Insiders (18 page)

Cher went to bed determined to find out just what was going on with Jennifer Spencer. She wanted to know what Jennifer was up to, and she wanted to know what Movita knew about it and why she wouldn't tell her.

The next morning on the way to breakfast Cher managed to mutter a half-assed ‘I'm sorry' to the debutante, though that cost her. Cher got her breakfast and parked herself in the seat next to the deb. Theresa was babbling about some new computer program she was learning, and Suki told them about how Gloria finally gave up and started
‘dating' Georgette, a stone butch who had been courting her for months. When there was a pause, Cher took the opening. ‘So, where do you live in New York?' she asked.

‘Tribeca,' Jennifer told her.

‘Umm. That's near Wall Street, right?' Cher asked, like some dumb-ass cracker. ‘Isn't that where JFK, Jr. lived?'

‘Yes.'

‘You live on the same street?'

‘No, he was on North Moore Street. I'm on Washington.'

‘No kiddin'?' Cher said. ‘What number? I know someone who lives on Washington Street.'

‘I'm two-oh-one.'

‘Nah,' Cher said. ‘He must have been further uptown.'

Movita joined them then with her usual breakfast – three cups of coffee and a half bowl of sugar. Suki got up and returned with her plate heaped high with something that passed for home fries.

‘You know,' Cher said as she picked at her plate, ‘I'm really sorry about that boyfriend thing. I've had my own run of bastards. Movita will attest to that.'

Movita, silent as she was most mornings, just raised her head and grunted. ‘They ain't worth dog shit but they can make you feel
real
bad.'

Cher looked over at Movita, who seemed oblivious. ‘What was your guy's name? Tom Branson?'

‘Tom
Branston,
' Jennifer corrected.

‘He's a fancy-ass Wall Street dude, right? Loaded and everythin'?' Cher asked, trying not to be too obvious.

‘He's an ass, a lawyer, and loaded with shit,' Jennifer answered, and Theresa and Suki giggled.

‘You two lived together? He got your crib?'

‘No. We were going to get married, though.'

‘So who's watchin' your place now? Who's takin' care of your cat and waterin' your plants?' Cher took the opportunity to get on the better side of the deb. ‘That call you were on last night, was it to him?'

‘No,' Jennifer sniffed in reply. ‘But I do need to finish that phone call,' she said.

‘You won't be makin' any phone calls till after work,' Cher told her. ‘But I won't interrupt you again. Like I said, I'm sorry about that. But what'n the hell's so important about them phone calls anyway?' she asked. Cher wanted Jennifer and Movita to take her into their confidence, but Jennifer made a point of turning her head away.

‘What's the guy's name and number?' Movita asked Jennifer. ‘Gwen has a meeting and she won't be in till noon. I'll get ‘im on the phone and then I'll call down to the laundry and tell ‘em that the Warden wants to see ya' in her office, okay?'

When Cher heard that, her forced good humor left her and she couldn't help snorting in disgust. ‘You're gonna get your ass in some kind of real jam, Movita honey. And for what? So that this one can talk to her lawyer or something? She won't even tell us what's goin' on.'

Movita dismissed Cher with a wave of her hand, then wrote down the name and telephone number that Jennifer told her. Cher memorized it. When the bell that signaled the end of breakfast rang, there was the usual groan and the women slowly rose to begin their day of work.

Cher began her walk down to Intake but shook her head. What was wrong with Movita? It would be against every regulation in the book for Movita to let Jennifer Spencer use the telephone in the Warden's office.

But Movita shook her head and said, ‘I just wanna hear
what she has to say to her lawyer, honey. That's all that this is about.'

Cher worried all day about Movita and the phone call. If she got caught it wouldn't just be time in the SHU, she'd lose her job with the Prez for sure. And Cher couldn't imagine Movita peeling vegetables or delivering ice for the rest of her life. Damnit! Why would she take such a chance for the debutante? Was she in love with her?

None of the women in their crew were lesbians. Neither were a lot of the women who hooked up. Many just did it out of loneliness, or because they were wooed by dykes. Once they left prison they never thought about it again. But there were the stone bulldaggers who were career lesbians. Cher didn't care if people fucked philodendrons, but she couldn't imagine that Movita had gone so nuts that she wanted the deb in that way. So why all of this risk and special treatment? Why even bring her into the crew in the first place? As she processed the candy that came into Intake that day she worried herself over it.

Cher was relieved to see Movita at dinner. Better than in the hole. She waited patiently with the surprise she had figured out, until she had a chance to get the two of them alone in her crib. Cher looked at Movita and then at Jennifer. ‘You finally gonna tell me what's goin' on round here?' she asked, but neither woman would answer her question.

‘Things might be changing around here real soon,' Movita said as she sat on her bunk. ‘I'm not just talking about your parole.'

‘Fine,' Cher said, ‘don't tell me. I'll find out soon enough.' She walked over to her own bed and sat down.
‘But it seems to me that whatever is going on, Miss Armani here needs to use a telephone real bad to make sure it happens. Am I at least right about that much?'

‘Yeah,' Jennifer admitted with a nod. ‘You're right about that.'

‘Did ya' get your call out?' Cher asked Movita.

‘Nah. The Warden was in her office all day. There wasn't any time to get away with it,' Movita admitted with disappointment.

‘Well, then,' Cher said as she lifted the corner of her mattress, ‘I always like to do my share to help.' From beneath the mattress she pulled a cell phone and handed it to Jennifer. ‘Here ya' go. Lifted it from a new inmate earlier in this week.'

‘What is it?' Movita asked.

‘It's a cell phone,' the deb said. ‘My God, it's a cell phone!'

‘Let me see,' Movita asked. Cher handed it to her. Sometimes she forgot that Movita hadn't been Outside for a long time. ‘Where's its base?' Movita asked.

‘It don't have a base,' Cher said. ‘Whaddaya think, it's a blues band?'

‘It just works like this?' Movita asked. ‘No base, no electric line, no nothing?'

‘It needs a battery and a charger. They get plugged into an outlet,' Spencer said, and looked over at Cher.

‘I got ‘em,' Cher told her. ‘You got ‘em now. But you get caught with this, either one of you, and they ship your ass to Iceland.'

‘Does it work?' Jennifer said, staring at the cell phone as if it were the Holy Grail.

‘Hell yes, it works,' Cher said proudly. ‘I called my own
lawyer from it to confirm my parole hearing.' She extended it to Jennifer. ‘Consider it a gift – a peace offering from me to you.'

Jennifer turned to Movita and exclaimed, ‘Do you know what this means?' Then she turned back to Cher and stammered, ‘I don't know what to say. This is – this is just wonderful.'

‘Man, if they toss the cell and find it, it won't be wonderful,' Movita said. ‘But it's great, Cher.' She looked at her straight in the face for the first time in days. ‘Thank you.'

Movita reached out and took Cher's hand. ‘Look,' she said. ‘I didn't want to trouble ya' with this. You got enough on your mind with your parole and gettin' out. But something real bad is goin' down here and Jennifer has been tryin' to help.'

Cher shrugged. ‘What are you talkin' about? The Spanish Inquisition?'

‘Maybe worse. The priests left you alone if you were Catholic,' the deb said. ‘This will affect everyone.'

Then Movita told Cher about the report she'd copped off the warden, and the plans to privatize, and what that meant. It took them a little while, and Cher listened closely, then shook her head. ‘Man,' she said, ‘when it comes to scams ya' can't beat rich white men for comin' up with the best. And legal, too. I hope there is reincarnation,' she said, ‘ ‘cause I wanna be a rich, fat-assed white man in my next life.'

Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered.

Cicero,
De Officiis

‘Spencer,' Officer Mowbry called out in her little girl voice. ‘Visitor. Stevenson, Vassallo. Visitors. McInnery, lawyer.' Jen stood up, glad of any distraction. She knew it was Lenny so there was no reason to be excited, but it would be interesting to hear what he had learned about JRU.

As Jen walked to the visitor's room along with a cluster of her fellow inmates, she had a thought that made her hate herself. For a moment as she looked around it seemed to her as if she were one of them – she looked like them, she smelled like them, and the longer she was at Jennings the more she felt herself slipping lower and lower into their degradation. She almost felt she was a part of the prison now.

When she'd agreed to try to help Movita with JRU she'd immediately been transferred from the laundry job to the
library – leaving poor Suki to fend for herself. She felt guilty but relieved. The thing was, she actually
liked
several of her fellow inmates: Suki, of course, and Movita, and even the laundry supervisor, Flora. She'd even stopped being afraid of Springtime – now she identified with her for trying too hard to get out of this place.

She walked through the security check and into the visitor's room. She didn't bother fluffing her hair – or anything else for that matter – she wasn't worried about her appearance. Instead of her gorgeous Tom, it would only be Lenny. There was the usual noise and chaos in the visitor's room. She looked around for Lenny and saw him waiting. He was average height, a trifle thin and narrow in the shoulders. His suit was gray – she hated gray suits – and wrinkled. Stop it, she said to herself. Sick, sick, sick. It was great of Lenny to show up at all. Remember, Tom is a bastard, not fit to serve food to some of the people here. She smiled to herself at the thought. Flora, walking next to her, saw the smile and smiled back. ‘He your man?' she asked, and without waiting for an answer continued. ‘Isn't it wonderful?' she asked. ‘I
love
visitor's day.'

Jennifer felt thoroughly ashamed of herself for her earlier thoughts. Flora was such a damn sweet woman. She tried hard to be fair with all the women who worked under her in the laundry. And she was a better, cooler manager than some of the men at Hudson, Van Schaank. She certainly had to deal with more troubled employees – although, neurosis for neurosis, the day traders at Hudson, Van Schaank & Michaels could stack up against any inmate here. But as she made her way toward Lenny Benson she admitted to herself that she was a snob. There were, as usual, some children in the crowd, and one voice overpowering the rest sounded like
it belonged to one of Theresa's relatives. Her entire extended family seemed to be overly gregarious, and they all cursed more than a commodity trader.

Lenny moved toward her and took a seat at a table between Maria's sister Blanche and Theresa's Aunt Helen. Lenny's modesty was as conspicuous as Tom's pride. He had a large box in front of him wrapped in camouflage-patterned paper. Jennifer had to smile. That was funny. Had he meant it as a joke? she wondered.

‘Hi,' she said to him as she took the seat opposite. ‘I can't thank you enough for coming.'

‘Hey, yes you can,' he answered. ‘In fact, you already have. I'm happy to be here.'

She looked around the room at the chaos, tears, and noise, then looked back at him and laughed. What was his private life like if a visit to Jennings Correctional Institution made him happy? But he looked as if he meant it.

‘Did you have much luck with the research I asked about?'

‘I found out a lot of interesting stuff,' he said. Then he patted at the box in front of him. ‘And I brought a lot of interesting stuff. What do you want first?'

‘You shouldn't get me gifts. Really,' she told him. ‘I have money and I insist on paying you back.'

He waved his hand as if insects flew before his face. ‘Forget it,' he said. ‘But who is managing your money now? And what about your condo? Who's dealing with the carrying costs and the real estate taxes?'

‘I gave Tom power of attorney,' Jennifer admitted. Maybe that hadn't been such a good idea, she thought now. ‘I thought he was trustworthy,' she said. ‘And he'll keep my canteen fund filled,' she laughed, albeit a bit bitterly. ‘I'm
only allowed to spend ninety dollars there every two weeks. So it's not a lot of money.'

Lenny just looked at her and was silent.

‘I'm anxious to hear about you-know-what. Did you find out much?' Jennifer continued to break the silence.

‘Yeah. As much as there was to find.' He picked up his briefcase, a very nerdy one she noticed, not Gucci like Tom's. She looked away, around the room, while he fumbled through the bag.

What she saw amazed her. Flora and Maria, as well as other women she'd seen around – workers from the laundry, inmates from her unit – they all looked so different here! Their faces were transformed by some kind of … life, she guessed it was. And even the ones crying, obviously getting bad news about family members or being disappointed, even they looked – well – alive. Jen looked over at Theresa. Even
she
looked happier, if such a thing was possible for a woman on a constant high.

And JRU was planning to curtail visitation? Jennifer felt a surge of anger. She turned back to Lenny. ‘So let's cover the situation first. What did you find out?' she asked him. ‘Keep your voice down.' She leaned in to him across the table.

‘Well,' Lenny began, ‘for one thing, JRU is privately held, and pretty closely. It's not easy to get anything on them but … well, let's just say I have my sources.' He smiled, and she noticed for the first time that he had a dimple on his left cheek. She wondered why she'd never noticed it, but it could have been because she'd never seen Lenny smile before.

‘How big is it?' she asked. ‘JRU.'

‘Small. It only does about thirty million annually. It's a
start-up. And it's doing nothing in profits. They've gotten these couple of prison contracts all in the last three years.'

Jennifer's eyes brightened. ‘That's good, for a start. At least they're not Philip Morris with a fleet of fucking lawyers.'

‘Yeah, but news from the other prisons, the couple that they are managing, isn't good. It looks like they're trying to avoid any capital expenditure and milking the facility for profits by cutting costs to the bone.'

‘Shit! How much worse can the food get?' she asked. A start-up that wasn't profitable but still going for more of the same. ‘So how does this make sense?'

‘I did a lot of digging and I think they might be setting themselves up to be acquired by Wackenhut, or something. They, of course, are the “prison as gross industry” superstars.'

Jennifer's face darkened. ‘It
is
a gross industry,' she muttered. ‘Who's the CEO? Is it Steve Ross, starting out with parking lots or what?'

‘John Tarrington. A senior VP from Wackenhut. Other than him, they're just a bunch of financial guys with
gotz
for industry experience. They're obviously using his contacts to get the contracts, and he's using their expertise to put together the proposals. I got their previous ones, by the way.'

She smiled at him. ‘Cool,' she said. ‘So what's up?'

‘They're not setting it up to go public, and it isn't going to make them risk. I figure they gotta be setting themselves up for acquisition. Their only real assets are those contracts.'

Jen thought about it and nodded. Maybe so. Or the CEO, this Tarrington guy, had a hard-on for someone he'd worked for and wanted to make a point. You never knew with men.

‘Whatever it is, they're underfinanced,' Lenny added, then took out some spreadsheets and explained the basics of their financials. They paused. ‘Okay,' he said. ‘I did as you asked and I haven't bothered you with a single question. But why all this interest?'

‘They're going to take over this place.'

‘So I heard.'

‘How did they get the contract if they're so …'

‘Hey, since when does the government make sound business decisions? I don't know their political connections. Or their board. But I'll have that information in a couple of days,' he told her. Jen had to admit she was impressed with Mr Benson. ‘Jennifer, what are you thinking about?'

‘I don't know,' she told him honestly.

‘Maybe some … interaction with JRU?' he offered.

Jen nodded, then turned her face away and looked again at Flora, Maria, and all the other women. ‘This place is awful, but it could be even worse,' she told him. ‘I'd like to help stop that.' She leaned even closer to him and lowered her voice further. ‘I'm in a bind, though,' she said quickly. ‘I don't want to do anything that would be considered “bad behavior” here. I've got to make my stay as short a time as possible.'

‘Of course you do,' Lenny said.

They were both silent for a moment.

‘I'm sorry,' he told her.

‘You were right about Tom,' she said. ‘And maybe about everything else.' All at once Jennifer had to struggle to keep from crying.

Lenny reached out and took her arm. ‘Don't waste tears on him. He's a yellow rat bastard.'

Jennifer laughed in spite of herself, and felt a little better.
‘A yellow rat bastard?' she asked. ‘I thought that was a shop in Soho.' At least she could speak. ‘I had to go into the SHU last week,' she began, and told him all about what had happened when Tom visited. Lenny listened, his eyes warm with sympathy. After she got to the part about her hands she stopped and looked at him. ‘I shouldn't burden you with this. It's all so weird. I'm sorry. I just need to tell somebody.'

‘Please,' Lenny said, holding both of his hands out and open. ‘Tell me. I'm interested.'

So Jen kept telling him: about the crew, and the trouble with Cher, and especially about Movita and what she'd revealed. As she spoke she looked down and unconsciously wrapped her arms around herself. It wasn't until she was finished that she realized that she was not only hugging herself but also rocking in her chair. She stopped, embarrassed, and looked at Lenny Benson, expecting to see disgust or disapproval. But he was looking at her with such sympathy that she was taken aback.

‘Amnesty International officially condemns the U.S. prison system,' he said. ‘Did you know that? They list it as the worst in the world. And since 1980 the female inmate population has increased by more than five hundred percent.'

‘God!' Jennifer said. ‘That is so … so … terrible. You see, these women' – she moved her eyes to include the other inmates in the room – ‘a lot of them never did anything really wrong. They acted in self-defense, or they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Can you imagine?'

‘Hey,' he said. ‘I've read up on the subject. How about Rebecca Cross, who was sentenced to twenty years without parole for a first offense?
Possession
of fifty-five dollars' worth of dope.'

‘Yeah,' she replied. ‘Unbelievable. But only some of them are totally innocent.'

‘Like you,' Lenny said.

She shook her head. ‘Uh-uh. I'm afraid I wasn't
totally
–'

‘Close enough,' Lenny interrupted. ‘It's not
you
who should be in prison.' He paused.

‘You warned me,' Jennifer admitted. ‘I was greedy. And stupid. I was looking for a shortcut.'

‘Forget it,' he said, and his expression changed from pensive to efficient. ‘Let's get back to JRU. Let me tell you what I think. If you want to influence what they do, we could try to get someone on the board. Or influence people already on it. Do you remember the first Bush administration?'

‘It's not something I like to focus on,' Jennifer admitted.

‘Well, he followed Reagan, and the Republicans had already had a field day with deregulation. They set all the savings banks free and hotshots bought them up left and right. Then they started giving out loans to their hotshot pals so all the little moms' and pops' and widows' and orphans' savings were lent out to golf-playing Republican scammers like Keating.'

‘Oh,' Jennifer said. ‘I remember
him.
'

‘Yeah. Another yellow rat bastard. Anyway his pals defaulted on the loans, but he'd already been paid off for lending them money and the friggin' bank failed. And then, because of the FDIC, the taxpayers had to bail out the banks.'

‘I do remember that now,' she said. ‘Wasn't one of the Bush boys involved?'

‘Yeah. Silverado. Another big bank that went bust. He'd been put on the board. Not that he knew dick about
banking. Anyway, the point is, I think that there's a parallel here. Back then they deregulated savings banks and there was a big opportunity to drain them. Now they privatize prisons and another opportunity exists to collect the fees from the state, pay almost nothing to keep up the infrastructure and take care of the prisoners. They make a few bucks from their labor before selling off quick for a profit or declaring bankruptcy.'

‘That's a cheerful scenario,' Jennifer said. ‘Hey Lenny, what do you know about the Rafferty boys, Bryce and Tyler?'

‘They've dipped their wicks into things no one else would touch,' he said, then blushed. ‘Sorry. I didn't mean to be vulgar.'

Jennifer bent her head down so he wouldn't see her smile at that. Everyone on Wall Street swore like sailors – it was a prerequisite. ‘The question I want answered about them is if they fuck over their partners as well as investors.'

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘But it's easy enough to find out. Call me Tuesday. I'll have some info by then. Anyway, why do you ask? You think they might have some influence at JRU?'