Black Gambit Page 9

  He eased himself back on his pillow, placed his hands behind his head and began the quarter hour he allowed himself to savour the comparative quiet of the hour. Each morning at this time he let his mind go blank until images of places began to fill it. As soon as one emerged that pleased him he tried to hold it, examining it as one would a painting. Today it was a lake, viewed from halfway up a hillside. He recognized it immediately: a spot on the old Johnson ranch. From the vantage point, he could even recall the occasion when his mind had photographed it. It was November, just a few days before Thanksgiving, and his father had stopped the car so that he could get out and admire the view. The image faded, and for the first time Parker checked his watch. It was 5.56.

  He rolled out of his bed and remade it immediately. The cell was six feet wide, nine feet long, and a little over seven feet high. Apart from the bed, it had a locker, a sink with cold water, a stool, a commode, and two shelves filled with paperbacks.

  Parker’s other belongings were on the floor. Now he transferred them to the bed where they would remain until the night. There was a portable typewriter, bought with the money he received for his legal advice to prisoners. It stood on a plywood board which doubled as a chessboard. The chessmen, in a box on the shelf, were flat squares of wood each marked with the name of the piece. To type or to replay famous chess games he placed the board on the stool and sat on the edge of the bed. There were more paperbacks and a number of writing pads, each containing notes taken from law books obtained from the State Library on order. He often thought it ironic that, having renewed an interest in law to help himself, he had been forced to the conclusion that he was one man for whom the law held no hope, his work had, however, been a blessing. In prison you needed a hustle to survive well. One of the earliest pieces of advice he had been given was, ‘It’s surprising how much it costs to live in here.’

  Parker had gone through the first eighteen months without a real hustle. That was when he had given up cigarettes so as not to run up debts to anyone. It had taken him that long to find one.

  It was a good one, though. Parker’s work was regular and well-paid. More important, as an inmate lawyer he enjoyed a position of great esteem. For the last five years Parker had not even carried a shiv. One major reason was that many tough men were beholden to him.

  Even though he knew them by heart, Parker peered at the table of exercises on the wall. He was working his way through the Canadian 5BX and, after six years, he had reached — and exceeded — his limit.

  He was wearing only shorts, and the cold of the concrete floor made him gasp when he came to his sit-ups. He did nineteen without pause.

  The exercises finished, he washed with cold water from the sink, dried himself vigorously and then sat on the edge of the bed, the towel around his shoulders.

  It could not be seen in the dim light but his face was almost grey, the special colour of men who see too little sun. But his body was in good shape. On one thing he went along with the Black Muslims who were always exercising in the yard: pride in your body does matter when you’re inside. He reflected, as he often did at this moment of the day, that he looked like a different man from the one who had entered seven years before.

  God, he had been flabby then. Before he had tightened up, before the lines had come, the pudginess had made him look even younger than he was at the time: twenty-eight. He recalled the moment he had changed. Three things had taken place within two days and afterwards he was never the same.

  The first was that, through curiosity, he had found himself present at a homosexual ‘wedding.’ The ‘bride’ had been complete with dress and train and veil and had said ‘I do’ with a bashful lowering of eyes. Parker had been more fascinated than repelled. The second had been hearing the screams and later the cries of a homosexual gang bang. On entering prison, being raped had not been among Parker’s many fears; after a few weeks it had become a constant one.

  Whenever he looked back he thought perhaps he had willed the event that followed. Two men who had seen him at the ‘wedding’ had followed him to the showers. They were not hard to fight off, but it was obvious this was only the beginning. The following afternoon, the piece of pipe hidden inside his shirt, he approached them in the yard. While they were still grinning he landed blows on both. He kept hitting until the guards dragged him off. He could still close his eyes and see the blood and hear the whimpers from one, as he tried to shield his face with an arm that Parker promptly broke. And he could hear his own cries over and over again, ‘I’m a man, you motherfuckers. I’m not anybody’s ass.’ He was told later that he was lucky the two hadn’t died, but from that moment he was established as a man to be left alone; from then on the prison ceased to dominate him.

  At the far end of the tier Parker heard a stick being scraped across the bars. Again, without looking, he knew the time: 6.20. The noise grew louder as the convict turnkey approached. He was followed minutes later by another trusty with a large metal can of hot water. Parker watched as the spout was pushed through the bars and hot water poured into a bucket. Lifting it, Parker filled the sink and began to wash.

  In a few minutes the guards would begin the morning count — the official start to a day just like over 2,500 others he had endured. How many thousands more, he wondered, still to face before he left this place — if he ever did …

  *

  Cory had first met Foster Williams when he was still with the police force, a young detective five years out of the Army, detailed to collate all the field reports on Robert Kennedy’s assassination. Cory recruited him to inform the Company of everything that was emerging. At Cory’s suggestion the Company later persuaded Williams, now a lieutenant, to go private. They supplied him with a fixed contract as security consultant for a company doing defense work; in addition, there had been the occasional special job — and this was his main worth.

  He and Cory met at the Los Angeles Marriott Hotel. Cory began by explaining that the job was not for the Company but that authorization for it came from the ‘highest Washington levels.’ Williams was to visit a prisoner in Folsom and sound him out about his willingness to do an unspecified task for a group in return for being got out. Cory supplied no details, but said it should be made clear to the prisoner that it was dangerous, would take him some weeks, and that he had every chance of surviving. In return the group would then give him money, false papers — a fresh start anywhere in the world he wished.

  ‘You’re to give no indication of who you’re representing,’ Cory told him. if he thinks you’re the Mafia, so much the better.’

  He then handed Williams a file and dozed in an armchair while the detective read it.

  Williams finally looked up and said, ‘I may need more of a lever than just his freedom.’

  Cory, knowing the file by heart, sensed Williams’s unspoken question. He reached into his breast pocket and took out a snapshot of a small girl. He handed it over. ‘Give him this — but only if you have to,’ he said. ‘And tell him we can deliver her too.’

  *

  Parker collected his meat and rice and bread and placed himself among friends. He ate quickly. From now until the 3.20 count he was free to go to the library, walk in the yard, or return to his cell. Then he was scheduled to hold a law seminar in the yard, but the loudspeaker message ordered him to report to the assistant warden’s office. He walked there unhurriedly, feeling better with the warmth of the food in his stomach and the extra piece of bread in his pocket for later. His face showed no concern about the reason for the call — he was damned if he was going to show it. For one wild moment he wondered if he was to be moved or even paroled. But he knew that was not going to happen. Not to him. With luck they would think of releasing him when he had done twenty years.

  The assistant warden was waiting, a single sheet of paper in his hand. Parker stood in front of him, until gestured to sit down.

  ‘You’ve a request for a visit,’ said the assistant warden. Normally a guard would have put the re
quest to the prisoner. But Parker was special. He had no approved list of visitors. Nor had he had a visitor in seven years.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘A man called Williams. He’s a private investigator.’

  Whatever it was about could do him no good other than satisfying his curiosity.

  ‘Thank you. But I don’t care to see him.’

  The assistant warden nodded. He knew why the investigator wanted to see Parker; something to do with an unsolved robbery. He had also warned Sacramento that he doubted Parker would agree. Still he had better repeat what he had been asked to say. ‘It’s your right, Parker. But I think you ought to know it’s something about your daughter.’

  Parker desperately wanted to ask for reassurance: She’s all right, isn’t she? Say she’s all right.

  Instead he forced himself to grin. But the words seemed someone else’s when he finally spoke.

  ‘I’ll see him, sir.’

  *

  Williams quickly noted Parker’s physical points, but other features interested him more: the well-fitting prison garb, for example, gave some indication of his standing in the prison. Williams had the advantage of knowing Parker’s background; he was very conscious of the fact that he knew very little about Parker’s conduct over the previous seven years. This could be crucial.

  Parker walked over and pulled back the chair. Williams allowed a few seconds to pass before looking at his watch, a reminder to the other that time was limited.

  ‘So?’ Parker said at last.

  Williams leaned forward so that his face was nearer the mesh. The room was large enough for the guard not to be able to hear. Nevertheless Williams spoke so quietly that Parker was forced to strain himself to hear.

  ‘It’s only indirectly about your daughter. Friends have seen her — she didn’t see them — and she is well.’

  His tone became more conversational. ‘I have friends who think it is a pity you’re here and she is there, particularly as they know the truth. What they’d like to do, with your help, is remedy this situation.’

  Forcing himself not to rush, he outlined the offer. He tried to place himself in the other’s position. Parker’s mind would be running through all the unspoken questions and possibilities: was this an elaborate frame-up? And if so, why? And why now? What enemies had he? Or, come to think of it, what friends?

  ‘Why me?’ said Parker.

  ‘You’ve got some talent my friends would like to use. The rest you have to take on trust.’

  Parker nodded his head slowly from side to side. ‘No go.’ His voice was firm. ‘You could offer me freedom, an island in the Pacific and the Empire State building …’

  ‘We’re offering you freedom and your daughter.’

  Williams noted a barely perceptible response in the prisoner’s eyes. He pressed on. ‘All I can tell you is that my friends would want you to take a trip.’

  ‘A dangerous trip?’

  Williams’s reply was indirect. ‘The price they’re paying is high.’

  He was relieved when Parker let the conversation move on. ‘Supposing I believed you, how would I know you were on the level?’

  Williams smiled for the first time. ‘You’d be out, wouldn’t you?’

  Parker allowed himself a smile too, and Williams hurried on. He could not hope for an answer now; Parker had to think on it.

  ‘Just consider the proposition. That’s all I ask.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And if it’s yes, all you have to do is refuse to see me again. In two days’ time I’ll put in a request for another visit. You tell the warden no. Then I’ll know it’s on. If you say yes, I’ll know it’s no go. Don’t worry, I won’t turn up whatever answer you give.’

  He checked his watch. Five minutes left.

  Parker was half smiling as though he took none of it seriously. ‘And if I wanted to go ahead … ?’

  ‘Then you wouldn’t do anything. From then on matters would be taken care of by my friends.’

  He waited until the door behind him opened, and a guard gave a two-minute warning. He smiled, took out the photograph, held it near the mesh. He felt Parker tighten.

  For a moment he was glad there was wire mesh between them.

  ‘While you’re thinking,’ said Williams, ‘remember this …’

  *

  Parker did not even try to sleep. The photograph had reawakened parts of him that he had kept submerged for years.

  There were two ways, he felt, to survive mentally in prison. The first was to live the important part of your life in day-dreaming; to pretend that it’s the prison part that is a bad dream. Parker had done this for the first eighteen months of his sentence. The second way, which he had since adopted, was to face prison full on, to impose your personality upon it.

  In practice it meant filling the day with events: exercising, reading, writing, working out chess moves. He accepted the fact that prison confined you, but you lived as fully as possible within those confines. Above all, you lived your sentence as it came day by day. You did not live in the future, nor, as so many did, in the past. This meant not clinging to what was lost, not reliving events, including mistakes. It also meant seizing satisfaction from what pleasures were available — an extra hunk of bread, a shot of good booze — and not dreaming of the freedom that would, or might, come one day.

  For over five years he had fought not to think of it. It had become easier but never too easy. It was like being a drunk off the booze for a long time — Williams had uncorked the bottle and placed it in front of him.

  Parker thought of the practical and immediate questions. Why should the offer be made? What did they want? Who were ‘they’? And how — if he agreed — would he be sprung? He did not doubt Williams’s seriousness; he knew when a man meant what he said. His mind debated the question of who Williams represented, but dismissed it as unanswerable. It could be anyone.

  But why? His visitor had said ‘to take a trip’, and by his silence had conceded it was dangerous. What kind of trip? Why him? That was the most puzzling question. What qualification could he have that others had not? He shrugged. He knew there was only one way he would learn that. Whether he ever would …

  It was not until well into the night that Parker allowed himself to remember.

  He had been twenty-five when they met, a year out of the army, working with cars in the day and studying law at night. The couple who had raised him had just died, the wife first, the husband only weeks later.

  Marion had filled a great void. She had moved in with him after the first week, treating him with an elaborate and protective kindness; she had even cried when he had admitted he couldn’t remember his real parents, who were German.

  He knew only that they had been killed in one of the Allied air raids. It was then that he had learned his Russian: a child begging from and working for the Russian occupiers of his part of Berlin. Memories were hazy and unreal now. It was strange to think how different his life might have been if he had not crossed into the American zone and been adopted by a childless American sergeant and his wife who changed his name from Reinhold to theirs, Parker.

  Parker clenched his eyes, tried to reconstruct a real picture of Marion. He couldn’t. He could remember blonde hair, a large bust that was at times motherly and at other times a dancing mouthful. But that was description; his mind refused to see or feel her.

  Their first year was good. Gradually Parker slipped back on his schooling, but that gave him more time with Marion. The only problem was money; she liked to buy things and he wanted her to. Parker found himself doing small repair jobs in the garage and pocketing the money. Finally he had been caught and advised to find another job. Because of that and partly because Marion was bored, Parker sold the house and furniture, spent some of the money on a new car, and they headed West.

  In Reno they actually got married. Then they drifted for a few months, living on what was left of the house money until that was gone. Parker got another garage job
in a small town in the Salinas Valley. The garage owner helped them find a home, a trailer in a small park on the edge of town.

  Parker swung himself off the bed and felt the mattress until he found what he wanted: a bottle. He opened the seam and pulled it out. It was a pint of Jim Beam. He’d been saving it for a massive drunk on his birthday, a day he always celebrated. He got back on the bed. Still fully dressed, he began drinking from the bottle.

  Everything had seemed to go wrong from then on, even the nicest thing of all — that Marion was pregnant. Jonesville bored her; pregnancy was a ball and chain. She constantly goaded him with demands for more money, alternating these with threats to abort herself. The demands he tried to answer by working longer and longer hours; the threats by a mixture of warnings and pleadings. He wanted fatherhood in a way he had never wanted anything.

  The baby was a girl. They called her Susan, and for a while Marion liked dressing the child and showing her around. The novelty wore off, but Parker was not sure that things wouldn’t have been all right anyway if the two men had not arrived.

  Marion said one was her brother from Miami, and the other his friend. They were waiting when he arrived home one evening. Both were well-dressed, and the brother, Brad, carried a fat roll of money. At dinner Brad disregarded Parker, staring at his oil-encrusted hands and hinting that he had expected better things for his sister. Marion remained silent, not defending Parker …

  He heard a noise at the end of the tier, and knew instinctively that it was a guard making an unscheduled round. He stoppered the bottle and rolled under the blanket, remaining still until the guard reached his cell and the flashlight roamed over him. He sat up, leaving the blanket where it was, and took another deep swallow of bourbon.