“I’m warning you, Satterfield. You keep talking, I’ll finish you off myself.”
“I’m thinking it might set Sammy back a bit if he was to see a few days’ worth of bad things happen to his mama. Really bad things. What do you think, Testerman?”
“I think you’re a dead man, Satterfield. You can’t touch them.”
“Can’t I? They’re at your place on the lake right now,” he said. “Got there about an hour ago. She called to tell you they’d made it. Said it took an extra thirty minutes because there was a wreck on I-24.” Testerman stared at him now, wild-eyed, trying to figure out how the hell Satterfield could possibly know that. Could the inmate really have enough connections on both the outside and the inside to keep track of her? “She didn’t tell you she had company, because she didn’t know it yet. But she knows it now. You better bet she knows it now.” The guard’s jaw clenched rhythmically, twin knots of muscle throbbing on either side. “Here’s the deal, Testerman,” Satterfield went on. “If I don’t make it to the infirmary in five minutes, you’re gonna have one hell of a mess to clean up at that cabin. And one fucked-up retard of a motherless child.”
The guard’s chest heaved, his nostrils flaring, electro-shocks of rage pulsing down his beefy shoulders and arms and into his twitching fists. “You sick sonofabitch,” he hissed at Satterfield. “If I find out you’re messing with me, I’ll strangle you with your own guts.” Then—over his shoulder, loud and urgent: “Burchfield! We need that stretcher! And I mean now!”
CHAPTER 19
OVER THE COURSE OF SIXTEEN YEARS AT THE PRISON’S infirmary, Asa Dillworth, M.D., had seen thousands of bites, hundreds of fractures, and scores of stab wounds—some minor, others fatal. A skull shattered with a baseball bat to protest an umpire’s call at home plate in a softball game. A loose eyeball gouged out by a thumb in a lovers’ quarrel. An ear bitten off during a dining-hall food fight that got out of hand. But never before had he seen a man clutching two handfuls of his own intestines.
Dr. Dillworth whistled appreciatively. “That’s a hell of an incision,” he said to Satterfield. “I’m amazed you’re conscious.”
“I’m tough,” Satterfield said. His voice was barely above a whisper, and the doctor had to lean down to hear him.
“I need you to move your hands so I can get a better look.”
“Doc?” Satterfield’s voice was barely audible now. “I need to tell you something important.” The doctor bent closer, not without trepidation. Was it possible this guy was about to go Hannibal Lecter on him? Lunge up and chew off his face? “Doc, you need to call your wife on her cell phone. Don’t tell anyone what you’re doing, or why. Stay right where I can see you and hear you. Call her right now, and keep your mouth shut and listen. Then put me in an ambulance.” Dillworth stared at Satterfield, uncomprehending. “Better hurry, Doc,” the inmate whispered. His eyes bored into the physician’s like lasers. “There’s not much time. For me or your wife.”
Leaving the baffled nurse standing on the other side of the gurney, awaiting his instructions, Dillworth backpedaled a step, fumbling in a pocket for his cell phone. After a few moments he opened his mouth to speak, but whatever he heard on the other end of the line made him keep quiet. He listened, his eyes darting back and forth, as if he were watching a high-speed tennis match that he found terrifying. Sixty seconds later he closed the phone, his face ashen. “We’ve got to get this man to the hospital right away,” he said to the nurse.
Ten minutes later, an ambulance backed up to the infirmary’s loading dock, the doctor and nurse standing on either side of the gurney where Satterfield lay, the sheet over his belly glistening with blood. The two EMTs looked startled—disbelieving, even, when the doctor told them the patient had been partially eviscerated. In response, Dillworth raised the sheet to reveal the bloody coils, still clutched by Satterfield. “Holy shit,” said the younger of the two, the driver.
“Take him on our gurney,” said the doctor. “It’ll save time, and he shouldn’t be moved. You can leave yours here for now.”
“What have you done so far?” the older one asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? What do you mean, nothing?”
“I mean nothing.”
“How much blood has he lost?” The doctor made no response. “What are his vitals?” The doctor shook his head enigmatically. “Is he in shock?”