I nodded. “Number?”
“It’s in the envelope along with the check.”
“Gee, thanks. Now I have goosebumps.”
“You don’t really mean that.”
“Spoken like a true politician.”
Even he had to laugh at that one. He turned and exited the door, followed by the two goons.
I sat back down, tossed the envelope aside, grabbed up my sandwich with both hands.
Hell knoweth no fury like a starving gumshoe.
My sandwich was now a bitter sweet memory. Sweet because it tasted great. Bitter because it was all gone. I cleaned up the mess and tossed the trash into the metal waste can under my desk. My hands were greasy. So I made my way out of the old former 1920s and ’30s downtown Albany, Sherman Street garment factory office, down the narrow corridor to the washroom. Opening both the hot and cold spigots on the old white porcelain sink, I took a good look at myself in the mirror. At the somewhat rounded face that supported a salt and pepper goatee that matched closely the head of cropped hair that didn’t seem to be receding as fast as I once thought. For ages I contemplated pulling out the razor, going Bruce-Willis-bad-ass on my scalp, but then thought better of it since I’d probably end up looking like a cue ball with whiskers.
I still had hair after all. So why not flaunt it?
I looked into my brown eyes. Eyes that were still bright. Still optimistic. A far cry from what they once were back when I was the warden at Green Haven, and my life was turned upside down, not only by the hit-and-run that killed my wife, Fran, but also by the escape of a cop killer right out from under my nose. The then acting Commissioner of Corrections laid the blame squarely on my size forty four shoulders, which meant one of two things. I could either face prison time myself inside my own joint…a situation which, when translated, meant a sure death sentence. Or, I could go after the killer on my own, bring him back in on my own terms rather than risk him getting away for good.
A splash of cold water on my face.
It came back to me then. The desperate feeling of knowing a cop killer has just walked out the front door of your prison, so to speak. I knew exactly how the warden of Dannemora felt right now. How desperate he must be. If he’d been experiencing night sweats and tremors over the past two nights. I wondered if he’d slept at all, or if he spent most of his time pacing the floors, questioning himself, wondering precisely where he went wrong. I wondered how many phone calls he’d already ignored from the commissioner. From Governor Valente. Phone calls from state police, the federal marshals, the FBI, from Sheriff Hylton. Phone calls from the news, both local and national.
I wondered how much he was drinking. Smoking. Drugging. Trying to douse the pain that burned like a flame inside his belly.
Most of all, I wondered how badly he wanted to run away.
Pulling a handful of paper towels from the dispenser, I dried my face and discarded the used towels into the trash receptacle. On my way out of the bathroom, I once more caught my eyes staring back at me in the mirror. I stopped and gazed into them. But something else also drew my attention. The paper towel I’d just discarded. I could see it in the mirror, resting atop the rim of the wall-mounted dispenser. The wet, crumpled paper resembled a face. Or, not a face necessarily, but a profile. It was a strange if not eerie play of light and shadow miraculously distributed onto the paper towel to create a 3D face. In the mirror, I could make out the eyes, the long nose, the lips, and a chin that might have been covered with a beard. It was a white face. A white face that reminded me of Christ.
I wanted to laugh. Because who the hell saw the face of Jesus in a used paper towel? The same kind of people who saw his face in a grilled cheese sandwich, I guessed. But then, it wasn’t very funny. Turning, I went to the dispenser and shoved the paper towel back down inside.
Turning back to the mirror, I once more caught my reflection.
“Sure you wanna take this job on?” my eyes said. “Sure you wanna open up all those old wounds? Maybe Paper Towel Jesus was trying to send you message, Keeper. Stay away from this one. It will cost you. Physically, emotionally.”
I exhaled, nodded.
“Oh Christ,” I said aloud inside the small ceramic tiled bathroom. “I’m not sure what to do.” I shook my head. “Yes, you do. You know exactly what to do. A couple killers are on the loose, and some innocent people might need your help, Jack. The warden of Dannemora Prison needs your help. The sheriff needs it too. The escape isn’t their fault, right?” I sighed. “Well, I guess we’ll see about that.”
“That settles it, then,” said the voice inside my brain. “What’s right is right until it’s not right anymore.”
I turned away from the mirror, faced the paper towel receptacle. I knew that Jesus was inside of it.
“There but for the grace of God I go,” I said. And then I walked out.
If I was going to go after the escaped killers, I would need a little more background info on the prison, the town of Dannemora, the warden, the whole Department of Corruptions ball of wax. That meant I could either spend the day researching on the internet or I could bring in the help of an expert. Someone who knew prisons as well as I did. But not from the point of view of a CO or a keeper like me, but from that of an inmate.
Blood.
He agreed to meet me down on North Pearl Street at a bar called McGeary’s, which was run by an affable and beautiful, long auburn-haired beauty named, Tess. Having managed a financial stake in several old Albany Bars, Tess was a highly regarded investor in Albany’s much coveted happy hours. She was also somewhat of a local legend, her tall, shapely body always clothed in a long velvet dress, silver jewelry jangling on both wrists, long necklaces dangling from her neck, the pendants resting on her more than ample chest. It was a shame in a way that she preferred the fairer sex to that of my own, but I considered it my loss and some nice girl’s gain.
She greeted me as soon as I came through the wood and glass door like she’d been expecting me the entire time. And with Blood already in the house, that might have been the case.
“You beautiful baby,” I said, as I took her in my arms, kissed her luscious wet lips.
“You’re right about that, Keeper Marconi,” she said, when I released her. “And I’m proud to own it.” She gave me a look, one eye open, the other closed. “Been a while since I’ve seen you.”
I patted my belly. “Been trying to curb the carbs.”
“Don’t tell me you’re switching to light beer. The world will never be the same.”
I cocked my head. “Never. But I have been drinking a little more red wine these days.”
“Fancy for a private dick. And Val approves of this move, no doubt.” A question.
The Val she spoke of was my long-time, brunette-haired on again/off again girlfriend and former Girl Friday from my days as warden. We’d nearly married once, but the ceremony ended before it began when my first wife’s killer showed up in Albany. But that’s another story for another time.
“Yes, Val approves.” I didn’t quite have the heart to tell her that Val and I weren’t speaking right now. But I diverted her attention from my schizophrenic relationship by making a scan of the long barroom. I said, “So, is he here?”
Usually, you could feel Blood’s presence without having to spot him. And today was no exception. Despite my inquiry, I could almost feel the big man’s aura, like you might feel a ghost that’s just passed through your skin, bone, and flesh.
Tess raised up her thumb, gestured over her shoulder.
“He’s got a cold one waiting for you, darling,” she said, making her way behind the antique bar. “No red wine for you today. Not in this joint.”
I negotiated my way through the humble collection of summertime day drinkers until I came to the end of the bar where Blood was seated up on a stool. At six feet plus, he looked like a stone statue that had been hewn out of dark marble. He towered over me, but he never made me feel small. That was the kind of gift he had. A
God given gift.
I sat down in the empty stool beside him, took hold of my Budweiser long-neck, stole a deep drink.
“That’s okay,” he said in his strong but almost monotone manner. “You don’t have to say hello.”
I set the bottle down and wiped the foam from my lips with the back of my hand.
“Question of priorities,” I said. “I can either drink or talk. Which would you choose?”
He had a vodka martini set in front of him. Two green olives impaled on a toothpick lounging inside the clear, slightly cloudy liquid. Shaken not stirred, just like that other renowned slick 007 man of action and international intrigue preferred.
“Sometimes I think you borderline racist,” he said, lifting his filled-to-the-brim glass slowly by the stem, not spilling a drop, taking a careful sip without making a sound. He set the glass back down and exhaled slowly. “Perfect. Tess knows her mixology.”
“That she does,” I said. “And I’m no racist. I’m sitting here with you right now, aren’t I?”
“You just sitting here because you look more attractive to the ladies when you near me.”
He had a point. Blood was a magnet for men who wanted to be him, and women who wanted to be with him. A former semi-pro Albany Metro Maulers football player and a former inmate at Green Haven Prison during my tenure, Blood was proof positive that a con could not only be reformed, but that once on the outside, could thrive. His crime, if you wanted to call it that, the one that put him away for seven to ten, involved the killing of a ruthless gangbanger who’d cut the throat of a teenaged girl he’d just raped inside a dark, damp back alley. If you were to ask Blood about it, which you most certainly should not, he would tell you he’d do it all over again.
Right is right, and wrong can be so dead wrong sometimes.
Nowadays, he presided like a king over most of upper Sherman Street where my home office was located, and even the cops asked his permission first before making a bust in that general vicinity. Today he was wearing his standard uniform of black jeans, boots, and black T-shirt which fit his sculpted muscles like a second skin. Blood was my gym rat partner not because it felt good being around him, but because he was something to physically aspire too.
His intellect was no slouch either. Having completed his undergraduate degree and earning an MA in English lit while in the can, he’d a brilliant source of information and an even more brilliant researcher. He was also good with a gun, and unlike today’s politicians and priests, he was physiologically incapable of telling a lie. It was quite possible that he was as close to perfection as God had come when he created man in his own image. And Blood knew it too.
“Glad you’re available,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at a small gathering of women, one of whom, a blonde, dressed in a dark blue mini skirt and matching jacket, had one blue eye locked on her stable of friends and another on Blood. I guessed it was possible she was looking at me, but if I were a betting man…
I cleared my throat. “Thought you might still be working as a research assistant for that writer, Reece Johnston,” I said. “What’s the title of his new book again? Everything Burns?”
“He finished with his new book. He’s taking time off.”
“Glad to hear it. You look into Dannemora?”
“You never got up there when you was bossing me around down in Green Haven?”
“No one went up there they didn’t have to, Blood. It’s north of Plattsburgh. Snows ten months out of the year I’m told.”
He took another sip of his martini, then shot a hint of a smile at the blonde…a generous display of emotion for Blood. I thought she might melt.
“Not quite ten months out of the year, but close. Folks up there, prison and civies, call the place Little Siberia. Get this. Four thousand damaged souls live there, three thousand of them inmates. Some houses surround the prison walls. Nothing special. Constructed during the Second World War for the guards who watched over Nazi POWS incarcerated in the prison. Pretty much just a single main street that borders the joint. They got a Stewarts convenience store with three self-service gas pumps, a Price Chopper supermarket, a Dannemora Federal Credit Union for the Corrections Officers, a diner, a McDonald’s, a Wendy’s and a Chinese restaurant called Fangs. That’s about it.”
I stole another sip of beer. “What, no Burger King? No wonder those cons wanted out.”
“Fast food? Not for those white boys. They was honor block. They cooked primo chopped sirloin on their own grill right up there on the cat walk.”
“So I’ve heard. Security been lax up there?”
“Yup.”
“Think that’s why Governor Valente extended the personal touch, appealed to me personally with his merry band of goons?”
“Yup.”
“He says it’s an inside job. Think that’s true?”
“Yup.”
“Warden in a shitload of trouble, then.”
“Yup.”
“You ever say nope?”
“Yup.”
I drank more beer. Finished the bottle. Blood drank down the rest of his martini. He held up the glass for Tess, and without so much as a syllable, persuaded her to drop what she was doing and begin making him another one. Over my shoulder, I once again glanced at the blonde bombshell. Both her blue eyes were now locked on Blood, like I didn’t exist.
“How do you do it?” I said, not needing to explain myself further.
“It’s a talent. You born with it.”
“Must have been a bitch in the joint.”
“Inmates knew better than to lay a horny hand on me. I knew better than to get in trouble on the outside again. Now I sitting here with you, my former super, employing me, drinking with me. Kibitzing with me. All worked out in the end, you dig?”
“You didn’t just say, you dig?”
“Been watching more than my share of those ’70s movies and television on Hulu. Blackula, Bruce Lee, Mod Squad. Stuff like that. People was cool back then. Used cool language and euphemisms.”
Tess brought his martini and another beer for me. She blew each of us a kiss and patted my hand before she scooted back down to the other end of the bar.
“She like you,” he said.
“She batting for the other team.”
“Can’t have it all ways. ’Sides, you got Val.”
I coughed.
“Okay, you got Val now and again,” he pointed out. “Mostly again. But me, I’m free as an eagle.”
“And just as bald. Think we can find these two fence-jumping cons?”
“They went under the fence, and yes, they won’t get far with you and me on their trail.”
“Every law enforcement official from Plattsburgh to Canada is searching for them.”
“I rest my case.”
“What’s the skinny on Moss?”
“Forty-nine. Loner. Killed his boss over a paycheck dispute. Dismembered the body. Also did time in a Mexican joint for murder over a drug deal gone bad. Smart, sensitive, but volatile. An artist. A good artist from the limited research I conducted in the single hour you gave me. Probably the brains behind the entire operation.”
“Sweet?”
“The crazy one. Computer geek. The type who’d stay up for days and nights on end in his underwear, smoking meth and hacking into government servers. Shot a sheriff’s dep not once, but twenty-two times. Reloaded three times. He then drove his pickup truck over him four or five times just because he could. Forensics had to ID the poor bastard by his teeth. Fucked up situation, you ask me.”
“Dangerous. Think they’re armed?”
“Lots of hunters from up that way. Most likely scenario is they found a cabin, broke into it, and found a weapon or two. Shotguns more than likely. Maybe .30-30s. Knives, axes, who knows what else.”
“Most hunters would know better than to keep weapons lying around the cabins all summer long. Kids always bust into those places.”
“Some of the hunters from New York City. Can’t br
ing weapons back into Manhattan because of the Lincoln Laws. So they leave them upstate. Unlocked.”
“You good with getting us some weapons besides sidearms? We’re also going to need flashlights, bug spray, knives, tents, the whole kit and caboodle. Just in case we gotta camp out for a while.”
“Caboodle?” he said. “What’s a caboodle?”
“How should I know?”
“White people are strange. No wonder a black man president.”
“The president is half white.”
“Nobody’s perfect.”
“No truer words.” Then, “Oh, before I forget.”
Retrieving the envelope Valente passed on to me from the inside pocket on my blazer. I tore it open and pulled out the check.
“Sizeable,” I said.
Blood leaned in, looked at the three zeros printed after the numeral 5. “Cover my costs anyway. For a few days.”
“Good help will cost you,” I said, sticking my fingers back inside the envelope once more, coming back out with a business card that had Valente’s private cell number penned on it, and something else too. A yellow Post-it-Note upon which was scrawled a Chinese smiley face. Hand written below the face were the words, “Have a nice day!” with an exclamation point. The handwriting was cheerful and happy. Ironic.
“Now that’s racist,” Blood said. “Poor Chinese can’t get no breaks.”
I recognized the note right away from the television and online reports.
“It’s the Post-it-Note Sweet and Moss left behind on the pipe beside the opening they cut out of it.” Another drink of beer. “Why you suppose Valente included it in the envelope?”
“That’s state’s evidence. He must have had his reasons.”
Pulling out my wallet, I folded the note and slipped it inside along with the check and business card. I finished my beer and Blood drained his martini. He also ate the two, now vodka-soaked, green olives.
“I think I’m ready for the woods,” he said, sliding off the stool, standing tall, fit, and ready for anything. Even the blonde bombshell coming our way.
The Corruptions Page 3