Providence Rag

by Bruce DeSilva

  “You sure you don’t want anything else, kid?” Charlie asked. “That was one hell of a story Sunday. Whatever you want is on the house.”

  “Thanks, Charlie, but I think I’ll just stick with coffee.”

  The cook nodded and turned back to the grill. Mason swiveled on his stool to face Mulligan and Gloria.

  “In the rush to get the story in shape to print, I never did properly thank you two for saving my butt.”

  “You’re welcome,” Mulligan said.

  “I still think it should have had your bylines on it,” Mason said.

  “Nah,” Mulligan said. “It was your story, Thanks-Dad. You’re the one who got Diggs to talk.” He shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth, checked his watch, and said, “Hey, Charlie, would you mind tuning the radio to WTOP?”

  “What a scumbag Kwame Diggs is,” Iggy Rock was saying. “How dare he play the race card? I’m gonna give credit where credit is due here and say The Providence Dispatch did a great job exposing Diggs for the lying pervert that he truly is.

  “But before any of you start regretting that you canceled your subscriptions, there’s something you need to know. According to my sources, the newspaper is continuing its investigation into the drug and assault charges that have kept Diggs behind bars. How the Dispatch could persist in this after what it published Sunday is beyond me. I have again invited Ed Lomax, the paper’s managing editor, to come on this show and explain, but once again he has refused to face our questions.

  “The phone board is all lit up, so let’s take some calls. Marcie from Johnston, you are on the air.”

  “Hi, Iggy. Longtime listener, first-time caller. I just want to say that the editors and reporters at the Dispatch are a bunch of commie nigger lovers who—”

  “Marcie from Johnston, you are off the air. Let’s not have any more of that, people. Kwame Diggs killed because he is a vicious sexual predator. The fact that he’s black had nothing to do with it, okay? If you want to know the truth, most serial killers are white. Paulie from Pawtucket, you are on the air.”

  “Good morning, Iggy. What the hell is…”

  52

  “Okay, let’s try it this way,” Mason said. “I’ll tell you what I already know, and you straighten me out if you think I’ve got something wrong.”

  “I’m listening,” Paul Delvecchio said.

  “On the morning of March thirteen, 2005, you were among a group of guards hanging out in the Supermax break room. Bob Araujo, Chuckie Shaad, Ty Robinson, Frank Horrocks, and maybe one or two others. Most of them were drinking coffee and making small talk. A couple of them were playing cards.”

  “I’m supposed to remember where I was seven years ago?”

  “You’ll remember this, all right,” Mason said. “It was the morning after Araujo was supposedly assaulted by Kwame Diggs, and he was telling everybody who’d listen what really happened.”

  “And what was that?” Delvecchio asked. He took a sip of his coffee and sank his teeth into a leaking jelly doughnut.

  “The way Araujo told it, he faked the assault charge on Warden Matos’s orders so they’d have an excuse to keep Diggs locked up. The other guards gave Araujo the hero treatment, shaking his hand and slapping him on the back.”

  “Not the way I remember it,” Delvecchio said.

  “So you do recall that morning.”

  The prison guard slammed his fist on the counter.

  “Here’s what you better remember, asshole. You better remember what happened to your fucking car. You know what kind of people drive a Prius? Tree huggers, socialists, and faggots. I got you pegged as all three. Keep this up and it won’t be your windshield that gets busted next time. It’ll be your fuckin’ skull.”

  With that, Delvecchio got up and stomped out of Dunkin’ Donuts.

  53

  Diggs put the visitors’ room phone to his ear and scowled.

  “What the fuck you doin’ to me, cuz? Why’d you put all that shit in the paper?”

  “You get the paper in here?”

  “The prison library gets it, yeah.”

  “I put in all the things you told me, Kwame.”

  “Yeah, but you also put in a bunch of crap that made me look like a liar.”

  “Some of the things you told me weren’t true.”

  “You played me, cuz. When I get out of here, I’m gonna fuckin’ wreck you.”

  “That so?”

  “Count on it,” he said, and slammed his cuffed hands against the Plexiglas.

  Two guards roused themselves from the wall they’d been leaning on, gunfighter-strutted up to Diggs, and grabbed him roughly by the shoulders.

  “Calm the fuck down, asshole,” Mason heard one of them yell, the words faint through the thick Plexiglas. The guards then talked quietly to Diggs for a few seconds. When the tension fell from his shoulders, they sauntered back to their post along the wall. But they kept their eyes locked on him.

  “Tell me something, Kwame,” Mason said. “Do you think I’m going to keep looking into the charges against you if you threaten me like that?”

  Diggs didn’t speak.

  “How do you suppose you’re going to get out of here without my help?”

  “Sheee-it. You ain’t been any help so far.”

  “I’ve found out enough to convince me that you were framed on the drug and assault charges, Kwame. I just don’t have enough evidence to prove it yet.”

  “Of course I was framed. Did you see the fuckin’ video?”

  “Video? What video?”

  “Exactly, cuz.”

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Everything that happens in here is on video. There’s cameras all over the fuckin’ place. So how come they didn’t show no video of me whacking out guards at my trials, huh? Can you explain that?”

  * * *

  That evening, as Mason headed home for the night, his newly repaired Prius was running rough. As he dipped off the Claiborne Pell Bridge and rolled into Newport, flames shot from the hood.

  Firemen arrived in minutes and smothered the engine fire with extinguishers. A city cop arranged a tow and gave Mason a lift home.

  54

  “Bristol Toyota. How may we serve you?”

  “Don Sockol, please.”

  “May I tell him who is calling?”

  “Edward Mason.”

  “One moment, please.…”

  “Good morning, Edward. How’s the Prius treating you?”

  “Fine and dandy,” Mason lied.

  “So how may I help you today?”

  “I’m working on another story about Kwame Diggs, and I could use your help again.”

  “Man, that story in the Sunday paper really tore him a new one,” Sockol said.

  “It did,” Mason said.

  “Was the information I sent you any help?”

  “It sure was. Thanks so much.”

  “That’s great. But what’s this I been hearing about the Dispatch trying to get Diggs sprung?”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear on the radio,” Mason said. “That’s just Iggy Rock trying to stir up trouble.”

  “That’s what I figured. I gotta tell you, though. A lot of the guards believe that shit. Some of them are pretty worked up about it, so you better watch your back.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  “So what do you need now?”

  “Is it true that everything that happens in Supermax is caught on surveillance cameras?”

  “Not everything, no.”

  “What’s covered?”

  “The corridors, the exercise yard, the visitors’ room … all the common areas. No cameras in the cells, though. Got to give the skels their privacy.”

  “The guards’ break room?”

  “No.”

  “How long do they keep the tapes?”

  “There aren’t any tapes. It’s all digital nowadays. The video files are stored on hard drives. We’re supposed to delete the old stuff ev
ery five years, but we don’t always get around to it, to tell you the truth.”

  “Do you have access to the files?”

  “Yeah. The hard drives are kept in my office.”

  Careful, Mason told himself. If Sockol figures out what you’re after, you’re sunk.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any interesting video of Diggs.”

  “Actually, there is, although it’s not from the surveillance cameras. Last summer, the warden brought in some lame poet from Providence College to run a writing workshop. The idea was to help the inmates get in touch with their feelings or some such bullshit. We record all our education programs, so we’ve got video and sound of the whole thing.”

  “Diggs was there?”

  “Yeah. The inmates were supposed to write poems and read them out loud. Most of them just sat on their asses for an hour and laughed at the guy, but a few of them actually wrote something.”

  “Including Diggs?”

  “Uh-huh. The other guys wrote about their mothers or their dogs or how much they missed their kids. But Diggs? He wrote some rap lyrics about fucking blondes.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Yeah. Afterwards, all the guards were talking about it, so I cued the video in my office and watched it. Diggs was doing this bouncy little dance while he rapped about all the places he wanted to put his dick. Creepy as all hell.”

  “Any chance I could see that video?”

  “Uh … you can’t come to my office to watch it. That would get me in a world of trouble.”

  “I understand,” Mason said, making his voice thick with disappointment. Don’t suggest the solution, he thought to himself. Let Sockol work it out.

  The Corrections Department clerk thought it over, then said, “What if I made you a copy?”

  “Could you? That would be great.”

  “I could download it onto a portable hard drive and drop it in the mail. Long as you don’t tell anybody how you got it.”

  “I promise.”

  “Anything else you need?”

  “There is. A source tells me there might be surveillance footage of Diggs acting freaky a couple of other times.”

  “Where and when?”

  “March twelve, 2005, and October twenty of last year,” Mason said. “Both times as he was being led from his cell to the exercise yard.”

  “Prisoners can be taken to the yard any time between eight A.M. and four P.M. Can you narrow down the time any?”

  Mason could. Testimony at the two assault trials had established the exact times of both alleged attacks. But what he said was, “Sorry, but I can’t.” The less Sockol knew, the better.

  “Okay, then,” Sockol said. “Diggs’s cell is about sixty yards or so from the yard, so that means video from a half-dozen cameras. With eight hours of video from each camera, that’s … uh … forty-eight hours for each day. No way I’ve got time to wade through all that. I’ll have to download it all for you if that’s okay.”

  “That would be fine.”

  “The stuff from 2005 might have been deleted, but I’ll look to be sure. The other date is no problem. Just give me a day or two, okay?”

  * * *

  In 1989, The New Yorker published “The Journalist and the Murderer,” a two-part series by Janet Malcolm. In it, the author painted a cynical portrait of the journalist. “He is a kind of confidence man,” she wrote, “preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust, and betraying them without remorse.”

  Four years ago, Mason’s journalism ethics professor at Columbia had made the infamous article required reading, and it ignited a spirited in-class debate. Mason disputed Malcolm’s point, arguing that it probably said more about the kind of journalist she was than it did about journalists in general. But now, he found himself rethinking his position.

  Malcolm was dead-on, he decided. Except for one thing. She got the lack of remorse part wrong.

  * * *

  “Edward Mason, Providence Dispatch.”

  “Hello, Mr. Mason. This is Detective Sergeant Christopher Sullivan of the Newport PD.”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you tell me, sir, if you have been having trouble with anyone? Have you received threats of any kind?”

  “Can you tell me why you are asking?”

  “After you answer my question.”

  “Some people are unhappy about a story I’ve been working on for the Dispatch.”

  “What kind of story?”

  “One involving the State Department of Corrections.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “I’d rather not do that on the telephone.”

  “I see. Can you tell me, then, how this unhappiness has been expressed?”

  “I’ve received several threatening notes in the mail, a couple of messages were left on my Prius, and the car was vandalized twice in the state prison parking lot.”

  “I see. Did you file police reports about the vandalism?”

  “I did, with the Cranston police.”

  “And do you still have the threatening messages?”

  “I still have the ones that came in the mail. The others were in the form of alphabet refrigerator magnets placed on my car door, but I took photos of them with my phone.”

  “Could you stop by and bring the letters and the photos with you?”

  “Certainly. Can you tell me what this is about now?”

  “Sir, your car fire earlier this week was not an accident. Someone tampered with the vehicle.”

  “Tampered how?”

  “Someone poured nitromethane into your gas tank.”

  “Nitro-what?”

  “Nitromethane. It’s an organic compound commonly used in industrial applications.”

  “What kind of applications?”

  “The way it was explained to me, it’s used in the manufacture of pesticides, explosives, and coatings, and is also widely used as a cleaning solvent.”

  “What did it do to my car?”

  “Again, as it was explained to me, the compound makes an automobile engine run very hot. As you probably know, sir, your Prius runs on electric power only until it reaches forty miles per hour. At higher speeds, the gasoline engine kicks in.”

  “And when it did, it ran so hot that it caught fire?”

  “That is correct.”

  “What time do you get in tomorrow morning, Detective?”

  “I’ll be at my desk by eight.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “Fine. And in the meantime, sir, I suggest that you take precautions.”

  Ten minutes after Mason signed off, the phone rang again. This time it was his insurance agent calling to tell him that his automobile policy had been canceled. Great. To get back on the road, he was going to have to find an insurer with a high-risk pool and pay three times the normal rate.

  55

  “What’s in the package, Thanks–Dad?” Mulligan asked.

  “Some video.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of Diggs inside Supermax.”

  “What? How the hell did you get that?”

  “A source.”

  “What’s on it?”

  “Come along,” Mason said, “and we’ll have a look.”

  Three small conference rooms, each equipped with a computer, were located just off the main newsroom. The reporters entered one of them, and Mason ripped open the package. Inside was a portable hard drive. Mason fired up the computer, connected the hard drive, and found seven video files. One was dated August 5, 2011, the date of the prison poetry workshop. The other six were dated October 20, 2011, the day Diggs allegedly assaulted a guard named Joseph Galloway. There was nothing from the date of the alleged assault in 2005. Apparently, that video had been deleted from the Corrections Department’s records.

  Mason opened the August file first and discovered that it was in color and included audio.

  A dozen prisoners sat in molded plastic chairs arranged in a half cir
cle. Mason pointed his finger at the screen, indicating where Diggs slouched. His long legs stretched out in front of him, and his eyes were closed.

  The speaker was prattling about how the prisoners could explore their deepest feelings through poetry. All they had to do, he said, was discover something he called “your second throat.”

  “Quite true,” Mason said. Mulligan didn’t say anything. To him, it sounded like psychobabble. As the poet droned on, Diggs never stirred. His eyes remained closed.

  After five minutes of this, Mason hit the fast-forward button, stopping several times to check on Diggs. Each time he was the same. There was no hint that he was paying attention.

  Mason clicked the fast-forward button again, slowing the video when the poet distributed notebooks and urged the prisoners to write. Most ignored him, but a few started scribbling. Diggs appeared to be asleep.

  Fast-forwarding again, Mason found the part where the first prisoner, a skinny dude with a shaved skull and a swastika neck tattoo, rose to read his poem to the group.

  My moms, she was an angel. I was her baby boy.

  She loved me unconditionally. She thought I’d bring her joy.

  But I became a gangster, seduced by the streets.

  Now I cool my heels in Supermax

  While my moms sits home and weeps.

  “Good Christ!” Mulligan said. “I can’t take much of this.”

  “Look at Diggs,” Mason said. The big man was hunched over a pad of paper now, scribbling furiously.

  Mason hit the fast-forward button again, stopping just as Diggs pulled himself to his feet.

  “Can a brother get a beat?” he said.

  Half the prisoners responded, and Diggs bounced to the rhythm of their beatboxing.

  Some blondes they come from bottles. Some come from DNA.

  But you can’t tell the difference till you tear their clothes away.

  The fake ones aren’t so bad, ’cause they still have all the parts.

  They get wet in the right places, and they know the loving arts.

  But real blondes are the best of all. Their pubes are smooth as silk.