“You must be very proud, Chief,” said Bunny.
Wiggum didn’t look up. “Yeah, my son is a constant source of disappointment.”
Jamie’s face fell. Bunny guessed this wasn’t a bombshell revelation, but nevertheless, he didn’t like it being said in front of the prisoner.
“What’s that saying, though?” continued Chief Wiggum. “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day?” He looked up from what he was reading. “A man in your position really should not be getting into fights in bars. At least not with law enforcement officials.”
He held up the sheet of paper. “We know who you are. I hope you got nothing planned for the next twenty years or so.”
Chapter Four
Arthur Faser looked at himself in the mirror. He’d asked the insane nun if he could stop and freshen up, and had been surprised when she’d agreed. They’d pulled over at a gas station. All she’d done was release his bulky pair of handcuffs from their docking station on the front of the sidecar and point him in the direction of the restrooms. She’d stayed with her bike.
His eyes still burned a little from the tear gas and his throat felt raw, but apart from that, life was good. Alright, good was stretching it, but it was at least better. He’d been with the Razorbacks for a week and not enjoyed the lifestyle in the least. Every day he’d been handcuffed to a different mouth-breather who’d dragged him around from pillar to post. They had the idea that somehow he could magic some guy out of a prison he’d never even been in. They didn’t get it – nobody got it.
Arthur Faser, it turned out, was good at two things. The first was getting himself out of prison, but unfortunately the second was getting himself back in there again. His initial conviction had been for a splash of embezzlement. It had been the most notable event in his career in accountancy. Sure, he’d taken a little, but only because he’d realised that the boss was taking a whole lot more.
Arthur had been dumb, though, telling his then girlfriend, Ashley all about it. Actually, the really big mistake had been telling her how much the boss was squirrelling away. Arthur had got busted, and only when they’d gone to trial did he realise he was being accused of taking everything that had gone missing. A month later he found out that the boss had left his wife and run off with Ashley. A few years ago Arthur heard that they’d moved to the Bahamas and had a run-in with a box jellyfish. His former boss died of a heart attack and she drowned when she fell out of the boat that was trying to take him to hospital. Arthur didn’t know how to feel about it. Yes, they’d set him up, but they’d also changed his life for the better. Without them, he’d have never met June.
She was his court-appointed lawyer. Arthur had never known anyone like her before. Sure, she was attractive. Brunette, long silky hair, cute button nose, kind eyes, and a face that had a way of scrunching up when she was concentrating that would melt your heart, but it was so much more than that. Arthur knew that she felt something for him too, but she’d been very clear on how it wasn’t proper and could get her disbarred.
She’d only just started practising law when they’d met, which was why she was getting the court-appointed work that nobody else wanted. She’d opened up on how the job was getting her down, and he’d listened. For the first time in his life Arthur had a purpose, and that was to plead guilty and get out of prison as quickly as possible.
The first time he’d escaped, he’d really been a hostage. His cellmate had busted out and taken Arthur along so that he wouldn’t raise the alarm. Unfortunately, they got caught before Arthur could sneak away and give himself up. The cellmate and his cohorts had then decided to name Arthur as the mastermind. So his sentence got doubled.
He’d been in a bad place mentally when he escaped for the second time. June had stopped answering his letters and he’d just wanted to see her. They’d argued and June’s housemate had called the cops. His third escape, he’d really only gone back to apologise. It had gone pretty well – the apology part. He’d handed himself in on that occasion, determined to do his time as quietly as possible. The only problem was . . . Well, it turned out that having a reputation for being a guy who can get out of prison makes you a very in-demand person in prison.
Escapes four and seven had not been his idea, but he really hadn’t had much choice. Escape six, he’d actually made a day ahead of time. He’d been scheduled to bust out with a gang of white supremacists, but they’d been very keen to kill a guard on the way out and he’d wanted nothing to do with it.
Escape five had, admittedly, been all him. He’d got out to object at June’s wedding. It hadn’t been like that scene from The Graduate at all, unless there was an alternative cut where the mother of the bride beats the crap out of Hoffman with a heart-shaped flower arrangement.
Number eight hadn’t been anything to do with him – the guards had lost him while in transit, and a foiled escape looked way better from their end than an administrative error. It was after that, that he’d realised he was never getting out. They just kept adding years and years on to his sentence. He didn’t know what it was now – he put his hands over his
