How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"For God's sake, Candy. Before Mapes gets here, tell me the truth. Did Mathu do this?"
"I've already told you the truth," she said. "I did it."
"Fix is going to demand a n*****'s blood, Candy. You know that, don't you?"
She came up closer to me, her head even with my chest, her eyes blazing, her mouth trembling she was so angry.
"I killed the son of a b****," she said. "That's what I'm going to tell Mapes, what I'm going to tell the radio, what I'm going to give television. I killed that son of a b****." (8.48-52)
How can there be any kind of accurate judgment without a clear view of the truth? Is justice even possible when everything else is a lie?
Quote #2
"I tried talking. She wouldn't listen," I said.
"You tried throwing her butt into the back of that car?" Mapes asked.
"No, I didn't try that, Mapes," I told him. "I hear there's a law against kidnapping people. Especially on their own place."
"There's a law against harboring a murder, too," Mapes said. "You ever heard of that law?"
I didn't answer him. (8.166-69)
We don't know about you, but it sure does seem that the way the law normally works doesn't really seem to be working here, does it?
Quote #3
"You ever seen anybody die in the electric chair, old man?" Mapes asked Uncle Billy.
Uncle Billy's head went on bobbing. "No, sir," he said.
"It's not a pretty sight, Uncle Billy. Not when that juice hit you. That's how you want to go?"
"No, sir. But if I have to."
"Even if you have to, Uncle Billy, you don't want to go that way," Mapes told him. "When that juice hit you, I've seen that chair dance. You see, Uncle Billy, we don't have a permanent chair in Bayonne. When we need one, we go to Angola to pick it up. And we don't waste time screwing it down—not for just one killing. And when that juice hit you, I've seen that chair rattle, I've seen it dance. Not a pretty sight, old man. Is that how you want to go?" (8.246-48)
We've already seen Mapes smack innocent old men around with no success, so now he uses the threat of a different kind of violence. Is there a connection between those two kinds of violence or force?