Half of Paradise by James Lee Burke

but since these men were there for only a short time it was usually left free to be used as a place of solitary confinement. On one wall of the hole there was a list of names written in pencil with a date beside each one. These were the men who had been put to death upstairs.
    Avery’s trial had been over for a week. He had pleaded guilty and received a sentence of one to three years to be served in a penal work camp. LeBlanc had drawn the same sentence as Avery for running moonshine, plus seven years for armed assault. Both of them were being held in the parish jail until they would be transferred to the work camp. When they came into the jail their personal belongings were taken from them and put into two brown envelopes, and they were each issued a tick mattress, a tin plate, a tin cup, and a spoon. The tank was full, and they were among the men who slept on the floor.
    Avery and LeBlanc had their mattresses pulled against the wall to leave room for a walkway. There was a card game going on in the corridor. Five of the inmates sat or lay in a circle. A candle stub was melted to the floor in the center, and the thin flame flickered on their faces. Every night they played cards with the same faded incomplete deck. They used matchsticks for stakes, and the two winners were exempt from the cleaning detail in the morning.
    Avery watched the game in silence. LeBlanc was playing, although none of the men wanted him. He had caused trouble since the first day he was brought into the jail. He had cursed the jailer and tried to hit a guard, for which he got a week in the hole. He refused to eat for three days when he came out. One of the inmates gave him a plate of food and told him to eat something, and LeBlanc threw it against the wall beside the doorway where the jailer stood. He was given two more days in the hole. He told everyone he would kill the jailer or a guard if given the chance. When he got out of the hole the second time he set fire to his mattress and filled the room with smoke. The men lied to the jailer and said that someone had dropped a cigarette on the mattress and the fire was an accident. They didn’t lie because they liked LeBlanc; whenever someone did something wrong, Ben Leander the jailer punished all the inmates. He didn’t look upon the men as individuals. They were a group, and when one of the group went against him the entire lot was to blame.
    It was LeBlanc’s deal. He shuffled the cards and set them down to be cut.
    “Five-card stud,” he said.
    “We been playing draw,” one man said.
    “I’m dealing stud. You ain’t got to play.”
    The other men told him to deal draw poker.
    “I ain’t playing draw,” he said. “It’s dealer’s choice, and I call stud. One card down and four up. If nobody don’t want to play I take the ante.”
    “Play like we been doing.”
    “We always play the same game,” another said.
    “The game is stud,” LeBlanc said, dealing the cards.
    Avery sat and watched. Sherry, the man next to him, rolled a cigarette from loose tobacco in a shred of newspaper. The men had given him his name because he had been able to conceal a bottle of wine in his overalls when he was brought in. He was being held for the robbery of a liquor store.
    “Your podner acts like he ain’t right in the head,” he said.
    “It’s because he’s locked up,” Avery answered.
    “We all locked up. That don’t give him no excuse.”
    “He was in the war.”
    “He’s got a crazy look in his face,” Sherry said. “Setting fire to his mattress like that. We like to coughed our lungs out from the smoke. He’s lucky they give him another mattress to sleep on.”
    “The jail is rough on him.”
    “Wait till he gets to the pen.”
    “They’re sending us to a work camp.”
    “That’s worse. They treat you better at the pen.”
    “You been up before?”
    “Three times around,” Sherry said. “It ain’t too bad for me. I’m used to it. Only thing I miss is drinking. With some