Murder at the Foul Line (42 page)

We’re sitting at a rectangular plastic table bolted to the floor, on gray plastic chairs, also bolted down. We’re supposed
to be in our bunks, but we’re the basketball team and the screws won’t bust us for petty violations.

“I don’t know about you guys,” I say, “but I want my coke back.”

Tiny says, “That or somebody’s blood.”

“No, Tiny. I want the coke, which, if you recall, we still haven’t paid for.” I rub my fingertips together, then sing, “
Money, money, moneyyyyyyy.
”

I came into the deal as part of an effort to turn my life around, an effort which included my anger-management and computer
classes. Though I’d been incarcerated for a crime of violence, then passed four years in a very violent prison, my short stay
at the Menands Correctional Facility presented me with an inescapable truth: when it comes to white-collar crime, the profits
are long and the sentences short. And what I figured, when Tiny first approached me, was that if I sacrificed and worked very
hard, I could accumulate enough capital to buy into a top-tier boiler room operation when I finally made parole.

“Oh, man,” Road moans. “I’m gonna catch hold of Freddie and rip his arms off.” It was Road’s Aunt Louise who stuffed the coke
into Spooky’s shorts and it was Road who arranged to have the coke fronted. And it was Road, of course, whose ass was on the
line.

“Nobody talks to Freddie,” I tell him, a calculated act of disrespect. I’m Road’s partner, not his boss. “Let’s take a little
time, take a look around. We got nothin’ but time, right? Time is what we’re doin’.”

Road smiles, cheered, perhaps, by my attitude. “Wha’chu thinkin’, Bubba? I know you schemin’ somethin’.”

“Look around you, Road, next time you’re in the yard. How many cons you think you’re gonna see out there with the heart to
cut Spooky’s throat? Because Spooky was
spooky.
”

Tiny has a terrible burn scar on the right side of his face, and he scratches it when he’s lost in thought. He’s scratching
away now, and I lean in his direction as I continue. “You see Spooky’s hands, his wrists? You see any cuts? Spooky came down
from Clinton, where you can get your ass shanked for brushing up against somebody’s shoulder. There’s no way he’d let anyone
he didn’t trust get close enough to take him out before he could put up his hands.”

By this time, I have a pretty good idea who capped Spooky. What I don’t have is a way to get the coke back. I don’t know where
it is, and this particular individual can’t be approached directly. I can’t lay my suspicions on my partners either. I have
to keep them under control, especially Tiny, who’s liable to go off, do something stupid, get us all shipped out.

“Like I said, let’s take a few days, look around, see who’s out there. Meanwhile, come Tuesday’s practice, we’ll send Freddie
a little message.”

I go to my computer class on Monday. I’m learning how to keep books using Windows NT and Lotus. Hafez Islam is there, and
a few other cons, but more than half the desks are
empty because most of the prisoners at Menands are familiar with computers. Though I’m also on good terms with the technology,
I’m an avid student, more often than not staying after class to work directly with my instructor, Clifford Entwhistle. Cliff
came to Menands via one of Manhattan’s most prestigious accounting firms. In class, he teaches me to keep the books. After
class, he teaches me to cook them.

“You holding?” he asks. Cliff will put virtually anything down his throat or up his nose. He’s an incredibly hairy middle-aged
man with a beard that starts at his cheekbones and runs all the way to his ankles. In the shower, he looks like a bear with
an ass.

I shake my head. “Look, I need you to do me a favor. And I need you to keep it quiet.”

“What’s that?”

“I want you to get me the name of the screw who worked the door to the locker room last night.”

Cliff is a very soft guy with a very hard mind and he gets it right away. “You think a screw killed Spooky?”

“That’s the wrong question, Cliff. The question you’re supposed to ask is,
What’s in it for me?
” I shift my chair closer to his, until our knees are touching. I can see the fear in his eyes and address myself directly
to it. “One other thing, my friend. You’re gonna have to keep this to yourself. That’s because if anybody finds out, I’m gonna
kill ya.”

Cliff’s lips curl into a little pout. All along, he’s thought us, if not friends, at least comrades. Now he knows better.
“You didn’t have to say that,” he says.

“Yeah, I did, Cliff. I had to say it because I meant it and because it’s very, very important. You fuck up, you’re gonna die.”

I give him a second to absorb the information, remembering
that I’d issued the identical threat to Freddie Morrow and it hadn’t stopped him from shooting his mouth off. For a moment,
I wish I really meant what I said, but then my anger-management training kicks in, and I move on.

The central computer that runs Menands cannot be reached via the computers available to inmates. But Cliff works in the accounting
office, where he routinely processes the Menands’ payroll. From there, he once explained to me, it was just a matter of looking
over Deputy Warden Monroe’s shoulder as Monroe entered his password.

When I’m sure he’s not about to put up even a token resistance, I put my hand on Cliff’s shoulder and say, “You do this for
me, I won’t forget it. I’ll keep you high for as long as we’re in Menands. You have my word on that.”

I offer my hand, just as if I hadn’t threatened him, and he takes it because he has no choice, sealing the pact.

There are eight or nine serious bookmakers in population, and maybe double that number of contraband dealers who peddle everything
from dope to steroids to pornography. I’m sure they had nothing to do with stealing our coke because all the inmates—players
and spectators—were subjected to a very intrusive strip search before returning to their cells. But the dealers do figure
on the other end. Sooner or later the coke will have to be sold off and one (or more) of them will have to do the selling.
As a group, they’re not nearly as vicious as their counterparts in Attica, but they’re not punks either.

I watch these players as Road, Tiny, and I walk along a jogging track that frames the yard at Menands. Wondering if one of
them has already taken delivery. If my coke is already disappearing up some rich con’s insatiable nose.

“No sign of Freddie Morrow,” Tiny observes.

“As expected.” I want to tell my partners what I think and what I’m doing about it, but I still can’t risk either (or both)
of them blowing their cool. “We need eyes and ears,” I say. “Anybody starts moving coke, we have to know right away.”

My partners solemnly agree and we break up a short time later. I stroll across the yard, graciously accepting the adulation
of my fans and the advice of my critics. By this time, everybody knows we’re going to make up Sunday’s game and the question
of the day is how we’re gonna do. The Menands’ bookies originally made us ten-point favorites to win the championship, but
not only didn’t the Menands Tigers (and especially yours truly) meet expectations, Spooky’s loss at the small forward position
has weakened the team. All of that was okay with me because I intended to get a bet down (through a third party, of course)
on the Menands Tigers. That was another reason I’d kept Sunday’s game close, why I’d let the moron have his way. With a little
luck, the makeup game will be pick ’em by the time we step on the court. Maybe we’ll even be underdogs.

I help my luck along, as I make my way across the yard to where Clifford Entwhistle stands with his back against the outer
wall of D Unit, by sticking to the party line. I had a bad game, but I expect to get it together. Though we all miss old Spooky,
Bibi Guernavaca can do the job for us at small forward.

The last part is pure bullshit, and though I’m shown no disrespect, everyone I speak with knows it. Bibi, our sixth man, is
a good point guard and a decent shooting guard, but he’s too short and too light to play small forward. Somebody else is gonna
have to have a big game and I expect that somebody to be me. I’d faced the moron for the second time in yesterday’s
game and I knew I could take him. Especially if Warden Brook convinced the officials to call the game tight in the opening
quarter.

As I approach, Cliff pushes himself away from the wall and we begin to walk. I don’t say anything, just wait for him to get
to the point. The sun has dropped to the ridgeline of Blue Top Mountain at the western edge of the Menands Valley. It sparkles
in the chain-link fence surrounding the prison, in the razor wire that tops the fence. Prisoners huddle in small groups. They
speak softly, their collective conversation an insectlike hum, a swarm of bees heard at a distance. Suddenly, I feel very
good about myself. I’ve set goals and I’m moving toward them and I’m not letting obstacles throw me off course.

“Percy Campbell,” Cliff tells me, “was manning the door outside the locker room last night. He’s the one who found the body.”

Cliff is wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball jacket and I slide a small package into his pocket, a down payment (and all the
payment he’s likely to get) on my promise. “Now remember,” I tell him, “the only way to keep a secret is not to tell anybody.
Any
body.”

Coach Poole begins Tuesday’s practice with a moment of silence in Spooky’s honor, then declares that because we played so
poorly on Sunday, every starting position is up for grabs. “It’s preseason all over again. It’s training camp. You wanna play,
you gotta make the team.”

I’m not particularly worried because I know that if the Tigers blow the championship, Coach Poole will have to answer to Warden
Brook, and the Tigers can’t win without me.
Nevertheless, because I’m a team leader and I don’t want Coach to lose face, I practice hard. By the time we begin our regular
scrimmage two hours later, my knees are aching. Both knees, so I don’t know which one to limp on first.

“You ready?” I ask Road as I take the ball out of bounds a few minutes later.

“Yeah. Past ready.”

I toss the ball in, nod to Tiny, then set a pick at the top of the key. Tiny goes by, dribbles to the baseline, then passes
back to me. As I receive the ball, Road, posted in the opposite corner, takes off for the hoop. I fake left, then put everything
I lave into a pass that misses Road’s outstretched fingertips by a good six inches before slamming into the side of Freddie
Morrow’s traitorous head.

We catch a break here. Freddie’s ear is torn halfway off and the doc ships him to the infirmary for an overnight stay. That
evening, I pay him a visit, but I don’t tell him how sorry I am for my errant pass. Instead, I sit at the foot of his bed,
take his hand in mine, and say, “Who’d you blab to, ya little fuck?”

“Bubba, I…”

I’m an ugly man. I have a jaw like the prow of a ship, a pronounced underbite, a small flat nose with perfectly round nostrils,
tiny eyes overhung by a slab of a brow. For most of my life, I’ve been extremely self-conscious about my appearance. It’s
only recently, since coming to Menands, that I’ve made a more positive adjustment. Everything in life, I now understand, has
its uses. You just have to look on the bright side.