Last to Die (2003) by James - Jack Swyteck 03 Grippando

Author:James - Jack Swyteck 03 Grippando [Grippando, James - Jack Swyteck 03]
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-01-04T18:06:16.531000+00:00

Chapter Thirty The urinal in the men's room was busted again, and two guys were busily gratifying each other in the only stall, so Theo took the back exit into the alley behind the club. He found a dark, suitable spot between two parked cars, only to find that someone had found the very same spot minutes before he had.

Son of a bitch, he said, stepping out of it.

He continued down the dark alley, though he was suddenly thinking more of his talk with Jack than his bursting bladder. He hadn't exactly told his friend the whole story about why he was going to Africa. Sure, it would be fun, and even more sure, Jack could use a guy like Theo to keep him out of trouble. But Theo's real agenda was much more personal. The police were zooming in on his brother as a suspect in Sally Fenning's murder, and Theo alone knew the depth of his debt to Tatum.

The alley was getting darker with each step he took, and Theo finally stopped and looked around. On either side were the unadorned backs of buildings - bars, drugstores, Laundromats. A half block ahead, the lights from Sixteenth Street were a big glowing dot in the darkness, like the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. The walls were cinder blocks painted beige and white. Every door and window was covered with black security bars. If he narrowed his eyes, Theo could almost see one set of hands after another gripping those iron bars, hands without faces, hands he'd linked to anxious voices from within boxes during his years on death row. Those were memories he would have liked to flush. But with his own brother in trouble, and with the barred doors and windows all around him, his mind drifted back to a night on death row that he'd truly thought would be his last hours on earth.

Theo sat on one side of the prison glass; his brother, Tatum, on the other. His brother seemed taken by his baldness.

What happened to your hair, man?

It's just what they do, said Theo. The prison barber had already shaved his head and ankles so that there would be a smooth connection between his flesh and the deadly voltage of the electric chair.

Swyteck is starting to scare me, said Tatum. What the hell is taking him so long this time? He ain't never let it go this far before.

He's doing what he can. Sometimes you just run out of shit to throw against the wall.

Then get a new lawyer.

They don't give out new lawyers the night before an execution.

But you need more time. I need more time.

From the day of Theo's sentencing, Tatum had vowed to track down every last member of the Grove Lords, threaten them, beat them, crack their skulls - whatever it took to find the one who had gone into that convenience store and really killed that cashier.

Theo said, I appreciate all you done for me, but -

But nothin'.

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