Shella (2 page)

I did the time. Quiet time, after the first week. Some wolf thought I was a sheep. I could have killed him quick when we were alone, but then there would just be another one. I know about the other ones. I said I’d do what he wanted. He said to meet him in the showers.

He was there, waiting. I turned my back to him, dropped my towel, bent over. I felt his hands on my waist, and it
happened like it always does. I whipped an elbow into his throat—crushed his Adam’s apple. He went down, holding his throat, trying to scream. I got hold of his face in my hands. I could feel all the bones in his skull—I could feel them start to crack. The shower room floor was hard tile. The water was coming down on us. Blood ran out of the back of his head.

I could feel the other cons come in behind me, watching. Nobody did anything. It was a crazy, wild place, that prison—they wanted to watch me kill him. I got my thumb in his eye. Pushed it through until I felt it go all wet and sticky.

The guards pulled me off. I put my thumb in my mouth, sucked on it while I stood against the wall. I knew what they would think. That I liked the taste.

The wolf didn’t die—they transferred him someplace.

I got thirty days in solitary. When they opened the cage, I watched for a while. To see if the wolf had friends. Nobody came.

I was a good inmate. After what I’d done to the wolf, I couldn’t fool anyone in there, but they stayed away. That’s all I ever want.

The work wasn’t hard. I didn’t talk to anyone. Didn’t have any money on the books, so I quit smoking. They came around to my cell, told me how I could get cigarettes, get anything I wanted. I looked at them until they went away.

I never got a visit, never got a letter.

In my cell, I did my exercises. Not like the weightlifters,
just stretching and breathing. Slowing down inside so I could count my heartbeats.

They let me out on a Monday.

You can go a long distance in three years. I’m no good on the phone, talking to people. I reported to the Parole Officer, got a job working produce.

Soon as I drew a paycheck, I went back to the bar where Shella was dancing when it happened. Sat through all the shifts, came back a few times. She wasn’t there.

I walked the strip, checked every runway in Tampa. Shella wasn’t dancing there anymore. One night, in one of the bars, a man offered me a job. I don’t know how he knew.

When he paid me, I bought a car. Kept looking. Couldn’t find her.

I did a couple more jobs for the man, saved my money. When I had a stake, I headed north to Atlanta.

I don’t have a picture of Shella. Just in my mind. Big girl, white-blonde hair, gray eyes. Some things she couldn’t change. The beauty mark on her left cheek, just past her lips. I put it there. She wanted one, asked me to do it. I rubbed some Xylocaine into the spot, froze it with ice cubes. Burned a hypo needle in a match flame, held two fingers inside her cheek to steady it, tipped the needle in black India ink, jabbed it in a perfect little dot—my hands are real steady. Shella said she never felt it, but
I could see little things move in her eyes while I was doing it.

Her name too. She gave it to herself. She was a runaway, she told me. When she was a kid. Some social worker in one of the shelters told her she had to come out of her shell. So they could help. A shell, that’s what she needed. So she turned it around, made it her name. She told me it was all she had that was really hers.

But she didn’t use it with people—it was a secret she told me. When I met her, her name was Candy. A runway dancer’s name.

I always thought about Shella in prison, but I thought about her strong now. Stuff she told me, signs on the track.

Atlanta has a strip, they all do. Shella would be dancing someplace. She wouldn’t turn tricks, wouldn’t have a pimp. I asked her about that once, if she ever had one. She told me her father.

I was in Atlanta a week. Bought some stuff I needed while I was looking around. I’d never find her, the way I was working. I thought about a guy in New York. I’d done some work for him, years ago. He would maybe have something for me, for how I do it—up close. I don’t use guns or bombs or anything. I could see him again, maybe make a trade.

Before I left, I got a set of ID from a guy who sent me to another guy. Driver’s license, Social Security card, like
that. The guy asked me if I wanted a passport, cost an extra grand. I told him no.

I bought a better car, a nice Chevy, couple of years old. I paid cash, drove it right off the lot. I mostly live in it now, keep my clothes and stuff in the trunk.

In Baltimore, one of the dancers came and sat at my table after her shift, hustling drinks. Told me she wasn’t allowed to date the customers, she’d get fired if the boss found out. But she’d take a chance, she said, flicking her red fingernail against one nipple, licking at her lips. Because she liked me so much.

We went to her apartment. It was Badger, like I thought. She was on her knees when the hammer came in. Big guy, said she was his wife. Going to hurt me for messing around in his patch. I told him how scared I was, took my pants off the bed, handed them over so he could have my wallet. He watched my eyes, never saw my hands. The girl didn’t move to help him, didn’t make a sound.

Shella wasn’t like that. I had trouble with a mark once. It was in Phoenix. He took my first shot to the side of the neck—I heard a crack but he didn’t go down. Pulled a straight razor out of his shirt pocket. I backed off to get room to go again when Shella hit him from behind, an icepick in her hand. She stabbed him so many times I had to pull her off.

The hammer had almost three grand in his pockets, half a dozen different credit cards, a little gun with a pearl handle. The girl talked fast, said he made her do it, she was afraid of him. Showed me a little round scar on the
inside of her thigh. Cigarette, she said, a present from the hammer. So she’d remember.

He wasn’t dead. I could feel the pulse in his neck. I told the girl I’d have to tie her up, give me time to get away. She said she wanted to come with me. I figured she was just scared, scared stupid—if I wanted to do her, taking her out of there would just make it easier. She lived with the hammer—let the cops think she’d done him, taken off. I told her she could take one suitcase.

On the highway, she wanted to stop a couple of times, use the bathroom. I pulled off to the side of the road, walked her into the bushes. She didn’t try to run.

I spotted a motel just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike, circled around, stopped at a 7-Eleven, bought enough food for a couple of days, went back and checked us in.

She told me her name was Misty. A short, chunky girl, heavy thighs, breasts too big for her body. Implants, she told me—the hammer made her do it.

I told her I’d have to tie her up. So I could get some sleep, not worry about her doing anything. She wiggled on the bed, smiled at me, said a little girl like her couldn’t hurt me. That was what the hammer thought about me, I told her, and she held out her hands for the rope.