A Bomb Built in Hell Read Online Free Page B

forward with a smile.
    â€œOkay, sweetheart, decision time. Just me, or all of us?”
    Wesley looked frightened and defeated—he had been practicing in his scrap of mirror for hours.
    â€œJust you,” he said, in a shaky voice.
    The other three slapped palms with the biggest one, mumbled something about “seconds,” and ambled off, laughing. They were about fifty feet down the corridor when the cell doors started to slowly close. Wesley knelt down before the big man. The would-be jockey unzipped his fly and stepped toward Wesley … who sprang forward and rammed his head and shoulders like a spear into the bigger man’s stomach.
    They both slammed backward into the cell wall, and Wesley whipped his knee up, trying to drive it right through the other man’s groin into his chest.
    The big man shrieked in pain, and slumped forward. Wesley’s hands were instantly around his throat, thumbs locking the Adam’s apple. Just before the cell doors closed, Wesley stuffed the man’s head into the opening, his hands turning chalk-white with the strain.
    The three others raced back but were too late; they could only watch as the steel door crushed the big man’s skull as easily as if it were cardboard. Their own screams brought the guards, clubs up and ready.
    W esley spent the night in solitary. The special watch assigned reported that he went to sleep promptly at ten-thirty, and slept right on through the night.
    W esley’s new lawyer was from the same brotherhood as the others. He ran the usual babble about pleading guilty to a reduced charge, escaping what they always called “the heavier penalties permissible under the statutes.”
    â€œThis could be Murder One, kid, but I think I can get the DA to—”
    â€œHold up. How could it be murder
anything
? I didn’t plan to waste that motherfucker. I was protecting myself, right?”
    â€œThe Law says that if you think about killing someone for even a split second before you do it, you’re guilty of premeditated murder.”
    â€œIf I hadn’t killed him, he would have …”
    â€œYeah, I know.”
    â€œSure you do.”
    Wesley thought it through. He finally concluded that shooting the sergeant in Korea hadn’t been premeditated—he didn’t remember thinking about it at all, much less for a whole split second. And that Marine had been self-defense—if he hadn’t killed him, he was dead meat the minute he was ID’ed.
    It was too much to work through right away, so Wesley fell back on the one thing he trusted: waiting. After all, he was going to end up behind bars no matter what, and he knew the jail time would count against State time.
    So he refused to plead guilty, and sat for another nine months in the Tombs awaiting trial. Finally, the lawyer came back with an offer to plead guilty tomanslaughter in exchange for a suspended sentence, running concurrently, on the armed robbery. He was promised a twelve-year top.
    Wesley thought about this. He had a lot of time to think, since he was locked in his cell twenty-three and a half hours a day. They gave the prisoners in the isolation unit showers every two weeks, unless they had a court date, and Wesley always used his daily half-hour to watch and see if the dead man’s friends were any more loyal than the Marine’s had been.
    He reasoned it out as best as he could. Even if he slid on the homicide, he
had
robbed the liquor store; he could sit in the Tombs for another couple of years and still pull major time, so he finally accepted the now-frantic lawyer’s offer. The thought of going to trial before a jury was making the poor guy lose a lot of sleep.
    T he judge asked Wesley, “Were any promises made to you, at this time or at any other time, on which you are relying in your plea of guilty to these charges?” When Wesley answered “Yes,” the judge called a recess.
    The lawyer