'-"Harry, this don't look like the goddamn lieutenant's scrawl, though goddammit, the man can hardly write his own name.”
“When he drinks a bit his hand gets scratchy,” Harry said.
“Whyn't you call him for the okay?”
The moment hung in the air. Richard had some trouble breathing, but Lamar was as slick as they come.
“You damn boys are making it so hard on me I just might change my goddamned mind. Don't want to think too long 'bout what I'm set to do. Might change my tune.”
“Lamar, you have more shit in you than a goddamn outhouse,” said the guard.
“Go on. Harry, get ’em out of here.
I can't believe Lamar's turning snitch. Thought you was a tough con, Lamar.”
“Getting old,” said Lamar.
“Can't get it hard no more.
Warden's going to get me a softer joint, you know, a country club. Maybe I can get me some pussy.”
“Get ’em out of here,” said the supervisor.
“Hope the goddamned warden knows what he's in for.”
Harry escorted them down the hallway beyond the security checkpoint. It seemed like a different world suddenly;
the hallway was bright and airy, though the windows had mesh screens; it was just possible to see the green plains of Southeast Oklahoma outside as they fell away toward Oklahoma City a hundred-odd miles off, all farmland and low hills. And horizon! Richard saw the horizon between the two red turrets of the rear gate, accessible only from Admin Two, the building they were now in.
The outside world: Richard had forgotten such a place existed. The weight of the prison was its totality, its immensity:
in its grip, all other possibilities diminished, even disappeared.
He had a brief and sweet image of his life before, of the freedoms he'd had, the pleasures, the small idiotic rights. A blast of pity for himself and his helpless ways swept over him.
“In here,” said Lamar, putting his shoulder quickly against a locked door and bucking it open without a sound.
The four men were suddenly in the darkened office of the prison's medical administrator. Dr. Benteen. Benteen, who was brother-in-law to some powerful state senator, was almost a total no-show these days, with a bad drinking problem, much loathed by everyone in the prison community but untouchable.
Quickly Lamar took the keys from the hapless Harry and sprang himself; he tossed them to O’Dell, who did the same, and finally it was Richard who got them. By the time he was out, Lamar had taken up a post at the window. They were two stories up. Jesus Christ, Richard thought, what were they supposed to do, parachute?
“Yeah, he's still here, goddammit,” said Lamar.
“Parked where he always parks. That gets us ten feet less to jump. You ain't afraid of a little jump, are you, Richard?
Say twenty feet. On a nice, soft van roof.”
Richard looked: Twenty-five feet below he saw the flat roof of a white van. How had Lamar known it would be there?
“Goddamn guy 'comes to put Hostess Twinkies and HoHo Cakes in the guard's vending machines every god damned Tuesday this time. Now we jump onto that, I can hot-wire the goddamned thing, and we off. Good thang them damned hacks love their HoHo Cakes so fucking much!”
Lamar knew the prison up one side and down the other.
Just knew it cold.
“Fall long,” said O’Dell.
“Boo boo fall. Hurt O’Dell.”
“Now O’Dell, you can jump it, you know you can. See mamma, get out, okay O’Dell?” He turned to Richard.
“This boy loved his mamma. She was the only one ever treated him decent till I come along. We got to get him to her grave just once before he dies. Now O’Dell, want you to bend this goddamned metal screen out, so we can get ourselves out of here. Got to move fast—that guy's going to be moving along soon enough.”
“Lamar, you want I should tie myself up,” said Harry.
“I don't think I can get it tight enough. You may have to tie the knots for me.”
“Sure, Harry. You go on. Use your belt and the cord from that drape or maybe you can find some tape. O’Dell and I going to get this screen out. Richard, son, you just hang loose a sec, we may need you.”
But they didn't. O’Dell gathered up a length of curtain and cushioned his hands, then proceeded to punch the glass out of the window. Then he upturned the doctor's chair, pulling it apart until he had a metal strut. Inserting it in a small gap in the metalwork, he pried enough of the window mesh from its screws to get leverage; finishing with the strength of his own arms, he bent the screen back savagely, until a man could easily crawl out.
Meanwhile, Harry Funt scavenged through the office until he found some masking tape.
“This here tape'll work just fine,” he said.
“Should I gag myself, Lamar?”
“Yeah, Harry, that's great. You know, it's them little touches that make it real. This here thing is working out just great, ain't it, Richard?”
“It's great,” said Richard.
“Really very, very nice.”
“Almost ready, O’Dell?”
“Weddy,” said O’Dell.
“Lamar,” said Harry, "I did my ankles and legs. I'm going to put the gag on now. Can you do my wrists? Not too tight or nothing. And when you hit me, just enough to bring some blood. Nothing dramatic. I'm too goddamned old for drama.”
“Why, sure. Harry,” said Lamar. He waited as the old man put some cotton balls in his mouth and then ran a length of tape around his mouth to the back of his head.
Then Lamar bent behind the old man who eagerly offered his wrists behind his back and Lamar swiftly ensnared his wrists. Then Lamar wrapped several more lengths of tape around Harry's mouth.
“That's kind of tight, isn't it?” asked Richard.
“Well, maybe it is,” said Lamar.
“But we want it real.
Harry don't mind. Do you mind. Harry?” he asked.
Harry, gagging a little, shook his head no.
“Good,” said Lamar.
“Well, then, boys, we are all set.
Oh, wait, just this one little last thing.”
He bent to Harry.
“We want it real, don't we. Harry. All the details just right?”
Harry nodded.
The shank magically appeared in Lamar's hand, and he cut the old man's carotid artery.
He picked it up.
“Yeah, Pewtie here.”
“Bud?”
Bud immediately recognized the voice of Captain Tim James, the Zone Five area commander and his boss. Bud felt the edge in Captain James's voice. A bad one on 144, kids smeared on the pavement, propane burning, gas leaking, a school bus burned? Bud had seen them all.
“Bud, we got a call-out. It's a big ten-ninety-eight. Up at goddamn McAlester, three tough-ass inmates. They capped a guard, another convict and probably a guy they stole a truck from.”
“Yes sir,” he said.
Bud was secretly relieved. He'd seen a lot of random destruction on the highway, what speed and metal can do to the innocent or the stupid. Twenty-five long years in, he knew a certain part of himself was wearing away: that part that could look without flinching at young lives crunched into bent metal.
Russell "Bud” Pewtie was forty-eight, a strong, large man with short, graying hair and brusque ways. He wasn't exactly an emotion machine, and his profession had conspired to drive what few public feelings he had even deeper behind the set lines of his squarish face. No one could read much on Bud. He was a sergeant and Zone Five assistant commander of Troop G, of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, that is, for Comanche, Caddo, Grady, Cotton, Stephens, and Jefferson Counties, as well as for the long northeast-south-west run of 1-44 down from Oklahoma City on the way to Wichita Falls, Texas.
“Affirmative, Captain,” he said.
“I'm rolling.”
“Bud, nobody's riding alone on this one. Oklahoma City's orders. These boys are too goddamned mean and you can bet their first stop's gonna be a gun store or some hunter's basement. We're partnering up and traveling cocked and locked.”
“Who’m I partnering with?”
“I see you broke in that kid Ted Pepper. He lives near you, don't he?”
For just a beat. Bud paused. He tried to clear his head, but yeah, it would be Ted. Somehow, it had to be Ted.
“Yeah, Ted's about ten minutes away on the other side of Lawton.”
“Okay, you double with Ted. This is just an ad hoc thing, but we're setting up roadblocks on all the majors between here and McAlester. Gonna be a meeting up in Chickasha in the highway maintenance shop. Can you get there by oh-seven-hundred for roadblock assignment? I want you and Ted to represent our troop, and I'll rotate others in as I can.”
“Yes sir,” said Bud.
“I'll call Ted.”
“Bud, I know you'll do damned good. But be careful.
These boys are trash.”
Bud rolled out of bed, pausing just a second on the edge to collect his scattered wits. It felt cold, as if a terrible wind were blowing, but it was just a random chill.
“Bud?”
It was Jen, in the dark.
“Yes?”
“What is it?”
“Oh, it, was Tim. A goddamn call-out. Escaped cons. I'll be sitting on a goddamned roadblock or running up and down the highway, that's all.”
“You be careful. Bud.”
“I always am,” he said.
Bud went down to the kitchen and, after just the faintest pause, dialed Ted Pepper's number. He knew it by heart.
It rang three times.
“Hello?”
Ted's wife Holly answered. He knew her voice too well.
He swallowed hard. On the phone she sounded like syrup;
there was a low vibration, a hum, that still made him a little woozy. She was twenty-six. How complicated things can get!
“Holly?”
“Bud! You shouldn't call me here. He—”
“Holly, is Ted there?”
“Of course he isn't here. You know that. He's in the other bedroom. I'll get him.”
“Good, you do that. Holly.”
Thirty seconds later Ted came on.
“Bud?”
“It sure is,” said Bud heartily, and gave Ted the news.
“I'm swinging by in fifteen, and I want to find you with all your creases straight and your AR-15 locked and loaded.
Got that, son?”
“Oh, Christ,” said Ted.
“I only just went to sleep.”
“Well, now, I know you have it in you.”
“Christ, Bud, you got all the damn answers. You're goddamn happy, I can tell. See you in twenty.”
“Fifteen, young trooper,” said Bud.
He was so merry with Ted. Old trooper sergeant, all the damn answers, full of laughs and teasing and the subtle insistence of obedience. Before he'd won his stripes, he'd been "the kid” to a dozen tough old sergeants, and now, here he was, a sergeant himself.
Bud hit the shower, was out in a flash, and rushed through the rest. Then, stepping into his closet, he found his next day's uniform spring-fresh on the hanger. He pinned on the gold badge, an Indian shield with two wings above it, and the words to protect and serve. To a lot of the younger men, the badge meant nothing. But he still felt as if it symbolized his membership and acceptance in an elite society: we enforce, it said to the world. We protect.
He pulled on his socks and a Gaico ankle holster, then stepped into his taupe, striped slacks, still thirty-sixes. The brown shirt, with its flashy gray epaulets and pocket flaps, fit him like a glove. Its three yellow chevrons stood out bright as daisies, just below the yellow-piped arrowhead shoulder patch that said Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Nineteen years to make that rank, even if he'd passed the test up at the top the first time, when he'd only done a decade. He buttoned it up, swiftly tied the tie.
“Bud, you put your vest on!” Jen called from the bedroom, where she should have been sleeping.
It irritated him, but most things Jen said irritated him these days.
“That goddamn thing's heavy as a washing machine.”
“Still, you put it on.”
“Of course I will,” he lied. He hated it. Made him feel like he had on a girdle.
Last, Bud slipped into his black patent oxfords and tied them tight.
He stepped out of the closet.
“Bud, you don't have that vest on, I can tell. You're going to get yourself killed, and leave me with a mountain of bills,” Jen said.
“Nobody's killing me,” he said.
“Now go back to -sleep.”
“I swear, you are an ornery man these days,” she said sullenly.
She settled in under the blankets, rolling over.
He stepped into the short hallway. Not much of a house, but nobody'd ever complained. It was dark, a blue dark, but Bud knew every square inch of it. He walked a bit, and leaned in to look at Russ, who snoozed with some trouble;
he was restive in sleep as in life. Russ's hair, mottled and tangled, ensnared his handsome face; above him the specter of some rock performer made up like the devil himself rose on a poster, stark white and psychotic. He looked like a PCP zombie Bud had once seen a DEA team blow away on 44 the other side of OK City. But Bud didn't worry about Russ. Russ, who was seventeen, looked like six kinds of shit, with all that damned hair and the black clothes he wore and a little glittery something in his earlobe that Bud didn't even want to know about, but Bud somehow knew he had too much of his mother in him to do anything crazy. He still got mostly As. He had a chance to go to a fancy Eastern university if certain things worked out right.
Across the hall, he looked in on the younger boy, Jeff.
Jeff was the smaller at fifteen but the tougher. He had a pug face and an athlete's wiry, muscley frame. The room stank ever so slightly of stale sweat socks, moldy jocks, ten pairs of sneakers. He was the jock wannabe, no genius, not a reader, but on any kind of field a hard and earnest plugger who yearned to do well and almost never did. There was something tragic in Jells wanting and continual air of disappointment in himself. Bud felt a wave of love and melancholy wash across him, so intense that he felt he could bend over and kiss the young man on the cheek. Jeff seemed to need him so.
I'm going to leave this young boy? he asked himself, feeling the weight come onto his shoulders. But leaving was being discussed. It was a possibility up ahead on the road.
Scared the hell out of him. Am I really getting ready to pull out?
Well, maybe I am. Maybe they'll be all right.
“Daddy?” Jeff had stirred, seeing his father.
“Yes, Jeff, what is it?”
“What's going on?”
“Oh, they need me. Nothing much.”
“You don't have your vest on. I can tell.”
“It's nothing,” he said.
“Don't you worry a bit. You're just like your mother. Get on back to sleep now.”
Bud put his family behind him and walked downstairs to the end of the hall to a closet. He opened it to face his gun vault. Quickly, he turned the familiar combination.
His heavy patent-leather belt hung on the pegboard inside the door; he peeled it off, ran the belt around his waist, and pulled it tight, third hole. A belt was important to a policeman; it carried so much: cuffs, can of mace, a baton if he was working crowd control, a sap as some of the boys carried, a radio jack, a speed loader pouch, and the gun, of course.
Of course the gun. A four-inch Smith & Wesson M66357 Magnum. He took his off the shelf and gave it a quick wipe down its stainless steel ugliness gleamed in the low light, but the damned thing felt so good in the hand. It fired six murderous little Federal 125-grain hollowpoint bullets, with a one-shot stop rating of 93 percent. Bud went to the range twice a week; he was a very good shot.
He opened the cylinder and quickly dropped in six Federals from the open box; he had two speed loaders each charged with six cartridges for quick refills. Unlike many state officers. Bud laboriously practiced with the speed-loaders, and could get his six empties out and have six new shells deposited in the cylinder in less than two seconds.
He'd never had to do so, just as he'd never shot a living man, but it was better to be able to do it fast and not need it than to need it and not be able to do it. He secured the pistol in his holster, snapping the thumb snap. Then he reached into the gun safe and removed a tiny Smith & Wesson 640, a two-incher, flicked the cylinder open to assure himself it carried five +P .38-Special hollow tips locked the cylinder, and slipped it into his ankle holster, left inside ankle, again securing it with the strap.
He locked the safe up tight and pulled his Smokey off its top. The dark green flat brimmed hat was perched just so atop his head, its brim just edging off the top of his vision, as it was supposed to. Maybe that's where it started for him, all those years back. Goddamn, he still thought it was the best-looking hat he'd ever seen; it was the only hat he'd ever wear. He wanted to be buried in it, or at least with it.
He stepped out of the house and went to the cruiser parked in the driveway, a gleaming Chevy Caprice, in the black-and-white tones of the state. Firing up the engine, he picked up the mike and pressed the send button.
“Ah, Dispatch, this is six-oh-five, I'm ten-fifty-one to Officer two-eleven.”
“Got you, six-oh-five,” said the woman's voice, the night duty dispatcher.
“Advise you switch to Police Intercity Net for updates as they come through.”
“Affirmative, Dispatch. Any news?”
“Big zero, so far.”
“Okay, Dispatch, off I go.”
He switched to the intercity net, 155.670 MHz, eased the big car out of the driveway, and headed to Ted and Holly Pepper's.
The Pepper trailer, alone on its grim little street, was lit up like a turnpike gas station. Ted, fully uniformed, stood outside with a rifle case in one hand. He was a tall, good-looking youngster, perhaps too handsome; if there was weakness to his character it was that as a young man things had been given to him too easily, without his ever quite acquiring the lessons of humility and hard-ass work. If you're a blue-eyed boy with a button nose, things just show up on your plate. But he was all right. Ted just didn't have the gift—that special instinct for human deviance, that cunning about motive, that twitch for the truth under the lie, and finally, the will to do the job flat out—that marked a great cop. But there weren't too many great cops left, and Bud knew he himself fell short in a bunch of areas, too. He had only this on Ted: He'd been around a bit more.
As Bud pulled in, the door opened, and Holly came out in a housecoat with two sealed 7-Eleven plastic cups that presumably held hot coffee. Her freckles stood out now, without makeup; her straw-colored, almost reddish mass of hair looked like she'd been electrified, but, dammit, that was Holly, she was a cute one.