Free The Box by Peter Rabe Page B

silence again and Whitfield fingered his chin. He wished he were some place else.
    “Yes. Point number three: Do not go near the waterfront after dark. I don’t think I need to explain why.”
    “No. That you don’t.”
    “After all, you are still suffering the consequences.”
    Quinn got up from his chair and stretched himself carefully. He did this mostly to learn where he was hurting. Then he walked to the window which looked from the office into the warehouse, but it was dark on the other side and he saw only his own head reflected.
    I don’t know, I don’t know, he thought. I give up Ryder and now I get this. Like a clear jinx riding me. Jinx in the box.
    “And now that we understand each other…” Remal was saying, when Quinn turned around from the window.
    “Have you got any idea why you don’t like me?” he said to Remal.
    When Quinn heard himself say this he was as startled as the other two men. He turned back to the window. Got to get out, out of here. Go see Turk, he thought. See what there’s to see. I need more than my guesswork about cans smelling like booze—
    “I really don’t know what you mean, Mister Quinn, seeing that you and I hardly know each other.”
    We don’t, we don’t for a fact, but still I have this feeling—
    “I have no feelings about you, Mister Quinn. Perhaps it is that which offends you.”
    And he may be right. He’s the one who makes this vacuum around me, with no feelings one way or the other. I lost the instinct—Get a beating, get the runaround, get the law laid down to me. And nothing happens inside. I’ve lost the instinct—
    “However,” said Remal, “I have not finished. There is this fourth point. If you do not obey…”
    “Obey?” said Quinn.
    “Perhaps my English is inadequate.” Remal shrugged.
    “I think it is good,” said Quinn. “I don’t know what else to think of it but I think it is good.”
    Remal looked at Whitfield and frowned. Quinn’s talk was confusing him. Perhaps, this Quinn person himself was confused, he thought, and he’d best put a halt to this quickly now.
    “To finish,” he said and got up, “as I gather from the police officials and by inference, you are familiar with the rules of disobedience. I have talked to you, Mister Quinn, and I wish you no harm. But I have talked to you about rules and I am now finished talking. Whitfield, take him home.” Remal turned and walked out the door.
    He left Quinn speechless and Whitfield worried. Whitfield did not think Quinn would stay speechless or dumfounded like this for very long.

Chapter 9
    After the sirocco comes through and then disappears over the water, there is often a motion of slow, heavy air. Nobody feels it move in, but it is there, like a standing cloud, a mass of heat. This phenomenon, in a Western climate, might mean a thunderstorm and release. But not in Okar.
    Quinn walked out into the street and felt it. He felt the still heat inside and out and how nothing moved. Something’s got to happen, he felt, something—
    He walked next to Whitfield, ignoring him, aware only of the heat which did not move.
    “Quinn, not so fast. Please,” said Whitfield. “The steps, you know,” and Whitfield puffed a little, which he blamed on breaking training with the two bottles in the back of the car.
    Quinn stopped a few steps ahead of him, where the street leveled out again, and touched the side of his face.
    “Uh. Quinn.”
    “Yes.”
    “I wanted to tell you I am most awfully sorry about what happened to you tonight. Please believe me.”
    Nothing’s happened yet, thought Quinn. He felt himself breathe and how hard it was. He almost began to count. Like a count-down, he thought, except I don’t know how many numbers to go—
    “Believe me, Quinn, I had no idea. What I mean is, I was most terribly shocked coming upon that scene there by the fence. Really, Quinn.”
    “I believe you,” said Quinn. He was suddenly bored with Whitfield. “I really do, Whitfield,”