Glory Boys

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The prison smelled bad, looked worse. The cells were big steel-barred affairs, with prisoners four to a cell. Bright lights hung from steel chains in the roof. The long hall rang with noise, obscenity and the smell of violence.

Willard watched as Charlie Hughes was picked from his cell and marched up to the visitors’ room. The room was cream with a dark-green band around the base. A single electric lamp hung from a wire in the ceiling. Hughes was brought in and sat down at the table. A smell of vomit entered with him. Willard waited for the guard to leave, then realised he wasn’t going to. He loathed having the guard there – it was like having a servant present while seducing a girl – but there was no choice.

‘Lord, Charlie, are you all right?’

‘Oh, Will-o, yes! Thanks for coming. Shouldn’t have, but, gosh, really, thanks!’

There was a pause. Hughes stank. Willard was wearing a new suit, hand-made in a lightweight charcoal-grey worsted, and he worried that Hughes’ smell would penetrate the cloth and infect it. He inched his chair back and, for a moment, was too overwhelmed with the awfulness of the place to know what to say.

‘I probably smell, do I? An Irishman chucked up on me last night. It’s kind of hard cleaning up in here. But, you know…’ He shrugged, as though being puked on by Irishmen was one of the inconveniences of city life.

‘God, Charlie! Isn’t it awful! You’ve got a lawyer, of course?’

‘Awful?’ Hughes sounded genuinely surprised. ‘Well, you know, I’m out of it now. I probably won’t get more than a year or so. And you know, I’ve got two sisters. It’s rather a relief really. It could have been worse.’

‘What have your sisters got to do with it? How could it have been worse?’

‘Well, you know…’ Hughes made a vague gesture, which Willard couldn’t interpret. But he suddenly remembered Arthur Martin, the car-crash victim whose death seemed to have been so conveniently timed.

‘Look, I’ve got the name of a chap if you need one,’ said Willard. ‘I don’t know him myself, but I know my father uses him.’

‘Pardon?’

‘An attorney. Someone to get you out of here. I can’t see them giving you a year, not for your first offence and everything.’

‘Oh, no! No, that’s quite all right. I don’t want to cause a fuss. I mean, it’s quite a let-off really.’

‘Charlie, can I ask you something?’

‘’Course, Will-o, anything.’

‘Were you really selling booze? They said you had sixteen cases in your apartment.’

Hughes laughed. ‘Sixteen cases! Gosh! Was it really that many? But, no, I mean, of course not. Can you see me bootlegging the old hoochino for a living? Not really my type of thing, that.’

Willard felt his familiar sense of distaste where Hughes was concerned. This stupid little man had allowed himself to be framed for something he couldn’t possibly be guilty of, then refused to make a fuss about it. Quite the opposite. If anything, Hughes appeared grateful.

‘Well, look, Charlie, I can’t stay long. If there’s anything I can do…’

‘Oh, I’m OK. I’ll be OK.’

‘Yes.’ Willard hardly bothered to conceal his dislike for anyone who could be OK in a place populated by puking Irishmen.

‘Thanks awfully for coming, Will-o. You will be careful, won’t you?’

‘What do you mean, careful?’

‘You know, the best thing would be to leave. I mean, they couldn’t do anything to you. It’s not as though you know too much, and your father being a pal of Ted Powell’s and all that.’

‘What the hell do you mean?’

Willard’s question was brutally frank and Hughes looked a little shocked. Willard could see he wanted to answer, but he kept shooting suspicious glances at the guard who was standing painfully close. Hughes bent forward and said in a low whisper, ‘Get out, Will-o.’

The guard stepped even closer and clattered the table with his night stick. ‘No whispering. Sit back. Hands on the table. And wind it up. You’ve got a minute.’

‘I can’t quit. I owe Powell two hundred thousand dollars.’

‘What!’

‘You heard. He financed a movie I made. We had problems with distributors.’

‘Jesus, Will-o! Jeez! You got a … you… Heck, I thought I