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unbroken. You can count them in the infirmary. Come on, Mert We're throwing this 

sucker over the side.' 

Tim Youngblood drew his gun. The rest of us kept tarring like mad. The sun beat down. 

They were going to do it; Hadley and Mert were simply going to pitch him over the side. 

Terrible accident Dufresne, prisoner 81433-SHNK, was taking a couple of empties down 

and slipped on the ladder. Too bad. 

They laid hold of him, Mert on the right arm, Hadley on the left. Andy didn't resist. His 

eyes never left Hadley's red, horsey face. 

'If you've got your thumb on her, Mr Hadley,' he said in that same calm, composed voice, 

'there's not a reason why you shouldn't have every cent of that money. Final score, Mr 

Byron Hadley thirty-five thousand, Uncle Sam zip.' 

Mert started to drag him towards the edge. Hadley just stood still. For a moment Andy 

was like a rope between them in a tug-of-war game. Then Hadley said, 'Hold on one 

second, Mert. What do you mean, boy?' 

'I mean, if you've got your thumb on your wife, you can give it to her,' Andy said. 

'You better start making sense, boy, or you're going over.' 

"The government allows you a one-time-only gift to your spouse,' Andy said. 'It's good 

up to sixty thousand dollars.' 

Hadley was now looking at Andy as if he had been poleaxed. 'Naw, that ain't right,' he 

said. 'Tax free?' 

'Tax free,' Andy said. 'IRS can't touch cent one.' 

'How would you know a thing like that?' 

Tim Youngblood said: 'He used to be a banker, Byron. I s'pose he might-' 

'Shut ya head, Trout,' Hadley said without looking at him. Tim Youngblood flushed and 

shut up. Some of the guards called him Trout because of his thick lips and buggy eyes. 

Hadley kept looking at Andy. 'You're the smart banker who shot his wife. Why should I 

believe a smart banker like you? So I can wind up in here breaking rocks right alongside 

you? You'd like that, wouldn't you?' 

Andy said quietly, 'If you went to jail for tax evasion, you'd go to a federal penitentiary, 

not Shawshank. But you won't. The tax-free gift to the spouse is a perfectly legal 

loophole. I've done dozens ... no, hundreds of them'. It's meant primarily for people with 

small businesses to pass on, or for people who come into one-time-only windfalls. Like 

yourself.' 

'I think you're lying,' Hadley said, but he didn't - you could see he didn't. There was an 

emotion dawning on his face, something that was grotesque overlying that long, ugly 

countenence and that receding, sunburned brow. An almost obscene emotion when seen 

on the features of Byron Hadley. It was hope. 

'No, I'm not lying. There's no reason why you should take my word for it, either. Engage 

a lawyer -' 

'Ambulance-chasing highway-robbing cocksuckers!'Hadley cried. 

Andy shrugged. "Then go to the IRS. They'll tell you the same thing for free. Actually, 

you don't need me to tell you at all. You would have investigated the matter for yourself.' 

'You fucking-A. I don't need any smart wife-killing banker to show me where the bear