Lion Plays Rough (16 page)

“I never actually told you. I left it to your imagination. If you tried to kill yourself, it doesn't look like you did a very good job.”

His Adam's apple twitched. “You wouldn't really care if I did kill myself, would you?”

“Maybe you're new to this, but you're not supposed to confess to your lawyer. You're supposed to lie to me, feed me a line of halfway plausible bullshit so I can lead you through the dance.”

“You didn't even ask if I wanted to testify or what I was going to say if I did.”

“The only point of testifying would have been if you were going to say you didn't do it. If you're going to lie to the jury, you've got to lie to me, and you've got to be halfway convincing about it. Yeah, you're going to prison. I don't feel great about that, but I'm not the one who raped that girl.”

They probably wouldn't lock him up as long as they were going to lock me up if Kristofferson managed to pin Nikki's murder on my back. The thing was, I couldn't let myself believe there was any real chance of that. It made me feel stronger to pick on someone even weaker than I was. But tearing down Scarsdale only made me feel better for about a minute. Then I felt worse.

I left him and went to look for the telephone. The upper tier had phones on the outer wall between every fourth cell. These didn't accept change; rather, inmates called collect through a 1-800 service that charged exorbitantly to the recipients. The expense—often exceeding a dollar per minute—meant that the phones weren't in great demand, despite ease of access, so I didn't have to wait long. I hadn't gotten hold of Jeanie earlier. Again this time she didn't pick up.

I called Teddy. I'd spoken to him earlier, when I hadn't been able to reach Jeanie. I'd asked him to keep trying to track her down. He'd sounded confused and disoriented, as if he didn't remember what had happened and didn't know where I was. The usual strategy was to bluff his way through confusion, hoping he'd eventually catch the thread. That wasn't good enough now; I needed him to understand, to remember, and to plan, all things he was no longer any good at, especially after a shock like last night. Stress and anxiety had the effect of working against all the progress he'd made.

“
Did you manage to get hold of Jeanie?” I asked when he picked up.

“Oh, yeah. I saw her last night. We had fingers at—at the doormat.”

“You had dinner at the restaurant?”

“Sorry. I'm not thinking straight. It's hard . . . I'm tired.”

“Don't worry about it. You remember me calling before?”

“Yeah, I remember,” he said. But I could tell that he didn't.

“Last night the police came. They woke us up, and they took me away. I'm in jail now, Teddy. That's why you had to accept the charges. I'm calling collect from jail. I need you to find Jeanie for me and ask her to come here to see me. I'm at Santa Rita Jail. Can you write that down for me? Can you make a note?”

“I don't know. Hands are kind of—quaky. Shit!” he cried, and I knew that he'd burned or cut himself. He groaned, nine parts frustration and one part pain.

“Teddy, you still there?”

His voice shook. “Leo, I'm here.”

“What are you supposed to do, Teddy? What did I just ask you to do?”

“Find Jeanie.”

“Okay. Hang up and do that right now. If you can't get her, try Car. He might know where she is.” I hesitated. “And when you talk to Car, ask him if he's made any progress on that thing he was going to check.”

“What thing?”

“Just ask him. Tell him Leo wants to know if he's made any progress.” All the calls from jail were recorded. I couldn't say anything more.

“Okay,” Teddy said.

“You can do this,” I told him. “It's all a frame-up, and I should be out by Monday. You just need to hold it together until then.”

He had already hung up.

Chapter 21

I sat at one of the fixed circular tables in clear view of the guard station, flipping through a week-old newspaper. I didn't want to spend more time in my housing unit than I had to. The cell interiors were among the least visible places in the pod.

Any corrections environment was going to have a rigid authority structure. Here in the high-security unit, filled with gang members serving sentences of a few years and murderers awaiting trial, the population was more stable than elsewhere in Santa Rita. It seemed to me that whatever had happened to Jamil, it couldn't have happened without the blessing of whoever was in charge.

The pod was one-third black, one-third Latino, and the rest whites and Asians, invisible boundaries crisscrossing every square foot. The eyes of the white guys were on me from the start. I used to think that being a defense lawyer would cut in my favor if I ended up inside, but that was before Scarsdale. My most recent client was every penal institution's lowest form of life, and I was guilty by association.

I'd been pretending to read the same page for the twentieth time when the sounds of the conversations around me grew quieter. I heard stifled laughter, looked up, and saw a powerfully built man with stringy red hair and a beard.

“Hey, buddy,” he said gently. He was standing several paces away, but with that tone of voice he might as well have been sitting in my lap.

I didn't say anything.

“If you're not my buddy, you don't get to be my friend,” he went on.

“Whatever you say.” I pretended to go back to my newspaper, but he stayed put.

“Don't worry. I didn't come over to stomp you.”

“That's a relief,” I said, watching him over the paper.

He looked me over, then shook his head. “Nah, man, I don't see it.”

“See what?”

“You don't look like no kind of badass woman-slicing motherfucker. You look like a little lost bird. I hear you used to be a lawyer.”

“Still am,” I said. “Only just now I'm not taking any new cases.”

“There isn't anyone in here with any love for lawyers, especially one who can't keep himself or his kiddie rapist client out of jail.”

I lowered the paper and his eyes drilled through me.

“Now, there are exceptions to that rule. For instance, there's one of Nikki Matson's clients in here. That would be Peabo over there. Normally, a white guy like you would have protection, but the rest of us figure, hey, you wanted to play by their rules outside, well, you might as well play by the same rules in here.”

I wondered if he'd come over to warn me, or to scare me, or just to take the measure of what he could get. I followed his glance and saw two black men playing cards, one with cornrows and a teenager's build, the other in his forties, with freckled skin, prison muscles and tattoos, a black do-rag on his head. They slapped down card after card in a fast-paced game of War.

“The older one or the younger one?”

“The older one. Even that kid could handle you, though.”

“Maybe he's glad to be rid of her. Maybe he owed her some fees.”

The guy gave a laugh, his voice insinuating. “Man like Peabo, he don't always know what he's feeling, only how he's going to act. Maybe Nikki was the kind of lawyer that needed to get killed. All Peabo knows is you killed one of his.”

The longer I looked at Peabo, the deeper my heart sank. He didn't look up even once. “Does it make a difference that I didn't kill her?”

“You saying it don't mean anything in here, any more than it's going to mean to the DA. Unless you can give them a name and bring him in here to take the heat off you? Maybe you're innocent, maybe not, but before you get out of here, you got to talk Peabo into forgiving your ass.”

“Is that what happened to Jamil Robinson? He couldn't convince him?”

Instead of answering he just smiled. Then he turned and walked away toward a group of men at a table across the room, half of them doing push-ups and other calisthenics, the other half sitting on the tables looking at me.

~ ~ ~

After that, to my shame, I found myself sticking close to Scarsdale. He had a week's more experience in this place than I did. The crucial thing was not to be alone, it seemed to me, to have someone to watch over my shoulder. The two of us were the pariahs, and neither of us had any choice but to trust the other.

That evening in the chow line I'd just turned from the serving counter to follow Scarsdale to one of the fixed tables. Not far from us was a group of the white guys who'd been watching me earlier. As we walked past them, one of them sucker-punched me in the back of the head.

At least that's what I figured must have happened. All I knew was that my vision went dark and my tray clattered as I fell. I braced for the kicks that were sure to follow, but none came. The guy who'd hit me simply kept walking out of the mess hall and back to the pod.

If the deputies had seen what happened, they gave no sign. After a silence, everyone went back to eating. One of the inmates who worked in the kitchen brought a mop, but wouldn't meet my eye as he moved the mop in slow circles around my crouching form.

I went on to the table where Scarsdale sat alone. “You see it happen?” I asked. My voice sounded strange in my ears.

He nodded, chewing, not looking up.

“You had any trouble with that guy?”

He shrugged. “They call him Chopper.”

I could only hope that Chopper had hurt his hand.

I felt like throwing up. I waited until he'd finished eating, then we went back to the pod next door. Every step sent shooting pains up my neck. At the back of my head I felt a sliding heat.

The rest of the evening until lockdown I stayed close to the guard station, pretending to read the same week-old paper until it was time to be secured in my cell.

My mattress was a thin foam pad over the metal shelf of the bunk. With every movement, my neck twinged and my head throbbed. So did my thoughts, which kept returning obsessively to the punch. I'd never been a fighter, and the insult was a continuing shock; my thoughts fizzed and overflowed with it. I could tell Scarsdale wasn't asleep on the bunk beneath me, but neither of us spoke.

My thoughts ran ahead to tomorrow. I wondered if Jeanie would visit, and how I could keep safe during the daylight hours. The showers might be avoided, but I'd have to mingle with the other inmates during chow and yard call. I could get a pass to the infirmary if I needed one and avoid the chow line, possibly, but it would only be temporary and wasn't much of a plan.

For a while there were noises: talking, joking, the sounds of radios and portable TVs. Most of the cells spilled light onto the tier, but ours was dark.

There were no catcalls, no torment; it wasn't like the movies. It was as if the rest of the inmates had chosen not to witness our existence, knowing we wouldn't be here long.

“You going to ask for protective custody?” Scarsdale finally asked, his voice low.

It hadn't occurred to me that it could be so simple. “Then what happens? They came after me because I'm your lawyer.”

“I thought you didn't give a shit about me.”

It was tempting to do what he said. In the morning, first thing when the guard came around, I could make the request. My whole body ached for sleep, but my heart was still racing, my muscles tense and jumpy. “If I saved my own ass and you turned up hung in your cell, I'd have to look for another line of work. My last client who died, it happened on this tier.”

“You mean the one who hung himself.”

“He didn't, though. He was murdered. Probably by Peabo.” If Nikki Matson was Peabo's lawyer, it made him the natural suspect for Jamil's murder.

“I wasn't here then. They brought me up here after the conviction.”

“Obviously someone saw something. Even those who didn't see must know.” I yawned. Maybe in a few minutes I'd be ready to sleep.

“It figures,” Scarsdale told me. “I understand now.”

“What?”

“The only time a client becomes important to you is when he's dead.”

Maybe it was just that my living clients always seemed to work against me. I could have told him this, but I was too exhausted to argue. Even so, I couldn't sleep.

Toward morning I slept for an hour or so. When the lights outside came on at six I found that I couldn't sit up or turn my head. I had to slide sideways off the bunk and drop to the floor.

When the cell doors were opened a deputy brought Scarsdale an orange smock and sweat pants to put on. “How'd he try it?” I asked while the deputy, whose name was Espinoza, waited for Scarsdale to surrender his padding.

The deputy snorted. “No actual attempt. Only a comment.”

“A cry for help?”

“We helped him.”

“I think he learned his lesson.”

“I sure hope so. The paperwork we got to fill out . . .” Espinoza shrugged. “Still, it's less than if he actually did it. If he says he wants to kill himself and then he does it, the family can sue the county, hold it liable. That's how messed up things are. It happened once; now all the suicidals got to wear the sack.”

“I guess Jamil Robinson didn't give you any warning.”

Espinoza took the outfit from Scarsdale. “I ain't supposed to be talking to you,” he said and walked down the tier.

After breakfast came yard call. It was a bright, clear morning, already hot here in Dublin, shielded from Oakland's fog by the coastal hills. Scarsdale and I kept in motion, walking brisk laps around the edge of the field while other inmates did exercises in scattered groups, one inmate always standing guard while the others did their push-ups, crunches, and presses.

When we came in an hour later I told Scarsdale I was going back to our housing unit to lie down for a while. I should call Teddy, I knew, see if he'd managed to find Jeanie, but my imagination was beginning to run, my fears overwhelming me. I could die in here tomorrow. If I survived, I might end up in prison. Me being in Nikki's house, plus a plausible motive was all that a skillful prosecutor would need to convict me. She'd as good as killed Jamil, and she'd put out that false press release, setting me in Damon's crosshairs.

I'd been lying on my bunk for half an hour, trying to make myself get up and go call, when I heard an explosion of shouts. I looked down from the tier and saw a man run stumbling across the open space below. Another lay on the floor. Not far away, a black guy stood his ground against half a dozen white attackers. Next the redhead who'd talked to me yesterday waded into the scrum and knocked the man down with one punch. The others then closed in, kicking him in the torso and head.

I saw Peabo coming along the tier. Noticing me notice him, he shouted something. The fighting drowned out his voice.

Tear gas billowed. I thought I saw something in Peabo's hand. A glint of metal. He closed in on me like a fielder with a runner picked off. The steps on the other side of the tier were blocked. I made an instinctive move toward the false safety of my cell, then stopped myself, rushed back to the rail, looked over, looked back at Peabo, then swung a leg over and let myself drop.

The shock sent a jolt up my spine and I pitched forward onto the hard cement, jamming my wrists and kneecaps, the tear gas blinding me, a feeling like someone wringing out each lung between strong hands. I rose but was knocked down, which seemed to deafen me. Someone else kicked me in the ribs. I started to rise again, but suddenly the deputies were there. They wore gas masks and swung batons.

I came face-to-face with one of them. He blinked behind the visor of his gas mask and I recognized Espinoza as he raised his arm and brought the baton down, down, down. There seemed to be no impact, but then all was silence, my skull felt cold as ice, and the world swam to the side and went out of focus.

~ ~ ~

I woke up shackled to a gurney. Every time I breathed, I started to choke. Whenever I moved my eyes there was a sensation like a ball bearing shooting along the rim of my skull, and my knee was a block of cement.

In the prison hospital I was placed in a bed next to Peabo. “Crazy bitch,” he said when he saw I was awake. Like me, he was shackled hands and feet. A ragged line of blood seeped through the bandage on his head.

I didn't say anything. The ward was crowded, the beds filled.

Peabo's voice was thick tongued and full of gravel. “Wasn't no call the way you did Nikki. From what I hear, she was cut real bad. Should have done it clean. Should have left that woman looking like herself.”

“I didn't kill her. Why would I? I look like Jack the Ripper to you?” His torso was bare, wrapped in elastic bandages. His eye was swollen shut, his lip split. He didn't speak like a stone-cold murderer and he didn't look the part, either. He looked beaten, like a man whose only ambition is to walk away from the fight. He grunted.

“What happened to you?” I asked, my tone neutral.

“After you jumped? Shit. Those deputies came up when they finished below, cleaned us out the upper tier. They were pissed off big-time. Two of them caught me up at the top of the stairs, whaled on me for a while, then tossed me down. But I've been hurt worse. I'll stay in bed for a while, a little rest. Ain't nothing I've been wanting more than a little rest.”

“Damon and Campbell have been sending a lot of work your way.”

“I wasn't about to stick you. You done jumped off that rail for nothing.”

“Not jumping didn't seem to help you any. I'd say I even came out ahead, putting aside whatever you were hoping to stab me with.”

“I wasn't going to stick you,” he insisted.

I didn't reply.

“You don't believe me.”

Again I didn't respond.

“I knew your daddy,” Peabo said after another pause. “We was both in the Q.”