“About that mouse? Huh! You think anyone is going to care that I stepped on a condemned murderer’s pet mouse? Outside of this looneybin, that is?”
“No. But three men saw you just standing there with your thumb up your ass while Wild Bill Wharton was trying to strangle Dean Stanton with his wrist-chains. About that people will care, Percy, I promise you. About that even your offsides uncle the governor is going to care.”
Percy’s cheeks and brow flushed a patchy red. “You think they’d believe you?” he asked, but his voice had lost a lot of its angry force. Clearly he thought someone might believe us. And Percy didn’t like being in trouble. Breaking the rules was okay. Getting caught breaking them was not.
“Well, I’ve got some photos of Dean’s neck before the bruising went down,” Brutal said – I had no idea if this was true or not, but it certainly sounded good. “You know what those pix say? That Wharton got a pretty good shot at it before anyone pulled him off, although you were right there, and on Wharton’s blind side. You’d have some hard questions to answer, wouldn’t you? And a thing like that could follow a man for quite a spell. Chances are it’d still be there long after his relatives were out of the state capital and back home drinking mint juleps on the front porch. A man’s work-record can be a mighty interesting thing, and a lot of people get a chance to look at it over the course of a lifetime.”
Percy’s eyes flicked back and forth mistrustfully between us. His left hand went to his hair and smoothed it. He said nothing, but I thought we almost had him.
“Come on, let’s quit this,” I said. “You don’t want to be here any more than we want you here, isn’t that so?”
“I hate it here!” he burst out. “I hate the way you treat me, the way you never gave me a chance!”
That last was far from true, but I judged this wasn’t the time to argue the matter.
“But I don’t like to be pushed around, either. My Daddy taught me that once you start down that road you most likely end up letting people push you around your whole life.” His eyes, not as pretty as his hands but almost, flashed. “I especially don’t like being pushed around by big apes like this guy.” He glanced at my old friend and grunted. “Brutal – you got the right nickname, at least.”
“You have to understand something, Percy,” I said. “The way we look at it, you’ve been pushing us around. We keep telling you the way we do things around here and you keep doing things your own way, then hiding behind your political connections when things turn out wrong. Stepping on Delacroix’s mouse—” Brutal caught my eye and I backtracked in a hurry. “Trying to step on Delacroix’s mouse is just a case in point. You push and push and push; we’re finally pushing back, that’s all. But listen, if you do right, you’ll come out of this looking good – like a young man on his way up – and smelling like a rose. Nobody’ll ever know about this little talk we’re having. So what do you say? Act like a grownup.
Promise you’ll leave after Del.”
He thought it over. And after a moment or two, a look came into his eyes, the sort of look a fellow gets
when he’s just had a good idea. I didn’t like it much, because any idea which seemed good to Percy wouldn’t seem good to us.
“If nothing else,” Brutal said, “just think how nice it’d be to get away from that sack of pus Wharton.”
Percy nodded, and I let him get out of the chair. He straightened his uniform shirt, tucked it in at the back, gave his hair a pass-through with his comb. Then he looked at us. “Okay, I agree. I’m out front for Del tomorrow night; I’ll put in for Briar Ridge the very next day. We call it quits right there. Good enough?” “Good enough,” I said. That look was still in his eyes, but right then I was too relieved to care.