Otto Penzler - Murder At the Foul Line

“Freddie was sitting on the bench when Spooky went down,” I point out. “Plus, he hasn’t got the balls of a canary.”

“I didn’t say nothin’ to nobody,” Road insists, “and Tiny didn’t say nothin’ neither. We ain’t stupid enough to brag on our business, not when we ain’t done it yet.”

“What about Spooky?”

“No way.”

“And me? What about me?”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Tiny Lee declares. Tiny’s our point guard. He’s five-eight and doesn’t weigh more than 150 pounds. Meanwhile, he fears nothing. “If Spooky got whacked over some beef with another con, the coke would still be there. It wasn’t and that means somebody had to tell somebody else. There’s no way around it.”

We’re sitting at a rectangular plastic table bolted to the floor, on gray plastic chairs, also bolted down. We’re supposed to be in our bunks, but we’re the basketball team and the screws won’t bust us for petty violations.

“I don’t know about you guys,” I say, “but I want my coke back.”

Tiny says, “That or somebody’s blood.”

“No, Tiny. I want the coke, which, if you recall, we still haven’t paid for.” I rub my fingertips together, then sing, “ Money, money, moneyyyyyyy. ”

I came into the deal as part of an effort to turn my life around, an effort which included my anger-management and computer classes. Though I’d been incarcerated for a crime of violence, then passed four years in a very violent prison, my short stay at the Menands Correctional Facility presented me with an inescapable truth: when it comes to white-collar crime, the profits are long and the sentences short. And what I figured, when Tiny first approached me, was that if I sacrificed and worked very hard, I could accumulate enough capital to buy into a top-tier boiler room operation when I finally made parole.

“Oh, man,” Road moans. “I’m gonna catch hold of Freddie and rip his arms off.” It was Road’s Aunt Louise who stuffed the coke into Spooky’s shorts and it was Road who arranged to have the coke fronted. And it was Road, of course, whose ass was on the line.

“Nobody talks to Freddie,” I tell him, a calculated act of disrespect. I’m Road’s partner, not his boss. “Let’s take a little time, take a look around. We got nothin’ but time, right? Time is what we’re doin’.”

Road smiles, cheered, perhaps, by my attitude. “Wha’chu thinkin’, Bubba? I know you schemin’ somethin’.”

“Look around you, Road, next time you’re in the yard. How many cons you think you’re gonna see out there with the heart to cut Spooky’s throat? Because Spooky was spooky. ”

Tiny has a terrible burn scar on the right side of his face, and he scratches it when he’s lost in thought. He’s scratching away now, and I lean in his direction as I continue. “You see Spooky’s hands, his wrists? You see any cuts? Spooky came down from Clinton, where you can get your ass shanked for brushing up against somebody’s shoulder. There’s no way he’d let anyone he didn’t trust get close enough to take him out before he could put up his hands.”

By this time, I have a pretty good idea who capped Spooky. What I don’t have is a way to get the coke back. I don’t know where it is, and this particular individual can’t be approached directly. I can’t lay my suspicions on my partners either. I have to keep them under control, especially Tiny, who’s liable to go off, do something stupid, get us all shipped out.

“Like I said, let’s take a few days, look around, see who’s out there. Meanwhile, come Tuesday’s practice, we’ll send Freddie a little message.”

I go to my computer class on Monday. I’m learning how to keep books using Windows NT and Lotus. Hafez Islam is there, and a few other cons, but more than half the desks are empty because most of the prisoners at Menands are familiar with computers. Though I’m also on good terms with the technology, I’m an avid student, more often than not staying after class to work directly with my instructor, Clifford Entwhistle. Cliff came to Menands via one of Manhattan ’s most prestigious accounting firms. In class, he teaches me to keep the books. After class, he teaches me to cook them.

“You holding?” he asks. Cliff will put virtually anything down his throat or up his nose. He’s an incredibly hairy middle-aged man with a beard that starts at his cheekbones and runs all the way to his ankles. In the shower, he looks like a bear with an ass.

I shake my head. “Look, I need you to do me a favor. And I need you to keep it quiet.”

“What’s that?”

“I want you to get me the name of the screw who worked the door to the locker room last night.”

Cliff is a very soft guy with a very hard mind and he gets it right away. “You think a screw killed Spooky?”

“That’s the wrong question, Cliff. The question you’re supposed to ask is, What’s in it for me? ” I shift my chair closer to his, until our knees are touching. I can see the fear in his eyes and address myself directly to it. “One other thing, my friend. You’re gonna have to keep this to yourself. That’s because if anybody finds out, I’m gonna kill ya.”

Cliff’s lips curl into a little pout. All along, he’s thought us, if not friends, at least comrades. Now he knows better. “You didn’t have to say that,” he says.

“Yeah, I did, Cliff. I had to say it because I meant it and because it’s very, very important. You fuck up, you’re gonna die.”

I give him a second to absorb the information, remembering that I’d issued the identical threat to Freddie Morrow and it hadn’t stopped him from shooting his mouth off. For a moment, I wish I really meant what I said, but then my anger-management training kicks in, and I move on.

The central computer that runs Menands cannot be reached via the computers available to inmates. But Cliff works in the accounting office, where he routinely processes the Menands’ payroll. From there, he once explained to me, it was just a matter of looking over Deputy Warden Monroe’s shoulder as Monroe entered his password.

When I’m sure he’s not about to put up even a token resistance, I put my hand on Cliff’s shoulder and say, “You do this for me, I won’t forget it. I’ll keep you high for as long as we’re in Menands. You have my word on that.”

I offer my hand, just as if I hadn’t threatened him, and he takes it because he has no choice, sealing the pact.

There are eight or nine serious bookmakers in population, and maybe double that number of contraband dealers who peddle everything from dope to steroids to pornography. I’m sure they had nothing to do with stealing our coke because all the inmates-players and spectators-were subjected to a very intrusive strip search before returning to their cells. But the dealers do figure on the other end. Sooner or later the coke will have to be sold off and one (or more) of them will have to do the selling. As a group, they’re not nearly as vicious as their counterparts in Attica, but they’re not punks either.

I watch these players as Road, Tiny, and I walk along a jogging track that frames the yard at Menands. Wondering if one of them has already taken delivery. If my coke is already disappearing up some rich con’s insatiable nose.

“No sign of Freddie Morrow,” Tiny observes.

“As expected.” I want to tell my partners what I think and what I’m doing about it, but I still can’t risk either (or both) of them blowing their cool. “We need eyes and ears,” I say. “Anybody starts moving coke, we have to know right away.”

My partners solemnly agree and we break up a short time later. I stroll across the yard, graciously accepting the adulation of my fans and the advice of my critics. By this time, everybody knows we’re going to make up Sunday’s game and the question of the day is how we’re gonna do. The Menands’ bookies originally made us ten-point favorites to win the championship, but not only didn’t the Menands Tigers (and especially yours truly) meet expectations, Spooky’s loss at the small forward position has weakened the team. All of that was okay with me because I intended to get a bet down (through a third party, of course) on the Menands Tigers. That was another reason I’d kept Sunday’s game close, why I’d let the moron have his way. With a little luck, the makeup game will be pick ’em by the time we step on the court. Maybe we’ll even be underdogs.