Leopard's Baby

Tammy finished her run and stopped to watch her tablemates play basketball. She’d been in prison for three months, plus the month in lockup. She had fourteen to go, maybe less if she could continue to keep her nose clean. The only incident occurred a month previously. Two members of a black gang cornered Diamond near the laundry. After she’d been hit a couple of times, Tammy happened to pass by. In spite of her desire to stay unnoticed, she knew she couldn’t run away and let her friend got pummeled. She stepped in. The result was one attacker wound up with a black eye and the other a broken nose. The fight was over quickly, and no guards witnessed it, but word spread rapidly throughout the prison population. After that, not only was Tammy’s group left alone, but several other inmates started to hang with them. Tammy was grateful she hadn’t been reprimanded.

Being in prison was supposed to be a more severe punishment than being in the county lockup, but Tammy thought otherwise. The officials at the lockup were corrupt. The warden at the prison ran a tight ship. The guards were professionals who took their work seriously. Since there were no male prisoners to share the facilities, unlike the lockup, the women who didn’t have jobs were allowed to spend almost the entire day in the exercise yard, or the library, or other common places in the facility. In the lockup the women had to stay in their cells when the men used the resources.

“Roberts,” a guard called, bringing Tammy out of her reverie. “The warden wants to see you. Now.”

Tammy accompanied the guard to the warden’s office. The warden was a heavyset woman in her early fifties. She had sharp, brown eyes which seemed to miss nothing. With her was the supervisor of the guards. He was a huge black man in his forties. He had salt and pepper hair, a narrow waist, and broad shoulders. Tammy had learned he’d been a defensive end in college, and might have made it in the pros had he not injured his knee.

“Have a seat, Roberts,” the warden said as Tammy was conducted into her office. After Tammy was seated the warden continued, saying, “I like the way you took care of those bitches who attacked your friend, Diamond.”

“I didn’t know you knew about it,” a startled Tammy said. “Are you going to give me shit over it now?”

“There’s not much going on here that Mike isn’t aware of,” the warden said, indicating the guard supervisor. “What he knows, I know. In answer to your question, no. I’m going to pretend the incident never happened.”

“Why am I here?”

“Since you got here, gang intimidation has lessened. Considerably. In part because you protect some of the weaker prisoners such as your cellmate, Miranda Cortez.”

“If you want me to act like a cop, sorry, I won’t do it. I can’t stop the gangs from preying on others, and if I tried, they’d go after me. Right now they mostly leave me alone. That’s the way I want it.”

“I don’t expect you to be a vigilante. Keeping order is what Mike and his people are for. Generally we don’t give jobs to short-timers like you, but I think you deserve a reward for the way you’ve behaved. A job has opened up in the kitchen. Cleaning up after the evening meal. It’s a dirty job, and most of the women won’t take it. The upside is you get paid a little bit, and you generally eat better. What do you say?”

“Sure, why not,” Tammy said. “It’ll break up some of the tedium.”

As Tammy was led back to the exercise yard, she thought, She considers me a short-timer. I suppose I am compared to the others, but a year and a half being locked up seems like an eternity.

***

“Anyone follow you?” Minstein, the Mossad head of station at the Israeli embassy, asked. He and Olivia were meeting for lunch in a small, out-of-the-way, restaurant.

“You know better than that, Simon,” Olivia said with a grin. She knew Minstein was pulling her leg. “You have something for me?”

“Yes.” He slid a large envelope over to her.

“I’ll read this in detail later. For now just give me the highlights about Covington.”

“He went to the same upper-class prep school as Jennifer. He was one year ahead of her. Both their families are WASP, but while her family has money, his does not. They dated for his last two years in high school and through his freshman year in college. He went to a state school. After graduation she enrolled in an exclusive women’s college. They continued to date off and on through her freshman year. Then she met Curtis Roberts and broke it off with Covington.

“Following law school he joined a small firm specializing in criminal law. He had a reputation for doing whatever it takes to achieve his goals, no matter how it might skirt the law. After several years with the firm, by which time he had become a partner, he and Jennifer ran into each other. Curtis had just won his first term in the House. She convinced Curtis to get his old firm to offer Covington a job. She used her contacts to throw a lot of business Covington’s way. He became quite a rainmaker and was offered a partnership. Now he is rich. He realizes he owes much of it to Jennifer and will do almost anything for her.”

“Are they sleeping together?” Olivia asked.

“I think so, but they are discreet. My men could not find anything definitive. It is almost a certainty they did when they were younger, but whether they still are now is not known for sure.”

“Is there a list of Covington’s clients from when he practiced criminal law?” Olivia asked as she held up the envelope.

“Yes, mostly,” Minstein said. “We were able to find what they were charged with and what Covington did for them. I think it is safe to say the list is eighty to ninety percent complete, but not one hundred percent. I am sorry Olivia, but this is the best I can do. The Prime Minister knows how much we owe you, but he does not want us to expend our resources on something that is not directly connected to the security of the State.”

“I understand, Simon,” Olivia said. “Thank you for what you’ve done.”

***

Tyler first noticed the gray car a week previously as he was driving to school. He was a freshman in college and commuted back and forth. The gray car seemed to go out of its way to stay three car lengths behind him. It had followed him every day since. He parked in the commuter lot and walked to his first class. The gray car stopped long enough to drop off a large, florid-faced man wearing a dark-blue windbreaker and a Baltimore Orioles baseball cap. He wore the windbreaker even on days, like this one, when it was very warm. Either the men were singularly inept, or they didn’t care if they were spotted.

At 3:00 PM Tyler left his last class of the day and headed toward the library. He was not surprised that Florid-Face was behind him. Tyler picked up his pace until he came to the university book store. He suddenly stopped and looked in the window. FF had been hurrying to keep up and almost bumped into Tyler. The man slowed and then hurried off. Tyler could see him lurking about a block ahead and across the street.

Leaving the bookstore, Tyler walked slowly along, viewing the contents of the shops as he passed by. He came to an alley between a restaurant and a women’s boutique, scooted into it, and flattened himself against a wall behind a dumpster, which was overflowing with rotting food. A few seconds later FF stepped into the alley and proceeded cautiously ahead with his hand inside his windbreaker. Tyler darted out from the dumpster, picked up FF, and slammed him against the opposite wall.

“Why have you been following me for the past week?” Tyler asked while shaking the man.

“Don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, kid,” FF said as he attempted to pull his hand out from his windbreaker.

Tyler seized FF’s wrist before he could withdraw his hand from his jacket. He slapped FF across the face, stunning him, yanked the gun out from the windbreaker, and threw it into the dumpster, where it sank into the garbage. Then he punched FF in the gut, causing him to double over in pain. “I asked you a simple question. Let’s try it again. Why are you following me? You have three seconds to answer before I hit you again.”

Another man stepped into the alley holding a gun. Tyler picked up FF bodily and raced at the second man, using FF as a shield. Tyler could see panic in the man’s eyes as he tried to get a firing line. Tyler crashed into him. He went down with FF on top of him. Tyler grasped the man’s gun wrist, twisted violently, snapping it, and causing him to both scream in pain and release his hold on the gun.

Tyler tossed the second gun into the dumpster and said, “I can break every bone in both your bodies and you can’t stop me. I want to know why you’re following me. Tell me and you can save yourself from some pain. A lot of pain.”

Broken Wrist was too busy moaning to say anything, but FF sneered and said, “Go fuck yourself kid, we ain’t saying nothing.”

Tyler snapped the little finger of FF’s left hand, and said, “Wrong answer. Try again. You have nine more fingers and then we can start on toes, wrists, legs, ribs, whatever.”

“Tell him for Christ’s sake,” BW said, grimacing in pain. “I gotta get to a doc.”

“You seem more willing to talk than your buddy,” Tyler said as he turned his attention to BW. “Perhaps you can tell me.”

“I’m doing it because that asshole paid me to drive his car and back him up,” BW said. “If I knew why he wanted me to I’d tell you, but I don’t.”

Tyler turned back to FF. He wrapped his hand around the ring finger of FF’s left hand and said, “I wonder if I could actually break it off completely by twisting and yanking. Should we try?”

“Sean Higgins!” FF blurted. “It was Sean Higgins. He said we was to follow you around. If you got by yourself we was supposed to mess you up a little. Tell you to stay away from Senator Roberts and his family. That’s all I know, I swear. I have no clue why he wanted us to do that.”

“Strangely, I believe you,” Tyler said. “You guys can take off now. Go get medical help. I warn you though. If you have any thought of coming after me for revenge, don’t. Remember how easily I handled the two of you, and you’re both bigger than I am. Next time, if there is a next time, you won’t walk away.”