about hiring him,” the manager said. “Why?”
“You don’t know who this is?” The cop had a good fifteen years on Jason but even without his gun and his club and the weight of society behind him he would be a tough one in a brawl. “You’re looking at a two-time convict here.”
Jason tried to sound polite. “We’re conducting some private business here, Officer, and I think—”
“What’s the idea?” Larry said. “You didn’t say nothing about doing time.”
“Well, you didn’t ask about—”
“Don’t you come into my place of business pulling some con!”
“It’s not a con. I just want a—”
“The son of a murderer, too,” the cop added. “Probably be a murderer himself soon, if he ain’t already. Be a real addition to your workforce, Larry.”
Jason glared at the cop.
“No thanks, son.” Larry shook his head.
The cop chuckled. “Hit the road, Fireson.”
Crushing the brim of his hat, Jason turned and walked out. He paced the sidewalk, too enraged to give up and head home. He’d been there less than a minute when the cop joined him.
“You have no right to run me like this,” Jason said. “I was a kid and I made some mistakes—and they’re about to change those laws anyway! I have a right to try and make good.”
“You did make some mistakes, I’ll give you that. That cop you beat on in Indiana? That was my cousin—and those laws ain’t about to change.”
Jason had resisted arrest the second time he’d been taken in, had gotten a few licks in before they paid him back tenfold. “I did my time for it! I paid my debt!”
“Everybody’s got debts right now, and I couldn’t give a damn about yours.”
“I’m trying to do the right thing here!”
“You wouldn’t know the right thing if it hit you on the head.” The cop’s right hand dangled onto his billy club. “Now shut your mouth and go make your living someplace else. Someplace very far from here.”
It took a second to register. “You can’t run me out of my own town. I got family here, I got—”
“I can’t? You’re lucky I’m being so polite about it. I ain’t always in this good a mood.”
They stared each other down. Jason could feel some of the truckers from inside the office and others out on the sidewalk watching them. He searched for some angle to play, but there was none. He turned and walked away.
The next day he inquired about a few more jobs, but halfheartedly. The straight life was revealing itself to be nothing more than a mirage, and Jason cursed himself for being so gullible. Pop had always believed in playing by the rules, working hard and following the law, the American dream, and look where it had gotten him. Jason burned with shame at the way he had lost face in front of that cop. He was better than this. If the cop was so sure that Jason’s Fireson blood doomed him to being a murderous outlaw, then Jason would do him one better: he would be the best goddamn outlaw anyone had seen.
His thoughts returned to Marriner Skelty, an old yegg he had befriended during his second stint in jail. Marriner wasn’t like the Lincoln City small-timers Jason had walked out on; he was smart and professional. Marriner had other friends, particularly skilled friends, some of whom Jason also had met behind bars. Marriner’s jail term was nearing its end, as were some of the others’. Jason started visiting Marriner at the same visiting room where his brothers had very infrequently visited him. The view’s nicer over here, he told Marriner the first time, smiling.
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