Free Murder in Mount Holly by Paul Theroux Page A

“Confidentially, she’s fat and sassy, and that’s just the way I like ’em.”
    Miss Ball said it thrilled her to know that Herbie was actually going to war. She had read about so many of “our boys” going off, never to be heard from again. Now she could say that she knew one.
    Everyone was happy for Herbie and wished him well. His mother was on the verge of tears. She stayed on the verge. She told Herbie very calmly to be a good boy and mind his manners when he got to the war.
    Herbie, numb with fear, promised he would. He noticed at the railroad station that their cab held four suitcases instead of two.
    â€œHalf the luggage is mine,” Mrs. Gneiss said.
    â€œAre you coming along?”
    â€œGoodness, no!” said Mrs. Gneiss. “I’m moving into your room at Miss Ball’s. I can be near Charlie that way. I just sold the house.”
    Herbie nodded goodbye, had his picture taken with the rest of the Mount Holly draftees and the chairman of the Mount Holly draft board, and then joined the mob of boys in the car reserved for them. Herbie sat next to the window and looked at the three old people on the platform waving their hankies.
    â€œSmile, Herbie,” his mother said.
    â€œHe looks scared to death,” Mr. Gibbon said.
    â€œIt takes all kinds,” Miss Ball said.

10
    A dusty twenty-five-watt bulb flickered in Miss Ball’s dining-room. The less light the better, they had all decided. The three of them sat around the large mahogany table. Mr. Gibbon was wearing his khakis. His pistol was strapped on. In the dim light of the room the faces of the three people looked even older than they were, bloodless, almost ghoulish. Mr. Gibbon was doing all the talking. Only a few of his fifteen teeth were visible and his mouth seemed latched like a dummy’s. His whole chin gabbled up and down.
    â€œIt’s all relative,” he was saying. “Even though it doesn’t look on the up and up if you say, we gotta rob a bank and we may have to shoot somebody to do it right, it’s okay in this case. The country is at stake, and we’re the only ones that realize it. Herbie’s gone now to do his bit. It’s up to us to do our bit even if the only place we can do it is right here in Mount Holly. It’s the enemy within we’re after. The ones right here grinning at us in our own backyard, as Miss Ball rightly said. It’s all relative. Why, I know what it’s like to be an American. You take your average American. He can’t find his ass with both hands, can he? Bet your life he can’t. It’s all relative. A commie bank is right here in our midst picking our pockets. And what do we do? We rob that bank right down to the last cent, and if we get any lip from the You-Know-Whos we blast ’em.”
    Mrs. Gneiss interrupted. “I hate to mention this,” she said, “but won’t it be against the law to do this? I agree with you one hundred percent that something’s got to be done—why, if the communists ran this country we’d starve in two days. But there’s the law to think about . . .”
    â€œLet me remind you, Toots, that the law you’re so worried about is the law that’s made by the You-Know-Whos for the You Know-Whos. It’s not made for decent people like us. The law is made by coons. You got any objections against breaking the coon law? You don’t think decent folk should break the coon law? When we rob this bank we’ll be heroes. People will be brought to their senses. We’ll be doing our country a turn and making the world safe for good government, small government. Now anybody knows that it’s not legal to rob a bank. But is it legal for some bastard with dark skin and a party card, all niggered-up with fancy clothes, to walk into your own bank and put his fingers all over your money? If that’s legal, then what do you call it when decent people want to