All The King's Men: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

Burden recounts just how strange the events of the past week have been—he finds that he is emotionally affected by Irwin’s death and by the news that Irwin was his biological father, but he knows, also, that he has a job to do for Willie, and before long he reports back to the Boss that the Boss will now need to find a new angle in order to pressure MacMurfee into giving up his Senate bid. After thinking on it for about a week, Willie decides that he knows what to do—he will in fact, against his best wishes, give the building contract for the free hospital, for six million dollars, to Gummy Larson, who can use political leverage to get MacMurfee to withdraw his Senate bid in favor of Willie’s. This quid pro quo violates Willie’s desire that the free hospital be free of scandal and bribery, but it allows Willie to retain his shot at the Senate.

Meanwhile, after Irwin’s death, Jack has asked that his portfolio of assignments for Willie be limited to issues of policy, rather than of “politicking” or influence-trading. Willie places Jack in charge of developing a tax bill that will redistribute income in the state and help the poor—Jack spends weeks in the library researching how the bill might work, and one day, after a particularly long stint of research, he heads to the governor’s mansion to present his recommendations to Willie. But Jack finds that Gummy Larson and Tiny Duffy are already there—and Willie appears drunk and upset, while Duffy and Gummy are acting triumphant.

Jack realizes that Duffy and Gummy have achieved what they’ve always wanted—the lucrative contract to the free hospital, which Willie considered his untarnished political dream—a project that came not through bribery or influence-trading but through Willie’s earnest desire to help the people. Willie drunkenly raves in front of Burden, Duffy, and Gummy, all of whom are mostly silent—Willie then orders Duffy and Gummy away, saying he’ll do business with them, but he won’t respect them or like them. Jack tries to comfort Willie, but Willie vows to “crush” his political opponents using all the powers of his office.

But another terrible event occurs which throws off Jack’s and Willie’s plans, and which Jack acknowledges to be the event that bring about, through its consequences and ramifications, Willie’s downfall. At a football game where Tom has been put in—the hopes of the LSU squad lie firmly on Tom’s shoulders—Tom takes an especially hard hit and is knocked out cold. When Tom does not get up, the stadium realizes he has been seriously hurt, and he is carted off to the locker room. Jack, who has been sitting with Willie, worries about Tom’s condition, as does Willie himself, but Willie also wants to present an image of confidence, and so waits until the end of the game to meet Tom at the hospital where Adam works (not the free hospital but the “old” hospital).

Lucy joins Willie at the hospital—she has been living apart from Willie, still, but recognizes that this moment that the family ought to be together, and she is desperately worried about Tom’s condition. Adam, who has been attending to Tom himself, comes out to the waiting room to report to Willie, Lucy, and Jack that Tom’s spinal cord has been partially crushed, meaning there is a very real chance he might not even survive his accident—and that, if he does, he will be paralyzed for life from the next down. Willie is devastated by this news, and Lucy, too. Willie begins placing all his hope in a Dr. Burnham, being flown in from the east coast, a respected neurosurgeon who is Tom’s best chance at recovery, via emergency surgery.

While Tom is undergoing this emergency procedure, Jack talks with Sadie in the hospital—who is largely unmoved by Tom’s state, since she feels that Tom was placing himself in harms way by playing such a dangerous sport—and with Anne on the phone. Anne is truly devastated by Tom’s condition, not the least because she is worried about how this news will affect Willie. Jack, Willie, and Lucy wait in the waiting room until Drs. Burnham and Stanton emerge, with the news that there was nothing that could be done in emergency surgery—Tom’s life has been spared, for now, although his condition is still perilous, but the spinal cord was crushed and could not be repaired, and he will be paralyzed.

Willie is led away by Lucy, who tells him he needs to rest, having been awake for more than 24 hours. The next Monday, in the office, Willie is bombarded with flowers and notes of sympathy from politicians and big-wigs from around the state, but he is inconsolable over Tom—whom he essentially considers to have died, despite Tom’s lingering state between life and death. Now that Willie seems freed from all concern, since he has lost the great hope he had in his son’s future, he calls Tiny Duffy in and tells him that he will no longer allow the free hospital to do business with Gummy Larson—Willie is rescinding his deal with Gummy and Duffy. Duffy sputters that Willie can’t take this back, but Willie says he does not care, and sends Duffy away.

The next day, Jack receives a frantic call from Anne, who says that Adam visited her the night before and called her a series of terrible names, implying that she was a slut and a whore for carrying on a relationship with Willie—and that this relationship is the reason Adam was chosen to run the hospital. Adam seemed incensed, almost crazed, at the idea that Anne’s “sordidness” caused him to be roped into working for a politician he never liked and supported. Anne asks Jack to find Adam and to talk sense into him, and Jack begins going from bar to bar in the city, asking after Adam, attempting to snag him and calm him down.

Jack is unable to find Adam, however, and returns to the capitol to meet with Willie and determine what the Governor will do, now that the free hospital will no longer be handled by Gummy and Duffy. Jack presumes that there will be political fallout from Willie’s decision to eschew the deal with these political rivals, and so attempts to figure out a plan with Willie from how to manage this possible crisis in government. Jack finds Willie in the Capitol and walks upstairs with him—Willie says he wants to talk to Jack.

But in the hallway, as Jack turns away for a moment and turns back, he sees Adam, looking haggard and dirty, talking to Willie. Before Jack can realize what is happening, Adam shoots Willie several times in the chest—and then Adam is shot by Sugar Boy. Jack, stunned, runs with Sugar Boy towards the bodies of Willie and Adam—Adam, having been shot in the head, is dead, but Willie seems to be clinging to life, although he has been seriously wounded by Adam’s shots.

Jack then reports that Willie was taken to the hospital, the same one in which Tom also lies—he is tended to by another surgeon named Simmons, who manages to remove the slugs from Willie’s chest, but after several days of recovery, Willie takes a turn for the worse, and his wounds become infected. Jack goes in to speak with Willie, who is severely weakened by the gunshot trauma. Willie, clearly very upset, tells Jack that he never meant to harm Adam, and that he “never did anything to him.” Willie says that things could have been different, implying that, if Tom hadn’t been injured, none of this might have taken place—he tells Jack that Jack “has to believe” things could have been better if Willie were to live. Jack says he’ll “see the Boss around soon,” and leaves the room after sitting with him for a moment. The next morning, Willie dies in his hospital bed, of his wounds.

Jack ends the chapter by saying the Boss’s funeral was later that week, and was attended by an enormous part of the population of the state—Jack contrasts the funeral the very small, private affair held for Adam in Burden’s Landing. He notes that, at the Boss’s interment, there were so many “regular citizens” present they were toppling tombstones, and had to be removed only through the encouragement of police.