Recoil Read Online Free PDF Page A

Doc were not in the room. “Any idea what a caper of this kind costs, Red? Hardesty was in on it. So was Burkman. So were the several legislators he horsetraded into bringing pressure on the governor.”
    “Miss Briscoe—”
    “Doc, if you don’t shut up I’ll put you out of the office.…So that’s your picture, Red, or most of it. I don’t mean that Doc spent much actual cash in getting you out. What he and his crowd spent were pledges. They tacitly canceled certain favors owing them and obligated themselves for others. They used up a lot of their steam—steam they could use right now. Now, why do you think they did that, Red?”
    “I know why,” I said. “But I’d prefer that Doc explained it to you.”
    “Smart,” she said, eyes narrowed. “Can you cook, too?”
    “Miss Briscoe,” said Doc. “I want you to believe I helped Pat for just one reason: because he needed help and deserved it, and I was in a position to give it.”
    “I know you want me to believe that.”
    “Pat served fifteen years for a robbery in which nothing was lost and no one was hurt. He served it not because he was a criminal, but because he wasn’t. He should never have been sent to anything but a juvenile correctional institution.”
    “You’re right there,” said Miss Briscoe, grudgingly.
    “Pat stayed on in Sandstone five years after he was eligible for parole. Ten years would have been a terrible punishment, but he stayed five years more. He could have spent his whole life there, solely because he had no friends or money.”
    “And you got him out, solely out of the goodness of your heart.”
    “Put it this way,” said Doc, slowly. “I’ve—I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Maybe this will help wipe some of them out.”
    Myrtle Briscoe stared at him, elbows on her desk, hands under her chin.
    “Dammit, Doc, I’d like to believe that!”
    “It’s the truth.”
    “Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve lived so much of my life surrounded by crooks that—” She broke off. “Pat—Red, Sandstone isn’t a very nice place, is it?”
    “Suppose I said yes,” I said. “Or no?”
    “Never mind. But there’s more than one kind of prison, Red. They don’t all have walls around them.”
    “I know,” I said. “I worked in the library, Miss Briscoe.”
    “Well, I hope you learned something. You’ve had a bad time. I hope you’re not in for something worse. Not that it makes much difference. I’m like everyone else; I have to play ball. Doc knew I would, didn’t you, Doc?”
    “I hoped for your cooperation, certainly, Miss Briscoe.”
    “I’ll play—this time. But don’t get in a rut, Doc. There’s an election coming up, and I’m pretty sick of trying to clean house with a whiskbroom.”
    Myrtle Briscoe came around the desk and gripped me by both arms and looked up into my face.
    “I was kidding about the clothes,” she said. “You look good—and you’re going to have to be good. Hard as it may be, and even if we both think it’s nonsense. You know what I mean. No drunks, no wild women, no rough stuff. That’s what the books say. That’s what I say as long as they say it.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” I said.
    “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe—oh, get the hell out of here!”

7
    T here was a restaurant in the basement of the capitol, and Doc and I ate lunch there. Neither of us was very hungry, and we had only a salad, rolls and a bottle of ale each.
    Several people stopped by our table. There was a Senator Flanders with a man who, as nearly as I could make out, was a textbook salesman. There was a commissioner of something-or-other whose name I didn’t catch. Another senator named Kronup. Several people; I saw them all later, from time to time, around Doc’s house.
    Burkman came in, just as we were finishing the ale, and took a chair at our table. There were pouches under his eyes, and his voice was even more hoarse than it had been the night before.
    Doc told him about Myrtle Briscoe.
    “Myrtle dropped a hint