Poisonfeather (Gibson Vaughn #2)(34)

“That’s not what that means.”

Gibson reached back and shook Birk’s leg again, and Birk raised himself up to see where they were, didn’t recognize anything, and tried to make himself comfortable.

“One thing I can’t figure out is why . . . ,” Gibson began, articulating a question that had nagged at him since the farm.

“Why what?” Birk said.

“Why Merrick would say anything. About pennies. About any of it. I mean, think about it. He went to jail, served his bid, kept his mouth shut for eight years, then all he has to do is drift away quietly. But now, inexplicably, months from release and getting away with it clean, he goes and broadcasts it in a national magazine. I just don’t get it. What’s his angle?”

“I don’t know why he said it, but he said it,” Birk said.

“The hubris,” Swonger said, still looking out the window.

“Hubris?” said Birk.

“Yeah, man, the hubris. The Greeks were all into that shit. Defiance of the gods. Like my man, Prometheus. Tipped man to fire after Zeus told him to stand down. Zeus was pissed. Chained his disobeying ass to a cold rock and let this giant, crazy bird eat on his liver. But Prometheus is immortal, see? So every night, the liver? It grows back. Next night, that bird’s back, chowing down like it’s his job. Forever, man. That was Prometheus’s punishment: forever. The gods don’t take nothing light, and Prometheus? Prometheus had nothing coming, dog. And the kicker? Prometheus knew it. Knew Zeus would pink-slip his ass, but Prometheus did like he do anyway. Couldn’t help himself. Because of the hubris. Had that hubris real, real bad.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Birk asked.

Gibson shook his head in amazement. About the last thing he’d have bet on was a dissertation on Greek mythology from Gavin Swonger.

“Merrick, man, he got the hubris too. Read that interview again. He was busting to tell someone. Thinks he’s smarter than the gods. Thinks he’s all tricksy with his little code words and such. Probably got himself a righteous little Merrick boner over how clever he is. Thinks he’s smart and we’re dumb. But he ain’t. He’s just like my cousin Cole.”

“Cole-in-prison, Cole?” Birk asked.

“Cole-in-prison, Cole,” Swonger agreed and turned to Gibson. “So my cousin Cole is serving a ten-spot up at Keen Mountain for armed robbery and assaulting a clerk. ’Cause why? ’Cause after this dumb mook robbed the place, he goes out drinking. Same night. Tells every girl in the joint how he a badass John Dillinger. Well, guess what? Someone dimes him out to the cops. Busted while he’s paying his tab with bills from the robbery. Still had the gun on him too. Know what Cole says to me? He says getting away with it was the easy part. Hard part? Not telling nobody about it.”

To his surprise, Gibson knew the wisdom of what Swonger said. He remembered when he was a teenager, after hacking Benjamin Lombard and turning the senator’s files over to the press, how he would go online and come within a keystroke of bragging about it in the forums. Not even to hackers he knew well, just randoms he struck up conversations with. He’d get as far as typing, “you know that senator who got hacked?” His finger would hang over the return key until beads of sweat formed on his brow. Common sense stopped him, but there had been some close calls.

It had been madness, but ego wasn’t afraid of prison. Ego wasn’t afraid of anything accept being ignored. Swonger was right about that much. Gibson only hoped he could make Merrick pay for his.

“Excepting that Prometheus got eternity,” Swonger said ruefully. “Merrick only got eight years. You believe that? Eight years.”

“Doesn’t seem like enough, does it?”

“We got crime and punishment all wrong in this country.”

“How’s that?”

Swonger sat up. He’d clearly been thinking about this topic for some time. “Say a mook hold up a liquor store. Say he pockets a couple bills, say he use a gun but don’t fire one shot. If they catch him, he gets ten years in one of the worst places on earth.”

“Cousin Cole?” Gibson asked.

“Yeah, cousin Cole. Now take a different mook. This one’s clever. Goes to work on Wall Street and robs thousands of people, but he use a pen and uses every drop of ink in it to ruin lives, steal hundreds of millions. Well, this fella gets eight years, and the prison ain’t even nothing but summer camp.”

“Guns are dangerous,” Gibson said.

“And I ain’t saying they ain’t, but why’s that the only basis for punishment?”

“You got an alternative?”

“Yeah. Net worth.”

“Net worth?”

“Yeah, look here. Cole was broke when he robbed that liquor store. I ain’t saying what he did was right. Cole took what weren’t his. It’s a crime, no doubt. But I get it, know what I mean? Why he did it. Desperation. At least, I comprehend that shit. Now say you worth a hundred million, and you steal another hundred million? Now that shit’s incomprehensible to me. Far as I can see, you a monster with no redeeming value. You belong in solitary for a long, hairy-ass time ’cause you a goddamn menace.”

“Sentences inversely proportionate to your bank account?”

“Word. You got more money than God, all the power that come along with it, and you still feel the need to ruin other people’s lives to get more than you could ever spend? Your ass needs to be removed from circulation.”