"Six hours, huh?"
"Yeah, it happens about once a year. Somebody just walks away. They notify the cops in your hometown, put your name in the national computers, the usual drill."
"How many get caught?"
"Almost all."
"Almost"
"Yeah, but they get caught because they do dumb things. Get drunk in bars. Drive cars with no taillights. Go see their girlfriends."
"So if you had a brain you could pull it off?"
"Sure. Careful planning, a little cash, it would be easy"
They began walking again, a bit slower. "Tell me something, Mr.Yarber," Buster said. "If you were facing forty-eight years, would you take a walk?"
"Yes."
"But I don't have a dime."
"I do."
"Then you'll help me."
"We'll see. Give it some time. Settle in here. They're watchin you a bit closer because you're new, but with time they'll forget about you."
Buster actually smiled. His sentence had just been reduced dramatically.
"You know what happens if you get caught?" Yarber said.
"Yeah, they add some more years. Big deal. Maybe I'll get fifty-eight. No sir, if I get caught, I blow my brains out."
"That's what I'd do. You have to be prepared to leave the country."
"And go where?"
"Go someplace where you look like the locals, and where they don't extradite to the US."
"Anyplace in particular?"
"Argentina or Chile.You speak any Spanish?"
"No."
"Start learnin. We have Spanish lessons here, you know. Some of the Miami boys teach them."
They walked a lap in silence as Buster reconsidered his future. His feet were lighter, his shoulders straighter, and he couldn't keep a grin off his face.
"Why are you helping me?" he asked.
"Because you're twenty-three years old. Too young and too innocent.You've been screwed by the system, Buster. You have the right to fight back any way you can. Do you have a girlfriend?"
"Sort of."
"Forget about her. She'll only get you in trouble. Besides, you think she'll wait forty-eight years?"
"She said she would."
"She's lyin. She's already playin the field. Forget about her, unless you want to get caught."
Yeah, he's probably right, thought Buster. He'd yet to get a letter from her, and though she lived only four hours away she hadn't made it to Trumble. They'd talked twice on the phone, and all she seemed to care about was whether he'd been attacked.
"Any kids?" askedYarber.
"No. Not that I know of."
"What about your mother?"
"She died when I was very young. My dad raised me. It was just the two of us."
"Then you're the perfect guy to walk away"
"I'd like to leave now"
"Be patient. Let's plan it carefully"
Another lap, and Buster wanted to sprint. He couldn't think of a damned thing he'd miss in Pensacola. He'd made A's and B's in Spanish in high school, and while he couldn't remember any of it, he hadn't struggled with the material. He'd pick it up fast. He'd take the courses and hang out with the Latins.
The more he walked the more he wanted his conviction to be affirmed. And the quicker the better. If it got reversed, he'd be forced to have another trial, and he had no confidence in the next jury.
Buster wanted to run, starting over there in the grassy field, to the treeline, through the woods to the country road where he wasn't sure what to do next. But if an insane banker could walk away and make it to Cocoa Beach, so could he.
"Why haven't you walked away?" he askedYarber.
"I've thought about it. But in five years they'll let me go. I can last that long. I'll be sixty-five, in good health, with a life expectancy of sixteen years. That's what I'm livin for, Buster, the last sixteen years. I don't wanna be lookin over my shoulder."
"Where will you go?"
"Don't know yet. Maybe a little village in the Italian countryside. Maybe the mountains of Peru. I've got the whole world to choose from, and I spend hours every day just dreamin about it."
"So you have plenty of money?"
"No, but I'm gettin there."
That raised a number of questions, but Buster let them pass. He was learning that in prison you kept most of your questions to yourself.
When Buster was tired of walking, he stopped near his Weed Eater. "Thanks, Mr.Yarber." he said.
"No problem. Just keep it between the two of us."
"Sure. I'm ready whenever you are."
Finn was off, pacing another lap, his shorts now soaked with sweat, his gray ponytail dripping with moisture. Buster watched him go, then for a second looked across the grassy field, into the trees.
At that moment, he could see all the way to South America.
TWENTY-FOUR
For two long, hard months Aaron Lake and Governor Tarry had gone head to head, toe to toe, coast to coast, in twenty-six states with almost 25 million votes cast. They'd pushed themselves with eighteen-hour days, brutal schedules, relentless travel, the typical madness of a presidential race.
Yet they'd worked just as hard to avoid a face-toface debate. Tarry didn't want one in the early primaries because he was the front-runner. He had the organization, the cash, the favorable polls. Why legitimize the opposition? Lake didn't want one because he was a newcomer to the national scene, a novice at high-stakes campaigning, and besides it was much easier to hide behind a script and a friendly camera and make ads whenever needed. The risks of a live debate were simply too high.
Teddy didn't like the thought of one either.
But campaigns change. Front-runners fade, small issues become big ones, the press can create a crisis simply out of boredom.
Tarry decided he needed a debate because he was broke, and losing one primary after another. "Aaron Lake is trying to buy this election," he said over and over. "And I want to confront him, man to man." It sounded good, and the press had beaten it to death.
"He's running from a debate." Tarry declared, and the pack liked that too.
"The governor's been dodging a debate since Michigan" was Lake's standard response.
And so for three weeks they played the he'srunning-fiiom-me game until their people quietly worked out the details.
Lake was reluctant, but he also needed a forum. Though he was winning week after week, he was rolling over an opponent who'd been fading for a long time. His polls and D-PAC's polls showed a great deal of voter interest in him, but mainly because he was new and handsome and seemingly electable.
Unknown to outsiders, the polls also showed some very soft areas. The first was on the question of Lake's single-issue campaign. Defense spending can excite the voters for only so long, and there was great concern, in the polls, about where Lake stood on other issues.
Second, Lake was still five points behind the Vice President in their hypothetical November matchup. The voters were tired of the Vice President, but at least they knew who he was. Lake remained a mystery to many. Also, the two would debate several times prior to November. Lake, who had the nomination in hand, needed the experience.
Tarry didn't help matters with his constant query, "Who is Aaron Lake?" With some of his few remaining funds, he authorized the printing of bumper stickers with the now famous question-Who is Aaron Lake?
(It was a question Teddy asked himself almost every hour, but for a different reason.)
The setting of the debate was in Pennsylvania at a small Lutheran college with a cozy auditorium, good acoustics and light, a controllable crowd. Even the smallest of details were haggled over by the two camps, but because both sides now needed a debate agreements were eventually reached. The precise format had nearly caused fistfights, but once ironed out it gave everybody something. The media got three reporters on the stage to ask direct questions during one segment. The spectators got twenty minutes to ask about anything, with nothing screened. Tarry, a lawyer, wanted five minutes for opening remarks and a tenminute closing statement. Lake wanted thirty minutes of one-on-one debate with Tarry, no holds barred, no one to referee, just the two of them slugging it out without rules. This had terrified the Tarry camp, and had almost broken the deal.