Dead Money Run by J. Frank James

someplace in Florida and it was too late to go back there for any reason.
    Up until I met Hilary, my life basically was a bowl of shit. There really wasn’t a lot to tell about Lou Malloy. I had a brother who left home for California when I was seventeen years old and was supposedly in the movie business. Susan was fifteen at the time. Almost half my life had been spent behind bars. My father had been a sheriff’s deputy and was the reason I left home. My mother had been a house wife. After I went to prison the only person I stayed in touch with, and that was not often, was my sister. Hilary on the other hand seemed to have a happy life. Her Father was a dentist somewhere in the north end of New York. He built a nice life for her, her mother and a brother. It seemed that she had an ideal family life. Went to college, married her high school sweetheart after being the homecoming queen. Life was great until she found her husband in bed with her neighbor. After the divorce, with no children, she joined the Army to get out of the town she was born in, raised in and married in. She said she just didn’t want to die in the place.
    “How long were you in?” I asked.
    “Four years. Made i t to first sergeant and took my out.”
    “Looks like things worked out just like you figured. I thought about going into the Army once,” I said. “I didn’t go because there was no money in it. Looking back, it was a dumb thing not to do. If I had, I wouldn’t have spent fifteen years of my life doing nothing, but eating, defending myself from queers and predators, while waiting for the road back to the money I had stolen opening up again.”
    There was nothing more to say. Hilary wanted to talk some more, but I had talked enough about myself. I didn’t see any profit in it. I listened to her talk.
    “Did I tell you I went to college?”
    “No, but I am giving even odds that you are going to,” I said.
    “University of Florida. Degree in Criminal Justice. Can you believe it and here I am driving around with someone I just met who thinks killing people is like lions culling out a herd. Whatever happened to just turning them in?”
    “I tried that, remember,” I said.
    I saw where Hilary was having trouble with my attitude about justice. Since she was worth the effort, I decided to straighten her out about a few things.
    “Listen , Hilary. I know you’re having a hard time with my approach, but here is the thing. We’re up against some very tough and vicious people. When I was in prison there was only one way to do something and survive. When someone hurt you, you hurt them back, only worse. A man who takes a shot at me has to know that when I shoot back I shoot to kill. Anyone who tries to take my arm, I take their head. It’s the only way. Trust me. They have to fear you and right now they fear us.
    “I know, Lou. I know. It ’s just a little hard to get over. Know what I mean?”
    “Hilary, let me tell you a little story.
    “ There was a man in prison with me. He was a preacher, who had been caught, so the witnesses said at his trial, stealing from the church he pastored. Then a parishioner’s wife claimed that he had raped her. He was arrested, tried and sent to prison.
    “ While in prison he tried to help some prisoners find God, was the way he put it.
    “ One day one of them beat him up so bad he could hardly walk. Next day that preacher went up to the prisoner who had beat him and told the inmate that he forgave him. The guy killed the preacher. When asked why he killed him, his reasoning was simple. He couldn’t stand someone who lied to him because no one beat up that bad could be that good. So, while the preacher was a good man, he was still dead. His being good didn’t save him. It killed him. See what I mean?”
    “Not really. Lou, what happened in prison is not necessarily something that has to happen out here. You are a smart man. You could go to college, get a degree and live a nice life somewhere. What