George Higgins - A change of gravity

"Lowell with an obsession's an idea that bothers me," Paradise said.

"It bothers me because I think he's tellin' me the truth when he says her smokin' gets to him. It makes him worry she might be the cause of him going back to smoking again. He's aware that it's possible he might get unlucky again, doing something that he knows he shouldn't do like robbing another bank or something. And if he gets caught doing it, which he knows's always a risk in that line of work, that would mean that he'd end up going back inside again. If he ever gets lugged again and almost anything'd do it, record like he's got; parking overtime'd be enough that'll be all it'll take. Put him right back in the can, and this time it'll be for all day, the entire rest of his natural. Habitual criminal, multiple loser like he is, the new law could be "Ten strikes and you're out" he would still qualify, easy.

"So, say he hasn't got anything in mind right now, any special thing he's got in mind to get a large amount of money fast. That's good, but with him it's always been kind of a temporary condition; he's always in it 'til he spots something that looks like prime pickings. "Candy," is what he calls it; a job that's too good to resist. Well, he's older now, lost a yard or two off his fastball, and he swears he's reformed.

But in the back of his mind he still has to think it could happen again. Some big opportunity might turn up any day, and Lowell just wouldn't be able to pass it up. He knows himself pretty well by this time, what his limitations are. He gets hot pants when he sees a job he thinks he can knock over easy. Major temptations're hard for him to resist.

"This's a big country. When he's been able to, Lowell's always been footloose, but he's spent a lot of years inside and he hasn't seen all of it yet. He knows somewhere he hasn't been yet there's bound to be another temptation he couldn't bear to turn down. The only reason he hasn't gone for it yet is that he hasn't seen it. If he sees it, he knows he'll say Yes.

"So he might get caught again. If does, he's back inside. They're not going to let him smoke. He'll have to quit again. Lowell ain't sure he could do that. He's dead sure he doesn't want to.

"That's why I think he's tellin' the truth, that he's pokin' her all the time and he likes that all right, but it bugs him that she smokes.

I don't think this's good news for this boneheaded broad that you've got on your hands here, wasn't too bright to begin with. This is a dangerous man.

"He's proven it, many times. The videos of him in banks when he's been robbing them show a very scary man in a state of cold homicidal rage, capable of doing anything. You would not want to've been in one of them, getting cash on your MasterCard, when Lowell and some friends stopped by to make a withdrawal. The people who've attended his robberies in person 've testified that he's frightening to behold.

"Terrifying' is a word they often use.

"This is the man whose woman's smoking truly infuriates him. He likes screwing her and having her blow him. For that he has to be around her, so he tries not to let her smoking make him mad. But self-control isn't Lowell's stock in trade. Self-restraint isn't something that he's good at, especially where sex's also involved.

"This guy is what teenage boys wish they were. He's a sex engine. In the place where you and I have got our penises, he's got a jack-hammer.

He's what they call a paraph iliac He's got an abnormally powerful sex drive. There really is such a thing as being sexually insatiable, and he is that. When he's been in the can, they've had to put him in solitary several times for sexually running amok, assaulting other inmates. Either he wants to bugger them and they don't want him to, or else he wants them to blow him and they're not keen on that either, so as a result he's going to beat on them until they see it his way.

"Keep in mind what kind of polished gentlemen make up our prison populations. These guys that he's threatening are thugs themselves, hardened criminals like him and they're afraid of him.

"When he's been in solitary, locked up by himself; knowing there's a TV camera on him every minute; no access to any erotic material outside his own diseased imagination; he's been observed masturbating to orgasm eleven times in one twenty-four-hour period. In that same period he also had a wet dream. He'd been jerking off all day that is what they had him doing; merrily watchin' dirty movies every half hour or so.

Then he went to sleep for a while, five or six hours, I guess and while he was asleep he got hard and came off again. And then when he woke up, the first thing he did was jack off.

"This was at one of the institutions where the psychologist got permission to test this new aversion-therapy on him. It sounds like some kind of a fantastic joke, but it's some starry-eyed nitwit's bright idea of a new treatment for sex offenders child molesters; bell-ringers; guys who beat up prostitutes; rapists."

"Every type of leading citizen," Merrion said.

"Right," Paradisio said. "I guess no one's ever proven it works, but then no one's ever proven any of the standard, traditional approaches've worked either. I don't think anyone's ever come up with a cure for those guys they could demonstrate was reliable. So you could ever feel really comfortable letting them loose. Basically they show the dirty pervert all kinds of filthy stuff, find out what really turns him on. Then overpower him with it: Show him dirty movies and let him beat his meat until it's raw or it falls off, whichever comes first. It sounds to me almost as though it oughta be cruel and unusual punishment, stir the guy up into such a frenzy that he does that to himself; has so much fun he really hurts himself."

"While the medics thoughtfully look on and take notes, I presume,"

Merrion said. "All in the interest of science, of course. Are we still sure we know which one of these people in the playroom's the guy who's got the problem? Or is it just possible that both of them're now upstanding one from watching the movies, the other one from watching the watcher?"

"That was my first thought," Paradisio said. "Anyway, when they put Chappelle in the box and made him watch porn flicks all day, he took to it right off. He really seemed to like it."

"Oh, I bet he did," Merrion said. "Much better 'n re shelving the books in the prison library. Much more fun watching' "Debbie do Dallas" 'n it is mopping down the dining hall. What'd he do, set a new record for the pony-lope?"

"They shut the VCR off after three hours," Paradisio said. "By then he'd finished off five erections."

"Very impressive," Merrion said. "They should groom him for the Olympics. Maybe the way to rehab this guy is get him a movie tryout.

If he doesn't get stage-fright, he could be worth a fortune. He's not a bad guy after all; just a poor unhappy kid who missed his true calling in life."

"Yeah," Paradise said, 'but they didn't do that, so as a result I've got him. What I'm afraid'll happen is that some night after he and Lady Janet've been drinking and he's been in her a couple or three times, he'll be ready again before she is. And she'll say "No, let's wait a minute, honey. Take a break and have a smoke, make ourselves another drink. We got all night to play." And he'll go berserk and either kill her for putting him off or else force her do it, and in the process be so rough he'll kill her without meaning to. Not that it'll matter much to her."

"If he's telling the truth," Merrion said. "Dangerous guys don't always do that, as I'm sure you probably know." He did not wish to believe that Chappelle was a threat. If he was then he would first have to think of something he could do that would keep Janet safe, and then he would have to do it. That would be more work for him. "More work's against the chief clerk's religion," Larry Lane had said.