Clay Hand (7 page)

Two little spots of color rose in her cheeks. “Spare me your moralizing, Phil. This is quite enough of an ordeal without it.”

“Forgive me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She got up and took her coat from a hanger behind the door. “You do want to hurt me. You think I’m responsible in some way for Dick’s death. Be honest with yourself at least, Phil. Now will you drive me out to where he was killed?”

He held her coat for her, and followed her down the stairs. Mrs. Krancow smiled sympathetically when Margaret told her where they were going. “You mustn’t dwell on it, Mrs. Coffee. There’s some things we aren’t meant to understand. Like Father Joyce said just last Sunday: ‘If man was to understand all the ways of God, God would be hard put to understand the ways of man.’ That’s a lovely thought. Isn’t it?”

“Lovely,” Phil repeated.

“Lord, what a desolate place to die,” Margaret said, as they drove through the town. “Look at those houses.”

“Or to live,” he added.

“Have you found a place to stay?”

“Mrs. O’Grady has taken me in,” he said, repeating the phrase from Dick’s notes.

“What’s she like?”

“A ferocious old parrot. Or maybe an eagle. Fields called her that. She was very fond of Dick.”

“Old people always were. Old people and children.”

They crossed the railroad tracks, and Phil pointed out the cliff.

“Drive close to it,” Margaret said.

He drove past the Clauson house, set far back from the road.

“Was it the people who live there found him?” she asked.

“No. A youngster from town.”

“They didn’t hear anything that might have been associated with his death?”

“I don’t know, Margaret. The girl lives there with her husband and father.”

“Oh. Naturally they wouldn’t have heard anything then.”

It was an unwarranted conclusion, but he was not going to argue the point with her. He pulled off the road before the face of the cliff. “I think this is close enough. He fell from the highest point there. Can we go back now?”

“Wait, Phil.”

Among the slag heaps several goats were grazing on the frozen moss and dead grass. Even as Phil and Margaret watched them, a tall, gangling woman came from behind one of the heaps near them and looked at the car. It was not possible to see the detail of her face, but from the distance they could discern enormous eyes in an extraordinarily long and somber face. She turned quickly, seeing them, and herded the animals to the end of the valley and up the far slope out of sight.

“Phil, is that the woman?”

“I think it is.”

Margaret’s face became contorted; into tears or laughter he could not tell for a moment. Then it was laughter, unmistakably, a laughter she could not control. He put his arm around her and drew her close to him. She stopped abruptly and looked up at him, her face so close that their breath mingled. He kissed her on the mouth for the first time.

T
HEY DROVE BACK TO
the town silently, the road before them and behind them empty. He went to the door of Krancow’s with her. “Forgive me, Margaret.”

“Skip it.” She started into the house. “Don’t leave me alone on account of it, Phil. I don’t need you any the less now than I did before.”

“You’ll be all right. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He left the car where it was, and walked the block to McNamara’s. It was a hell of a time to get involved in a feeling of guilt himself. But there it was: he couldn’t think of Dick Coffee, dead or alive, when Margaret entered into it. “How is a widow supposed to behave?” He could hear himself saying the words. The sweat broke out on him with the thought.

Randy Nichols was at the bar alone with McNamara. They nodded to him as he came in, but continued their conversation. It was McNamara talking: “‘Whee, look at me,’ everybody’s saying. ‘I’m going to hell on a bicycle.’”

Nichols interrupted him. “Listen to this, McGovern. It’s Coffee talking with a mine inspector here one night. Go on, Mac.”

“‘Then why don’t you get off, you damn fool?’ … ‘I can’t. Nobody showed me how’ … ‘How did you get on then?’ … ‘I was just sitting, getting the feel of it and somebody gave me a push.’” McNamara leaned across the bar. “They were both on the leeward side of sobriety by then, and the inspector gives him a poke in the ribs. ‘Wouldn’t you like to get hold of the bastard giving him the push?’ he says. ‘Hell, no,’ says Coffee. ‘The guy I’d like to get is the little one riding the bicycle, the one doesn’t take himself seriously, the one doesn’t know his own worth, and the world depending on it.’”

“There,” Nichols said as the barkeep straightened up. “Doesn’t that sound more like the man you knew, McGovern? They were talking about the state inspector at Naperville: a good man, incorruptible. He reported every safety violation, nearly got himself fired for refusing to go along on state election-fund-raising from the operators. But the explosion occurred all the same. Coffee said he felt cleansed, confessed, having written his report. He didn’t know his own strength, his own worth.”

“I read the article,” Phil said. He ordered a drink. He remembered then Dick’s notes which the sheriff had shown him. Dick had intended to do no writing while there. Why? Out of this same reasoning—that setting it down on paper might dull his conscience? Phil found it all too subtle for the confusion now upon him. He emptied the glass as soon as McNamara set it before him, and shoved it across the bar for a refill.

“If you’re going in for that kind of drinking,” Nichols said, “save some of the capacity for the other side of town. That’s where Coffee and Clauson went from here Friday night. I’ve an ulcer, myself, but I’d like to go in the company of a drinking man, at least.”

“Okay,” Phil said. “Let’s go.”

He finished his drink and laid fifty cents on the bar. Nichols took his overcoat from the piano stool where he had dumped it. “See you later, Mac.”

The barkeep nodded, and set the bottle on the backbar.

“Do you know that guy’s story?” Nichols said while they were walking, “He was in the I.R.A. in the old country. Escaped over here after Easter Week, and then went back. He still had a price on his head. Somebody informed on him, and the whole family he was staying with was massacred. He ran down the informer himself and shot him, then got out of the country…. Now what I want to know is how a guy like that winds up in Winston, running a pub.”

“I’m not going to say he was lucky,” Phil said.

“Furthermore, he has a soft spot in his heart for Mrs. O’Grady. That’s where Coffee stayed, isn’t it?”

“It is. I’m staying there now.”

“Do you know where I’ve found a room? In the loft over the fire station. Wait till I put that in on the expense sheet.” Nichols rambled on. “The constable’s rounding up a jury for the coroner’s inquest in the morning, by the way. They’re going to make a real show of it, by all the signs. The coroner collared me a few minutes ago. He as much as told me to keep my nose clean. And when somebody says that to me, I’ve got a damn good notion to stick it where they don’t want it. All right, McGovern, what’s eating you?”

Phil was scarcely listening, but the last words broke through his thinking. “I don’t know. Kind of knocked out, I guess. The shock and all.”

“Lady Bountiful’s got her claws in you.”

Phil looked at him.

“Yes, I mean the one in mourning up to two inches below the knee. And that isn’t dirty, on my part at least. I’m referring to style, manners and decorum. Is there anything in Emily Post about how to act at your husband’s funeral? If there isn’t, she can ghost that chapter for her.”

“What the devil’s gotten into you, Randy?”

Nichols puffed out his cheeks and then burst his breath into the frosty air. “Then you are in love with her. I suspected that first thing this morning.”

Was he? In all honesty, Phil could not answer that himself. He said as much to Nichols.

“All right. I’m going to say something I’ve said before, kidding. I mean it now. A woman’s most dangerous when she seems the most helpless. Call that cynical, but like all cynicisms, there’s a strong element of truth in it.”

“For the person expounding it, at least,” Phil said. “Look, Randy. I don’t want to talk about Margaret. That’s my problem. What else have you picked up about Dick?”

“Not much. More about the Clausons—that magician and his daughter. The townspeople hold them in very low affection.”

“Why?”

“They’re different. That’s all. See this section of town—the names? There’s a bill of fare there on the restaurant—goulash. We’re in Slav Town. Have you any notion what these people went through when they migrated to Winston? The old priest that used to be here threatened half his parish with excommunication because they wouldn’t attend the same services with the Slavs. Bread and butter, McGovern. When it’s threatened, look out. The lambs eat the goats.”

“What kind of security do the Clausons threaten?”

“I don’t know. But it’s one of the things I want to find out. If Coffee was working on a social problem here, I’ll wager he wanted to find it out, too.”

“Possible,” Phil said.

“Mind, I’m not saying he was working on a social problem. From what I’ve heard, I’d say he was his own problem…. And here we are at the Sunnyside.”

They stopped a moment and looked at the dust-clad building. “Aptly named,” Nichols said. “It reminds me of an old watchman at the
Tribune.
He didn’t know night from day except that he could read the racing form by one of them. They called him ‘
Sunny
.’”

The Sunnyside had a family entrance. There was a restaurant at the back of the tavern, and the smell of onions all through it. It was deserted when they entered, the oilclothed tables like so many mushrooms at the rear of the room. On the backbar mirror, the words ACCORDIONIST SATURDAY NIGHT were waxed. “We must remember that,” Nichols said. Where the piano stood at McNamara’s there was a juke box here. When no one came, Nichols took a nickel from his pocket and went over to it. He got a flying polka. “I’ll bet if I played it blindfold, I’d get the same thing.”

A man came from the kitchen, wiping his hands on an apron, at the sound of the music. “Yes, gentlemen? That sounds too bad, don’t it? Do you mind if I turn it down?”

“Turn it off. We just wanted to get your attention.”

The proprietor disconnected the machine. “It’s so peaceful in the afternoon. What can I do for you?”

“I’d like milk,” Nichols said. “Whiskey, McGovern?”

“Make it two milks if you don’t mind.”

“Why should I mind?” If they had ordered a Stump-lifter, which was also advertised on the bar mirror, the proprietor could not have been more pleasant. “I will get it from the kitchen. I don’t have ice here.”

They watched him amble to the rear of the building, drawing his finger along a table, looking at it, and wiping the dust on his apron. He seemed very tired, but it was probably the way about him all the time.

“I wonder what’s wrong with him,” Nichols said. “Most tradespeople here have been in the mines at one time or another, and had to leave them. I suspect in the long run there’s more money to be made in them than there is in business.”

“Not to hear the women talking up at Lavery’s this morning,” Phil said.

“Maybe. I guess one hand washes the other. There’s only one of the three collieries in the town digging now, I understand. The population’s been dropping off here, too. During the war it was about twice what it is now. The new migration. Where do they go from here?”

Phil shrugged.

The tavern-keeper returned with the milk. “Fresh,” he said. “You are strangers in Winston?”

“Good milk,” Nichols said. “Yes. We’re friends of Dick Coffee, the man who…”

“I know the man. I did know him, that is. You are here for the inquest?”

Nichols nodded.

“I have just been told to appear at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. The sheriff. It disturbs me. I do not like to be called on by the sheriff.”

“Routine questioning probably,” Nichols said.

The man shook his head. “I maybe shouldn’t have served him liquor that night. It’s hard not to serve when people are friendly. I am a friendly man. My wife is friendly. We like people who laugh to come here. We like it, the way our children like to play.” He motioned with his hands to illustrate the naturalness of it.

“They were on good terms then, the old man and Coffee?”

“They were very congenial.”

“I wonder why McNamara kicked them out then,” Nichols said to lead him on.

“My friend, this town is full of superstitions. The Irish, you know, are very superstitious people. Then there is the Number Three Colliery. Most of our people work in Number Two. Number Three is very old. There are people in town whose grandfathers worked in it. They feel it…” he fumbled for the words, “…it has life.”

“But Clauson,” Nichols persisted, “he’s never had anything to do with the mines?”

“No. But he is a magician. Maybe they think they have caught him in a trick.” The man spread his hands on the bar, the cleanest hands Phil had seen in Winston. “My friend, people do not seem to care if they are tricked a hundred times a day, if once in a while they can catch someone in a trick. Maybe it’s human nature. Maybe they think they have caught him in a trick…. I talk too much.”

“You talk sense,” Phil said then. “What kind of a mood was Coffee in Friday night? Did you know him before then?”

“He was in a couple of times before that. A nice man. A little sad, maybe, but nice. Friday night, he was…” again he fumbled for the words. He made a gesture with both hands indicating high spirits. “He was trying to convince Mr. Clauson his daughter was the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Quite a trick, from what I’ve heard,” Nichols said.

“Not with a father, my friend. He agreed with him, but seemed to disagree—just to lead him on.”

“And this is the testimony you’ll be called on to give tomorrow morning,” Phil said.

“I will be asked to tell what I have heard, and I will tell it. But I don’t like it.”

I
N THE LATE AFTERNOON
, Phil drove back to Mrs. O’Grady’s with his luggage. Two men, obviously coal miners, were washing in the back kitchen, stripped to the waist. They neither looked at him nor spoke as he went through to the kitchen. There, the widow was clattering the lids of pots, and the pots themselves, on the range. She liked noise, Phil thought. In a way it was a symbol of activity, and the symbol was as close as she came to it. She put a big spoon into the girl Anna’s hand when she saw him, and bade her baste the meat until she returned.