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all be different in the morning.
    I hoped. There was a little nag of worry that kept me awake for a bit, but at last I shruggedit off. Tomorrow would be fine, yes it would be. Fine. No doubt about that, fine …

CHAPTER THREE

    Breakfast was no better – and no worse – than the ones I made for myself. I ate automatically, sipping the weak cactus tea and chewing doggedly at the gruel, while I looked around at the other tables. There were about thirty prisoners stuffing their faces in this room, and my gaze went from face to face with a growing feeling of despair.
    Firstly, most of them had the same vacuouslook of blank stupidity as my cellmate. All right, I could accept that, the criminal classes would of course contain the maladjusted and the mental mud walls. But there had to be more than that! I hoped.
    Secondly, they were all quite young, none out of their twenties. Weren’t there any old criminals? Or was criminality a malfunction of youth that was quickly cured by the social adjustment machines?There had to be more to it than that. There had to be. I took some cheer from this thought. All of these prisoners were losers, that was obvious, losers and incompetents. It was obvious once you thought about it. If they had been any good at their chosen profession they wouldn’t be inside! They were of no use to the world or to themselves.
    But they were to me. If they couldn’t supply the illegalfacts that I needed they would surely be able to put me in touch with those who did. From them I would get leads to the criminals on the outside, the professionals still uncaught. That was what I had to do. Befriend them and extract the information that I needed. All was not lost yet.
    It didn’t take long for me to discover the best of this despicable lot. A little group were gathered around ahulking young man who sported a broken nose and a scarred face. Even the guards seemed to avoid him. He strutted a good deal and the others made room around him when they walked in the exercise yard after lunch.
    ‘Who is that?’ I asked Willy, who huddled on the bench next to me industriously picking his nose. He blinked rapidly until he finally made out the subject of my attentions, then wavedhis hands with despair.
    ‘Watch out for him, stay away, he’s bad medicine. Stinger is a killer, that’s what I heard, and I believe it too. And he’s a champ at mudslugging. You don’t want to know him.’
    This was intriguing indeed. I had heard of mudslugging, but I had always lived too close to the city to have seen it in action. There was never any of it taking place near enough for me to hearabout, not with the police all around. Mudslugging was a crude sport – and illegal – that was enjoyed by folk in the outlying farm towns. In the winter, with the porcuswine in their sties and the crops in the barns, time would hang heavy on their agrarian hands. That was when the mudslugging would begin. A stranger would appear and challenge the local champion, usually some overmuscled ploughboy.A clandestine engagement would be arranged in some remote barn, the women dismissed, moonshine surreptitiously brought in plastic bottles, bets made – and the barefisted fight begun. To end when one of the combatants could not get off the ground. Not a sport for the squeamish, or the sober. Good, hearty, drunken masculine fun. And Stinger was one of this stalwart band. I must get to know Stinger better.

    This was easily enough done. I suppose I could have just walked over and spoken to him, but my thought patterns were still warped by all of the bad videos I had watched for most of my life. Plenty of these were about criminals getting their just desserts in prison; which is probably where I originated the idea of this present escapade. Never matter, the idea was still a sound one. I could provethat by talking to Stinger.
    To do this I walked, whistling, about the yard until I was close to him and his followers. One of them scowled at me and I scuttled