“The Army catches up with us before the police do, they’ll damn sure keep firing till their mags are empty,” Josh agreed. He pulled out his Pall Malls and lit up, blowing smoke across the room. “Well, I can shoot straight too. They’ll know they been in a damn fight if they don’t know nothing else.”
Rufus shook his head stubbornly. “Nobody should be able to get away with what they done.”
Josh flicked cigarette ash to the floor and stared at him. “Well, exactly what are you gonna do? March in to the police and say, ‘Listen up, boys, I got some story to tell. Now y’all come on help a brother put these big-important white folk away’?” Josh took the cigarette out of his mouth and spit on the dirt floor. “Shit, Rufus.”
“I need to get me that letter from the Army.”
“Where’d you leave it?”
“I hid it back in my cell.”
“Well, we ain’t going back to the prison. You try to do that, I’ll shoot you myself.”
“I ain’t going back to Fort Jackson.”
“What, then?”
“Samuel was a lawyer. Lawyers make copies of things.”
Josh arched his eyebrows. “You wanta go to Rider’s office?”
“We got to, Josh.”
Josh smoked his Pall Mall down to the filter before answering. “I ain’t got to do nothing, Rufus. The whole damn United States Army is out looking for your ass. And mine too. You can’t exactly melt into the crowd. Hell, you’d make George Foreman look like a damn sissy.”
“We still got to do it, Josh. Least I got to do it. If I can get that letter, then maybe I can get it to somebody who can help. Maybe write another letter to the Court.”
“Yeah, look at all the good it done you last time. Them big-ass judges just come running to help you, didn’t they?”
“It don’t matter if you don’t want to come, Josh. But I got to do it.”
“What about Mexico? Damn, Rufus, you free. For now. We try poking around this thing, they gonna take you back to prison or most likely shoot you down first. We got to go while we got the chance, man.”
“I want to be free. But I can’t leave it like this. I go to Mexico now and I’ll die of guilt, if the Lord don’t strike me down before then.”
“Guilt? You done twenty-five years for nothing. When you die you going to heaven and you gonna be sitting in God’s lap. You a lock for that.”
“No good, Josh. You ain’t changing my mind.”
Josh spit again and looked out the dirty, cracked window. “You sonofabitchin’ crazy. Prison’s screwed you for good. Damn!”
“Maybe I am crazy.”
Josh glared at him. “Where the hell is Rider’s office?”
“About thirty minutes outside Blacksburg. That’s all I know. Shouldn’t be hard to find out where it is exactly.”
“Probably crawling with cops.”
“Maybe not, if they think Samuel done it all.”
“Shit.” Josh violently kicked the wall and then turned to his brother. “Okay, we’ll wait until nightfall and then head on out.”
“Thanks, Josh.”
“Don’t thank me for helping us both get killed. That kind of thanks I surely don’t want.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
* * *
The flag at the United States Supreme Court was flying at half-mast. Newspaper, TV and radio reports nationwide were filled with accounts of the two murdered clerks. The phones in the Court’s Public Information Office refused to stop ringing. The adjoining press room was standing room only. Major TV and radio networks were broadcasting live from booths on the ground floor of the Court. Supreme Court police, reinforced by fifty D.C. police officers, National Guardsmen and FBI agents, ringed the Court’s perimeter.
The private hallways outside the justices’chambers were filled with clusters of people nervously talking. Most of the justices were secluded inside their chambers, having barely made it through the oral argument sessions, their minds far from the advocates and issues before them. The young faces of the law clerks too bore the terror inspired by the killings.
The small first-floor room normally used for the justices’ conferences was filled. The walls were dark-paneled and lined with bookshelves containing the bound volumes of two hundred years of the Court’s decisions. Another wall held a fireplace, unlit on this very warm day. A grand chandelier hung overhead. Ramsey sat at the head of the table. Justices Knight and Murphy sat in their regular chairs.