Since then, his financial success had accustomed in the lap of luxury. But the last month had re-acquainted him with prison and all its horrors. And in many ways this time it was worse. Last time around he had been a hero — at least in the eyes of his brothers. He was the freedom fighter who had stood up to the enemy. But this time he could feel the hostility all around him, and he could count on no one.
So when he walked now, it was with a sense of alertness and caution.
He was not looking forward to the trial. Alex was a good lawyer, but the evidence was stacked up against him. Worse still he feared that Alex didn’t believe him. And it was hard to take his mind off the case. If he didn’t think about the future, then all he had left to dwell on was the past. And that was even more painful. For it was not just his childhood that he had to contend with, but also his young adulthood — when he had turned from victim into victimizer.
He remembered the time he had followed a white woman home at the start of his campaign of vengeance and then forced his way into her house, smashing open the French windows from the garden to get at her. She had screamed as he approached her but he clamped his hand over her mouth to silence her. He then threw her onto the sofa and ripped her clothes off her. And as she begged and pleaded, he raped her.
But he didn’t hear her cries. He heard only those of his mother — those of his memory. But even those cries were drowned out by something else. In his mind he heard the smug voices of the callers to the talk radio station, who phoned in when they were discussing the rape of his mother. They came on the air one after another to say that the “black woman” was “lying” and that she was “probably just a hooker who didn’t get paid.” He was seeing the skeptical looks on the faces of the people on the TV show as some long-winded liberal lawyer tried to defend his mother’s reputation — not attacking the white “pigs” who raped her, just defending her reputation, but failing. And he remembered that the slanderous comments about his mother came from white
It had been incomprehensible to him. His mother had been raped before his very eyes, but whenever people discussed the case, those who claimed to speak for his mother were on the defensive, while the viciousness of the fascist pigs was never even talked about. His mother had complained to the police. But after his uncle had been beaten up and arrested on trumped-up drugs charges, she withdrew the complaint. It never even got to court.
That was white man’s justice — and white woman’s.
So when he raped white women as a “revolutionary act,” the pangs of guilt were numbed by the pain of anger.
His thoughts were truncated by large shadow in front of him and a sharp pain in his abdomen. He looked up to see a man in front of him. But in seconds the man was gone. Then he felt something wet against his flesh and he looked down to see blood accumulating on his torso.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009 — 16:30
While Andi sat in lounge at San Francisco International Airport waiting for her flight, she decided to check her eMail on her BlackBerry. Most of the messages were routine and work-related, but one of them gave her pause even before she read it. The reason it leapt out at her was because of the sender’s name:
What was it this time?
Andi moved the pointer to the message and then clicked. The message read:
You are playing with fire by helping that rapist nigger and that blackmailing sleaze-ball lawyer of his. If you had any guts — which you obviously don’t — you’d have told that slimy Sherman and that hypocrite Sedaka to fuck off when they badgered you into helping him. Instead you just lay down and spread you legs — figuratively speaking. I guess that makes you a rape victim too — or maybe just a whore!
Lannosea
A mixture of fear and revulsion broke out inside Andi as she starred at the message. Who
She logged onto the Internet and quickly looked up Lannosea on Wikipedia.
Nothing.
She did a general search for the name but only found three listings. Two were flagged by warnings that they were dangerous websites that might contain spyware. The third was one of those question-and-answer websites and all it said was that Lannosea was one of the daughters of the ancient English queen Boudicca or Bodecea.
What on earth did it mean?
But there was another question nagging away at Andi. How did this “Lannosea” know that Sherman and Alex had badgered her into working on the Claymore case? She hadn’t told anyone.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009 — 18:05
Alex was reading through the report about the case, trying to find other weaknesses. So far, Bethel’s change of mind was the only one. But it looked like the most promising. The only thing that Alex was worried about was that it seemed like such an unlikely change of mind that he was wondering if the DA’s office had a trick up their sleeve.
Aside from that, he also had the problem that this was not a case that depended on the testimony of the victim. They also had DNA evidence. If Claymore had said that he had consensual sex with Bethel then it would have been a whole different ball game. They could have argued consent. Although the medical evidence and pictures made that difficult, the defense at least had breathing room.
But Claymore had closed the door on that by claiming that there had been no sexual contact between himself and Bethel Newton — and even that he had never met her.
That left Alex and Andi with the problem of explaining why she had accused him. Of course the obvious answer was that she had been attacked by some one who looked like him. Alex had even played a long shot by asking Claymore if he had an identical twin. But Claymore responded with such a withering look that he didn’t have to open his mouth for Alex to know perfectly well what the answer was.
The phone rang. Alex picked it up. Juanita told him that it was a call from the Santa Ritter jail. Alex said he’d take it.
“Hallo Elias.”
“Pardon?” said an unfamiliar voice.
“Oh I’m sorry,” said Alex, I thought you were some one else.”
“This is the deputy governor of the Santa Ritter jail. I’m afraid I have to tell you that your client, Elias Claymore, has been stabbed.”
“Stabbed?”
“Yes sir, but not fatally. He’s in the jail hospital. We have a fully equipped hospital here.”
“But how did it happen?”
“Usual story… a fellow inmate with a shank.”
Alex was surprised to hear this described as “usual.”
“How serious is it?”
“It was pretty serious. He was stabbed in the stomach. They’re still operating, but the anesthesiologist came out a couple of times and said it looks like he’s gonna make it.”
Alex breathed a sigh of relief.
“Did you catch whoever did it?”
“Not yet, but we’ve got CCTV so we’ll look at the tapes.”
“Okay what about security for my client?”
“We’ve got guards posted outside the operating theatre and we’ll keep him in protective solitary until the trial.”
