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  "What you need is a real good lickin'. You know what I mean? An' I'm gonna give it to you You're gonna be all mine, alskade."

  A familiar voice behind Tracy rasped, "Get your fuckin' hands off her, you asshole."

  Ernestine Littlechap stood there, big fists clenched, eyes blazing, the sun reflecting off her shiny shaved skull.

  "You ain't man enough for her, Ernie."

  "I'm man enough for you" the black woman exploded "You bother her again, and I'll have your ass for breakfast. Fried."

  The air was suddenly charged with electricity. The two amazons were eyeing each other with naked hatred. They're ready to kill each other over me Tracy thought. And then she realized it had very little to do with her. She remembered something Ernestine had told her: "In this place, you have to fight, fuck, or hit the fence. You gotta hold your mud, or you're dead."

  It was Big Bertha who backed down. She gave Ernestine a contemptuous look. "I ain't in no hurry." She leered at Tracy. "You're gonna be here a long time, baby. So am I. I'll be seein' you."

  She turned and walked away.

  Ernestine watched her go. "She's a bad mother. 'Member that nurse in Chicago who killed off all them patients? Stuck 'em full of cyanide and stayed there an' watched 'em die? Well, that angel of mercy is the one who got the hots for you, Whitney. Shee-et! You need a fuckin' keeper. She ain't gonna let up on you."

  "Will you help me escape?"

  A bell rang.

  "It's chow time," Ernestine Littlechap said.

  That night, lying in her bunk, Tracy thought about Ernestine.

  Even though she had never tried to touch Tracy again, Tracy still did not trust her. She could never forget what Ernestine and her other cell mates had done to her. But she needed the black woman.

  Each afternoon after supper, the inmates were allowed to spend one hour in the recreation room, where they could watch television or talk or read the latest magazines and newspapers. Tracy was thumbing through a copy of a magazine when a photograph caught her eye. It was a wedding picture of Charles Stanhope III and his new bride, coming out of a chapel, arm in arm, laughing. It hit Tracy like a blow. Seeing his photograph now, the happy smile on his face, she was filled with a pain that turned to cold fury. She had once planned to share her life with this man, and he had turned his back on her, let them destroy her, let their baby die. But that was another time, another place, another world. That was fantasy. This is reality.

  Tracy slammed the magazine shut.

  On visiting days it was easy to know which inmates had friends or relatives coming to see them. The prisoners would shower and put on fresh clothes and makeup. Ernestine usually returned from the visitors' room smiling and cheerful.

  "My Al, he always comes to see me," she told Tracy. "He'll be waitin' for me when I get out. You know why? 'Cause I give him what no other woman gives him."

  Tracy could not hide her confusion. "You mean...sexually?"

  "You bet your ass. What goes on behind these walls has nothin' to do with the outside. In here, sometimes we need a warm body to hold--somebody to touch us and tell us they love us. We gotta feel there's somebody who gives a damn about us. It don't matter if it ain't real or don't last. It's all we got. But when I get on the outside"--Ernestine broke into a broad grin--"then I become a fuckin' nymphomaniac, hear?"

  There was something that had been puzzling Tracy. She decided to bring it up now. "Ernie, you keep protecting me. Why?"

  Ernestine shrugged. "Beats the shit out of me."

  "I really want to know." Tracy chose her words carefully. "Everyone else who's your--your friend belongs to you. They do whatever you tell them to do."

  "If they don't want to walk around with half an ass, yeah."

  "But not me. Why?"

  "You complainin'?"

  "No. I'm curious."

  Ernestine thought about it for a moment. "Okay. You got somethin' I want." She saw the look on Tracy's face. "No, not that. I get alla that I want, baby. You got class. I mean, real, honest-to-God class. Like those cool ladies you see in Vogue and Town and Country, all dressed up and servin' tea from silver pots. That's where you belong. This ain't your world. I don't know how you got mixed up with all that rat shit on the outside, but my guess is you got suckered by somebody." She looked at Tracy and said, almost shyly, "I ain't come across many decent things in my life. You're one of 'em." She turned away so that her next words were almost inaudible. "And I'm sorry about your kid. I really am..."

  That night, after lights out, Tracy whispered in the dark, "Ernie, I've go to escape. Help me. Please."

  "I'm tryin' to sleep, for Christ's sake! Shut up now, hear?"

  Ernestine initiated Tracy into the arcane language of the prison. Groups of women in the yard were talking: "This bull-dyker dropped the belt on the gray broad, and from then on you had to feed her with a long-handled spoon..."

  "She was short, but they caught her in a snowstorm, and a stoned cop turned her over to the butcher. That ended her getup. Good-bye, Ruby-do..."

  To Tracy, it was like listening to a group of Martians. "What are they talking about?" she asked.

  Ernestine roared with laughter. "Don't you speak no English, girl? When the lesbian 'dropped the belt,' it meant she switched from bein' the guy to bein' a Mary Femme. She got involved with a 'gray broad'--that's a honky, like you. She couldn't be trusted, so that meant you stayed away from her. She was 'short,' meanin' she was near the end of her prison sentence, but she got caught takin' heroin by a stoned cop--that's someone who lives by the rules and can't be bought--and they sent her to the 'butcher,' the prison doctor."

  "What's a 'Ruby-do' and a 'getup'?"

  "Ain't you learned nothin'? A 'Ruby-do' is a parole. A 'getup' is the day of release." Tracy knew she would wait for neither.

  The explosion between Ernestine Littlechap and Big Bertha happened in the yard the following day. The prisoners were playing a game of softball, supervised by the guards. Big Bertha, at bat with two strikes against her, hit a hard line drive on the third pitch and ran to first base, which Tracy was covering. Big Bertha slammed into Tracy, knocking her down, and then was on top of her. Her hands snaked up between Tracy's legs, and she whispered, "Nobody says no to me, you cunt. I'm comin' to get you tonight, littbarn, and I'm gonna fuck your ass off."

  Tracy fought wildly to get loose. Suddenly, she felt Big Bertha being lifted off her. Ernestine had the huge Swede by the neck and was throttling her.

  "You goddamn bitch!" Ernestine was screaming. "I warned you!" She slashed her fingernails across Big Bertha's face, clawing at her eyes.

  "I'm blind!" Big Bertha screamed. "I'm blind!" She grabbed Ernestine's breasts and starting pulling them. The two women were punching and clawing at each other as four guards came running up. It took the guards five minutes to pull them apart. Both women were taken to the infirmary. It was late that night when Ernestine was returned to her cell. Lola and Paulita hurried to her bunk to console her.

  "Are you all right?" Tracy whispered.

  "Damned right," Ernestine told her. Her voice sounded muffled, and Tracy wondered how badly she had been hurt. "I made my Ruby-do yesterday. I'm gettin' outta this joint. You got a problem. That mother ain't gonna leave you alone now. No way. And when she's finished fuckin' with you, she's gonna kill you."

  They lay there in the silent darkness. Finally, Ernestine spoke again. "Maybe it's time you and me talked about bustin' you the hell outta here."

  10

  "You're going to lose your governess tomorrow," Warden Brannigan announced to his wife.

  Sue Ellen Brannigan looked up in surprise. "Why? Judy's very good with Amy."

  "I know, but her sentence is up. She's being released in the morning."

  They were having breakfast in the comfortable cottage that was one of the perquisites of Warden Brannigan's job. Other benefits included a cook, a maid, a chauffeur, and a governess for their daughter, Amy, who was almost five. All the servants were trusties. When Sue
Ellen Brannigan had arrived there five years earlier, she had been nervous about living on the grounds of the penitentiary, and even more apprehensive about having a house full of servants who were all convicted criminals.

  "How do you know they won't rob us and cut our throats in the middle of the night?" she had demanded.

  "If they do," Warden Brannigan had promised, "I'll put them on report."

  He had persuaded his wife, without convincing her, but Sue Ellen's fears had proved groundless. The trusties were anxious to make a good impression and cut their time down as much as possible, so they were very conscientious.

  "I was just getting comfortable with the idea of leaving Amy in Judy's care," Mrs. Brannigan complained. She wished Judy well, but she did not want her to leave. Who knew what kind of woman would be Amy's next governess? There were so many horror stories about the terrible things strangers did to children.

  "Do you have anyone in particular in mind to replace Judy, George?"

  The warden had given it considerable thought. There were a dozen trusties suitable for the job of taking care of their daughter. But he had not been able to get Tracy Whitney out of his mind. There was something about her case that he found deeply disturbing. He had been a professional criminologist for fifteen years, and he prided himself that one of his strengths was his ability to assess prisoners. Some of the convicts in his care were hardened criminals, others were in prison because they had committed crimes of passion or succumbed to a momentary temptation, but it seemed to Warden Brannigan that Tracy Whitney belonged in neither category. He had not been swayed by her protests of innocence, for that was standard operating procedure for all convicts. What bothered him was the people who had conspired to send Tracy Whitney to prison. The warden had been appointed by a New Orleans civic commission headed by the governor of the state, and although he steadfastly refused to become involved in politics, he was aware of all the players. Joe Romano was Mafia, a runner for Anthony Orsatti. Perry Pope, the attorney who had defended Tracy Whitney, was on their payroll, and so was Judge Henry Lawrence. Tracy Whitney's conviction had a decidedly rank odor to it.

  Now Warden Brannigan made his decision. He said to his wife, "Yes. I do have someone in mind."

  There was an alcove in the prison kitchen with a small For-mica-topped dining table and four chairs, the only place where it was possible to have a reasonable amount of privacy. Ernestine Littlechap and Tracy were seated there, drinking coffee during their ten-minute break.

  "I think it's about time you tol' me what your big hurry is to bust outta here," Ernestine suggested.

  Tracy hesitated. Could she trust Ernestine? She had no choice. "There--there are some people who did things to my family and me. I've got to get out to pay them back."

  "Yeah? What'd they do?"

  Tracy's words came out slowly, each one a drop of pain. "They killed my mother."

  "Who's they?"

  "I don't think the names would mean anything to you. Joe Romano, Perry Pope, a judge named Henry Lawrence, Anthony Orsatti--"

  Ernestine was staring at her with her mouth open. "Jesus H. Christ! You puttin' me on, girl?"

  Tracy was surprised. "You've heard of them?"

  "Heard of 'em! Who hasn't heard of 'em? Nothin' goes down in New Or-fuckin'-leans unless Orsatti or Romano says so. You can't mess with them. They'll blow you away like smoke."

  Tracy said tonelessly, "They've already blown me away."

  Ernestine looked around to make sure they could not be overheard. "You're either crazy or you're the dumbest broad I've ever met. Talk about the untouchables!" She shook her head. "Forget about 'em. Fast!"

  "No. I can't. I have to break out of here. Can it be done?"

  Ernestine was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, she said, "We'll talk in the yard."

  They were in the yard, off in a corner by themselves.

  "There've been twelve bust-outs from this joint," Ernestine said. "Two of the prisoners were shot and killed. The other ten were caught and brought back." Tracy made no comment. "The tower's manned twenty-four hours by guards with machine guns, and they're mean sons of bitches. If anyone escapes, it costs the guards their jobs, so they'd just as soon kill you as look at you. There's barbed wire all around the prison, and if you get through that and past the machine guns, they got hound dogs that can track a mosquito's fart. There's a Na tional Guard station a few miles away, and when a prisoner escapes from here they send up helicopters with guns and searchlights. Nobody gives a shit if they bring you back dead or alive, girl. They figure dead is better. It discourages anyone else with plans."

  "But people still try," Tracy said stubbornly.

  "The ones who broke out had help from the outside--friends who smuggled in guns and money and clothes. They had getaway cars waitin' for 'em." She paused for effect. "And they still got caught."

  "They won't catch me," Tracy swore.

  A matron was approaching. She called out to Tracy, "Warden Brannigan wants you. On the double."

  "We need someone to take care of our young daughter," Warden Brannigan said. "It's a voluntary job. You don't have to take it if you don't wish to."

  Someone to take care of our young daughter. Tracy's mind was racing. This might make her escape easier. Working in the warden's house, she could probably learn a great deal more about the prison setup.

  "Yes," Tracy said. "I'd like to take the job."

  George Brannigan was pleased. He had an odd, unreasonable feeling that he owed this woman something. "Good. It pays sixty cents an hour. The money will be put in your account at the end of each month."

  Prisoners were not allowed to handle cash, and all monies accumulated were handed over upon the prisoner's release.

  I won't be here at the end of the month, Tracy thought, but aloud she said, "That will be fine."

  "You can start in the morning. The head matron will give you the details."

  "Thank you, Warden."

  He looked at Tracy and was tempted to say something more. He was not quite sure what. Instead, he said, "That's all."

  When Tracy broke the news to Ernestine, the black woman said thoughtfully, "That means they gonna make you a trusty. You'll get the run of the prison. That might make bustin' out a little easier."

  "How do I do it?" Tracy asked.

  "You got three choices, but they're all risky. The first way is a sneak-out. You use chewin' gum one night to jam the locks on your cell door and the corridor doors. You sneak outside to the yard, throw a blanket over the barbed wire, and you're off and runnin'."

  With dogs and helicopters after her. Tracy could feel the bullets from the guns of the guards tearing into her. She shuddered. "What are the other ways?"

  "The second way's a breakout. That's where you use a gun and take a hostage with you. If they catch you, they'll give you a deuce with a nickel tail." She saw Tracy's puzzled expression. "That's another two to five years on your sentence."

  "And the third way?"

  "A walkaway. That's for trusties who are out on a work detail. Once you're out in the open, girl, you jest keep movin'."

  Tracy thought about that. Without money and a car and a place to hide out, she would have no chance. "They'd find out I was gone at the next head count and come looking for me."

  Ernestine sighed. "There ain't no perfect escape plan, girl. That's why no one's ever made it outta this place."

  I will, Tracy vowed. I will.

  The morning Tracy was taken to Warden Brannigan's home marked her fifth month as a prisoner. She was nervous about meeting the warden's wife and child, for she wanted this job desperately. It was going to be her key to freedom.

  Tracy walked into the large, pleasant kitchen and sat down. She could feel the perspiration bead and roll down from her underarms. A woman clad in a muted rose-colored housecoat appeared in the doorway.

  She said, "Good morning."

  "Good morning."

  The woman started to sit, changed her mind, and stood.
Sue Ellen Brannigan was a pleasant-faced blonde in her middle thirties, with a vague, distracted manner. She was thin and hyper, never quite sure how to treat the convict servants. Should she thank them for doing their jobs, or just give them orders? Should she be friendly, or treat them like prisoners? Sue Ellen still had not gotten used to the idea of living in the midst of drug addicts and thieves and killers.

  "I'm Mrs. Brannigan," she rattled on. "Amy is almost five years old, and you know how active they are at that age. I'm afraid she has to be watched all the time." She glanced at Tracy's left hand. There was no wedding ring there, but these days, of course, that meant nothing. Particularly with the lower classes, Sue Ellen thought. She paused and asked delicately, "Do you have children?"

  Tracy thought of her unborn baby. "No."

  "I see." Sue Ellen was confused by this young woman. She was not at all what she had expected. There was something almost elegant about her. "I'll bring Amy in." She hurried out of the room.

  Tracy looked around. It was a fairly large cottage, neat and attractively furnished. It seemed to Tracy that it had been years since she had been in anyone's home. That was all part of the other world, the world outside.

  Sue Ellen came back into the room holding the hand of a young girl. "Amy, this is--" Did one call a prisoner by her first or last name? She compromised. "This is Tracy Whitney."

  "Hi," Amy said. She had her mother's thinness and deep-set, intelligent hazel eyes. She was not a pretty child, but there was an open friendliness about her that was touching.

  I won't let her touch me.

  "Are you going to be my new nanny?"

  "Well, I'm going to help your mother look after you."

  "Judy went out on parole, did you know that? Are you going out on parole, too?"

  No, Tracy thought. She said, "I'm going to be here for a long while, Amy."

  "That's good," Sue Ellen said brightly. She colored in embarrassment and bit her lip. "I mean--" She whirled around the kitchen and started explaining Tracy's duties to her. "You'll have your meals with Amy. You can prepare breakfast for her and play with her in the morning. The cook will make lunch here. After lunch, Amy has a nap, and in the afternoon she likes walking around the grounds of the farm. I think it's so good for a child to see growing things, don't you?"