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murder. They all pleaded not guilty, because what happened in prison stayed in prison. No one saw anything, so no one would say anything. They thought.
    Somebody forgot to tell the snitches. They came out of the woodwork to tell their lurid tales of drugs, mules and contract murder. Singing like rock stars, the snitches played their usual game. They said what they knew the prosecutor and the jury wanted to hear. In the end, Tom was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
    The names of all the snitches “went into the hat”. Like elephants, the Aryan Brotherhood had long memories. They would not forget.
    To this day, Tom Silverstein says he didn’t kill Danny Atwell. He now admits to two other murders, but not that one. Indeed, the conviction for murdering Atwell was later overturned due to false witness testimony.
    The Feds moved Tommy to the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. At that time, USP Marion was the latest supermax prison and claimed the dubious distinction of being the most violent prison in America. It was the ultimate in waste management, the place where they dumped the human waste called “gang leaders” and the nutcases who killed because they liked it.
    In short, Marion was the supermax supermarket of psychopaths. Tommy fitted right in.
    They put Tommy in a control unit, which was a new-fangled term for the Hole. He got out one hour a day and ate in his cell. Isolation made Tommy creative. He had to do something or go bonkers from boredom. So he started reading and drawing. As Silverstein put it, “I could hardly read, write or draw when I first fell. But most of us lifers are down for so long and have so much time to kill that we actually fool around and discover our niche in life, often in ways we never even dreamt possible on the streets. We not only find our niche, we excel.”
    Redemption wasn’t part of Tommy’s niche. There was a D.C. Blacks member in the control unit. Robert Chappelle was his name. The only thing Chappelle hated more than whites was whites who were Jewish. To him, Silverstein was “a kike – one of them what four-pointed Jesus on the cross”.
    Tommy felt Chappelle didn’t respect him. And in Tommy’s world disrespect was more than flesh and blood can bear. So Tommy decided to take care of business. One day when he was let out for his hour of exercise, Tommy passed by the cell of another Aryan Brotherhood member, Clayton Fountain. Fountain reached into his crotch and pulled something out: a thin length of wire. He slipped the wire into Tommy’s hands. As Tommy continued his exercise walk around the tier, he passed Chappelle’s cell, where Chappelle was asleep. As luck would have it, Chappelle’s head was near the bars of his cell. Tommy poised the wire above Chappelle’s throat. The powder-grey wire looked like chrome against Chappelle’s black skin.
    Eyes narrowing with malice and delight, Tommy looped the wire around Chappelle’s neck and began strangling him. Tommy was caught up, held almost, in those few moments. He found ease. Moving through it the very edges of his strength were sharpened like the blade of a knife. Chappelle’s struggles diminished into shadow and continued to recede until there was nothing at all in the world, but death.
    The murder of another human being took less than five minutes this time.
    Tommy left the wire wrapped around Chappelle’s dead throat, and went on walking. The next time he passed Fountain’s cell, he smiled and gave Fountain a thumbs up.
    “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” said Fountain, grinning. “I will repay.”
    Tommy nodded and kept walking.
    Like most criminals, Silverstein and Fountain overcompensated for their lack of self-esteem. In other words, they couldn’t keep their mouths shut. They had to brag about their crimes because that was the only thing they had to brag about. Soon the two Aryan Brotherhood members boasted to any inmate who would listen about how they had snuffed Robert