In Self-Defense

by A. W. Gray

  Oh, God, the male ego, Sharon thought. She gulped. “I just thought—”

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with it,” Black said. “But let’s don’t be forgettin’ who’s runnin’ this show.” He picked up his long-legged pace, head down.

  Sharon did a double-take. Was he dressing her down or wasn’t he? In ten years or so, she thought, I might figure him out. “Whatever you say, boss,” she said.

  23

  Bradford Brie, who’d done enough jailin’ to last the average man a lifetime, sat on his haunches to peer out the food slot in his cell door while he ate his dinner. The food was typical Sheriff’s Hilton: one fried chicken thigh, blood red in the center, a mess of runny beans and a glob of canned chocolate pudding, all served in a Styrofoam tray with the only utensil a plastic spoon. The beans were mixed in with the pudding and the chicken was dipped in both. There was a cup of red Kool-Aid sitting on the floor. Brie’s napkin was a wad of toilet paper torn from the roll beside his stool. He smacked as he chewed and slurped Kool-Aid to wash down a mouthful of beans.

  The chicken was cold, the beans foul-smelling, and the pudding tasted like chalk, but Brie didn’t mind. He was an adjuster. No experienced con expected a jailhouse meal to have any taste; food in the county was just something to keep a man’s belly from growling. Prison chow was much better; Brie rated Dallas County Jail food, on a scale of one to ten, around a four. He was glad that as a murder suspect he was entitled to a private cell. In the open-bay tanks, the niggers would gang up on a man and take his food.

  To Brie’s way of thinking, the noise level would require more adjusting than the food. This jailhouse was loud, baby, was it ever. There was a TV set in every day room up and down the corridor, every set was on a different channel with the volume up as loud as it would go, and the din would give the average man a headache. The niggers all liked Soul Train, Brie knew, while the bikers all were queer for rasslin’, and which program played on what TV depended on which group could whip the most ass, the bikers or the niggers. There were no acoustics in the Lew Sterrett Justice Center, only bare concrete ceilings and floors, so the TV sounds blended into one never ending blast of noise. Bradford Brie set his mind to tune the racket out.

  Last night they’d handcuffed him to a chain gang of twenty men, crammed the lot of them into the back of a van, and moved them from city jail down to the county. It was a part of the process which Brie had committed to memory. First the city, then, after the detectives had figured out that Bradford Brie was one stand-up con who wasn’t saying shit to anybody, on to the county. Here they’d hold him for a while and then turn him loose. He understood that the entire bust was one big bluff on the part of the Dallas police.

  All of the detectives’ questions had been shots in the dark, Brie thought. Absolutely no way could they make a case on him for killing the fat punk of a lawyer, Howard Saw. There’d been no witnesses, and Brie was certain he’d left no prints. No one other than Wilfred Donello knew who’d offed the lawyer, and no way would Wilfred Donello ever snitch on a man. No fucking way. Brie and Donello had been too close for too many years for that to happen. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut, and in a few days he’d be free as the air. He finished his meal and set the tray and cup in his pan slot. In a few minutes one of the trusties would come to haul the garbage away.

  The thing that itched at the back of Brie’s mind had to do with the break-in at the lawyer lady’s house. Not a word about that from the detective, and he couldn’t believe it. That would be an easy case for them to make against him; he’d been caught leaving her house, hadn’t he? If he hadn’t been unlucky enough to run into the big drunk ox on her porch, he would still be running. With the woman and the drunken ox as witnesses, why weren’t the police charging him with assault? Or burglary at the least. Twenty years, and with the pistol he’d carried to aggravate the charges, he would be looking at a full man’s nickel before parole.

  He thoughtfully brushed chicken crumbs from his jumpsuit pants as he went over to sit on his bunk. Though a confirmed slob on the outside, Brie was a cleanliness nut in lockup. Keeping one’s house and clothing spic and span was one of the only bits of pride left to a convict. His jail uniform was pressed and fit him perfectly, one of the perks of being a stand-up con who knew the ropes. Last night during in-processing, while the other new men had received ragged hand-me-downs tossed at them by cursing trusties, Brie had had a talk with the trusty in charge of the laundry. The talk had netted him a pressed set of clothing twice a week in exchange for a carton of cigarettes. The price had nearly doubled since Brie’s last trip to county jail, but since he didn’t smoke himself he thought that fresh clothing was worth the cost.

  He gingerly touched the Band-Aid on his neck. The laceration which the lawyer woman had bitten into his flesh burned like fire. She had one coming for that, and Brie aimed to see that she collected. Picturing Sharon Hays, long-legged with fine, bouncy breasts as she’d stepped dripping from her shower, brought a crooked-toothed grin to his face.

  And suddenly he understood why the police hadn’t questioned him about Sharon Hays. Sure, the bitch didn’t want to testify against him. Bradford Brie had raped fourteen women in his life, including a twelve-year-old whom he tied down and beaten to a pulp with a wire coat hanger, and not a single one of the females had ever faced him on the witness stand. Brie didn’t understand why the bitches preferred not to talk about the attacks—he certainly liked to talk about them, spending a lot of time in the joint swapping pussy stories with other cons—and didn’t care. The point was that women didn’t like to talk about anyone wanting to rape them, and the lawyer lady was no different. Her silence would clear the way for Brie’s release, which was fine with him.

  Brie had started a letter before lunch, and he now picked up a legal pad and Bic disposable pen from his bunk and continued with his writing. The mattress on which he sat was made of green plastic, stuffed with rags, the product of one of the TDC work farms. The frame of his bunk was solid steel, bolted to the wall and floor. Brie had been working on his letter for several hours with his tongue jammed firmly into his cheek, and had had to yell to the guy in the adjacent cubicle for help in spelling a word or two. He didn’t read and write very well, but what he did write was emotional. Making certain that Wilfred Donello understood exactly where he was coming from was important to Brie in the overall scheme of things.

  There were shuffling footsteps in the corridor, accompanied by the whush of a trash bag dragged along the floor. Brie tore the three finished pages from his legal pad, got down on his haunches, and duck-walked over to his door. He thrust his letter through the food slot and waved it around. “Trusty,” he said loudly. “Yo, trusty.”

  In seconds a face appeared in the opening. It was a black man, forty or so (though Brie had a harder time estimating niggers’ ages than he did with white men), who had one drooping eyelid and a gold tooth in the front of his mouth. The trusty scraped Brie’s finished meal into the garbage bag, then said, “What you want, bro?”

  “Hey, yeah.” Brie grinned. “Listen, I got to have this delivered to a man.” He held the letter against his chest and folded it neatly in half.

  The black man narrowed his one good eye. “Cost you a deck. Free-world smokes, none of the Bugler roll-your-own shit.”

  “No problem, man. I got money in my account.”

  “If you don’t pay, you be hurting,” the trusty said.

  “You’re talking to a man’s done some time,” Brie said. “I say I’ll pay, I pay you.”

  The trusty reached through the slot and took the letter. “What man you want to get this?”

  “Wilfred Donello. Big man with a scarred ear. White dude, everybody knows this guy. He’s a trusty, same as you.”

  The trusty wadded the letter and tossed it back inside the cell. “Fuck you. I don’t deliver no mail to no Donello. Not for no price.”

  Brie’s fa
ce twisted violently. “I give you two decks, whatever kind of free-world smokes you want. Money don’t matter to me.”

  “You don’t get it. They done moved Wilfred Donello this morning, into the snitch wing. Hope he get fucked in the ass up there, dropping a dime on somebody. Best you don’t be talking no Wilfred Donello around here, something might happen to you.” The trusty stood up and continued on his way, dragging the garbage bag behind.

  Brie put his face to the slot. “Hey. Hey, no,” he yelled. “You’re thinking of the wrong man. Wouldn’t no Wilfred Donello snitch on anybody. Hey, I know this guy a long time.”

  24

  Three floors downstairs from the cell where Bradford Brie had dinner, Midge Rathermore was getting a jailhouse perm. She loved having her hair done while listening to Sonya sing the blues. Sonya believed she could have been a professional vocalist—the slim black hooker pronounced it “profeshnul”—if only her mama had provided her with lessons. In fact, she might yet sing for a living once she’d saved enough from turning tricks, which was just something she did to get by until the right somebody discovered her talent. Sonya had told Midge all of this right after she’d become the heavy teenager’s only friend in the cell block, which she had done on the day the commissary cart had brought Sonya four pints of ice cream and a carton of free-world Marlboros. Regardless of her motive, Sonya’s rendition of “Summertime” wasn’t bad at all. She told Midge that a boyfriend, her legitimate man, had taken her to State Fair Music Hall to watch the road show of Porgy and Bess, and as well as Sonya knew the words, Midge was certain the story was true. Midge believed everything Sonya told her because Sonya was her friend.

  The women’s wing at Lew Sterrett was exactly like the men’s section of the jail—bare cement floors with steel bunks, tables and chairs anchored in place—but the girls had better learned to improvise. Keeping their hair clean and attractive was a major problem; heated rollers were out, of course, as well as anything else electric which could be modified into a weapon. Pasteboard toilet paper centers became rollers, secured in place with plastic paper clips. Once rolled, the hair was allowed to air dry, then the soggy toilet paper cylinders came out and the hair was fluffed with a brush as best as possible. Before a not unfriendly guard had set up the windfall from Midge’s mother, Sonya had done hair for cigarettes and candy. Now that her monetary problems were solved, Sonya concentrated on keeping Midge happy and being her friend.

  A metal bench and table in the dayroom served as a vanity, with Midge drowsily listening to Sonya’s crooning and General Hospital on the television as background noise. Sonya moved around behind Midge, firmly turning the teenager’s hair around a toilet paper roll, clipping, reaching for another roll and paper clip, combing, fitting the ends of Midge’s hair onto another pasteboard cylinder. White, black, and Hispanic women lounged on benches all around, staring vacantly at the television, some chewing gum, all patiently doing time in loose-fitting cotton smocks.

  This part of the women’s section was for nonviolents: hookers, druggies, shoplifters, and the like, women with no history of violence whom the jail classification system declared weren’t into any type of sexual abuse. There was a separate wing for females who were into lesbianism, both consensual and forced, and Midge’s age had dictated to jail personnel that she be kept away from the butches. It wouldn’t have mattered to Midge if they had housed her with the violents; sexual abuse was nothing new to her, and she would have gone along with anything the other inmates wanted if only someone would be her friend. If Sonya had wished, Midge would have gladly spread her legs.

  So it had been as far back as the dull-witted girl could remember. She had only a faint recollection of the time before her mother had gone away, and even back then Midge had spent little time with either of her parents. Nearly all of her days and most of her nights had been under the nanny’s supervision, and while the nanny had been efficient enough, she hadn’t been really caring.

  During those early years it had been Midge and Susan, and Midge had showered every ounce of love she could muster on her baby sister. She had played with Susan like a doll, hugging and pampering the smaller child endlessly. Then, when Midge was around six and Susan about four, the younger sister had surpassed Midge intellectually. It was when Midge realized Susan was smarter than she that her love for her baby sister had begun to dissipate. She’d felt that Susan had delighted in showing her up.

  Mother had gone away for good when Midge was eight and had the mental capacity of a three-year-old. She had been heartbroken at first, but as time had passed, her feeling for her mother had become hatred as well. Food had been Midge’s method for filling the void inside her; indulgent nannies had catered to her every whim in that regard, and by the age of ten she had weighed a hundred and fifty pounds.

  In recent weeks her feeling for her mother had become again one of devotion; puppylike, Midge Rathermore responded to any outreaching that resembled love in any form. When she had been thirteen and her father had begun to take Susan into his bed, Midge had longed for the same privilege. Her father had rebuffed her, and Midge had hated him for it. She had hated her stepmother, Linda, as well, feeling that she kept her father away from her.

  Her relationship with the boys had been another attempt on Midge’s part to get someone to like her. She had been detached from the sex, saying nursery rhymes and singing songs as the boys had their way with her. She had wanted them for friends, and had felt she must satisfy them sexually to earn their friendship. She had thought Chris Leonard and Troy Burdette to be witty, and when they had first spoken of killing her father, Midge had gone along with them, feeling that she’d do anything if only they would be her friends. The arrangement to give them part of her inheritance had meant nothing to Midge; the dull-witted child had no real understanding of money.

  Sonya interrupted her singing to say softly, “Turn your head toward me, honey.” Midge obliged, smiling at her newest friend and gently patting the hooker’s hand. Sonya parted Midge’s wet hair with a comb and resumed her song.

  Midge liked Sharon Hays so much that at times she felt her heart would burst, and it terrified the teenager to think that sometime Sharon might go away. The older lawyer, Mr. Black, meant nothing to Midge, but the teenager would do anything to keep Sharon’s friendship. Sharon wanted details of what had happened between Midge and Troy and Chris, and Midge wouldn’t have minded at all telling Sharon the truth about William Rathermore’s death. But she was afraid that Sharon, on learning what she wanted to know, would go away just as Midge’s mother had once done. Midge felt that the only way to keep Sharon’s interest was to hold back the truth as a secret. As long as Sharon didn’t have the answer, she would continue to be Midge Rathermore’s friend.

  25

  Ever since the attack at her house, Sharon’s nerves had been unraveled yarn. She was sleeping alternate nights, first lying awake until dawn as each tiny noise in the house brought her into a panicked sitting position, then so bleary-eyed the following evening that she was completely zonked by nine o’clock. Today was Saturday, and Friday night had been dusk-to-dawn wakefulness. Sharon feared that the drone in Russell Black’s voice might put her out like a light.

  “I think runnin’ down Linda Rathermore’s past is top priority,” Black said. “You got any problem with that?”

  “None, boss,” Sharon said with a yawn. “Only that you’ve said this before. We’re doing it.” Having been on board for a while, Sharon had lost her awe for Black’s office setup. The veteran lawyer’s quarters still were impressive—handball court-size mahogany desk, rich red carpet with three-quarter-inch padding, visitors’ chairs with red velvet cushions, celebrity-like photos of Black adorning the walls—but there were a few ragged edges. The carpet beneath the window was sun-faded, and a dime-sized chunk of wood was missing from the edge of Black’s desk. There was nothing wrong with the office decor, but Sharon thought the place needed a woman’s touch.


  “I keep askin’,” Black said. “But I’m not gettin’ any results.”

  Sharon felt like stretching out on the floor, and hoped that Midge would forgive her for the thought. “Monday morning Mr. Gear’s headed for Baltimore. And no matter what we find out about Linda, we’ve still got to tie her in with William Rathermore’s abuse of his daughters. If Linda was the person on the grassy knoll at the Kennedy assassination, and it has nothing to do with Midge and her sister, it won’t help us.” She wore white jeans and blue running shoes along with a navy blue knit shirt, and her ankle rested on her knee. A legal pad lay across her inner thigh. Melanie was spending the day at Sheila’s. Visible through the office window, a cleanup crew swept the steps at the old county courthouse. It had rained three days the previous week, but now, moving into late June, Dallas was in for a three-month scorching.

  Black nervously pinched his chin. “Speaking of Midge’s sister—Susan?”

  “That’s right.”

  “We got anything on her whereabouts?”

  “None, only that she’s withdrawn from school. Mr. Gear’s working on it, that’s all he’ll tell me.”

  “For what he’s chargin’, he ought to be workin’ on somethin’.” Black wore a wash-faded golf shirt and tan cotton pants. There was a stain on the shirt. Egg yolk, Sharon thought. “You got your pretrial motion in order?” Black said.

  Sharon rubbed her eyes. “It’s not a motion I’ve got in mind.”

  Black’s eyebrows moved closer together. He should trim them, Sharon thought. Black watched her with ice blue eyes that mirrored a mind as quick as lightning bolts.

  “What I thought I’d do,” Sharon said, “I thought I’d get into the abuse question when we cross-examine Linda.”