the man you are. He wouldn’t be a third the sheriff you are.”

Whoa. What had Clemmie been smoking? It must have been good stuff to make her talk like that. I’d been looking at her back for the best part of a week. I decided I’d fly one close in front of her stand, see what she did.

“He’ll say I’m soft on evildoers,” I said. “Like Sean.”

Clemmie looked at me. “Sean?” she said.

“He’ll say I let Sean get away.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Different reasons.”

“What reasons?” Clemmie was looking right into my eyes. It made me think how she didn’t do that very often.

“We need to talk, don’t we?” I said.

“I should say we do,” said Clemmie. “I hope he doesn’t think he can just announce he’s replacing you, not after all the years you’ve put in. We have to fight this. We need a plan. We need a campaign. I’m going to call Daddy. He knows about this kind of thing.”

Clemmie bounced to her feet and took off for the telephone. She left me looking at where she’d been, wondering what had happened to the one I’d flown by her. Had she shot it down? Had she missed it? Had she never seen it? I didn’t know.

I did know that by bedtime that night, I had two things I’d never had before — an opponent and a campaign manager — and a third thing I’d had, but not for a while: a wife who was looking at me.

And I didn’t sleep on the couch, either.

19

A STUDENT OF HUMAN NATURE

There was another Russian now, a new one. You had to say that for them: they had depth on the bench. And each of them more important than the one before. With the Russians, it looked like the higher you went, the higher you got. But this new one was as far as I was going. If this one had a boss, I wouldn’t be meeting him.

I drove up to their house on the mountain with their strongbox in the bed of the truck. I got there about sundown, the sky in the west flaring and flaming like a burning city on the Gilead hills.

The Mercedes was at the door, and as I parked behind it the Russians’ big driver got out and came to meet me. He beckoned me to get out of the truck. When I did, he patted me down and nodded toward the door. Then he went around to the rear of the truck, picked up the strongbox as though it were a loaf of bread, and followed me into the house.

In the office or study where we’d met before, the Russian with the slicked-down hair, the Russian who’d never said a word, the Russian Tracy called Mr. Smith, was waiting. He was standing beside the desk. The new Russian was sitting behind the desk. When I came in he got up and went over to the window. He was a tiny old fellow, not much more than five feet high, with a dark brown, wrinkled face that looked like a windfall apple the deer have missed and you find in the long grass under the tree the next spring. He stood and looked out the window at the sunset. Then he turned and came back to the desk.

Mr. Smith nodded toward the desk, and the driver set the strong-box down on it. He stepped back and stood with his hands clasped in front of him. Mr. Smith, the little fellow, the driver, and I stood there and looked at the box on the desk. The numbers weren’t in my favor, were they? Three Russians, one the size of a tree, and myself. They had me if they wanted me, it looked like; but at least they were wearing all their clothes.

Mr. Smith said something to the driver in Russian, and the driver said something back. Then Smith nodded again, and the driver left the room. Smith turned to me.

“Please, sit down, Sheriff,” he said.

I didn’t. I said, “Where’s Tracy?”

“Mr. Tracy is no longer in our employ.”

“Who’s he?” I asked, meaning the little fellow.

“He is our director,” said Mr. Smith.

“Who are you?”

“I am the translator.”

Mr. Smith talked like a professor, and he had an accent, but it was more like an Englishman’s accent than what you think a Russian’s would be:
trahns-LAY-tor, die-rec-tor.

“What’s his name?” I asked Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith spoke to the little brown man, who said something in return.

“The director says you ask a good many questions,” said Mr. Smith, “for a man in your position.”

“What is my position?”

Mr. Smith passed that on to the director. The director shrugged his shoulders. He had the damndest outfit on: a one-piece suit that zipped up the front, like a mechanic’s monkey suit, but made of some soft, tan, fuzzy stuff. He looked like a pimp on his day off. He said something to Mr. Smith.

“He says you are not armed. Why are you not armed?”

“If I’d brought a gun, you would have taken it away from me,” I said. “What would that have proved?”

Mr. Smith translated that for the director, who smiled and nodded and came to the desk, where he sat in the desk chair. It was a big chair; I doubt his feet reached the floor. He had the strongbox at his right elbow. He said something to Mr. Smith. Smith took hold of the strongbox, turned it on the desk so it faced the director, and stepped back. The director took a key out of a pocket in his suit and unlocked the box. He opened it. He looked at me. Then he looked into the box. He took something out of the box; I couldn’t see what it was. He looked at it, looked at me again, nodded, shut the box, locked it. Then he laid his hand on the top of the box and said something to Mr. Smith.

“The director asks, do you know who stole this?” Mr. Smith said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Who?”

“A kid. A boy.”

Mr. Smith translated. The director answered him.

“Why?” Smith asked me.

“He thought there was money in it.”

Mr. Smith translated. The director didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he asked Mr. Smith another question.

“The director asks, do you know this boy?” Smith asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“No.”

“But he is here? He is in this district?”

“No.”

Now the director spoke to Mr. Smith for a longer time.

“The director says if the boy broke in here and stole this safe, then he is a criminal.”

“That’s right, too,” I said.

“You are an officer of the law. You know this criminal. The director wants to know why have you not arrested this criminal. Is he your son?”

“I don’t have a son.”

“Is he the son of your brother?”

“I don’t have a brother.”

Mr. Smith translated that for the little director, who asked a question back.

“Why protect him, then, this boy, this criminal?” Mr. Smith asked me.

“Because that’s the way I work.”

Mr. Smith translated that for the director. The director looked at me. He raised his eyebrows. He spoke to Mr. Smith.

“That is the way you work?” said Mr. Smith. “The director asks why you work that way.”

“That’s how I was taught.”

“The director asks who taught you.”

“Nobody you’d know.”

“The director asks,” said Mr. Smith.

“I don’t guess that’s the director’s business,” I said.

“The director decides that,” said Mr. Smith.

“No, he don’t,” I said. “You’ve got what you wanted. You’ve got your box. What do you care who took it or what happens to him?”

“We do not care,” said Mr. Smith. “The director is curious, however. The director is a student of human nature.”

“I bet he is,” I said.

The director was talking again. He said something to Mr. Smith. Then he pointed to the strongbox with his forefinger, his thumb raised, and went,
“Poum, poum.”

“The director says the thief seems to have shot at the safe,” said Mr. Smith.

“He seems to have.”

“Why did he do that?”

“He thought he could shoot it open,” I said.

Mr. Smith translated. The director answered.

“Why did he think that?” Mr. Smith asked me.

“He saw somebody do it on TV.”

Mr. Smith told that to the director. The director laughed. He shook his head. He spoke to Mr. Smith.

“The director says this boy is a fool,” said Mr. Smith.

“He is.”

“He is a fool, as well as a criminal.”

“Right, again,” I said.

“The director says he is lucky,” said Mr. Smith. “He is lucky he could not open the safe. He is lucky to be a fool.”

I nodded.

“The director says if this boy had opened our safe, he would not be a fool any longer,” said Mr. Smith.

“I know it,” I said.

“He would have been educated by now,” said Mr. Smith.

“I know it.”

The director pointed to the strongbox and went
“Poum, poum”
again, laughing. He was having a fine time. He said something to Mr. Smith.

“The director says God loves a fool,” said Mr. Smith.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” I said.

The director was talking again. “The director wants to know, what is your office?” Mr. Smith said. “Are you the chief of police?”

“I’m the sheriff,” I said. Smith translated that for the director, who asked another question.

“Sheriff of what?” Smith asked me. “The town?”

“County sheriff,” I said. “Seventeen towns.”

Smith told the director that. The director laughed. He pointed out the window and said something to Mr. Smith. Smith laughed, too. He turned to me.

“The director says you are the sheriff of seventeen towns with no people in them,” he said.

I looked at him. The director went on.

“He says it must be easy being sheriff of seventeen towns where there are no people, and where if there were and any of them misbehaved, you would not arrest them because that is the way you work,” said Mr. Smith. “It is easy, is it not?”

“Sometimes it is. Sometimes it ain’t.”

The director said something else to Mr. Smith.

“The director says he would enjoy being sheriff here,” said Mr. Smith. “How does one get the job?”

“One’s elected,” I said.

“The director asks, how it would be if he ran for election to be the sheriff? Would he get any votes?”

“Sure, he would,” I said. Mr. Smith translated for the director.

The director had quite a bit to say to that. When he had finished, “The director doubts it,” said Mr. Smith. “He says he doubts he could get more votes than you. The director says you’re a very good sheriff.”

I waited.

“You’re a good sheriff because you don’t do anything,” said Mr. Smith.

The director laughed again. He got to his feet. He said something to Mr. Smith that Smith didn’t translate. Then he walked out of the room. From the rear, in his suit, he looked like a little brown bunny rabbit.

“You are free to go, Sheriff,” said Mr. Smith.

“I ain’t done,” I said.

“Yes?”

“You got your box,” I said. “Now you and the little fellow and the driver and the whole lot of you — you get out of of my county. Get out of my county, get out of my state. Find someplace else. I don’t want to see you, or hear about you being around here again, ever.”

“But, Sheriff,” said Mr. Smith. “We have a valuable property, here.”

“Sell it.”

“You misunderstand us, Sheriff,” said Mr. Smith. “We are the injured party here, after all. It is we who were robbed. All we want in your district is a quiet life in the country. That is all. The director, as you will have observed, is not young. He loves it here. It reminds him of the country where he grew up. The hills. The forests. The little villages, little churches. So charming.”

“Real charming,” I said.

“We admire it. We appreciate it. You see, Sheriff? You do not understand us.”

“I ain’t a student of human nature.”

“We are not bad people, Sheriff.”

“The hell you ain’t,” I said.

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