“They’s keepin’ you in here, boo. Knowed they was somethin’ goin’ on when you showed up in here. Ain’ much of a secret if’n ever’body knows what’s what.”
“I didn’t know anything.”
“Looks like you be the las’ to know.”
Pearl’s heart nearly stopped. “You know about . . .”—she looked around to be certain she was not overheard—“. . .Lorenzo?”
Betty’s nod was nearly imperceptible. “Keep playin’.”
“How?”
“Tole you befo’. Ain’ nothin’ go on up in here don’ get ‘round.”
Pearl played a few more hands before dinner, mind spinning. She got up, filled a tray and returned to the table but, when faced with the contents, she didn’t have an appetite. She started to push the tray away when Betty nudged the tray back. “Bes’ eat less’n you wants to keep that date.”
There was no way she wanted to tangle with Joy or Letty in the cell. There were some things she just did not want to do. Although the food was about as appealing as wet cardboard, she ate slowly and methodically, taking her time. She was the last one to finish.
It would take time to get the stories in order, send them out and get to Sarah’s contact on the newspaper, and she was running out of time. She knew she had to get the articles out tonight, or tomorrow at the latest, to keep them from the evil twins.
There was also the matter of the book, but there was no book. Lorenzo had insisted he keep all the copies and they were gone the night she found him.
She still had nightmares about that night. There had been so much blood and it looked black in the moonlight. The moon had been nearly that night and the sky clear, which had been to Pearl’s advantage. It had become apparent later someone had smashed all the bulbs in the front room. She hadn’t left any prints on the light switch—or the door knob since the door was already halfway open and she reluctant to intrude. She had called for Lorenzo, softly at first and then a little louder, venturing forward a couple of steps.
Inside the apartment, there were papers strewn all over the floor covered with what she thought was ink. A light flickered near the desk. At first, she thought it was the television and that Lorenzo was a lousy housekeeper, but he didn’t answer when she called out for him. She took a tentative step into the room and then another, called for Lorenzo again and nearly stumbled over his body. The door swung wider at that point and she stifled a scream. Lorenzo lay face up, a black dot in the middle of his forehead. A black pool spread out beneath his head.
A fire burned sluggishly in the metal trashcan on the other side of the desk, adding a macabre twist to the scene. She started to kneel at Lorenzo’s side and changed her mind. She glanced at a blood spattered page in his hand. There was enough light to recognize it as what she had written earlier that day. Lorenzo had taken it home with him after they finished at the library. She should’ve known something was up when her landlord gave her the message that Lorenzo wanted her to stop by his place. Lorenzo had told her in the beginning they needed to be discreet. They hadn’t been discreet enough since someone had killed him and had taken both copies of the manuscript.
What book do they mean? If it isn’t the manuscript, then it has to be something else.
When the police didn’t come to question her, Pearl assumed the matter was settled, or at least they did not know about her. She wanted to talk to her boss at the Ft. Lauderdale PD, but decided against it. Lorenzo had said they had eyes everywhere. The longer she waited for the police to come, the worse her story would sound. She could’ve been arrested for obstructing justice or something. She couldn’t go to the police.
She had been relieved when she heard someone had been arrested for the murder a few weeks later. It had been easy to put the incident behind her and go on with her life. She had chalked it up to a bad dream and had convinced herself the murder had nothing to do with Lorenzo’s book, and here it was coming back to haunt her.
He hadn’t made it up and wasn’t fantasizing. It was all true. That put her in a precarious position. Since the evil twins knew about it, she would have to deal with it.
As she dawdled over lunch, she caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye—Joy going into her cell.
What book do they want?
One thing was certain, she’d better figure it out and hope they would leave her alone after she told them. If I tell them. I owe Lorenzo something. I can’t afford to be wrong, and I’m not certain I can afford to be right either. How did I get in this position?
By trusting J.D.
“Good move.”
“We ain’ playin’, boo.” Betty snagged Pearl’s tray and got up to put them both away.
Pearl didn’t realize she had spoken aloud. “I’m sorry. Got my mind on something else.”
No, we ain’t playin’ - and neither am I.
The longer she waited, the more difficult it would be. She’d best deal with Joy once and for all.
Pearl got up. Betty snagged her arm just as the quad door opened. Pearl stepped out of the way and bumped against the table. The guards brought in a new prisoner.
She stumbled into the quad, catching herself on Pearl’s shoulder. Her eyes were glazed and unseeing as she pushed off Pearl’s shoulder and shuffled past. Deputy Walpole, trailing a thick cloud of Ciara perfume that left everyone in her wake coughing, hauled the woman past by the elbow. Pearl leaned over to see past the guard station. A wild tuft of nappy hair like a coal black Q-tip pulled partially off the end of the stick bobbed and dipped and disappeared around the other corner of the glass booth.
“Ain’t smelled nothing like that since I found Devil in the ditch next to the road.”
“She does like her perfume.”
“No, that nappy headed thing.” Betty shook her head and waved her hand in front of her face.
“I only smelled the perfume.”
“I been used to that stink.”
For the first time in weeks, the crowd at the picnic tables moved to the other side of the quad, muttering and waving their hands in front of their noses. “Gonna take more’n soap to clean that cat. For rude. That some nasty funk.”
Betty dealt another hand. Pearl picked up the cards and ordered them, but her mind was not on the game. She apologized and tossed the cards back on the table. Time to face the music.
Downstairs, Pearl stalked to the cell door and looked in. There was no one inside. Probably hiding by the toilet. She walked inside and looked in the corner by the sink—no one. Where is Joy? I want to get this over with. She looked outside in the hallway—no Joy. Whatever had happened, the girl had either changed her mind or decided it was too much of a risk with a new prisoner coming in. I can wait.
Pulling out the stool and sitting down, she decided to finish what she had started. Maybe something would shake loose and she would figure out what book Joy meant.
Before long, Pearl was immersed in rewriting Sarah’s story, adding details and turning the story into an article. Despite not having written an article since high school, Pearl discovered the work went quickly, the words coming easily. She didn’t know all the facts, but she knew enough to make the profile interesting and as accurate as possible. Too bad I can’t interview the officers or the teacher. That would be a really nice twist. Get their statements and ask a few questions. That’s how it should be done.
Remembering the day Sarah came onto the quad, Pearl loosed the flood gates of reaction and observation and became engrossed in the story. She was so focused she jumped when Deputy Walpole dropped a stack of sheets on the rolled up mattress inside the door and tossed down a pillow. The new girl tripped and twisted so that she fell onto her hip on the mattress. The pillow flew out of her hand and onto the desk. Pearl nearly fell over backwards when it landed on her paper, knocking the pen out of her hand and into the wastepaper basket.
She plucked the pen from the empty wastepaper basket and handed back the pillow.
“Sorry ‘bout that.”
“No proble
m,” Pearl said. She continued writing, working around the smear of ink.
The smell was subtle at first, musky and faintly sweet like raw meat left out in the sun too long. Pearl edged toward her bunk, leaning slightly to the side. She casually covered her nose with her hand, pretending to shade her eyes, which were watering from the smell, and concentrated on finishing before lights out.
Kneeling on the cold tiles, the girl unrolled the mattress and tucked the sheet around it before she rolled onto it, pulling the blanket up around her neck. She worried a divot in the center of the pillow and then lay still. The smell was fainter, but still there, clawing at the inside of Pearl’s nose until she couldn’t stand it and went back up to the quad. As she got to the top of the steps, the loud speaker crackled. “Lights out in ten.”
Back in the cell Pearl got into her bunk and turned her face to the wall, pushing her nose against it in hopes the cold concrete would lessen the smell. It didn’t. She covered her head with the pillow and covers and silently counted breaths: one and two and three and four and one and two and - Sleep refused to come, but the stench did, expanding out from the doorway and settling in a pall over the entire room. The doors slammed shut and the lights went out. Pearl came up briefly for air and dove back under the covers, putting the pillow over her head, knowing it wouldn’t work. She would have to wait it out. Keeping her face to the wall, she counted and waited. The greenish glow from the window flickered and died as a streetlight died.
Getting a new cellmate would keep Joy out, but she knew the girl would find another way to get to her. If only I could remember what book she wanted. And then she remembered the red leather notebook she had picked up from the table at the library after Lorenzo left. That must be it. She had put it in her purse that night and meant to return it to Lorenzo the next time they saw each other. After everything had happened, the notebook didn’t seem important. Where is it now?
The notebook had been in her purse the night Lorenzo was killed and she found it a couple weeks later when she emptied her purse looking for change for a parking meter. It had tumbled to the floor, but she had been in a rush, so she left it there until the following Saturday when she had gone to the car wash, just like every other Saturday, to wash the car.
She remembered picking it up when she had vacuumed the carpet and put it . . . in the glove box.
It must still be there in my car. J.D. has it.
Satisfied she had solved the mystery—and hopefully her problem—the knots in Pearl’s shoulders eased and the throbbing at her temples relaxed and stopped. She didn’t have the book, but she knew where it was. She could use the knowledge to get out of jail. Or not.
If she told Joy, and if Joy really was as connected as she let on, then Pearl would be free and J.D. would have to deal with whoever in Florida sent him. She was pretty certain that wouldn’t be the end of things. If she played it right, that book could be the bargaining chip she needed to leverage a release and let J.D. take the fall.
That idea bothered her. No matter what J.D. had done to her, the last thing she wanted was his life on her conscience. She would have to find another way, a way that meant she was finally off their radar. She thought of various options and none of them seemed workable, let alone possible. She hated the idea of them getting away with murder—literally—but she didn’t want to paint a target on her forehead either.
I can’t let them get away with this. She snorted. As if I could stop them.
There would be time enough to decide what to do in the morning, even though she knew somewhere inside, where her conscience was already shut down for the night, she had already made up her mind. She would deal with Joy some other way—alone. She felt there was no need to involve anyone else. As long as she had a cellmate, she would have a margin of freedom. No matter what happened, she was not going to live in fear.
The last of the knots in her shoulders eased when she laid out a simple plan in her mind, and Pearl fell asleep, a small secret smile on her lips.
Thirty
In the morning, Pearl’s head throbbed dully from being under the covers all night. She woke at the bell, washed her face, brushed her teeth and went out the door into the relatively clearer air to wait for roll call. The shuffling behind her stopped and a minute later the toilet flushed. Water ran in the sink and her cellmate appeared, more disheveled and wilder looking than when she arrived the night before. Pearl moved away from the smell.
Anxious to get away from the new girl as quickly as possible, Pearl dressed on her way to the cafeteria. She couldn’t shake her in the line and the girl twice stepped on her heels on the way back to the quad and sat down at Betty’s table.
Everywhere along the quad, the women turned away, sniggering and snide comments. The girl was oblivious, shuffling here and there only to be shut out. Inmates sprawled all over the stairs, jumped into empty chairs and elbowed for more room at the picnic tables, playing a crude and hurtful game of musical chairs without the music. The prevailing attitude was pure playground, all spite and ostracism.
“Get out of here with that funk nasty cat,” someone yelled when the girl shuffled over to sit against the wall.
“Somebody better throw that dead cat out,” another one said.
None of the comments seemed to get through. The girl shuffled here and there, bouncing off a rude comment here, a cold shoulder there like a pinball.
Pearl shut out the voices and turned back to breakfast. The grits were loose and watery and the eggs were runny. Her stomach rebelled and threatened to turn inside out. She couldn’t eat and she felt guilty about the way she had treated the girl. She shoved the tray over to Betty and called the girl over. “Sit here,” she said, pushing the chair to the far end of the table after getting a slight nod from Betty. Pearl ignored the glares and muttering. She knew the guards would intervene soon; three guards looked out of the station watching them. The guards drifted away when the girl sat at Betty’s table.
Pearl headed down to the cell.
“Cain’t b’lieve you let that nasty cat sit down,” Letty said as Pearl walked past.
You only have to sit near her. She sleeps in my cell. Pearl pushed the uncharitable thought away. It’s probably not her fault.
Good thing it was Friday. If she didn’t have any money, she would buy the girl a bar of soap and give it to her. It wasn’t a very subtle move, but she was willing to overlook that to make sure she smelled better.
Pearl pulled her things off the towel bar and quickly dressed. They were getting ragged after a month of daily washing and wearing.
The floor had been mopped and everything cleaned by the time the girl came back to the cell and tossed her sheet and blankets on the pallet. Then the girl took a washcloth, hand and bath towels from the cart, picked up Pearl’s soap, undressed and washed.
Pearl sighed and sat down at the desk to write.
Two prostitutes from the braid brigade snuck in after checking both sides of the hall, handing the folded sheets of yellow paper back to Pearl. “Got any more?”
“I’m almost finished.” She licked the fractured nib of the felt tip pen and wrote a few more words, licked the end and wrote a few more words. She held it on her tongue for a few seconds and tried again. The ink was a little darker, just enough to finish.
“You a writer?” The girl’s voice was a harsh croak. She cleared her throat. “You a writer?”
“I write.”
The girl nodded. “Angela,” was all she said before buttoning her blouse and plopping down on the pallet. She curled up on her side and started snoring a couple minutes later.
Licking the tip of the pen one more time, Pearl finished the last line. She read it over. The prostitutes tried to take it as soon as Pearl laid down the pen. Pearl held on. “Be careful with this.” She looked toward the guard station. The girls followed her eyes and nodded. “They’re watching.”
Betty loaned her pen to Pearl so she could make out her canteen order. She took a slip and went down to
the cell, roused Angela and offered her the pen and the canteen slip, explaining what to do. Angela checked a few boxes, wrote in her name and thrust it at Pearl before curling up and going back to sleep. She was not sure if the girl was rude or just tired. She opted for the latter, giving her the benefit of the doubt.
Despite having washed, Angela still smelled foul, a combination of rotting meat and old blood, and her breath was just as foul. Pearl had shared her soap, but was not about to share her toothbrush. Since Angela had made use of the soap, she hid her toothbrush. She can just use her finger and the toothpaste, but I will not share my toothbrush. She arranged the things in her desk drawer to hide the toothbrush. Angela looked over her shoulder. “Can I put my things in that drawer?”
“I suppose so,” Pearl said. She took her toothbrush out of the drawer and put it in her pocket. It’s going to be a long four days.
The day was punctuated by endless rounds of cards and dominoes. Pearl longed to get back to writing. Without a pen, that wasn’t possible. She could borrow Betty’s pen, but didn’t want to impose. Betty might have letters to write and her funds were just as limited.
Pearl half-heartedly played cards, ate lunch and dinner. The only point of any real interest was watching the folded yellow sheets pass from hand to hand. It was like watching a drug buy. No talk. No directions. No lingering. One person set for the hand-off and the other person passed as slick as you please, a street ballet without music and as graceful as the Bolshoi.
One woman carrying the papers folded in a book passed another woman and, as they passed, the pages went from hand to hand without a pause and were slipped into the other woman’s book or tablet or coiled into a tube in her hands. The pages ended up at the picnic tables where they were shared out like cards, moving quickly from hand to hand and table to table under cover, and back again to the group on the stairs. The only two excluded were Letty and Joy. Every time they reached for the pages, someone else intervened and swept them away.
Pearl avoided both girls, but Joy caught up with her at the showers. Joy sat down on the toilet next to Pearl. “Gots you a funky smelling cellie.”
Among Women Page 24
