Goodbye Sister Disco (13 page)

She had been in Boston for a couple of months when she found out about a trial taking place in Portland, Oregon. Three people with an organization called the Liberation Front had been arrested for blowing up a meatpacking plant. A security guard was injured in the explosion and the three young men were charged with willful destruction of property and negligent assault.

The story was on the Internet. A photo of Terrill Colely appeared in the story.

The next day, Lee Ensler flew to Portland to cover the trial. She was a persistent young lady and it only took two meetings with Terrill's attorney to secure an interview with him.

She met with Terrill in a small room in the county jail. He was wearing the inmate orange jumpers and blue sandals. He stood up when she came in and smiled at her. Lee Ensler's immediate thought was, He's even better-looking in person. She thought he was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. With his thick black hair and the eyes. Beautiful, hazel eyes.

The next two hours passed quickly for Lee Ensler. They talked about the exploitation of the Mexican employees at the meatpacking plant, the government's refusal to look into the violations of human rights, the barbaric treatment of animals, the endless assaults upon the environment. When Terrill said that the doctrine of nonviolence was not only self-deceiving but counterproductive, Lee quickly agreed. America was a cesspool, a nation built on murder and corruption and greed. And ignorance, so much fucking ignorance. In exchange for their bloated SUVs and tacky houses and manicured lawns and cheap gas, they gladly accepted the genocide of nonwhite people. And was it not the most despicable irony that dropping bombs on Iraqi children was somehow not criminal, but protesting it was. It took very little time for Terrill to persuade Lee Ensler that he and the two other codefendants were scapegoats for the real crimes. Indeed, he hardly had to persuade her at all.

“The worst thing about it,” Terrill said, “is the arrogance of these pigs. They think that by putting me in jail for ten years, they won't be stopped. They're already building another plant. The insurance companies and the banks, they just rebuild and make more profit. To them, we're just a nuisance. They presume that they'll always win. And why not? They usually do. But,” Terrill said as he rested his fingers on her hand, “they're wrong. We're not going be stopped. Not by them.”

“But what can we do?” Lee said.

Terrill appraised her, giving her the full attention of his eyes. “It's funny,” he said, “but I feel I know you. You're not a bullshit person.”

“I don't think I am,” said Lee.

“You're not. I have feelings about people. And I know you. I know you now. Do you feel it too?”

Lee said, “Yes.”

“It's something, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is.”

He leaned in and whispered in her ear, “I'm going to get out of here.”

Lee felt electrically charged. His closeness, his beauty, his mystery. Confiding in
her
. “How?” she whispered back.

His voice still a whisper, he said, “Go to Wilson's Flat. A bar called Henry's. Ask for Moira. Tell her I sent you.”

“Moira. But why will she trust me?”

“Say to her, ‘What the hammer? What the chain?' Tell her I said that.”

Lee repeated it. “‘What the hammer? What the chain?… In what furnace was thy brain?' Right?”

Terrill smiled. “You know it?”

“How could I not know Blake?” She was smitten now.

Terrill said. “I knew it. I should have known it.” He smiled tenderly at her. “Go, Lee. Go right away. And when it's done, we'll be together.”

*   *   *

A fine drizzle, coming down amid gray light, the green and white mountains in the background. In the northern part of Mount Hood National Forest. A semi hauling timber drives by, its wheels hissing on the blacktop. It passes a small wood bar and grill with two gas pumps in front. The name above the door reads
HENRY'S.

The bartender flicked a thumb toward a table where a black-haired woman sat with two young men. The woman was dressed like a logger, her hair dark and cut short. Her skin was not smooth and her expression was hard. She could be attractive, perhaps, if she smiled, though she looked like she rarely did. Her name was Maggie Corbitt, though she had been using the name Moira Conners for the past few months.

She did not look up as Lee approached her table. Lee had to stand there for a few moments until Maggie acknowledged her.

“Yes?” Maggie said. Her voice had the hard, self-assured tone of a natural aristocrat. Her eyes drilled in such a way as to discourage small talk.

“Are you Moira?” Lee said.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Lee Ensler.” After a moment, Lee said, “I'm a writer.”

“Hmmm,” Maggie said, unimpressed. She wasn't going to give Lee anything else. The young men with her smiled. They were Ray and Mickey.

Lee managed to focus her attention on the woman she believed was Moira. She said, “Terrill sent me. If you're Moira, I need to know.”

Maggie said, “Who's Terrill?”

“He's the one that's in—are you Moira or not?”

“Sit down,” Maggie said. “Lee.” Saying her name the way one does to ridicule.

Lee Ensler took a chair and sat down. Once seated, she felt like she was being interviewed by a committee. Which she was. Lee Ensler was smart enough to have figured out by now that she had found “Moira” and that Moira was the one who ran things around here. She wondered if Moira was Terrill's chief lieutenant, then told herself that she was.

Maggie said, “What's a nice little Ivy League girl like you doing out in a place like this?”

“Terrill sent me.”

“You said that already. But maybe you're an FBI agent. A spy.”

“No,” Lee said, trying to sound defiant and fierce. “No, I am not.”

Ray Muller tittered.

Maggie said, “Ooh, Muffy's getting mad.” And the young men had a chuckle over that too.

Lee felt her face burning. It took effort to prevent tears from welling. “He said you wouldn't believe me.”

“Who said?”

Lee said, “Terrill said.”

Maggie was smiling at this too. She had told Terrill that most women were predictable. Particularly liberals. But behind the mild torturing she was giving Lee, Maggie's instinct was leaning forward now, thinking that Terrill may have found a way to help himself out of this fix.

Maggie said, “What did he tell you?”

Lee said, “‘What the hammer? What the chain?'”

There was silence at the table then. Maggie looking at her two male associates as Lee began feeling redeemed. Maggie said, “When did you see him?”

“Yesterday.”

But Maggie Corbitt was still shaking her head. “A few words of poetry,” she said, “and you think you're in? You think it's that easy?”

Lee said what she had been waiting to say: “I'm committed. I'm in it now.”

“We'll see,” Maggie said. “You and I are going to the bathroom now and you're going to take off all your clothes. If I find one recording device, if I find any proof that you're a pig's spy, I'll kill you myself. Do you understand me?”

Lee nodded and said, “I'm ready when you are.”

*   *   *

Terrill Colely had been patient. He believed with the certainty of a prophet that he was not meant to go to prison. He also believed that he would be convicted of the criminal charges he was now facing. Accordingly, he knew that his way out had to be an escape. Maggie Corbitt shared this view.

But he and Maggie were, in their way, realists. After a time, he had determined his best chance at an escape. Every day, between two and four in the afternoon, the county sheriff's office would allow him to meet with his attorney in the county courthouse law library. Terrill had not then been charged with a capital crime, had not been charged with murder, and he and his attorney had convinced the authorities that he needed access to the law books to adequately prepare his defense. Terrill also let the authorities know that he was preparing a book about the “false promise of the American system of justice.” The local deputies exchanged some eye rolling over this, dismissing Terrill Colely as another punk. Terrill's claim as an intellectual also made the deputies underestimate him.

Still, when Terrill went to the library, he was always escorted by two of them. One deputy stood far enough away to give Terrill room to consult with his attorney and his books and the occasional journalist. The other checked the doors to ensure that they had not been tampered with. There were two exits, one being the door at the front, the second being the fire door at the back of the library, which could be opened only from the inside.

The day after Lee Ensler met with Maggie Corbitt, Lee obtained permission to meet with Terrill in the county law library. The day after that, she made her appointment to interview Terrill. She wore slacks and a nice shirt and a blazer, and her hair was pulled back in a studious ponytail, looking about as dangerous as a young Jane Pauley. Her purse and person were checked at the front door by one of the deputies. The deputy found nothing but a tape recorder, pens, and notebooks.

The deputy was an older man, in his late fifties. He was polite to Lee; in a way, she reminded him of his daughter. He pointed to the library shelves and said that Mr. Colely and his lawyer were seated at a table behind the last shelf. Neither that deputy nor Lee could see Terrill from the front door.

Lee walked down the length of that library section and found Terrill seated with his lawyer, whose name was Milton King. Seated against the wall, approximately fifteen yards away, was the second deputy. He sat in a slumped position with his hands on his legs. Lee made herself look at him only once.

Maggie Corbitt had not threatened her directly. She had only said, “I hope you understand the importance of not fucking this up.” Lee remembered the intense look in Maggie's eyes when she had said this. But Maggie had followed it up with, “Terrill's trusting you. And he's very selective about who he trusts.” It was said with the intent of making Lee feel that she was special to Terrill, and it did.

Lee took a seat at the table. She ignored the attorney, who stared at her boobs, and gave her attention to the new Clyde Barrow in her life, his dark hair and expressive eyes that told her now that he was very glad to see his new Bonnie. Lee spent ten minutes asking Terrill questions about his childhood, his experiences, and his political philosophy before she asked the attorney where the bathroom was.

But it was Terrill who answered her, telling her that it was on the other side of the library. For Milton King was not privy to their plans and he was as likely as not to tell her that the one in the general hall was cleaner than the one in the library, and that could have ruined everything.

Lee walked past the deputy on the chair, again telling herself not to look at him. She went down the aisle on the back side of the library. She got to a dogleg in the aisle, and there was the back door.

Her heart was pounding and she told herself, Don't think, just do it. Do it now or you're gutless, you're worthless, you're the simpleminded college dipshit they think you are. And she quietly unlocked the door and let Mickey and Ray inside.

Once they were in, they pulled ski masks over their faces.

Ray mouthed to her, “Stay
here.
”

Both Ray and Mickey were carrying 9-millimeter pistols. Mickey crept to the third set of bookshelves and crouched down in the middle of the row. Ray moved down the back aisle. He took a breath at the dogleg, then moved out.

The deputy on the chair saw a flash of movement to his left. He had just turned his head when Ray shot him in the shoulder. It knocked the deputy off the chair, and when he was on the ground Ray shot him two more times, the second time in the head.

The first deputy—the one who had been at the front door—rushed forward when he heard the shots, followed by the sounds of Milton King screaming. The first deputy ran past several shelves, drawing his service weapon as he did so, and when he passed the third row, Mickey stepped out behind him and shot him twice in the back. The first deputy went to the ground.

Milton King could only say “Terrill” as his client went off with the masked killer around the back aisle. Terrill did not acknowledge him.

In less than twenty seconds, Terrill, Ray, Mickey, and Lee were in a Jeep Cherokee speeding away. Maggie was driving.

Within twenty-four hours, they were all out of Oregon, in separate vehicles, making their way back to the Midwest, where Ray Muller had grown up. They had their alpha male back along with their alpha female and they had plans to kidnap the daughter of a very wealthy man. To strike back at the profiteers and the cake eaters.

Two deputies had been murdered, and Ray Muller and Mickey Seften's identities were unknown to the Oregon state police. But charges were prepared against Terrill Colely and Lee Ensler for conspiracy to commit murder. And in that sense, Lee Ensler had gotten what she wanted. She had become a fugitive with the man she loved.

The county sheriff gave a press conference the evening two of his deputies were murdered. He held back tears of grief, rage, and frustration before the microphones and told the public what information they had and didn't have. A local reporter wrote the next day that the sheriff “vowed to catch these murderous jackal bins,” the reporter thinking that term was another cop's way of labeling the criminal element. It wasn't until after that edition of the newspaper ran that another reporter suggested the sheriff might have said “Jacobins” instead. The original reporter shrugged it off, saying “jackal bins” was what he had put in his notes.

*   *   *

Once in the St. Louis area, it became clear that Lee was not exactly the Bonnie to Terrill's Clyde. In fact, it wasn't even all that clear that Terrill was Clyde. He was the one with the most presence, the one with the looks, but if one observed him closely, he would see that Terrill cleared just about everything with Maggie. Though sometimes this was done indirectly. Short and compact in stature, Maggie was like the border collie who stares down the cow that towers over her. Smarter and more determined than any livestock, Maggie seemed incapable of self-doubt. It was a dynamic that everyone more or less was aware of and accepted. Even Terrill.