Chapter 115
TWIN TOWERS CORRECTIONAL Facility is a deceptively modern-looking prison system on ten acres. The main entrance at 450 Bauchet opens into a clean, well-lit, and tiled lobby called the Inmate Reception Center, as if the IRC were a hospitality suite at a convention center rather than central booking for the two thousand inmates who are bused in daily and warehoused in this cesspool until their arraignments and trials.
Bobby Petino had left my name at the front desk. I picked up an escort, Officer Eugene Calhoun, who kept his own counsel, escorted me to an elevator, and took me up to the sixth floor, where I glimpsed the tier of overstuffed pods jam-packed with desperate, unwashed humanity. The sickening sight of this hellhole brought back memories of a wretched time I wanted to forget.
Calhoun and I passed through a series of steel-barred gates, arriving at last at a cubicle divided by a wall of glass that is generally used by prisoners and their attorneys.
The room was furnished with a shelf in front of the glass, a telephone, an aluminum chair, and a caged light overhead. I took my seat, drummed my fingers until I heard footfalls in the hallway.
Calhoun unlocked the door, showed Hal Archer into his side of the bisected room, and locked the door. He came back to me and said, “You’ve got ten minutes.”
“Stick around, Officer,” I said. “We won’t be that long.”
Archer had been incarcerated in this medieval snake pit for a week and had lost a few pounds. His skin sagged, and his knuckles were abraded. He was doing pretty well, considering.
He sat down heavily, gave me a scathing look; he picked up the receiver on his side of the Plexiglas wall and I picked up mine.
“It’s about fucking time you got here, Morgan. I’d be on a yacht right now if your father were still alive.”
Hal Archer was a heinous prick as well as a conscienceless murderer.
“My father’s dead and I think you’ve been on your last yacht. This is a courtesy call, Hal. I came to say that there’s nothing I can do for you. Good luck in the joint.”
I hung up the phone, took the elevator downstairs to the IRC. I made a couple of calls from the lobby to check that Petino had made good on his promise, and then I walked out the doors of the prison and around to the back of the jail.
I didn’t have to wait long.
Rick came through the doors of the prison wearing jeans and an ugly green shirt. A guard opened the gate for him and he came through, his face lighting up when he saw me. He extended his hand. We shook, embraced, broke apart still smiling. He smelled bad but he looked good.
“Hungry?” I asked him.
“How come I’m out?”
“Dexter Lewis had more important things to do than try you for punching him in the nose.”
“So you leaned on Bobby Petino.”
I grinned.
“Good,” Rick said. “Once I’ve had a shower and a shave, order will be restored to the universe.”
“I’ll run you by your house.”
“You were saying something about lunch, Jack? Where are we going?”
“Feel like having lobster with a mobster?”
“If the lobster doesn’t mind, it’s okay with me,” said Rick. “Where’d you park the car?”