heard anything that might scar them for life.
That’s why the moment Malcolm and Muhammin were inside with the door shut behind them, they were slinging the stall door open and yelling for the two men to get on the ground.
Coming out of the stall behind them, I laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Merrill said.
“Not taking any chances, are you?”
“These are very dangerous men,” he said with a smile.
Within just a moment, Pete had them cuffed and on their feet, but it had given Malcolm enough time to collect himself.
“What the hell is the meaning of this?” he asked me.
“For assault.”
“First of all,” he said, “nothing went on here tonight. Second of all, if it had it would have been consentual.”
Merrill smiled. “Like little slave girls on the plantation, inmates can’t consent,” he said. “They not free to choose.”
“Not sexual assault,” I said. “Physical. The attack you had him and his friends make on me in the education building and on me and Ms. Rodden in the chapel.”
“This is absurd,” Malcolm said. “This’ll never stick. You can’t even prove we’ve ever-”
“Actually,” I said, “we have a used condom, so one of you better be the first to flip and let us know everything-including who helped in the education building attack.”
They looked at each other suspiciously, and I knew it was only a matter of time before both would spill in hopes of a deal.
Looking back at me, Malcolm asked, “How’d you know?”
“When I found out you hadn’t worked with Bunny I knew you had come over here for a different reason,” I said. “Your over-familiarity with your orderlies, your attempt to cover it up by having me attacked-their willingness to do it for you, the used condom, the fact that it was in the visitors bathroom.”
“Did Nicole see them?” Pete asked. “Is that why they killed her?”
“Whoa, wait just a minute,” Malcolm said. “I didn’t have anything to do with the death of that little girl. I swear.”
“Sort of makes you wish we cared and you could afford Johnny Cochran, doesn’t it?” I said.
CHAPTER 44
When I walked into my trailer, the phone was ringing, and something about hearing the unanswered rings echoing through the emptiness made me sad.
“Is everything okay?” Susan asked. “The sergeant in the control room said there was an incident in the chapel.”
“Sorry I didn’t call you back,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”
“You sure? You sound sad.”
“Well, I’m not anymore.”
“Good,” she said, pausing before adding, “How do you feel about phone sex?”
“I’m in favor of it,” I said.
She laughed. It was a good laugh. Warm, genuine, slightly seductive.
“I’d like to see if I could make you come from three hundred miles away,” she said.
“You just did,” I said with a laugh.
She laughed again, then said, “I’m serious. Wanna try our hand at it-so to speak. You up for it-or could you be?”
I laughed again.
“Well?” she asked.
I thought about it, another idea occurring to me. We’d miss a little sleep, but I didn’t sleep much anyway.
“We could,” I said, “or…”
“Or what?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t like your idea.”
“But …?”
“But,” I said, “we could both jump in our cars and in two-and-a-half hours meet at a motel in the middle.”
“Oh,” she sighed. “I like that idea. I like that idea a lot.” She started to say something, but broke off.
When she hesitated, I said, “But…?”
“No buts,” she said. “I was just thinking, with cell phones we could try both our ideas-mine on the way, yours when we got there.”
“I like the way you think, woman,” I said. “And I know what I want you to get me for Christmas.”
“What?”
“A cell phone,” I said. “The only one I have belongs to the prison.”
She laughed. “Honey, after tonight,” she said, “you won’t be able to wait for Christmas. You’ll rush out as soon as you can and buy one for yourself.”
“And what do I tell them when they ask me why I want the one with the headset?”
“That you’re a very lucky man,” she said. “Where do you want to meet? Are we really gonna do this-drive all that way just for one sexual experience?”
“You’re right, that’s ridiculous,” I said. “We better make it six or seven.”
“I see you haven’t lost your appetite,” she said.
“No,” I said, “Webster’s still has my picture by the word ‘insatiable.’”
“Can you wait two-and-a-half hours?” she asked. “I want you hungry.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be starving.”
Without hesitating, I rushed out of my empty trailer and jumped into my truck, driving as if I hadn’t just gotten a ticket.
Only a sliver of moon peeked out from behind a smoky cloud, leaving the night dark and shadowless, and I could see just the short distance that my headlights illuminated.
Before I could even begin to consider all that question implied, I turned on the radio.
And though the second thought set off a little alarm inside my head, I ignored it, concentrating instead on singing with Christopher Cross on the radio and riding like the wind.
When I arrived in Phoenix City, I found the motel “up on a hill, with a little blue general or admiral or some little soldier thingy on the sign” just like she had described.
Even better was the fact that I also found her waiting for me.
When I pulled in beside her, she stepped out of her car, and as quickly as I could jump out of my truck, we were devouring each other. In the small space between my old Chevy and her new Lexus, we kissed and hugged and groped like a couple of teens with no place of our own to go.
Eventually, she touched my shoulder and I winced.
“What happened to your arm?” she asked.
“Got in a little fight,” I said. “It’s nothing.”
As we continued to kiss, she slid along her car. I followed. Before I knew it, we were in her backseat tearing at each other’s clothes.
“Why waste time checking in?” she asked.
