JETHRO JOHNNY: That’s from the movie, not the book. But keep quoting Gone with the Wind, see how that works out for you.
PRETTY RUDY: Don’t dog the movie. Rhett Butler’s my idol.
JETHRO JOHNNY: That pussy-whipped motherfucker? Coughs up a nut sack at the end of the flick, finally kicks Scarlett to the curb, and we’re supposed to cheer?
PRETTY RUDY: Whoa! Hold on.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Fuck him. He was a punk. Rhett Butler’s on nigger pipe.
PRETTY RUDY: Man, you know nothin’ ’bout love.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Oh, and you do?
PRETTY RUDY: If you had a girl you’d know what I’m talkin’ ’bout. Now that I think about it, I ain’t seen you with a broad for a couple years.
JETHRO JOHNNY: I just told you I’ma knock the dust off with my broad in a minute.
PRETTY RUDY: Nah, that’s some suspect shit.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Whatever.
PRETTY RUDY: Being a stone-cold killer ruined romance for you, I see that now.
JETHRO JOHNNY: What do you know that I don’t?
PRETTY RUDY: Riddle me this, loverboy: if — and this is a big fuckin’ if — but if you ever REALLY get a girl, how would you know when she’s climaxing?
JETHRO JOHNNY: What?
PRETTY RUDY: You heard me: how could you tell when your girl is climaxing?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Climaxing, what the fuck? You know what? You got me. How?
PRETTY RUDY: You’d see my car parked in her driveway. (bursts out laughing)
JETHRO JOHNNY: That’s fucked up, homeboy. Serious egregious shit right there.
PRETTY RUDY: Don’t get all butt hurt. Anyway, we both know you got no real girl, so she’s fake-safe anyway.
JETHRO JOHNNY: That brings me all the way back to the point I was gonna make.
PRETTY RUDY: What’s that?
JETHRO JOHNNY: This broad wrote this story about these killers who snatch up a family with one talkative old bitch hostage.
PRETTY RUDY: Remind you of anyone?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Huh, never thought of that connection.
PRETTY RUDY: Right?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Anyway, one killer finally shoots that loudmouth bitch dead. Says the coolest line ever uttered by a killer in books: She would have been a good woman if there had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.
PRETTY RUDY: That’s a good line. I know people that would apply to.
JETHRO JOHNNY: We all do, that’s the point. That’s why God invented bullets. To stop people from talking.
PRETTY RUDY: We talking Bandit now?
JETHRO JOHNNY: He didn’t go by no bullet, but yeah, his mouth turned him cold.
PRETTY RUDY: Why Bandit? I mean, your job was to smoke a nigger and fuck up the bullshit prison peace treaty. You didn’t worry there’d be consequences for going off script?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Long game, homey. Plus, Bandit was closer than any mayate shot-caller I could get to. County is mostly segregated now.
PRETTY RUDY: Makes sense. But what long game?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Bandit was that typical convict who thought he was tough cuz he had all that makeup on his muscle. The bald head with the old-school bandito mustache.
PRETTY RUDY: Yeah, but we need those idiots on our side. They’re our mascots, our logo, and our best recruiters.
JETHRO JOHNNY: (laughs, then imitates announcer voice) There’s strong, and there’s convict strong. Join our army.
PRETTY RUDY: That’s right. There’s a reason the peckerwoods in the AB all look alike, call themselves The Brand.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Thug marketing.
PRETTY RUDY: Why not? So... long game?
JETHRO JOHNNY: I used to lie in my bunk and think: If I had a time machine I wouldn’t go back and kill Hitler. I’d go all the way back to the road to Damascus and kill Saul of Tarsus before he became St. Paul, the greatest missionary in all of Christendom.
PRETTY RUDY: That’s it! I’m driving you to the crazy house right now. You just went all the way 5150.
JETHRO JOHNNY: No, really. Think about it. No Christians means no conquistadors fucking up the Aztecs — our peeps.
PRETTY RUDY: I’m thinking about it, and I don’t know what that crazy Star Trek time travel shit has to do with you killing Bandit, one of our own.
JETHRO JOHNNY: I took out the guy who was gonna be the biggest preacher of that fucked-up prison peace treaty gospel.
PRETTY RUDY: You telling me he was pushing that hard inside?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Converts make the greatest zealots.
PRETTY RUDY: Bandit never needed a reason to be a loudmouth. And he did have the full backing of the Council in Pelican Bay.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Exactly. I figured we either tangle with him now or tangle with him later, when he transfers from county to Corcoran and is too big to get at.
PRETTY RUDY: You think he suspected someone was gonna try and fuck up the treaty?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Never saw nothin’ coming. He trusted the wrong muscle. He would’ve been better served lifting a coupla books about Julius Caesar than lifting all them weights.
PRETTY RUDY: We beat ’em with history every time.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Deserved what he got.
PRETTY RUDY: Some people don’t get enough of what they deserve.
JETHRO JOHNNY: I set up that terrón for the hit and waited till a Mexican guard spread the rumor Bandit was killed by a nigger — you saw the news, it lit that jail up.
PRETTY RUDY: The little homies were on that bait faster than a hobo on a ham sandwich.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Got that right.
PRETTY RUDY: Anyway, you made it work better than me and Gordo expected.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Cue the clusterfuck, qué no?
PRETTY RUDY: The boys at Pelican Bay are already going crazy trying to figure out who betrayed who.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Punks. Broke weak with that peace treaty shit.
PRETTY RUDY: By the time the smoke clears there’ll be bodies for days. Gordo will have consolidated his shit. Then we’re golden.
JETHRO JOHNNY: As my six-year-old niece says, easy peezy lemon squeezy.
(MUSIC PLAYS...)
JETHRO JOHNNY: Hey, check out Francesco’s. Looks the same as twenty years ago.
PRETTY RUDY: That should be their motto: Francesco’s, since 1962. Ain’t nothin’ changed but the weather... Hey, so I’m gonna park here and go check in across the street.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Local 6, there?
PRETTY RUDY: Yeah. Gordo’s in there. Got the longshoremen on a lockdown vote.
JETHRO JOHNNY: I’ma stay in the car and call my jefita while you check shit out.
PRETTY RUDY: Yeah, awright. Tell her I said hey.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Órale. You gonna be all right getting outta the car with your bum getaway stick?
PRETTY RUDY: Don’t worry ’bout me, pendejo... But all kidding aside, you put in good work, homeboy. Te aventaste.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Does that mean the massage and dancing are off the table now?
PRETTY RUDY: Call Ma Duke. I gotta check this out.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Gracias. And leave the car running. I wanna hear the music.
(PRETTY RUDY EXITS CAR. DOOR SLAMS. CELL PHONE BEEPS.)
JETHRO JOHNNY: You see us drive up?... Cool. So when he gets back in the car, walk over slow, hands at your side. You’re only wearing a T-shirt, right?... Tuck that shit in. I don’t want him thinking you’re packing. Okay? Go.
(MUSIC VOLUME RISES, DOOR OPENS)
JETHRO JOHNNY: Hey, so you hurt your leg how again?
PRETTY RUDY: Don’t go there, man.