Reflexively, I began kicking at him. I hit his boots at first, but as I continued, I landed a couple of solid blows to his shins. He then made the mistake of pulling his legs back so I couldn’t reach his shins, and I kicked him in the groin. His eyes widened, his face contorted, and, after a moment, he began to heave.
I stumbled to my feet as he began throwing up. I heard Anna scream from the sanctuary, and I turned to run, but then turned back and kicked Albright in the head. The blow was hard and knocked him out cold.
I ran back down the hallway and into the dark chapel, pausing to let my vision adjust. As soon as I could see, I scanned the entire sanctuary. I didn’t see anyone. And then, the split second of a heavy blow to the base of my skull and I was out, a black hole opening up before me and sucking me into it.
Later, when I opened my eyes, I saw the base of one of the brass candle holders-presumably the blunt instrument that had kissed me goodnight. I rolled over and looked down toward the front. Anna was gone. When I stumbled slowly to my feet, my head grew light and I fell back down again.
Then with the help of the pew, I slowly pulled myself up and held on. When I had my balance, I saw Anna stumbling up the outside aisle.
“You all right?” I asked.
“Nothing that a bottle of Extra-strength Excedrin and a week of sleep won’t fix,” she said. “How about you?”
“The same.”
“Who was it?”
“You don’t know?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “There were two. I think one of them was Abdul Muhammin, but I couldn’t swear to it.”
“Come on,” I said, and we walked into the fellowship hall.
“This the one you saw?”
Luther Albright didn’t look bright at all as he lay unconscious on the floor.
She shook her head. “Who is it?”
“Albright,” I said. “Theo Malcolm’s orderly, and trained investigator that I am, I’m beginning to observe a pattern: Interview Malcolm, get attacked.”
We walked back up to the main hallway to find my keys in the door. I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes after five. I retrieved my keys, unlocked my office, and called security and medical.
“My God,” Anna said, her eyes growing wide as she looked at the shank sticking out of my shoulder.
I looked down at it. “Albright,” I said. “In my excitement to see you alive and well, I forgot about it.”
“It’s not killing you?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t feel anything.” I reached down, took hold of the shank, and yanked on it.
Anna screamed, “NO, JOHN, DON’T,” as the shank pulled free. The dam now gone, the river of blood came gushing out. I stood dumbfounded and watched as a flash flood of my blood rained down on my desk top.
CHAPTER 43
While I was being treated in a small outpatient room at the Pottersville Medical Center, Pete Fortner walked in and stood beside me. Seeming oblivious to the doctor’s put out sighs and incredulous looks at his intrusion, he made no attempt to talk softly or stay out of the way.
“Albright’s in confinement,” he said. “You want me to lock up Muhammin too?”
I thought about it.
“I can lock him up for thirty days while we investigate,” he said. “Don’t have to have a charge or any evidence now.”
“Let’s leave him out,” I said. “I’ve got an idea for a little trap and we’ll need him for it.”
“When we gonna set this little trap?”
“How about tonight?” I said.
“They should’ve never messed with Anna,” he said.
“When I think what could have happened to her while I’m laid out on the floor, I…”
“But it’s obvious it was just to scare you,” he said. “All they did was threaten her.”
“Well, it worked,” I said.
“If this is you scared, I don’t want to see what you call anger,” he said.
I smiled. I knew what he meant-that anger far more than fear was motivating me-but he was only partially right. After what had happened to Nicole, what had almost happened to Anna scared me plenty.
“You ready?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said, “but in this little trap, is Muhammin the spider or the fly?”
“I’m not sure they have a term for what he is,” I said. “In prison vernacular he’s the fly’s bitch.”
Later that night, as a special program was taking place in the sanctuary, Merrill, Pete, and I were hiding in one of the stalls of the visitors restroom in the back. The lights were off and it was extremely dark, only a hint of hallway light peeking beneath the bottom of the door.
Like all toilets in the prison, the one in the stall had no lid, and we were all standing far closer to one another than we would have liked-especially Merrill and Pete.
“Pete, you get any closer and it’ll be sexual harassment,” Merrill said.
I laughed.
“How much longer we got?” Merrill asked.
Pete pushed a small button on the side of his watch and it lit up, bathing his round face in an eerie green glow. Looking at his watch, he said, “The GED class should already be out,” he said. “Shouldn’t be much longer.”
“Tell me again how this works,” Merrill said.
“Malcolm knows that when his class is completed, one of the officers from the chapel service is called to escort his students back to the compound,” I said, “so he slips in over here virtually unseen.”
“For a little butt lovin’,” Pete said.
I shook my head. “I can’t believe we’re arresting somebody for sex.”
Merrill laughed. “I’m sure some shit we’ve done is illegal in some states.”
“Sex with an inmate is a crime,” Pete said.
“Still,” I said.
“It’s not the sex,” Merrill said. “It’s the assault. They could’ve killed Anna, and a little higher and that shank in your shoulder could’ve been in your eye.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s like Watergate, but I still feel like one of those people who scare me the most-rigid, repressed, xenophobic, homophobic-”
“Watergate?” Pete asked.
“Not the crime as much as the coverup,” Merrill said.
“Merrill, you’re pretty smart, aren’t you?” Pete asked.
“But he hides it well,” I said.
“I is on occasion able to muster up a thought or two.”
I noticed we were all breathing through our mouths, avoiding as best we could our sense of smell. The unpleasant odor permeating the air was a pungent combination of human waste, mildew, stale smoke, and too many chemicals/too little cleaning.
We froze when we heard approaching footsteps followed by the metallic clicks of a key being inserted into the lock.
“How far along do we have to let them get?” Merrill whispered.
“We’ll have their DNA from the condom when the lab finishes processing it,” I said. “So not very far.”
“Thank you, God,” he said.
“Amen,” Pete said.
Like most straight men, they found homosexuality about as appealing as a lengthy prostate exam by a large-handed doctor who enjoyed his work, and I knew they were anxious to make the arrest before they saw or
