Something crushed his shoulder and spun him around. “Whaddya think you’re up to, Buster?” the policeman demanded in a bass snarl. He shook Norvell’s wallet under his nose. “You know the penalty for passing a bum credit card? You Belly Ravers are all alike; get a lapsed card and a front, and try to get a free load. Come along, Buster. The Captain wants to talk to you.”
It was all quite horrible.
Of course Candella had canceled his card at once—but it was a simple-enough oversight. Norvell spent a long time trying to make them believe him down at the precinct, before he realized that they did believe him—believed him, and just didn’t care.
It was close to dinner time, and they put him in something they called “the Tank” to think things over until the desk sergeant got back from his meal. Norvell didn’t like the Tank, and he didn’t like the looks of the half-dozen other persons who occupied it with him. But still, he reminded himself, it could have been worse. It was only a question of his lapsed credit card; they could easily have added drunk and disorderly to the charge. And Norvell could have found himself logged for being without visible means of support, which meant getting a job, instanter, or getting jugged for quite a while. And there was only one kind of a job a man in police trouble could pick up a phone and get, every time. Usually you didn’t have to phone. The cops would drive you down to the Stadium’s service entrance themselves; Norvell knew the process, having seen enough “volunteers” delivered.
“Hey, Bligh.”
Norvell said, “Yes, sir?”
‘ The cop opened the door. “This way.” They came, to a dingy room. There was an embarrasing process of holding your hands over your head while someone ran his hands over you; you couldn’t blame them for searching you, Norvell told himself, there must be plenty of times they had desperate criminals here. There was a curiously interesting process of inking the fingers and rolling them across a piece of paper. There was a mildly painful process of looking into what seemed to be a binocular microscope; a light flashed, photographing the retina of his eyes, and Norvell had a little trouble seeing for some time afterward.
While Norvell was blinking at the halo in his field of vision the cop said something. Norvell said, “What?”
“I said do you want to call your lawyer?”
Norvell shook his head automatically. Then he remembered: He had a lawyer. “Why, yes,” he said. He found Mundin’s phone number in the book with some difficulty; it was after hours, but he was lucky enough to get an answer—
though Mundin himself wasn’t there, and the person who answered seemed, Norvell thought, to be drunk or) something. But he left a message, and then there was nothing to do but wait. /
Curiously, the waiting was not unpleasant. Even the thought of what Virginia would say or do about this was not particularly terrifying; what could happen worse than had already happened?
So he waited. Past six o’clock, past seven; and for a couple of hours more before he began to worry.
It was almost ten o’clock; if he didn’t get out pretty soon, it would be too late to try to see good old Arnie.
Chapter Nine
“thank you very much, Mr. Mundin,” Norvell said. He looked back at the precinct house and shuddered.
Mundin said, “Don’t thank me. I just put in a word with Del Dworcas, and he put in a word with the precinct. Thank him.”
Norvell brightened. “Oh, I want to! I’ve wanted to meet Mr. Dworcas for a long time. Arnie—you know his brother Arnie is a very close friend of mine—has told me so much about him.”
Mundin shrugged. “Come on, then,” he said. “I’m going to the Hall anyhow.”
It was only a short walk to the Hall, and the rain discouraged conversation. Mundin stalked sourly ahead of his client, his mind on G.M.L. Homes. The hope kept hammering at his good sense: Maybe he could pull it off—maybe. . . .
Norvell followed contentedly enough. Every thing was being ordered for him; he was out of a job, he had been in jail, he was hours and hours late for Virginia without a word of explanation—but none of it had been bis own decision.