George's cell mate in Mad Dog County Jail had a skull-like face with large, protruding front teeth. He was about six and a half feet tall and lay curled up on his cell bunk like a coiled python.
"Have you asked for treatment?" George asked him.
"Treatment for what?"
"Well, if you think you're an assassin-"
"I don't think, baby brother. I've killed four white men and two niggers. One in California, the rest down here. Got paid for every one of them."
"Is that what you're in for?" My God, they don't stick murderers in the same cell with potheads, do they?
"I'm in for vagrancy," said the man scornfully. "Actually, I'm just here for safekeeping, till they give me my orders. Then it's good-bye to whoever-President, civil rights leader, enemy of the people. Someday I'll be famous. I'm gonna write a book about myself someday, Ace. Course, I'm no good at writing. Look, maybe we can do a deal. I'll have Sheriff Jim bring you some writing paper if you'll write about my life. They gonna keep you here forever, you know. I'll come and visit you between assassinations, and you'll write the book, and Sheriff Jim'11 keep it safe till I retire. Then you have the book published and you'll make a lot of money and be real comfortable in jail. Or maybe you can even hire a lawyer to get you out."
"Where will you be?" said George. He was still scared, but he was feeling sleepy, too, and he was deciding that this was all bullshit, which had a calming effect on his nerves. But he'd better not go to sleep in the cell while this guy was awake. He didn't really believe this assassin talk, but it was safe to assume that anybody you met in prison was homosexual.
As if reading his mind, his cell mate said, "How'd you like to let a famous assassin shove it up to you? How would that be, huh, Ace?"
"Please," said George. "That's not my bag, you know? I really couldn't do it."
"Shit, piss, and corruption," said the assassin. He suddenly uncoiled and slid off the bunk. "I been wasting my time with you. Now bend the hell over and drop your pants. You are getting it, and there ain't no further way about it." He stepped toward George, fists clenched.
"Guard! Guard!" George yelled. He grabbed the cell door in both hands and began rattling it frantically.
The man caught George a cuff across the face. Another blow to the jaw knocked George against the wall.
"Guard!" he screamed, his head spinning with pot and panic.
A man in a blue uniform came through the door at the end of the corridor. He seemed miles away and vastly disinterested, like a god who had grown bored with his creations.
"Now, what the hell is all this yelling about in here?" he asked, his hand en the butt of his revolver, his voice still miles away.
George opened his mouth, but his cell mate spoke first 'This little long-haired communist freak won't drop his pants when I tell him. Ain't you supposed to make sure I'm happy in here?" The voice shifted to a whine. "Make him do what I say."
"You've got to protect me," said George. "You've got to get me out of this cell."
The god-guard laughed. "Well, now, you might say this is a very enlightened prison we have here. You come down from New York and you probably think we're pretty backward. But we ain't. We got no police brutality. Now, if I interfered between you and Harry Coin here, I might have to use force to keep him away from your young ass. I know you people believe all cops ought to be abolished. Well, in this here situation I hereby abolish myself. Furthermore, I know you people believe in sexual freedom, and I do, too. So Harry Coin gonna have his sexual freedom without any interference or brutality from me." His voice was still distant and disinterested, almost dreamy.
"No," said George.
The guard drew his pistol. "Now, sonny. You take down your pants and bend over. You are gonna get it up the ass from Harry Coin here, and no two ways about it And I am gonna watch and see that you let him do it right. Otherwise, you get no forty years. You get killed, right now. I put a bullet in you and I say you are resisting arrest. Now make up your mind what it's gonna be. I really will kill you if you don't do like he tells you to. I really will. You are totally expendable and he ain't. He's a very important man, and it's my job to keep him happy."
"And I'll fuck you either way, dead or alive," the demented Coin laughed, like an evil spirit. "So there's no way you can escape it, Ace."
The door at the end of the corridor clanged, and Sheriff Jim Cartwright and two blue-uniformed policemen strode down to the cell. "What's going on here?" said the Sheriff.
"I caught this queer punk George Dorn here trying to commit homosexual rape on Harry," said the guard. "Had to draw my pistol to stop him."
George shook his head. "You guys are unbelievable. If you're acting out this little game for my benefit, you can quit now, because you're certainly not fooling each other, and you're not fooling me."
"Dorn," said the Sheriff, "you've been attempting unnatural acts in my jail, acts forbidden by the Holy Bible and the laws of this state. I don't like that. I don't like it one little bit. Come on out here. I wanna have a little talk with you. We goin' to the main interrogation room for some speakin' together."
He unlocked the cell door and motioned George to precede him. He turned to the two policemen who had accompanied him. "Stay behind and take care of that other little matter." The last words were strangely emphasized.
George and the Sheriff walked through a series of corridors and locked doors until at last they came to a room whose walls were made of embossed sheet tin painted bottle-green. The Sheriff told George to sit on one chair, while he straddled the back of the chair facing him.
"You're a bad influence on my prisoners," he said. "I got a good mind to see that some kind of accident happens to you. I don't want to see you corrupting prisoners in my jail-mine or anyone's-for forty years."
"Sheriff," said George. "What do you want from me? You got me on a pot charge. What more do you want? Why did you stick me in that cell with that guy? What's all this scare stuff and threats and questioning for?"
"I wanna know some things," said the Sheriff. "I want to find out everything you can tell me about certain matters. So, from this moment be prepared to tell me only the truth. If you do, maybe things will go easier on you, after."
"Yes, Sheriff," said George. Cartwright squinted at him. He really does look like a pig, thought George. Most do. Why do so many of them get so fat and have such little eyes?