by Mary Leo
“Mom too?”
“I think she has to work. So it’ll be just you and me, kid. That okay?”
“Sure.”
My dad wasn’t a very tall man, but he wasn’t short either. Regardless of his height, he looked great standing next to Mom. Everybody always said that they made a handsome couple. I thought they made a beautiful couple. I guess it was Mom’s bright red hair against Dad’s chestnut brown that gave them their contrasting appeal. He was getting a little grey around the temples. He said it was his Irish showing. Regardless, they still looked great together.
Dad left the room. I followed. Mom must have been in the shower because I could hear her singing. She only sang when she was taking a shower or doing the dishes. Must have something to do with running water. I followed Dad into their bedroom. My parents’ bedroom was a mixture of Irish antiques and Goldblatt’s department store originals. Mom liked blue and everywhere she could she added a little: the sheets, the bedspread, the floral curtains and even the carpet. The furniture was dark walnut with an inlaid floral design on the headboard, dresser and mirror, with family photos on just about every surface except Dad’s bureau. That surface was kept empty except for two things.
“A letter came for you this morning,” he said while taking his gun and keys off the bureau. He wore a sly grin like he already knew what was in the letter.
“Really? Do you know who it’s from?”
“Nope, but it’s written on the same thin kind of paper that you girls use for your fan letters. Could be something important.”
Instantly, my imagination took hold. “Oh-my-God. Where is it?”
“Out on the dinner table.”
The words hardly left his lips as I ran from their room to the dining room. At first glance, I couldn’t see anything. Then, propped up against the silver candlesticks in the middle of the polished walnut table was a perfectly square, white envelope with red and blue striping along the sides. Airmail. I swooped up the envelope, carefully ripped open the top, pulled out the folded one-page note, held it to my chest, recited a “please, God, please let it be,” looked down at it, flipped open the page and there on the bottom, in hardly legible scribble was, Love, Ringo
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had to stare at it for a really long time. I scrutinized the postmark on the envelope. It said Chicago, but the signature said Ringo. I’d think about the postmark later. All I cared about was the signature.
Needless to say, I let out a scream that could have been heard all the way back in London. My legs gave out and I had to sit on the floor. My dad came in holding his fingers in his ears and my mom ran out of the bathroom wrapped in a very small towel.
“What’s wrong?” Mom yelled. By now I was lying flat on the floor, holding onto the letter and crying.
“It’s from Ringo!” I squeezed out.
“Ringo who?” Mom asked as if there was another Ringo in the world. I couldn’t answer her.
“Must be Ringo Starr. The Beatle,” my dad said to her and walked over to me. Mom went back into the bathroom, mumbling something about Frank Sinatra.
Dad leaned over me and asked, “You’re not going to die on me are you?”
I opened my eyes and said, “Not yet. I have to show Lisa and Sharon first.”
Chapter Twenty-three
September, 1987
A few days go by. The Captain is still videotaping. We’re still filming, neither of which seems to be going as planned.
I see Mike for a few hours every day. Sometime in the late afternoon he disappears. His evenings are pretty much the same. Him trying to get drunk and me trying to keep him sober. Strange turn of events. Don’t like him drunk. He’s mean. Says things that are hurtful. Doesn’t feel right—me taking care of him. Like I’m his mother or something.
All the while, he’s still disgusted by what he sees, what he hears. Never telling me exactly what’s going on or where they’re taping. The Captain moves the location every day. Security’s too tight. Won’t let me see anything or participate. Won’t let me know where. Both he and Captain Bob shield me from the dailies.
Until one afternoon in F-house when an extra walks up to me and pulls a white plastic rose out of his shirt and starts talking. It’s the kid with the dented head.
“I got this for you,” he says, all smiles and polite. “Thought you might like somethin’ pretty. You got me in your movie without shavin’ my head and I got me some extra money and smokes. My mamma would tell me to give you somethin’ back. So I got you this here flower. Got sometin’ you should know about, too.”
“Thanks,” I answer, not sure if I want to know what else he has to tell me. I ask anyway. “What’s that?”
“Your partner, Ma’am,” he whispers. “I know what he’s been doin’.”
I stare at him for a moment, realizing the full impact of what he just said. “Do you know where?”
“Yes, Ma’am. But from what I hear, a nice girl like you don’t want no part of it.”
Now’s your chance. Take it. You have to know.
“That might be true, but can you bring me right to them, if I want to talk to my partner? Do you know a safe way to get there? A fast way?”
“Yes, Ma’am. You sure?”
My instinct is telling me not to trust this guy. To walk away.
Go with him Carly. Don’t be afraid.
“Yes,” slides from my mouth as easily as a smile.
“Follow me, Ma’am.” We take off down the ramp to the showers. Nobody notices. As easy as that. Then down a dimly lit hallway and through a heavy door. Just the two of us walking through a basement corridor: cement walls, bare light bulbs, pipes and no yellow line on the floor, just jagged cracks in the cement. The noise from the inmates’ incessant pounding on the pipes clips though me like shards of glass. I can hardly believe that I’m doing this.
He keeps walking. Hardly any light now. He’s in front of me, turning every now and then to make sure I’m still there. Following. He flashes an innocent grin. Is it real or is he truly a killer leading me to my demise? What am I doing? Fear creeps into my imagination. I force it back out, trying to concentrate on the mission, finding a way to feel nothing, to be numb. At one point the lights flicker. I hesitate. He keeps going so I keep going. We turn down another corridor and walk up a few stairs and he pulls open a heavy metal door. I take a deep breath.
“Over there,” he says pointing down a short hallway to a wooden door with no markings.
We’re on the main floor of some building. We walk out. Denthead’s a step behind me. A guard passes us and nods, never saying a word to either one of us, as if we’ve been expected. When he’s passed, I can feel Denthead’s breath on the back of my neck. Close now. Too close. He rests his hand on my shoulder, slowly brushing the bottom of my ear with his fingers, then sliding his hand along the side of my neck. I stop breathing, holding back the instinct to run. He whispers, “Go on through that there door. There’s gonna be another just like it. Go through that one too and you gonna be standin’ in the room where your friend is.”
I’m immobile for a moment while I stand and stare at the door I’m supposed to go through. I move forward away from his touch, hesitate and turn to get one more look at this kid. See if I can detect anything evil in his eyes before I go through any more doors.
He’s gone and so is the guard who just passed us. I’m alone. I don’t know where I am. If this is a setup, I’m sure a class-A sucker.
There’s nothing to do now but go through the first door and then the next. At once I can hear voices and more pipe clanging. The room feels tight. Painted brick walls. Pipes running along those walls like some wild decoration. I stand behind a set of metal book shelves, near some gray file cabinets, almost afraid to move. Feet glued to the floor. Seems like some kind of large storage room.
After I get my bearings, I recognize one of the voices. That harsh, crass voice belongs to Richard Speck. I flush. I’m at once relieved that Denthead brought me to the right pl
ace, but the knowledge that I’m this close to Speck again, alone, frightens me more than I can stand.
I force myself to move, to look through an open slot between the bookcases. Nothing. More cream-colored brick walls and pipes. I walk further down. Legs heavy. There’s another space between the bookcases, only this one’s pretty wide. Have to be careful how I stand. Can’t risk being seen.
Wary, I gaze through the slot. There he is. Richard Franklin Speck. He’s wearing a blue zipper sweatshirt, stained with paint, and blue pants. His shirt, white. He sits up against a wall in a black plastic chair, facing me. Next to him, just after the corner of the room, also seated in a black chair is an inmate I’ve never seen before, a slight black man with buffed arms and shoulders, wearing Cool Dude shades, holding onto an unlit cigarette. I can’t see Mike anywhere. Maybe he’s somewhere out of view. There’s another inmate with his back towards me, sitting next to the camera, asking questions. He’s also a black man, wearing light-colored clothes, but I can’t see his face. I can only hear his monotone voice asking muffled questions.
No sign of the Captain.
There’s so much noise coming from the pipes, a fan, and the countless inmates voices that it’s almost impossible to hear what’s actually being said. I have to concentrate, strain to read lips, shut out everything else. My heart races while I stand silent, squeezed in between bookcase and file cabinet, totally focused on what Speck is saying. “When you strangle a person it’s not like what you see on TV…about three seconds and they’re dead,” he says as he uses his hands to mime strangling someone. “You gotta go at it for about three and a half minutes. It takes a lot of strength.”
How could I ever have thought this man knew or was a friend of The Beatles?
“And so my fantasies become realities and I must be what I must be and face tomorrow.” My senior class motto—1970.
Tomorrow has arrived. I wipe the tears from my face and once again focus in on reality.
The inmate next to the camera asks, “What are you locked up for?”
“Eight counts of murder,” Speck answers, straight-faced.
“Did you kill them?”
“Sure I did.” Speck hesitates then laughs. “It just wasn’t their night.” Cool Dude shows no emotion, adjusts his shades. No one but Speck laughs.
The inmate next to the camera asks another question, “Did you have a gun the night of the killings?”
“Yeah, the police got it.”
“Why didn’t you use the gun?”
“Guns make too much noise. I was in no shape to run. The knife was quiet. All I wanted to do is just burglary. It started off as burglary. Then all hell broke loose. I was high on acid, drugs.”
Cool Dude asks Speck for a light. Speck shuffles through his pockets, finds a matchbook, hands it to Cool Dude and continues, “One of them spit on me in the face. Thinkin’ back, being in here, she could have shit on me.” He laughs and continues. “She said she was going to pick me out of a lineup. I went off and hit her in the chest with a knife. Then there was two more and I offed them. Wound up trying to kill off all the witnesses. I forgot about one, though. Wouldn’t be here if I got her. She’s the one that ID’d me.”
The world spins. I have to sit down. Think about breathing in sunshine. Too tight in here. But I can’t leave. This is what I wanted. What I agreed to. It’s for them. It’s what they want me to do. What they need me to do.
I lean against the bookcase and slide down to sit on the floor. Don’t know if I can turn back to hear anymore. Somehow I thought I could handle this. Could witness his admission. Didn’t know he would be so graphic. So eager to tell. There he is, laughing over “it just wasn’t their night,” as if those girls had lost at a game of checkers or something as equally benign. Laughing. All he wanted was money and “things just got out of hand.” Like he had no control. It all just happened.
Once again I force myself to look. To listen. This time Speck is naked except for his white crew socks, which are pulled up over his calves. His breasts large and round, stomach flaccid, penis almost nonexistent, like Mike had said. He poses for the camera, like he’s a beauty queen—one hand behind his head, turning sideways, smiling. Cool Dude grabs at his tits, then spins him around and tries to shove paper money up Speck’s ass. They’re laughing. Big joke. All the while Cool Dude is kneading Speck’s ass, showing it off for the camera, spreading the cheeks apart to make a better view and get the money in. Then Speck leans over, holds onto the back of a chair while Cool Dude, who is totally in control, stands with a complete erection and methodically jams his penis into Speck’s ass.
I can’t watch. Can’t listen. Nausea has taken over. I pull my knees up, cover my face with my arms and sit in a ball wanting to magically disappear, but their voices won’t stop. They just get louder. The laughter gets louder. I concentrate on the pipes. The clanging. It makes a kind of music. I hum along with it to drown everything else out.
Time passes, then another question. This time I can hear it without concentrating. “Do you like being fucked by men?”
Speck says, “Absolutely.”
“Have you always liked being fucked by men?”
“Sure.”
“Ever think about getting out of here?”
“Sure, every day, but I know I won’t. Met some of my best friends of my life in here. If they only knew how much fun I was having—”
A noise on my side of the room startles me. I look up but can’t see what or who it is. From out of nowhere, a rough hand comes across my mouth and another starts to pull me up and away. I inhale, terrified, instantly sure that I’m going to die. It’s a man, but not Denthead, hands are too big. I can feel his body against mine. Smell his stale breath. Can’t move, even though my arms are free. I’m frozen.
He drags me back to the same door I entered.
“Relax,” Captain Bob whispers.
I want to scream. He opens the first door and stops in the vestibule.
He speaks again, “Relax, I’m not going to hurt you. Don’t talk. They’ll hear you. I’ll let you go if you promise not to scream.”
I nod and start to let go of the fear, but the adrenalin is still pumping. He slowly removes his hand from my mouth and comes around in front of me and says, “Let me get you out of here.”
“No, not yet.” I turn to face him.
“This is dangerous, Carly. Those two just put enough coke up their nose to run through a shotgun blast. If they see you here, there’s no telling what they might do. You gotta get out. Now.”
He opens the door. Instinct tells me to run. To get as far away from this room as I can. To run and keep on running until I’m safe. Safe from Speck, from men like him, but there isn’t anywhere to go. To hide.
I’m tired.
“No,” I say out loud, more to end my own argument rather than the Captain’s. “Not until he answers my question.”
“What?”
“I have to know. The families need to know. Did Mike ask him my question?”
He pauses, looks me straight in the eyes. “No, he didn’t. Been concentrating on mine. I can’t let you stay here, Carly.”
I push on with my conviction. This time he won’t talk me out of my desire. This time I win, not him. “I’m not leaving. If you try to make me, I’ll let Speck know I’m here. You think I care what happens to me? You don’t know what I’m capable of.” My mind is swirling, trying to come up with bait. “What about the warden? What will he do when he finds out about all of this? Fire your ass, that’s what. Make it so you can’t work anywhere, in any state. Who’s going to pay for your crippled wife when you don’t have a job? Do you think anybody’s going to care about a cripple?”
He raises his hand as if to hit me, then grabs my arms and shakes me instead. “Don’t you dare—”
He stops. We stare at each other. He lets me go, slowly. Animosity drains from his face. There was a moment when I saw violence in his eyes. Felt it in his touch. A moment when I thought I’d los
t. “Go back to your hiding place. I’ll get Ronzell to ask your question.”
Somehow I wish he hadn’t told me the guy’s name. Don’t want a name attached to the voice. Makes it too personal, but I’m wondering where Mike is. I didn’t see him in the room. I’m just about to ask the Captain when he leaves through the outer door. I don’t have time to think about Mike now. I have to hurry back to my vantage point. I don’t want to miss Speck’s answer.
When I finally reposition myself, I can see that Speck and his lover are seated again. Speck wearing bright blue, silk women’s panties. His lover in gray men’s briefs and a dark T-shirt. Neither talking. Sorting through a pile of money. Looks like hundred-dollar bills, but I can’t tell for sure from this distance.
Speck is talking, “She was the one that flirted with me. She was the last one to go. I knew I had all the time in the world. I stuck the goddamn pistol under her jaw, cocked it and said get naked, bitch.” He’s laughing now. Cool Dude smiles as well. “Then when she got naked she didn’t have nothing I wanted so I killed her.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Not now.”
They talk about his painting job in the prison. How he used to paint pictures. How the “Doc” got him going on canvas when he was first in, but now he only paints the tunnels and the cells. Speck pulls out a yellow piece of paper, shows it to the camera and says something about how it allows him to paint. Tells Ronzell how he gets his job done in half the time and then fucks off for the rest of the day. Then he laughs.
“Doc” must be Marvin Ziporyn, a Cook County Psychiatrist who wrote a book about Speck, a biography of sorts, sometime in the late sixties. The good doctor talked about Speck’s life before the nurses, what he was feeling during the trial. How he felt about his family, his wife Shirley, his daughter and his mother. Tried to make him human—a product of an abusive upbringing, a violent society. Ziporyn attempted to convince Speck to plead insanity because he was probably insane at the time of the murders…that he had one of his many blackouts…and perhaps, just perhaps, he never did kill those nurses, after all. I burned the book after I read that.
