by Lee Taylor
“Let’s just let it go. Any news so far?”
“Not from the warden, but rumor has it that nothing really happened. The screwing couple, a nineteen-year-old prop girl by the way, who actually looks a lot like you, didn’t quite get it on. Only in the fondling stage, but the warden won’t budge. Too many bad memories from the last picture that was shot there—worse than kinky sex, one of those really bad guys escaped. Apparently, he held onto the bottom of one of the trailers until he was far enough away from the prison and dropped on the street at a stop light. Never caught the guy. Plus, more bad news. One of our inmate extras is in lockup for wearing five pairs of jeans.”
“How did he even walk? And where did he get them,” I ask, laughing at the visual.
“Wardrobe, I guess. I don’t know all the facts, but he was in the scene they shot today and I can’t find anybody who looks enough like him to take his place. That’s if we get back in.” Mike sighs.
“Not looking good, is it?”
“Worse. They’re thinking of cutting the scene entirely. We stand to lose a nice chunk of change if they do.”
“Where’s Dottie? I need another one.” I look around, almost relieved that we might not be going back inside, but finding myself disappointed at the same time. The Captain will have to find some other fool to interview that monster.
“Did you hear me?” Mike asks, trying to focus my attention.
“Yes. I don’t care.”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out, obviously annoyed over my lack of concern. I spot Dottie among the crowd and wave for her attention. She looks over and winks. I motion for two more. “Gotcha, hon,” she yells.
Mike drills me about what I just said. “You want to clarify?”
“I’ll get by. Have some money saved. Does everything I say have to be a problem?”
“No. I just can’t figure you out. When I tell you to go home ‘cause you’re nuts over the place, you tell me you want back in. When I tell you we may not get back in, you tell me you don’t care. Money’s not important…you…the queen of expensive cars. What’s going on?”
Mike can’t handle indecision. One of those people who wants definite answers and once he gets an answer, he expects you to stick to it, no matter what.
“Got some stuff to work through.” I sit back in the booth, trying to relax, trying not to let Mike get to me. “Saw Captain Bob’s kids today—two girls and a boy. The boy looks just like him. Must be rough working in a place like Stateville all day, dealing with high-risk inmates. Realizing that the inmates more or less run the place. Then trying to forget about it when you go home at night. Has to wear on you after a while, don’t you think? Might make you want to take some risks.”
“Okay, now we’ve got risks involved. There’s something going on. You going to tell me or do I have to guess? I’m very bad at guessing these days.” He gives me a sheepish grin.
“Eventually. When the time’s right.”
Mike sits back, all frustrated. His patience thin.
I tell him, “You need a real drink. You’re too edgy.”
“You’re right. I am edgy. Crazy edgy. It’s you, ya know. I could hire a dozen people to take your place.”
“Why don’t you? Sure would take a load off my ass. Where’s Dottie with my damn drink?” I look around the room, agitated over the conversation. Wanting my drink.
“It must be some kind of enabler syndrome I’m tangled up in. I read somewhere that there’s the dysfunctional person and the enabler. Since I’m functional, you must be dysfunctional and hence I enable you to remain dysfunctional. Maybe it’s time to let you go. Like that sixties poem by Kahil Gibran…let them go and if they come back to you…I don’t remember it, but you get my drift.”
Suddenly the group we’re sitting with starts making moves to get out of the booth. We slide out to accommodate the mass exit. Mike purposely focuses in on the backside of the blonde. She turns, puts on a devilish little grin, and walks away. He’s momentarily spellbound. “Now, see, that’s a functional woman. Someone I could have an actual relationship with. Who would treat me nice and we could make love every night, like bunnies. I bet she’s not obsessed with Captain Bob.”
We slide back into the booth, sitting across from each other. I blurt out, “He wants me to shoot a video about how easy some of the prisoners have it on the inside.”
Mike sits back. “What’s this all about? You don’t know the first thing about that stuff. Did you tell him to contact the Film Commission?”
Not the kind of film he’s looking to make. This would be strictly underground.
“Sounds like something you don’t want any part of.”
“I don’t know. He says he wants to make some changes.”
“What kind of changes?”
“Inmate kind. Guys that have it too easy.”
“Sounds like a warden problem if you ask me.”
“Warden won’t know till the video’s on the street. No one will—just you, me, the Captain, Speck and a gang member.”
Mike’s forehead furrows. “Did you hear yourself? You want to film Richard Speck and a gang member. How many of those did you have?” He points to my glass.
“One, and I’m dead sober.” I give Mike the rundown. He listens like this is a movie we have to cast and I’m breaking down the important scenes. Feels good to let it go. To finally tell him what I’m planning. Exciting, even. Like I’m somebody important who can actually right a wrong. A soldier for a cause. A knight for the Round Table. King Arthur fighting for justice.
When I stop talking, he sits there for a minute, watching me as I light a cigarette and pull in the smoke. “And you said no, naturally,” he says with confidence, a little grin on his lips.
“I said yes, naturally. Just have to find a way to lift a camera for a couple hours. Should be easy enough. I think I saw your little blonde friend with one on our first day.”
Mike leans across the table to get right in my face. Anger rages in his eyes. “Are you out of your fucking mind? Richard Speck and a gang member? This whole thing is so totally dangerous, not to mention illegal. Do you realize how much trouble you can get into? First, for stealing, which if Tiffany finds out and reports it, we’ll be caught in a lockdown until they find both the camera and you. Second, there has to be some law you’re breaking by filming a convicted felon inside a prison without the warden’s permission. And third, you hate Speck. You’re scared of Speck. You vomit at just the thought of Speck. What the hell are you thinking?”
“But I might be able to help make some changes in there. Put Speck back in his cage and make him stay there. He’ll lose his freedom. It’s something I can do for his victims.”
I don’t understand his reaction. His anger. Thought he would want to help with the cause. Be a crusader.
“You can’t do this, Carly. It’s not safe. You, alone in a room with two killers? What kind of crap is that?”
“I won’t be alone, you’ll be with me,” slips from my mouth. Perhaps just the words I need to bring him over to my side. Appeal to his Lancelot. Mike the enabler.
He smiles, takes a drink of his milk and sits back. “Thanks for asking me first.”
“Don’t need to.”
“Since when?”
“Since we became business partners. You never get my permission when you close a deal, why should it be any different for me?”
He pounds the table with his fist, mad now that he can’t control me. “This is not the same thing. Our whole lives could go up in smoke if we get caught. I could be spending the next ten years inside Stateville instead of the next ten days. And you could be…well, who knows where you’d end up. Some state lockup for the insane. No. We’re not going to do this. I won’t let you do this.”
I lean forward, resting my arms on the table. “Yes, we are, or at least I am. I’ve made up my mind. It’s the only way.”
“The only way for what? To end your life, our life together? I kept your picture up on my mi
rror for almost ten years after I met you hoping that one day you’d walk back into my world. I’d lie awake at night dreaming about you. What you would look like. How we would meet. All those years. For what? So you could end up in some goddamn prison trying to get a lunatic to talk to a camera. How nuts are you?”
Dottie puts down our drinks. We wait in silence. She doesn’t speak. Maybe she can feel the tension, or she’s just too busy. Whatever the reason, I’m grateful when she leaves.
Mike watches her walk away, all the while I can hear the little wheels in his head turning, trying to come up with the right argument. “Look, this is crazy. What if something goes wrong? What if this Captain Bob decides to use you for something else … some kind of sick setup. Maybe Speck needs another victim, like a vampire or something.”
“Wouldn’t matter. I’m already Speck’s victim. The whole neighborhood is. Along with a few thousand other people, starting with the girls’ families and friends; the family that lived across the street from the townhouse who didn’t hear or see anything that night, or the woman around the corner. The guy down the block. What about the pimply-faced teenager down the street who served the girls a Tastee-Freeze, or Tammy, a classmate next door who came over to borrow some bread but got no answer? Fortunately for her, Speck didn’t hear her knocking.”
“Okay, I suppose they are, but Carly—”
I interrupt, on a roll now thinking about Speck’s victims, not wanting to stop, wanting to say more. He lets me. “Then there’s the cops who went into that townhouse the next morning looking for bodies. And the poor, dumb kid who tried to deliver a pizza to the wrong address while Speck busied himself upstairs tying everybody up. And what about the housemother who didn’t walk over to check on the students that night, along with the forever guilty boyfriends who waited outside the townhouse to make sure their dates got inside the townhouse safely? That one always got me. What kind of sick irony was that? They have to live with their deadly mistake their whole lives.”
I play with my glass, holding it up to the light, watching the amber liquid swirl around. Mike doesn’t speak. It’s as if he knows I have more to say. “We’re all Speck’s victims in our own way, you know. Everybody who knew the nurses personally or knew of them. Everybody who knew Speck or spoke to him or served him a meal or a drink or offered him a job that didn’t come through. His brother-in-law who dropped him off in front of Union Hall, less than a block away from the townhouse. His sister who threw him out of her house. His mother, his ex-wife and his innocent daughter who has a notorious monster for a father. The staff at Chicago Community Hospital who decided to board some of the student nurses in townhouses a mile away. And Sherry Finnigan, who was kicked out of that townhouse in March for her bad behavior. Another girl took her place. Don’t you think she thinks about that irony every day? Every night? I guess you don’t get it, do you? Once a Richard Speck arrives in our world there’s no getting him out. Not until he’s dead or we are. We’re all his victims. Even you.”
“Fine,” he says, slamming his glass down on the table, milk splashing out. “Just fine. Give me a speech to make me feel like a fool. Like I’m some sort of dim-witted jerk. So everyone’s a victim, but life goes on. Wasn’t there a nurse who got away? Isn’t she a practicing nurse somewhere going on with her life? Raising a couple kids? Going to PTA meetings? Living? Breathing? You don’t see her in there trying to interview the son of a bitch, trying to get some sort of statement. Let it go, Carly. Nothing good can come of this. What do you expect? An apology?”
“Why not? I don’t know. Some answers, maybe.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me about those three days Speck was in your neighborhood? The reason why you’re so obsessed? You provide him with their address or what?”
I stop to look at Mike. Allegations shoot out of his mouth like spit, not thinking before he speaks.
“Yeah, I sold it to him for a few extra bucks for Beatles concert tickets.”
Mike hesitates. Looks down at the table for a moment then says, “Carly, I just don’t get you. I don’t get why you want to do this. What guilt is driving you? So many things can go wrong. Please don’t do this.”
“I have to, Mike. I think I need to. I don’t know. I’m all mixed up. I was a kid. A scared kid, but a cop’s kid who should have known better.” I take a sip of my drink. Don’t want to talk about it anymore but Mike keeps pressing.
“Known better about what? Because you’re dad was a cop you should’ve picked up all his years of training just by living in the same house?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“That absolute bullshit. And what makes you think I’d let you do this even if we do get back in?”
“Like you could stop me?”
“I could try.”
“Not in your lifetime.”
Mike sits back and looks around the room recognizing some of the people with a nod or a smile. I can tell he’s trying to maintain, trying to get control of his anger, but his hands are restless and his eyes are moist. Mike doesn’t like to get upset. He was taught to hide his anger. Always put on a smile.
I watch him in silence as he struggles with his emotions. I want to reach out to him. Tell him he’s right. Rest my head on his shoulder and the two of us walk out of here. Together. Arm in arm. Let this moment of torment pass. Forget it ever happened. Go back to the motel and make love. Drive away in the morning and never look back.
Just as I reach across the table for him, the bar phone rings loud and clear, like some bullhorn in a crowd, putting a halt to any and all activity. Even the music dies down. I stiffen and wait for an announcement.
Bud answers. He listens, nodding his head, saying yes a couple times. We wait, watching Bud’s face. He says something I can’t make out and hangs up. Then he yells, “That was my wife. She wants me to bring home a carton of milk.” Everyone groans and boos. Bud laughs, holding out his hands as if to calm everybody. “Just kidding you guys. That was the warden. You’re back in.” The whole place goes up with a loud cheer. High-fives all over the room. Even the bikers cheer. The music starts up again. Various crew members come up to our booth to share their enthusiasm. I smile and make some inane comment. Mike does the same.
Then, we stare at each other, each aware of what this decision means, how it will affect our lives. I hold up my glass to make a toast. “To the warden. A brilliant man who just locked in our destiny.”
Mike stands, holding his glass. “To our future. Whatever it might be.”
I smile at him, but he doesn’t return the gesture. Instead, he calmly puts his glass down on the table and walks out.
Eighteen
July 13, 1966
About two a.m. or so I woke up because of the thunder and went downstairs to go to the bathroom. I hated lightning and thunder, but I had to pee worse than I was afraid. Sharon’s house had only one bathroom, right next to the kitchen, just past her parents’ room. If I woke them up for any reason, it would mean the end of us sleeping over for the rest of the summer. Her mother punished us in seasons. I guess it was easier for her to keep track that way. Last year we missed most of fall and all of winter because Lisa tripped and caught the end of the tablecloth on the dining room table. She brought down the expensive crystal centerpiece. That counted for two seasons of no sleep-overs. The centerpiece was brand new.
I tiptoed through the house careful not to make any noise, mindful of where I was stepping. With the Beatles concert less than a month away, I couldn’t afford any seasonal punishments for Sharon. There was no telling what her mother would withhold.
I reached the bathroom just as a bolt of lightning lit up the sky. It gave me a shiver as I hurried into the tiny room that always smelled of Jergens lotion. I closed the door tight behind me. The frosted window, right above the blue toilet, a few steps in front of me was open just enough so I could see Pauline’s boarding house next door and our tent out in the yard. I went over to close the window, not wanting anyone t
o see me pee, when a second wave of lightning lit up the world. There was a man standing next to Pauline’s basement window staring over at me. Fear zapped my nerve endings and I squealed as I jumped back, knocking over whatever was perched on the blue sink right next to me. It landed on the floor with a thud. I waited, pressed up against the sink, listening to my heart pounding in my ears, afraid that Sharon’s mother would come banging on the door at any minute, or that the man would come right up to my window, stick his hand inside and pull me out. I didn’t know which would be worse. I waited some more.
Nothing happened.
Slowly, I bent over a little to peek out of the window. The man was still out there but with his back to me. He was stooped over in front of one of Pauline’s basement windows, pulling at the corner of an old screen. The rain had died down a little as I watched him. All sorts of evil deeds rushed around in my head. Was he trying to break in through the windows? Maybe kill Pauline and Bobi or one of the boarders? Maybe I should wake up Sharon’s parents. Call my dad, or just scream at the man to get out of there.
I didn’t know what to do, what to think. My dad would have gone after him with a gun and called me a hero for waking him up and saving poor Pauline. I thought about quietly calling the police, but by the time they arrived with sirens blaring the man would be gone and Sharon’s mother would absolutely, positively keep Sharon grounded until Christmas. No Beatles concert for Sharon or for me for that matter. How could I go without Sharon when I caused her punishment? I wouldn’t be able to live another moment. I wished that he would just go away.
Then, he looked over his shoulder. I got a clear look at his face. He wasn’t just any man. He was our sailor, Wolf Dietrich!
I put the toilet lid down so I could kneel on it, feet dangling over the seat, to get a better look out the window.
Wolf kept pushing on Pauline’s basement windows. There were about five windows in all. He pulled out what looked like a pocket knife, flipped the long blade out then dug around the window, removed the screen and leaned it up against the wall.