He was considering the possibility when Zeke stopped, looking at something outside. Maybe the lightning.
Whatever it was, his attention was diverted. The timing wouldn’t get any better.
Pablo gripped the shank.
He’d gone three steps toward Stirman when the guard came in.
It was Officer Gonzales.
She scanned the room, marking the trustees’ positions like land mines. Stirman and Zeke stood perfectly still.
Gonzales’ hand strayed toward her belt, but of course she wasn’t armed. Guards never were, inside the fence.
“Where are your supervisors?” she asked.
She must’ve been scared, but she kept an edge of anger in her voice-trying to control the situation, trying to avoid any hint she was vulnerable.
Stirman pointed to the vestry. “Right in there, ma’am.”
Gonzales frowned. She took a step toward the vestry. Then her eyes locked on something-Pablo’s hand. He had completely forgotten the shank.
She stepped back, too late.
Zeke crushed her windpipe with the soldering iron as she tried to scream. He grabbed the front of her shirt, pulled her down, Gonzales gagging, digging in her heels, clawing at Zeke’s wrists.
Stirman got hold of her ankles. They dragged her into the corner where they taped her mouth, bound her hands. Zeke slapped her in the head when she tried to struggle.
Pablo just watched.
He was a statue. He couldn’t do a damn thing.
Stirman rose, breathing heavy.
“Bind her feet,” he told Zeke.
“In a minute,” Zeke murmured.
He tugged at Gonzales’ belt. He started pulling off her pants.
“Zeke,” Stirman said.
“What?”
“What are you doing?”
“Fucking her.”
Gonzales groaned-dazed but still conscious.
Zeke got her pants around her thighs. Her panties were blue.
The phone in the vestry rang.
“Zeke.” Stirman’s voice tightened.
Officer Gonzales tried to fight, huffing against the tape on her mouth.
Pablo wanted to help her. He imagined himself driving the shank into Stirman’s back, coming up behind Zeke, taking him, too.
He imagined the back gates opening, himself at the wheel of the Reverend’s SUV, the plains of South Texas unfolding before him, Zeke’s and Will Stirman’s crumpled bodies far behind in his wake. He just wanted to get back to his wife.
The vestry phone rang again.
“Zeke,” Stirman said. “Get off her.”
“Only take a minute.” He was untying the drawstring of his prison pants. His hands, arms and neck were pale sweaty animal muscle.
Pablo took a step forward.
Stirman’s kidneys, he told himself. Then Zeke’s carotid artery.
Stirman turned. He saw the shank, locked eyes with Pablo.
“Give me that,” Stirman ordered.
Pablo looked for his courage. “I was just…”
Stirman held out his hand, lifted his eyebrows.
Pablo handed over the shank.
Stirman walked behind Zeke, who was now in his underwear, straddling Gonzales’ huge bare thighs.
Stirman grabbed his cell mate by the hair, yanked his chin up, and brought down the shank in one efficient thrust.
It should have ended there, but something inside Stirman seemed to snap. He stabbed again, spitting cuss words, then again, cursing the names of people Pablo didn’t know, swearing that he had tried, he had fucking tried to forget.
Afterward, Gonzales lay with her clothes half off, her gold-rimmed glasses freckled with blood. Zeke’s body trembled, waiting for a climax that was never going to happen.
“Get the phone,” Stirman said.
Pablo started. The vestry phone was still ringing.
He stumbled into the pastor’s office, picked up the receiver.
“Damn, man.” C.C.’s voice. “Where you been?”
C.C. said the way was clear. They’d taken down two more guards-one at the gate, one in the watchtower. The keys to the armory had yielded five 9mm handguns, a 12-gauge shotgun, and several hundred rounds of ammunition. Elroy and Luis were manning the sally port, waiting for the SUV.
Pablo put down the receiver. His hands were cold and sweaty. Some of Zeke’s blood had speckled his sleeves. He took one last look at the bound supervisor, Pastor Riggs, Grier’s body slumped at their feet.
No other choice, he told himself.
He went into the chapel.
Stirman was kneeling next to Officer Gonzales, dabbing the blood from her glasses with a rag. Zeke’s dead arm was draped across her waist. Gonzales was shivering as Stirman told her it was okay. Nobody was going to hurt her.
Stirman rose when he saw Pablo. He pointed the shank at Pablo’s chin, let it glitter there like Christmas ornament glass. “I own you, amigo. You are my new right-hand man. You understand? You are mine.”
No, Pablo thought.
As soon as they got through those gates, Pablo and Luis would take off by themselves. They would head west to El Paso, as far from Will Stirman as they could get.
But Stirman’s eyes held him. Pablo had blown his chance. He’d frozen. Stirman had acted. Stirman had saved Gonzales. Pablo had done nothing.
Pablo clawed at the fact, looking for leverage. He said, “Who are Barrow and Barrera?”
Stirman’s jaw tightened. “What?”
“You were saying those names when you…” Pablo gestured to Zeke’s corpse.
Stirman looked down at the body, then the terrified face of Officer Gonzales. “Couple of private investigators, amigo, ought to be worried today. Now get the SUV.”
Eleven minutes later, right on schedule, Pastor Riggs’ black Ford Explorer rolled out the back gate of the Floresville State Penitentiary, straight into a summer storm that was starting to pour down rain.
2
I didn’t mind bounty-hunting Dimebox Ortiz.
What I minded were his cousins Lalu and Kiko, who weighed three-fifty apiece, smoked angel dust to improve their IQ, and kept hand grenades in a Fiestaware bowl on their coffee table the way some people kept wax apples.
This explained why Erainya Manos and I were waiting in a van down the block from their house, rather than storming the front door.
