Jungle Rules (65 page)

“Cool, man,” Harris said and smiled. “Then, with everybody raising hell, I can take command of my rangers and we hit the gates and go free, right?”

“Yeah,” Pitts said and frowned.

Chapter 18

“ONE BLACK MOTHERFUCKER
”

“LOOK AT THIS,” Clarence Jones whispered to Samuel Martin as the two men stood in the library over a two-week-old Sunday edition of the
New York Times
. “That article’s right here where my sister Brenda said in her letter. This one about Captain Charles Edwards gettin’ his ass put on general court-martial for killing a bunch of gooks down south of Chu Lai last March. See here? That piece of shit First Lieutenant Philip Ziegler got charged, too. The newspaper say that the army trying to cover it up, but that some of the enlisted men in the company wrote letters home about killing those people and how bad they feeling about it.”

“Army’s all fucked up anyway, they got hopheads and shit out there just shootin’ in the rice paddies,” Sam Martin said as he ran his finger down the article, reading the paragraphs that Clarence Jones showed him.

“See this?” Jones said, pointing to a paragraph. “This say the army counted twenty-one dead people down there, but letters from the soldiers say they shot like two hundred folks.”

“Bullshit,” Martin said, and looked toward the front desk of the library to see if the senior trustee paid any attention to them. “I can see maybe a unit blowin’ away a couple dozen gooks, but not two hundred. Man, the whole world find out about that shit. I mean, people be talkin’.”

“That what it say, man,” Jones shrugged, looked at the librarian’s desk, quietly ripped the article from the page, folded it, and tucked the news story inside his back pocket. “We need to call Captain Kirkwood and Captain O’Connor and show this to them. This prove that we didn’t start any fight with these shitbird army officers. Anybody get wrote up on charges murderin’ a bunch of women and children, they sure as hell lie about startin’ a fight with some snuffy dudes.”

“They damn sure lie about whackin’ me with that gun, too!” Martin said, falling in step alongside Jones as they walked out of the library and into the lower hallway of the main cell block. They headed toward the sally port so the two pretrial confinees could then cut across the recreation yard to the prison administration building, where they planned to request permission to use the telephone to call their attorneys.

Since the two men worked diligently and cooperated with everyone in authority, Lieutenant Schuller had granted Jones and Martin trustee status in the brig, allowing them greater freedom. He also moved them from the scullery to the library, as Kirkwood and O’Connor had requested, where they now worked putting away books and keeping the place clean. The two men enjoyed a great deal of free time and no sweat.

Sergeant Mike “Iron Balls” Turner did not hear Jones and Martin as they came down the hallway and turned the corner toward the sally port, where he and Lance Corporal Kenny “Bad John” Brookman sat talking, and keeping watch over the main entrance that housed the maximum-security cell block and the library.

Two nights earlier, a pair of prisoners had escaped through a hole in the fence they had cut in a dark area behind a restroom and shower facility built between two of the minimum-security prisoner hooches.

“Limp-dick Lieutenant Schuller screwed the pooch this time, because Gunny MacMillan told him and Gunner Holden both about that area behind the head,” Sergeant Turner said, taking a cigarette that Lance Corporal Brookman offered him when he pulled one out for himself.

“You think Colonel Charles Dimwit Webster will do anything, though?” Bad John said, lighting his smoke and then holding the match so Iron Balls could get his cigarette going, too. “He ain’t done shit for the last three escapes, so what makes this time different?”

“Fucking Colonel Dimwit gonna yank him by the stacking swivel this time, take my word for it,” the sergeant said with a smile. “Those other escapes, they just happened. Bad luck mostly. This time, Gunny MacMillan got on the rag, because he told those two yahoo brig officers a bunch of times about needing to get a light down there between that head and the hooch, where the fence makes that turn, and those boys cut that hole and slipped out.”

“I ain’t looked at it that way,” Bad John said, sucking on his cigarette and looking over his shoulder as Clarence Jones and Sam Martin approached them after they turned the corner in the hall.

“Well, all I got to say is that’s one black motherfucker back there,” Iron Balls said.

“Yip, that’s one black motherfucker,” Bad John echoed, looking at Sam Martin and noticing that the darker of the two black prisoners glared at him.

“What you say about me?” Sam Martin shouted. “That’s one black motherfucker? I’m one black motherfucker! That it?”

“Hold on, stud,” Sergeant Turner commanded, stepping in front of the two prisoners. “Nobody said anything about you being a black motherfucker. We were talking about the two dudes that escaped the night before last, how that area behind the head is a black motherfucker. No lights on back there.”

“Yeah, I believe you, all right,” Sam Martin sassed. “We see what the warden say about your prejudice remark on my color.”

“Private, you do what you got to do,” Turner said, and shrugged, watching the two prisoners step out the doorway into the recreation yard, where the high-risk prisoners sat at several picnic tables watching a basketball game. “I told you the truth.”

“Yo, what’s shakin’, bro?” James Harris called from the table next to the basketball court, seeing the two rangers walking out the main cellblock door and hearing Iron Balls calling after them.

“Fucking asshole guard talkin about me, sayin’, that’s one black motherfucker,” Martin said, walking toward the picnic table where Mau Mau sat with Brian Pitts and Celestine Anderson. “ ’Course, when I call him down, he deny sayin’ shit. Iron Balls say they talkin’ about that dark area behind the head where them two dudes escape a couple of nights ago.”

“They ain’t caught them brothers either,” Harris said with a laugh. “They be long gone now. Joined up with the Cong most likely. So what you gonna do about Iron Balls callin’ you a black motherfucker, you black motherfucker?”

All three prisoners at the picnic table laughed.

“Me and Clarence, we headed to the admin office now, so we can call our lawyers,” Martin said, half lying because he let Harris think they intended to call their attorneys about the insult instead of about the newspaper article.

“Well, you two black motherfuckers, have fun then,” Harris said and laughed. Then he turned to Pitts, who nudged him.

“You know, Mau Mau,” the Snowman said in a low voice, “we can use that incident to convert the remaining prisoners who aren’t with us to come aboard. Tomorrow night’s the big show.”

 
EVEN THE BREEZE that the window fan stirred seemed hot enough to bake bread. Jon Kirkwood stood up from his desk and took off his shirt.

“Oh, I’m telling,” O’Connor chirped. “That’s don’t number seven, isn’t it? Don’t take off your shirt in the office, no matter how hot it gets in here.”

Kirkwood then unfastened his belt and pulled off his pants, too, and stood in the defense section office wearing his shoes and socks, white boxers, and T-shirt.

“It doesn’t say a fucking thing about pants, does it,” the captain snapped at O’Connor, and then sat back in his swivel chair much more comfortable with the mid-August heat.

“Well, two can play this game,” Terry O’Connor said, laughing, and then shucked off his shirt and pants, too.

“Does Major Dickinson know that you’re working in your underwear?” Michael Carter said straight-faced as he walked through the door and stopped cold after seeing the two officers seated at their desks in their skivvies.

“No, Mikie, we want it to be a surprise,” Kirkwood said with a smile.

“If it gets much hotter, I think I will strip off these drawers, too, and start working in my altogether,” O’Connor said, smiling at Carter. “Au naturel.”

“I’m not sure what to think of your unprofessional conduct,” the tall, thin captain said, blushing and trying not to look at the two underwear-clad lawyers.

“Looks like a great idea,” Wayne Ebberhardt said, nudging his way past Michael Carter, who had not moved from the doorway. He quickly unbuttoned his shirt, slipped off his trousers, and flopped in his swivel chair, where he took off his shoes, too.

“Well, I cannot work here with you men undressed,” Carter said, walking to his desk, picking up a briefcase, and heading for the door. “If anyone wants me, I will be at the barracks, where casual undress seems more appropriate.”

As the gangly, disheveled attorney ambled toward the door, he stopped and looked back at O’Connor.

“Oh, I know what it was that I meant to ask you,” Carter said, putting his finger in his mouth and starting to gnaw on the cuticle. “Those secret photographs. Can I see them, too?”

“What?” O’Connor said, sitting up and slamming his feet on the floor, his heart skipping a beat. As he looked up at stick man, he tried his best to show a deadpan face. “I’m not sure I catch your drift, Mikie.”

“The ones that the troops keep mentioning,” Carter said, now unconsciously biting his knuckles. When Movie Star had told him about the surveillance of Heyster in town, and them not only seeing him passing off dope from the evidence locker to the Chu Lai Hippie, but also that Captain O’Connor had photographs of it, he also had emphasized to the senior defense section attorney that he should keep the news to himself, and above all things not talk about it to anyone, especially someone with brass on his collar. “Pictures of Captain, er, Major-Select Heyster selling drugs to some hippie! They’re all talking about it.”

“Fucking Movie Star, he spilled his guts to you didn’t he!” O’Connor said, throwing his head back and squeezing his eyes shut, feeling suddenly overwhelmed with frustration. “Come inside, sit down, and shut the damned door.”

“I’m not sure I like your tone,” Carter said, still standing in the entrance with his briefcase clutched under his arm.

“Michael, please,” Kirkwood said, and then looked at O’Connor. “This may shed a glimmer of light on why you’re pissed off at any little thing.”

“Shut the fucking hatch, Mike, please! Damn it!” Terry O’Connor shouted, and jumped from his chair, walked to his palm-tree-looking colleague, yanked him inside the office, and slammed the door shut with a bang.

“Look, if you’re going to accost me, I will definitely not stay,” Carter said, pulling away from the angry Philadelphia Irishman.

“I don’t want stray ears listening to what I am about to tell you three gentlemen, Mike. Please sit down and listen,” O’Connor said, and led Carter to his chair.

“Jon, you’re right, this thing has eaten me alive the past few weeks,” O’Connor confessed, and flopped in his chair. “All I have so far is suspicion and circumstantial evidence, including photographs. Very circumstantial, since we did not keep either man under surveillance after the exchange of whatever articles they passed to each other.

“Yes, I have photographs of Charlie Heyster taking a package from his laundry bag and passing the article to a Sergeant Randal Carnegie, also known as the Chu Lai Hippie. I have a photograph of this so-called Chu Lai Hippie then handing our illustrious interim mojo a white envelope. One could speculate that the envelope contained money and the package contained Buddha absconded from the evidence locker.”

“This may sound simpleminded of me, but how on earth did you find yourself in a position to photograph this curious exchange of items?” Jon Kirkwood said, leaning over his desk and frowning at his best friend. “I guess a better question is this: If you were so suspicious of Captain Heyster ripping off the evidence locker, why didn’t you go to CID about your suspicions? Also, please bear in mind that there is this newfangled concept called reasonable cause, you know.”

“Jon, you’re exactly right,” O’Connor said, and waved both his hands in the air as he spoke. “Rules of evidence, reasonable cause, privacy issues, they all bit me in the ass when I looked at the pictures and thought about what I had done. In my own defense, the photographs are admissible evidence because we took them on a public thoroughfare, and Charlie performed these deeds in that public arena, and we used no extraordinary measures to obtain the photographs. So, for what they’re worth, they could support other, more damning evidence, if we had it.”

“Terry, I’m surprised at you,” Wayne Ebberhardt said, and then smiled. “You didn’t even invite Jon or me along when you went spying on the shyster.”

“You remember that day he came in the barracks and accused Mikie of ripping off the dope in the evidence locker?” O’Connor said, looking at Kirkwood and then at Michael Carter.

“Sure, it pissed off everyone,” Kirkwood said, and Carter nodded.

“Heyster seemed so hell-bent to pin it on Michael, and he did his best as well to keep Dicky Doo stirred up, accusing the troops,” O’Connor said, cradling his fingers under his chin. “He ranted and fumed, but you know what he and Dickinson didn’t do? They never reported the missing shit to CID.”