就这样，夏天过去了，然后秋天又过去了。又一个冬天到了，我还是没有想到办法怎么偷偷的把枪带进来。但是好几个月我都在思考一个办法。
在隔离区有个人每天进进出出，他就是告密者兰基（Langy）。在我们来之前就知道他。兰基曾经和一帮抢劫犯一起作案。其他人都被判了很长的刑期，但是兰基作为第一个被抓的人却获得了从轻处罚。他们大多数在东区监狱，我对他们很了解。事情的原委是兰基第一个被抓，然后将其他人给指认出来了。
兰基在隔离区不是为了惩罚，而是为了保护他。在不接触监狱里其他囚犯的前提下给他一些事情做，监狱方给了他一个外面的工作。他是个油漆工，就不停的在围墙外的监狱里干活。
监狱里的告密者是彻底地被排斥的。正直的人鄙视他，那些可能比他更糟糕的人，那些也告发过没有被发现的人为数不少，他们更加急切的想通过比别人更加严厉的对待兰基显示他们的双手有多干净。任何人被看到和他讲话，会被立即纠正过来。你在监狱里听到的都是，"小心这家伙……"然后你就知道这个家伙有问题。
这就是我感受到的情况。我看到他每天早上提着他的桶，拿着刷子出去，然后我想，我希望有人会逮到这个告密者。
他有时会回来的比较早，自从不再被锁在他的囚室后——谁去锁一个你每天要安排在监狱外工作的人？——他会四处闲逛，帮助分发食物等之类物品。其他人会沉默的对待他或者羞辱他。有一段时间我也是沉默的对待他。但是最终我开始认识到他的存在。我通常喜欢和人相处。对于被困在监狱的狱警也是一样。监狱里的狱警是世上最孤独的人。守卫厌恶他们是因为他们很糟糕。犯人讨厌他们是因为他们是狱警。我从来没有这样的感觉。我一直认为狱警和其他人一样只是个谋生手段而已。即使在新新监狱，我冒着和其他囚犯作对的风险和那些恶棍狱警说话。
还有些事情让我对兰基有些宽容。就像我憎恨专业密探一样，从我的经验看，我知道几乎没有人在我承受那种酷刑下能够不屈服。我想在那种酷刑下能够坚持的人一定是非常不正常的。我为我骄傲，因为我打死也不说。如果我不知道1000个人中999个人都做不到，我怎么会这么骄傲？
当所有的事情都考虑过并做过后，随着时间的推移，可以看得出来他是我唯一的希望，我开始和兰基交谈。他是个交谈愉快，长相俊美的家伙。金发，身材苗条，脸颊消瘦和一双动人的蓝眼睛。这是我第一眼通常看到的东西，眼睛。出于某种原因，我一辈子都是这样做的。我甚至都不知道我要寻找什么，但是我有个最初的印象，而且我有足够的经验相信自己的直觉。对于兰基，这种感觉很难描述。他像松鼠一样警觉，无疑这是出于害怕的原因，但是这让他看上去比以往更像一个告密者。
所以不管怎样，因为我给了兰基一些尊敬，他会走到我门口和我说话。而且我从谈话中逐渐感觉到这个家伙会做任何事情来证明他不是告密者。他向我发誓，他的两个同伴在他前面被捕，作为惯犯，他们知道真实的情况，也足够聪明来为他们做交易，然后利用他作为初犯获得更短刑期的特点，让其他的每个人认为他是告密者。"我不知道，"我说。"狱警们给了你所有这些保护措施……"
他的故事可能是真的，也可能是假的。但是我想让他向我证明那是真的。和他说话是一个巨大的让步，不要以为特努托和斯宾塞·沃尔德龙（ Tenuto and Spence Waldron ）不让我知道这些事情。但是我有我的策略。他和我结交是因为他知道我可以给他认可，我和他结交，因为我在向他提出问题之前必须尽可能确定（他能做什么）。我想我们都想要点什么。兰基想要自尊，我想要枪
在我进行最后一步前，我把他找出来，提到他似乎没有什么钱，我说，“听着，如果你需要钱，我可以给你一些。”看，如果我帮助他，那么他不定什么时候就可能会帮助我。
他不要任何钱。他说：“如果我能为人们做些什么，我不需要报酬。”“你觉得我是什么？”我对他说：“嗯，如果你有机会，你会帮助人们越狱吗？”
原文：
207-208页
And so the summer passed. And the fall. Another winter was on us and I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to get a gun smuggled in to me in isolation. But for months I had been working on an idea.
There was one person on the isolation block who came and went every day. Langy the rat. We had heard about him before we got there. Jack Lang had worked with a band of robbers. The others had all received long sentences and Langy, as a first offender, had got off cheap. Most of them were at Eastern, and I had got to know them pretty well. The story was that Langy had been picked up first and had put his finger on them.
Langy was on the isolation block not as punishment but for his own protection. In order to give him something to do, without exposing him to the rest of the prison population, they had given him an outside job. He was a painter, and they kept him busy working on the prison property outside the walls.
A rat in prison is completely ostracized. The stand-up guys despise him and those who are probably worse than him, the not inconsiderable number who had informed and hadn’t been found out, are always eager to show how clean their own hands are by being harder on him than anybody else.
+Anybody seen talking to him is immediately set straight. All you have to hear in prison is, “Be careful of this guy . . .” and you know the guy is wrong.
That’s just the way I felt. I’d see him go out every morning with his pail and his brush and I’d think, I hope somebody gets that rat.
He’d come back early sometimes and since they never locked him in his cell—why bother to lock the cell of a guy you’re sending out of the prison every day?—he’d wander around and help give out the food and things like that. The others would either give him the silent treatment or insult him. I gave him the silent treatment for quite a while too. But eventually I began to acknowledge that he was there. I’m generally like that with people. The same thing with cops who land in jail. A cop in jail is the loneliest man in the world. The guards hate him because he went lousy, and the cons hate him because he was a cop. I never felt that way. I always felt that a cop has a living to earn like anybody else. Even when I was in Sing Sing I took the chance of antagonizing the other inmates by talking to the rogue cops.
And there was something else that made me relent a little toward Langy. As much as I hated a professional stool pigeon, I could realize from my own experience that almost anybody would cave in under the kind of beating I took. I think you have to be abnormal to withstand such punishment. I was proud of myself for knowing I’d die before I’d talk, and how could I have been so proud of myself if I hadn’t known that 999 out of 1000 couldn’t have done it?
When everything is said and done, though, I began to talk to Langy because as time went by I could see that he was my only hope. He was a pleasant-spoken guy and fairly good-looking. Blond, very slimly built, gaunt at the cheeks. And vivid blue eyes. That’s what I usually look at first, the eyes. For some reason, I’ve done that all my life. I don’t know what I look for, even, but I get an initial impression and I’ve been right often enough to trust my instincts. With Langy it was hard to tell. There was an almost squirrel-like alertness about him which undoubtedly came out of fear but made him look more like a rat than ever.
So anyway, Langy would come over to my door and talk to me because I gave him a little consideration. And it developed in my mind during the course of these talks that this guy would do anything to prove that he was no rat. He swore to me that two of his partners had been arrested before he had and, being seasoned criminals who knew what the score was, they had been smart enough to make deals for themselves and then take advantage of the short sentence he had received as a first offender to make everybody else think it was him. “I don’t know,” I’d say. “They’re giving you all this protection. . . .”
His story could have been true. It probably wasn’t. But I was willing to let him convince me that it was true. My talking to him was a very big concession, and don’t think that Tenuto and Spence Waldron didn’t let me know about it. But I kept my own counsel. He was cultivating me because he knew that I could put the stamp of approval on him, and I was cultivating him because I had to be as sure as possible before I put the question to him. I guess we all want something. Langy wanted self-respect; I wanted a gun.
Before I went the final step, I drew him out by mentioning that he didn’t seem to have too much money. I said, “Listen, if you need any, I figure to be able to give you something.” I’d help him out, see, and then maybe he could help me out sometime.
He didn’t want any part of money. “I don’t have to get paid to help people if I could do something for them,” he said. “What do you think I am?” I said to him, “Well, would you help people out of prison if you had an opportunity?”
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