Authors: Edward Bunker

Death Row Breakout (21 page)

“What’s this for?”

“’Cause I can’t take it with me. It’s too much to put up my ass.”

“Okay. Thanks, bro’.”

Using Vaseline from a tube, Max greased the polyurethane wrapped twenties and, grimacing, worked them into his rectum. “I’ll probably give myself hemorrhoids or something.” Cash money was contraband in prison, but worth twice as much as money on the books.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The key sounded on the gate. “Okay, Black! Roll out!”

“Comin’, boss,” Max called back. When he came out of the cell, half a dozen jailhouse friends were waiting to say goodbye, wishing him luck, and slapping him on the back. Ebie, the older of two brothers from North Hollywood, was there. “Hey, Max, be cool. I’ll see you in a week or two.” Ebie had been sentenced yesterday. Max had known him since juvenile hall when they were twelve. He was a friend and respected. He was a homely dog, with a flat face, bad teeth and bow legs. He was borderline illiterate, but he was street-smart and had a colorful phrasing in his conversation, even if he couldn’t read a matchbook cover.

The space at the gate was narrow, so some goodbyes were said over shoulders as Max waited for the deputy to key the gate. “See you guys later,” he said as the deputy pulled it open and stepped back. “You know where to go, Black.”

“Follow the yellow brick road.”

The deputy nodded. On the jail floor were colored stripes side-by-side. The yellow one led to the shower room where releases got their clothes. Those going free changed there. Those going in custody went down to a narrow stair to a bullpen. The red stripe went to the visiting room, the green to the Attorney Room, the black to the infirmary.

At the show room, Max showed his property slip to the trusty, who checked him off a list and got his clothes.

The bullpen had about twenty prisoners. More would appear. The “gray goose” rarely made its run with an empty seat. There were prison guards who would escort them, already at work chaining each man up in leg-irons and wrist-irons and then chaining each man to the next. This was no jail he was going to. This was the big show.

Max was getting excited. He was nineteen years old, and was the youngest guy in the group. He had spent half of his life in juvenile detention or in local jails. He had half a dozen convictions on his growing rap sheet, but now he was going up on a felony that carried a seven-year rap. He’d still be young when he got out. It was like going to school. He’d come out of the joint smarter, wiser. They wouldn’t get him a second time. But so what, if they did.

The adrenaline rush in pulling off a successful robbery was better than sex. Better than drugs. Better than anything else he’d ever experienced.

Don’t do the crime, if you are not prepared to do the time, he was told. Max was prepared to do both.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

This edition published in 2011 by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media

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