From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [345]
“This is Jack Malloy,” Angelo said proudly, as if introducing his personal friend the Nizam of Hyderabad, the richest man in the world. “Wait’ll you hear some of the real conversations we have in here.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Prew said, feeling tongue-tied and shy. Looking at those soft vague unabashed-dreamer’s eyes he could see why an arch-cynic like Blues Berry could make such a fatuous remark about The Malloy’s big-baby heart.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, too,” Jack Malloy said warmly, sticking out a paw like a ham. “I want to shake your hand, citizen. Out of all the drafthorses in this stable, you’re the only one who ever listened to what I told them to do and did it, exactly,” he said raising his voice.
Without turning either his trunk or his head, he seemed suddenly to be staring behind him at the rest of Number Two sprawled out talking on the chairless floor. He was not looking at them but they all lowered their eyes and inspected their cigarets, the conversations seemed to stop dead in the air.
Jack Malloy ruthlessly let the silence ring on for almost a full minute. Then he turned back, or seemed to turn back, because he was still looking at Prew, and winked down at Prew, a quick deliberate but absolutely impersonal wink that was as if he did not even see Prew at all but was only fulfilling a social ritual like a host who gives a big dinner party for a prospective customer so he can sell him.
“If I had twelve men;” he said loudly, “an even dozen, citizen; who would do like you did, I could have Father Thompson and Fatso both in the nut ward in three months as permanent boobyhatch material.
“Of course,” he said, “there would be two more just like them the next day and we would have to start over again, but the Toughest Jail in the US Army would soon become also the Toughest Assignment in the US Army. And if we sent enough of them along after Father Thompson and Fatso, eventually they would have to close up this shop in despair and let us all go home.”
The ever-present thirty-year-man that was always there in Prewitt wondered if he meant home to their outfits or home to civilian life, but somehow he did not feel like asking.
Jack Malloy let the silence ring on for another minute. He had said it all loudly, and nobody said anything this time either. There seemed to be a general feeling that he could do just exactly what he said.
There was another feeling, too, Prew noted, here in Number Two. It was a feeling that had not been in Number Three. The only way he could describe it was that it was a feeling that you could say anything loudly, absolutely anything, loudly. It was a good feeling.
“Have a smoke, citizen,” Jack Malloy said, lowering his voice back to normal, and offering him from a full pack of tailormades. It was like a signal and the men on the floor who had been chastened began to smoke and talk again.
“Hey,” Prew said, embarrassedly, “tailormades. Thanks.”
“I got plenty more,” Jack Malloy said. “Any time you want one. If this little son of a bitch,” he nodded at Angelo, “with all the pure unadulterated guts he’s got, would follow my advice half as well as you did, he could have pulled off his plot and been out of here a month ago.”
“Thats all right,” Angelo countered, taking the offered cigaret, “you just wait. I can do it anyway. I know I can.”
Prew watched his eyes go a little crazy again, hungrily, like they always did at the mention of his great secret plan, but this time his eyes did not get the murderous suspicion in them that they always got out on the rockpile.
“I’m just biding my time,” he said craftily. “I can do it all right. Dont worry about that.”
“Sure you can,” Jack Malloy said gently. “Sure you can, citizen. But you could do it a whole lot easier, and save yourself a whole lot of nasty bumps, if you’d listen to me.”
“I listen to you,” Angelo said violently. “More than once’ve I listen to you. And I’ve tried it. Not ony Passive Resistance, but the other in the Hole. I just cant do it, Jack. Either one.”