“I know what you meant,” Richard said kindly and tucked her strong, chapped fingers under his arm. “I wish she could have had her priest as well. Mass was a comfort to her. I just wish I could have helped. I knew she didn’t want to move back into that house. Being there preyed on her mind. Jesus.” Tears had come again. Richard dropped Ellen’s hand to fumble under his coat for a handkerchief.
Opal snatched his arm. “There was nothing you could do, honey,” she insisted. “Sara’d been depressed for so long. Since her divorce really and then, well, you know, her son and all. You gave her more happiness than she would ever have had. Don’t you think different. Sara wouldn’t allow it,” she said trying for cheer.
“Sara spoiled me rotten,” Richard admitted. “Whatever I wanted, she let me have.”
“She couldn’t say no to you, could she?” Ellen said, and then she started to cry again.
“I think she was spoiled herself!” Opal said in sudden startling anger. “This was a rotten, selfish thing if you ask me. Doing like that! What did she think it was going to do to her friends? To you? I don’t think I’ll ever forgive her for letting you find her like she did.”
“Rich?”
Dylan’s voice cut through the outpouring of emotion that was choking Richard. He was glad of an excuse to move away from the women. Opal’s hand pulled out from the crook of his arm, catching and dragging at him like a strangling vine. It was all he could do not to jerk free.
“Bad day, brother,” he said smiling sheepishly at Dylan.
“No shit. Look, I’ve got to go. Sorry. You know I’d stay if I could. Those biddies are liable to feed you to death on casseroles and cake without somebody to back you up.”
“Let my brother come home for a bite,” Richard said winningly to the smartest-looking guard.
“Sorry. The service is all,” the man replied stoutly.
His nose was redder than the fifty-degree temperature and pleasant breeze could account for. This guy liked his booze.
“Come on,” Richard urged. “You and your partner could use a little stiffener, a little something to take off the chill. What do you say? I get the comfort of family; you get a break from routine.” Richard’s smile was a beauty. When it came to dentistry, Sara made sure he spent money on himself.
Rudolf the Red-nosed looked at his cohort. “Whaddyasay?” He could already taste the booze, Richard could tell. The other guard probably had his own addictions but Richard guessed they had nothing to do with drugs and all to do with the boys he “counseled.”
“Just the service. Orders.”
“Come on, man.” Richard tried to put the smile back on. “Just for a few minutes. Nobody has to know. What can it hurt?”
“No can do,” the priggish little man said stiffly.
“Don’t be such a jerk,” Richard snapped and knew he’d pushed too far. Even Rudolf suddenly got a spine.
“That’ll be enough out of you, kid. I’m sorry your aunt or whatever-”
“You morons get your AA degree at community college and a job bullying kids in juvie, and you have the nerve to come to my aunt or whatever’s graveside, my mother’s funeral, for God’s sake-”
“Rich, stop. Be cool. Come on, brother.” Dylan took his arm in both hands, the cuffs making it awkward. He shouldered in between Richard and the guards.
“It’s okay, Rich. Thanks. But they can make it worse back at juvie.” To the guards he said, “Give my brother a break. The guy just lost somebody. Don’t be such pricks. Back off, why don’t you?”
The two men backed off a couple of paces. Rudolph lit a cigarette. “It’s no biggie, Rich. I’m out of there in a couple years anyway. Eigh teen and I go to the big house. What a trip, huh? Come on, brother, you grieve for Sara. I’ll be okay. It’s okay.” Dylan leaned close, his forehead nearly touching Richard’s, his manacled hands still firm around Richard’s arm. “They’re not worth it, Rich. Take it from me. They aren’t worth the sweat.”
Richard breathed in slowly and deeply and tried to blow out some of the ice rime that had formed around his heart. “I’m okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
Dylan was wearing a cheap suit coat Drummond had given him-or more likely lent all the boys-for formal outings. Richard put his hand on his brother’s wrist, causing the jacket’s sleeve to slide up exposing Dylan’s forearm.
“Tell me this is a joke,” he said, pulling Dylan’s arm out straight, staring at the ink marks on the white flesh.
Dylan said nothing. “Shit,” Richard said. “Why don’t you just have your bros write ‘lowlife ex con’ across your forehead and be done with it? You know what this does? This brands you as a piece of shit. When you get out, everybody will see this and think you’re a scumbag. Shit.”
Richard turned away and stared into the sun, trying to burn out the cold that was coming back into him. “Pumping iron and getting prison tats. You proud of yourself?” he asked without turning back.
“Let it go, Rich. It was stupid. I was high. Let it go.”
“High.”
“Let it go, man.”
There was something in Dylan’s voice that turned Richard around to face him. Dylan felt dangerous.
“Sure,” Richard said. He smiled and clapped Dylan on the shoulder. “Sure.” He walked with his brother and his brother’s keepers to the paddy wagon, an old station wagon tricked out with a screen and bolts in the floor to anchor chains and manacles.
“The big house,” Dylan had said. Richard thought he’d heard a hint of pride or boasting in the words. Like a baseball player in the minor leagues talking about going to “the show.”
Pumping iron and tattoos.
He had to get Dylan out while he was still Dylan, still his brother. If it meant kissing Phil Maris’s well-connected ass, so be it.
21
“Screw Phil Maris. He was nobody,” Rich said. “His aunt wasn’t even anybody; she just happened to be the governor’s secretary. The bastard should have done it years ago. You were eleven for Christ’s sake.”
“He’s right, Dylan. I’m glad Mr. Maris worked this out but you don’t owe him anything.” This from the backseat of the car, where a man in a heavy wool suit was sitting. The man who’d come with Rich. Mr. Leonard from the Minnesota Department of Corrections.
Dylan tuned them both out and watched the fields pass by through the car’s window. He wasn’t shackled, he wasn’t behind a heavy mesh security screen, and there was a handle on the inside so he could open and close his door. He could get out any time he wanted.
He was free.
A sick sort of guilt lay in the pit of his stomach like a piece of rotten food. Why wasn’t he brimming over with gratitude toward Phil? No big house, no state pen. Freedom. Anybody else would be high, back slaps all around, telling stories of what they would do when they got to the nearest bar, or restaurant, or woman.
Dylan just felt scared. He wouldn’t admit it to Rich or the guy in the backseat-he wasn’t really even admitting it to himself, not in words-but mostly he wanted to go home, back to Drummond. Not really. He didn’t really want to be there. But in Drummond he knew the rules, knew who he was, how to act. What would happen outside when people found out he was the infamous Butcher Boy? Inside he had his pals; they watched each other’s back. Dylan had status; an old-timer in a short-time facility.
Outside would they beat the crap out of him? Keep their kids inside when he walked by? Set their dogs on him? His mom and dad had had a lot of friends. Would they try to get him put back inside? There was no place for the likes of him in the real world. He belonged behind bars. Rapists, thieves, wife beaters, murderers-they were his people.
“ Rochester ’s out,” he said suddenly. “ Minnesota is out.” He had no idea where he meant to go. Other than visiting California when he was four to see some cousin, he’d never been anywhere more exotic than Iowa.