“Thanks for agreeing to meet me,” Keeley said.
“Did you bring me what you said you would?”
Keeley raised his eyebrows. “They wouldn’t let me bring it through security. I tried, though. The first lady let me but the guy at the metal detector took it.”
Wacey’s face started to turn red. He glared at Keeley through the glass, and lowered the handset from his face. Keeley thought for a second that Wacey might just stand up, turn around, and demand to be let out.
“I’m sorry,” Keeley said.
Wacey just stared at him.
“Don’t fuck with me,” Wacey said, after bringing the phone back to his face. “Do you know how much I crave that stuff in here? Do you have any fucking idea?”
“No.”
“Some of these guys have it,” Wacey said, nodding toward the inmates with visiting families in the open room. “How is it they get it and I don’t? Why is it okay to smoke but not okay to chew? It pisses me off. This is Wyoming. A man ought to be allowed to chew here.”
Maybe because you’re on death row? Keeley thought but didn’t say. “I don’t know. It don’t seem too fair. I’m sorry.”
“Quit saying that,” Wacey said, his eyes on Keeley. “You sound like one sorry son-of-a-bitch.”
Keeley felt his always-present anger flare up, and fought to stanch it. He would let this man humiliate him if it would get him the information he needed. Who cared if a stupid con treated him badly? It wasn’t as if he’d ever see the guy again.
“Let’s start over,” Keeley said. “Thanks for seeing me, putting me on your visit list.”
Wacey rolled his eyes and his mouth tightened. “Yeah. I had to bump twenty visitors to the bottom of the list just to get you in. And you didn’t even bring me what I wanted.”
“I said I was sorry. I tried. Maybe I can send you a roll of it.”
Wacey scoffed. “Everything gets searched. The guards would take it and use it themselves.”
While he talked, Keeley dropped one hand under the counter and unzipped his fly. He found what he was looking for, and raised it up so Wacey could see it. It was a can of Copenhagen, all right, but much thinner than a normal plastic can, with a plastic lid that wasn’t picked up by the metal detector.
“This is how they give out samples as you probably know,” Keeley said. “At rodeos and county fairs and such. It’s about a quarter the size of a real can. I picked it up last summer, and used it as my backup in case they took the real one, even though you said it’d get through. It’s better than nothing, I guess.”
Wacey’s eyes were focused on the can of tobacco. “Give it to me.”
Now Keeley felt in control. “I will. But I got a couple of questions for you first. That’s why I’m here.”
Keeley could see Wacey lick his lips, then raise his eyes back up, then back to the can. He was like a drug addict, Keeley thought. He needed the Copenhagen. But how could he need it so much if he’d gone six years without it? Then he remembered: Convicts are stupid. Even Wacey Hedeman.
Wacey looked up, eager to talk. Keeley thought, Pathetic.
Keeley said, “I think you know why I’m here. I got a big interest in you. See, my brother moved out here to Wyoming eight years ago. He was an outfitter up in Twelve Sleep County. Name of Ote. You remember him?”
Wacey seemed interested now. “I remember.”
Keeley watched Wacey’s eyes for a hint of guilt or remorse. Nothing.
“He got killed,” Keeley said.
Wacey just nodded.
“He used to send me letters. That’s when I first heard your name. And the name of the other game warden. You remember him, don’t you?”
Again, the nod. Keeley knew Wacey was wondering where this was going, since it had been Wacey who shot his brother in an elk-hunting camp. Keeley proceeded as if he weren’t aware of that fact.
“What I’m interested in is this other game warden.”
Wacey swallowed, said, “What about him?”
“You don’t like him much, do you?”
“He was the one put me in here,” Wacey said. “So no, I’m not real fond of him.” He spat out the word fond.
“You hear about what happened a couple of years ago up in that same country?” Keeley said. “A big confrontation where some good people got burned up in the snow? A woman and her little girl?”
“I heard.”
“She was my sister-in-law, and her child, God bless them. They was also Keeleys,” he said. “They was the last Keeleys, ’cept for me. And you know what?”
Wacey hesitated. Then, finally, “What?”
“That same damned game warden was involved in that too. Can you imagine? The same guy involved with the end of our family name.”
Wacey stared at him through the glass. “That wouldn’t be the end of it,” he said. “You got the same last name. Whyn’t you just go out there and make a bunch more? Isn’t that what you people do in the South?”
Now the anger did flare up. Keeley lashed out and thumped the glass with the heel of his hand. Wacey sat back in reaction, even though there was no way Keeley could have broken through.
The door behind Wacey Hedeman opened and the guard leaned his head in. “Knock off the noise,” the guard said, and Keeley could hear him through the handset.
“You don’t understand,” Keeley said, after the guard had left. Wacey looked back, wary. It was obvious he hadn’t expected that blow to the glass.
“Don’t understand what?”
“Just shut up, and answer a couple of questions. I drove all the way here for this, and I don’t need your mouth. I drove through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska to meet you, Mr. Wacey. I don’t need to hear your shit-for-brains views of my people, or my name.”
Wacey swallowed again, shot a glance at the miniature can of Copenhagen.
“Tell me about him,” Keeley said. “Tell me what makes him tick. Tell me how to get under his skin.”
Wacey seemed to weigh the question, his head nodding almost imperceptibly. Then: “He’s not going to look or act the way you might expect. In fact, when you meet him, I predict that you’ll feel . . . underwhelmed. That’s his trick, and I don’t even know if he realizes it.” Wacey paused for a moment. “I take that back—I think he does. But that doesn’t mean he acts any different.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He likes being underestimated. He doesn’t have any problem with playing the fool. But just because he isn’t saying anything doesn’t mean he’s stupid. It means he’s listening.”
Keeley nodded, go on.
“The worst thing about him, or the best, depending on how you look at it, is that when he thinks he’s right, there isn’t anybody that can change his mind. The son-of-a-bitch might even act like he’s going along with you, but deep down, he’s already set his course. And nothing, I mean fucking nothing, will get him out of it. He’s a man who thinks he’s looking at everything for the very first time, like no one else has ever looked at it before so he’s got to figure it out for himself. You know what I mean? There’s some real arrogance there, but he’d never admit that.
“Once you set the hook in him,” Wacey said, “he won’t shake it out. Even if he knows you set it. He’ll see it through to the bitter end, no matter what happens. Just realize that. Once you start with him, you better be prepared to hang on.”
AFTER ANOTHER TWENTY minutes of talking, Keeley slipped the can of tobacco through the slot, and Wacey grabbed it before it was all the way through. Keeley watched Wacey twist off the top and plunge his nose almost into the black tobacco and breathe in deeply, his eyes closed. Without another word, he put the lid back on and stuffed the can in his pocket, then reached up and hung up his phone. His part of the conversation was over.