"Can't be me," Remo said. "I was born after World War II."
"The Japanese occupation of Yuma, Arizona. Last Christmas."
"If you believe the Japanese invaded Arizona," Remo grunted, "then I guess you can believe a man can break a tank with his bare hands." He sighed. Sometimes the guards had it worse than the prisoners. Most prisoners got out, one way or the other. But most guards were lifers in their way. It often took a toll. Some went mean. Others got simple. This guard was obviously one of the simple ones.
"They must have buried you pretty deep in Jersey for you not to know about the Japanese thing last Christmas."
"Never heard of it," Remo said.
Popcorn's voice broke in. "I'm done," he said. The guard retrieved the mop and then came to Remo's cell for his tray.
"Mind leaving that paper?" Remo asked casually, his eyes on the paper wadded under the guard's arm.
"You know the rule. Dead Men aren't allowed to read in their cells."
"We're not allowed in the prison library either."
"I don't make the rules." And the guard went on down the line, collecting trays.
When the din began to settle down, Popcorn called out, "Why were you jivin' him, man?"
"I wasn't jiving him."
"You serious? You mean you didn't hear about the Jap thing last Christmas?"
"We beat the Japanese nearly fifty years ago."
"Maybe so. But a few of them snuck back and spit in Uncle Sam's face. Wonder what that Dead Man thing was he was runnin' off at the mouth about?"
"Search me," Remo said. Disinterest crept back into his voice like a sluggish tide onto a mud flat. He wondered if the guard had been trying to make a duck of him and if Popcorn hadn't joined in just to amuse himself.
The ten-o'clock head count same swiftly, and after that lunch, which consisted of leftover beef and rice from the previous day. Remo flushed the beef away and attacked the rice with eagerness. Compared to the night before, it tasted mushy, but it was rice. He ate ravenously, surprised at how much he enjoyed the rice. He never used to like rice all that much.
At three o'clock the call came. "Head count. Line up for the yard!" Remo felt his blood run cold.
"Showtime!" Popcorn said jauntily.
"You're not going through with it?" Remo hissed.
"Don't know. Maybe I'll fight. Maybe I'll hit the fence. But we'll both find out."
The cell doors all along death row buzzed open and the men stepped out in their apricot T-shirts and formed short lines between the sealed section-control doors. Then, all at once, these doors opened and they began to march through Grand Central and out into the yard.
Once out into the sun, Popcorn started for the fence. Remo grabbed him by the back of his T-shirt. "Where are you going?"
"I said maybe I'll hit the fence. Maybe I will." Remo spun the little con around. "Don't be a fool. Even if you make the first fence, the hacks'll nail you before you get to the second one."
Popcorn's eyes were bleak and flat as unpolished onyx. "A lead pill's bitter medicine, my man. But Florida juice is pure poison."
Popcorn turned to pull away, but Remo only tightened his grip.
"Oh, almost forgot," Popcorn said. He extracted a mashed pack of Camels from his dungaree pocket. A matchbook was wedged into the cellophane wrapper. He slapped it into Remo's open hand.
"No time for a last smoke," he said with a wide, devil-may-care grin. "Don't want to cut my breath for runnin'."
Those were the last words that Mohammed "Popcorn" Diladay ever spoke, because so suddenly that Remo received only a momentary sense of an approaching shadow, Crusher McGurk suddenly loomed up behind Popcorn. He towered over the little con like a human mountain.
Popcorn's eyes read the look on Remo's face and started to lift to the sky. His mouth opened to speak. He never got the words out.
For Crusher McGurk gathered Popcorn up bodily and turned him around. He brought his blubbery mouth to Popcorn's own surprised lips and attacked it like a human leech.
Popocorn's feet started kicking. His fists flailed. Remo moved fast. But not fast enough, because with a horrible animal cry, McGurk suddenly reared back, his mouth bloody. He dropped Popcorn to the shimmering asphalt and threw his head back, howling.
Remo froze, thinking that McGurk had gotten the worst of it. Then he saw Popcorn, quivering on the ground, trying to hold the squirting blood in his mouth with both hands.
And Crusher McGurk, his head thrown back triumphantly, made a show of swallowing what was in his mouth.
"You son of a bitch!" Remo blazed. He lunged for the burly con. McGurk lifted one massive paw and tried to swat Remo away. Remo ducked under the blow. He was conscious of the other inmates closing in, trying to keep the fight from the guards as long as possible.
"Take his head off, McGurk!" one hissed vehemently. McGurk's other hand swept around. Remo's forearm, all lean muscle and bone, shot up to intercept it. McGurk's fist struck and bounced off. McGurk howled and grabbed his injured hand. He froze, looking at his bone-shocked arm with stupefied eyes. Their focus passed his hand and locked on Remo.
"I'm gonna have more than your tongue, cop," he roared. Too loudly, as it turned out.
"Riot in the yard!" a guard howled.
Remo knew he'd have only a minute at most. He kicked McGurk in his huge beer belly. McGurk doubled over and Remo broke his front teeth with his fist. McGurk spit out more blood. This time it was his own. He went down on one knee as the guards started shoving and clubbing at the outer circle of inmates. Remo knew he would have to finish McGurk here and now if he wanted to live to see the electric chair.
Then a strange thing happened. Like sharks sensing blood, the other inmates turned on McGurk. He was kicked on all sides and rabbit-punched in the face.
Shock must have paralyzed the big convict, because he simply crouched there like a deformed idol as blow after blow rained down on him. But stubbornly, he wouldn't fall. Remo came around to the side and, without thinking, chopped at the back of his thick neck with the side of his open hand. The first blow sounded meaty; the second made a crunching noise.
Remo stepped back. Crusher's eyes rolled up in his head. His mouth went slack, but amazingly, he held his position, as if his body was unable to comprehend the damage done to it.
Then a convict came out of the packed crowd carrying a weighted sock. And while two others held McGurk, he laid blow after blow on McGurk's dumbfounded face.
In the time it took for Remo to step back two paces, Crusher McGurk's face had become a mask of chewed meat. But that didn't stop his attacker, a black man with only four fingers on his left hand. He continued to wield the weighted sock until it was torn apart, spilling its contents-broken razor blades and old C batteries.
McGurk went down on his ruin of a face, and the black con, hearing the guards' approach, hastily tossed the ruined sock on Popcorn's heaving stomach, saying, "That's for takin' my finger off, dickhead."
The crowd dispersed, giving the guards room to move in.
Remo hung back. Popcorn lay on his back, his eyes wide and catching the bright sunlight like black jewels, blood oozing up between his dark fingers. Remo knelt beside him.
"Just hold on, okay?" he urged.
Little red bubbles broke over Popcorn's fingers, and Remo had to turn away.