`I need help,’ he said.
`You’ve had all the help you’re going to get,’ I said. `Without me, you’d be bent forward over your bed right now, with a line of big horny guys forming at the door. And so far you haven’t exactly overwhelmed me with gratitude for that.’
He looked down for a moment. Nodded.
`I’m sorry,’ he said. `I’m very grateful. Believe me, I am. You saved my life. You took care of it. That’s why you’ve got to tell me what to do. I’m being threatened.’
I let the revelation hang in the air for a moment.
`I know that,’ I said. `That’s pretty obvious.’
`Well, not just me,’ he said. `My family as well.’
He was getting me involved. I looked at him. He started thinking again. His mouth was working. He was pulling on his fingers. Eyes flicking left and right. Like over here was a big pile of reasons, and over there was another big pile of reasons. Which pile was bigger?
`Have you got family?’ he asked me.
`No,’ I said. What else could I say? My parents were both dead. I had a brother somewhere who I never saw. So I had no family. No idea whether I wanted one, either. Maybe, maybe not.
`I’ve been married ten years,’ Hubble said. `Ten years last month. Had a big party. I’ve got two children. Boy, age nine, girl, age seven. Great wife, great kids. I love them like crazy.’
He meant it. I could see that. He lapsed into
silence. Misting over as he thought about his family. Wondering how the hell he came to be in here without them. He wasn’t the first guy to sit in this cell wondering that. And he wouldn’t be the last.
`We’ve got a nice place,’ he said. `Out on Beckman Drive. Bought there five years ago. A lot of money, but it was worth it. You know Beckman?’
`No,’ I said again. He was afraid to get to the point. Pretty soon he’d be telling me about the wallpaper in the downstairs half bath. And how he planned to pay for his daughter’s orthodonture. I let him talk. Prison conversation.
`Anyway,’ he said eventually. `It’s all falling apart now.’
He sat there in his chinos and his polo shirt. He had picked up his white sweater and wrapped it around his shoulders again. Without his glasses he looked older, more vacant. People who wear glasses, without them they always look unfocused, vulnerable. Out in the open. A layer removed. He looked like a tired old man. One leg was thrust forward. I could see the patterned sole of his shoe.
What did he call a threat? Some kind of exposure or embarrassment? Something that might blow away the perfect life he’d described on Beckman Drive? Maybe it was his wife who was involved in something. Maybe he was covering for her. Maybe she’d been having an affair with the tall dead guy. Maybe lots of things. Maybe anything. Maybe his family was threatened by disgrace, bankruptcy, stigma, cancellation of country club membership. I went around in circles. I didn’t live in Hubble’s world. I didn’t share his frame of reference. I had seen him trembling and shaking with fear. But I had no idea how much it took to make a guy like
that afraid. Or how little. When I first saw him at the station house yesterday he had looked upset and agitated. Since then he had been from time to time trembling, paralyzed, staring with fear. Sometimes resigned and apathetic. Clearly very afraid of something. I leaned on the cell wall and waited for him to tell me what.
`They’re threatening us,’ he said again. `If I ever tell anybody what’s going on, they said they’ll break into our house. Round us all up. In my bedroom. They said they’ll nail me to the wall and cut my balls off. Then they’ll make my wife eat them. Then they’ll cut our throats. They said they’ll make our children watch and then they’ll do things to them after we’re dead that we’ll never know about.’
SEVEN
`So what should I do?’ Hubble asked me. `What would you do?’