emotion when seen on the features of Byron Hadley. It was hope.
‘No, I’m not lying. There’s no reason why you should take my word for it,
either. Engage a lawyer -‘
‘Ambulance-chasing highway-robbing cocksuckers!’ Hadley cried. Andy
shrugged. “Then go to the IRS. They’ll tell you the same thing for free. Actually, you don’t need me to tell you at all. You would have investigated the matter for yourself.’
‘You fucking-A. I don’t need any smart wife-killing banker to show me where
the bear shit in the buckwheat.’
‘You’ll need a tax lawyer or a banker to set up the gift for you and that will
cost you something,’ Andy said. ‘Or… if you were interested, I’d be glad to set it up for you nearly free of charge. The price would be three beers apiece for my co-workers -‘
‘Co-workers,’ Mert said, and let out a rusty guffaw. He slapped his knee. A
real knee-slapper was old Mert, and I hope he died of intestinal cancer in a part of the world were morphine is as of yet undiscovered. ‘Co-workers, ain’t that cute? Co-workers! You ain’t got any -‘
‘Shut your friggin’ trap,’ Hadley growled, and Mert shut. Hadley looked at
Andy again. ‘What was you saying?’
‘I was saying that I’d only ask three beers apiece for my co-workers, if that
seems fair,’ Andy said. ‘I think a man feels more like a man when he’s working out of
doors in the springtime if he can have a bottle of suds. That’s only my opinion. It
would go down smooth, and I’m sure you’d have their gratitude.’
I have talked to some of the other men who were up there that day–Rennie
Martin, Logan St Pierre, and Paul Bonsaint were three of them–and we all saw the
same thing then… felt the same thing. Suddenly it was Andy who had the upper hand.
It was Hadley who had the gun on his hip and the billy in his hand, Hadley who had
his friend Greg Staminas behind him and the whole prison administration behind
Stammas, the whole power of the state behind that, but all at once in that golden
sunshine it didn’t matter, and I felt my heart leap up in my chest as it never had since the truck drove me and four others through the gate back in 1938 and I stepped out
into the exercise yard.
Andy was looking at Hadley with those cold, clear, calm eyes, and it wasn’t
just the thirty-five thousand then, we all agreed on that. I’ve played it over and over in my mind and I know. It was man against man, and Andy simply forced him, the way a
strong man can force a weaker man’s wrist to the table in a game of Indian wrestling.
There was no reason, you see, why Hadley couldn’t’ve given Mert the nod at that very
minute, pitched Andy overside onto his head, and still taken Andy’s advice.
No reason. But he didn’t.
‘I could get you all a couple of beers if I wanted to,’ Hadley said. ‘A beer does
taste good while you’re workin.’ The colossal prick even managed to sound
magnanimous.
‘I’d just give you one piece of advice the IRS wouldn’t bother with,’ Andy said.
His eyes were fixed unwinkingly on Hadley’s. ‘Make the gift to your wife if you’re
sure. If you think there’s even a chance she might double-cross you or backshoot you,
we could work out something else -‘
‘Double-cross me?’ Hadley asked harshly. ‘Double-cross me! Mr Hotshot
Banker, if she ate her way through a boxcar of Ex-Lax, she wouldn’t dare fart unless I gave her the nod.’
Mert, Youngblood, and the other screws yucked it up dutifully. Andy never
cracked a smile.
‘I’ll write down the forms you need,’ he said. ‘You can get them at the post
office, and I’ll fill them out for your signature.’
That sounded suitably important, and Hadley’s chest swelled. Then he glared
around at the rest of us and hollered, “What are you jimmies starin’ at? Move your asses, goddammit!’ He looked back at Andy. ‘You come over here with me, hotshot.
And listen to me well: if you’re Jewing me somehow, you’re gonna find yourself