"Huh?" The huh was an explosive grunt. It exploded out of the mouth of Sonny Smoot, along with a yellowish red spittle, because when he felt uneasy Sonny liked to gnaw on the toilet bowl despite the fact that his tooth enamel always came out second best. Sonny had been educated in assorted juvenile detention centers, and somehow proper dental hygiene had not been inculcated in him.
"I'm with the ACLU's new Dynamic Extraction Unit," explained Remo with a straight face.
"You a dentist?" asked Sonny.
"No, I'm not a dentist."
"What's that in real talk? Dyna-"
"It means that in our infinite wisdom, we've decided that your complaints are not without merit," Remo said, choosing his words with Raymond Burr in mind.
"Not without merit. That means what?"
"That means, yes, the 247 appeals we've filed on your behalf claiming that 15 years on death row constitutes cruel and unusual punishment have been deemed sound, and we have decided to take emergency measures to remedy your plight."
"Plight? We got plights?"
"Situation. Or whatever Perry Mason would say."
"Our situation is that we're stuck in stir," Orvis grunted. "Hah!"
"And I'm the remedy," said Remo.
"What's that?"
"The CURE," said Remo.
"They letting us go?" wondered DeWayne.
"No, I'm pulling you out of here."
"ACLU can do that?"
"If the four of you will kindly keep your voices down long enough for me to get your cell doors open," Remo said.
Immediately everyone shut up. Except Sonny, who grunted like a pig and asked, "You got the key?"
Remo held up his index finger. "Right here."
"That's a finger. And this here's an electronic lock. You gotta have one of them magnetic credit card things."
"Pass cards," Remo corrected. "And I don't need one because I got a specially trained finger."
And Remo began tapping the lock housing. At first tentatively, then with increasing rhythm.
There was a red light on the lock. It winked out, and immediately below it a green light came on. Remo knew he had exactly five seconds to open the door, before the electronic mechanism automatically shut down.
Remo yanked open the door and said, "Hurry it up!"
Sonny Smoot came out in a cloud of body odor.
Remo went to the next door. Boggs's. Smoot crowded close, his eyes intent upon Remo's finger.
"You're in my light," Remo told him, breathing through his mouth so Smoot's microscopic scent particles would not enter his sensitive nostrils, to lodge there for the next seventy-two hours like petrified snot.
"Ain't no light. It's lights out."
"Don't argue with a trained professional," Remo said.
Sonny Smoot obligingly went around to Remo's opposite side and hovered there like an upright turd.
Remo worked the lock. He had the rhythm now, so the red light was replaced by green in jig time.
Orvis Boggs came out.
"I can't believe it! Free!"
"Not until we get past the guards," said Remo, attacking DeWayne Tubble's cell door now. It came open and Tubble came out.
Last to exit was Roy Short-sleeve, the last person on death row. He had been a participant in the lawsuit against the state of Utah, citing their lengthy sojourn on death row as cruel and unusual punishment, and contrary to the eighth amendment of the Constitution.
He had one question. "Is this legal?"
"Only if we don't get caught," Remo told him.
"Then I'm staying."
"You are?"
"Breaking jail won't clear my name. I'm innocent."
"Me, too!" said Sonny Smoot.
"Innocent, that's me."
"Likewise."
"But I'm really, really innocent," Roy Shortsleeve said quietly.
Remo looked into the man's soft eyes. They were dark and wide-pupiled as a cat's, and his long, haggard face was sincere.
"Okay," Remo said. "You get to stay. But only because you're innocent."
"Wait a minute," said Sonny Smoot. "ACLU will bust us out of stir, but not an innocent guy?"
"That's the ACLU way," Remo said. "Innocent guys aren't that much of a challenge. Besides, I thought you were innocent, too."