Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (100 best novels of all time txt) 📗

Nodding a greeting, Tripp took out a file folder and sat across from Aronson. Having left my Glock home because of the metal detector, I slipped out of my black denim jacket and draped it on the chair across from Joey. Rolling up the sleeves of my blue shirt, I sat. For a moment we all looked at each other as if waiting to see who’d produce the deck and deal.

“My client would like to say something.” Aronson turned to Joey. “Mr. Snell?”

Biting his lip, Joey looked down and took a breath. “Mr. Caster said I gotta come clean with you, Mr. Rimes.” He raised his eyes. “He said you need to know what I know.”

I said nothing, waited.

“Tell him what you told me about Jasper Hellman,” Tripp said.

“Go ahead,” Aronson urged.

Joey swallowed. “Guess you know he hates you—for his bag, for busting him.”

I nodded.

“What you don’t know is he’s pretty much on his own inside.” Joey shifted in his seat, a big man trying to get comfortable. “Most of the inmates are black or Spanish, so people like us…like me, white guys, we gotta stick together. For power.” Eyes never leaving mine, he let that sink in. “But Hellman don’t have a lot of friends. Some guys don’t like him ‘cause of his bag. He gets light work duty ‘cause of his bag. Showers in the infirmary. But bag or no bag, he acts tough enough to take care of himself. A lot of guys find him creepy or scary.” He let out a breath. “I think the dude wants a little respect so he talks not to look sad.”

“That dude and his partner killed seven people,” I said. “Put a friend of mine in a wheelchair. If you want me to feel sorry for him—”

“No, no,” Joey said, shaking his head. “When you’re new on the block, he’s kind of a legend, or steps up like one to make people back off. They call him Bag Man—gross when you find out why. But he says himself Bag Man killed seven people. That’s a lot of bones.”

I leaned forward, my right fist clenched on the tabletop. “Those bones included three elderly people and a child.”

Joey leaned back as if afraid I’d swing on him. “I don’t know nothing about a kid! The way he tells it, he took out tough dudes who crossed him and had it coming—like the inmate who promised him a Philly sidecar and wound up shanked. Bag Man talks to anybody who’ll listen. About you too, shooting him when he put his gun down. But sooner or later most guys stay away from him.” He swallowed. “He never told me nothing about a kid.”

“Because killing children makes you scrap meat in the joint, so having your ostomy site raped would be the least of your worries. Just so you know, he was shooting at me when I shot him.” My jaw tightened as I glanced at Tripp and saw he’d scribbled Philly sidecar shank on a post-it note. “I don’t even know why an SOB like him is in gen-pop anyway unless it’s like the back-door death sentence Jeffery Dahmer got.”

Joey looked confused. “Who’s Jeffrey Dahmer?”

For a couple of seconds I closed my eyes and took a deep breath against the throbbing in my temples. I released it slowly. “If everybody else got tired of him, how come you didn’t?”

Still leaning against the back of the chair, Joey gave an awkward-looking shrug. “He was nice to me, you know. I was scared when I got there, and this older guy wanted to show me the ropes. Guess I felt I owed him. Most guys don’t like him but most are smart enough to leave him alone. If you’re his friend they leave you alone too.”

“Tell me about your relationship.”

Joey stiffened. “You mean, were we like fags or something?” He leaned toward me, face reddening. “That’s some sick shit, man. Where the bag hangs and all? I’m not doing a sidecar for nobody.”

“You made it sexual, not me.” I didn’t say it seemed he had protested too much.

Joey looked at Tripp and Aronson. Neither spoke but may have shared my thought.

“Let me explain something about tandem killers,” I said.

“Tandem?”

“Killers who work together in pairs.”

“Oh.” The flush began to recede from his cheeks.

“Jasper Hellman and his cousin Marv Tull were tandem killers.” I paused to let him catch up. “Tandem killers interact in a special way. Sometimes sexual, sometimes emotional, but it’s often a dominant-submissive relationship. Leopold and Loeb in the Twenties. The Lonely Hearts Killers in the Forties. The kids who shot up Columbine in the Nineties. The DC Snipers in 2002. It’s an old pattern. One leads, the other follows. Are you with me?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“Good. Then you’ll understand when I tell you Hellman was the submissive half of the team. Something psychiatrists for both sides agreed on.”

“Shrinks? So he’s crazy after all?”

“It’s more complicated. Hellman and his cousin were born a few months apart and grew up like brothers. He idolized Tull. After a life of petty crime, he moved into the big leagues when Tull decided to kill his parole officer and needed his cousin’s help. Hellman did whatever Tull wanted. From his history, both shrinks also concluded Tull was probably a psychopath.”

“What’s all that got to do with me?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Hellman’s a violent and dangerous man but he’s not a dominant type, not a leader.” I kept to myself that I was sure I had half the answer to my next question. “How’d he get you to make a run at me?”

“Money,” Joey said, with a trace of hesitation.

“He doesn’t have any. Far as I know he’s been broke his whole life.”

“He told me he had some stashed away in Pennsylvania, money nobody knew about.” A few seconds passed. “Thirty thousand, from a robbery. Fifteen would be mine if I took you out. But first I had to make sure you knew he was