Homeboy

by Seth Morgan

  “Wrong bar,” purred a blowsy blonde perched three stools down. “But I was called Stormie Monday in my … stage days. Among other things.”

  “I like women with a cute patter,” Frank drawled, all parimutuel prophet once more. He shot his cuffs and smoothed back his gray ducktail. “The gift of gab turns on Mister Fab … Why dontcha slide on down here and touch asses … I mean glasses with an American original.”

  DEVILSTONE

  The pronunciamento was posted on the Mainline outside Custody:

  BY ORDER OF THE WARDEN THE HANDICRAFTS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CLOSED AS A THREAT TO INSTITUTIONAL SECURITY.

  LT. ROWDY MCGEE, S&I

  Passing convicts gave the military stencil the briefest and most sullen of looks. It was only the latest symptom of the pen’s transformation into a human cold storage facility. The junior college program had been canceled, the prison newspaper shut down; the Band Room was turned into a dormitory for population overflow, and every week inmate ironworkers welded second bunks into the cells of another wing.

  That morning Joe overheard at a table behind him in the increasingly quiet Chowhall a black electrician whistle low and soft: “Neighbor back home had a kennel and when his wife got sick he had to take in more dawgs than his pens could rightfully hold. To make her medical bills, y’unnerstan. Just kept packin them in until those dawgs could hardly turn around. The night his wife died, he spent at the hospital. We heard them dawgs yappin and snarlin all night, raisin unholy hell. Mornin half them was dead. Jus tore to shreds. Dother half was chewed up so bad our neighbor had to shoot em once he buried his wife.”

  A certainty of Armageddon was settling like a chill onto the Mainline.

  Joe had to stop by Custody for a special ducat admitting him to Hobby to clean out his desk. The guard keyed him onto the Activites Unit at Work Call, and he rushed down to the Handicrafts section and picked his way through the ransacked office out into the shop area. There he stood with mouth agape. It looked like ground zero at Santa’s workshop.

  The Gooners had smashed ceramic molds, slashed artists’ canvases, dumped leather dyes and paints. They ran sheet metal through the table saws, chipping and bending the blades; they jumpwired the kiln’s thermostat, cranked it up and blew it out. The inmate lumber cage had been looted. The doors hanging open at the loading docks left no doubt how the lumber and innumerable inmate tools, artifacts, and other possessions had left the reservation. Via every guard’s preferred private vehicle, the 4x4 pickup, the better to haul off the tonnage of foodstuffs and materiel stolen weekly from the institution.

  When the Gooners finished their pillage of the shop, stealing not only state hardware, but inmate drugs, cash, cigarets—even condoms to be resold at a discount to restock the mensroom machines in Coldwater’s bars—they clogged the drains of every sink and left the water running, flooding all. An earthquake might have caused similar wreckage, assisted by a tidal wave.

  Joe slogged through the kneedeep dirty water, turning off the taps. At last just one loud drip remained that he couldn’t find, a solemn plangence like an echoing clapless bell measuring the deep, silent truth tolling in his heart: that more than these men’s pastimes and hobbies lay ravaged; it was their selfworth, the last facsimile of identity represented in their artifacts. Down his face streamed tears loosed by the spilled gallons of toxic fluids; inside fell an acid rain of gall, corroding but not consuming.

  Not knowing how else to be useful, he began a spot inventory of what remained. Jailhouse lawyers and writ writers would file suits no doubt; the cons took some consolation in their access to the courts. That decisions were made at their behest was mark enough; it little mattered whether favorably or not.

  He passed the potter’s wheel smashed to bits and the leather workers’ area where several of Dr. Raggedy Mouth’s gris gris bags stuffed with sawdust and snippets of his dreadlocks bobbed atop water swirled with bright acrylic paint; past the artists’ section where one of Horsekiller’s airbrushed paintings floated, ripped in half, a rendition of an Indian maiden astride a Harley, her attitude suggesting sexual congress; past the ceramic shelves hurled to the floor, the hundreds of smashed molds, the carpentry bench where a couple of birdhouses remained intact—anything as eyecatching as one of Irons’s jewelry boxes was atop a Gooner’s mantel by now. He paused at the blownout kiln, thinking sadly of Benny and wondering how he fared in the Hole.

  “I’ll send him some zuuzuus and whamwhams,” he promised aloud before remembering he was wiped out. Whatever he hadn’t loaned to Earl he had hidden around Hobby. All Joe had left was in his cell.

  Making his way through the detritus back to the office, he winced passing the jewelry section. Here he knew the Gooners had found the richest booty stored in padlocked lockers. Opals, sapphires, emeralds, gold, and silver—material these men had spent years accumulating for their craft. Rudy Malec’s locker on the end had been jimmied with a crowbar; at a glance Joe saw he’d lost not just his gems and precious metals, but all his sophisticated drills, their bits, precision torches, and grinding devices. He was cringing with pity for whatever target of opportunity was afforded the AB Captain’s wrath when a colorful pamphlet floating in the filthy water caught his eye. He stooped, picked it up, and dried its cover with his sleeve.

  It was titled Celebrated Diamonds of the World. Idly Joe thumbed its soggy pages, staring at the photographs of the fabulous stones above brief descriptions and histories. Examining amid such desolation this compendium of boundless wealth both sickened and mesmerized him. Faintly he heard Work Call ring from the Mainline and was about to toss the brochure aside when his heart skipped a beat, then clogged his throat and bulged his eyes. No mistaking the teardrop shape, the blue scintillance against the black velvet backdrop. He was staring at the blue diamond he stole from Baby Jewels.

  His eye flitting back and forth between the text and its subject, Joe read:

  THE BLUE JAGER MOON This spectacular sixty-nine carat fancy blue was discovered in 1834 under peculiar circumstances at the Jagerfonstein Mines in Bechuanaland, now Botswana. An underwater sulphur spring of exceptional strength and velocity was accidentally struck at the bottom of the site’s deepest shaft. Of the sixteen Kalahari bushmen drowned in the mishap, the corpse of only one was recovered when it floated days later to the top of the flooded shaft. In its mouth was found this extraordinary fancy blue. The bushmen christened it the “Devilstone,” linking it to an evil deity of the desert tribe, associated with mirages and poisoned springs. The Blue Jager Moon’s subsequent history tended to support rather than debunk this superstition.

  The diamond’s first owner, Dutch explorer Balthazar Zutger, disappeared with it on a search for the source of the Nile, circa 1857. The Blue Jager Moon next came to light in the possession of Egyptian potentate, Khedive Ismalamud, at the close of the century. He sent the diamond aboard a treasure dhow as part of the dowry due a Persian sheik for his marriage to his daughter, Fatima Tezreh, a girl of fabled beauty. She and the dhow were lost without a trace in the Red Sea in 1902.

  Here the diamond’s history becomes indistinguishable from its legend, which has it that a fisherman in the Strait Bab el Mandeb recovered the Blue Jager Moon from the belly of a fish. From there it traveled through the Ottoman court, across the Balkans, in and out of the hands of Ferdinand, Tsar of Bulgaria; was rumored to have been briefly a bauble of Mata Hari, gift of an obscure Swabian prince, before appearing verifiably at auction in Paris in 1912. There it was purchased by representatives of Viscount Wm. Waldorf Astor, who dispatched it in the company of Lady Astor to his American cousins aboard the Titanic. Mysteriously, the Blue Jager Moon was not secured in the purser’s vault to be lost with the rest of the ship’s valuables when the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank. The diamond was rescued from the North Atlantic in the possession of one of Lady Astor’s maids. Subsequently, the Blue Jager Moon was sold in 1922 to Barrisford Rhiordan, the California sugar tycoo
n. As part of his estate, it now belongs to his granddaughter, Daphne Riordan-Bell, wife of California State Supreme Court Justice Lucius Bell … Over its hundred and fifty years above ground, the Blue Jager Moon has been Magna, Marquis and Brilliant cut. Against the advice of gemologists, who argued that a further cutting would rob the diamond of carats and quality, Barrisford Rhiordan ordered its current Pear Cut to eternalize one of the many tears he shed when his wife, Marguerite, drowned in a freak yachting accident while wearing the Blue Jager Moon. Her body was never recovered, only the scarf in which the diamond necklace was entangled. Once again the Devilstone resurfaced from the watery grave to which it had doomed its possessor.

  Reading this fantastic biography of a rock, Joe wandered blindly back to the office. Christ! He hadn’t stolen a precious gem, he’d invested himself with a curse. The diamond had won riches for none and brought death to all who held it. Whose watery grave could the shark tank be but Joe’s should he try to retrieve the Blue Jager Moon? He tossed the pamphlet on his desk. For the first time he recognized, in the face of a menace more terrible and absolute than any of his own contrivance, that he wanted to live.

  Yet if he wasn’t going to recover the Moon, what should he do with it? Nothing? Leave it in the tank, a sort of private joke on fate? No, that still left him in jeopardy. Somehow Baby Jewels might uncover Joe and order his assassin, Rowdy McGee, to take him out. He snapped his fingers. Of course, he must turn the power of the Moon against the Fat Man, tell Tarzon its hiding place. And at the same time, by disclosing what he saw on Sick Bay, destroy Rowdy McGee. Kill two birds with one stone, save his own ass and avenge Whisper …

  An alarm sounded suddenly on an upper floor, followed by stampeding guard boots and more alarms and klaxons, then Hobby’s siren kicked in, a hellish ululation with teeth of steel that picked Joe up and smashed his skull from wall to wall. The P.A.’s of Coldwater fried like fast fuses: “Lockdown … Lockdown. Return to your units for Emergency Count … Maximum Lockdown …”

  Tucking Celebrity Diamonds under his shirt, Joe bolted from the office and joined the rest of General Population thronging like a routed army down the Mainline.

  JUST ANOTHER FAT MAN

  The wigs were Sidney’s idea. He said the jury wouldn’t believe Jules was really bald, they’d think he shaved his head.

  “Why would they think that?” the Fat Man demanded. He imagined himself something of a specialist on human nature, but this one stumped him.

  “Because bad people shave their heads. To look dangerous, Jules. Ghengis Khan shaved his head, Pontius Pilate. Pimps shave their heads. That’s what you’re on trial for, remember?”

  “I suppose Elmer Fudd’s a bad guy,” Quick grumbled.

  “Why dont you ask Bugs Bunny?” Sidney invited him.

  “How about cops, Sidney?” Baby Jewels pointed out. “Look at Kojak.”

  “Kojak’s a TV cop, Jules. TV and movie cops are bad people. Believe me, Jules. Bald is nasty. Bald is …”

  “Sexy,” snapped the Fat Man. “It means you’re virile.”

  “As in well hung and full of cum,” Quick added with authority.

  Sidney rolled his eyes and wrung his hands. Jules was enough trouble without his punchdrunk peanut gallery.

  “Jules, trust me. Inside you’re a beautiful person. I know that. Everybody who knows you knows that. Except with the skintop you look like a double Y chromosome serial killer … But in a wig, hey—you’re just another fat man. And all the world loves a fat man.”

  Grudgingly Baby Jewels agreed to at least try on a few and see if he couldn’t find one to fit his personality. Sidney left and an hour later a messenger arrived at the Tender Trap with a half dozen wigs from Adonis Hair Systems. Quick carried them down to the basement office. They came in individual boxes, attached by Velcro to styrofoam heads. Quick unpacked and ranked the heads on the Fat Man’s desk. Bleakly surveying them, Baby Jewels really did look like Genghis Khan, inventorying his decapitated enemies.

  “Tch. They even got names, Quick. There’s the Executive, the Tennis Pro … How about this one?” He peeled a wavy blond one off its mount and held it aloft. “It’s called the Casanova.”

  “That’s you, boss,” Quick said. He cocked his head. “There’s the bell again, Frank’s ring. Be right down.”

  Baby Jewels shrugged. He read the instructions first. Wheezing resignedly he squeezed several drops of Scalptite adhesive cream inside the hairpiece and slapped it atop his ovoid cranium. It felt funny up there, like a dead animal. It was also much too small. He seized the sideburns and yanked them like earflaps on a cap, wrestling it lower. But the wig wouldn’t stretch to accommodate his outsize skull. He yanked harder and the sideburns tore off in his twinkling fists. Meshuga wig! He reached up to snatch it off. It was stuck! “Quick!” he screamed.

  Quick tumbled back into the office. “Yo, boss!”

  Spluttering, Baby Jewels pointed with both hands at the clump of blond waves clung to the peak of his conical head.

  “Looks a little tight, boss,” Quick observed. In truth it looked like a canary trying to hatch a dinosaur egg. “You should have tried the Man About Town. Those Casanova types arent known for big brains, you know. They gotta fit em in their dick heads.”

  Baby Jewels was wheezing too stertorously for speech. Frantically he pantomimed that he required Quick’s assistance detaching the wavy pomp clutching his bean. Quick finally succeeded in tearing it off by grappling his boss’s head in a half nelson. It left an angry red welt on the Fat Man’s scalp. Two Bromos and a nitro were required to reduce his wheezing to a level approximating a small locomotive.

  “Fuckin Sidney!” the Fat Man rainbowed spit. “He forgets he’s just a lawyer. Thinks he’s a drama coach and makeup artist and image consultant rolled into one. Just to show him I think I’ll wear … You ever seen a pimp in a propeller beanie?” He didn’t even give Quick time to think that one over. Suddenly noticing the baggie on his desk, his rings trembled gaudy lights flicking disgustedly at it as if Quick had delivered a cockroach. “What the fuck’s this?”

  Quick relayed Frank’s account of acquiring the baggie and microcasette.

  “Tch.” It was the doll’s voice again, all business. “Frank’s sure these are his slips?”

  “Yeah. Only he dont know how they got blood on them. Thinks maybe one of the thieves had a nosebleed.”

  “If Frank had gunpowder for brains, he couldnt blow his nose.”

  “He wouldnt have to worry bout his nose if I just blew his whole head off,” Quick offered helpfully.

  “Down boy.” Baby Jewels popped a lozenge, pursing his rosebud mouth, sucking hard in thought. The waft of lavender stirred emetically with the resinous reek of scalp adhesive.

  “First Tarzon learns we got the diamond off the hooker. Then he learns we lost it. Then somehow he figured it was ripped off from the Kama Sutra. That’s the only explanation for the slips being tagged for the Monday file. I must say he’s methodical … leading me step by step to the chamber. Incidentally, I thought you said the Monday file was under seal in Sacramento?”

  “It is. For some reason Tarzon was keeping these two items in his office safe.”

  “Loose ends arent his style,” the doll’s voice simped. “And the blood. I wonder if it means he busted the thieves, maybe killed them. For something else. No, then he’d have the Moon … What’s on the midget tape?”

  Quick rolled his neck. “Frank said he couldnt make it out.”

  Baby Jewels yanked open his top drawer so abruptly it slammed into his stomach, loosing an oommph. He slipped a microcassette player on his desk, loaded the tape and punched PLAY.

  “Take this address, 183 Treat …” A porklink pinky punched STOP, a fatty brow bowed upward.

  “An empty lot, boss. A house burned down there.”

  On the tape hissed: “Chakov’s holed there … Hopped
up …” Again the Fat Man stopped it.

  “What jackoff?” demanded the doll’s voice.

  “Whatever jackoff boosted the Moon,” Quick’s spread palms guessed.

  Lieutenant Tarzon hadn’t wasted any time. The instant he walked into his office and saw his safe standing open, he knew of all the documents and items stored there that the microcassette and betting slips were gone. And he knew exactly where—the Fat Man.

  Cursing himself for leaving such sensitive evidence within reach of corrupt cops, in a niggerhead safe any moron could crack with a stethoscope, he leaped around the desk and grabbed the phone. He’d removed the betting slips and microcassette from the Monday file at the State Police barracks as aids in questioning Speaker at Vacaville. That he’d been so busy between then and now tracking both his daughter and the diamond was no excuse for neglecting to return them to safekeeping. It was the tape that was most damaging. On it Speaker used Rooski’s name. A simple check of police computers would yield the information that Rooski capered with Joe Speaker, identifying him as the diamond’s thief. He had to warn Speaker—fast.

  He canceled his appointments for the day and dialed the Department of Corrections in Sacramento to ascertain where Joe was pulling his stretch. As he listened to the clerk clack Joe’s name into the computer, a ironic grin lifted the Hav-A-Tampa Jewel. This mishap might just be the motivation Speaker needs to give up the diamond.

  He didn’t reach the Coldwater gates until late afternoon. Storm clouds were boiling up over the serrated peaks behind the cellblocks. A forbidding stillness was settled on the place, a quiet so immense and immanent it nearly breathed. He parked in the visitors lot and walked to the Gate House. The only movement he noted were several crows quarreling along the concertina wire atop the fences.