by David Wiltse
Swann slumped in the chair, crestfallen.
"You don't believe me about him?"
"What's to believe? There's a guy in prison who's killed somebody? I have no trouble believing that. I just don't give a shit."
"You're going to betray me, aren't you?" Swann said, his face suddenly terrified. "You're going to give me to them, you're going to tell them what I've said."
"Who did you tell?" Becker asked.
"Tell what?"
"Who did you tell about your clever little scheme to get hold of me? How many did you tell?"
"I didn't tell anyone-do you think I'm crazy?"
Becker was on his feet. He jerked the front leg of Swann's chair off the floor with his foot, held the neck of the chair to keep it from falling so that Swann was on his neck, off-balance, halfway to the floor.
"Who did you confide in, who helped you, who were you whispering to about this, Swann?"
"Nobody. It was all my idea."
"You're not smart enough."
"The hell I'm not."
"You're a halfwit who got caught slicing up his landlady. How smart can you be?"
"Smarter than you think."
"That's not hard. Who taught you the binary code?"
"Nobody. I learned it in the library."
"Do some."
I 'What?"
Becker righted the chair and pushed Swann against the table so that he was pinned against his chest. Becker dropped a pen in front of Swann.
"Show me the binary code for 99."
"Now?"
"No, mail it to me, you little shit. Of course now. Do it there, do it on the table, just the way you sent it to me."
"You think I can't?"
"Do it."
"I told you, don't lump me with the rest of these people in here. I'm different."
"Uh-huh. Do the code."
Swann was silent for a moment, his hands folded in front of him.
"Do it," Becker said.
"I'm praying," Swann said. "I'm praying for Jesus to change your heart."
"Pray for him to teach you the binary code real quick."
"I don't need to pray for that, Mr. Becker. I already know the code. You want 99?"
With speed and certainty, Swann marked a series of dots on the table:
"It's not really a mystery, you know," Swann said.
"Anybody who's computer literate can do it. Does that prove I wrote the messages by myself?"
Becker sat opposite Swann once more.
"I'm going to say this very carefully," Becker said, "because I want you to hear the specifics of what I have to say and not just the emotion.
But if you have half as much sense as you seem to think you do, and if you believe any part of the stories you've heard about me, you'll realize that I mean exactly what I say. All right?"
"Of course."
"I never want to hear from you again. I do not want communication of any kind, in any form. What's more, if I receive communication from anyone else in this place, I will assume that it came from you. Is that clear?"
"That's not fair, you can't hold me responsible..
"Fuck fair. Is it clear?"
"Yes."
"Good. If you are stupid enough to disregard what I've just told you, if I ever even hear your name again, I will personally deliver you to that pack of howling hard-ons in there and I will tell them what you have done. Is that clear?"
"They would kill me."
"Is it clear?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Becker stood and shoved his chair neatly in place under the table.
"Is that all?" Swann asked.
"That's all I wanted to say."
"What about what I told you? Aren't you going to do anything about it?"
"What is there to do? He's out, he's gone."
"You can find him, I can help you find him."
"How?"
"I know where he said he was going. I know where he is now."
"How?"
Swann looked around the room once more, craning his neck to see that the window in the door was empty.
"I need to be safe. I have to be safe before I can talk freely. Can you promise me I'll be safe, Mr. Becker?"
"Me? I just made my promise to you. You didn't seem to like it."
"He's a homocidal maniac. He kills people, he tortures and kills them. I can give him to you, isn't that worth something?"
"It might be to some people. What's it worth to you?"
Swann closed his eyes and clasped his hands in front of himself again.
Will you please help me, Mr. Becker?" he asked, his eyes still closed.
"I am dying in here. I don't deserve to die, Christ has forgiven me for my sins, I've served three years… if no one helps me, I will never survive until my parole. Am I so loathsome that I deserve to die in this place?" He fell to his knees in front of Becker. "Do you know what it's like in here? The monsters are fighting over me. They put their hands on you, you hate it, it disgusts you-and then you feel yourself getting aroused.
You hate yourself for it, but they won't let you just receive, they want you to participate, they want you to cooperate. They want you to make up things to do, things that will make them feel good. And you know what you do? You remember what feels good to you, you remember what you liked to have your girlfriend do to you, and you do it to them, you remember how it feels on yourself and you get excited as they're getting excited. They don't care about you, they don't even know who you are, but they still make you act as if you like it… and you get so you do.
Swann put his hands on Becker's knees and Becker stood abruptly, stepping away from the man.
"What do you want, Swann?"
"Will you at least tell someone at the FBI what I have to offer? Will you tell them you met with me and you know that I have valuable information?" He reached again for Becker's knee and again Becker stepped away.
More than anything, Becker wanted to leave. He felt the oppression of the prison clinging like a film to his skin and he wanted to run from the room and hurl himself into sunlight and water, to stand under a waterfall and have the obscenity of the prison scoured and flushed from his body. Swann's supplications held him back as surely as if the man were clinging to his leg.
"All right," he said.
"Bless you!" Swann cried. He reached for Becker's hand. Becker stepped around him and pounded on the door for the guard.
"Praise Jesus," Swann said, rising to his feet.
Swann stood next to Becker at the door, his body nearly touching Becker's. Becker could feel the heat of the other man's presence. He turned his head away.
"You've saved me," Swann said. "You've saved my life."
Swann touched Becker's arm and Becker jerked away but Swann held on to his shirt. "I can't thank you, I can never thank you."
"Stand away," Becker said. He felt the closeness of the man like a great weight pressing down on him.
Swann slid his hands down Becker's arm until he was clutching Becker's wrist. Becker tried to pull away as Swann raised his hand to kiss it.
Swann's grip was surprisingly strong and Becker could not wrest his hand free as Swann placed his lips on Becker's palm.
"No," Becker said. Swann muttered something into Becker's skin, and it sounded like more prayer, but Becker was unsure if the man was praying to Jesus or to him.
"You let go of me, damn it.
Swann was kissing Becker's hand, peppering it with little pecks of his lips, working down the length of it to the fingers. His lips touched a fingertip and opened and took one of Becker's fingers into his mouth. He rolled his eyes up to look Becker in the face.
With a cry of disgust, Becker yanked his hand away at the same time that Swann released his wrist. His knuckles flew upwards, hitting Swann in the mouth and the nose.
"I only wanted to thank you," Swann said reproachfully.
Becker did not look at him as he pounded again on the door.
Despit
e the blow to the face, Swann had still not backed away. He stood too close, so that Becker put a hand on his chest and pushed him back.
Swann's fingers touched Becker's hand again before Becker yanked it away.
"Keep your hands off me," Becker said.
"You didn't have to hit me," Swann said.
"Sorry," Becker muttered. He stared anxiously out the window in the door, looking for the guard. Surely he wasn't locked in here; he didn't have to stay in here any longer with this man. The air seemed heavier still, as if weighed down on him; the walls seemed unbearably close.
"I was only thanking you."
"Just keep your distance," Becker said.
"Are you frightened of me?" Swann asked softly.
There was a taunting in his voice, the first recognition by a chronic victim who suddenly realizes he has an advantage. "You seem frightened.
You don't need to be." His voice became softer, gentler with each sentence as his sense of control grew. "I'm your friend, you know. I want to be your friend."
Becker turned and looked at him for the first time since he had hit him.
Swann's face was wet with tears, and blood trickled from his nose onto his lips. He had not wiped it since Becker's blow. When he caught Becker's eye he parted his lips and smiled. His teeth were red with blood and his eyes twinkled with a sense of victory.
Pegeen stood at the guard control room, just outside the first-level cellblock, and, trying not to let the guards know what she was doing, she smelled deeply of the air. At first there was just the odor of cleaning liquid, heavily ammoniated with a scent of lemon, but as her nose grew used to that, Pegeen began to detect the deeper, pervasive smell, the true, identifying smell of the prison. It seemed to hover on the other side of the control room like a column of heat in a furnace, rising from the ground to the fourth-level cellblock, containing itself within its own shimmering,boundaries inside the vessel of the cauldron, betraying its presence only with occasional puffs just as the heat outside a furnace gives only the slightest clue of the fury of the inferno blazing within.
The stench was of sex, old sex. Sex dried and crusted and worn on the body, but with something else, a sort of grace note of emotion, a commingling of old sweat and new perspiration, both of them caused not by exercise nor heat, but by fear. The prison smelled of sex and fright.
The smell was rape.
Pegeen waited by the car for Becker's return After leaving the prison she had called a colleague in Nashville and asked what he knew about John Becker, a former agent, now on indefinite medical extension. The colleague, a fifteen-year veteran, had laughed at her naivete but seemed eager to fill her in on Becker's career as he perceived it. He hit the highlights, most of which seemed to be Bureau legend.
"One ba-aaad dude," he had concluded gleefully, bleating like a sheep.
"And you say you're with him?"
"I'm with him," she said.
"What are you doing, holding his hand?"
"Something like that," Pegeen had said, feeling herself blush.
"Well, when you get it back, check your hand for blood," he had said, laughing. "Becker never comes out of a case without blood on his hands."
Then his tone had become very serious. "Now, no shit, Pegeen, this is the straight s — tuff, okay?"
"Okay-,
"Be careful, be very careful..
"I'm just the chauffeur."
"Great. Let's hope it stays that way. What I'm telling you, kiddo, is first of all, forget his record, the man is the best. I mean the best, nobody else comes close. But things have a way of happening around him.
I'm not saying it's his fault-or maybe it is, I don't know. Just keep your eyes open and your wits about you."
"He seems nice, actually."
"Did I say he wasn't nice? He's nice." She heard his chortle of condescension distantly, as if he were trying to hide it, but not too hard. "Nice. Jesus, Pegeen, you're such a girl."
"I'm not going to respond to that."
"Now don't get upset. I don't mean it as an insult…
"Thank you so much. It's not.", 'It's just that 'nice' is what makes you a girl, thinking about people that way, assuming things like that.
Pegeen began to regret having made the call. "I don't think you're nice," she said. "That should be good for something."
"But I actually am nice."
"I'll have to refine the definition, then."
"The point is, you're like a little kid who wants to run up and pet every dog she sees. Well, some of them are pettable, and some of them bite… And some of them aren't even dogs. They can take your arm off at the shoulder; they can rip your throat out when you bend over."
Pegeen hung up the phone. What had Becker called himself A werewolf. Not the man who had needed to hold her hand before he entered the prison.
That was not a dangerous man, it was a sweet, troubled, sensitive man.
What, she wondered, would he be when he came back out? To her surprise, she felt a thrill of anticipation.
Back in the car, Becker was agitated and distracted answering Pegeen's questions only with grunts. When they returned to the highway he kept his eyes on the road, searching for something.
"There," he said finally, pointing a finger. "Pull over there."
"Where?"
"The motel."
"Why are we going to a motel?" Pegeen asked, dutifully steering into the motel courtyard.
Becker didn't answer but bolted from the car and into the office. He returned quickly, holding a key, and he strode to a motel room and entered. Pegeen followed reluctantly, puzzled. There had been no mention during training about agents darting into motel rooms in the middle of the day.
The door of the room was ajar, but Pegeen knocked first. What if he was lying naked on the bed? What if he was… She stopped trying to imagine and admitted to herself that she had no idea. She knocked again, spoke his name, then eased the door open.
She saw his shoes and socks where he had discarded them outside of the bathroom. The bathroom door was open and she heard the sound of the shower running.
She said, "Hello?" feeling foolish. She waited for several minutes, uncertain what he was doing or what she should do in response. Finally she sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. Would he emerge from the shower with fangs and fur like the werewolf of the movies? she wondered. Would he come out wearing a towel? Without a towel? Should she go wait in the car? Steam billowed out from the bathroom door. She decided to just sit tight and see what happened next. Whether or not he was the "baaaad dude" she had been warned to be careful of, he was a damned sight more interesting and less predictable than any of the agents at the office.
Or than any other man she knew, for that matter. The steam filled the entire motel room. Pegeen threw her feet up on the bed and relaxed into the pillow. The spot on her cheek where he had touched her still burned, but she knew that was just her imagination.
In the speckled shade of a dying fir, Cooper squatted and studied the restaurant across the highway. The tree was a victim of acid rain, and half of its needles had turned brown and sere, mottling the canopy with scrofulous patches like a dog with mange. Cooper eyed the restaurant, his fingers idly toying with the dead needles that littered the ground around him, raking them into little piles while his mind raced, trying to figure out his situation. They had given him another application, even though Cooper said he'd already filled one out in the other town, even though he was wearing the striped uniform jacket of the restaurant chain to prove he'd worked there. Still, they wanted another application, as if they didn't believe him, or were trying to trick him, trying to make him look stupid. Cooper had glanced at the application and then at the manager who handed it to him. His name tag said he was Ted. Cooper thought of saying, here Ted, here's your head, then breaking the little clerk's neck for him and stuffing the application in the hole.
Instead, he had taken the application across the street, where he could be in the shade and think what to do.
Last time, of course, he had made that girl fill out the form for him. Cooper had forgotten exactly how he had made her do it, but he remembered that it worked, he had gotten the job. He remembered other things about the girl, too.
He remembered how she had let him drive her car and how she had surprised him while he was driving and then how she had taken him into the woods and surprised him some more. She had liked him, he knew that.
She told him so and she certainly acted like it, or at least as if she liked part of him. She had told him she loved the way he howled.
"Most men don't say nothing, they don't make a sound, not a sound. You just throw your head back and hoot like an Indian on the warpath. That's a nice thing, Coop. Men aren't usually very good at enjoying themselves.
He remembered that he had howled a lot in the woods, maybe exaggerating it a little bit for her sake. She laughed every time he did, but not a mean laugh; she wasn't making fun of him.
He wished he could see her now. He would trick her into filling out the application again and this time, afterward, when they got in her car, maybe he'd surprise her.
There was something about her he had forgotten, he knew that, something important. He lifted a pile of dead needles in his hand and let them out like grains of sand.
They sparkled like shards of copper when the sunlight hit them, like a lively shining living stream of copper, but lying on the ground, in the shade once more, they were as dull and drab as dirt. A few of the needles were stuck in his hand, pasted there by perspiration. Cooper brushed them off, dried his hand on his pants, then rubbed the sweat from his forehead, wetting it again. It was very hot, even in the shade.
Mayvis, that was her name. Cooper stood up, pleased with himself for recalling it. Her name was Mayvis and she had written it down for him so he could remember it.
Cooper looked in his wallet; he remembered she had tucked the paper with her name on it in his wallet, which had disturbed him at first-he didn't like people handling his personal property-but she kept talking to him the whole time, explaining that he could call her anytime he wanted to have some more fun or if he needed anything at all.
"You can even call if you just want to talk," she said, then laughed-he wasn't sure if he liked that particular laugh-"but I don't guess you'd want to do that. Hell, I don't care, just call if you want to howl into the phone.