“Why do you ask me?” Hicks' fingers shook on the table. “There's a man who can tell you. He can lead you. He led me, when I wasn't a fool.”
“Who? You mean Aidee?”
Hicks nodded, and fell to glowering at his nervous fingers, absent and brooding.
“He didn't tell you to shoot Wood. I know better than that.”
“No, he didn't.”
“Why, there's another thing I'd like to know. What did Aidee do?”
“Do! He held me back! He was always holding me back! I couldn't stand it!” he cried sharply, and a flash of anger and impatience went over his face. “He shouldered me like a log of wood on his back. Maybe I liked that papoose arrangement, with a smothered damn fire in the heart of me. No, I didn't! I had to break loose or turn charcoal.”
Hennion wondered. The man reminded him of Aidee, the same vivid phrase, the figures of speech. But Aidee had said that he did not know him. It appeared that he must know him. If Aidee had been lying about it, that opened sinister suggestions. Hennion did not like Aidee, neither did he like in himself this furtive sense of satisfaction in the suggestions.
“Aidee told me he didn't know you. I hadn't thought he would lie about it.”
“By God, don't call him a liar to me!” Hicks jumped to his feet, and had his wooden chair swung over his back in an instant.