by Sarah Lovett
She protected her head, tightened her abdominal muscles, and anticipated another attack. Nothing happened. She began to inch herself onto her elbows. In response, he moved his body over hers—he was straddling her—and his ragged breathing marked the seconds before he spoke.
"Who am I?" he whispered.
Sylvia peered up at his face, tracing bone structure, coloring, searching for the tooth, the tattoo, road signs along a deserted highway. Then she saw his eyes, and the darkness pulled her in where an icy blue should have been.
"Billy." Her voice was a raspy whisper, but he heard it and jerked her forward by her hair.
"No, bitch!" He slapped her face. "Who am I?" A gun protruded from his fist.
She opened her mouth—to tell him to put the gun down—but nothing came out. Just a shudder, a sigh.
"Who am I?" His fist connected with her abdomen, and she collapsed from the pain.
She waited for the next blow. When it didn't come, she used her hands and the wall for leverage. The adobe felt cold. The shadows in the hall had thickened.
"Billy—"
"Who am I?" The butt of the gun sliced her lip.
"Lucas."
Billy was shivering; he whispered in an effort to control his voice. The words spilled from his lips in an eerie monotone. "I've come back for you."
She put up her hand to block the next blow. She saw a dark shape in the distance. It was night, the dream, her father calling to her from his prison inside the cave.
Billy dragged her back from the dream. He fell on her body, tore at her coat, at her legs. She could smell the sour sickness of his fear. Terror clogged her throat until she thought she was going to pass out.
She thrust her palm into the base of his nose and pushed with all her strength. His teeth sank into her skin. She saw him as Lucas, and her rage gave her new strength. She screamed. She stabbed his eyes with her fingernails, bit his wrist, and pummeled his kidneys with her fists. She thought she might have knocked the gun from his hand.
Mustering all her power, she drove her knee into the hardening flesh of his groin and heaved him sideways. He cried out in pain.
Then someone else filled the hallway, a great ship of a man. Suddenly the weight was lifted from Sylvia, and she could breathe. She saw two faces in half-light for one instant: Billy—transformed into Lucas—and someone else who was familiar. She fought the dizziness that threatened to pull her down.
MATT ENGLAND KNEW Sylvia was conscious and breathing. He didn't want to leave her, but Billy was getting away. He wanted to pound the little sonofabitch until his ears bled. As Matt ran toward the stairs, his knee jammed the mud wall and his fingers razed splinters from the level banister. Billy was twelve feet ahead of him speeding down the stairs.
Another thought flashed through Matt's mind—he was forty fucking years old and a fugitive from the hospital—but he wasn't feeling sorry for himself. He whooped as Billy Watson lost his footing and flipped headfirst down the last few stairs.
Matt gained ten feet while Billy scrambled painfully to his feet. When Watson took off again, he was limping. Both men hobbled up Grant Avenue, but Billy stumbled right at Johnson Street. Puddles of light from street lamps illuminated his reckless progress.
Matt's heart felt as though it would pump its way out of his chest. A woman stared with golf-ball eyes as he charged past. He gave a hopeful grunt when he saw Billy slide on ice and go down. He gained ten yards before Billy clambered to his feet. Matt caught his own ice patch and both legs shot out from under him.
Billy took off again, sprinting across Johnson and slamming through the back entrance to the Eldorado Hotel. A few seconds later, Matt was up, following Billy into the hotel. The sound of Matt's footsteps reverberated off the wide tiled hallway. He saw Billy skidding around the corner in the direction of the Eldorado's main lobby.
Mood music floated out from the lobby bar. As Matt slid on the tile and abruptly hit carpet, he stumbled and knocked over a small Christmas tree. At that instant, he saw Billy crashing past crowded tables. The bar was filled with happy-hour drinkers crooning along to "Feelings."
Matt scrambled to his feet and launched his body forward, but Billy Watson had too much of a lead—he wasn't going to catch him.
A woman yelled as Matt knocked her cocktail out of her hand. He was huffing his way toward the Eldorado's reception area.
When he was almost to the main desk, he saw a security guard. The man was a great hulking Sikh complete with turban and he had Billy Watson in a choke hold.
Matt called out, "Police! He's under arrest!" Then he collapsed.
ROSIE DICED A tiny habanero chile and sliced cheese for two whole-wheat tortillas. She placed the quesadillas on the rack of the toaster oven, then closed the door, flipped down the switch, and licked her finger. "Watch out for my cooking."
Without asking if Sylvia wanted more, she refilled coffee cups and sat down. She gazed at her friend with concern. Sylvia's face was swollen, her eye purple and red, her mouth raw. She had a cracked rib and a torn shoulder ligament. But she was in good shape compared to Matt England. He was back in the hospital—this time for at least three days. His fellow investigator, Terry Osuna, threatened to have him arrested if he followed any more hunches.
Rosie said, "I talked to Terry just to make sure all the bases were covered. They're doing a thorough job. Last night, when I saw Billy during the interrogation, I couldn't believe it; he bleached his hair, had his tooth capped, starved himself, and that tattoo—it's all so eerie."
"To take over where his brother left off," Sylvia said quietly. "In Billy's case, I think his transformation into Lucas gave him the psychic energy to act."
"He would have murdered you," Rosie whispered. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes, and Sylvia hugged her.
Rosie said, "Thank God Matthew has a hard head." She stepped away from Sylvia and set her hands on her hips as if she packed a pair of six-guns. "Go see him."
The toaster oven gave out a sudden squawk, and Rosie opened the glass door to rescue bubbling quesadillas. "Ouch!" She juggled one tortilla onto a plate and set it down in front of Sylvia on the plastic floral tablecloth. "Eat your food."
Sylvia smacked a fist on the tabletop and coffee sloshed over cup edges. "For two months I've been goddamn harassed, stalked, and brutalized. I've had my integrity attacked, and I've lost the job that I wanted." Her voice had risen an octave and the Sánchez cat jumped off a stool and streaked from the kitchen. Sylvia started after the animal and then turned back abruptly to face Rosie. "I've been to too many funerals, my goddamn dog won't stay home, and I can't stand another hospital. I hate hospitals!" Her eyes shone with tears.
"Oh, look at you! It's about time you lose some of your damn control! You lock your feelings inside of you like somebody's going to steal them." Rosie brushed a wild strand of hair from her face.
The women faced each other nervously. Rosie stood almost two heads shorter than Sylvia. The seven-year age difference between friends felt more like twenty. She paused for a moment, made a face, her expression tentative. "I remember your dad."
"So?"
"Don't go all defensive again. He was a kind man . . . but he had so many problems. And he left a giant hole in your life when he disappeared . . . I don't want to see you spend your life haunted by him. I don't want you to waste good years searching for a ghost in every man you meet" She smiled shyly. "I love you, Ray loves you, Tomás and Jaspar love you . . . You know what the old people say? El muerto al pozo y el vivo al retozo. Stick the dead in their hole and let the good times roll! What I mean is . . . Matt isn't your typical cop. Don't pass up a good man."
Sylvia grinned, lowered her chin, nodded. The silence between the two women was not uncomfortable. A beam of sunlight bathed the kitchen in butterscotch warmth. The cat had returned to curl up in her chair.
THE HOSPITAL ROOM was dark with just a slash of sunset visible through white blinds. Sylvia entered quietly, afraid she would disturb Matt England's
sleep. But he was awake, sitting up in the elevated bed, and he attempted to smile when he saw her.
"Hey," Sylvia said. She kept her voice light, but the sight of his face upset her. His lips were swollen, his eyes were bloodshot, his skin pale and rough with two-day-old stubble. His hair disappeared under a thick bandage.
"Hey." He spoke slowly. "Don't worry, you look worse than me."
"Thanks." She smiled.
"That bad, huh?" Matt patted the edge of the bed. Sylvia sat down and he took her hand. His mouth curved into a smile. "We finally caught the bastard."
She learned over and kissed him on the cheek; then she moved her lips to his mouth. After a longer, much more demanding kiss, Sylvia said, "Are you sure you're ready for this?"
"No." He moved his head to kiss her again and then groaned. His hand fell against her breast and she let it stay there, even when he peeked one eye open to see her reaction. He said, "You're not an easy woman to keep up with."
"I'm glad you did." Sylvia reached for the call button just as a nurse arrived. She moved out of the way while the other woman lowered the bed, set a white cup of pills on a tray, and glanced at a chart.
"It's time for me to go," Sylvia whispered to Matt. He took her arm gently.
"We'll take up where we left off later," he said.
She smiled. "Get some rest. I'll come to visit tomorrow."
Matt nodded. "Hey," he said as she reached the door. "I hope this doesn't happen every time we make love."
IT WAS TOO early for lunch, but Rosie followed the noisy complaints of her stomach to the cafeteria. In honor of New Year's Eve, the fare included pressed turkey breast, mashed potatoes with gravy, and gelatinous cranberry sauce, an exact clone of the Christmas Day meal except for the absence of sweet potatoes pureed with marshmallows. How fortunate that particular dish had been scratched from the menu. Rosie took it as a positive sign of the new year ahead.
Afterward, she finished reviewing a stack of incident reports, wrote a note to the compliance monitor at the D.O.C., and rewound her tape of yesterday's interview with C.O. Anderson. The tape might as well have been blank. Anderson had led her in circles for an hour. She sat back in the chair, slid her shoes off, and stretched her toes.
Rosie had decided to give herself another hour at the office and then call it a day when the phone rang. She picked it up and snapped, "Sánchez here."
Pat O'Riley, security wizard, laughed just like a leprechaun. "It doesn't sound like you wanna be. You should take a vacation like I just did. Montana was heaven."
"It's even colder up there," Rosie exclaimed.
"You get used to it." Pat O'Riley suddenly sobered. "Listen, I need to know something. You read my report?"
"What report?"
There was a long silence on the line. Rosie could hear a tapping sound that she assumed was the drum of Pat O'Riley's fingernails on something hard.
"What dark and dingy water hole would you care to meet me in?" O'Riley said finally.
ALL OF THE bar stools were occupied at Molly's when Rosie walked in at 2:15. The smoke stung her eyes, and she squinted through the gloom in search of a familiar face.
Pat O'Riley was tucked in the corner booth nearest the rest room, nursing a beer. Rosie slid her rear end along the red vinyl bench and faced him across the table.
A waitress appeared.
"Ginger ale," Rosie said.
The waitress had a stride worthy of a trucker.
Pat placed a large white envelope on the table. "Take a look."
Rosie glanced at the bar where everyone's attention was focused on the large television screen suspended from the other end of the room. Oprah Winfrey was interviewing five transvestites.
"I know, you feel like a spy," Pat said. "This is my report, and it went to the warden and his compadres. You were supposed to get a copy."
She peered into the envelope and then let the thickly bound report slip onto the table. The first thing Rosie saw was the large CONFIDENTIAL stamp in red ink at the top of the page, and next, the title.
"I saw this two years ago. It's the vulnerability appraisal."
Pat wiped some beer foam from his mouth and shook his head. "This is my follow-up—as an independent contractor—hence the date."
"Ten days ago."
"Righto."
"I don't understand. Who called you in?"
"Top brass from the governor's office. They wanted to make sure the security systems could be put back into working order without mucho bucks. And they were anticipating the lawsuits that spring up after a riot like pigpen daisies after a summer shower."
Rosie held up her hand and began to skim the pages. Like the original assessment, there was an introduction with a brief history of institutional security systems, a system description, and diagrams. Escape scenarios followed, some of which Rosie recognized from actual attempts by inmates in the past. On the last ten pages, she found the addendum, undoubtedly the portion that had upset the administration so deeply. Rosie felt her upper lip prickle with barely suppressed rage. How dare they withhold this kind of information from her? She bit her lip and continued to read.
Normally, escapes attempted from prison interiors present potential escapees with more impediments than attempts originating from exterior prison areas such as yards and sally ports. However, the conditions that existed during the riot, and the evidence collected in North Facility following the riot, show that the possibility of a successful escape effort generated from the interior, not viable under normal conditions, must be thoroughly investigated.
Bound in plastic, the report slid easily off the varnished wood surface of the table into Rosie's lap. She stared at Pat O'Riley and her skin lost its color.
"Are you telling me that someone actually got out that night?"
THE CHANGING OF the guard was in full swing when Rosie entered the pen for the second time on New Year's Eve. As she passed the waiting area for visitors, she saw an old man sitting alone. Something about his posture—perhaps it was his worried expression—stopped her. She tiptoed to his chair.
"Are you being helped?"
"Necesito encontrar mi hijo."
"¿Quién es? ¿Cómo se llama?"
"Se llama Juan Gabaldon."
John Gabaldon. Rosie didn't remember that particular inmate. Perhaps he was new? She asked the old man, but he insisted that his boy had been incarcerated for nine years. When was the last time he had visited his son? Six months before. The old man explained that he'd been hospitalized for a minor stroke. He'd been in a hospital in Las Cruces when the riot occurred.
"¿Cuántos años tiene?"
"Veintiocho."
A twenty-eight-year-old inmate named John Gabaldon was missing. Rosie questioned the man in Spanish for several minutes. She believed him when he said he'd written letters to the governor, the Department of Corrections, the warden. He thought no one had responded because they didn't like his Spanish. She asked him to go home for the day. She promised to have an answer for him by Saturday. She watched him shuffle to the main door. His body was stooped into a question mark, his pants sagged off bony hips.
Rosie walked past the lounge where a half dozen C.O.s celebrated New Year's Eve in a cluster around a white sheet cake. The sharp smack of pool cues marked a counterpoint to the click of Rosie's heels.
Locking her office door behind her, Rosie switched on the lights but nothing happened. Her digital clock gleamed from the opposite wall, which meant the light bulb had probably blown. There was just enough daylight to illuminate the files. It didn't take long to find; John Gabaldon was released in October 1994.
Had he been released? Or had someone lost track of Gabaldon's release date? It had happened before; guys doing a hitch, and their release date finally rolled around, and they didn't remember and neither did their caseworker.
Reluctantly, she walked toward her desk to phone the deputy warden. When she was almost there, she stepped on the Fed Ex packet that had been slipped under the door. It
skimmed the carpet like a skateboard, and Rosie landed hard on the floor. Without moving, she tore open the seal and pulled out the list of names she had been waiting for. The members of Charlie Company. On the second page, she found the jackal. He had served from 1966 through 1969; he'd been at My Lai.
TRAFFIC WAS SURPRISINGLY light as Sylvia drove home. She felt tired and relieved; she wanted to sleep in her own bed, and she wanted to find Rocko. When she reached her house she left a message at Rosie and Ray's and then she called her mother in California.
"Sylvia, is that you?"
"I got the package. Thanks." It had been waiting on her front stoop. A Christmas gift. There was a note inside, a smiling Christmas angel with a message: Thought you'd want this. Love, Mom.
Now, embedded deep in Styrofoam snow, her fingers found the silver frame of a family portrait—her mother and father holding the baby Sylvia between them. The picture had dressed the nicho in the living room for years. There was something else, a smaller package wrapped in tissue paper and ribbon—her father's Silver Star, awarded by the Army for bravery in battle, and a tiny silver pendant that had been his good luck charm.
She blew particles of Styrofoam from her fingers and fingered the chain.
After the slightest hesitation, her mother said, "I thought you might like them."
"I do." Sylvia shook her head, frustrated, trying to send feelings through the phone lines. "I love them, Mom."
"I'm so glad."
The two women talked for fifteen minutes, catching up, communicating for the first time in years. After they had covered the subjects of various relatives, Sylvia's career, and her mother's social activities, they even touched on the idea of a visit.
After the phone call, she spent forty-five minutes cleaning house. The rooms weren't really dirty, but scrubbing, sweeping, and dusting were all part of a small ritual to reassert her control of territory.
Dinner was toast and soup, and then Sylvia concentrated on reviewing files and preparing for her postholiday push. It felt good to focus on her work. She was beginning to accept the fact that the nightmare of the past few weeks was finally over. The only thing that bothered her was Rocko's absence. The runty terrier had not shown up since her return, and the bowl of food she'd left behind the day before remained untouched. He'd been known to stay away for several days, but that was usually when the weather was much warmer.