activity.
Outside on the deck, the guards were grumbling to
each other. Lafon wiped the scowl off his black face, put
on a smile, rehearsed what he was going to say, and
rattled the door of his cell.
"Shut up down there!" one of the screws bawled. Lafon
recognized the voice; it was the guard named Sodaro.
That was all to the good. He knew Sodaro, and he had
some plans for him.
He rattled the cell door again and called: "Chief, can
you come here a minute, please?"
Sodaro yelled, "Didn't you hear me? Shut up!" But in
a moment he came wandering by and looked into Lafon's
tidy little cell.
"What the devil do you want?" he grumbled.
Lafon said ingratiatingly, "Hey, chief, what's going on?"
"Shut your mouth," Sodaro said absently and yawned.
He hefted his shoulder holster comfortably. That O'Leary,
what a production he had made of getting the guards
back! And here he was, stuck in Block A on the night he
had set aside for getting better acquainted with that little
blue-eyed statistician from the Census office.
"Aw, chief. The television says there's something going
on in the Green Sleeves. What's the score?"
Sodaro had no reason not to answer him; but it was
his unvarying practice to make a con wait before doing
anything the con wanted. He gave Lafon a ten-second
stare before he relented.
"That's right. Sauer and Flock took over Block 0. What
about it?"
Much, much about it! But Lafon looked away to hide
the eagerness in his eyes. Perhaps, after all, it was not too
late. . . . He suggested humbly: "You look a little sleepy.
Do you want some coffee?"
"Coffee?" Sodaro scratched. "You got a cup for me?"
"Certainly! I've got one put asideswiped it from the
messhall, you know, not the one I use myself."
"Um." Sodaro leaned on the cell door. "You know I
could toss you in the Green Sleeves for stealing from the
messhall."
"Aw, chief!" Lafon grinned.
"You been looking for trouble. O'Leary says you were
messing around with the bucks from the laundry detail,"
Sodaro said half-heartedly. But he didn't really like pick-
ing on Lafon, who was, after all, an agreeable inmate to
have on occasion. "All right. Where's the coffee?"
They didn't bother with tanglefoot fields in Honor Block
A. Sodaro just unlocked the door and walked in, hardly
bothering to look at Lafon. He took three steps toward the
neat little desk at the back of the cell, where Lafon had
