"Is he that bad?"

"It probably depends on whether or not you have to clean up his piss."

"What?"

"He took a piss off the side of the bed, right in the middle of the floor. He said he doesn't use bedpans."

I went inside the room and closed the door behind me.

Gouza's right wrist was cuffed to the bed rail and one ankle was locked to a leg chain. His elongated face was white on the pillow, his lips caked at the corners with dried mucus.

In the middle of the floor was a freshly mopped damp area.

The room smelled bad, and I tried to open the window but it was sealed with locks that could only be turned with an Allen wrench.

He rubbed his nose with his finger. His eyes were black and cavernous in his drawn face.

"You don't like the smell?" he asked. His voice sounded like air wheezing out of sand.

"It's kind of close in here, partner."

"They told you I took a leak on the floor?"

"Somebody mentioned it."

"They told you they keep me chained to the bed, they don't even let me walk to the toilet?"

"I'll see what I can do about it."

"I can't raise my voice. Come closer."

I moved a chair to his bedside and sat down. His sour breath and the odor from under his sheet made me swallow.

"It's a whack," he said.

"On who?"

"Who the fuck you think?"

"Maybe it was an accident. It happens. The people who prepare jailhouse food haven't worked in a lot of five-star restaurants."

"I jailed too long, man. I know when the whack's out. You feel it. It's in people's eyes."

"You're a superstar, Joey. They're not going to lose you."

"You listen to me. Yesterday afternoon a trusty, this punk, a kid with mushmelons for buns, is sweeping out the corridor. Then he looks around real careful and walks over to my cell and says, 'Hey, Joey, I can get you something.' "

"I go, 'You can get me something? What, a case of AIDS?' "

"He says, 'Stuff you might could use.' "

"I go, 'The only stuff I see around here is you, sweetcakes.' "

"He says, 'I can get you a shank.' "

"I go, 'What I need a shank for from a punk like you?' "

"He says, 'Sometimes there's some badasses in the shower, man.' "

"I go, 'You clean the shit out of your mouth when you talk to me.' "

"He says, 'It's just a city jail, but there's a couple of bad guys here. You don't want the shank, you don't want a friend, that's your business. I was only trying to help out.' "

"I go, 'What guys?' But he's already walking off. I go, 'Come back, you little bitch,' but he clanks on the door for the screw to open up and shoots me the bone."

"Like you say, Joey, he's probably just a punk who wants a job when he gets out. What's the big deal?"

"You don't get it. A guy like that don't shoot the bone at a guy like me. Something's happening. There's been some kind of change.…" His hand motioned vaguely at the air, at the sunlight through the window. "Out there somewhere. It's a whack. Look, I want a hot plate and canned food brought in."

Then I saw something in his eye that I hadn't seen before, in the corner, a tremolo, a moist, threadlike yellow light, like a worm feeding.

He and his kind spent a lifetime trying to disguise their self-centered fear. It accounted for their grandiosity, their insatiable sexual appetites, their unpredictable violence and cruelty. But almost always, if you were around them long enough, you saw it leak out of them like a sticky substance from a dead tree.

"I owe you a confession, Joey," I said.

"You owe me a-" He turned his head on the pillow to look at me.

"Yeah, I haven't been honest with you."

His brow became netted with lines.

"I cooked the books on you a little bit," I said. "You wanted me to tell Weldon you weren't going down by yourself. I did as you asked, but I told the same thing to Bobby Earl."

His head lifted an inch off the pillow.

"You told Earl-" His breath was rasping. "You told Earl what? "

"That you're going to take other people down with you."

"Why you trying to tie me with Earl?"

"You seem to know a lot of the same people, Joey."

His face was gray and dry. His eyes searched in mine.

"I got you figured," he said. "You're trying to put out word to the AB I'm gonna roll over. That's it, ain't it? You're gonna keep squeezing me till I cop to some bullshit plea. Do you know what you're doing, man? The AB's not part of the organization. They think somebody's gonna ratout a member, it's an open contract. They're in every joint in the country. You do time when there's an AB hit on you, you do it in lockup. I mean with a solid iron door, too, man, or they'll get you with a Molotov through the bars. That's what you're trying to bring down on me? That's why you're pulling on Bobby Earl's crank? That's a lousy fucking thing to do, man."

"Would Jewel Fluck try to whack you, Joey?"

His eyes narrowed and grew wary.

"I saw him take out Eddy Raintree. It was pretty ugly."

"I got no more to say to you."

"I can't blame you. I'd feel the same way if all the doors were slamming around me. But think about it this way, Joey. You're a made guy. There're cops who respect that. Are you going to do major time while a guy like Bobby Earl sips Cold Duck and gets his picture on the society page? He's a Nazi, Joey, the honest-to-God real article. Are you going to take a jolt for a guy like that?"

He leaned over the side of the bed and spit in the wastebasket. I looked the other way.

"Drop dead, man. I don't know anything about Bobby Earl."

I studied his face. His skin was grained, unshaved, filled with twitches.

"What are you staring at?" he said.

"Give him up."

"You must have some kind of brain tumor or something. Nothing I say seems to get in your head. You guys ain't gonna do this stuff to me. You tell these local bozos I'm walking out of this beef. I'm not doing time, I'm not getting whacked in custody, either. I ain't getting whacked. Can you handle that, Jack?"

"The local bozos aren't taking a lot of interest in your point of view, Joey. Every once in a while a token guy gets dropped in the skillet, and this time it looks like you're it. It might not be fair, but that's the way it works. You never saw a mob run across town to do a good deed, did you?"

He tried to turn away from me, but his wrist clanked the handcuff chain against the bed rail. He hit the mattress with his other fist, then clenched his arm over his eyes.

"I want you to leave me alone," he said.

I got up from the chair and walked to the door. His chained right foot stuck out from under the sheet. He tried to clear his throat and instead choked on his saliva.

"I'll see about the canned goods and the hot plate," I said.

He worked the sheet up to his chin, kept his arm pressed tightly across his eyes, and didn't reply.

I arrived in the park before Bootsie and Alafair and walked idly along the bayou's edge under the trees. Desiccated gray leaves were scattered along the mud-bank. I squatted down and flipped pebbles at several thin, needle-nosed garfish that were turning in the current.

I was troubled, uncomfortable, but I couldn't wrap my hand around the central concern in my mind.

Joey Gouza was in custody, where he belonged. Why did I worry?

Policemen often have many personal problems. TV films go to great lengths to depict cops' struggles with alcoholism, bad marriages, mistreatment at the hands of liberals, racial minorities, and bumbling administrators.

But my experience has been that the real enemy is the temptation to misuse power. The weaponry we possess is awesome-leaded batons, slapjacks, Mace, stun guns, M-16s, scoped sniper rifles, 12-gauge assault shotguns, high-powered pistols and steel-jacketed ammunition that can blow the cylinders out of an automobile's engine block.