VLVL2 (3) A Finesi Romance #1

[Don Corathers]

> You've argued that Hector is a hard boiled bastard and who is
>
> "blind to the possibility that somebody might decline to
> participate in one of his schemes because of basic human decency" and
> that Zoyd is never turned.
>
> Did you get this from a WC Fields movie or what?

I acknowledged a few days ago that my earlier post about Hector's pathology
was overstated, in the heat of responding to something from Rob that I found
particularly egregious at the time. The take on Hector's problem
understanding Zoyd's motivation, quoted above, was speculative.

I still think Hector's a bastard, in the sense that any cop who engineers a
corrupt frameup to serve his boss's personal agenda would be a bastard. Cute
bastard, but not somebody I'd want to have a beer with.

And I still don't think Zoyd was ever turned, if by turned you mean he
became a paid informant. Which is why I thought it was worth the effort to
examine the "fatal five-spot" line. If as you've suggested Van Meter's Ch. 3
performance at the door was a charade and knowledge of the PI money was new
(and thus "fatal," in the sense of marking a decisive and irreversable
moment) only to Zoyd, there's an implication from the narrator that Zoyd
ultimately would become complicit in Hector's operation. If on the other
hand this is Hector's first visit and the payment is a "fatal five-spot" to
the household in general, the meaning is different, imo.

D.C.