Part 13 (2/2)
”THE TROUBLE with this country,” Old Man Covey unexpectedly exploded, eer on the newspaper he had been reading, ”is that the courts have got a stranglehold on it! Law? There ain't no law! There's courts and there's judges, and this thing you call the law is a weapon they use to choke huress!”
The portion of thepaper upon which the old man's assault was concentrated, I saith difficulty, held the report of a decision of the Supreme Court in connec- tion with some labor difficulties in the West Old Man Covey, I knew, couldn't be personally interested in either side of the dispute He had as little to do with capital as with labor, which was very little For eight years now - since the day when a street preacher had turned ”Big-dog” Covey from the ways of crime, to become plain John Covey and, later, Old Man Covey - he had subsisted upon the benevolence of a son-in-law
His interest in this case was, then, purely acadeed by his earlier experience with the criminal courts, which had been more than superficial, and I suspected that soendered this outburst
So I rolled another cigarette and led hiumentation - the most direct path, I had learned, to the interior of his contrary oldthe vernacular tere in an attempt to do all I could to stir up the portions of his remembrance that had to do with his days of youth and lawlessness, ”is a tough job Laws are cohten them out so that they fit particular cases Most of the beaks do very well, I think”
”You think so, do you?” the old scoundrel snarled at me ”Well, letabout it! I could tell you stories about beaks and their ways that would knock your eye out!”
I put all the skepticism I could summon into a ss from your own side,” I replied, ”and in those days you were on the wrong side Now I don't say that judges don't make mistakes now and then They do They're only human But I never heard of a case where you could say that a judge had positively twisted the law around to -”
That turned the trick He cursed and snorted and glared at rinned my insincere doubts, and the story finally caether so handkerchiefs to hide our rease-joints was our meat, and we done ourselves pretty well We'd knock over a couple a night sohts We'd drift into the on we knew each other, and stall over coffee and sinkers until as alone with the guy behind the counter Then we'd flash the rods on hi hauls, you understand, but a steady, reliable incoet an idea for a new racket -and it's a darb! Flogger -he's an uniinative sort of jobbie - can't see it at first But I keep jawing at hirees to take a whirl at it
”You never seen Flogger Rork, did you? I thought not Well, he's a good guy - what 'Limey' Pine used to call a 'bene cove'- but he ain't no flower to look at I seen a cartoon of a burglar once in a newspaper during one of these crime waves, and that's the only tiuy - but we had to be careful hoeus up just on account of his face Me - nobody hadn't ever took er I look pretty sweet
”These s of ours had been handicaps to us so far, but now underto cash in on them
”We was in the Middle West at the ti over, and go to work Our guns are ditched down under a pile of rocks near the jungle
”We -store There's two nice little boys in it I plant myself in front of one of theer does the sah,' we tells 'em
”Without a squawk, one of 'em pushes down the 'No Sale' key of the damper, scoops out every nickel that's in it, and passes it over to Flogger
” 'Lay down behind the counter and don't be tooup,' we tell theo on out and about our business
”The next day we push over two more stores and ive our new racket a couple of whirls, and it goes nice Having an ace up our sleeves, we can take chances that otherould have been foolish -we can pull a couple or even three jobs a day without waiting for the rus were pretty the, we push over a garage, a pawnshop and a shoe store, and we get picked up
”The bulls that nabbed us was loaded for bear, but - outside of running until as no use - ent along with them as nice as you please When they frisked us they found the money from that day's jobs, but that was all The rest was cached where we kneould be anted it And our guns was still under that pile of stones three States away We didn't have no use for theuys we had stuck up that afternoon caht away As one of 'eht and said nothing We knehere we stood and ere satisfied
”After a couple days they let us have a mouthpiece We picked out a kid whose diploh to collect any dust yet, but he looked like he wouldn't throw us down; and he didn't have to know much law for us Then we laid around and took jail life easy
”A few days of that, and they yank us into court We let things run along for a while without fightin' back, until the right tis our little joker on theer, are per- fectly willing to plead guilty to begging But there is nothing to hold them for robbery on They were in need of funds, and they went into three business establishments and asked for money They had no weapons The evidence doesn't show that they made any threats Whatever mo-1 tives may have prompted the persons in the stores to hand over the contents of the various cash registers to oblige the on the matter The evidence is plain His clients asked for , certainly - and so his clients are liable to sentences of 30 days or so in the county jail for vagrancy But robbery - no!
”Well, son, it was a riot! I thought the beak was going to bust so bloated hick with a red face and a pair of nose-pinchers His face turns purple now, and the cheaters slide down his nose three times in five minutes The district attorney does a proper war dance with the whoops and all But we had 'em!”
The old man stopped with an air of finality I waited a while, but he didn't resume the story, if there were, indeed, any more to it; so I prodded him
”I don't see where that proves your contention,” I said ”There's no using of the law as a weapon there”
”Wait, sonny, wait,” he prohThey put their witnesses back on the stand again, then But there was nothing to it None of 'em had seen any weapons, and none of 'es about our looks, but it ain't a crily
”They shut up shop for the day, then, and chased er back to the jail And ent back as happy a pair as you ever seen We had the world by the tail with a downhill pull, and we liked it Thirty days, or even sixty, in the county jail on a vag charge didn't ot over it
”We were happy - but that caht maybe a court was a place where justice was done after all; where right was right; and where things went accordin' to the law We'd been in trouble with the law before, plenty, but this was different - we had the law on our side this time; and we counted on it stickin' with us But -”
”Well, anyway, they take us back over to court after a few et a slant at the beak and the district attorney I get sort of a chill up hts in their eyes, like a coupla kids that had put tacks on a chair and was a-waiting for sos up so's they can slip us two or three, or even six, es But I didn't suspect half of it!
”Say, you've heard this chatter about ho the courts are, haven't you? Well, letin the world ever ot fixed in our chairs, al
”Our kid et a word in But not a chance! Every time he opens his mouth the beak cracks down on hi to throw hiain if he don't keep quiet
”The e was the proprietor, but the ones in the hock shop and the shoe store were just hirelings So they leave the garage arand larceny, have 'euilty, sentence 'em to five years apiece, and suspend the sentences before you could shi+ft a chew from one cheek to the other ” 'If,' the beak says in answer to our mouthpiece's squawk, 'your clients siave it to theuilty of theft, since thefor the court to do, therefore but to find therand larceny and sentence them to five years each in the state prison But the evidence tends to show that thesedesire to help two of their fellow men; that they were induced to steal the overnable impulse to charity And the court, therefore, feels that it is justified in exercising its legal privilege of leniency, and suspending their sentences'
”Me and Flogger don't understand what's being done to us right away, but our et a look at hi
”The rest of the dirty work takes longer, but there's no stopping it This old buzzard of a judge has our charges changed to 'receiving stolen property'-a felony in that state; we are convicted on two counts, and he slips us ten years in the big house on each, the hitches to run end to end
”And does that old buzzard feel that the court should exercise its legal privilege of leniency and suspend our sentences? Fat chance! Me and Flogger goes over!”
HIS BROTHER'S KEEPER
I KNEW what a lot of people said about Loney but he was always swell to uess I would have liked him just as much even if he had been just solad he was not just somebody else
He was not like me He was slim and would have looked swell in any kind of clothes you put on him, only he always dressed classy and looked like he had stepped right out of the bandbox even when he was just loafing around the house, and he had slick hair and the whitest teeth you ever saw and long, thin, clean-looking fingers He looked like the way I re I took more after Ma's folks, the Malones, which was funny because Loney was the one that was named after them Malone Bolan He was s to put anything over on hiainst him, only that was kind of hard to fit in with Pete Gonzalez
Pete Gonzalez not liking Loney used to bother uy, too, and he was never trying to put anything over on anybody He had two fighters and a wrestler named Kilchak and he always sent them in to do the best they could, just like Loney sent er in our part of the country and a lot of people said there was no better anywhere, so I felt pretty good about hi to handleTubby White's gym that I ran into him that afternoon and he said, ”hello, Kid, how's it?” ar further over in a corner of his ht”
He looked ar ”Going to take this guy Saturday?”
”I guess so”
He lookedh anyhow and when he squinted like that you could hardly see them at all ”How old are you, Kid?”