III“I SMELL TROUBLE,” SAID O’Leary to the warden.
“Trouble? Trouble?” Warden Schluckebier clutched his throat and his little round eyes looked terrified—as perhaps they should have. Warden Godfrey Schluckebier was the almighty Caesar of ten thousand inmates in the Jug, but privately he was a fussy old man trying to hold onto the last decent job he would have in his life.
“Trouble? What trouble?”
O’Leary shrugged. “Different things. You know Lafon, from Block A? This afternoon, he was playing ball with the laundry orderlies in the yard.”
The warden, faintly relieved, faintly annoyed, scolded: “O’Leary, what did you want to worry me for? There’s nothing wrong with playing ball in the yard. That’s what recreation periods are for.”
“You don’t see what I mean, Warden. Lafon was a professio
