After Beckman had handed in his breakfast tray, he strode back to the corner of the cell where he had spent the night. His thinking was a little clearer now, less fractured by his own mental spasms of self-reproach and the exterior shouts from other cells. There had been a fight in the next cell during the night. He could hear the grunts and blows of the combatants. No one came in to stop it. The last policeman he saw was the one who had walked him to the cell. No one even cheered the fight on. The grunts and blows simply went on until they stopped, and were replaced by the night noises of squeaking beds and regular breathing.
Beckman squatted in the corner, thinking. His cellmate, staring at him from darkened caves, kept his worn and spotted coat pulled close to his body, even though it
