Quote 16
"There's no use taking anybody into court, no matter what you've got on. They own the courts, and, besides, the courts are too slow for us now. […] I've got to have results to hide the details under. So evidence won't do. What we've got to have is dynamite." (15.30)
The Op dismisses the effectiveness of the court system and even goes so far as to suggest that he needs to have big results to cover up the dirty details that led to them. What's happening to the moral structure of the Op's code when he enters Poisonville? Why does he become more and more willing to let things slide all in the name of finding that "dynamite"?
Quote 17
"Now hop to it," I said. "And don't kid yourselves that there's any law in Poisonville except what you make for yourself." (15.34)
The Op seems to have no moral qualms about inventing his own rules and laws in Poisonville. Is it right or wrong of the Op to take matters into his own hands and determine the fates of dozens of so-called criminals? What if the Op is turning into a morally corrupt criminal himself?
Quote 18
"Look. I sat at Willsson's table tonight and played them like you'd play trout, and got just as much fun out of it. I looked at Noonan and knew he hadn't a chance in a thousand of living another day because of what I had done to him, and I laughed, and felt warm and happy inside. That's not me. I've got hard skin all over what's left of my soul, and after twenty years of messing around with crime I can look at any sort of a murder without seeing anything in it but my bread and butter, the day's work. But this getting a rear out of planning deaths is not natural to me. It's what this place has done to me." (20.38).
Notice here how the Op spends a lot of time separating his old self from his current self. He emphasizes that the person he is right now "isn't me." Personville has poisoned him so that now he gets a kick out of "planning deaths" and feels "warm and happy inside" as he plots Noonan's demise. I guess we have to give the Op credit for being self-aware of his flaws, but he doesn't try to stop the murders from happening. So how sorry does he feel really?