Joel Goldman - No way out

“How did he fool you?”

“He didn’t fool me. I fooled me. He knew what I wanted, and he gave it to me: a smile, a friendly, open face. There was no hint of aggression or violence until the instant before he hit the guard. By then, it was too late.”

“He knew we were coming, so he must have planned it,” Nardelli said.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “He couldn’t have known you would ask to have his restraints taken off. I’d say it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. He saw an opportunity and took it.”

“That’s how a lot of escape attempts happen,” the superintendent said.

“Except I don’t think he was trying to escape,” Kate said. “He knew he had no real chance of getting away. I think he just wanted out of the Farm.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“It’s what he told me, in so many words, anyway. Once we were out in the hall and you gave us some space, I asked him why he was doing this, and he said, ‘Why do you think?’ I said it was pretty obvious that he wanted to break out of jail, and he said, ‘Yeah, right, like how far am I going to get armed with a toilet bowl brush.’”

“Are you saying he beat up a guard and took you hostage and risked getting shot just so he could get a transfer?” Nardelli asked.

“Yes. When the SWAT team came through the door, his body went limp like he’d put down a heavy weight, and then he let me go.”

“But you stayed to talk to him. What was that about?” I asked.

“I was waiting to tell him what Adam had said about seeing him take the kids from Peggy’s house until I could watch his reaction. That’s when I told him.”

“Did he deny Adam’s story?”

“No. It was weird. He smiled, almost like he was glad.”

“What did he say?”

“Just one thing. He said, ‘Please find my kids.’ He’s not acting like a man who killed his kids.”

“He’s playing you,” Lucy said. “Just like he did with the restraints. Why would he ask you to find Evan and Cara when we know he took them? He knows where there are, and he knows what happened to them.”

“And, first chance he got, he beat up an officer and stuck you with a shiv,” Nardelli said.

“But he gave up,” Kate said.

“When he was about to get shot,” Lucy said. “Give me a break.”

The superintendent’s cell phone rang. She held her hand up, asking us to wait, listening and thanking the caller.

“I had my assistant check the records on visitors and new admissions. It will take longer to get you the names of his visitors, but I can tell you that we’ve had seventeen since Jimmy got here, ten women and seven men, all but one of them regulars, repeat offenders who show up here three or four times a year.”

“Who’s the new kid on the block?” I asked.

“A kid named Ricky Suarez. He came in yesterday, ten days for drunk and disorderly, his first time on the Farm.”

“You think there’s a connection between Jimmy Martin and Ricky Suarez?” Nardelli asked.

“If Kate is right, somebody spooked him,” I said.

“How does a blue-collar construction worker like Jimmy get involved with a probable gangbanger?” Kate asked.

“It’s not so much the gangbanger as it is the gang,” I said.

Nardelli explained. “There are two Hispanic gangs in town. The Cholos work the southwest side of town along Southwest Boulevard, and Nuestra Familia operates in Northeast.”

“Which is where Jimmy lives,” I said. “Cesar Mendez runs Nuestra. Suarez probably belongs to him.”

“Most likely scenario,” Nardelli said, “Jimmy bought drugs from Mendez and stiffed him. Mendez finds out that Jimmy is at the Farm and sends Ricky to deliver a message, maybe even kill him.”

“A message, maybe, but kill him, I doubt it. This isn’t the state penitentiary where a guy can walk into the shower and come out on a slab and no one knows anything about it. And, with all the open spaces, Ricky couldn’t touch him without half a dozen correction officers coming down on him.”

“So Mendez sacrifices Ricky. He’s got a dozen more just like him,” Nardelli said.

“The price is too high on a hit like that. Mendez can’t take the chance that Ricky would make a deal and trade his life for Mendez’s life.”

“What then?”

“I don’t know. Let’s ask Ricky,” I said.

I stepped down from the ambulance, my knees giving out as my feet hit the ground. I descended slowly, like I was melting, eyes clenched and my head floating in brain fog until my knees and hands touched the ground. My body was playing out the fundamental law of physics that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I’d pushed far enough and hard enough that it pushed back, calling an all stop.

“Or not,” Lucy said.

They talked about me as if I weren’t there, Nardelli asking questions, Lucy and Kate explaining, Nardelli saying “Hell of a thing” and “He’s no use to anybody like this,” Kate volunteering to take me home, and Lucy saying she didn’t think so. There was nothing I could do, no point in trying to get up until the moment passed, no reason for Lucy and Kate to help me until I could stand on my own.

“Okay,” I said when I could open my eyes and my head began to clear.

Lucy hooked her arm under mine, and I made it to my feet. “Welcome back.”

“Good to be back. Let’s go see Suarez,” I said, the words fighting to get out of my mouth, one syllable crashing into the next.

“That train has left the station, and Nardelli and the superintendent are the only ones on it,” Lucy said. “I’m taking you home.”

My legs were still equal parts jelly and jam, and the rest of me was doing a slow-motion version of twist and shout. The only thing missing was a robotic voice assuring me that resistance was futile.

Joy met us at the front door, Lucy handing me off with a sad smile like I was a favorite uncle who’d had too much to drink at the family reunion. Roxy and Ruby swarmed around me, jumping and scratching my legs, indifferent to my condition as if to say Don’t make your problems our problems. I couldn’t and wouldn’t, sliding to the floor and gathering them in my lap.

“Thanks for leaving me a message,” Joy said, when the dogs lost interest, having smelled my breath, nipped at my nose, and allowed me to scratch their bellies.

She sat on the floor across from me, her head tilted to one side, her sweater hanging off her shoulders, billowing. Though she ate with gusto, she had struggled to put enough weight back on, and no matter what size she wore, it always looked too big.

“I’m sorry about yesterday. I knew you would be worried, and I should have called.”

“It’s okay.”

“And I’m sorry about Kate. I don’t know what to tell you. She just showed up.”

She let out a long sigh. “You never knew my mother. She died of breast cancer when I was a teenager. I remember sitting around the dinner table with her and my father and my brothers. Once she knew she was terminal, she talked about what would happen to my father after she was gone. She knew he’d be no good by himself, that he wouldn’t be able to take it being alone. She’d look at him across the table, pointing at him with her fork, and tell him it was fine with her if he could find someone who would take him.”

“What did he say?”

“He’d laugh and say thanks a lot, but since he’d fooled her into marrying him there wasn’t much chance he’d get that lucky again.”

“Your father was a wise man.”

“Yes, and my mother had more wisdom. She was right about him. And I’m right about you.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re like my father. You’re no good alone. So it’s okay with me. Whether it’s Kate or someone else.”