“As a friend, and not as a lawyer, I’d say it’ll run its course. It’ll hit the newspapers and be the news for a month, and if you’re arrested—”
“There won’t be an arrest.”
“Okay, if they don’t find you, then pretty soon they’ll lose interest. Let a few months go by, maybe a year, then test the waters. See if they’ll take some fines and restitution and forget about it.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
Harry Rex said, “As your lawyer, I advise you to turn yourself in and face the music. I cannot advise you to flee the country.”
“Jake, as a friend?”
“Flee the country. Nothing good will happen if you stay here. Go back to Costa Rica and live the good life.”
Mack smiled and ate another peanut. He faced them both and said, “Thanks, guys, for everything. I’ll be in touch.” And with that, he abruptly turned and walked away and disappeared down the path.
He drove six hours and stopped at an interstate motel near Waco, where he slept late Sunday morning. He had biscuits and eggs at a truck stop, then drove seven hours to Laredo. He left the Volvo DL in the lot of a cheap motel, unlocked and with keys in the ignition, and caught a taxi. He carried a small backpack with some clothes, $40,000 in U.S. cash, and four passports.
At dusk, he walked across the bridge over the Rio Grande and left the country.
STRAWBERRY MOON
（1）
It took a federal lawsuit to get the shelving for Cody’s collection of paperbacks, almost two thousand of them. They covered three walls of his eight-by-ten cell and were arranged in near perfect order by the author’s last name. He had read and reread every one of them and could find any book in an instant. Almost all were fiction. He had little interest in science or history or religion, boring subjects, in his opinion. The fiction took him to other worlds, other places, and he spent most of his twenty-three hours a day in solitary with his nose stuck in a novel.
The books were everywhere—paperback only because the wise men who ran the prison had decreed long ago that a hardback could be used as a weapon, at least by inmates. United States crime data had yet to record a single incident of a victim being slaughtered by a hardback book, but such was life on the outside. On death row almost everything was deemed potentially dangerous. And besides, the well-used books were gifts from a lady who lived on a pension and certainly couldn’t afford to buy and ship heavier novels. Plus, there was always the question of shelf space. The collection was now twelve years old, and from all indications was about to come to an end. If Cody dodged the latest bullet, and it appeared as though he would not, his cell would soon be overrun with books. Transferring to a larger one was out of the question—they were all eight-by-ten.
In one corner there was a stainless-steel sink and toilet, and above it a small color television was mounted to the wall. Books were stacked next to the toilet and on top of the television. It was a Motorola, a gift from a charity in Belgium, and when it arrived almost ten years ago Cody burst into tears and cried for hours, overwhelmed at his good fortune. He and the other inmates lucky enough to have televisions were allowed to watch anything on the networks from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., an arbitrary schedule imposed by the wise men with no explanation.
His bed was a concrete slab with a foam-rubber mattress, and for the last fourteen years he had struggled to get comfortable enough to sleep. Above it, there was once a top bunk with a metal frame, back when each cell on The Row housed two men. Then the rules changed, the bunks were replaced by concrete, and Cody filled the wall above him with rows of books.
The spines of the paperbacks were a lively mix of all colors and brightened his sad little world. When he took a break from reading, he would often sit on his bunk and stare at the walls, covered from floor to ceiling, as high as he could reach, with a dizzying assemblage of stories that had taken him around the world and back many times. Most of the men on The Row were insane. Solitary confinement does that to any human. But Cody’s mind was hyper, active, sharp, and all because of his books.
On occasion he would loan one to a guy down The Row, but only to those he liked. A short list. Failure to return them promptly would cause a ruckus, with the guards intervening. Once a week a trustee would arrive pushing his cart from the main prison library and offer two titles, never more than two. As usual, they saved the worst for death row and the paperbacks were all well worn, dog-eared, smudged, and often missing covers and even pages. What kind of creep carefully removes a page or two just to screw with the next reader? Prison was full of them.