The Last Innocent Hour

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  Charlie took a step after the guard. “Why don't you turn around, you fat mother--”

  Dixie's big hand clamped like a vise around Charlie’s bicep. “Back off,” he said into Charlie's ear. “You don't need the kind of trouble Brashear can give you. He's mean, and his memory don't quit.”

  “I can't stand asshole bullies like him,” Charlie said.

  “Him and Chapa and Sanchez do business together. Mafia business. Drugs, whores, gambling. You name it.”

  “That's not what this is about.”

  Dixie loosened his grip on Charlie. “Then what?”

  Charlie didn't answer; he kept his gaze trained on the doorway where Brashear had disappeared.

  o0o

  That night, Charlie lay on his back listening to Dixie pray. It was habit for Dixie, a nightly ritual, and Charlie had grown accustomed to it. He even found it soothing. He cocked his elbow over his eyes and was almost asleep when Dixie shifted his big head over the edge of the mattress and said his name.

  “Charlie? You awake?”

  Charlie smiled. He just couldn’t get mad at the guy. “Yeah, what is it, buddy?”

  “You want to talk?”

  “Sure.” The talks were a near-nightly ritual, too. Dixie had fooled Charlie at first; he’d figured him for being simpleminded and slow. Dixie took a lot of heat off the other inmates, got called names like “retard” and “birdbrain” and worse. It pissed Charlie off, but Dixie was always telling him to let it go. It was like Dixie didn’t have a temper, except maybe where Charlie was concerned, and that devotion only made Charlie more protective. There was such an innocence about him; Dixie had a way of looking at the world that made hope seem reasonable. He believed in people as if the fact of his belief could make them good. Charlie didn’t share Dixie’s faith in humanity or his understanding; still he knew if it wasn’t for Dixie, he’d have lost it by now; he’d have figured out a way to check himself out.

  He’d been considering his options along those lines his first night in here when Dixie had popped his head over the side of his bunk and started telling Charlie the story of how he’d come to be baptized. Dixie had described the hot morning in July when he was five and his mother had held his hand and led him into the creek. There were dragonflies darting and swooping above water that smelled of mud, Dixie said, and when he’d waded in, the cool wetness had felt so good. Charlie had relaxed under the sound of Dixie’s voice; he forgot where he was. He felt the creek bed, soft and yielding, under the bare soles of his feet; he felt himself dunked three times and the water as it streamed from his hair when the preacher lifted him up. By the time Dixie said, “You should’a been there,” Charlie felt like he had been there.

  “I swear, Charlie, I seen my life pass right by my face. An' then, when I could finally git my breath again, I reckoned that I was saved--from drowning.” Dixie chuckled low in his throat, and Charlie did too.

  “Saved by Jesus Christ hisself,” Dixie said. “You been saved, Charlie?”

  Charlie glanced up. He could just make out the oval of Dixie's face and above it the cap of thick white hair. “No, not that way.” His grandmother had owned the only Bible he'd ever put his hands on. Charlie remembered it from the few times his aunt had dragged him to visit her in the nursing home. He’d been made to sit beside the old woman while she read certain passages, mostly from the old testament, verses that promised fiery and eternal damnation to hell for the sinner who didn't repent, which according to his grandmother accounted for more than ninety-nine percent of the world’s population.

  “You might get saved in here,” Dixie said. “Some men do. It's like God reaches down and gets inside 'em and they're different. They change. What do you think of that?”

  “I don't know,” Charlie said. “Maybe they figure if they get right with God, they'll make parole?”

  “No, I don't think that's what they-- Oh, Charlie, are you jokin' me?” Dixie sounded offended.

  “Sorry, buddy.”

  “It's okay, but you should be serious and think some about faith. The nights ain't quite as long in here if you got faith. Trust me,” Dixie had said on that first night, “I been where you're at.”

  Charlie rolled onto his side now. “What do you have faith in, Dixie?” he asked, drifting. “Besides God, I mean.”

  “My mama,” Dixie answered promptly. “Even if she is dead, and 'cause a her, I b'lieve I been saved by the Lord. That's how come He got me to do what I did.”

  “What did you do?” Charlie lifted his head. Dixie had never talked about what had landed him in here, and Charlie hadn’t felt it was right to ask.

  “I saved my sister's life. Somebody had to help her, and the Lord picked me to do it.”

  Charlie waited. Above him, the mattress shifted under Dixie’s weight as he settled himself into the center of it.

  “My stepdaddy was hurtin' her,” he said softly. “’Most ever' night I'd hear him in her room, and her cryin'. He'd be gruntin' over her like some pig, makin' her do terrible stuff.”

  “How old was she?”

  “Twelve when he started,” Dixie said. “She was the most sweetest girl, too, Charlie. If you’d a seen her, you’d a knowed she was an angel. Her hair was blonde, soft and shiny like sun on corn silk, an’ her eyes was as blue and clear as a summer sky. After Mama died, I swore I'd always take care’a her. I warned my stepdaddy, too. I told him to stay outta her room, or I'd kill him. But he didn't listen. So one night, when I heard him go in there, and I heard my sister start cryin', well, I got my shotgun, an' I did it. Damn near blew his head right off his neck. But I had to, to save her. She was sixteen an’ dyin' a little at a time of the shame, you know? An’ she was so scared all the time. I jus’ couldn't take it no more.”

  “You gave the bastard what he deserved, Dixie,” Charlie said softly. “Isn't it the Bible that calls for an eye for an eye?”

  “Yes, but Mama likely wouldn't hold with what I done, an’ the chaplain, here, says forgiveness is the onliest thing that’ll get me to heaven, and I can’t, Charlie. I jus’ can’t forgive that bastard.”

  “Did your mother know?”

  Dixie took so long to answer, Charlie thought he wouldn't, and in the lengthening silence, he thought how what had been done to Dixie’s sister was the same as what Tinker had done to Beth. But Charlie had walked out on Beth, and she was his wife, whom he'd promised to love for better or for worse, whom he did love, no matter what lay in her past. She had told him she was sorry that night. She had cried out the words from the porch. In his dreams, he heard her above the sounds of rain and thunder. But what sin was hers? What was there for her to be sorry for? His throat constricted, remorse cut his breath.

  “Mama knew, God help me,” Dixie whispered. “Mama knew, and I think she didn't know what to do about it, and that's what killed her.”

  Charlie rolled out of his bunk and put his hand on Dixie's shoulder. Dixie squeezed his eyes shut.

  “You did the right thing,” Charlie said.

  “I dunno. I’m scared’a going to hell.”

  “You won’t go there, buddy. Trust me. Hell is for folks like your stepdad.” He paused. “Where is your sister now? Do you ever see her? She doesn’t blame you, does she? I bet she’s glad for what you did.”

  Dixie sat up and scoured his face with his hands. Charlie used the latrine. “She lives with my aunt in Tennessee. They always come to see me right after Christmas an’ bring a lotta stuff to eat--and cigarettes. They bring me smokes.”

  “But you don’t smoke, do you?”

  “Nah. They’re good for trade is why, better’n cash. You’d be surprised what you can get in here for a pack’a smokes. You ever need anything, you tell me. We can trade for it.”

  “Thanks, buddy.” Charlie stretched out on his bunk again. He doubted there were enough packs of smokes in the world to get what he needed.

  Overhead the mattress squeaked. Heartbeats of silence passed. Somewhere down the run a toilet flushed; a man holle
red out in his sleep.

  “Charlie?” Dixie's disembodied voice floated loose in the darkness. “What's up with you and Brashear and them Mexicans? It's somethin' bad, ain't it?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “I'm worried. Him showin’ up in the laundry today, that weren’t no accident. He’s doggin’ you.”

  “Don't worry about it, buddy. I can handle it.”

  “They're after you, ain't they? Them and that Tinker guy you was tellin' me about?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “I'll say extra prayers for you, Charlie.”

  Charlie thanked Dixie and flipped onto his belly. Not for the world would he tell Dixie that he didn't think his life was worth a prayer.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “You can start checking the obituaries.”

  Jason took the phone from his ear, said a silent prayer: Thank you, Jesus, brought it back and said out loud, “Swear you’re not shitting me.”

  Lance snickered. “I’m not. Should happen in the next day or two. Guess that makes your day, huh?”

  “At least one damn thing is going right.” Jason stared moodily out the window of the bedroom he had once shared with Lucy. The tops of the trees he could see were shrouded in a steadily thickening mist. He’d already lost several work days because of the damp weather, and if it didn't let up, he'd lose another one tomorrow. As it was, they were so far behind, Yamaguchi was calling weekly from Japan with threats that he was pulling out. He acted like the weather delays were Jason’s fault. And then there was Jimmy Lee. He was an even bigger pain in the ass. Jason rubbed his eyes.

  “There’s somethin’ else,” Lance said, and an edge in the deputy’s voice raised the hair on Jason’s neck. “You been tryin’ to find Beth Clayton, right?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Well, way I see it, it could get to be a problem. Same as Cunningham. Seems like you really got to find her now and take care of her, too. I mean she saw, didn’t she? You getting my drift?”

  Jason got his drift all right. He bent his head to his hand. Goddamn Jimmy for confiding in the deputy. What was Lance’s angle? Was he offering to find Beth and do the deed? Had Jimmy put Devers up to this? Was it some kind of trap? Maybe they planned to blackmail him--

  Killer. The voice was loud and as rough as a saw. Killerkillerkillerrrr.... The syllables ran together, a muddy river of sound circulating bedroom walls that were bare of all adornment now. Jason gripped the desk’s edge. Shut up! The order exploded in his brain. Goddamned mother-whining-wife-whining voice worked him up sometimes. Worked him overtime. Got him paranoid. That's what he was. Fucking paranoid.

  He slammed the receiver down on the desk, on Lance, who was still talking, picked it up and slammed it down again. Then he pressed it to his ear and said, “I just want this one thing done, and when it’s done, I want a call. Are we clear?”

  Jason hung up before Lance could answer. He sat staring into the dark for a long time before he switched on the lamp. More time passed before he opened a bottom drawer and took out the small box. He lifted the lid. The lamb lay on its side, one jet black eye exposed and glittering. Jason felt trapped in the beam of that bottomless eye and putting the tip of his index finger against it, he pressed it down. He pressed it hard enough that he felt a pain shoot from his fingertip to his elbow.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Charlie faced the back wall of the shower stall. Warm steam rose around him. The water pattered at his feet, and with the sound in his ears like rain on wet leaves, he imagined he was free. Outside, right now, it was night. Charlie conjured a sky overhead that was the color of ink, as soft as cat fur, and lit by a thousand points of light. He conjured a breeze and let it cool his cheeks.

  He extended his hands beyond the watery spray as if he could take hold of what he imagined, and in the shadow of his exquisite pain, he called Beth and Chrissy into the scene he had made. He felt Chrissy’s hand warm in his and the brush of Beth’s hip against his thigh as they walked down some unknown moonlit lane beneath unknown trees that lived only in his dreams. The image grew inside him, both an absence and a presence, and he held it within his mind for as long as he could until it hurt too much, then opening his eyes, he reached for the soap.

  But some finely-tuned instinct that he’d developed in the weeks of his incarceration halted his hand in midair. Gooseflesh rashed his shoulders, arms, thighs and buttocks. A furtive glance around showed the long room was empty. The guys he'd come in with were gone, spirited away while he’d been daydreaming. Charlie didn't need a road map to know he was in trouble.

  Shit. Caught out naked as a baby. Adios to that great streak of luck you've been riding, my friend. The internal voice was sarcastic and broke in a heated rush over the surface of his brain. He tried to turn, felt the rough grip of hands pulling his arms, sliding on his wet flesh, the digging traction of fingers. One of them--he was certain there were at least two, maybe three--pinned his wrists against his bare flanks, another yanked his head. He caught the blast of boiling water full in the face for a few seconds before they pulled him blind and gagging from under the streaming shower.

  He struggled for air, fought to free his wrists, tried shouting, but within seconds was bound, gagged and blindfolded. At the last moment of clear sight, he saw Hector Chapa lounging in the shower room doorway. There was the brief impression of slick black hair, narrow brown face split by the familiar white sneer of a grin, then darkness.

  Charlie figured Sanchez was one of the goons holding him. He liked the dirty work; Chapa liked to watch. Now that it was going down, he found he wasn't scared. He just wished they'd hurry, finish him--quick.

  Seconds passed. What were they waiting for?

  “Hey gringo, can't get your breath?” Paco sounded smug; he sounded like he wanted to play. Drag this out for a while.

  “We gonna fix you tonight, motherfucker,” Sanchez sang. “Gonna fix them pretty looks.”

  In the split second's silence that followed, Charlie felt the air by his ear stir and before he could register the meaning, pain exploded from his right shoulder.

  Bat. The word was cold, black articulation on a white-hot sea of agony. Charlie’s jaws clacked together when the blunt end of the weapon was jammed under his chin. The back of his head cracked against the concrete wall. Oblivion closed in on awareness, and he reached toward it, starting to crumple.

  But someone stepped in and held him. Another voice, not Chapa’s or Sanchez’s, not even Mexican, said, “Let's take him back to his cell and finish him. Come on, you said if I helped, you'd let me burn him.”

  Sanchez answered. “Nah. I ain't done with him yet. Fucking gringo killed a woman.” There was a sound as if Sanchez was spitting.

  “C'mon, Paco. Hector already went to get Brashear. They'll be mad if we make 'em wait. We'll get caught.”

  “We ain't goin' to get caught, ese.” Paco reassured his buddy. “We goin' to have us a little fun. See, it's like I told Hector, a shiv, it's too quick. Be over too fast. When you are getting paid, you wanna be sure you do a good job, huh? Now jus' hold him up. Let me take another swing. I wanna see can I get a home run.”

  Charlie was shoved against the wall, and when the bat slammed into his left hip, it made a flat-sounding thud as flesh and bone and muscle ground into mush. His knees buckled again. He couldn't breathe. Waves of pain radiated from his center and sudden mirror images of Beth and Chrissy fanned out in a hellish light behind his eyes. Then everything went black.

  He didn't feel the third blow or the fourth or hear Paco's buddy whine that there wasn't gonna be nuthin' left to burn if Paco didn't let up.

  o0o

  Dixie lay in his bunk, wide-eyed stare fixed on the ceiling. Something was wrong. Charlie should of come back from his shower a long time ago. Now it was at least a half hour since lights out, and his cellie's bunk was empty. Dixie had a sick feeling that Chapa and Sanchez had got ahold of him. Prob'ly in the shower. Dixie squeezed his eyes shut.
It was goin' down just the way he’d been scared it would.

  He heard a noise out in the corridor and fisted his hands at his sides, hardly daring to breathe. Somebody rolled the cell door. There were soft grunts, a sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. It was Charlie. Dixie knew without seeing that it was. He worked to keep still. They couldn't know he was onto them.

  “Ain't lookin' so good now, is he?”

  Dixie recognized Paco's voice.

  “Where's Chapa with the stuff? We gotta get this done and get the hell outta here.”

  This voice was a high excited whisper. White guy, Dixie thought. They called him The Torch. He liked to burn stuff. They’d caught him before lighting a fire in the prison chapel from a candle, and once he’d lit the kitchen on fire. He was crazy, muy loco. Why was he here? What was he gonna do? Dixie’s gut knotted.

  Someone else came into the cell.

  “You got it?” The Torch talking.

  Chapa answered. “Yeah. Brashear had it made up special. You just smear it on.”

  Smear what? What was that smell? Gasoline? Dixie lay motionless. This was bad. Real bad.

  Three heads bobbed within inches of Dixie's bunk. He was scared they would reach for him, drag him to the floor. Do to him what they'd done to Charlie, and he hated it that he was so scared. If it was him in the lower bunk, Charlie would have jumped them. He would have whipped the goons, just beat their ass to hell. But Charlie was braver, way braver.

  “Throw the match, and let's get outta here.”

  Dixie's eyes flew open. He rolled up on his elbow just as the three men exited the cell. The door rolled shut behind them. Time spanned a silence as cold and dark as a well. The tiny light flickering off the bunk below drew Dixie's gaze. He stared, trying to make sense of it.

  “Charlie?” he whispered pushing himself into a sitting position.

  The small light grew into a bigger brighter flame. It licked the dead quiet air.

  “Charlie, wake up! CharlieCharlieCharlie, get up now!” Dixie slid to the floor. He plastered his hands to his head, mesmerized at the sight, his mouth opening and closing, soundlessly screaming.