White Sister (33 page)

"Thanks," I said.

I hung up the phone and whistled for the custodian.

"Hey, fish! I got somethin' for you," I heard Wayne Watkins growl from across the hall. "You about to get fronted. There's people in here 'bout to buck down on yer ass."

He was threatening me right in the men's jail. Something wasn't right. How would he pull it off? I was a high-profile, isolated prisoner.

Sergeant Collins arrived. The door to the shower was unlocked and I was led outside. Collins walked ahead of me, leading me back to my cell.

"I got yo four-one-one right here," Wayne growled, holding something out through the bars
a rag or a torn sheet.

I swerved slightly, putting myself between Sgt. Collins and Insane Wayne, blocking the custodian's view. Then as I passed by his cell I snatched a torn cloth out of his hand and wadded it into a ball inside my fist.

After I was locked back in my cell, I held the cloth up to the dull corridor light. It was a torn piece of bed sheet. On it, Wayne had written something in blood. I strained to read it.

Trustees. Maluga rules. Fire.

I looked at the message again, trying to figure out what it meant. I sat down on the bed and then lay back, turning the problem over.

I took the three sections of the note one at a time.

Trustees.

I knew from past experiences with the jail that trustees more or less ran the place. Most of them were first-timers in on low-weight drug dealing beefs. They swept up and delivered the food trays to isolation cells, made minor repairs, and kept the jail buses washed and cleaned. The majority of the trustees were gang-bangers, both black and Hispanic, but without serious violent crimes in their jackets. That still didn't mean one or two weren't monsters in training.

Maluga rules.

I thought about that for a while as I wondered how far a trustee might go to please a rich thug and rap mogul like Louis Maluga. I suspected fifty thousand in cash or a promised rap contract would buy a lot of cooperation. Could he corrupt a trustee with money or a promise of fame or glory? Probably.

Fire.

How did that make any sense? This was a concrete and steel facility. Hard to find much that would burn. I wrestled with this and then found myself thinking back to the buses in the parking area and that African-American trustee who had the key to the drive-in cage. It suddenly occurred to me that there was gasoline in those buses. How hard would it be for a trustee to slip underneath and siphon some out? How hard to smuggle a book of matches in here?

I sat up and pulled the mattress off the bed and studied it. It was thin, but with a hard, red plastic cover. It might make a good shield. I put it on the floor beside the bed and lay back down on the cold metal shelf. How long I waited, I don't know. There were no clocks. The sound of men snoring punctuated the silence. I gripped the edge of the mattress and thought about the next morning and how long it would take me to get bailed out, if I could even arrange it. I wondered where Chooch was and if I should get the sergeant to take me back to the shower so I could call him. I couldn't bear to tell him I was in jail for murder. After struggling with this for a while, I decided to wait until I knew more. He had enough to deal with just looking out for Alexa, and since he hadn't called the jail, I could only hope he'd been asleep when I was arrested and hadn't seen anything about it on TV yet.

Finally, I drifted off. My mind was looking for comfort somewhere else. But this time I didn't find it in a dream. I slept fitfully. I thrashed and rolled, fighting demons that came at me in shadowy forms. In most cases I was running, trying to get away from faceless enemies I could sense but couldn't quite see.

Then I heard someone outside the bars of my cell and my eyes snapped open. I couldn't see who it was, but I caught a glimpse of purple.

Trustee.

Something wet splashed on my arm. I smelled gasoline. I snatched up the mattress and held it out in front of me as more gasoline from a plastic water bottle sprayed into the cell. Most of it hit the hard mattress, then splattered onto the floor. A lighted match followed and the room exploded.

"Fire!" I yelled, and danced back into the far corner of the small cell shielding myself with the mattress. I could barely get away from the heat and spreading flames. I was trapped and starting to catch fire.

My sleeve was burning as well as some of my hair. I slammed my burning arm against the wall in an attempt to extinguish it, then clawed at my head to put out the fire. I don't know how long I was inside fighting to stay alive. I was choking on smoke and fire was beginning to get on my clothing. The gasoline-soaked floor was ablaze and spreading quickly. The billowing smoke triggered a fire alarm and the sprinkler system in A-block turned on. Water rained down. Suddenly, three custodial officers flung open my cell door and began spraying me with fire extinguishers. I dropped the mattress and dove through the door, rolling on my shoulder in the hallway to extinguish the fire that was now burning my shirt. They shot the fire out with C02 cannisters.

For the next few minutes the custodial officers beat down the flames in my cell as the sprinklers in A-block continued to drench us. The entire floor was thick with smoke. Prisoners were coughing and screaming in fear all around the block.

It took twenty or thirty minutes until most of the prisoners were moved out of the dorm cells on two and taken down to the staging cells on the first floor. I was led to the jail medical ward for treatment.

Sergeant Collins was shaken as he sat to fill out an incident report. I had seen nothing. A purple uniform. I couldn't identify my attacker. Collins promised that all of the trustees would be interviewed by detectives and polygraphed. Wishful thinking. Nobody was going to agree to a plea bargain or make a voluntary statement on a polygraph.

My burns were mostly superficial. Some of my hair and eyebrow
s h
ad been singed off and there was one bad place on my left arm. The MT greased and wrapped it, then gave me pills for the pain.

Two arson detectives from upstairs pulled me into an I-room. I knew this would go on for the rest of the night.

"You think we should send him back to the thirteenth floor?" one of the arson dicks asked the young doctor working the jail ward. Like everybody else, he was in a big hurry to hot-potato me off to somebody else.

"I think he's okay," the doctor answered.

"Lucky you had that mattress handy," the arson detective said.

I had a jail breakfast at six o'clock and as I was finishing, Sergeant Collins came over, holding a sheet of paper.

"The list just came over from Division Thirty and your guy worked a miracle. You're on it."

I thanked him and watched as he walked back to his desk.

Through it all, I couldn't shake one question.

Why had Insane Wayne Watkins saved my life?

Chapter
50.

DIVISION THIRTY IS in a massive, no frills, stone building, with linoleum floors and security checks at every door. The place smells of sweat, and, for some reason I can never fathom, tobacco. The arraignment court is on the second floor and occupies most of the north side of the building. The courtroom itself is a huge, square space that has a closed-off glass area where next-in-line arrestees wait. It's a criminal conveyor belt. Prisoners are walked in, their charges are read, they're asked how they plead, then bail is determined and a date for the preliminary hearing is set. Bing
-
bang-boom-next. When it's over, you're either taken to the bond clerk downstairs, or transported over to the big Twin Towers jail where you are held over until trial.

Handcuffed, I followed an LAPD court cop to the second floor and into a small attorney's room. When the door opened, I saw Gunner Gustafson. He was a fifty-year-old lunchbox-shaped guy with wide shoulders and longer-than-normal arms, all of which contributed to a slightly ape-like appearance. His curly brown hai
r w
as cut close and he had the fighting chin of a Nordic thug. His suit was wrinkled and nondescript.

He stood when I entered, but on his feet or in the chair, he was about the same height, his lower torso being abnormally compact. Still, there was nothing even remotely funny about him. He was small, but on home turf. In this arena, he was dangerous.

"Get those restraints off. I won't have my client paraded in front of the judge wearing chains," he snapped at the police guard.

"I'm sorry," the cop said. "Can't do it."

"Make this an issue, Sonny, and I'll find a way to give you some grief. Scully ain't going nowhere. Put a guy outside this door, or walk with us to court if you're so worried, but for the love of God, stop arguing 'cause you're gonna lose."

The officer knew Gustafson, and since he didn't want trouble, he reluctantly unchained me.

"Now get the hell out. This is an attorney-client conference," my gunslinger snapped. The uniform backed out of the room and shut the door. Then, Gunner Gustafson put out his hand. "Shake it like you mean it," he smiled. It was a little like shaking hands with a stone carving.

"I called a guy I know who's in Venice real estate to zip over and give me a legal appraisal of your digs," Gunner said. "Got him out of bed at four a
. M
. Since he couldn't walk the inside and doesn't know what condition it's in, he'll only guarantee me an appraised value of six hundred thou. That's probably about twenty-five percent under what it's really worth. But once the bondsman accepts his appraisal, if it turns out to be too high, he could get sued for the difference if you skip. Traditionally, bail appraisals are low. It's a bad deal, but it's the best I can do on such short notice."

"How'll I get out?" I asked.

"Okay. You've got equity of around one hundred K. Discount that by twenty percent, which is a bond standard, and that leaves you with around seventy-five thou. You said you have ten grand in cash at the bank?"

I nodded.

"To get you out by ten we gotta get bail lowered to around seven hundred and fifty thousand. On Murder One, that's gonna be tough."

I told him about the attempt on my life in jail and he snatched up his phone and started making calls. He wanted a copy of the attempted homicide report sent over right away by messenger. He wanted a list of custodial officers who were on duty last night called and set up to testify if necessary. He wanted all the arson and IO reports. The guy was impressive shouting orders to subordinates and jail employees. When he was finished, he hung up and looked over at me.

"We got one thing going for us," he said. "We didn't draw one of those numb-nut pussies from the normal judge's rotation. Apparently, because of sickness, vacations, and brain malfunctions, they're short on graybeards this morning. We were assigned a civil commissioner, just appointed, name of Andre Easton. I went before him last week. He's a cherry. Guy's so new he still thinks he's actually supposed to make decisions instead of just rubber stamp the District Attorney's charge sheet. That's the good news. The bad news is we got the D
. A
. himself trying this sucker. Because it's you and he likes to get his picture taken, Chase Beal is in the docket for the people. I hate that guy worse than country music. I'd purely love to kick his skinny prep-school ass."

At ten till eight, we were being led into an empty court room. I'd been transferred by police car half an hour early because my case was being heard half an hour before court normally opened. As a result, there was no press and the only people in attendance were the cops guarding the door, the bailiff, the court reporter, and the clerk. The regular jail buses hadn't even arrived yet.

At the prosecutor's table sat Chase Beal. Up until now, I had only seen him on the Six O3Clock News. He was smaller in stature than I'd thought. He also looked like one of those guys who spent at least an hour a day in some Beverly Hills gym running the treads and trying to put a move on the Pilates instructor. He had narrow shoulders, a trim waist and movie-star hair. His eyes had been described once in the press as being fiercely blue, but I suspected contacts. Sitting behind the bench and at the extreme other end of the fitness scale was Commissioner Andre Easton. A big, round-shouldered, flabby-looking guy in judge's robes with a shock of sandy, longish hair. We took our place behind the yellow, distressed glass and remained standing.

"Division Thirty, State of California, is in order," the bailiff said loudly. "Commissioner Andre Easton presiding." No gavel, no nonsense. We were off and running.

"This is case number three-four-zero-zero-six, People versus Shane Scully," the court clerk said. "Charge being filed against the defendant is one-eighty-seven, murder in the first degree."

"Who's here on behalf of the people?" Commissioner Andre Easton droned. Because everybody in the room knew the District Attorney was trying this himself, the question was just for the court record.

"Chase Beal for the people," the D
. A
. caroled in a loud tenor appropriate for church.

"Glen Gustafson for the defense," my street fighter rasped.

"How do you plead?" Easton asked, looking at me.

"Not guilty," I said.

"Okay, I have a motion before me, by the District Attorney requesting a bail deviation. Let's hear about that," the commissioner said.