"I want you to do something for me Cassie. I want you to write a list of everything that's been taken from you. And I want you to write on that list who it was. If you don't know their names then find some way of describing them to me. I'll get you back your stuff.
And nobody is going to bother you in here again, I can promise you that."
Candy lay on her bed with her eyes fixed onto the evening news.
The main story was the sudden halt to the murders of young woman that had been occurring in Calm Bay. Candy watched with some amusement as the news reader, in a roundabout way, suggested that the arrest and capture of Candy James s and the ceasing of the killings were perhaps too coincidental to overlook. However, there had been no DNA at the murder scene linking Candy to that particular murder victim, in fact to the police's fury there had been no DNA at all linking anyone to the murder scene. Candy was about to switch off the television when there was a timid knock at the door.
"Come in."
The door handle rattled and Candy realised it was locked from the inside. She leaped of the bed and quickly turned the knob type lock.
At the door stood Cassie, a note book in hand and a scared look in her eyes.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Come in," said Candy.
"You have a lock on your door?" asked Cassie incredulously.
"They kinda made a fuck up when I arrived here. It was either that a lawsuit which they were bound to lose. I guess I could have made a mint but it wasn't going to do me much good whilst in here so I took the best offer available. The guards have keys though. It's just the patients who don't."
Cassie surveyed the television and the games console with interest. "Must have been one hell of a mess up for them to get you all this stuff."
"Shock therapy without the anaesthetic. Hurt like hell. But guess it was worth it though."
"Aren't you worried though? About long term damage?"
"The damage already been done hun, just so happens I felt it happening. Did you bring me what I asked for?"
Candy could already see the note book wavering slightly in Cassie's shaking hand but she thought it the best way to broach the subject at hand.
"Yes. It's all in there. Each woman and what they took. But they said I'd be called a snitch and then I'd be dead for sure."
"Won't be you dead, Cassie. You can be sure about that. Not sure I can say the same about the people on this list though. Why don't you lie down on my bed and lock the door. You can watch television or play the computer games. Help yourself to cigarettes, don't worry about being caught smoking in this room, nobody comes to check. Just make yourself at home. I won't be long."
Candy heard Cassie lock the door and the muted blare of the television being switched on as she set out across the main room. There were only three names in the booklet and she had already guessed at heart, or more in her thought-voice who the perpetrators were. There they were all sitting around the television area, clear as day, each of their names printed in the book, as clear as the blue ink that Cassie had used.
The biggest and Candy supposed the leader of the three was a fat black woman called Georgia. There was always an off cheesy smell that radiated from Georgia, and Candy wondered, not for the first time, if the woman ever washed.
The second woman was a small, thin mousy looking woman who was Candy supposed Georgia's bitch. She had a high nervous laugh and used it every time Georgia said something that was supposed to be humorous. Her name was Gemma Jones, not just Gemma, always with the Jones on the end as if all the women in here were Gemma's and she did not want to be mistaken.
The third of the three was a butch muscle-bound skin head called Nails. Candy did not think this was her birth name.
She also figured that Nails was a dyke and had something going on with Georgia. Maybe they use the little one from time to time as the gimp. Candy laughed at the thought. This alerted the women to her presence, and they eyed her warily. They had tried to get Candy to part with her cigarettes and also her games console the second day she had been in the institution.
Candy had made it clear that in no uncertain terms that she would happily cut off the mousy fuckers arm and fist all three of them with it if they tried to take a single cigarette from her packet.
After that they had left her alone.
Now as she approached they all turned their heads to fully take in her presence.
"The new girl. She's out of bounds."
"Why does she need protection? The girl scared?"
"She sits happily enough with me. That golden Amulet. Hand it over. It doesn't belong to you."
The mousy shaped woman sulkily handed over the bracelet.
Candy turned to Nails. “And I'm guessing that you don't normally wear a diamond Rolex?”
“If you want this watch you're going to have to take it,” replied the butch woman, hauling herself to her feet by the wooden arms of the chair.
Candy's right arm shot out and a purple and pink blur shot out, colliding with Nails face.
It flew out again, and this time blood flew in the opposite direction. Candy bent down and undid the wrist watch, then smashed the colourful sock weighted down with heavy batteries into the bloody pulp of Nails' face once more for good measure. She smiled at her work. Turned to face Georgia, who now proffered an expensive sapphire and white gold necklace and two rings, one plain silver, the other adorned with diamonds and rubies, in her black sweaty palm.
The sight of rubies made her wince, yet she scooped up the jewellery and gave it a once over.
Whistled under her breath.
Why didn't the nurses take this into protective custody, I wonder? Maybe thought they'd teach the posh girl a lesson after she went at them with the chair leg?
She turned towards Georgia again. Knew she couldn't hit the nurses... well, not yet at any road.
Candy decided to leave it at that.
For once she wasn't in a violent mood.
Over the next few days Candy found herself opening up to Cassie who turned out to be a good listener. She seemed to be constantly happy, and Candy wondered how much of this was Cassie's mood and how much was to be attributed to the drugs they were giving her.
Candy leaned towards the mood as the other women in the place hardly if ever cracked smiles. Finally after the third day she managed to get Cassie to tell her the story of how she ended up in the institution.
"They found me with the knife in my hand. I had walked into the kitchen and found my boyfriend murdered and I picked up the weapon and they found out I was Bi-Polar and ended up here. No trial, no lawyer, just presumed guilty."
Candy studied her face intently and wondered why Cassie showed so little appropriate emotion when talking about her murdered boyfriend.
She was about to ask when Cassie answered the question for her. "I loved Mark, there is no denying that, but I think he's in a better place and I'll see him again. Maybe people call it bullshit, but I have faith and I like to remember him as the happy person he was, and feel happy that any suffering he was going through personally has ended. He was Bi-Polar too you see and his depressions would last months on end. For much of the time he barely had a life."
Candy fixed Cassie with a level stare; things had suddenly made sense. "So is that why you killed him? To end his suffering?"
Cassie studied Candy for a moment, then smiled. "Yes. But shall we keep it out little secret, yes? Just between you and me?"
Candy nodded. Cassie hadn't asked how Candy had known.
Yet it was Candy's thought-voice that had given her the answer.
Candy wondered what other answers it held.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WANDA GOES BACK TO WORK
It had been a hellish week for Wanda.
Over and over again she had taken the revolver out of the drawer and placed it against her forehead. Once she had even stuck it in her mouth. Yet she had not pulled the trigger. She had taken a week's sick leave, she figured it would take at least that lo
ng to find out where the hell one went about scoring crack-cocaine and she had decided on the East Quarter of the city, where the prostitutes walked the street and there were black men to be found.
Wanda associated Crack with black men. They were always being arrested for drug dealing on the cop shows. And now it was on the day before she had to go back to work that she had finally plucked up the courage to take the trip down to the East side. Wanda stepped out her front door and into her small red ford convertible and noticed her hands were shaking as she put the keys in the ignition.
Get a grip of yourself Wanda, if they see you're frightened they might murder you. . . or worse.
However, Wanda then remembered the four blue Valium she had taken from her stash in the house (Wanda took Valium home to help her cope when the memories of her husband came back. No one had noticed so far). She swallowed the four before thinking about something to help her swallow. A few seconds frantic searching had turned up an old bottle of mineral water, warm yet drinkable, and with that the pills slid down her throat with ease.
By the time she hit the East Quarter of town she was feeling decidedly calmer. Why the hell should she be scared of this? She dealt with psychopaths every day of the week and had a degree in human psychology. She drove down Break-heaven street and noticed beneath the stirring street lamps the streetwalkers touting their wares. She did not however see any black men. After her second tour of the street, she decided to pull over to the pavement and beside one of the women and ask – what she was not sure – but ask something. As her car pulled to the side of the road Wanda wound down her window and sure enough the hooker approached. The woman was wearing a tight red dress that stopped halfway up her ass and not much more except a pair of heels.
The hooker leaned in the window, the scent of a perfume that Wanda could not quite place trailing after her. "What can I do for you gorgeous? You want some lady to lady time?"
Wanda stammered. "No thank you, I need to buy. . . would you know where I could but some crack?"
The hooker laughed. "You ain't a cop are you?"
"No, I'm. . . Jesus, no I'm not a cop. I just need to get some crack."
The hooker studied her face intently. "You don't look like you smoke the rock. But I can help ya'. But It's gonna cost."
"How much?" Wanda asked fearfully.
She had brought $150 hoping this would be enough.
"Fifty bucks, then I'll take you to the man."
"Fifty. Okay."
The hooker walked around to the passenger side of the door and found it unlocked and so climbed in. Wanda handed her the fifty. "Where to now?"
"Now we're going to the guy. His name is Sammy but don't call him that to his face, not unless he introduces himself. I don't want him to think I been telling tales. It's just so if there is more than Sammy in the room, you don't walk up to his punters and start talking to them instead. If that the case you ask for Sammy. How much you got to spend on the rock?"
"After your fifty, I got a hundred."
"Girl, that's plenty then. Two fifty rocks and you'll be sailing to the moon. You got a pipe?"
Wanda shook her head.
"I'll ask Sammy to give you one of those too, but only if you plan to be seeing him again?"
Wanda knew the answer to that and nodded her head. She started the car, and found the diazepam simultaneously kicking into gear and she felt herself relax. She listened to the hooker’s directions, then found herself interrupting. "You never told me your name."
"Oh that. My name's Wanda."
"Fancy that," said Wanda the clinical psychology nurse. "So's mine."
The hooker with the shared name told Wanda to stop outside a downtrodden brownstone. Wanda had expected somewhere abandoned, yet despite it's downbeat appearance she got a sense of some vague organic happenings, occurring somewhere amidst the crackled stone and boarded up glass.
The two Wanda's climbed out the car and made their way up the stone steps to the door. The other Wanda pushed the buzzer first three times then five and after a moment a surprisingly soft not quite effeminate voice answered.
"Who be calling?"
"It's Wanda. I got a girl here with me who got a hundred and want to spend it all."
"She safe?"
"You bet. Wouldn't bring her otherwise."
The door suddenly erupted to life with a stale buzzing and Wanda the hooker pushed against the heavy wood and pulled the nurse Wanda inside with her. The smell was not what the institution worker was expecting. The stairway smelled clean, slightly of lavender, despite the fact that most of the doors were boarded up, empty tombs for the ghosts of people past.
Wanda the hooker led the other Wanda by the hand up the stairs until they came to a white door which on closer inspection had a hatch of some kind which would be opened from the inside. The hooker knocked once on the door and the hatch pulled back, revealing a mesh of wire metal and a large black face behind it.
I was at least right about that part, thought the psychologist.
"Show me the money," The black face spoke, his teeth perfect, maybe the whitest Wanda had ever seen.
She immediately reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out the two fifty dollar notes. The man smiled and the door was unlocked, allowing entry to the two Women.
"So you want two fifty rocks, right?"
The other Wanda, the hooker interjected. "That's right. And I want one fifty for myself. And she needs a pipe to smoke it with."
Sammy nodded as if this all made perfect sense to him. "She want to smoke it here?"
Sammy and the hooker both turned to face Wanda.
"No thank you, this is for a friend who couldn't get it for herself this time so asked me to instead."
Sammy nodded. "Will I be seeing you again, here, for some more rock?"
Wanda nodded. "I very much think so."
The Black man held out his hand. Wanda found it sweaty to the touch but shook it none the less. "Then my name is Sammy and you press my buzzer three then five times to let me know you there and not just pushing buttons for the hell of it like the neighbourhood kids do. The buzzer is the second from the bottom." With his other hand he reached out with a small bag containing two smallish off-white nuggets, both wrapped in polythene. "What's your name?"
"My name is Wanda."
"Just like the fuck merchant here. But you aren't no fuck merchant, are you Wanda?"
"No. I'm a nurse. I work at the hospital. I deal with... unusual patients."
She had been about to say “Psychopathic murderers” but had stopped herself, not wanting to give too much off her identity away.
"Fun work for a lady, I'm sure. I do Hashish, crystal and smack too, it your “friend” is ever interested. Well, I'll be seeing you again, Nurse Wanda. I gotta deal with the fuck merchant here. I'm sure you can find your own way out."
Wanda smiled weakly and silently thanked some higher power that it had all gone smoothly. She unlocked the door and pulled it shut behind her then walked the three flights back down to the main door which she closed again behind her then shut her car door which closed with a slam.
She had done it. She was now a drug felon. She looked at the pipe in her right hand, a glass affair and could not for the life of her remember it being put there. She put all the drug stuff in her glove box and set off for home. She had at least sixty blue Valium in the house and intended to take as many as it took for her to enjoy her evening meal and whatever bullshit was on television tonight.
Tomorrow she was back at work.
The very next day sunlight filtered through the window and made a grab for Wanda's eyes which she opened tentatively, then fully. She sat up without deliberation and pulled the cover off her and stepped out of the bedroom and into the bathroom where she turned the shower onto full blast and stepped under, urinating into the heated water which rained down upon her and soon she was soaped up and scrubbing away and singing.
Finally, she was to return to work. And she had that bitch's
crack.
She dressed in her uniform, which was admittedly casual; she was after all one of the leading clinical psychologists in the institution.
She remembered calling herself a nurse to the dealer, Sammy. He probably thinks you work in A&E, Wanda thought to herself happily. She had not intended to give her identity away and knew that Sammy would not put nursing and the institution together. She ate three Valium for breakfast along with toast and tea and orange juice straight from the carton.
Then she walked the twenty or so paces to her car and set the gear in drive and started the ignition.
She drove through the gates at a casual twenty and waved hello to old Mike the security guard with her I.D clutched between her thumb and forefinger and parked in the psychologist’s part of the car park. Using her keys she entered firstly the hospital then walked the corridors until she found her ward. As she opened the ward door she saw all the staff was busy yet they all gave small smiles, glad to see her return. She smiled back and made straight for Candy's room.
Candy and Cassie lay naked on the bed together, stroking each other’s breasts. Cassie gave fright and stopped at the sight of the nurse.
"It's okay Cassie, this is Wanda. She'll only be here a minute. Did you bring what I asked?"
"I got it for you. A hundred dollars worth. I thought that might keep you going for a while."
"It'll certainly make this afternoon seem brighter. Where is it Wanda? We want it now."
Wanda held out a purple cloth purse. "Everything you need is right here. I've kept my end of the bargain. Is this the end of it?"
"When either you or I leave here it ends Wanda. Up to you how much you want to piss me off."
"What about her, the woman with you? Can she be trusted?"
"She already is, Wanda. Just up to you now. Thanks for this. Have a good day back. I won't bother you all day and if any patients make your life a misery let me know and I'll make them stop."
Psycho Candy Page 17