9 MM (The Falau Files Book 2)

by Mike Gomes

  “Let me think about it.”

  “You want to think about it? A chance to get out of here? It’s a chance to be free again, and all I want you to do is call a newspaper and bust the same guy that stuck you in here. What the hell more do you want?” questioned T-bone, his voice getting louder.

  “There’s just one problem?”

  “What’s that?” asked T-bone.

  “I don’t trust you.”

  T-bone stopped in his tracks, as Falau continued, walking calmly away.

  Chapter 21

  Sitting down on the floor with his back against the wall Falau kept to himself. Twenty yards away the other inmates gathered around a TV watching football and cheering for the team of their choice. Falau didn’t even attempt to see the score or watch a replay.

  The inmates and guards left the man with the vicious reputation alone, because nobody wanted to meet the same fate as Santos. Most felt that it would have been better for the huge Mexican to die rather than live his life castrated like a bull that was no longer needed to breed. Word in the prison was, Santos had fallen into a deep depression, and it didn’t seem like he was going to come out of it. He was placed on a continuous suicide watch and spent almost all his time in the psychiatric unit.

  T-bone had been keeping his distance and had not re-engaged Falau over the last week. Falau admired his patience, and knew the gang leader was playing the situation to perfection. Falau would obviously keep thinking about the offer, and when he came back to talk about it then T-bone would be ready for him.

  Falau inspected T-bone from afar. He observed his interactions and the way he handled people. He wasn’t trained by an expert, and had learned his trade on the street. The man could read people, and had a knack of telling people the things they wanted to hear. He had the ability to make a man do just the thing he wanted him to do, but the man would think it was his own idea and not T-bone’s. He was a salesman through and through, only the things he sold to guys on the street were drugs and the dream of a better life.

  A loud groan came from the inmates watching the football game. Falau assumed it has been a score for the team they were against, but the men hushed down and a news bulletin came across the screen, saying, ‘Breaking News’, and an attractive blonde woman appeared on the screen.

  “We’re sorry to interrupt your regularly scheduled shows at this time. A fifth body has been found in the last two weeks, this time in a motel on Route 18 in Weymouth. It looks to again be the work of the Loving Killer. We now go live to Chet Sermon in Weymouth. Chet.”

  The inmates all shifted their attention firmly on the screen. The guards would normally turn off any programing that could anger the inmates, and football was about the most intense thing they were allowed to watch. If there were problems on the cell block, even that would be taken away as well. But today the guard wasn’t paying attention and was letting the men enjoy the game without interfering. He now had no idea what they were watching.

  “Thank you, Lisa,” said the handsome young man, his slicked-back blonde hair an effort to make himself look older than he really was. “The Loving Killer has done it again. This time his victim was found in a Weymouth motel. The situation appears the same as the other murder, with a young woman left nude in bed, strangled but not sexually assaulted. Just a few months ago Calvin Wise was tried for a similar murder and found not guilty. Police now fear that the real killer is back at it, and possible copycat killers are involved.”

  The screen flashed to show a picture of a young black woman dressed in what looked like a prom gown and smiling at the camera. The young man in a tuxedo next to her had his face blurred out. The reporter continued. “Just moments ago Police Chief Rex Childs gave us the name of the victim, a Shauna Washington of Dorchester.”

  “What?!” shouted a slender man sat next to T-bone. “Shauna?”

  Falau recognized the guy as T-bone’s right-hand man. He would run messages for T-bone and play the go-between when gangs interacted. The man was smart and a skillful speaker. He could mend bridges in an environment where people were often just killed, no questions asked.

  The man stood up on his chair and reached for the screen, trying to touch the picture of the murdered woman. A tear rolled down his cheek.

  “Hey, off the chair!” yelled the guard, using the control to shut down the TV.

  “No! Turn it back on! That’s Shauna! He killed Shauna!”

  “I said get off the chair... Now!” barked the guard using the overhead speaker.

  Other inmates pleaded with the man to get down as his crying became more intense. He could not or would not hear them. Overcome with grief, he struggled to form his words.

  “She’s my cousin,” he sputtered between gasps of air that had overcome him with his crying.

  “No!” he shouted, staring at the ceiling and pleading with God to change what he’d just seen.

  The large door to the cell block slowly slid open and several guards in riot gear entered the room. They moved toward the distraught man on the chair.

  “Hey man, there’s no need for this. The dude just learned that his cousin was killed. He’s just upset!” yelled T-bone, trying to alert the guards to the situation.

  The guards moved forward in unison like a well-oiled machine. They were in lock step and ready for anything the inmates may throw at them. “Stand down, inmate,” yelled one of the heavily armored guards.

  “She was my cousin! They killed her! They killed her! Why?” shouted the heartbroken man, still not moving from his position. “Please, turn it back on. I need to help her. I want to see her face.”

  “GET DOWN NOW!” screamed the most advanced officer while pointing his night stick at his target.

  T-bone stepped forward, raising his hands and attempting to settle the situation. “Sir, I can get him down. Just let me ta—”

  A night-stick slid through the air, striking hard into T-bone’s kidney. One of the guards off to the side did not like his approach and dropped him to the ground with one swift and well placed blow. Raising his stick again he slammed another blow across T-bone’s back, dropping him flat to his stomach and moaning in pain.

  “Any of you other inmates want to try and step up?” the big guard said, kicking T-bone aside.

  The inmates backed off slowly, but not without jeers and comments pleading the guards to take it easy on their cell mate.

  The guards were not so inclined to take such chances with their own safety. Making the demand to step down from the chair one last time, the man looked to them covered in tears.

  “What if it were your cousin?” he questioned, looking for compassion.

  The main guard reached up and grabbed his shirt and pulled him down from the chair as the other guards took him to the ground. In moments they had him cuffed at the ankles and wrists. Carrying him like a tied hog, they had him out of the cell block in less than two minutes.

  T-bone still lay on the ground, attempting to get himself together. The pain shot through his shoulders and kidney with every move he made. The other inmates steered clear of any injured man, unwilling to offend his pride by offering help. T-Bone was no exception to this. He was proud, and one of his own had just been attacked.

  Falau pulled himself out of his sitting position and leaned against the wall as he watched T-bone get back to his feet and take a few deep breaths. He watched T-Bone holding his back where the nightstick had hit. He knew that the guards had to be aggressive and had to take control of all situations, but he still felt an anger about this one. It lacked any compassion for T-bone or the man who’d just learned a family member had been killed.

  Falau had heard just enough to know that Calvin Wise was up to his old tricks again, but now he had a license to kill. His father made sure of that. The only change was, he was looking for girls from the hood, and not young white girls from the local colleges. He didn’t even have the modesty to change the way he was killing them. He was thumbing his nose at everyone, knowing they could not sto
p him.

  Something had to be done about Calvin Wise, and it wasn’t going to happen with him sitting in a jail cell.

  The judges had obviously not put another person on the case, he thought. Were they waiting for him to get out to continue the mission? He knew that the judges based their work on patience, so it was possible they didn’t care if they got their man now or in a year’s time, just as long as they got their man.

  Lifting his head, T-Bone locked eyes with Falau. The gang leader flashed him a solid smile. “Just a bump,” he joked, but he lost all humor as he grunted hard in the middle of his words. A grimace flashed across his face as he sat down in the same hard-backed chair his gang mate had just been pulled down from. The other inmates watched as Falau and T-Bone sized each other up again. Nobody moved as Falau’s face remained void of emotion.

  “What you looking at, man?” questioned T-Bone. “If you got something to say just say it. If not then stop giving me those psycho killer eyes of yours,” he snapped, no longer afraid of cell block G’s biggest badass.

  Falau pulled himself from the wall and slowly approached T-bone, the other inmates now fixated on the collision that was about to happen. Would they really get to see what Falau could do in person? How far would he get before the guards were back and dragging him away?

  Falau approached T-bone without hesitation and stopped directly in front of him, and looked down without dropping his head.

  “What, Falau? What do you have to say to me?” questioned T-bone with both attitude and anger from the beating he’d just taken.

  “I’m in,” said Falau softly before he walked away.

  Chapter 22

  Tossing a small rubber ball into the air, attempting to get it as close to the ceiling as possible without hitting it, seemed like a reasonable way to spend a morning when all you had was time.

  Time is the enemy of all inmates. People on the outside talk about how time flies and how quick their kids grow up. My god, they say, where have all the years gone? But prison time is slow time... slow and hard. It marches on, but defies the laws of the universe and takes longer for each second, minute, day and year. A man can dramatically age by years in a matter of days.

  The lifestyle consists of being constantly on edge and ready for a fight. Soldiers get a break from battle and are sent for rest and relaxation in order to calm them from the perils of war and the heightened senses they have to carry at all times. Prisoners get no such break. They carry that level of alertness until they snap, and have a problem with another inmate, a guard or, often, with themselves. Then they get sent to solitary, where there’s nothing to stimulate them, no contact with anyone or anything. That rapid change can transform a weak person into a wreck, begging to be brought back to their cell in tears.

  For Falau the cell was no place of happiness. Tossing the ball up did pass the time but his mind was fertile and alive with thought. He did everything he could to occupy his mind. He studied the walls and counted the marks on the ceiling. He gave himself projects, like cleaning and exercising, but it did nothing to calm his racing mind.

  Filling his day caused him to drift along to the cell block’s daily meeting for Alcoholics Anonymous. He never did get the courage to go in, but he heard men talking about the big book and Bill W. He wanted to go in, but also knew that any sign of weakness would be something other prisoners would pounce on. The group or medical care would have been an easier route to take through detox in the first two weeks he was there, because the cold turkey he’d subjected himself to was a painful and dangerous way to get sober.

  The memories and the flashbacks had become more intense with sobriety and the infinite time to think. They filled his mind every night, and the worry of them coming on was just as bad as the images themselves.

  Her face jumping into his sight. Almost never the beautiful and gentle face of love, but rather the blood-covered mask of a woman who had the life knocked out of her.

  She whispered to him throughout the day: “You killed me. It’s your fault. You like to kill. You like causing pain.”

  He longed for the whiskey to fight off images of Santos’ body slumped on the ground, with his genitalia ripped from him and stuffed into his mouth. Those images would often flash before his eyes. He could still see blood stains on the floor every time he walked into the cell.

  She questioned him: “Why did you do that to him? You didn’t have to, right?”

  And she was right. Something took him over as it had in the past, and he was then capable of acts that later filled him with shame and regret. But which character was the real him?

  “Knock Knock, man,” called out T-bone, now standing in the doorway of the cell.

  Falau caught the ball and shifted his eyes to T-bone, who wore the smile of a man who had just gotten what he wanted.

  “What the hell are you smiling at?” mocked Falau.

  “Oh, I had a feeling that you’d come around. It’s only so long that a man can stay in this place without the overwhelming need to get the hell out.”

  “True. Helps that everyone is starting to size me up again. The fear of what happened to Santos is starting to fade.”

  “There are short memories in the joint when it comes to shit like that. It’s all about whose ass have you kicked lately.”

  Falau chuckled as he sat up in bed. “So, I guess you have a plan for what you want to do?”

  “Ya, I have a plan, but I have to talk to you about something first.”

  “Come inside and sit down. Too many ears out there ready to rat anyone out.”

  T-bone slid in the doorway and pulled it halfway closed. He knew eyes would already be watching the cell to see if Falau would repeat the Santos incident. Time was short to do what needed to be done.

  “I had a visitor yesterday,” said T-bone firmly.

  Falau’s eyes darted to his friend and locked on his with hard determination. His mind raced with questions.

  “A visitor? How?”

  “I know... nobody knows I’m in here. A guard I’ve never seen approached me and said I needed to go with him.”

  “You’ve never seen the guard? We don’t have anyone new on the block.”

  “So the guy takes me to the visitor area. The place is hopping with people. He tells me that my attorney is there to see me and that I need to sit down at the open booth.”

  Falau lowered his feet to the floor, focusing on what T-bone had to say. Despite the friendship he’d forged with him he still watched the man for any signs that he was lying, or just hanging around him for information. That observation skill was beyond his control. It was as if he was on auto-pilot and all the information around him was assessed and broken down. It was now a mode of survival more than anything else.

  “This dude sits down. Sharp dressed white guy, looking like he just came out of a GQ spread. He just sits there and looks at me.”

  “Did he say anything?” questioned Falau, wondering if T-bone had been compromised by someone who right now was gaining information on who he was and what he was doing.

  “Here’s the thing. He said next to nothing. He just looked at me and told me to tell you to believe me.”

  Falau suddenly felt T-bone had tipped his hand with a sloppy cover for what he wanted Falau to do. He was being set up by the gang leader, who would gain control of the cell block, at least for a short time, by getting Falau busted. Falau knew that he couldn’t show any sign of recognition that he’d sniffed out what T-Bone was up to.

  “He did say one more thing,” added T-bone with a quizzical look on his face. “He said to tell you his name is Tyler. Then he got up and walked away.”

  Falau’s eyes widened uncontrollably. There was no way T-bone knew of Tyler. He could not have just pulled that name out of thin air. Tyler had visited him, and T-bone passed the message on in exactly the way Tyler had intended. It was exactly what Falau needed to ensure he could trust T-bone and his plan. As usual, Tyler had made the right move at just the right time.
r />   Chapter 23

  T-Bone reached behind himself and pulled his shirt up over his pants. Glancing out the half-open door he checked to see if anyone was coming. The coast was clear, and he removed the tightly wrapped flat package and tossed it onto the bed next to Falau.

  “It’s time,” said T-bone, as cold and hard as an ice storm.

  “Time for what?” asked Falau, looking quickly at his friend.

  “Time for you to get out.”

  “Now?” questioned Falau, overcome with the information. His mind grappled the information, trying to figure out how it was possible to escape from prison at 10:30 in in the morning. There had been no elaborate plan or system of escape. T-bone had never even spoken with him about what steps they’d need to ensure he wouldn’t get caught. There was no way he could be expected to memorize and complete a task as large as a prison escape in just moments.

  “Open the package. There’s a new uniform in there for you.”

  Falau ripped at the package like a child on Christmas morning and found another prison uniform. Why would I need a new uniform? he thought to himself.

  “This is my escape. A new prison uniform?”

  “And a new identification number and name. Your new name is Albert Raize. You were arrested for OUI nine months ago, but you have a perfect behavior record, not even a mark for speaking out of turn on your sheet. Today’s the day you get released.”

  Falau nodded his head slightly, thinking of the simplicity of the plan and how it was perfect by being so basic. He would walk out the front door, the guards showing him the way.

  “What happened to the real Albert Raize?” Falau asked, unable to stop himself.

  “Albert is going to do one more month with us. In a month’s time he’ll take the place of another guy who isn’t going to make it.”

  “Why did he agree to that?