Stephen Hunter - Dirty White Boys

“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.

The phone pulled Bud Pewtie from a blank and dreamless sleep, and he awoke in the dark of his bedroom, his wife breathing heavily beside him. All through the house it was quiet, except for the sounds of his two sons shifting and squirming under their blankets down the hall.

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.