Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption - By Stephen King Page 0,35

had a friend - just about the only person who stood by me - who worked for an investment company in Portland. He died about six years ago.'

'Sorry.'

'Yeah.' Andy tossed his butt away. 'Linda and I had about fourteen thousand dollars. Not a big bundle, but hell, we were young. We had our whole lives ahead of us.' He grimaced a little, then laughed. 'When the shit hit the fan, I started lugging my Rembrandts out of the path of the hurricane. I sold my stocks and paid the capital gains tax just like a good little boy. Declared everything. Didn't cut any corners.'

'Didn't they freeze your estate?'

'I was charged with murder, Red, not dead! You can't freeze the assets of an innocent man - thank God. And it was a while before they even got brave enough to charge me with the crime. Jim - my friend - and I, we had some time. I got hit pretty good, just dumping everything like that. Got my nose skinned. But at the time I had worse things to worry about than a small skinning on the stock market.'

'Yeah, I'd say you did.'

'But when I came to Shawshank it was all safe. It's still safe. Outside these walls, Red, there's a man that no living soul has ever seen face to face. He has a Social Security card and a Maine driver's license. He's got a birth certificate. Name of Peter Stevens. Nice, anonymous name, huh?'

'Who is he?' I asked. I thought I knew what he was going to say, but I couldn't believe it.

'Me.'

'You're not going to tell me that you had time to set up a false identity while the bulls were sweating you,' I said, 'or that you finished the job while you were on trial for -' 'No, I'm not going to tell you that. My friend Jim was the one who set up the false identity. He started after my appeal was turned down, and the major pieces of identification were in his hands by the spring of 1950.'

'He must have been a pretty close friend,' I said. I was not sure how much of this I believed - a little, a lot, or none. But the day was warm and the sun was out, and it was one hell of a good story. 'All of that's one hundred per cent illegal, setting up a false ID like that.'

'He was a close friend,' Andy said. 'We were in the war together. France, Germany, the occupation. He was a good friend. He knew it was illegal, but he also knew that setting up a false identity in this country is very easy and very safe. He took my money my money with all the taxes on it paid so the IRS wouldn't get too interested - and invested it for Peter Stevens. He did that in 1950 and 1951. Today it amounts to three hundred and seventy thousand dollars, plus change.'

I guess my jaw made a thump when it dropped against my chest, because he smiled.

'Think of all the things people wish they'd invested in since 1950 or so, and two or three of them will be things Peter Stevens was into. If I hadn't ended up in here, I'd probably be worth seven or eight million bucks by now. I'd have a Rolls ... and probably an ulcer as big as a portable radio.'

His hands went to the dirt and began sifting out more pebbles. They moved gracefully, restlessly.

'I was hoping for the best and expecting the worst -nothing but that The false name was just to keep what little capital I had untainted. It was lugging the paintings out of the path of the hurricane. But I had no idea that the hurricane ... that it could go on as long as it has.'

I didn't say anything for a while. I guess I was trying to absorb the idea that this small, spare man in prison grey next to me could be worth more money than Warden Norton would make in the rest of his miserable life, even with the scams thrown in.
Chapter 24
'When you said you could get a lawyer, you sure weren't kidding,' I said at last 'For that kind of dough you could have hired Clarence Darrow, or whoever's passing for him these days. Why didn't you, Andy? Christ! You could have been out of here like a rocket.' He smiled. It was the same smile that had been on his face