I agreed, thinking of the abuse I was enduring, and started to detail some of the language and actions of the CO’s and the work shift managers.
Morrell cut me short. “That’s appalling, Vic, but that isn’t what I mean. Things have come unraveled on the outside. Since Baladine left Chicago shortly after your arrest, he apparently didn’t know what had happened to you. He’s coming back from Europe tomorrow. He knows—or will know when he lands—that you’re here. And while you’re in Coolis he has the power to have you treated more harshly than you want to imagine.”
I shivered involuntarily. “How do you know this?”
He gave a glint of a smile. “I’m a journalist, I have press credentials. I’ve started being very attentive to Alex Fisher at Global, told her I’m working on a book about the security business.”
To my chagrin I felt a stab of elemental jealousy. In the midst of my potpourri of misery and fear, I was picturing the contrast between Alex, with her clear, smooth skin and Rodeo Drive wardrobe, and my own bedraggled condition. Like seducing Murray wasn’t good enough for her, she had to take Morrell, too. I muttered something farouche about her being able to make sure he got a good movie deal for his book.
“In that case I’d better get a contract before she reads it. She thinks highly of you, by the way, and says it’s a pity your stubbornness gets in the way of your success. I’ve told her you were out of town, vacationing until your trial, and I don’t think she’s double–checked that news. And since she’s extremely busy, she’s been happy to palm me off on her poor overworked assistant. Who’s not sophisticated enough to keep news to herself. Like the urgent e–mail Baladine sent Alex yesterday demanding to know your whereabouts after making bail. It will take them this long”—he snapped his fingers—”to learn you’re in here. Have you found out what you wanted to know?”
I shook my head. “I’ve learned some things, but not enough. It seems reasonably clear that Nicola died of injuries she got here, although I don’t think I can ever prove that. There’s some reign of terror that goes on with the women in the clothes shop where she worked—the foreman today threatened the children of a woman who was talking to me. Whether that’s random—there’s a lot of vile abuse that goes on here, most of it sexual assault—or whether there’s something specific they don’t want the women talking about, I don’t know. It’s mighty peculiar that the only women who work back there can’t speak English.”
Morrell tapped the table impatiently. “Vic, do I have your permission to go to Freeman and tell him to bail you out as fast as possible? He might be able to appear for you in a Chicago court tomorrow instead of waiting through the weekend.”
I rubbed my face, overwhelmed with a desire to lay my head down on the table and cry my heart out. Everything I’d been doing seemed so futile, ever since the night I’d stopped to help Nicola Aguinaldo. My career was in shambles, I was demoralized from my weeks in Coolis, I didn’t know any more than I had a month ago about why BB Baladine was gunning for me.
“Yeah, tell Freeman to bail me out. I don’t have much time left in here before everything comes unglued for me in here, anyway. Everyone on the jail side knows I speak English, that I was even writing legal letters for some of the women. It won’t be long until that word gets over to the creep who runs the clothes shop, and then I’ll—well, the best–case scenario is I’ll be assigned back to the kitchen.”
“Vic, I don’t know whether you’re heartbreakingly gallant or only out of your mind, but you’re worth a dozen of Alex Fisher, with her stock options thrown in besides. Don’t do anything too foolish before Freeman can post bail.” His lips brushed the back of my hand and he was gone.
CO Polsen wasn’t on duty; the woman guard patted me down in a perfunctory way and sent me to my cell to be counted before dinner. I brushed the back of my hand against my cheek. I had one last chance to learn something tangible at Coolis. I don’t know if it was gallantry or insanity that was driving me, but the only plan that came to me made me so cold that I lay shivering under my blanket while Solina and her friends marched in formation to the dining hall.
41 Photo Op
In the middle of the night, when I couldn’t sleep, I wrote a letter to Lotty. A light in the corridor came through the grated window at the top of our door, projecting a small grid of light on the wall behind our toilet, enough for me to make out the shape of my words on the page without being able to read them.