A Killing in China Basin

TWENTY-FOUR


Not long after Stoltz started his five year prison sentence, his new cellmate, a pug-faced guy who went by the name of Chulie, suggested with a good-natured grin that since they were trapped with each other and without women, they should service each other sexually. When Stoltz declined, Chulie turned sullen.

Then came the night Stoltz was lying on his back trying to go to sleep, trying not to obsess about what had happened, and breathing the rank prison air while listening to the animal howls of some crazy a*shole down the cell block, when something inside him snapped. The lights, noise, loss of reputation, the narrowing of his existence down to this locked building full of losers caused a tightening in his chest that felt like a hand crushing his heart. He could barely breathe and croaked Chulie’s name.

But Chulie thought he was calling for a different reason and when he’d realized it was medical help he’d wanted, decided to watch rather than yell for a guard. In seconds Stoltz became drenched in sweat and overwhelmed by fear. Four hours later a disdainful prison doctor told him his heart was fine and that his head was the problem. An anxiety attack was not uncommon for those just starting their sentence.

‘Let me give you some advice,’ he said. ‘Your life has changed irrevocably. Nothing will ever be the same. People will never accept you in the same way, and those who tell you later that the fact you went to prison doesn’t matter to them will all be liars. You’ll be an ex-con for the rest of your life and that means you’ll always be a lesser human being. It does mean you’ll never again have the life you had before. Accept that and acknowledge you took another man’s life, and then you can move on. There’s a price for what you’ve done. Fight it and it’s going to eat you from the inside out. The claw marks in your chest today came from your head. Think about that.’

He didn’t take that advice and got through five years of prison by vowing to get his old life back. Now, he almost had it. Not quite, but almost. In prison he had part-time access to a computer and gave away his best ideas to those that could help him get back on his feet later. Some of that paid off. He was ready to fight and win again, and a hatred of Raveneau was growing in him. The hatred he nurtured for Whitacre and Bates was for all of them now, but he needed to keep that in balance. Still, he was sure Raveneau would be back. Raveneau would be the one. Raveneau was the locus, the center, the eye, the one to watch.