Lone Wolf #5: Havana Hit by Mike Barry

right! I’ll tell you what I know, I don’t know nothing,” and weeping, head bowed he began to mumble names, addresses, quantities, whereabouts, all of the information which Williams had worked out so patiently … and he couldn’t hear a word. It was frustrating, that was all. He nodded to the cop on the stool who came off quickly, moved over to the boy and bent an inquisitorial ear, the kid scrambling around on the floor while the cop tried a juxtaposition of heads, trying to get close enough to make sense of the babbling. And Williams withdrew. He simply could not bear to get close to them. Hitting out at them was not a closeness but merely an expression of revulsion; diving into them though meant that he was coming into a closeness that he had dedicated his life avoiding. That was the whole principle, to build distance. That was what the system was giving him.
    The cop groaned, shrugged, nodded as the kid whispered to him. Williams found himself losing interest, walking toward the door, feeling a detachment surging through him that was the next thing to disgust. Face it: if there were any satisfactions in this at all they came in breaking them down, ramming through to the corrupt, empty hearts of them, establishing control. But what came about as a result of this meant absolutely nothing to him. The interrogations were interesting but the interesting parts had nothing at all to do with the information disclosed. Let me face it, Williams thought suddenly, looking at the kid who was now embracing the other cop, rising to his knees, his head extended as he whispered horrid confidences, I am a monster. In certain ways no different from theirs, I am absolutely monstrous. Police work could do this to you, it could do it to anyone. Still, you could go back to the mortgaged home in St. Albans and act as if this were not so….
    An elderly woman clerk looked in through the door, jabbing Williams in the back with the knob; he jumped away. Clerks would come in anywhere; the interrogation rooms meant nothing to them. That was civil service for you: there was nothing that could be done to interfere with the career-&-salary plan. “David Williams?” she said.
    “I’m David Williams.”
    “You’re David Williams?”
    “I’m David Williams,” he said, again. “Don’t I look like David Williams? Don’t I feel like David Williams? That’s who I am.”
    The kid broke off from his whispering into the white patrolman’s ear. “Get me out of here,” he said to the clerk, “they’re torturing me.”
    “That’s a police matter. There’s a telephone call for David Williams upstairs.”
    “All right,” Williams said, “I’ll take it.”
    “They really can’t do this to me,” the kid said. “There are constitutional things, aren’t there? They’re not allowed to torture you for testimony.”
    “Shut up,” the patrolman said.
    “I don’t know anything about the Constitution,” the clerk said, “that’s not my concern,” and walked out of there. The kid slumped on the floor shaking his head as she went away.
    “I’ll be back,” Williams said.
    “I don’t like it,” said the patrolman. His name was Thomas and he had been on duty with Williams for a fortnight and he didn’t like anything. Then again, Williams conceded, there was no particular reason why he should. “I don’t want to be alone with him.”
    “Be a man,” Williams said. “Consider the stakes; we’re going to break up the international drug market on the strength of what information is divulged here tonight.” Thomas did not know quite how to take this. His face suffused with confusion. “I’ll be back,” Williams said. “It’s probably my wife; she’s five months in, you know; this kind of thing can happen anytime.” This seemed to mollify Thomas; even the kid looked impressed. Williams went up the stairs directly behind the room two at a time, not bothering to close the door. Once he was out of there, he knew, Thomas was