Dangerous Women

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  The smells were worst in the morning: unaired cells thrown open, the great unwashed scratching and belching as they slouched toward breakfast. He seldom had contact-actual contact-with these men, yet he felt he knew them. Knew them through their letters, filled with clumsy sentences and spelling mistakes, yet eloquent for all that, and sometimes even poignant. Give the kids a big hug from me… I try to think about the good times only… Every day I don’t see you, a bit more of me crumbles away… When I get out, well start over…

  Getting out: A lot of the letters spoke of this magical time, when past mistakes would be erased and fresh beginnings made possible. Even old lags, the ones who’d contrived to spend more of their life in prison than out, promised that they’d never stray again, that they’d make everything all right. I’ll be missing our anniversary again, Jean, but you’re never far from my thoughts… Small comfort for the wives like Jean, whose own letters ran to ten or twelve sides, crammed with the daily agonies of life without a breadwinner. Johnny’s running wild, Tam. The doctor says it’s what’s contributing to my condition. He needs a dad, but all I get are more of the tablets.

  Jean and Tam: Their life apart had become a sort of soap opera to Dennis. Every week they exchanged letters, even though Jean visited her husband almost as regularly. Sometimes Dennis watched the visitors as they arrived, trying to identify letter writers. Then he’d study them as they made their way to this table or that, helping him match inmate and correspondent. Tam and Jean always squeezed hands, never hugged or kissed, seeming almost embarrassed at the less restrained behavior of couples around them.

  Dennis seldom censored their letters, even on the odd occasions when something contentious cropped up. His own wife had left him a decade ago. He still kept some framed photos of her on the mantelpiece. In one of them, she was holding his hand, smiling for the camera. He might be watching TV, seated with a can of beer in his hand, and suddenly his eyes would start drifting toward that picture. Like Glencoe and the harbor, it took him to a different place. Then he would get up and cross to the dining table, where he’d have laid out the letters.

  He didn’t take every last piece of correspondence home, just those concerning relationships that interested him. He’d bought a fax machine that doubled as a copier-cheaper, the shop assistant had informed him, than buying an actual photocopier. He would take the letters from his leather satchel and feed them into the machine. Next morning, the originals went back into the office with him. He knew he was doing something he shouldn’t, knew the Governor would be angry with him, or at the very least dismayed. But Dennis couldn’t see what harm he was doing. No one else was going to read them. They were for him alone.

  One recent inmate was proving an intriguing specimen. He wrote a couple of times a day - obviously had plenty of money for stamps. His girlfriend was called Jemma, and she’d been pregnant but had lost the baby. Tommy was worried that he was to blame, that the shock of his conviction had caused her to abort. Dennis had yet to lay eyes on Tommy, knew he could say a few reassuring words to the kid.

  But he wouldn’t. Wouldn’t get involved.

  Another inmate, first name of Morris, had interested Dennis a few months previously. Morris had written one or two letters a week - steamy love letters. Always, it seemed to Dennis, to a different woman. Morris had been pointed out to him in the breakfast queue. The man looked nothing special: a scrawny specimen with a lopsided grin.

  “He ever get visitors?” Dennis had asked the warder.

  “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  And Dennis had just shrugged, puzzled. The women Morris wrote to, they lived in the city. No reason for them not to visit. His address and prisoner number were printed at the top of each letter.

  And then the Governor had asked Dennis to “nip along” to his office, informing him that Morris was banned forthwith from sending letters. Turned out, the sod was picking names out of the phone book, writing to complete strangers, sending detailed accounts of his fantasies.

  The warders had laughed about it afterward: “Reckoned if he sent out enough of them, he’d get lucky eventually,” one had explained. “Maybe he would have, too. Some women on the outside go for the hardened con…”

  Ah, yes, the hardened con. Plenty of those in HMP Edinburgh. But Dennis knew who really ran the show: Paul Blaine. Blaine was a cut above the muggers and junkies whose orbit around him he managed to ignore. When he walked through the prison halls, it was as if he’d surrounded himself with some invisible force field, so that no one came within several feet of him, unless he wanted them there. He had a “lieutenant” called Chippy Chalmers, whose lurking presence acted as a reminder of the force field. Not that anyone reckoned Blaine needed a minder. He was six three, thick-shouldered, and kept his hands half-clenched. Everything he did, he did slowly, with deliberation. He wasn’t here to make enemies or rub the warders up the wrong way. He just wanted to serve his time and head on out to where his empire still awaited.

  Nevertheless, from the moment he’d walked in, he’d been the jail’s natural leader. The gangs and factions tiptoed around him, showing respect. Six years he was serving, having finally been nabbed on tax evasion, deception and fraud-probably out in a little over three, a couple of months already under his belt. He’d lost some weight since arriving, but looked the better for it, despite the gray tinge to his cheeks-same chalky look all cons ended up with, “prison tan,” they called it. When Blaine’s wife came visiting, more warders than normal crowded into the hall, not because anything was going to happen, but because Blaine had married well.

  “Achingly well,” one warder had whispered to Dennis with a wink.

  Her name was Selina. At twenty-nine, she was ten years Blaine’s junior. When the warders discussed her over break-time tea and sandwiches, Dennis had to lock his mouth shut. Thing was, he knew more about her than they did.

  He knew just about everything.

  She lived at an address in Bearsden, on the posh outskirts of Glasgow, visited her husband every fortnight rather than weekly, even though she was only forty-odd miles away. But she did write. She wrote four or five letters to every one of his. And the things she said…

  I miss your hardons! See, Paul, I’m totally, absolutely lovestruck. If you were here, I’d straddle you till morning…

  Whole passages like this were intertwined with gossip and the everyday: I’m helping Elaine at Riddrie tomorrow. Perhaps ring our Bill, lift Elaine’s morale?

  These snippets appealed to Dennis every bit as much as the more personal stuff, giving him a feel for Selina’s life. In one of her early letters, she’d even included a Polaroid of herself, posed in short skirt and halter top, head tilted, hands on hips. More photos had followed. Dennis had tried copying them, but they wouldn’t fit into his fax machine, so he’d gone to a newsagent’s instead and used the machine there. The copies were grainy, far from perfect. Still, they went into his collection.

  I tried satisfying myself in bed last night, but it wasn’t the same. How could it be? I had a photo of you on the pillow beside me, a far cry from the real thing. Hope the pics I’m sending are cheering you up. Not much else to report. Fred’s off up north. (Denise isn’t talking to him-and not keeping sober!)

  At other times, she spoke of how difficult it was, making ends meet. She hadn’t found a job yet, but was looking. Dennis had done a bit of digging, finding newspaper reports that suggested that police had “failed to find missing Blaine millions.” Millions? Then what was Selina complaining about?

  Last time she’d visited, Dennis had asked a warder to let him know. He’d been a bit nervous-no idea why-as he’d walked into the hall. And there she was, seated with her back to him, one leg crossed over the other, skirt high up on her thighs, showing a tanned, muscular calf. Tight white T-shirt with a pink cashmere jersey buttoned over it. Blonde hair, lots of it, cascading down one shoulder.

  “Isn’t she something?” the warder had grinned.

  Even better than her photo
s, Dennis felt like saying. Then he’d noticed Blaine’s eyes on him, and averted his gaze just as Selina was turning in her seat to check what had distracted her husband’s attention from her.

  Dennis had hurried back to his office. But a few days later, while passing through one of the halls, he’d found Blaine and Chalmers walking in his direction.

  “Lovely, isn’t she?” Blaine had said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You know what I mean.” Blaine stopped directly in front of him, looking him up and down. “I suppose I should say thanks.”

  “For what?”

  A shrug. “I know how screws can be. Some of them would keep the photos to themselves…” Now a pause. “I’m told you’re the quiet type, Mr. Henshall. That’s good. I respect that. The letters… nobody else sees them but you?”

  Dennis had managed to shake his head, holding Blaine’s gaze.

  “That’s good,” the gangster had repeated.

  And he’d walked off, Chalmers half a step behind him, casting a baleful look back in Dennis’s direction.

  More digging: Blaine in and out of trouble since he was at school. Gang leader at sixteen, terrorizing Glasgow’s concrete suburbs. Jail time for the stabbing of a rival, then narrowly escaping the same fate for his role in the murder of another gangster’s son. Growing wise by now, starting to assemble that force field. A whole regiment of “soldiers” who’d do the time on his behalf. His reputation solidifying, so that he no longer needed to maim or threaten: Others were there to do it for him, leaving him to wear a respectable suit, working each day in an actual office, fronting a taxi firm, a security firm and a dozen other enterprises.

  Selina had arrived on the scene as his receptionist, then secretary, elevated to P.A. before marrying him in front of a congregation like something out of The Godfather. But she was no dumb blonde: came from a good family, had studied at college. The more Dennis considered her, the harder he found it to conceive of her as “totally, absolutely lovestruck.” This, too, had to be a front. She wanted Blaine kept docile, feeding him fantasies. Why? One tabloid hack had suggested an answer: With her winning combination of brains and beauty-and the past guidance of a master manipulator-might this be one moll capable of running the whole shooting match, without getting caught in the cross fire?

  Seated at his dining table, Dennis pondered this. Then he pored over her photographs and wondered some more. His food grew cold on its plate, the TV stayed off, and he reread her letters, in sequence… saw her in his mind’s eye, tanned legs, hair swept over one ear. Clear, innocent-looking eyes, a face that drew to it every stare available.

  Brains and beauty. Put her together with her husband and you had Beauty and the Beast. Dennis forced himself to eat some of the congealing fry-up, and started counting down to the weekend.

  Saturday morning, he parked his car curbside, across the road from her house. He’d been expecting something better. The papers had called it a “mansion,” but in reality it was a plain two-story detached house, maybe dating back to the 1960s. The front garden had been paved over to create a couple of parking spaces. A sporty-looking silver Merc sat on display. Beside it, a larger car had had a tarpaulin thrown over it. Dennis guessed this was Blaine’s, kept under wraps until his return. There were net curtains covering every window, no sign of life behind them. Dennis checked his watch: not quite ten. He’d assumed she would sleep late at the weekend; most people he knew seemed to. For himself, he was always awake before dawn, never could get back to sleep again. This morning, he’d gone to a cafe near his home, reading the paper at a table as he sipped his tea, washing down the toast and jam. Now that he was here, he felt thirsty again, and realized he should have brought a flask with him, maybe some sandwiches and something to read. His wasn’t the only car on the street, but he knew people would start wondering about him if he sat for a whole morning. Then again, they were probably used to it: reporters and such like.

  For want of anything else to do, he switched on the radio, tried eight or nine stations-Medium Wave and VHF-before settling on one that had a lot of classical music and not much talk between the tunes. It was another hour before anything happened. A car drew to a stop outside the house, horn blaring three times. It was an old Volvo, its color fading. The man who got out was medium height and medium build, hair slicked back from his forehead. He wore a black polo-neck, black denims, three-quarter-length black leather coat. And sunglasses, despite the slate-gray sky. Tanned, too, probably courtesy of one of the city’s tanning parlors. He pushed open the gate and walked up to the house, thumped on the door with his fist. There was something protruding from his mouth. Dennis thought it might be a cocktail stick.

  Selina already had her coat on: a denim jacket with silver studs. Her white trousers were skin-tight. She pecked her visitor on the cheek, wriggled when he tried sliding his arms around her waist. She looked stunning, and Dennis realized he’d stopped breathing for a moment. He tried not to grip the steering wheel too tightly, wound his window down to try to catch what they were saying as they came down the path toward the waiting car.

  The man leaned in toward Selina and whispered something. She thumped him on the shoulder.

  “Fred!” she squealed. The man called Fred chuckled and smiled to himself. But now Selina was looking at his car and shaking her head.

  “We’ll take the Merc.”

  “What’s wrong with mine?”

  “It looks like shit, Fred, that’s what. You want to take a girl shopping, you need a classier set of wheels.”

  She went back into the house for her keys, while Fred opened the gates. Then the pair of them got into Selina’s car. Dennis didn’t bother trying to hide. Maybe part of him wanted her to see him, to know she had an admirer. But it was as if he was invisible, she was talking to Fred.

  Fred? -

  Fred’s off up north. Denise isn’t talking to him…

  But Fred wasn’t up north; he was right here. Why had she lied? Maybe so her husband wouldn’t suspect.

  “Naughty girl,” Dennis muttered to himself as he followed the small silver car.

  Selina drove like a demon, but the traffic heading into the city was sluggish: all those Saturday shoppers. Dennis had little trouble keeping the Merc in view, and followed it into one of the multistories behind Sauchiehall Street. Selina waited on level three, while a woman backed out of the last empty bay. Dennis took a chance and headed up to the next level, where there were plenty of spaces. He locked his car and walked back down the ramp, just as Selina and Fred were heading into the shopping center.

  They were like boyfriend and girlfriend: Selina trying on various permutations of clothes while Fred gave a nod or a shrug, growing fidgety and fed up after an hour. They’d moved from the center to an array of designer shops the other side of George Square. By now, Selina was carrying three bags, Fred a further four. She’d tried cajoling him into a brown suede jacket, but he’d bought nothing. So far, all the purchases were hers, and, Dennis noticed, paid for with her own cash. Several hundred pounds, by his estimate: peeled from rolls of notes in her jacket pockets.

  So much for her complaints to Blaine about not having any money.

  They settled on an Italian restaurant for lunch. Dennis decided he had time for a break. Ran into a pub to use the toilet, then into a shop for a sandwich and bottle of water, plus the early edition of the evening paper.

  “What the hell am I doing?” he asked himself as he unwrapped the sandwich. But then he smiled, because he was enjoying himself. In fact, enjoying this Saturday more than any in recent memory. When they emerged from the restaurant, it looked as if Fred had been refreshed by more than an odd glass of wine. He had his free arm around Selina’s shoulders until he dropped some of the shopping. After that, he concentrated on carrying the bags. They headed back to the multistory. Dennis followed the Merc, realizing soon enough that it was headed for Bearsden and expedition’s end. The Merc was in the driveway as he drove past. Glancing to his left he
was startled to find Selina staring at him as she closed her driver’s-side door. Her eyes narrowed, as if trying to place him. Then she turned and helped the still-groggy Fred into the house.

  The Governor’s secretary, Mrs. Beeton, was good as gold when Dennis explained why he wanted the file.

  “Recent letters have been mentioning someone called Fred. I want to check if he’s someone we should know about.”

  This was good enough reason for Mrs. Beeton to seek out and hand over the file on Paul Blaine. Dennis thanked her and retreated to his office, locking his door behind him. The file was bulky; too much for him to think about photocopying. Instead, he sat down to read. He found Fred soon enough: Frederick Hart, nominally in charge of a taxi firm that was actually owned by Blaine. Hart had been in trouble for intimidating the competition, fighting over pitches and routes. Prosecuted but not convicted. There was nothing about a wife called Denise, but Dennis found what he was looking for in one of the newspaper cuttings. Fred was married with four teenage kids. Lived in an ex-council house with an eight-foot wall around it. There was even a grainy photo of the man, looking considerably younger, scowling as he left a court building

  “Hello, Fred,” Dennis whispered.

  When Selina’s next letter arrived, Dennis felt his heart pounding, as if it were meant for him rather than her husband. He sniffed the envelope, studied the handwritten address, took his time opening it. Unfolded the paper-just a single sheet, written on both sides.

  Started to read.

  It gets a bit lonely here with you not around. Denise drops in sometimes to go shopping.

  Liar.

  I go whole days on end and never set foot out of the house, so I know what it’s like to be banged up!

  And Dennis reckoned he knew who was doing the banging.

  He started taking evening drives to Bearsden. Sometimes he would park a few streets away and pretend he was a local out for a walk, managing to pass her house a couple of times, maybe pausing to check his watch, tie a shoelace, or answer an imaginary call on his cell phone. If the weather wasn’t great, he would sit in the car, or simply drive around. He got to know her estate, could even recognize one or two of the neighbors. And they, in turn, got to know him; or at least they knew his face. No longer a stranger, and therefore not suspicious. Maybe they reckoned he’d just moved into the area. He got nods and smiles and the occasional bit of chat. And then one evening, as he was driving into her street, he saw the For Sale sign. His first thought was: I could buy it! Buy it and be near her! But then he saw that the sign was firmly planted in Selina’s own driveway. Did Blaine know about this? Dennis didn’t think so; nothing had been mentioned in the correspondence. Of course, it might have been discussed during one of her visits, but he got the feeling this was yet another secret she was keeping from her husband. But why sell the house? Did it mean she really did have money worries? If so, what was she doing with pocketfuls of cash? Dennis stopped curbside and jotted down the phone number on the sign, tried calling on his cell phone, but was advised by a message that the solicitor’s office opened at nine in the morning.