Hard Candy - Andrew Vachss [57]
It didn't seem so hard to find a way out. Just hard to give a fuck.
100
IN PRISON, I used to make lists. In my head. Draw a bright line down the middle of my mind. Pro and con. The two things I wanted to be.
Some fights you can't get in shape for. I was only in prison with Wesley one time. We kept missing each other on the exchanges. I heard he even went in the Army for a while—when Vietnam was hot and heavy and the judges would give you a pass if you enlisted. There was another guy in the joint with us at the same time. Dayton was his name. A gorilla. Iron–freak. He muscled off the weaker ones, did bodywork for the gangsters. Good time. He didn't seem to give a fuck, but he survived. A life charmed by strength and stupidity. I don't remember how he got into the dispute with Wesley, but I was on the yard with the Prof when it kicked off.
Wesley was standing against the wall. By himself, like always. Dayton rolled up on him. I didn't hear what they said to each other. Dayton grabbed Wesley by the front of his shirt, pulled him close, slapped him hard across the face. Wesley slumped, hands away from his body. Dayton left him there, walking away with his boys.
One of the young Italian guys standing with us laughed. "My man is about to be mondo dee–ceased," nodding his head at Wesley. He said it the same way they say dee–fense at pro football games. The Prof flashed his hustler's smile.
"It won't play the way you say. For one to five, I say my man comes out alive."
Within minutes, we'd booked twenty cartons of cigarettes against a hundred that Dayton wouldn't outlive Wesley.
It was a sucker bet. Dayton was a Dianabol freak. Snarfing the steroids the way other guys in the joint did Talwin, or Valium, or anything else the docs handed out to help you escape for a few hours. They made him massive—bigger than a human should be. When the hacks found him slumped over the pile of weights in the gym, there wasn't a mark on him. But his skin had a nice bluish tone to it. The guys who bet with us thought we got lucky behind an OD. The ones that stayed in prison long enough put it all together. By then, going up against Wesley was an out–bet.
101
MORALES braced me as I was coming out of Lily's joint. It had to happen—a pit bull would drop a bite sooner than Morales would walk away on the losing end. It would have been okay, but Max was with me. About four steps behind, in my shadow. Morales is about my height but he goes about two–twenty—none of it fat. He was a born head–cracker, not a gunman. That saved his life.
He snatched a handful of my jacket, shoved me face–first to the wall, running his rap, telling me if I was carrying I was going back to the joint…when he went dead–quiet. I looked back over my shoulder. Max had one hand on the cop's arm, the other at the back of his neck, bending him backward at an impossible angle. I spun off the wall, making a "drop it" sign to Max. Morales slumped to the sidewalk. I jammed my thumb back in a hitchhiking gesture, twirling my hand, telling Max to disappear.
I knelt next to Morales. He was trying to catch his breath and draw his gun off his right hip with his left hand at the same time—the right arm hung limp and useless at his side.
"You want me to get it for you?" I asked him.
"Cocksucker!" Almost sobbing with the effort.
"Take it easy. You're okay."
"You're not."
"I already know that. Am I under arrest?"
People passed us on the sidewalk. Nobody stopped. I tried to help him to his feet. His eyes were somewhere between rage and pain. Rage won. He fired the elbow of his good arm at my chest. I stepped back and he chopped air. I left him there. Went back to the wall. Stood facing it. Waiting.
Heard him get to his feet, muscles tightening over my kidneys. Felt the barrel of his pistol jam me just where I expected it. Didn't hurt any less.
"Get in the car."
I walked in front of him. His car was empty. He opened the passenger door. I got in. Watched him walk around to the driver's side.