sternum. Some form of mascara and shadow had been applied to his eyes.
'Becker,' Becker said. He indicated the other chair.
'I got your letter.'
'You're Becker?' The man seemed genuinely surprised.
'I know, I don't look the part.'
'No, no, it's… No, you're right, you're not what I expected.'
'What were you hoping for, Dick Tracy?'
'He said you were… I thought you'd be… I don't know. Bigger.'
'No, just life-size. Sorry.'
'I didn't think you would come at all. I'm Swann.'
'I know.'
Swann started to offer his hand, then quickly withdrew it and sat in the chair opposite Becker. He looked up at Becker from under lowered brows.
It's meant to be either seductive or a parody of shyness, Becker thought.
'I really didn't think you would come.'
'I would have said you were counting on it.'
'I hoped… well, I mean, I hoped… I prayed. I prayed a great deal.'
Becker smiled ruefully. 'I'm not the answer to anyone's prayers, believe me.'
Swann's face darkened. 'I believe in prayer, Mr. Becker. I truly do believe in it. It's the only thing that's kept me sane.'
'Why me?' Becker asked. 'Why not just contact the FBI and tell them you have some information for them?'
'I couldn't just contact anybody. Our mail is censored, you must know that. And even if it wasn't, I couldn't risk having anybody find out what I was doing. Do you know what they do to stoolies in this place? … Even now, a meeting like this, what if they find out?',The guard thinks I'm an attorney reviewing your case for civil rights violations. I don't know what the warden has been told. If anyone finds out what we talk about, it's because you told them.'
'Me? I would be killed.'
'Why me, Swann? Why specifically me?'
'I heard about you.'
'Heard what?'
'They talk about you in here. Lots of them seem to know you or to know about YOU. You have a rep.'
'I'll bet.'
'I hear you climb, you climb mountains. You're a rock climber, right?'
Becker said nothing. Swann smiled at him, knowing his information was correct.
'You'd be surprised how much they know about you.'
'You a climber, Swann?'
'Well… not really. I worked with ropes a little bit, I know what's involved. That's scary work.'
'Not so scary if you know the safe way. You ever try it?'
'I believe in gravity. if it tells me to go down, I go down. It was just interesting that they say that about you.
Someone who would do that, take that kind of risk for no reason. It's unusual. I don't really understand it.'
'You're surrounded by risk takers in here.'
Swann shivered. 'I don't understand them, either.
Please don't lump me with them.'
'The judge already did that. You pleaded to three counts of manslaughter and aggravated assault.'
'My lawyer told me to do that. My landlady attacked me, she went crazy and just came at me, I was defending myself…
'You misunderstood me, Swann. I said the guard thinks I'm an attorney, you don't. Spare me the bullshit.'
'My innocence is not bullshit to me, Mr. Becker.'
'Uh-huh. Well, innocence is a relative thing. You did slit the landlady's gullet, after all. Or at least you said you did when you pleaded guilty.'
'It was a horrible time, she was coming at me, I struggled with her, she tried to stab me-you don't know, you just don't know. How could you understand what it was like?'
'You'd be surprised at my imagination,' Becker said.
'Why me, Swann? I can't think I have a lot of fans in here.'
'Oh, they don't hate you, isn't that odd? They think they know you.
It's like-I don't know-like wolves from different packs will kill each other sometimes, they don't like each other maybe, they've got to defend their turf, but they understand each other. They understand each other better than they understand the sheep.'
Becker took the open pack of cigarettes from his pocket and inhaled the scent of tobacco again. Swann's analogy linking him to the people he pursued in a commonality of understanding was too close to the bone. It was as if the prisoner had read his thoughts of only moments ago.
Becker tapped a cigarette loose, paying great attention to the work as he tried to settle his mind.
Swann accepted the cigarette gratefully and Becker shoved the whole package across the table to him.
Swann's hand covered it and it was suddenly gone.
'They say you're fair,' Swann said and Becker thought briefly of Pegeen's use of the word earlier. 'They say you'll treat people right if they're straight with you.'
Becker laughed. 'Nobody in here ever told you I was fair. But maybe they told you I was an idiot who would believe whatever you said.''
Swann laced his fingers in front of him, then studied them for a moment, pouting.
'They said you can tell,' he said, his tone lower, more sincere. I 'They say you can look at a man and know if he's telling the truth. They say you can see it in his eyes.'
Becker snorted. 'Who am I supposed to be, the truth fairy? You can't tell anything by looking into a man's eyes. Any good liar can control his eyes. I look at his hands.'
Becker chuckled as Swann predictably stopped moving his hands and folded them on the table in front of him.
Becker knew he would be unable to treat them naturally for the rest of the interview. They were strong hands, unusually large for a man Swann's size, with thick wrists.
In truth, Becker never paid much attention to a person's hands, either, but he liked making the prisoner uncomfortable. Nothing valuable was ever learned when the person being interviewed was too comfortable.
'Men don't look each other straight in the eyes, anyway, don't you know that, Swann? It makes them uncomfortable, it's an unnatural act. We look women straight in the eyes, not other men. You sure as hell must have learned it in here. If a man looks you straight in the eyes when he tells you something, it means one of two things.
Either he's lying to you or he wants to fuck you.'
Swann twisted uneasily on his chair.
'I know about that part,' he said.
'I imagine you do,' said Becker.
'That's why I wrote to you.'
'Okay.'
'I want revenge on an animal.'
'I didn't think it was your civic duty.'
'I'm a man,' Swann hissed. 'A man. He called me his punk, he called me his wife-and he used me like his whore. He nearly killed me. Many times.
Many times. He threatened to snap my head off, and he would have, anyw ere else he would have. He wouldn't regret it, he wouldn't even think about it… No, that's not true, he thinks about them, all of them, he loves
