Last Call for the Living (11 page)

Hicklin turned on the radio, tuning to a country station. Country Gold out of Chattanooga. Charlie felt something cold over his shoulder, looked up at Hicklin offering him another beer, a peculiar grin on his face. Charlie took the beer without a word.

Hicklin sat down and opened his own, taking three gulps. He reached for the pack of cigarettes, hustled one out and lit it. There were more than twenty butts mashed in the ashtray, God knew how many more floating in the empties.

As if following a cue Hummingbird produced her glass pipe. After smoking her movements became manic, involuntary. Her eyes slapped back and forth. She seemed to be chewing on an imaginary meal.

Charlie tried to ignore her, instead taking a bigger sip of beer, the taste growing on him. The pain in his lower back lessened, as had the soreness along his jaw. His mind felt like water in an ice-cube tray.

“You asked me why I hate people because they're different?” Hicklin said, easing back into the recliner.

“Uh-huh.”

“Because I can.”

His reply was defiant, more protest than explanation. He drank the rest of the beer, pouring it down his throat. He knew Charlie was right about not having a choice. About how arbitrary one's race was. And Hicklin didn't have an answer for him. Just a blind faith in his superiority.

And Charlie held his beer with both hands, as if afraid that someone would take it from him. Hicklin leveled his eyes on Charlie then, studying the boy's body, idly thinking of ways to improve it with exercise. He rolled an unlit cigarette between his fingers to loosen the tobacco. Then he coughed and spit a saucer of mucus onto the floor.

When Charlie met his gaze he saw a mischievous grin and fought to keep from smiling himself.

*   *   *

Later that evening
Charlie found himself thoroughly drunk. Hummingbird had retreated to one of the bedrooms, a compulsive laughter heard through the walls the only reminder she was still in the cottage at all. Country Gold had gone off the air, replaced with a classic rock station from Greenville. Thin Lizzy's “Ballad of a Hard Man.”

Hicklin popped the tabs on two more beers and stumbled over to Charlie, kicking several empty cans across the floor as he did so.

“I'll wager we got time for one more 'fore you pass out?”

He held out the can, as if to coax Charlie out of the chair.

“Come on, son. Come and get it.”

Charlie felt as if he'd been nailed to the floor. He got to his feet warily, like an old man attempting a steep flight of stairs. Rising with a wobble, he took a perilous first step.

“Get over here. Walk, goddammit!” Hicklin said, waving the can of beer at Charlie like dangling a carrot before a horse.

And Charlie walked, listing to port, his shoulders sagging. He almost fell but caught himself, barely, a drunken chuckle his only sound.

“Stand up and walk straight. Be a man, Charlie!”

Charlie lunged for the beer but grasped nothing but air. His knees buckled and he almost went down again.

“Don't go down on your knees, son! You go down on your knees, reckon what I'll do to you?” Hicklin barked.

Just then Charlie shook his head and righted himself. He stood reasonably straight and walked toward Hicklin again, making a couple passes at the beer. Satisfied, Hicklin let Charlie have his prize. He smiled, holding the beer with both hands against his chest, swaying a little.

“Charlie Colquitt. Damn if I don't think you got the makin's,” Hicklin said, saluting Charlie with his own can, followed by a long, slow sip. “I knew a woman named Colquitt once,” he added, almost absentmindedly. “Had a glass eye that didn't fit right…”

“Glass eye?” Charlie said with a slur, his eyes twinkling with vague recognition.

“Once I fucked her so hard, damn thing popped out a her head!”

Hicklin's drunken laughter filled the cottage. Loud and from the belly. Charlie laughed, too. At first with hysterical and blind enthusiasm, but some underlying truth gave him pause, and the laughter slowly emptied from him like the air from a balloon.

 

Cold steel and gun metal grey.

Nightmares, another night has turned to day.

 

SEVEN

They walked the
catwalks down to the first tier. Wolfen eyes peered out from behind bars. They heard the fleshy sounds of a man masturbating. They did not stop. Some men called out. Shouted warnings to the other inmates that echoed around the cell block. The tactical team knew they were closely watched by the prisoners. Almost anything they said could be lip-read or intuited. They kept quiet.

Four abreast now. The tactical team worked their way down a long corridor, the walls of which resembled the hull of a sunken vessel. They wore flak jackets and gloves and green cargo pants. The lead officer spoke into a walkie clipped above his collarbone. The last gate opened with a
clank
and the men entered the Secure Housing Unit.

*   *   *

The kite swung
from one inmate's hands to another. They timed the movements of the guards, watching the camera and counting. The cutovers were known like the rising and setting of the sun. Going fishing, they called it.

The line dropped down from one floor of the SHU to the next before it was gathered up, sucked under the door and repositioned. Correctional officers appeared and disappeared behind the acrylic detention windows. With the kite folded, an inmate counted in his head and then flicked the line through the space under the door, arcing it around the column to the adjacent cell. He felt a tug and let the line go. The kite disappeared under the door. The inmate knew he would be rewarded. A skilled messenger always was.

*   *   *

The convict took
the message and read it. He was going to flush it down the toilet but sensed something and tight-rolled the slip of paper. He pulled down his boxer shorts and pushed it up inside his rectum as far as it would go.

The tac team was at the window.

“Do me a solid and take off the shades,” the lead officer said.

He raised his arms in a mock stretch and complied, tucking his sunglasses in a soft case. Then they told him to cuff up. He turned in a circle, his back to the door, and when the latch popped he found the metal tray of the service slot with his palms. His hands dangled for a moment.

Two pairs of cold metal handcuffs clamped around his wrists. Another pair for his ankles. They told him to walk forward and turn around. When the door opened he stepped out of his cell in his state-issued slippers. They patted him down and made him squat. A shiv or shank would have punctured internal organs. But he was smarter than that. He expected them to inspect his anus, but they didn't.

He stood aside while they tossed his cell.

Two officers remained with him, watching him with respect. Everyone knew who he was. What he was capable of. The convict thought briefly about attacking them both but decided against it. He had names and addresses. He knew that the guard to his left had a mother in a rest home and a sister in Colorado Springs.

Plenty of weapons at his disposal despite the shackles. Teeth, forehead, knees and feet. He just was not in the mood.

The lead officer flipped through photos and letters. Shined an ultraviolet light through greeting cards and notebook paper. He studied the script, the tight lines of ink, the spacing. The words were clear, the meaning ambiguous.

If only these supercops knew the code,
the convict thought.
But us poor white trash just a little too smart for 'em.

The lead officer reached for a stack of books, flipping through one entitled
Discipline and Punish
and another called
Look Homeward, Angel.
Nothing unusual revealed itself. The other guards ran their gloved hands along edges in the cell but found nothing. One officer reached down into the toilet. Another tapped against the wall and bed frame with the end of his Maglite.

The convict did not talk nor did his expression ever change. The lead officer told him he was taking the letters. The convict nodded. He wished the officer good luck. The guards uncuffed him and locked the door.

The convict stood at the small acrylic square that served as the lone window of his cell, watching the tac team ascend a staircase on the opposite side of the SHU. He ran a forefinger and thumb along his bristly mustache and thought of the kite and its meaning.

Later. He fingered the slip of paper from his anus. Studied it. He felt a sharp pang of betrayal, of bloodlust. He read it again.

H. jumped the score.

?

The prisoner looked around his cell. At the beige walls, his cot and rumpled belongings. A calendar on the wall marked the month and day. Just one of many for him. Time was his currency, the days his most prized possession.

He'd read all the philosophies and musings concerning time, its stagnant flow, all meaninglessness.

Don't leave me now, brother.

Time was nothing but a mark he hoped to manipulate, work the angles on. Because he would be remembered for the will he exerted and not the years it took to do it.

The universe did not decay without company, brother.

They all looked up to him. One of a select few who ran the whole fucking show.

And disrespect was not tolerated.

It was Monday. Nothing surprised him. But the unannounced visit from the prison's tactical team gave him pause. Something was up.

He recalled the thunderstorms and humidity. Clouds boiling over with phosphorescent flashes of light. The smell of grass in late Spring. Running water. The ample shade of a white oak. The land belonged to his foster father, the man responsible for the helplessness that defined his youth. Bent over the chair like that. Such a young man, too. His insides swelling. Those hands on his shoulders, calloused and powerful. The pivotal point in his life when it all went bad and he found his calling.

At sixteen he brained his foster father with a pipe wrench.

Leaving one family for another. Abuse in perpetuity.

I am forever a walk-alone, brother.

But the empire needed leadership. There were issues with the rugheads to address, a mule talking to the guards, two scores and a hit awaiting a vote by the council, a brother getting tuned up for no obvious reason, but there was always a reason.

And then there were the bank heists. The prisoner thought about Hicklin. A man he'd never met, only corresponded with. Knew him by reputation. Word of mouth.

A brother is a brother until that brother dies
.…

He dug for hate.

He smelled the blood.

He composed a reply using a toenail, dipping it in a small cup of his own urine. A convict's version of invisible ink.

Then he decided to overnight it.

*   *   *

The house was
nestled between a stream and a curtain of iron oak. Wire mesh fencing formed a loose perimeter. Kalamity Bibb parked her Dodge in the driveway, checked herself in the rearview and got out.

A neighbor's quarter horse had wandered up to the fence, its tail sweeping back and forth as if it was happy to see Kalamity. She mashed a cigarette in the ashtray. A bead of sweat dripped from her brow and landed on the seat cover.

She popped the hatch. The cargo space was packed with cardboard boxes from a wholesale buyers club off the interstate. Enough groceries to last a decade. There was cherry-red meat, wrapped in plastic and cold to the touch. A rack of ribs, beef tips, pork chops, roasts and steaks. Kalamity unloaded everything into a storage freezer in the carport and walked back to the Durango. Robber flies weaved and whistled through the air. She looked at the front yard. The grass needed cutting. Then she saw the swarming pockets of gnats and figured it could wait.

She slid another cardboard box to the edge of the tailgate—this one packed with canned goods. Soups and broths. Enough bread crumbs to batter an ox. Fresh greens. Snap beans, squash, bell peppers. It was her quarterly shop. She loved to buy in bulk.

Exhausted, she left the paper towels and cleaning supplies for the morning. Before she closed the driver's side door Kalamity reached for a bag from the convenience store with her carton of Marlboros inside. A pack of chewing gum. Some lotto tickets. A lighter with the logo of the Georgia Bulldogs on one side, the team's schedule printed on the other. Season opener was just a couple weeks away. Business at the bar really picked up, but everyone knew you didn't bother Kal on game day, not when her Dawgs were playing.

It was her favorite time of year. Football and booze and lazy Saturday afternoons.

Tommy came by more often.

She never locked her doors. She walked into the kitchen carrying a box of groceries and placed them on the table, the thought of taking a drink and cooling off a welcome one. She'd given herself three days off. Told them not to call unless the place was on fire, but she didn't put her clientele past it. Owning a bar was hard goddamn work. Had to start interviewing for bartenders and waitstaff. Lucky to get six months out of someone before they flaked or got arrested or stole something. Kalamity tried not to think about it. She'd paid her dues, paid off the loan, and by God was going to start making more time for herself.

She'd found the house luxuriously cool, having left the AC units cranked on High before she left that morning. Hard not to think about the relief they provided from the heat, and her enormous electric bill running up like the nation's debt. Local forecast called for thunderstorms to pop up before sundown. The thought of watching one from her front porch—cold drink in hand—was as appealing a scenario as Kalamity could imagine.

She took out the bottle of vodka from the freezer. Poured some over ice. Added pineapple juice and 7Up. She considered drawing a bath, maybe masturbating. Spend the rest of the evening drinking in front of the television.