“And on the twenty-first, we’re all off to Argentina,” Suzanne squealed. “I can’t wait.”
“Fair warning,” Maggie said. “We may need to extend the trip a few weeks. Joe wants to tour Chile as well.”
“Why not?” Robert said. “We’ve got nothing else to do.”
“And you’re going to need this break after seeing Robbie.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Donald Briscoe pulled out his telephone and projected a presentation on the cinderblock wall of the prison’s meeting room. For at least fifteen minutes, he gave Robbie a detailed account of how his money had been spent.
“As of today,” Briscoe said, “You’re bank balance is $523.” He even tapped the figure at the bottom of a column of numbers.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Robbie asked.
The years of drug abuse were catching up with Robert’s son. His sallow cheeks had deep furrows, the skin on his wiry body looked like leather.
“No, I’m not,” Briscoe said, his voice matching Robbie’s in intensity. “All those frivolous appeals that I told you were pointless. The boob job for some guard’s girlfriend.” He slapped his hand on the wall to highlight that expenditure. “Then he quit three months later!”
“That guy was an asshole,” Robbie mumbled, as if somehow it wasn’t his fault.
Briscoe coughed out a belly laugh. “Remember when you wanted to buy the warden a car? That was hilarious. I almost thought he was going to take it, too.”
Sucking a deep breath, Briscoe stretched his neck out of the collar of his shirt and regained his composure.
“Well, it’s all gone now. I wanted your sister to see your face when I told you the news but she wouldn’t come. Can you believe that? After all these years of you ignoring the greeting cards, and pictures of her children that she sent?”
Briscoe paused to let the implication sink in. Then he snapped his fingers. “Remember the time she and her son Hunter baked you cookies for your birthday and I hand-delivered them? You didn’t even open the box. Not once did you give her a call to wish her a Merry Christmas, or to congratulate her and Min on a new addition to the family.”
“Who cares?”
“I’m sure she does. You might not want to try mooching off her for a while.”
“Whatever.”
“By the way,” Briscoe reached into his inside pocket, “I’m retiring at the end of the year. My wife and I have a condo in Puerto Vallarta.” He pulled out a picture and handed it to Robbie. “We’re going to take our new boat, hang out in the Caribbean for a few weeks then head on over through the canal. It’s a beauty, isn’t it? I figure you helped pay for it.”
Robbie tore the picture to shreds. “I’m going to sue your ass for embezzlement.”
“The term is misappropriation of funds, Robbie. But as your new attorney will see—if you can find someone to take your case—I’ve kept meticulous records of every dollar I earned representing you.”
Briscoe stood and smoothed the front of his suit jacket. “This day has been a long time coming. How old are you now, Robbie? Forty-six? They used to have this corny saying, years ago. ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’.” He leaned forward just a fraction. “Good luck.”
Robbie was still spewing obscenities when the guard came over to the table to escort him back to his cell.
“Can you believe that son-of-a-bitch?” Robbie said to the guard. “He stole my fucking money. I need you to find me a lawyer. He’s not going to get away with this.”
“Your money’s gone?”
“Every motherfucking dime.”
Since they weren’t leaving for Argentina until the twenty-first, Robert went back to the prison alone the next day. A perverted need, he decided, to see Robbie get his comeuppance. Robert wandered through the cellblock until he came to Robbie’s.
“Are you kidding?” Robert huffed.
The walls of Robbie’s cell were painted a muted blue. Pictures hung on the walls. His cot was covered with a satin quilt of blue and green swirls, and a stripped pillow in matching colors. A small shelf over the foot of the cot held a television, and on a small desk, Robert saw a computer and music dock. A silk-covered shoji screen stood at the combined toilet/sink for privacy. Even the toilet paper looked like it was store bought.
A guard appeared at Robbie’s door. “What you want?”
Robbie handed him a bundle of laundry to go to the cleaners.
“How you gonna pay for this?” the guard asked. “Jim says you’re out of money.”
“Don’t you worry about how I’m going to pay. You just take the shirts.”
Robert was disappointed that nothing had changed yet. But he had plenty of time before he left for Argentina. And he really wanted to see Robbie’s fall from grace before he boarded that plane.
Instead of spending his days at Audrey’s, Robert hung out at the prison each day.
Robbie was playing cards with other inmates when the guard came into his cell with the laundry bundle.
“The woman at the cleaners said she didn’t get paid for the laundry. I had to pay for this myself. You owe me for that plus my fee to deliver and pickup.”
Robbie didn’t even look up from the cards in his hand. “Yeah, yeah. You’ll get it. I got an attorney coming in this afternoon. He’ll get this all straightened out.”
“He better.” The guard threw the laundry bundle on the bed and walked out.
As Robbie stood in line for lunch, he stopped a man walking by. The man had jagged scars on his face; his eyes were slightly squinted, as though he dared anyone to cross him.
“Hey, asshole,” Robbie said, his hand gripping the man’s arm. “Where’s my stuff? You said I’d have it by noon today.”
“Cash flow problems,” the man said. Robert noticed that the man’s front teeth were rotted black.
Robbie snorted. “How can you have cash flow problems, Del?”
“I don’t,” Del said. “You do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, from now on you’re a cash-only customer. And I need it up-front.”
“You’re full of shit.”
Del cocked up one eyebrow, like he couldn’t believe Robbie was willing to tangle with him.
That afternoon, when the guard escorted Robbie to his meeting with the new attorney, he took him to a long narrow room of glass booths and monitors.
“What the hell is this?” Robbie asked.
“The private meeting rooms are out of your price range,” the guard said in a dull monotone.
Robbie called him a cocksucker.
And when some young law-school intern told Robbie that the attorney had decided against taking his case, Robbie jumped out of his chair.
“I wasted my last five hundred dollars for you to tell me this shit?”
He slammed both palms against the glass barrier and the intern flinched.
He couldn’t have been gone twenty minutes, but by the time Robbie got back to his cell, it had been stripped bare. The TV, the pictures, the quilt, the shoji, even the toilet paper were gone. His clothes had been thrown on the floor and peed on. Nothing was left but a bare mattress.
At first, Robert thought his son was going to pitch a fit, and stomp from cell to cell, demanding the return of his stuff. But the expression on Robbie’s face was different from anything Robert had ever seen before. It showed panic.
* * *
Three days later, Rachel—and Robert—were admiring proofs on an Audrey’s advertising flyer, when she got a call from Briscoe. Robbie had been beaten again.
“He’s going to try getting drugs that way again?” she asked.
“I don’t think that’s what Robbie had in mind,” Briscoe told her. “If it is, he underestimated the ferocity of the attack. He’s in Grady Hospital’s intensive care.”
Even though Rachel had refused to meet with Robbie in prison, she dropped everything she was doing to rush over to Grady. Robert didn’t un
derstand her change of heart, but he went along anyway.
Neither of them was prepared for the damage. Rachel cried out in shock. Robert held back at the doorway, not wanting to get any closer to the pulverized body that was his son.
A doctor listed Robbie’s injuries as Rachel looked on in horror. It had taken six stitches to close up the back of Robbie’s head where he’d been hit with a blunt object, his nose had been broken, possibly in the fall from the blow to the head.
She sobbed aloud as the doctor described how, during the attack, Robbie’s eye was literally gouged out of the socket. Those weren’t the doctor’s words, but that was what had happened.
Robert gasped at the barbarism. If an animal had been abused to that extent it would have made front page news.
Some of Robbie’s teeth had been knocked out, as evidenced by the bulging lips that seemed to be the only part of Robbie’s face that wasn’t bandaged. He’d been bitten so severely that doctors had to stitch down a hanging flap of skin. Both of Robbie’s hands were in casts, a result of having each of his fingers broken.
The doctors had also done their best to repair a thigh muscle that had been slashed from groin to knee.
“Muscle damage like that can have lasting repercussions,” the doctor said. “We think the person doing the cutting must have known he was inflicting a lifelong injury.”
He paused, as though the violence involved was more than he usually saw, even at Grady. Then he continued.
“I’m afraid your brother got caught in some kind of mob frenzy, and there was no one to stop it. Either he was beaten in some remote location, or the guards at the prison turned a blind eye, because you brother was not discovered until this morning.”
Unbelievable. Robert certainly had his differences with Robbie, but no human being deserved to be treated like that.
The doctor’s voice—or maybe it was Rachel’s moans —roused Robbie. He groaned weakly. A parched tongue, with a nasty gash along the side, lolled out of Robbie’s mouth as he tried to lick his cracked lips.
Rachel flew to his side. “Robbie? Can you hear me? It’s Rachel.”
She touched a small area of his cheek that was not bandaged. His one good eye rolled erratically until it finally focused on her. Tears welled and flowed down his temple and onto the pillow.
“Rach?” he managed to grunt.
She nodded, tears rolling down her own cheeks. “Yeah, buddy. I’m here.”
A mournful wail escaped from deep inside Robbie, like an animal howling one final breath. His body quaked as he cried.
Gently easing down onto the bed, Rachel laid her head beside his on the pillow, and hugged her brother. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I’ll take care of you.”
“Kill me, Rach,” he sobbed. “Kill me before they do.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
10 years later
Robert and Suzanne lolled in bed, the morning light streaming in through a window.
“That was fun,” Robert said, “but I’m glad it’s over.”
“Me, too,” Suzanne said with a sigh. “What a relief to make that last trip to the airport to drop off Raj last night.”
“I can’t believe Rachel and Min made the trip three times in two days.”
“You’d have made them take a cab,” she said, tweaking his chin.
“Hey!” Robert feigned indignity. “I would have hired a driver.”
“Oh, right.”
Min shuffled by their door, scuffing her slippers along the carpet. No sooner did Robert hear water running in the kitchen for coffee, than Rachel hobbled by, cinching a robe at her waist.
“We better get scooting,” Suzanne said as she rolled off the bed. “You don’t want to miss Robbie.”
“No,” Robert guffed. “I wouldn’t want to do that.”
In the kitchen, Min poured two cups of coffee. She slurped a sip and sighed.
“Why do we always try to do so much over the holidays?” she asked.
“Because we rarely have all our children together anymore, and we wanted to make Christmas special.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
Min’s hair was still black as coal, but Rachel had begun coloring the few gray hairs that appeared a few years back. They belonged to the same fitness center, and worked out religiously. Both of them looked fit for women in their fifties. Not that Robert would ever say something like that out loud.
It had been a wonderful Christmas. All five kids had pitched in to make cookie dough from scratch, then rolled it out and cut designs. Once they were baked and decorated, eight-dozen cookies were hand-delivered to eight different shut-ins.
Rachel had bought the hottest new board game, and Christmas Eve they all sat around the massive coffee table in front of the fireplace and played. Over the years, Robert had picked up on the kids’ nuances. Being the oldest, Hunter always took on the responsibility of reading the directions. And because Raj and Neeta were twins, and the youngest, they helped each other win. Kwamee was super smart, and yet Robert didn’t think he’d ever seen him win a game. Christa cheated. They all knew it, and followed closely to see if they could catch her at it.
“What are you grinning about?” Suzanne asked.
“I was just thinking about the kids and how much fun they are to be around. How much fun this whole family is.”
“You sound so surprised.”
Robert relaxed into a chair at the kitchen table. “When I first talked to the cryonics people, they insisted I make a video to prove I was of sound mind when I made my decision. One of the things they suggested I talk about was why I wanted to come back.
“I made up some crap about not being able to see my grandchildren grow up.”
“Why was that crap?” Suzanne asked.
“Because at the time, all I wanted was a second chance to meet a woman who would really love me, or at least love having sex with me.” He chuckled and shook his head. “I wanted to be adored.”
Suzanne touched the tip of his nose. “You are.”
“I know. And I love you very much for that.”
“Who would have thought you’d have to die to get what you wanted?”
“Yeah,” he said, his mouth tilting to the side. “And all the stuff I didn’t even know I wanted.”
A weather report came on the television with news of snow in the Rockies.
“Oh, fresh snow,” Min said. “Hunter will be so pleased.”
“And I’m sure this new girlfriend will think he made it happen just for her.”
Rachel chuckled as she sat at the table and pulled her computer from her bathrobe pocket. “You don’t think the kids felt like we were chasing them off, do you?”
“No,” Min insisted. “They don’t want to spend New Years’ Eve with us.” She picked up a remote and turned on the television.
Half-joking, Robert said, “You’re sure you don’t want to ring in the New Year with Angie and Mark?”
“No way,” Suzanne replied. “I’ll catch up with the grandkids when they get back on campus. That is if Abby even went home. Her animosity toward Mark gets more ferocious every year.”
“Too bad Angie doesn’t take a few tips from Abby on telling Mark to shove it,” Robert said.
“Isn’t it?”
Once the weatherman finished his report, the news anchor introduced a reporter with a story on prison reform.
The reporter, a young woman, stood in front of a sign that read: Lawrence Correctional Facility.
“Oh, here it is,” Rachel said. “Turn it up.”
“The legalization of marijuana,” the reporter said, “and the availability of several non-addictive recreational pharmaceuticals, has brought illegal drug trade nearly to a stop. Smart cars have made drunk driving a thing of the past. And educational reform, which targets troubled children at a very early age and intervenes with psychological and sociological support, has truly altered the demographics of our prison system.
“The number of new incarcerations
each year continues to drop. Today, we take a look at two different prisoners who are serving life sentences without parole.
“LaDonna Majors, who was convicted for the brutal slaying of her husband after years of abuse, and Robert Malone Junior, convicted of the murder of his mother, even though a subsequent trial found his accomplice guilty of the same murder.”
Robert was surprised that Robbie continued to be big news. But of course, the Audrey’s Corporation was the draw.
After the commercials, the program continued, with the reporter and Robbie seated in a small lounge. Everyone in the kitchen groaned when the camera zoomed in closer to his face. His eye had been stitched closed.
“Why do they have to sensationalize?” Rachel complained.
“You’ve had a rather rocky time in prison,” the reporter said. “You were involved in several beatings that landed you in the hospital. An eye gouged out, your leg permanently maimed.”
“I’m a slow learner,” Robbie joked.
“You were issued an artificial eye while you were in the hospital, but later you refused to wear it. In fact, you asked an inmate to stitch your eye shut?”
“The artificial eye they gave me was hideous,” Robbie said. “It looked so unnatural that it drew as much attention as no eye. Maybe more. One day, a prisoner made a snide remark about it, so I just yanked it out and threw it away.”
Another charismatic grin from Robbie. He was a handsome man, Robert thought, even with the stitched eyelid. His hair was styled, and he looked healthy, rested. He was almost as old as Robert had been when he died, but Robbie didn’t have that paunch from too much scotch and rich food. Broad shoulders filled out a navy polo with a logo. The next time the camera zoomed in, Robert saw that the shirt had been issued by the correctional facility where Robbie was housed.
“You are the son of Robert Malone, the Audrey’s Corporation magnate, yet no one associated with Audrey’s offered financial assistance for you to receive a transplanted eye.”
“Oh, no.” Robbie waved a finger at the reporter. “Don’t try to put the blame on anyone else here. I was bad, pure and simple. Not a bully, just a spoiled rich kid. And if it wasn’t for my sister, I never would have turned my life around.”
The Ups and Downs of Being Dead Page 27