TOMMY

Two points! Right there! There's your goddamn score!

(storms out)

Goddamn cats crawlin' up trees, 5 times 5 is 25, fuck this place, fuck it!

Tommy is gone. Red and others stare. Andy gets up, pulls the test from the trash, smoothes it out on the desk.

INT -- WOOD SHOP -- DAY (1966)

Rest break. Tommy and Red sipping Cokes.

TOMMY

I feel bad. I let him down.

RED

That's crap, son. He's proud of you. Proud as a hen.

(off Tommy's look)

We been friends a long time. I know him as good as anybody.

TOMMY

Smart fella, ain't he?

RED

Smart as they come. Used to be a banker on the outside.

TOMMY

What's he in for anyway?

RED

Murder.

TOMMY

The hell you say.

RED

You wouldn't think, lookin' at him. Caught his wife in bed with some golf pro. Greased 'em both. C'mon, boy, back to work…

SMASH! Red turns back. Tommy's Coke has slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor. The kid's gone white as a sheet.

TOMMY

(bare whisper)

Oh my God…

INT -- LIBRARY -- DAY (1966)

Tommy sits before Andy and Red:

TOMMY

'Bout four years ago, I was in Thomaston on a 2 to 3 stretch. Stole a car. Dumbfuck thing to do.

(beat)

Few months left to go, I get a new cellmate in. Elmo Blatch. Big twitchy fucker. Crazy eyes. Kind of roomie you pray you don't get, know what I'm sayin'? 6 to 12 for armed burglary. Said he done hundreds of jobs. Hard to believe, high-strung as he was. Cut a loud fart, he'd go three feet in the air. Talked all the time, too, that's the other thing. Never shut up. Places he'd been, jobs he pulled, women he fucked. Even people he killed. People that gave him shit, that's how he put it. One night, like a joke, I say: "Yeah? Who'd you kill?" So he says…

BLATCH

…I got me this job one time bussin' tables at a country club. So I could case all the big rich pricks that come in. I pick out this guy, go in one night and do his place. He wakes up and gives me shit. So I killed him. Him and the tasty bitch he was with.

(starts laughing)

That's the best part! She's fuckin' this prick, see, this golf pro, but she's married to some other guy! Some hotshot banker. He's the one they pinned it on! They got him down-Maine somewhere doin' time for the crime! Ain't that choice?

He throws his head back and ROARS with laughter.

INT -- PRISON LIBRARY -- DAY (1966)

Silence. Tommy has finished his story. Red is stunned…but Andy looks like he's been smacked with a two by four.

RED

Andy?

Andy says nothing. Walks stiffly away. Doesn't look back.

INT -- NORTON'S OFFICE -- DAY (1966)

NORTON

Well. I have to say, that's the most amazing story I ever heard. What amazes me most is you were taken in by it.