And he probably had. Percy Wetmore was a great reader of Argosy and Stag and Mens Adventure. There was a prison tale in every issue, it seemed, and Percy read them avidly, like a man doing research. It was like he was trying to find out how to act, and thought the information was in those magazines. Hed come just after we did Anthony Ray, the hatchet-killerand he hadnt actually participated in an execution yet, although hed witnessed one from the switch-room.
He knows people, Harry said. Hes connected. Youll have to answer for sending him off the block, and youll have to answer even harder for expecting
him to do some real work.
I dont expect it, I said, and I didnt but I had hopes. Bill Dodge wasnt the sort to let a man just stand around and do the heavy looking-on. Im more interested in the big boy, for the time being. Are we going to have trouble with him?
Harry shook his head with decision.
He was quiet as a lamb at court down there in Trapingus County, Dean said. He took his little rimless glasses off and began to polish them on his vest. Of course they had more chains on him than Scrooge saw on Marleys ghost, but he could have kicked up dickens if hed wanted. Thats a pun, son.
I know, I said, although I didnt. I just hate letting Dean Stanton get the better of me.
Big one, aint he? Dean said.
He is, I agreed. Monstrous big.
Probably have to crank Old Sparky up to Super Bake to fry his ass!
Dont worry about Old Sparky, I said absently. He makes the big uns little.
Dean pinched the sides of his nose, where there were a couple of angry red patches from his glasses, and nodded. Yep, he said. Some truth to that, all right.
I asked, Do either of you know where he came from before he showed up in Tefton? It was Tefton, wasnt it?
Yep, Dean said. Tefton, down in Trapingus County. Before he showed up there and did what he did, no one seems to know. He just drifted around, I guess. You might be able to find out a little more from the newspapers in the prison library, if youre really interested. They probably wont get around to moving those until next week. He grinned. You might have to listen to your little buddy bitching and moaning upstairs, though.
I might just go have a peek, anyway, I said, and later on that afternoon I did.
The prison library was in back of the building that was going to become the prison auto shopat least that was the plan. More pork in someones pocket was what I thought, but the Depression was on, and I kept my opinions to myselfthe way I should have kept my mouth shut about Percy, but sometimes a man just cant keep it clapped tight. A mans mouth gets him in more trouble than his pecker ever could, most of the time. And the auto shop never happened, anywaythe next spring, the prison moved sixty miles down the road to Brighton. More backroom deals, I reckon. More barrels of pork. Wasnt nothing to me.
Administration had gone to a new building on the east side of the yard; the infirmary was being moved (whose country-bumpkin idea it had been to put an infirmary on the second floor in the first place was just another of lifes mysteries); the library was still partly stockednot that it ever had much in itand standing empty. The old building was a hot clapboard box kind of shouldered in between A and B Blocks. Their bathrooms backed up on it and the whole building was always swimming with this vague pissy smell, which was probably the only good reason for the move. The library was L-shaped, and not much bigger than my office. I looked for a fan, but they were all gone. It must have been a hundred degrees in there, and I could feel that hot throb in my groin when I sat down. Sort of like an infected tooth. I know thats absurd, considering the region were talking about here, but its the only thing I could compare it to. It got a lot worse during and just after taking a leak, which I had done just before walking over.
There was one other fellow there after alla scrawny old trusty named Gibbons dozing away in the corner with a Wild West novel in his lap and his hat pulled down over his eyes. The heat wasnt bothering him, nor were the grunts, thumps, and occasional curses from the infirmary upstairs (where it had to be at least ten degrees hotter, and I hoped Percy Wetmore was enjoying it). I didnt bother him, either, but went around to the short side of the L, where the newspapers were kept. I thought they might be gone along with the fans, in spite of what Dean had said. They werent, though, and the business about the Detterick twins was easily enough looked out; it had been front-page news from the commission of the crime in June right through the trial in late August and September.
Soon I had forgotten the heat and the thumps from upstairs and old Gibbonss wheezy snores. The thought of those little nine-year-old girlstheir fluffy heads of blonde hair and their engaging Bobbsey Twins smilesin connection with Coffeys hulking darkness was unpleasant but impossible to ignore. Given his size, it was easy to imagine him actually eating them, like a giant in a fairy tale. What he had done was even worse, and it was a lucky thing for him that he hadnt just been lynched right there on the riverbank. If, that was, you considered waiting to walk the Green Mile and sit in Old Sparkys lap lucky.