by Linda Sands
At the firm, he parked in his assigned spot then headed for his office. They had to leave for the prison soon or they’d miss the morning visitation cut-off.
As Sailor waited for Reilly, she glanced around his cubicle. No photos, no plants. Just a few black-and-white comics tacked to the upholstered walls—a confused penguin, angry office workers and a fat cat. “Ready?” she said.
“Ready as I’ll ever be. You’re sure they said no phones, no palm devices?’ Reilly emptied his pockets into his briefcase.
“Nothing mechanical.” Sailor said, adjusting her collar. “Unless you have special permission to videotape a deposition. Just paper and pen.”
“Hope I can write fast enough.”
“Hope we can read your writing.”
They met Banning in the foyer. He was finishing a call on his cell phone and writing a message at the reception desk under the watchful eye of Paris. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder indicating the file boxes. Reilly nodded, handed his briefcase to Sailor and carried the boxes onto the elevator. Banning followed, still on the phone. He punched the garage level and they rode down.
“I don’t care, Theo. I want to sell. All offers will be considered. Yes, all offers.” Banning glanced at the interns, then said, “Listen, just call me later,” and hung up as the elevator opened.
“Here we are.” Banning motioned to a gleaming ebony and chrome Jaguar XJ12 and popped the trunk.
“Oh, she’s beautiful.” Sailor walked the length of the car, grazed her hand over the hood ornament.
“You’ll never find another Jaguar, (he pronounced it, jag-u-are), like this. She’s custom-built.”
Reilly ignored them. It’s a fucking car, people. Hello? He loaded the boxes in the trunk, removed Ray’s file from his briefcase and added it to one of the boxes.
Sailor ran her thumb over her lip, looked like she was about to ask something then bent down, peering under the vehicle. She stood, grinning. “Pininfarina?”
Banning was surprised. “Yes. But how did you…”
Sailor walked the length of the car. Two summers dating Benny the mechanic had taught her something after all. She said, “It’s genius. Borrowing from the lines of the Series II with the larger rectangular air intake beneath the front bumper, but look at this sleek body. Larger windows, great profile, and the curves are gorgeous. She’s a real beauty.”
The men thought the same thing about the woman in front of them.
Sailor grabbed the passenger door handle and looked at Banning. “We’re still talking fuel-injected v12, OHC, aren’t we?”
“Absolutely. All the way to Graterford.”
Reilly slid into the backseat and opened the morning paper. What did it matter what was under the hood? It was about how you looked behind the wheel. And for this attorney, that meant sports car. Sleek, shiny and convertible. He didn’t care what was under the hood. It could be hamsters on a wheel or rabid squirrels on a treadmill, as long as he had a full tank of gas and a beautiful girl in the passenger seat.
Hiram Berger wore a sweat suit and sneakers with absolutely no intention of exercise. He held the refrigerator door in one hand, the phone in the other, cord stretching across the kitchen. He tried to keep his voice level. “Yes sir. I understand. It’s just that—No, Mr. Frappolli. I still want the security job. Next week would be fine. Thank you, Sir.”
Berger closed the door of the empty fridge and hung up the phone. The long cord twisted around itself like a night crawler on a hook. Fucking Gallo. I had plans. Me and Gina, we had plans. Why do you have to come around and pull my strings? He glanced at the employee handbook on the counter. Safeguards, Inc. Because Security is Never Convenient.
“You got that right pal,” Berger said, twisting the plastic pill sorter to Monday then dumping half the contents in his hand. Frappolli and the night job would wait. He still had his job at the school. Money would be all right for a while.
He headed for the garage, swallowing pills along the way. Berger had plans. As he backed the big Impala out of the garage and down the driveway, he thought of Gallo and his little wops at the dock. They were on his mind while he made stops at the hardware store and army surplus warehouse. He thought of them while he grabbed a bite to eat at the diner. He thought about them all the way to the library.
Reilly didn’t say much the entire ride. It looked like they had taken a detour into suburbia, like someone had wrongly posted the ugly brown sign, SCI Graterford in the middle of a sleepy little town, until he noticed the uniformed guard on horseback. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and held a shotgun across his lap, reins in one hand. A few feet away, men in prison jumpsuits picked up trash. They dragged bright plastic bags behind them and looked up as the Jag slowed then turned onto the prison road. Sailor and Reilly stared out the open windows.
A large black man ina red headwrap called, “Hey bay-bee. Wanna ride in my car?”
The other cons joined in the catcalls.
“Ooo, mama. You go girl.”
“See what I tell you, man. It takes a Jag to get a bitch like that.”
Sailor raised her tinted window as they continued up the road passing lush green fields with buildings and barns in the distance. The road crested and the first tower appeared. Reilly swallowed hard.
Banning drove through the employee parking lot with its wide, newly painted spaces, then bumped off the pavement onto the visitor’s dirt and gravel lot. Trash littered the ground and the cars were parked haphazardly as if a tornado had dropped them.
Banning pulled in between a beat-up Chevy and a deep purple, fully accessorized Z-28. He said, “Just another way to remind the con who he is, and who he isn’t. The theory is: Further isolation from society and removal of privileges teaches the inmate to stop taking things for granted and to realize all actions come with consequences—good and bad.”
“Sounds like law school,” Reilly muttered. He looked at the Z. “Hey, what’s my Mom doing here?”
Sailor laughed. “Cut it out, Ry.” She turned to Banning. “Is it always this crowded?”
“Only on a Monday,” Banning said. “The beginning of the week holds much promise.”
He popped the trunk and handed a file box to Reilly and took one himself. Sailor rolled a cart with additional files. They made their way through the lot, kicking up a dusty trail. To the left of the prison entrance was a beautifully landscaped brick building with curtains in the windows and flowerpots on the steps: The administration building.
They passed under the main gate tower. Reilly looked up at the armed officer on duty. He could have sworn the man mouthed “Goodbye.”
The first checkin was at the main gate. A tough CO in a plexi-glass bubble motioned them forward. Banning, Sailor and Reilly walked through a scanner, then waited for another Corrections Officer to look through the file boxes. The officer’s keys jingled on a long chain at his side and his weapon jabbed at his waist—a personal war waged against his own girth. He moved a wand sensor over the boxes then passed them around to Reilly. No one had said a word since the parking lot.
At each checkpoint, they were searched, scanned, tested. They passed through three rooms with three heavy metal gates, each one clanking shut behind them with a finality Sailor thought impossible, and still no one said a word as they arrived in the waiting area.
A series of desks formed a wall to the right. All the faces behind the desks wore the same expression of disgust and boredom. Lit by their outdated computers, employees strained to cradle oversized phone receivers while typing, writing and pushing buttons. This was their job, their prison.
Banning handed a sheath of papers to the sergeant behind the desk.
“ID,” the guy said.
Banning, Reilly and Sailor slid their licenses across the laminated surface and waited for the man’s inspection. The sergeant had a face like a day-old scone on the markdown rack, his eyes like tiny raisins peering out from the lumpy surface. He motioned to the machine mounted on the countertop. “Take a num
ber.”
Banning pulled a number then led them to a row of wooden pews to wait.
Sailor tried to sit without touching anything, tried to imagine who had sat here before her. Tried to be nonchalant and cool like Reilly, but shit, she was in prison. Behind the desks where they’d come in, uniformed bodies bobbed behind desks, going about their business. Of course it was just a job to them, something they did every day—surrounded by barbed wire and concrete walls. They did their filing and typing twenty-eight feet from convicted murderers. Sailor started to freak. This was the real deal. The girls back at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington would never believe it.
At the end of the pew, a skinny black woman in a clear shower cap nursed a sickly baby. The woman’s leg jittered, shaking her slack breast and the baby. She stared straight ahead and occasionally pushed her lower lip out with her tongue. Two toddlers who might belong to her played nearby. They banged their plastic cars on the token machine and stuck their fingers into the change return slot, screeching each time the metal flap slapped down. Young girls who should have been in school learning history and algebra, instead primped in small mirrors, adding layers of eye shadow, liner and lipstick.
Banning slid the file boxes along the pew, sat between Reilly and Sailor and ran his long fingers over the folders, checking names. He pulled three, then closed the box and pushed it to Reilly. “You should be set. There are notes in each file, and a brief synopsis. You’ve done this before, right?”
Reilly nodded. “A few times. Just not in there.” He pointed to the metal door bind the steel gate.
Banning shrugged. “The law’s the same. You’ll do fine.” He counted the files in the second box then looked at Sailor.
“We’ll take these.”
Reilly looked inside his box twice. “Mr. Banning? Where’s the Bentley file?”
“Bentley? Why?”
Torn between telling the truth about bringing the file home and admitting that he really wanted to work the case, he said, “Well, I was working on it this weekend.” Before Banning could say anything, he added, “Actually, Sailor and I did some research and we think-”
Banning interrupted. “How did you come to be working on the case this weekend, Mr. Reilly?”
“It’s complicated. I know. But, there’s something. I mean there might be something.” He swept his eyes sideways toward Sailor.
Banning noticed. “We’ve got a long wait. Might be a good time to fill me in.”
There was one thing all of Banning’s ex-wives agreed on. He was a good listener. Reilly told Banning as much as they knew based on the file and Ray’s recent phone call. Sailor filled in the blank spots, leaving out the retirement party and the war room wall in her apartment. She watched Banning’s expression as Reilly stated the facts of the case, saw his smirk when Deluca’s name was mentioned.
Banning said, “I remember following the original case in the papers—what little there was. I wouldn’t doubt the connections went deep, even back then. It sounds like you two have invested a great deal of time on this.” He looked at Sailor, then at Reilly. “These allegations are not to be taken lightly. We can’t afford any mistakes.” He flipped through the file, paused on Ray’s picture. “Do we have any idea what we’re up against with Ray? Is he cooperative? Educated?”
Reilly smiled. “He works in the law library as a paralegal. He’s clean. A model con.”
Banning raised a brow, then scratched a note on his pad. “I’ll run lead on Bentley, but this is your case.” He looked up at the interns, kids really. God he hoped this was the right thing to do. What would Montgomery think? Fuck Montgomery. Banning said, “All right then.” And slid out of the pew to talk to the sergeant.
“Excuse me, I just wanted to make an adjustment in the order and let you know we only need two rooms, not three.”
The thick man behind the desk raised his head slowly. The raisin eyes turned toward Banning. His meaty jowls jiggled with each word. “You ain’t getting even one room. You can use the visiting room like everyone else. What you think? You special?’ Spittle gathered at the corners of his fat lips. “Mr. Big City Lawyer? Go sit down, till I call you.”
Banning returned to the pews muttering, “Asshole.”
They waited, watching visitors go through a final search before being allowed to pass inside. There was another wave of the sensor wand looking for drugs and weapons, then an invisible hand stamp.
Sailor began to feel like a prisoner herself. Without personal property or privileges, she sat under the scrutiny of ensconced guards who would call her by number not name. She wondered if that was one of the reasons why they made you wait.
For everything the visitors had to go through, the prisoners on the other side of the metal door were subjected to even more. Some cons chose phone calls over visits to avoid the waiting, the inhumanity of body cavity searches.
That stuff had never bothered Ray. He followed the warden’s requirements, even decided to stay in his cell all morning so he’d be easy to find when the attorneys arrived.
Ray memorized exactly what he wanted to say to the attorneys. By the time he was standing at the visiting room door, he held the six papers that had been counted by each guard at each checkpoint. Ray knew he had to return to his cell with those same six papers—or he’d get three days in the hole. And even though the cell without Shazad was as quiet as the hole, he still liked his walking around time, and his bed—so he’d hang onto the papers. He sat in the front row and watched the door.
Banning entered first with Reilly and Sailor in tow. He gave his name to the CO, who checked his clipboard, then indicated which one was Ray. Sailor recognized him, even without the Afro.
Ray stood. “I’m Ray Bentley. Thanks for coming.”
They exchanged names and shook hands. Ray held Sailor’s a little longer.
“Can I get you something, Mr. Bentley?” she asked. “A soda or snack?”
Ray smiled. She was easily the most beautiful woman he’d seen in fifteen years, but she was still a child, and the way the cons were looking at her brought out the protector in him. He saw the tokens in her hand. “Call me Ray, and yeah, a Coke would be good. But let him get it.” Ray pointed to Reilly.
Sailor said, “That’s okay, I can go.”
“No. Let him get it.”
Reilly held out his hand for the tokens.
Ray was surprised, hadn’t realized you could be so young and be a lawyer. Things must be good on the outside. He’d asked around about Len Banning. Word was he’d keep it real.
Banning said, “I have a few questions about the previous handling of your case, then we’ll get into the new information, regarding…” He flipped a few pages. “Stash Neely.”
Ray nodded.
Banning said, “Let’s start with this.” Sailor passed him a copy of the signed confession stating Raymond Bentley and Jefferson LeChance had planned and committed the murder of James King. He showed it to Ray.
“That’s bullshit. I never should have signed it. But I was a dumb scared kid who didn’t know better. I told them that. At the trial.”
“But we’re asking now, Ray.” Reilly leaned in, connected. “Tell us what happened.”
Ray sighed as he looked around. In a low voice, he said, “It was Berger. He had this way, you know? The “Yellow Page Dick,” they used to call him. He beat me for hours. No food, nothing to drink. He threatened me. He had me so confused. I would have signed anything to make it stop.”
Banning said, “He threatened you?”
“Yeah.” Ray stared off, playing the movie back in his head. “He told me that he’d go after my wife, Tara, if I didn’t sign it. Shit, I figured I could fix it later—that I’d get my chance. And when the truth came out, it would all be okay, you know?’ Ray looked from Banning to Reilly to Sailor.
Sailor looked down at her papers, unable to meet his eyes.
Banning said, “Let’s go back. Why would Berger threaten you? And why bring your wife into thi
s? Was she involved with the robbery?”
“No, Tara had nothing to do with any of that.” Ray shook his head. “Berger was on the take, him and his partner. That was how King stayed in business all those years. Shit, everyone knew he was dealing out of that place. He paid off the cops, kept a few lawyers on the string. He even had a judge in his back pocket. Week before this whole thing went down, Chancy was talking about some big score. Things were all fucked up.” He flipped his eyes to Reilly. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted out. That, and the baby.”
“Baby?” Sailor asked.
“Tara was pregnant. She only had a few weeks to go.” His voice softened, “But she’s dead, and nobody knows nothing about the baby. Her family moved away, and I don’t have anyone on the outside.”
Sailor reached out as if to touch his hand, but pulled back and picked up her pen instead.
“Anyway,” Ray wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. “The way Berger did me? He did the same to Stash. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Ray handed Banning four of the papers he’d brought. There were concise notes on coerced confessions, relevant case notations, and outlined steps of approach.
Banning flipped back through his pad. “Where’s Stash now?”
“In the hole. He’ll be out in a few days. You can see him then.”
Sailor coughed. “In the hole? You mean solitary confinement?”
“Yeah.”
One of the COs looked their way and Ray slipped into prison lingo, as if speaking gruffly made the crime more acceptable, almost normal. “He went down bad. Some beaners clicked him in the yard. Good thing Stash was ready. He sliced up one of them pretty good.” He tipped his soda can draining the last few drops. “Lucky son of a bitch.”
Banning wrote as he spoke. “Ray, we’re going to need access to Neely’s file.”
