People won’t see you as the guy who nabbed Mister Twister. They’ll see you as the guy who kept mum while one girl after the next was getting whacked. They’ll scream for your head, Stevie. And they’ll get it.”
“I’m not saying I can make amends. I’m just saying it’s too late for me now. You said so yourself.”
“That’s not quite what I said. And you’d better hope it’s not too late. Because a year or two in prison, Stevie-well, you don’t want to know about it.”
I already do, Steve thought. He said nothing.
“It won’t be one of those country-club places, either. I guarantee it. When I said the public will want blood, I was serious. You’ll be in a maximum-security institution, and your fellow prisoners will be hardened cons. I know what it’s like. Did some time in Lompoc not long ago-fraud charges, not homicide. And even though I’m a pretty big guy, good negotiator, accustomed to dealing with criminal types… it was the roughest year of my life.”
Steve tried not to listen. But in his thoughts he heard Pete Creston, and that was worse.
“Look at you,” Jack went on remorselessly. “Scrawny yuppie type, wears glasses, can’t do more than three chin-ups without passing out. They’ll eat you alive. Some of those big motherfuckers will want to marry you right off. Guys’ll be fighting over which one gets to go in first, if you catch my drift. I knew a con once, had all his teeth knocked out so the shower brigade could use him better for the kind of games they liked. Teeth got in the way, you see. But a guy who’s all gums-well, using him is just like putting it between Becky Lou’s thighs back home…”
Pete had related anecdotes of the same kind, in countless luncheons, over plates of fettuccine Alfredo and broiled salmon, and Steve had listened, thinking all the time of Meredith, of his own clawing guilt.
“That’s how it’ll be if they like you,” Jack said with a smile like a mouthful of razors. “But if you get on their bad side-watch out. Amazing how creative these sons of bitches can be. I saw one poor schmuck get killed with a plastic spoon. Can you imagine that? Fucking plastic, like something you’d get at McDonald’s with a frozen-yogurt cup. They jammed the handle through his left eye, into his brain…”
In Pete’s story it had been a screwdriver stolen from shop class-or maybe a bolt removed from a cot. Steve couldn’t remember the details anymore.
Pete Creston was an attorney like Steve himself, but unlike Steve, his specialty was criminal law. His everyday dealings with ex-cons had supplied him with a fund of nightmare fables about life in the joint. For years he had passed along each tidbit, relishing new variations on old horrors. Steve had never stopped him, despite the anxiety the stories produced, the nightmares they left him with. In some perverse way he had felt that by punishing himself, he was atoning for the lie he’d told.
Now the lunchtime stories ran through his mind in lurid counterpoint to Jack’s monologue.
“Two guys in my cell block were diagnosed with AIDS while I was there. They didn’t test HIV positive when they checked in. Guess they picked it up somehow. Nobody inquired into it too closely…”
Pete had told him about a prisoner raped anally with a shoe. A shoe.
“One asshole used to cry in his pillow all night. He knew they were going to get him, just didn’t know when. Waiting for it to happen made him crazy. Finally he tried to kill himself. Chewed open one of his wrists. I mean, literally chewed…”
A con wrongly branded as a snitch had been ambushed, then beaten so badly his nose was crushed. Like a snail, Pete had said, lifting a forkful of ravioli to his lips, crushed like a snail. His assailants had gagged him with a torn pair of underpants and watched him suffocate, unable to draw breath through nasal passages blocked by shattered bone.
“They do little things for the fun of it. No malice involved, just restless energy. I remember a guy got hold of a paper clip somehow. He and his pals decided it would be interesting to stick that paper clip up somebody’s fingernails. They didn’t even hate the guy they picked. He was just available. It was an experiment, you see. They wanted to see how much pain the poor son of a bitch could take. As it turned out, he could take quite a lot-”
“Shut up,” Steve said abruptly. “Just shut the fuck up.”
“Just trying to be informative, Stevie. Everything I’ve told you is factual. That’s what you’ve got in store for you. And there’s one other thing to consider. Your wife.”
“What about her? She’s not part of this.”
“Oh, but she will be. Imagine how it will be for her, with her husband in prison. Her husband, who’d been profiled in all the news coverage of the Mister Twister case. Her husband the celebrity. What kind of job does she have, anyway?”
“What goddamn difference does it make?”
“Social worker? Parole officer?”
“She’s an administrator at a public TV affiliate-”
“Well, in that case I’m sure her business associates will be very understanding of her plight. No doubt they know lots of people whose spouses are doing time as accessories to murder. Then again, maybe not.”
“I don’t care what her colleagues at the TV station think, for Christ’s sake.” Steve heard ragged panic in his voice.
“But she may. She may not appreciate the fact that you’ve made her a pariah among her coworkers-and her neighbors. You said your marriage is already in trouble. How strong will it be after you’ve been arrested? Convicted? Put away?”
Steve drew a breath. “She’ll stand by me.”
“So much the worse for her, if she does. For her sake, you should hope she divorces you. It’ll look better for her.”
“Look better? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Only that there are plenty of people who’ll assume she helped you keep your secret all these years. And the longer she sticks with you, the more certain of it they’ll be.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It is pretty hard to believe you could have kept her in the dark about something so important, something that was eating you up inside for so long.”
“She doesn’t know anything.”
“I’m not sure the tabloids will see it that way. I mean those supermarket newspapers and syndicated TV shows. They’re not known for giving people the benefit of the doubt.”
“Nobody pays any attention to that trash.”
“You might be surprised. Honestly, Stevie, she’ll be better off if she divorces you. It’s just about her only hope of salvaging her reputation.”
“Maybe… maybe that’s what she’ll do.”
“Either way, you’ve got a lot to look forward to. Your future looks very bright.”
Steve shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He remembered that error in Jack’s logic he’d found, the one Jack had never satisfactorily addressed.
“You might be right,” he said slowly. “About all of it. Even… even Kirstie. But nothing I do now is going to change it.”
“Wrong. There is one way out. For you-and her.”
Steve was silent, almost afraid to ask the obvious question. Jack waited, volunteering nothing, forcing him to make the next move.
“All right,” he said at last. “Tell me. What’s the way out?”
Jack spread his hands. “Simple. Fly away from all this. And start over-with me.”
A long moment passed. Steve felt a bead of sweat course slowly down his cheek to dangle pendulously on his chin.
“What are you talking about?” he asked finally.
“I’ve got an escape plan. Two men can execute it as easily as one. More easily, in fact.”
“Escape with you? Go on the run? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Being on the run is better than being in the joint. I’ve done both. I know.”
“Sure. So we’ll run from state to state till our money is gone, then get nabbed anyway. No, thanks.”
“You’ve got it completely wrong. I told you, I’ve got a plan. We …”
Jack paused, listening.
Steve frowned, hearing the drone of a motor. Drawing nearer. He shaded his eyes from the sun and gazed across the shimmering water.
A gray runabout was speeding directly toward them.
