was trying to kill your landlady with a butcher's cleaver.'
'She attacked me, the woman was deranged.'
Cooper turned his back to the other man. He didn't understand what 'deranged' meant and he was tired of talking about someone other than himself.
'You're so innocent, I guess they ought to let you go, then,' Cooper said, trying to think how to get the conversation back to him.
'I know everyone says they're innocent, Coop, but I really am.
'You just couldn't manage it. If you'd killed the bitch the way you should have, maybe you wouldn't be here now, did you ever think of that?
Kill them and who's to testify if they're dead?
'Who's going to report it? Who's going to… You just didn't have the balls for it. And not everyone isn't. I ain't innocent. I just ain't been they're innocent say they don't know the half of what they were caught for what I done I done, nobody does, not even you. But I'm not telling them, let them find out for themselves.'
'They'll never find out about you, Coop. You've got a reputation of deviousness all over the county. You must have bodies scattered all over.'
'Uh-huh.'
'You put the Mexican in the culvert..
'Yeah.'
'And what else?'
'What else what?'
'What other bodies did you hide?'
Cooper tried to think. He knew the answer, he just couldn't come up with it right away. That was how his mind worked, it always got there eventually, but sometimes not as fast as others thought it should. Well, fuck them.
'Them girls,' he said triumphantly. 'I hid them girls.'
'Are those the ones you burned to death?'
II Cooper said, laughing.
'Hell, no. I burned them alive,
'That was in Pennsylvania?'
'Yeah… No. Not Pennsylvania. Can't you remember anything, you little fruiter'? It was in West Virginia.'
'I'm not a fruit,' Swann said.
Cooper was paying no attention. For once the facts sprang clearly to mind. Some memories were fuzzy and some clear and some so vague he didn't know if he dreamed them or lived them, But this time the pictures sprang vividly to mind.
'I did 'em in an old coal mine in West Virginia,' he said proudly. 'Just outside a town called Hendricks.'
'Why a coal mine?'
'I needed somewhere-what do you call it? — someplace alone.'
'Secluded.'
'that's it.'
'Why did you need a secluded place? You never did any other time, did you?'
'Because they were going to make a lot of noise.'
'Why didn't you gag them?'
Cooper grinned in the darkness. He knew all the answers this time.
'Because I wanted to hear them.'
'How come you did two at a time, Coop?'
'Did I say that? Did I say I did two at a time?'
'I just thought..
'Don't think, you might hurt yourself,' Cooper said.
Damn, he knew so much more about this stuff than any goddamned clerk. It was a wonder anybody so stupid was allowed to live. 'I did 'em six months apart I planned it good, too. I got together enough food and shit to last me a week. And a couple cartons of cigarettes. And a lantern.
And some candles. It's dark in a mine, you know, you got to have some light.'
'You took a week killing them?' Swann was horrified.
'What's wrong with that?'
Swann was silent.
'Anything wrong with a week?'
'No,' Swann said quietly. 'I wasn't criticizing.
'I could pull your head off if I wanted.'
'I wasn't criticizing.'
'I hope to shit not. Ask me something else.'
'Where did you find them?'
'The girls you took to the abandoned mine.'
'It was a coal mine.'
'Nobody was using it anymore, were they?'
'Of course not. I told you. It was an old mine.'
'Where did you find the girls you took there?'
Cooper brayed. This was the best part. He loved this part because of the reaction it got from Swann. Every time.
I picked them up at church.'
He could hear the little punk gasp. Every time. He had never seen such a religious nut. Coope coming next. He heard Swann shuffling off his ass and onto his knees.
'Could we pray now?' Swann asked although it wasn't really a question.
Cooper knew that Swann would pray now no matter what Cooper said or did, short of bashing his head against the wall.
' Sure. Pray,' Cooper said. He rose from the bunk and knelt beside Swann, facing the crucifix that was barely visible. Cooper didn't see what harm could be done in humoring the little man now and then. It made him play his part more eagerly if he knew he got his reward at the end.
And, besides, Cooper figured the praying couldn't hurt, especially since it was Mostly about him.
'Dear Lord, Sweet Jesus, Angel of Mercy,' Swann intoned, 'look down on our beloved brother Cooper and bring the spirit of redemption to his soul. Pierce his hardened heart with your love, Sweet Jesus, and let him know the joy of loving his fellow man — .'
Swann enthused onward and Cooper's focus soon drifted off. Cooper had heard the little punk keep at it for hours at a time, so there wasn't any need for him to try to keep up with it all. He paid little attention to the words of the prayer, they often confused him anyway, but he liked the rhythm, the singsongy way the phrases were d 'Darling Lord,' as if Swann were calling out to his sweetheart.
The punk cared for him; he really did love him.
Somewhere in the midst of all the blabbing to god, Swann would get around to the fact that Cooper was being re leased soon and would need all the help the darling lord could spare when he reentered the world.
He would ask sweet Jesus to walk hand in hand with old Coop and keep him out of trouble. Cooper liked that image and in his mind sweet Jesus looked a lot like Swann himself, but with a scraggly beard. Swann already had the messianic y hair down to his shoulders and some nights Cooper would remove the rubber band that held it in a ponytail and run his hands through it. There was comfort in the idea of a Christ-like Swann, short and weak but smart in a lot of ways that were valued in the world, walking down some long dirt road with his hand in Cooper's. And, in truth, Cooper had some need for comfort. The prospect of freedom after five years of confinement filled him with trepidation. Not that he would ever admit to such anxiety to Swann or anyone else. If they saw the slightest sign of fear or even uncertainty, they would take it for weakness and swarm all over him, prying and pulling at whatever slightest chink they could find until they ripped him open and fed on his insides. But the fear was real, however well he hid it. In truth, Cooper had never done well in the world. It bewildered him with its complex rules and escalating demands. Even his pleasures had to be circumscribed or the police would be on him. In prison the
