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it because they were family. His Dad said they had to stick together. So they did. They hit three convenience stores over the course of three weeks. Tom Junior insisted on masks because of the surveillance cameras which had tripped him up before.
    Only Arthur didn’t want to wear a mask. Because he used his nose to suck up copious amounts of coke rather than for breathing, Arthur spent a lot of his time writhing in twitchy paranoia. Wearing a mask gave him extreme claustrophobia, which gave him the heebie-jeebies and left him gasping for air.
    So the two Toms, Junior and Senior, wore masks and Arthur went maskless. Which didn’t work out well at all, because the cops identified Arthur and then followed him around for a few days, during which time they made up a list of his “known associates”: Tom Junior, Tom Senior and a young female who “looked like death warmed over”, according to one of the cops.
    After the third robbery, the cops moved in and arrested everybody , recovering most of the cash from the robberies, which was $1,300. The cops took the money and the robbers, whom they booked and tossed into jail. The trial was a fiasco. Twitchy Arthur couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He was going through withdrawal and more paranoid than ever. So, pale and sweating, he rolled over on his nephew and brother without really meaning to. 
    “Tommy was the leader. We just did as he told us,” chirped Arthur. “Me and his dad was just taking orders. Tommy’s a smart boy. He was the brains.”
    Arthur got five years in prison. Tom Senior got five to seven years and Tom Junior got fifteen years. He was twenty-three years old. The Feds shipped Tommy off to Leavenworth, which was a maximum-security prison in Kansas. Called the Hothouse because of its heat and humidity, Leavenworth was a hellish place. Murder occurred regularly; drugs were everywhere. To control the lucrative drug trade, gangs fought ongoing, vicious wars on the battlefield of Leavenworth Prison. The place was awash in blood.
    The Aryan Brotherhood ran horse, and controlled the supply in and out of Leavenworth. Horse was prisoner slang for heroin, which was number one on the narcotic hit parade in the late 1970s. Since Tom was already branded, he immediately hooked up with the Brotherhood members in Leavenworth. It was business as usual: get the drugs in, via mules or corrupt guards, distribute it, collect money owed, and, above all, keep an eye on the competition. Other gangs tried to move in all the time. When they did, the Brotherhood took care of business.
    The horse business depended upon mules. Mules were convicts who transported drugs in condoms, balloons, small tubes, or sometimes even in saran wrap, which they inserted into their rectums or swallowed and later retrieved from their toilet bowl. Horse was smuggled in by girlfriends, wives and visitors, who transferred the drugs to the inmate, who either swallowed it if it was in a balloon, or excused himself to the bathroom, where he quickly keistered it. After the visit, the mules would deliver the drugs to the Aryan Brotherhood. For their efforts, the mules received a “cut”, which was a fee for their services. Usually the fee was a portion of the horse.
    Danny Atwell was not branded. Nor was he a prospect. He didn’t want anything to do with that shit. He just wanted to do his time and get out, and meanwhile got regular visits from his wife and family members. But the Aryan Brotherhood wanted Danny to go mule. Even though he was scared to death, Danny refused. He didn’t want his family members dragged in the sewer.
    Danny had signed his own death warrant.
    His name “went into the hat”. Allegedly, Thomas Silverstein and two other Aryan Brotherhood members were assigned to “take care of business”. The initial accusations suggested that they caught Danny coming out of the shower and stabbed him to death. It only took about five minutes.
    Tom and the other two Brothers were charged with