Pacheco did his own time and stayed clear of trouble. Whether Gillispie knew it or not, he was the ideal cellmate for Jared. "Hi," he said in a soft, friendly tone as Jared was led into the cell.
Jared mumbled and stood uncertainly. Pacheco decided the odd looking fish needed a little encouragement. "Take the top bunk, it's yours."
Still nothing.
"My name's Ralph."
Silence.
Pacheco shrugged. It's his funeral, he thought, returning to Sports Illustrated.
"Jared. My name's Jared."
Pacheco looked up. "What you down for?"
“Huh?" Jared looked confused.
"What did they send you to prison for?” he repeated. Jared giggled obscenely then snickered his face twitching. Oh Jesus, Pacheco thought, they put a crazy in with me.
Jared climbed awkwardly onto his bunk and shortly Pacheco heard him masturbate. He decided to put in for a new cellmate the following morning.
~
An unprecedented calm, had come upon the marriage of Viola and Herbert. Viola had survived her unfortunate marriage by holding dear her fundamental essence – her character and pride. Over the years Herbert had brutally possessed her body, still lashed at her verbally and sought, often successfully, to embarrass her but he never touched her inner self, that insulated part of her which was, to Viola at least, the true her.
Herbert on the other hand was a thug, an insecure brute, a little boy who enjoyed torturing frogs, a tasteless bore who laughed at the slightest error, cruelly teased any mistake and sought to deny his fundamental powerlessness through harsh tyranny. He had always been as predictable as the day, so much so that Viola often chanted inwardly with him as he mouthed his repetitious obscenities and vulgarisms. But what had been was now gone, perished with the humiliation of looming bankruptcy and the conviction of Jared.
Herbert rarely left home anymore. He sat naked, or in dirty clothes, within darkened rooms, day after day. He ate incessantly and had swelled into a tight balloon. Occasionally he threw a nasty comment towards Viola but let her reply pass, unanswered, like a punch drunk boxer who still had the moves but could not go the distance.
Viola was convinced he was going out of his mind. Her only fear was that he might decide to take her with him in some drunken murder-suicide.
While Herbert hid, Viola played the social gadfly. Her mocking laughter at the country club and derisive comments had established her as more than a shadow to an obnoxious bore. The former opinion of her as a “trust baby” lacking in substance had been no more accurate than the new one of her as a liberated, self-fulfilled woman of independence.
Viola had never been either. She was nothing more – or less – than she had been at the death of her father. Viola was stilted at a giggly thirteen, easily cowered by real adults and in essence still an undeveloped child.
In the empty house Herbert knew that the game was up. His stack of cards had come tumbling down. The business was bankrupt, beyond his control. His home, once so proudly wholly owned, was now mortgaged fully. The banks were talking about all of their missing assets and making nasty noises about prosecution.
It was over.
Phoenix was dead to him, his life there destroyed. For a month or more he had run down the options and the bottom line was always the same. But Herbert hadn't the selfish courage for suicide. One needed a target in a suicide, someone who would be hurt at your loss. Herbert could think of no one, no one who needed him or cared enough about him to be punished by his death.
That left a single alternative, nearly as loathsome as the first. With trembling fingers so slippery from perspiration he had to start dialing twice Herbert called his brother, Howard, to beg if need be for a job. He whimpered as he listened to the phone ring in the distance and fought back hot spasms of tears.
~
Alexander Burgoyne staggered from bed that Saturday and fell harshly on his hip. After a time he made it to poolside and poured himself a tall one. Pricilla, a buxom whore who came highly recommended, padded barefoot and naked out to the pool and laid a brief hand on his shoulder.
“That’s O.K., sugar. You prob’ly jus’ had too much to drink, that’s all.”
Burgoyne grunted but knew better. He was having more and more trouble getting it up. The whore drove into the clear, bright water. Burgoyne drained the drink and made a refill.
~
Springman labored over his bathroom plumbing cursing the contractor who sealed the water pipes in solid concrete walls. A four thousand dollar estimate to repair one leaky faucet had persuaded him to purchase tools and tackle the job himself. By noon he was convinced. Let the damn thing leak.
~
Rachel smiled brightly at Killian as he brought the patties onto the sunny balcony. Since resigning from the police department she had become a new person. The dark, moody side of her was gone replaced by a cheerful disposition that had taken the detective a few days of adjusting.
"Medium?" she asked.
"That's fine. Beer?"
"Uh huh." Killian handed her a bottle of Coors. He stood just watching her until she asked what he was doing. Smiling he went back inside and got out of the way.
Later, over hamburgers, potato chips and beer Rachel asked about Bud Everhart. "So did anything come of that girl's call?"
"What do you think?"
"I don't know," she said shrugging. "Statutory rape isn't enforced much and not usually with a girl who's been around like she has."
Killian swallowed. "I took her to the narcs, Ross in fact. With her statement they got a search warrant and took a look at Bud's place. They seized a bunch of pills, grass, P.C.P. and acid. Ross took Chris' statement about living with Bud these last several months and the County Attorney is going to file
various drug charges and the stat rape on him. I called city licensing and once he's convicted his license to operate gets lifted. He might go to prison but regardless he'll get a felony conviction and maybe some jail time."
"So what's the point? He didn't kill the girl."
"No, but he put her there. He's guilty somehow, someway. It wouldn't have been right if he had just walked away from all of this."
The dark cloud returned. Rachel said, "I'm really glad I quit. I don't think I could bear playing God anymore."
~
Night in prison was never quiet. The six hundred men in CB Two were particularly noisy. This was the worst lot. The generally unmanageable inmates not wanted or deserving of anywhere else.
Saturday night was always most difficult in prison, a remainder of former, freer days when men went out on the town or stayed home with family. It was also the day before the busiest visiting day of the week and those expecting or hoping for someone would worry and stew into the darkness. The one single unremitting law of all men imprisoned was that the longer they stayed, the less often loved ones wrote or came. No one thought it would happen to him but it always happened to everyone.
That Saturday night was typical. A rattle of metal against metal, soft laughter, an occasional angry shout, sometimes a man crying, a single exclaim of pain, gentle whispers, a few endearments, friends talking between cells.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Sunday morning. CB Two.
The basement was an extensive barracks; men, mostly Black, crowded together. Clothes, dirty or drying, hung everywhere. Radios and televisions were tuned to different stations creating a distracting ménage of sound. No one slept late down below, though many tried.
Sunday. A day of rest for men who rested every day. Above, within the concrete walls, the atmosphere was less boisterous, quieter and many slept through breakfast. Those anticipating visits were up early, into the showers if a deal could be worked. Regardless, they dressed in their best; cologned, scrubbed and clean, all to look and smell as good and human as possible for family – friends having long since ceased coming.
What dignity survived could be easily destroyed during visitation.
Luft was a
late sleeper. His curly headed now docile cellmate snored above him. Luft crawled from bed, eyes scanning the old familiar scene of iron cages and fluttering pigeons. He had worked a deal Saturday and four of his gang were all to be released onto the main floor at the same time, ostensibly to shower, but in fact to trade or use dope and exchange news and to reinforce their group power. With nothing else going, it was at least something to look forward to.
At ten-thirty the floor guard started releasing inmates to march single file for chow. Luft's turn came at eleven-fifteen. He moved along squinting into the bright, clear May desert sky, his eyes only beginning to adjust as he entered the cafeteria.
Like all prisons this one used its inmates as cooks. The inevitable result was nearly inedible food. Prison employees always ate without the walls in the Outside Trustee cafeteria.
Luft entered the crowded dining area. He recognized many faces, some friendly, most not. Crazy Eddie sat at a front row table carefully stacking, restacking and counting fifteen slices of bread. Crazy Eddie was a fixture at the prison, a grim presence.
Luft spotted Beaner ahead of him giving directions to a flabby adolescent with old fashioned thick lenses.
"Who's he?" he asked one of his cohorts.
"With Beaner?" Luft nodded. "That's Pratt. The guy who cut up the girl."
Luft took a closer look at the fish. In his way Luft was a thoroughly unappealing person yet he considered himself morally superior to the likes of Pratt. He wanted to be certain he recognized him again.
~
Willie Half Mouth sat alone even at a crowded lunch table. No one spoke to him or accidently touched him. He took offense easily. Willie Half Mouth ate slowly, attentively. Jared took his plate and ignored Pacheco's direction as to where to sit, heading instead for an empty seat – beside Willie.
"Not there!" Pacheco said. "Over here."
Jared ignored him. Nobody was telling him what to do – not anymore. Willie ignored the whitey. He was nothing to him. Pacheco shook his head in disbelieve and joined friends far away, wanting no part of trouble.
They ate silently. Jared bumped Willie with his elbow several times. The quiet man said nothing though the table became strangely silent.
One brazen youngster, a weight lifter said to Jared, "You the animal who cut up that girl?"
He had to repeat it twice before Jared heard him. Jared looked up and snickered.
Willie heard the exchange and eyed the whitey through veiled eyes. He knew nothing of the Pratt’s case but he had no use for dudes who cut up chicks. Just then Jared rose to go, brushing Willie as he did. Another con passed behind him and Jared struck his tray as he rose. The tray landed on Willie.
The inmate who's tray had committed the transgression drained white and a sudden silence filled the room, spreading quickly even to the edges. Absolutely no one laughed.
"I'm sorry, Willie. Really, I didn't do it. It was him."
The man stammered never more frightened in his life. Jared kept moving, ignoring the accident for it had been nothing to him. Willie's black eyes rested on the whit's receding back. "Go get your food, man," he said to the frightened con dismissing him before cleaning up. A guard arrived and asked what the trouble was.
"No trouble, sir. Not here. No, sir," Willie jived, a smile on his lips. The guard belatedly realized to whom he spoke and moved on.
~
Showers ran all day on Sunday. Rules were lax and congregations of cons were permitted at ground level, for showers and haircuts. Television sets were tuned to baseball or old movies.
Jared left his cell for his shower at two-fifty one.
Luft and four gang members milled about the shower stall, one man keeping an eye on the floor guard. Luft lifted the heroin to his nostril and snorted. Tension eased from his body, shortly replaced by an opiate euphoria that faded all too soon.
"Ah, nice shit," he exclaimed, leaning back against the mildewed cement wall. Rene, a bald headed muscle bound hulk, took his turn with the narcotic, Dave urged Rene to hurry while Lennie kept an eye on the guard and would go last.
Jared walked around the corner catching Rene in the act of snorting. He stared a second then moved on.
"Hey, where'd he come from?" Rene whispered, the white paper to his nostril.
"A fish," Luft commented. Then glancing at Jared's now towel covered buttocks repeated, "A fish."
Dave said, "Ain't he the queer who kidnapped the cop and never even fucked her?"
"Yeah." It was Luft. "He snatched that flower girl and cut her all up."
Jared had heard none of this. He dropped his towel and exposed pale whiteness to the gang.
"Nice ass," Dave muttered.
Luft agreed. Then, "Let's get a cherry." Lennie smirked and kept his eye glued to the solitary guard.
Rene took Jared from behind, a powerful hand to his mouth. Dave maliciously smashed the glasses.
Two Black inmates witnessed the assault but held their silence. It was none of their affair. They moved on. Most of two tiers had a clear, though distant, view of the shower. Unless the assault were witnessed by a guard no one would call attention to it or speak to authorities of it later.
Dave grabbed Jared's feet from behind and the new arrival crashed to the slimy shower floor.
"I go first," Luft ordered exposing his erection. He lay upon the squirming Jared and forced his cock into the man's tightly held rectum.
A sudden shooting pain filled Jared at the violation by Luft. Rene and Dave held him fast. Luft finished quickly and was replaced at once by Rene who took his pleasure, brutally and quickly. Dave had a slow thirds then while Luft replaced Lennie as look out, Lennie got his.
Jared was helpless, enraged, frightened, in pain.
"Seconds anyone?" Lennie asked getting to his feet. Rene nodded and sodomized the hapless Jared a second time. The rest passed.
Rene finished, pulled Jared up and proceeded to beat him as Lennie held the inmate silent. Within ten minutes the sexual assault and brutal beating were complete and Jared lay bleeding face down in the shower. The gang moved on. Jared was their fourth fish in the past three months.
Willie Half Mouth had been out of his cell, ostensibly for a haircut but in fact to even a score. When he saw Luft's gang pull Jared down he went to Ernie's cell and put his hand through the bars. Ernie who held Willie's weapons for him quietly slipped him a knife, not some improvised blade shaped from a spoon but a fine steel hunting knife.
Willie was at hand when Rene finished pommeling Jared's body and he watched the gang move off.
Willie crossed over to Jared. "Wake up, whitey!" he whispered hoarsely. Jared groaned. "Remember me?"
Jared opened an eye and started to say something, perhaps complain or ask help but he never uttered a word for Willie Half Mouth slashed across the man's throat with his blade, a clean practiced motion, a straight line from right earlobe to left.
Crimson blood spurt from exposed arteries, Jared's eyes grew in fear and disbelieve and humid, heated breath rushed from his lungs through the severed windpipe, gurgling when it came in contact with the blood, followed by a racking cough as the fluid was sucked into the lungs but a cough like no other for it bypassed the larynx.
Willie Half Mouth heard none of it. He had already returned the blade and went to have his hair cut.
Jared Pratt lay in his cooling blood on the shower f1oor – violated and murdered.
~
Robert Killian heard the news at six-thirty that Sunday evening as Rachel lay napping in their bed. He turned off the radio, his mind devoid of thought and went to the balcony. He stood without seeing the city lights for a long time then as darkness descended in totality, he went back into the bedroom and lay beside Rachel until, at last, he slept.
Thank you for reading The Flower Girl. If you enjoyed it, please tell your friends and take a moment to post a positive review. Be certain to consider the author’s other thrillers. Thanks again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ro
nald J. Watkins was born in Phoenix, Arizona where he lived most of his life. He is the author of more than 30 books. He now lives in South America. You may visit him at www.RonaldJWatkins.com.
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