Shorty VL 303

[Michael Bailey]

> alice:
> If Hector had really wanted Zoyd to snitch here, it would have been so
> easy to use Prairie as a point of leverage. Instead, when Zoyd is busted
> on p. 295, Hector calls Sasha so she can come collect Prairie. Now why
> on earth would he do that?
>

because he is putting friendship above principles?
If it wasn't contradictory, I'd say let's make that a principle...

Zoyd's willingness to talk, share a meal, relate on purely human
terms pays off in this case.  I fault Zoyd for a lot of things
(driving after all
them beers, the hotel scene in Hawaii, unseemly lachrymosity,
screaming matches with Frenesi, his tendency to violence - yeah, the
chainsaw thing but also his willingness on page 358 ff, to even consider
armed action to recover his house) but it seems to me that he handles
Hector intelligently and ethically enough...

given that Hector keeps coming around and all, uninvited,
and has the potential by temperament and by law, to spoil everything!

so, Mr Wheeler relates as a human being to this cop and
receives some of Hector's wisdom to boot:
It isn't taking away anything from Zoyd to say that Hector makes some
very telling points, across that lunch table.

perhaps a cop can sometimes work like a Maxwell's sorting demon...
or a catcher in the rye...

I mean, philosophically,
that in real life, there are real limits to one's choices - sometimes
painful limits -
but there are also real things one can accomplish within those limits

I tend to think about Zoyd's house as a favorite example of that, but
Hector's discretionary autonomy on the beat, deciding exactly how
he will protect and serve, is also a personal achievement.

It isn't stretching a point to see something of a hero in him.



-- 
"My God, I am fully in favor of a little leeway or the damnable jig is
up! " - Hapworth Glass