Though his sister did pick his wife up in time for the picture show. So he was back in the office when a little after eight-thirty he heard Ratliff on the stairs and said, “All right. What happened?” Then he said, “No. Wait. What were you doing at Parchman?”
“I’m a — what do you call it? optimist,” Ratliff said. “Like any good optimist, I don’t expect the worst to happen. Only, like any optimist worth his salt, I like to go and look as soon as possible afterward jest in case it did. Especially when the difference between the best and the worst is liable to reach all the way back up here to Jefferson.
It taken a little doing, too. This was about ten o’clock this morning; he had been gone a good two hours by then, and they was a little impatient with me. They had done their share, took him and had him for thirty-eight years all fair and regular, like the man said for them to, and they felt they had done earned the right to be shut of him.
You know: his new fresh pardon and them new fresh two hundred and fifty dollars all buttoned up neat and safe and secure in his new fresh overhalls and jumper and the gate locked behind him again jest like the man said too and the official Mink Snopes page removed outen the ledger and officially marked Paid in Full and destroyed a good solid two hours back, when here comes this here meddling out-of-town son-of-a-gun that ain’t even a lawyer saying Yes yes, that’s jest fine, only let’s make sho he actively had that money when he left.
“The Warden his-self had tended to the money in person: had Mink in alone, with the table all ready for him, the pardon in one pile and them two hundred and fifty dollars that Mink hadn’t never seen that much at one time before in his life, in the other pile; and the Warden his-self explaining how there wasn’t no choice about it: to take the pardon he would have to take the money too, and once he teched the money he had done give his sworn word and promise and Bible oath to strike for the quickest place outside the state of Missippi and never cross the line again as long as he lived.
‘Is that what I got to do to get out?’ Mink says. ‘Take the money?’ ‘That’s it,’ the Warden says, and Mink reached and taken the money and the Warden his-self helped him button the money and the pardon both inside his jumper and the Warden shaken his hand and the trusty come to take him out to where the turnkey was waiting to unlock the gate into liberty and freedom—”
“Wait,” Stevens said. “Trusty.”
“Ain’t it?” Ratliff said with pleased, almost proud approval. “It was so simple. Likely that’s why it never occurred to none of them, especially as even a Parchman deserving any name a-tall for being well conducted, ain’t supposed to contain nobody eccentric and antisocial enough to behave like he considered anything like free-will choice to even belong in the same breath with two hundred and fifty active dollars give him free for nothing so he never even had to say Much obliged for them.
That’s what I said too: ‘That trusty. He left here for the gate with them two hundred and fifty dollars. Let’s just see if he still had them when he went outen it.’ So that’s what I said too: ‘That trusty.’
“ ’A lifer too,’ the Warden says. ‘Killed his wife with a ball-peen hammer, was converted and received salvation in the jail before he was even tried and has one of the best records here, is even a lay preacher.’
“ ’Than which, if Mink had had your whole guest list to pick from and time to pick in, he couldn’t a found a better feller for his purpose,’ I says. ‘So it looks like I’m already fixing to begin to have to feel sorry for this here snatched brand even if he was too impatient to think of a better answer to the enigma of wedlock than a garage hammer. That is, I reckon you still got a few private interrogation methods for reluctant conversationalists around here, ain’t you?’
“That’s why I was late calling you: it taken a little time too, though I got to admit nothing showed on his outside. Because people are funny. No, they ain’t funny: they’re jest sad. Here was this feller already in for life and even if they had found out that was a mistake or somebody even left the gate unlocked, he wouldn’t a dast to walk outen it because the gal’s paw had done already swore he would kill him the first time he crossed the Parchman fence. So what in the world could he a done with two hundred and fifty dollars even if he could ever a dreamed he could get away with this method of getting holt of it.”
“But how, dammit?” Stevens said. “How?”
“Why, the only way Mink could a done it, which was likely why never nobody thought to anticipate it. On the way from the Warden’s office to the gate he jest told the trusty he needed to step into the gentlemen’s room a minute and when they was inside he give the trusty the two hundred and fifty dollars and asked the trusty to hand it back to the Warden the first time the trusty conveniently got around to it, the longer the better after he, Mink, was outside the gate and outen sight, and tell the Warden Much obliged but he had done changed his mind and wouldn’t need it.
So there the trusty was: give Mink another hour or two and he would be gone, likely forever, nobody would know where or care. Because I don’t care where you are: the minute a man can really believe that never again in his life will he have any use for two hundred and fifty dollars, he’s done already been dead and has jest this minute found it out. And that’s all. I don’t—”
“I do,” Stevens said. “Flem told me. He’s in Memphis. He’s too little and frail and old to use a knife or a club so he will have to go to the nearest place he can hope to get a gun with ten dollars.”
“So you told Flem. What did he say?”
“He said, Much obliged,” Stevens said. After a moment he said, “I said, when I told Flem Mink had left Parchman at eight o’clock this morning on his way up here to kill him, he said Much obliged.”
“I heard you,” Ratliff said. “What would you a said? You would sholy be as polite as Flem Snopes, wouldn’t you? So maybe it’s all right, after all. Of course you done already talked to Memphis.”
“Tell them what?” Stevens said. “How describe to a Memphis policeman somebody I wouldn’t recognise myself, let alone that he’s actually in Memphis trying to do what I assume he is trying to do, for the simple reason that I don’t know what to do next either?”
“What’s wrong with Memphis?” Ratliff said.
“I’ll bite,” Stevens said. “What is?”
“I thought it would took a heap littler place than Memphis not to have nobody in it you used to go to Harvard with.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” Stevens said. He put in the call at once and presently was talking with him: the classmate, the amateur Cincinnatus at his plantation not far from Jackson, who had already been instrumental in getting the pardon through, so that Stevens needed merely explain the crisis, not the situation.
“You don’t actually know he went to Memphis, of course,” the friend said.
“That’s right,” Stevens said. “But since we are forced by emergency to challenge where he might be, at least we should be permitted one assumption in good faith.”
“All right,” the friend said. “I know the mayor and the commissioner of police both. All you want — all they can do really — is check any places where anyone might have tried to buy a gun or pistol for ten dollars since say noon today. Right?”
“Right,” Stevens said. “And ask them please to call me collect here when — if they do.”
“I’ll call you myself,” the friend said. “You might say I also have a small equity in your friend’s doom.”
“When you call me that to Flem Snopes, smile,” Stevens said.
That was Thursday; during Friday Central would run him to earth all right no matter where he happened to be about the Square. However, there was plenty to do in the office if he composed himself to it. Which he managed to do in time and was so engaged when Ratliff came in carrying something neatly folded in a paper bag and said, “Good mawnin,” Stevens not looking up, writing on the yellow foolscap pad, steadily, quite composed in fact even with Ratliff standing for a moment looking down at the
