“You’ll have to say good-by to her for me and to Mom too. I’m leaving on the four-thirty.”
Madvig raised blue eyes clouded by anguish. “You’re right, of course, Ned,” he said huskily, “but–well–Christ knows you’re right!” He looked down at his shoes again.
Ned Beaumont asked: “What are you going to do with your not quite faithful henchmen? Kick them back in line? Or have they kicked themselves back?”
“Farr and the rest of those rats?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m going to teach them something.” Madvig spoke with determination, but there was no enthusiasm in his voice and he did not look up from his shoes. “It’ll cost me four years, but I can use those four years cleaning house and putting together an organization that will stay put.”
Ned Beaumont raised his eyebrows. “Going to knife them at the polls?”
“Knife them, hell, dynamite them! Shad’s dead. I’m going to let his crew run things for the next four years. There’s none of them that can build anything solid enough for me to worry about. I’ll get the city back next time and by then I’ll have done my housecleaning.”
“You could win now,” Ned Beaumont said.
“Sure, but I don’t want to win with those bastards.”
Ned Beaumont nodded. “It takes patience and guts, but it’s the best was’ to play it, I reckon.”
“They’re all I’ve got,” Madvig said miserably. “I’ll never have any brains.” He shifted the focus of his eyes from his feet to the fireplace. “Have you got to go, Ned?” he asked almost inaudibly.
“Got to.”
Madvig cleared his throat violently. “I don’t want to be a Goddamned fool,” he said, “but I’d like to think that whether you went or stayed you weren’t holding anything against me, Ned.”
“I’m not holding anything against you, Paul.”
Madvig raised his head quickly. “Shake hands with me?”
“Certainly.”
Madvig jumped up. His hand caught Ned Beaumont’s, crushed it. “Don’t go, Ned. Stick it out with me. Christ knows I need you now. Even if I didn’t–I’ll do my damndest to make up for all that.”
Ned Beaumont shook his head. “You haven’t got anything to make up for with me.”
“And you’ll–?”
Ned Beaumont shook his head again. “I can’t. I’ve got to go.”
Madvig released the other’s hand and sat down again, morosely, saying: “Well, it serves me right.”
Ned Beaumont made an impatient gesture. “That’s got nothing to do with it.” He stopped and bit his lip. Then he said bluntly: “Janet’s here.”
Madvig stared at him.
Janet Henry opened the bedroom-door and came into the livingroom. Her face was pale and drawn, but she held it high. She went straight up to Paul Madvig and said: “I’ve done you a lot of harm, Paul. I’ve–”
His face had become pale as hers. Now blood rushed into it. “Don’t, Janet,” he said hoarsely. “Nothing you could do . . .” The rest of his speech was unintelligibly mumbled.
She stepped back, flinching.
Ned Beaumont said: “Janet is going away with me.”
Madvig’s lips parted. He looked dumbly at Ned Beaumont and as he looked the blood went out of his face again. When his face was quite bloodless he mumbled something of which only the word “luck” could be understood, turned clumsily around, went to the door, opened it, and went out, leaving it open behind him.
Janet Henry looked at Ned Beaumont. He stared fixedly at the door.