than laid down for a nap when-I never did find out what he done to Minnie
to get in. I know he never give her nuttin. How did he do it, Minnie? He
must a showed you something you never seen before. Didn't he?"
Minnie tossed her head. "He aint got nothing I wantin to see. I done seed
too many now fer my own good." Minnie's husband had quit her. He didn't
approve of Minnie's business. He was a cook in a restaurant and he took
all the clothes and jewelry the white ladies had given Minnie and went
off with a waitress in the restaurant.
"He kept on asking and hinting around about that girl," Miss Reba said,
"and me telling him to go ask Popeye if he wanted to know right bad. Not
telling him nuttin except to get out and stay out, see; so this day it's
about two in the afternoon and I'm asleep and Minnie lets him in and he
asks her who's here and she tells him aint nobody, and he goes on up
stairs. And Minnie says about that time Popeye comes in. She says she
dont know what to do. She's scared not to let him in and she says she
knows if she does and he spatters that big bastard all over the upstairs
floor, she knows I'll fire her and her husband just quit her and all.
"So Popeye goes on upstairs on them cat feet of his and comes on your
friend on his knees, peeping through the keyhole. Minnie says Popeye
stood behind him for about a minute, with his hat cocked over one eye.
She says he took out a cigarette and struck a match on his thumbnail
without no noise and lit it and then she says he reached over and held
the match to the back of your friend's neck, and Minnie says she stood
there halfway up the stairs and watched them; that fellow kneeling there
with his face like a pie took out of the oven too soon and Popeye
squirting smoke through his nose and kind of jerking his head at him.
Then she come on down
SANCTUARY 119
and in about ten seconds here he comes down the stairs with both hands on
top of his head, going wump-wump-wump inside like one of these here big
dray-horses, and he pawed at the door for about a minute, moaning to
himself like the wind in a chimney Minnie says, until she opened the door
and let him out. And that's the last time he's even rung this bell until
tonight. . . . Let me see that." Horace gave her the paper. "That's a
nigger whorehouse," she said. "The lousMinnie, tell him his friend aint
here. Tell him I dont know where he went.
Minnie went out. Miss Reba said,
"I've had all sorts of men in my house, but I got to draw the line
somewhere. I had lawyers, too. I had the biggest lawyer in Memphis back
there in my dining-room, treating my girls. A millionaire. He weighed two
hundred and eighty pounds and he had his own special bed made and sent
down here. It's upstairs right this minute. But all in the way of my
business, not theirs. I aint going to have none of my girls pestered by
lawyers without good reason."
"And you dont consider this good reason? That a man is being tried for
his life for something he didn't do? You may be guilty right now of
harboring a fugitive from justice."
"Then let them come take him. I got nuttin to do with it. I had too many
police in this house to be seared of them." She raised the tankard and
drank and drew the back of her hand across her mouth. "I aint going to
have nuttin to do with nuttin I dont know about. What Popeye done outside
is his business. When he starts killing folks in my house, then I'll take
a hand."
"Have you any children?" She looked at him. "I don't mean to pry into
your affairs," he said. "I was just thinking about that woman. She'll be
on the streets again, and God only knows what will become of that baby."
"Yes," Miss Reba said. "I'm supporting four, in a Arkansaw home now. Not
mine, though." She lifted the tankard and looked into it, oscillating it
gently. She set it down again. "It better not been born at all," she
said. "None of them had." She rose and came toward him, moving heavily,
and stood above him with her harsh breath. She put her hand on his head
and tilted his face up. "You aint lying to me, are you?" she said, her
eyes piercing and intent and sad. "No, you aint." She released him. "Wait
here a minute. I'll see." She went out. He heard her speak to Minnie in
the hall, then he heard her toil up the stairs.
He sat quietly as she had left him. The room contained a wooden bed, a
painted screen, three over-stuffed chairs, a wall safe. The
dressing-table was littered with toilet articles
120 WILLIAM FAULKNER
tied in pink satin bows. The mantel supported a wax lily beneath a glass
bell; above it, draped in black, the photograph of a meek-looking man with
an enormous moustache. On the walls hung a few lithographs of spurious
Greek scenes, and one picture done in tatting. Horace rose and went to the
door. Minnie sat in a chair in the dim hall.
"Minnie," he said, "I've got to have a drink. A big one."
He had just finished it when Minnie entered again. "She say fer you to
come on up," she said.
He mounted the stairs. Miss Reba waited at the top. She led the way up
