James Patterson - Beach Road

A half hour later, we’re shepherded to a second terrace where a table has been set, and for the next two hours, Kate and I take turns answering questions about ourselves, our backgrounds, and the case. I guess we’re entertainment, the flavor of the month that Spielberg, on a whim, has decided to share with a dozen pals.

But that doesn’t make sense either. These actors and actresses are professional acquaintances of his, colleagues not buddies. And why are they all staring at Kate and me so intently and hanging on our every word as if there’s going to be a test on us the next morning? I swear I’m not making this up, but as I’m saying something about the case, I notice that Clooney and Damon are holding their hands like I do and sinking into their chairs with the same slouch.

Is that something actors do unconsciously, or am I being mocked? Or both? And then it comes to me. The movie about this case is already moving toward production. Steven has signed on, but everything else is up for grabs. What George and Julianne, Julia and Kate and Clive are doing at this glam gathering is auditioning.

To play us.

ALL VISITORS TO the Riverhead Correctional Facility are welcomed with a hospitable placard:

GIVING MONEY, FOOD, OR ANY OTHER CONTRABAND TO AN INMATE IS A FELONY PUNISHABLE BY UP TO A YEAR IN JAIL. IF YOU ARE CAUGHT BRINGING CONTRABAND INTO THIS FACILITY YOU WILL STAY HERE.

Tom and I have walked past it umpteen times, but this morning, Tom nudges me and clears his throat.

“Whatever,” I say.

Five minutes later, after stashing our money and keys and passing through metal detectors and locked-off checkpoints, we are back in the tiny attorney’s room that has become our second office.

But this isn’t going to be a normal workday, and when Dante steps into the room, I point him to the chair in front of the Mac PowerBook on what’s normally my side of the table. Then I close the door behind me.

“Dante,” I say softly, “we know it’s your birthday Sunday, so we’re giving you a little party.”

As Dante flashes a smile of surprise and affection I won’t forget if I live to be a hundred, Tom slips a pair of headphones over his head. He hits a key on the computer, and I turn off the lights.

“ Happy birthday, Dante!!! ” marches across the screen to a hip-hop beat, and Dante taps his feet with delight. It’s pretty amateurish. As auteurs, Tom and I have a ways to go, but after we stumbled out of Spielberg’s backyard a couple weeks ago, we figured Dante could use a break from reality too.

Following the birthday greeting, the brand-new, not-yet-released Jamie Foxx movie, which we procured with considerable help from our new best buddy, fills the computer screen, and Dante, eighteen or not, smiles like the kid he still is. As the opening credits roll, I open my briefcase and hand Dante an important legal document. That’s not strictly true. What I hand him is a small tub of popcorn. I read the sign. I know it’s a felony, but it just isn’t a movie without popcorn.

Two hours later, when our feature presentation comes to a close, Tom hits the Return key one last time. Among the countless things Dante has been unfairly denied over seven months is the dunk contest at the NBA All-Star Game. No more. Last night we downloaded it into my laptop, and for the next fifteen minutes, I watch Dante and Tom shake their heads and whisper astute commentary like “Nasty!” and “Sick!” and “Ridiculous!”

I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun, and I realize that my whole world is inside this little room.

I DIDN’T THINK it was possible. Not in this hellhole. Not walking down a long, nasty tunnel, wrists and ankles in chains, locked up for something I didn’t do.

But I actually feel good. Instead of thinking about how messed up everything is, about my broken-hearted grandmoms back in her trailer, I’m thinking about what Kate and Tom did this morning. It makes me feel warm inside.

I guess you live in your head more than anyplace else. If your head is in a good place it doesn’t matter quite as much if the rest of you isn’t. For the first time since I got here, time doesn’t feel like a stone I got to drag from one end of the day to the other. It feels like it can pass by on its own.

The tunnel taking me back to my cell runs some two hundred yards before reaching the stairwell up to my cell block, and because of how unusual the morning’s been, it takes me half of that to notice that the guard, whose name is Louis, is kind of quiet today. What’s up with that? Most of the time, Louis is a chatterbox, always wanting to talk hoops and tell me about all his old-school favorites from the eighties and nineties, but this morning, when I actually feel like talking, he’s not saying a word. I realize it must be tough, being a prison turnkey.

“I got to use the bathroom,” says Louis. “I’m going to leave you for a minute.”

“Whatever. I’m in no hurry.”

Louis bolts the chain running from my ankle to a pipe along the wall, and when I see his expression as he steps into the bathroom, everything comes together in a rush. I know what’s happening.

Then I hear heavy footsteps coming fast from the far end of the corridor.

I try to reach for the fire alarm five feet away on the wall, but the way Louis has me attached to the pipe I can’t reach it. Then I try to rip the pipe off the wall, but I can’t move it, hard as I yank.

A voice from inside a nearby cell cries, “Run, youngblood! Run!” But how can I run with my hands and feet in chains? Too late for that. I can’t even grab the fire extinguisher from the wall. The answer has got to be somewhere in my head. The answer has got to be somewhere, and it better come fast.

The pounding footsteps are louder now, and when I look down the corridor again, I see they’ve sent a brother to do the job. A big brother. He fills the corridor like a subway coming through a tunnel.

And now I can see his face-it’s no one I’ve seen before-and something shiny is in his right hand.

I can only take three steps, but it’s enough to reach the bathroom door, the one behind which Louis is hiding right now, waiting for this to be over so he can jump out and pull the alarm.

I don’t bang on the door like a desperate man who is about to die. I tap on it real soft with my knuckles, like the one who has just done the killing, and I whisper in a strange voice- “Louis, it’s done.”

Then I step to the other side of the door real quick. I also start to pray.

My killer is less than ten feet away, close enough for me to see that he’s looking scared too. And I need for him to see that I’m every bit as big as him, and my fists out front let him know I’m not going down without a fight. That makes him pause for a second, but just a second.

Then he takes one more step, with his knife held out in front of him like a spear. He lunges at me with the shiv just as the bathroom door opens, and as I duck down, Louis steps out.

The killer is so startled it gives me time to spring up from my crouch, and holding my fists together, I hit him right under his chin. I catch him solid with all I got. It knocks him out cold and sends the homemade knife clattering to the ground at his feet.

Even with both hands and feet manacled I could reach the knife and kill the thug they sent to kill me, but despite what some people think, I haven’t killed anyone yet and don’t plan to start now.

THE FACT THAT there’s nothing in the forensic reports linking the murders of Michael Walker and Manny Rodriguez helps me keep my mind off the two dead men for a while. Then I start to get nuts again. I call Vince Meehan. Vince, who runs the evidence room, gives me the number of the individual who picked up Rodriguez’s silver crucifix, empty wallet, and packed iPod.