Savannah Swingsaw Read Online Free PDF

don't look like you want him the way Rodeo wants him, but either way I don't care. Understand me now."
    "Sure. All for none and none for all. That about sums it up?"
    "You got a look, man, that says you don't believe me. Just so we're clear, you and me, and you don't go expecting any help later when Rodeo comes after you, and he will, for sure. Let me show you something."
    Carrew's hands reached back into the mechanism of his chair, fiddled with something and suddenly there was a flat blade in his hand, eight inches long, sharpened on both sides.
    "See? Now if I really wanted to help you out there, I'd have tossed you this. Am I right?"
    Bolan nodded. "Thanks for straightening me out. I'd hate to go another minute thinking maybe you were doing something nice."
    Lyle Carrew replaced his shank in its hiding place and wheeled toward Bolan. "You're a weird guy, Blue. I know your rap sheet, and I've seen you handle yourself damn well out there. You been inside before, you know how things work."
    "I'm sentimental," Bolan sneered.
    "You're something. I haven't figured out what. Yet."
    Bolan glanced at his wound. The bleeding had stopped. He shrugged back into his shirt and thought of how he could get to Dodge Reed. Now with Rodeo and his gang after both of them, he'd have to make his break soon. Real soon.
    To make matters worse, Carrew's curiosity was aroused. The man in the wheelchair was sharp, perceptive. The slightest hint that a prisoner might not be what he appeared could send a shiver of paranoia through the prison population that would result in a shank buried in his back within the hour. Cops had gone undercover in prisons before. When discovered, they didn't livelong. Carrew was peering over the rims of his glasses at Bolan. The glasses made him look oddly bookish. "You aren't talking now, Blue. You got something to hide?"
    Bolan acted angry. "What's your problem, man? Shit, you go around here acting you've done twenty years of a life term. Telling me how it is. Who not to trust. Hell, all you did was punch out a doctor and scare some nurses. Big goddamn deal."
    Carrew chuckled. "Seemed like one to them."
    "Yeah, well that kind of prankish crap don't cut it in here. Most of the guys are in here because they've wanted something and they were willing to rob or hurt or kill to get it. What you did didn't get you nothing."
    "That's a fact," Carrew said, folding his glasses and tossing them on his bunk. "You probably think I'm just some crazy black with a chip on his shoulder about his color or being crippled or both."
    "Are you?"
    Carrew shrugged. "Maybe. Yeah, maybe I'm just a bitter vet. Or bitter about being black. You want a fact, Blue? Something that'll knock your socks off? Here's a statistic for you. In the U.S. an inmate has a one in 3,300 chance of being killed during one year in prison. But the average black man outside prison stands a one in 1,700 chance. That means he's at twice the risk of being killed outside jail. Yeah, that might make me bitter, make me toss a few TV's Out of a window."
    Those were damn good reasons to be bitter, Bolan thought, but that didn't seem to be Carrew's problem.
    He was smart enough to go beyond what couldn't be changed, work on what could. The books and weightlifting showed that. "Everybody's got problems, Carrew," Bolan said.
    Carrew looked Bolan in the eyes. A slow grin spread across his face. "You're not buying that as my motive, are you?"
    "Nope."
    "Good. You didn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd take much whining. All right, Blue, just for the sake of killing some time, I tell you the truth." He leaned back in his wheelchair and sighed. "Ever follow college football back in the sixties, Blue?"
    "Some."
    "Heisman Trophy winners?"
    Bolan nodded.
    "Who got it in 1966?
    "I don't remember. What's the point?"
    "Dick Kazmaier, Princeton."
    "So?" Bolan asked.
    Carrew chuckled. "Yeah. So what, huh? That was almost twenty years ago. That was then and this is now. Only there was