Freddy turned away from his friend and studied the hostages. Most of them were too tired and hungry to show emotion. Larry Merritt was the only one who had the courage to meet Freddy’s eyes. Freddy pointed at the guard.

“I’ll slit his throat and you’ll drag him out. Tell McDermott that a hostage dies every hour the plane and the money aren’t here.”

“No, Freddy. Don’t do this.”

“I gotta, bro. Ain’t no other way.”

“If you kill him you’re killing me, too. They’ll come in shooting and no convict is gonna walk out alive.”

“You can hide behind that,” Freddy said, pointing to a broken, three-legged office desk that canted sideways, one corner touching the floor. “Then you surrender. You’re smart. You can talk your way out. Me, I gotta act.”

Freddy started toward the guard. “Say good night, motherfucker.”

Freddy started his downward thrust and Charlie hurled himself between the prison guard and Freddy’s knife.

“What the fuck!” shouted Freddy as the shiv buried itself in Charlie’s shoulder blade. Charlie was sprawled across the startled guard. Freddy jerked the knife out of Charlie’s back and Charlie rolled sideways so he could see his cellmate.

“Shit,” he groaned. “You stabbed me, Freddy.”

“What the fuck were you doing?” asked his shocked friend.

“Saving your life.”

Charlie pulled himself into a sitting position and gathered his courage, still keeping his body between Freddy and Merritt. What he wanted to say was hard for a man to express.

“I love you, Freddy.”

“What?”

“Not like that. I’m not queer. I love you like a brother. Hell, we are brothers. We don’t have the same mother or father, but we’re more brothers than natural brothers. You hear what I’m saying?”

Freddy looked stunned. Outside of bitches in the throes of passion, who he knew were just after his dope or money, no one had ever told him they loved him.

Charlie reached over his back and felt blood leaking from the knife wound. He grimaced.

“You okay?” Freddy asked with genuine concern.

“No, man, I’m not okay. You fucking stabbed me. But I’d let you kill me if it would save your life. That’s why I couldn’t let you off the guard. If he died, you’d be a dead man for sure.”

“You’d die for me?” Freddy said, trying hard to get his mind around the fact that Charlie was willing to take a bullet for him.

“To save you, yeah. Hell, how many times have you rescued me? I can’t count them. It’s time for me to pay you back.”

“Oh, man, you don’t owe me shit. You’re my friend, Charlie, my only friend.”

Freddy’s eyes filled with tears, something that hadn’t happened since he’d built an iron shell around his feelings to shield himself from his father’s vicious abuse.

“Naw, Freddy, you got plenty of friends,” Charlie lied, embarrassed by Freddy’s unexpected and unprecedented display of emotion.

“You’re lying, bro, but I ain’t mad. I know you just want me to feel good, but I don’t. I know plenty of people fear me, but you’re the only one who cares. You protected me from my old man when he, well, when he done that shit.”

Charlie felt a spasm of pain and moaned. Freddy knelt next to him and looked at his shoulder. The back of the blue prison-issue shirt was turning red. Freddy helped Charlie take it off, then made a compress by folding the shirt and tying it in place over the wound with his own. As he helped Charlie to his feet, Freddy noticed an empty liter bottle of cola that had rolled against the wall. A wave of strong emotion swept through him as he realized what he had to do. Then he threw his arms around Charlie and hugged him.

“I’m sorry I got you involved in this,” Freddy said when he’d released his friend. “I wasn’t thinking. You could have been killed, but I was just thinking of myself.”

“Hey, man…”

“Don’t say nothing, Charlie. Let me talk. You always think about me, man, but I’m a selfish bastard. It’s time I did something for you. I’m setting everyone free. You’re gonna take them out of here. Tell McDermott I’m gonna surrender and face the music. I fucked up and I gotta pay.”

“That’s great, Freddy. You’re doing the right thing.”

“Yeah, bro, I believe I am. Cut them loose and get your ass out of here.”

Charlie felt lightheaded from his wound but he knew he had to move fast, before Freddy changed his mind. Charlie used the shiv to cut everyone’s bonds. Then he gave it back to Freddy and led the hostages out of the storeroom.

“It’s Charlie Marsh, Mr. McDermott,” he shouted through the library door. “I’ve got the hostages with me. They’re free and unharmed. Don’t shoot, we’re coming out.”

The door opened and the hostages rushed into the corridor. Some were sobbing; others were too exhausted to show emotion.

“Mr. McDermott, Freddy wants to surrender. If you go in now he’ll give up,” Charlie managed. He was feeling dizzy from blood loss and the pain was making it hard to think. Suddenly, Charlie staggered and collapsed to the ground next to Warden Pulliams.

“Get a medic,” the warden told McDermott. “This man was stabbed saving Larry’s life. He’s a hero.”

The captain of the SWAT team sent a medic over to Charlie. Then he and McDermott and several members of the SWAT team entered the library. The point man led them through the stacks until they could see the door to the storeroom. The captain used hand signals to place his men where they would have a clear shot.

“Mr. Clayton, this is Assistant Warden McDermott. We’re grateful that you’ve released the hostages unharmed. Please come out now and we’ll take you into custody. I assure…”

The storeroom door burst open to reveal Crazy Freddy Clayton. He was stripped to the waist and his sculpted body gleamed with sweat. In one hand he held his shiv; in the other he held the soda pop bottle. The bottle was filled with paint thinner. A rag had been stuffed through the neck and into the liquid. Bright flames were eating away at the rag.

“FREEDOM OR DEATH!” howled Freddy as three shots fired simultaneously by members of the SWAT team caught him in the chest.

Freddy staggered a step and the Molotov cocktail exploded, bathing him in flames.

CHAPTER 11

Charlie Marsh had always been a nobody; an insignificant member of the human race who had left no mark on history during his time on Earth. Now he was a hero and, as Warden Pulliams was quick to point out to anyone who would listen, walking proof that the warden’s theories of rehabilitation worked. What better example could there be than Charlie’s willingness to sacrifice his life for that of his jailer?

The warden was wise enough to realize that many convicts would not view Charlie’s actions in a positive light and would consider Freddy Clayton, who had died in flames rather than knuckle under to The Man, as the true hero of the prison standoff. To protect Charlie from those inmates who had not yet turned a moral corner, the warden sent Charlie to the county hospital to recuperate while he arranged for an early release, an appropriate reward for his gallantry.

The first evening Charlie spent on clean sheets in the air-conditioned luxury of his hospital room, the nurse tuned his television to the national news, where the prison standoff was the lead story. It was surreal, watching himself stagger out of the library behind the hostages and collapse to the floor while Mabel Brooks told the world:

“That guard wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for Mr. Marsh. None of us would be alive. He threw himself between that knife and Mr. Merritt. And he kept that animal from setting us on fire. I know we’d all be dead if Mr. Marsh hadn’t protected us. God bless him.”

Charlie should have felt proud of his heroic actions and elated by his proximity to freedom, but the primary emotion he experienced was guilt. Was he really a hero? Had he thrown himself between Freddy’s knife and Larry Merritt’s body to save an innocent man or to save himself from being charged as an accessory to murder? And why had he told Freddy he loved him? Had he spoken from the heart or was he trying to distract Freddy to keep himself from being murdered for interfering with his lunatic friend’s insane plan? Charlie had been living the con for so long that it was hard at times for him to divine his own motivations.