by Nesly Clerge
“I know you’d like it to be that simple, but that’s not the case. Your situation is an involved one.”
“Damn woman.” Starks sighed. “Protect my interests as best you can. I plan to get out of this place one day, early, if that’s possible, and I don’t want to have been stripped bare of everything my blood, sweat, and tears created. Make sure my kids are taken care of, but that bitch can crawl under a rock, for all I care.”
“I understand your frustration. I’ll arrange a meeting as soon as possible so you and I can discuss it further.” Parker waited for a response, which didn’t come. “Starks, are you still there?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Starks said, “Parker, you’re my only line of defense now. I know it’s asking a lot but…”
“I’ll help you however I can. Just understand that my schedule—”
“Rearrange your goddamned schedule.” Starks took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Parker. I don’t mean to take it out on you. I know you’ll do your best for me. Get here as soon as you can. And, thanks. For everything.”
Starks placed the receiver into the cradle and wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. The possibility, if not probability, that he was about to lose everything sunk in.
Life was too quickly becoming like a tightrope he was forced to walk blindfolded, and he was certain that Kayla and Jeffery would do anything they had to, to remove the net set up to catch him if he fell. One or both of them would make sure he tumbled. His head began to throb, and he felt like he was being spun around and around by an amusement park ride.
As though said from the opposite end of a tunnel, he heard the inmate behind him ask if he was okay.
The world went black.
Starks didn’t hear the thud when his head struck the concrete floor.
CHAPTER 10
A DULL ACHE FILLED every crevice in Starks’s head. He ignored it. Because he was on a beach. How he’d gotten there, and even where there was, was unknown. Nor did he care. It was the most relaxed he’d felt in a long time, so was in no hurry to open his eyes. He was free to just be. Free from thinking about anything at all.
Each wave on the shore sounded like voices. The voices grew louder as the waves rushed toward him then diminished in volume as they receded. He struggled to focus on what the voices were saying. One voice began to stand out: Someone called his name over and over, but the person pronounced it as “Stocks.” It was beginning to annoy him. He tried to tell whoever it was to shut up and leave him in peace but couldn’t get his own voice to work right.
A cold wave splashed his face, causing him to sputter. He opened his eyes and saw a small crowd of indistinguishable forms standing in a semicircle around him. Skullars Bailey, his face screwed tight with concern, knelt at his side.
“You scared the hell outta me, mon,” Skullars said. “Can you sit up?”
Starks blinked several times then shifted to an upright position, placing his back against the wall. “What’s going on?”
“That’s the question, mon. I was passing through and saw you hit the floor. You should go to the infirmary.”
“I don’t need a doctor, unless it’s a witch doctor that can put a curse on some people for me.” Starks, with Skullars’ assistance, got to his feet. “Why am I wet?”
Skullars held up an empty paper cup. “You weren’t coming round, so I tried cold water. It worked.”
Starks swiped water from his eyes and face. He glanced at the several inmates watching him. “Show’s over,” he said. Everyone, with the exception of Skullars, moved back to the phone lines or left the area.
Skullars said, “I still think you should go to the infirmary. Let the doctor check you.”
“Maybe later. There’s something else I need to do now.” The lines at the phones were thinning fast. Some of the calls weren’t being picked up. Those men sulked away angry or dispirited. “Phone lines are lifelines,” Starks mused.
“If you lucky enough to have somebody to call.”
Starks checked the time. He hadn’t been out longer than a few minutes. “You go on, Skullars. I’m fine.”
“If you need me…”
Starks shook Skullars’ hand then watched for a few seconds as the hulk of a man walked away.
Only one phone had no one in line behind the inmate using it. Starks took his place and waited. Five minutes later, he heard Lynn Starks accept the call.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Hello, to you too, Mom.”
“This is the first time you’ve called me since you’ve been in that damn place. I’m your mother. I know when something’s wrong with my son.”
“One day I’ll be out of here, and I need to know I’ll have money to rely on. How much do I have in what I put in your name?”
“A little over three million.”
Starks ran a hand over his scalp. “Christ. That’s all?”
“We only started this arrangement less than six months ago. Plus, the stocks took a dip. Even though they’re coming back up, I moved some of what was in stocks into tax-free bonds. When I see the interest statements each month, I know I did the right thing. The other investments and accounts are doing what they’re supposed to.”
“Smart move. Thanks. Are you using any of it?”
“You know I’m not,” she snapped. “I use my own money and what I inherited from your grandfather. It’s plenty for my needs.”
“Jeffrey’s still putting my share of company profits into the account?”
“Of course. Why would you even ask such a thing?”
He wasn’t ready to tell her the truth. “I’m used to overseeing everything. I guess paranoia is par for the course in my situation.”
“It’s more than that. What’s going on?”
Starks rested his forehead on the wall. He sighed deeply then said, “Kayla’s going forward with the divorce. I spoke with Parker just before I called you. We’re meeting soon to discuss my assets, et cetera. Apparently, Kayla’s hired a team of lawyers. She wants everything, if she can get it, and the lawyers are going to want their share of the kill. Considering where I am, and why, I don’t know how this cluster-fuck is going to end. I may come out of here with nothing more than what you’re taking care of for me. That’s why I’m concerned. All the years of sacrifice to build what I did with my businesses, only to maybe lose it all and have to start from scratch.” Starks heard something glass hit a wall and shatter.
He moved the receiver a few inches away when his mother screeched, “I hate that bitch. I hate what’s she’s done to you. She took you from your children, from your family. She ruined your reputation and life. Nothing bad enough can happen to her.”
Starks was relieved his mother wasn’t sitting across from him in the visitors’ room, ranting as she had the last time she’d gone there. He was equally satisfied to hear her express what she felt on his behalf.
“Parker’s going to handle everything,” he told her. “He’s got his own team of piranhas. Each of them has profited big-time from my annual retainer, alone. They’ll fight for me. Parker knows he’s better off taking care of my interests than not; that it’ll pay off in the long-run.”
“I’d like to do something vicious to her.”
“Don’t do anything at all. Not even a phone call, and definitely nothing in writing. No contact of any kind. Please. I need you to be able to take care of things for me. You get yourself into trouble, and I’m screwed. You alert her to what I’m doing, and I’m screwed. You hear me?”
“You need your mother. I’ll set up a visit.”
“I’d rather you wait.”
“I want to see my son.”
Starks could easily imagine how his mother would react if she saw how he looked now. That was an explosion he could live without. “There’s so much I have to take care of right now. I’ll let you know soon when it’ll be a good time to come here.”
“Let me know early enough. All that ridiculous paperwork to see my own son. And you kno
w it’s a couple-hours drive to get there. I have to make sure your cousin Hank is available to drive me.”
“I will. In the meantime, you’re doing great managing things for me. That means a lot.” He heard his mother harrumph.
“That’s what mothers do, at least good ones. Not like Kayla. To think my grandchildren have a used mattress for a mother. They have to live with her boyfriend and his two brats in their own home. And she’s pregnant with his bastard. Every time I think of her I want to yank out every damn hair from her head. I want to claw her eyes out. Rip her goddamned heart from her chest.”
He let his mother carry on, understanding her need to vent, until the automated recording announced they had one minute left. He ended the call before it was automatically ended for them. As usual, neither of them said “I love you.” It wasn’t done in their family. As a child, he’d always wondered about that practice. As a parent, it was a practice he’d changed. He knew his mother loved him, but it would have been nice to hear it from time to time. That’s why he’d made a point of showing and telling it often to his children. Even Kyle, who’d been deliberately lied to about his father, a father who supposedly had to be away for business nearly all the time.
Guilty relief filled Starks. He didn’t want to imagine what would happen, especially now the divorce was about to get brutal, if Kayla had ever known about Kyle.
Shame threatened to take over. He couldn’t allow that. There were too many other pressing matters that needed his attention. Like the fact he should head straight for the infirmary to get checked out. He’d never passed out in his life, not without having been attacked and knocked unconscious. He couldn’t afford to be physically weak or even appear as such to inmates, or guards, especially not now.
There was always one damn thing or another on the line.
CHAPTER 11
STARKS MADE A detour to the library, eager to find Paco so he could ask him to look after things until he got back. The memoir writer wasn’t there, but Sam Carson was, seated at the desk in the back office.
Carson looked up when Starks got to the doorway. “Where the hell you been? I passed by and saw no one was watching the place. You want to keep this job or what?”
“Had to call my attorney. It was urgent. Then I… I got sick. I’m heading to the infirmary now. Can you cover for me until I get back?”
Carson studied Starks. “You are pale. Yeah, I’ll cover for you. Sorry about snapping, but you know the library’s not supposed to be left unattended for longer than a bathroom break.”
“Thanks, Sam. I hope this doesn’t take too long.”
Carson waved him off. “Go on and take care of what you gotta take care of.”
Starks made his way to the infirmary. The nurse practitioner sat at a desk, making notes in a file. His pen scratched against the paper for a few more moments, and then his hand lifted with a flourish after making a last punctuation mark. Still not looking at Starks, he said in a flat voice, “What do you want?” When no answer came, he glanced up. His eyes took in the tattoo, the shaved head, and brown eyes conveying displeasure. His pronounced Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “How can I help you?”
“I passed out. Thought I should get checked.”
“Take a seat.” The nurse pointed at the chair next to his desk. He wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Starks left arm, stuck the stethoscope prongs in his ears, and began to increase the cuff pressure. “Were you out long?”
“Not long, but I hit my head.”
“Does your head hurt?”
“Not now.”
“Did it hurt when you woke?”
“Slight ache. It hurt worse before I went out.”
Both men were quiet as the nurse did what was needed to get a reading.
“Your BP is 200 over 90. That’s not good. Sit forward so I can listen to your chest.” The nurse took several moments to do this. “Heart rate’s a little fast, but that’s to be expected. Lungs sound good. I’ll get your file.” He went to a long bank of gray filing cabinets.
“Don’t you need my name?”
“I know it.” The nurse practitioner pulled the file and said, “I’ll be right back with the doctor.”
Starks leaned forward in the chair, clasping and unclasping his hands. This was the worst time for anything to be going wrong, not that there was ever a good time. Every few seconds, he glanced at the door the nurse had entered and shut behind him, waiting for it to open.
After a few minutes, the nurse returned, followed by a thin, balding man with a comb-over, who was reading Starks’s open file. The nurse resumed his seat at the desk.
The doctor went to an examination table, never once looking Starks’s way. “Sit on the table.” Still looking at the file, he told Starks, “Your blood pressure is elevated.”
“I heard.”
The doctor huffed, closed the file and dropped it next to Starks. One eyebrow went up when he saw the tattoo; no attempt was made to hide his disgust. He pulled a pen light from his lab coat pocket and began to examine Starks’s eyes. “You said your head hurt before you fainted.”
Starks flinched in response to the doctor’s rancid breath. “It was a throbbing pain.” He noted the name tag sewn on the doctor’s lab coat read Dr. Troy.
“You usually have headaches?”
“Not usually, just sometimes. What could make me pass out?”
“Maybe your blood sugar dropped, or maybe for some reason your brain didn’t get enough oxygen. Anything going on that might have caused that,” he sneered, “like maybe someone had you in a chokehold at the time?”
“I’d just finished a phone call. I felt a sharp pain in my head that didn’t stop, felt dizzy, and then it was lights out.”
Troy got a tongue depressor from a nearby container. “Open.” He used the pen light again. “No inflammation.”
“Maybe you should run some tests.”
The doctor ignored him.
“Maybe you should take my temperature.”
Troy opened Starks’s file again and ran his finger across a few lines of notes. “You suffered major head trauma a few months ago. Maybe it’s related, maybe not. You have any unusual stress lately?”
“What kind of question is that?”
Troy stood erect with his chin jutted out and his lips stretched tight across his teeth. “Watch your attitude, mister. I’ll schedule a CT. It’ll take a few weeks to get the appointment set up.”
“That’s too long. I hope this isn’t anything serious, but if it is, who knows what could happen during that time.” Starks balled his hands into fists. “Do you know who I am?”
Troy’s anemic complexion turned ruddy. “I don’t give a rat’s ass who you were outside. In here you’re nothing. You’re no better than the lowest animal we keep caged. Not that I owe you an explanation, but the CT has to be done at a hospital. That means a lot of damn paperwork to file, waiting for the appointment to be approved, and setting up secure transportation and guards. The process will go as fast as it goes.”
“Do you have any recommendations while I wait? Isn’t there a pill I should take to lower my pressure now?”
Troy glared at him for several seconds then said, “Refrain from strenuous activity and get—” The doctor’s cell phone rang; the ringtone was the song “I’m Too Sexy.”
Starks fought back the comment desperate to escape his lips and said, “Shouldn’t that be turned off while treating patients?”
Troy ignored the question and reached into his pants pocket to silence the phone. “No strenuous activity and get some rest. Do that and your pressure should come down by itself.”
“That’s it?”
“Avoid salt.” Troy snapped the file closed and returned to his office.
Starks picked up the folder and said loudly, “Hey, Doc, you forgot my file.”
The nurse, face flushed, retrieved the file from Starks.
Starks glared at the doctor, who slammed his door, and shouted, “You know
where you can stuff my file, staples and all.” He slid from the examination table and walked toward the exit.
I’m not letting him get away with that crap, he thought. No pissant prison doctor is going to treat me like something he buries in kitty litter.
CHAPTER 12
STARKS STOMPED TO the phones. In line, his foot tapped and his expression alternated between dark and darker as he waited behind an inmate on a call. He was about to snap at the man and tell him to hurry the fuck up, until he heard him say, “Daddy loves his little girl. Never forget that. Daddy loves you, and he’ll be with you again one day.” Starks’s impatience fell away, replaced by heartache for his own children.
The inmate’s call ended. He turned and saw Starks standing behind him. Starks nodded and said, “I know how tough it is. When you go to prison, your family goes with you.”
“Yeah. No matter how much this place sucks, knowing what you’re missing with your kids sucks more.” The man walked away.
Starks got the operator to place his call to Parker. “Sorry to call you twice in one day like this. After we hung up, I had an incident that requires medical attention… No, it was nothing like that. The infirmary doctor—last name Troy—said I need a scan but that paperwork et cetera is going to take weeks before I can get it. His attitude was disdainful. I realize we’re all in here because of something we did, but that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve proper medical treatment.”
“What would you like me to do?”
“See about getting the scan set up ASAP. And start an investigation into the healthcare practices by the infirmary here. Check infirmary staff’s credentials and recommendations. Prison officials might be able to legally get away with feeding us garbage and some of the other demoralizing bullshit they do, but they shouldn’t be allowed to fuck with our health. There are men in here, like me, who have families to go home to some day. We might go home undernourished, but we shouldn’t be maltreated by the medical staff. We’re human beings, damn it.”
