Mark the Sparrow

by Clark Howard

  Cloud followed, saying nothing. As he started to turn up the aisle, he noticed Doris Calder step over to the railing and speak to G. Foster Klein, who bent his head toward her so that she could speak privately. She whispered to him for a moment. When she was finished, the dapper little prosecutor raised his head and smiled intimately at her. Doris Calder patted his hand briefly and walked away, her mature, excellent bottom moving nicely under its tight skirt. Klein, smiling, watched her walk all the way up the side aisle.

  Cloud, frowning, watched Klein.

  Chapter Two

  The girl who opened her apartment door for Robert Cloud at eight that evening was a natural redhead. She did not fall within the two most common varieties of redheads: her hair was not the flamboyant, ultra-red so common among showgirls, nor the washed-out red of very pale, very freckled girls. This girl’s hair was a rich, healthy red, deeply dark, with a sheen to it that could have been produced only by nature.

  She wore her hair either in a severe bun at the back of her head—a style she imagined made her look the part of the young teacher of fourth-grade children that she was—or gathered back over both ears and held together with a single clip at the nape of her neck—an effect which emphasized her round, girlish face and made her look shorter, sexier, and younger than her twenty-six years.

  Her only other exceptional feature was her bust. It was not overly large for her figure, but her breasts were pronounced and firm, always sharply defined no matter what she wore over them.

  Between the hair and the breasts was a rather usual face—not unpretty by any means, but without the hair and the breasts, it would not have drawn many second looks.

  The girl’s name, which Cloud loved, was Laurel.

  “Hello, newspaperman,” she greeted him with a smile.

  “Hello, schoolteacher.” He removed his slightly damp raincoat, hung it on a hook next to the door, and glanced around the little apartment. Laurel’s roommate was nowhere in sight.

  “Where’s Nancy?”

  “Fifth-grade teachers’ conference.”

  “How convenient,” Cloud said.

  “Isn’t it.”

  They came together easily, fluidly, and kissed a long, satisfying kiss that was just moist enough to be delicious.

  “How late will Nancy be?” Cloud asked when their lips parted.

  “Not too,” Laurel said. “Another hour, about.” She reached down and felt his erection. “Want me to take care of that for you?”

  “How?”

  “You know how.”

  She took his hand and led him to the couch. When he was sitting down, she knelt on the floor between his legs and opened his trousers. He watched her slip out of her sweater, then laid his head against the back of the couch and closed his eyes. He felt her fingers close around him, and drew in his breath slightly as her hand began to move up and down, slowly at first, then faster. And faster.

  When he ejaculated, she reached for a box of tissues on the end table and used them to wipe the hot substance of him from between her breasts.

  “You’ve been faithful to me,” she said. “I can tell by how much you came.”

  Cloud sighed. “When are we going to stop hand-and-mouth games and go to bed together like two adults?”

  “Didn’t you like it?”

  “Of course I liked it. But that’s not the point. Do you intend to stay a virgin forever?”

  She rose, picking up her bra and sweater. “I have to wash,” she said. She went into the bedroom, her tight marvelous tits barely moving as she walked.

  Cloud and Laurel had known each other for three months. He met her his second night in Los Angeles, at a pool party given by a college friend of his. It was a singles party; everyone kept sizing everyone else up until they found someone who fit. Cloud had been sitting on the edge of the pool when Laurel and Nancy came up and sat down beside him.

  “You look like a teacher,” Laurel said. “Doesn’t he look like a teacher, Nancy?”

  “No, he looks like a furniture mover.”

  Laurel giggled and Cloud thought she might be a little drunk or a little high. “Don’t mind Nancy,” Laurel said. “She’s got a thing about furniture movers. That’s because she likes big chests. You’ve got a big chest.”

  “So have you,” said Cloud.

  “I know.” She giggled again. Then she reached and took his hand. “Which one of us is right? Teacher or furniture mover?”

  “I’m an unemployed newspaper reporter,” Cloud said.

  “Unemployed!” Laurel all but shrieked. “You poor darling! How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

  “An hour or so, I guess—”

  “Well, we’ll take care of that right now,” she said, standing and pulling him up after her. “You just come right with me—”

  Without even giving him time to get his clothes, she pulled him to her car and drove all of four blocks to her apartment. “Now don’t think because I’ve had a couple of drinks and am taking you home with me practically naked that you’re going to be able to take advantage of me. It just so happens I’m a virgin.”

  “Bully for you,” Cloud said dryly.

  “Yes. And I’m going to remain a virgin. At least for the time being. I’m saving myself for the man I marry.”

  “Isn’t that nice.”

  They went inside her apartment. “What do you want to eat?”

  “You,” he said without hesitation.

  She tilted her head and looked at him speculatively for a moment. “All right. But that’s all.”

  She stripped off her swimsuit, dropped it in the middle of the floor, and walked into the bedroom. Cloud dropped his suit on top of hers and followed her.

  They had seen each other four or five times a week since then. They snatched time together whenever they could: quick breakfasts somewhere, quick lunches; pizza and a movie when her Monday and Thursday evening counseling happened to coincide, after he found a job, with two of the three nights he was required to work in the newsroom; occasionally they did not coincide, and there would be five consecutive nights when they could not see each other at all—very irritating to both of them.

  At the beginning of their relationship, the attraction between them was quite strong, and clearly mutual. Laurel liked the idea of Cloud being alone: new to California, un employed, knowing practically no one. For a while she had him all to herself. And Cloud was fascinated by this earthy, voluptuous young woman who, for all her physical candor, steadfastly refused to have intercourse with him.

  Predictably, time and circumstance diluted their feelings. Laurel lost her exclusive option on Cloud’s time after he found a job, settled in an apartment, and began meeting new people; and Cloud began to resent Laurel’s artificial lovemaking and yearn for the total submission of her body to his. But they continued to see each other whenever they could.

  Now, sitting on the couch in her apartment, Cloud decided that their relationship had reached the point where they should discuss marriage. When Laurel came back into the room, dressed again, he said, “Laurel, would you consider marrying me?”

  “I don’t know, Rob,” she said thoughtfully. “Are you asking me?”

  “I don’t know if I am or not,” he replied honestly. “The thought just came to me.”

  Laurel sat down opposite him and thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know, Rob. I really don’t think we’re in a position to get married. We don’t have any money to speak of—”

  “It doesn’t take a lot of money to get married,” he said.

  “It does if you want to live right,” she told him. “And I want to live right.”

  “What you’re saying is that you want to marry a rich man.”

  “Not necessarily. Just a successful man.”

  “I guess that leaves me out,” he said. His words were sharply clipped.

  “Are you getting mad now?” she asked.

  “Maybe. Don’t you think I have reason to?”

  “No, I don
’t,” she replied bluntly. “You’re not successful because you haven’t tried to be. You’ve jumped around from one job to another, always ending up as the new man who gets all the leftover assignments. You could get into a more lucrative field if you wanted to. You’re a good writer; you could easily get into public relations or magazine-editing or political speechwriting or a dozen other things. You haven’t done it because you aren’t that concerned about the future. But it so happens that I am.”

  “We’re getting nowhere fast. You won’t go to bed with me because we’re not married. And you won’t marry me even when I ask you to, because I’m not successful.”

  “If you’ll think back,” she pointed out coolly, “you didn’t really ask me to marry you. You kind of backed into the subject.”

  “Are you getting mad now?”

  “Maybe. Don’t you think I have reason to? After that nonproposal of yours?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. “I’m sorry if I put it badly.”

  Laurel bit her lower lip briefly and looked away from him. “Hell,” she said. She expelled a short, impatient sigh. “I’m sorry too.” She forced a smile and shrugged. “I just have some very definite ideas about money and security, things like that.”

  Cloud reached over and took her hand. “I guess I’ll have to give some thought to becoming successful.”

  Laurel drew him over to her and they kissed. While their lips were together, they heard the apartment door opening. Laurel’s roommate walked into the room. Nancy was a bouncy, freckle-faced young Texan who took everything in stride. Without pausing, she dropped her coat, kicked off her shoes, and headed for the kitchen.

  “You two lovebirds want coffee?” she hollered behind her.

  In his cell at the county jail, Weldon Whitman sat on the floor against the back wall, staring at nothing. It was not yet nine o’clock and the cell doors were still open, although the tier was locked at both ends. Whitman had been sitting alone like that, in sober thought, since supper. Several inmates who knew him had glanced into the cell, but seeing that he was back there on the floor by himself, they had gone on and left him alone. Now, thirty minutes before lockup, one inmate came by who did not leave him alone.

  “Hello,” he said in smooth voice, coming into the cell. “Are you Whitman?”

  The condemned man looked up, the shadow of his hooked nose as usual emphasizing the unintentional sneer. “Yeah, I’m Whitman,” he said.

  “I’m Roy. I’m visiting from Tier Two.”

  Whitman studied him for a moment. He was in his middle twenties, fair and blond, with a delicate, well-cared-for-body, and eyes so light they would have been more suited to an albino. He raised his eyebrows when he talked.

  “They said you were supposed to let them know about me,” he said. “Since they didn’t hear from you, and since I do have time, I just thought I’d check. I do have to get back to one of the quad cells by lockup, though; I have to tell the screw I got on the wrong tier by mistake. Otherwise, when they take the count down on Two, my God, they might think I’ve escaped! Wouldn’t that be a lick?”

  “Yeah, wouldn’t it.” Whitman sighed quietly. “Sit down, Roy. Take the bunk there, where you’ll be comfortable.”

  “I wouldn’t think of doing that,” his visitor said. “I’ll just sit right down there on the floor with you—” He sat opposite Whitman, facing him, the toes of their shoes almost touching. Leaning forward and hugging his knees, he said, almost in awe, “You got the max today, didn’t you?”

  The max, Whitman thought. The maximum sentence: death. “Yeah,” he answered quietly. “I got the max.”

  “God!” said Roy. He wet his lips. “How did it feel?”

  “Like shit.”

  The eyebrows went up. “I guess. Down on Two, everybody was saying they maxed you twice.”

  Whitman nodded silent confirmation.

  “God!” Roy said again. He leaned a little closer, practically bending over his own knees. “Do you think they’ll really gas you?”

  “Maybe. They’re sure going to try.”

  “The dirty, dirty bastards,” Roy hissed. “Honest to Jesus, sometimes I simply cannot stand the fucking establishment!”

  Whitman smiled his crooked smile. “I guess it can’t stand us either. Otherwise we wouldn’t be in here.”

  “Oh hell,” Roy said, “it’s getting to where I’m in here as regularly as some of the guards. I mean, it’s to the point where you can’t even give private blow jobs anymore without getting busted. Would you believe, this is my fifth—no, my sixth—fall in two years. And I think I’m going to do a little hard time on this one. The other five raps they reduced to lewd and lascivious behavior and I got off with jail time. Of course, there was nothing else they could do; all they had every time was somebody with his joint out. No physical contact, you know what I mean? But this time, well! The dirty motherfuckers took a Polariod shot that shows me with four inches of this guy’s unit in my mouth. So they hit me with a sex-perversion charge.” Roy clasped his hands together dramatically. “No, I don’t think there’s a doubt in the world that I’ll get a felony conviction out of this one.”

  “Too bad,” Whitman said.

  “But isn’t this silly of me.” Roy reached over and put his hand on the inside of Whitman’s thigh. “Here I am bitching about something like that when you’ve just been maxed twice. Listen, let me hang the blanket up and take care of you. For free, I mean. I’d like to, really I would.”

  Whitman nodded and Roy got up and pulled the blanket off the bunk. Using two safety pins that he was never without, he pinned the corners of one end of the blanket around opposite bars in the door and let the other end of the blanket hang to the floor. The cell at once took on a more subdued atmosphere.

  Roy stripped off his shirt, folded it neatly, and laid it on the bunk. His upper body, like his face, was fair and delicate. His chest was smooth and hairless, and his nipples had been artificially darkened. He had no hair under his arms.

  He sat back down on the floor and put his hand on Whitman’s crotch. “How do you like it, Whit? Lying down or standing up?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Whitman answered. “Whatever’s best for you.”

  “Well, listen, this floor is in the rough side. Why don’t I sit on the bunk and you can stand. That way you can move your hips if you want to.”

  They got up and took the positions Roy had suggested. Whitman reached out and braced both hands against the wall. He felt Roy unbutton his jail denims and gently lift his dick and balls out of them. He was flaccid, almost shrunken.

  “I don’t seem to excite you too much,” Roy commented primly. “You do like me, don’t you?”

  “Sure, I like you, Roy.”

  “You’re sweet,” the homosexual cooed.

  Whitman felt the first lick, felt Roy’s circled thumb and forefinger move up and down on the soft skin. He closed his eyes and tried to think erotic thoughts. Roy’s fingers and tongue played with him for awhile. Then, soft, he was in Roy’s mouth and could feel himself being rolled from cheek to cheek and sucked on. He opened his eyes and looked down, thinking that the sight might stimulate him to an erection. It did not. He remained loose.

  Finally he reached down and touched Roy’s shoulder and gently broke their connection. “Let’s skip it. I’m not going to be able to hack it.” He buttoned his fly and sat down on the bunk next to Roy. “I was trying, but I keep thinking about the fucking gas chamber.”

  “I thought so,” said Roy. “Maxed twice. Who wouldn’t be thinking about it!” He drew his knees up and bowed his head against them. His eyes grew moist. “The dirty cunts,” he said bitterly. “The dirty, dirty cunts! They fuck up everything in the world!”

  The homosexual began to cry softly, and when he did, the condemned man next to him patted his shoulder reassuringly.

  Laurel, Nancy, and Cloud were having coffee in the kitchen. Cloud had been telling them about Weldon Whitman.

  “During
two of the lovers’-lane holdups,” he said, “after robbing the man, he took the woman back to his car and forced her to perform what the state defines as a perverted sex act. That’s what he got the death penalty for. Twice.”

  “What on earth kind of perverted sex act was it?” Laurel asked.

  “Its legal name is oral copulation.”

  “I presume that means fellatio.”

  Cloud nodded. “Yes. Fellatio.”

  Nancy looked incredulous. “You mean to say they can send a man to the gas chamber for that?”

  “Not by itself, no,” said Cloud. “But the law considers it sex perversion and says it’s a form of bodily harm when a woman is forced to do it. The law also says that when a person is kidnapped for the purpose of robbery, and subsequently suffers bodily harm, that it can be punishable by death. The law was actually written to cover kidnappings for ransom. As a matter of fact, in California that particular statute is commonly referred to as the Little Lindbergh Law. Whitman didn’t kidnap anyone for ransom, but his crime did fall within the legal requirements of the statute, so they tried him for it. And they convicted him.” Cloud poured himself half a cup of coffee. “Somehow I can’t convince myself that the court is being completely fair with Whitman.”

  “Well, everything must be legal,” Laurel ventured, “or the court couldn’t have done it.”

  “Legal and fair aren’t necessarily the same thing,” Cloud said. He thought briefly about the way G. Foster Klein and Doris Calder had conversed so intimately after the trial. It was hard to believe that the chief prosecutor would be indiscreet enough to be involved with a witness in a capital trial. Even a mediocre defense lawyer, Cloud felt, would be able to make collusion out of that. But then, Whitman had been his own lawyer; he had not had the opportunity to observe what a conventional lawyer, free to remain in the courtroom after adjournment, would have observed. And that could explain Klein’s lack of caution in his brief encounter with Doris Calder.