Suicide Hill Read Online Free Page B

suspicion by not leaving the bank and letting the beat cops do the fencing; but most were Twilight Zone material: prostitution rings of women prisoners bused around to construction sights, where they would dispense blowjobs to horny workers in exchange for sentence reductions; marijuana farms staffed by inmate “harvesters,” who would cultivate tons of weed and load it into the sheriffs helicopters that would drop it off into the backyards of high-ranking police “pushers”; porno films featuring male and female inmates, directed by Meyers himself, to be screened on the exclusive “all-cop” cable network he planned to set up.
    Meyers rambled on for three nights. Rice moved his plan up a day and started telling him about Vandy, about how she hadn’t written to him or visited him in weeks. Meyers sympathized, and mentioned that he was the one who made sure his photo of her wasn’t destroyed when the bulls choked him out. After thanking him for that, Rice made his pitch: Could he use the phone to make calls to get a line on her? Meyers said no and told him to write her name, date of birth, physical description and last known address on a piece of paper. Rice did it, then sat there gouging his fingernails into his palms to keep from hitting the dinged-out deputy.
    â€œI’ll handle it,” Gordon Meyers said. “I’ve got clout.”
    Over the next forty-eight hours Rice concentrated on not clouting the dings or the inanimate objects in the tank. He upped his push-up count to two thousand a day; he laid a barrage of brownnosing on the daywatch jailer, hoping for at least a phone call to Louie Calderon, who could probably be persuaded to check around for Vandy. He stayed away from Gordon Meyers, busying himself with long stints of pacing the catwalks. And then, just after midnight when the ding noise subsided, Meyers’ voice came over the tank’s P.A. system: “Duane Rice, roll it to the office. Your attorney is here.”
    Rice walked into the office, figuring Meyers was fried and wanted to bullshit. And there she was, dressed in pink cords and a kelly green sweater, an outfit he’d told her never to wear. “Told you I had clout,” Meyers said as he closed the door on them.
    Rice watched Vandy put her hands on her hips and pivot to face him, a seduction pose he’d devised for her lounge act. He was starting toward her when he caught his first glimpse of her face. His world crashed when he saw the hollows in her cheeks and the blue-black circles under her eyes. Strung out. He grabbed her and held her until she said, “Stop, Duane, that hurts.” Then he put his hands on her shoulders, pushed her out to arm’s length and whispered, “Why, babe? We had a good deal going.”
    Vandy twisted free of his grasp. “These cops came by the condo and told me you were really sick, so I came. Then your friend tells me you’re not really sick, you just wanted to see me. That’s not fair, Duane. I was going to taper off and be totally clean by the time you got out. It’s not fair, so don’t be mad at me.”
    Rice stared at the wall clock to avoid Vandy’s coke-stressed face. “Where have you been? Why haven’t you been to see me?”
    Vandy took her purse off Meyers’ desk and dug through it for cigarettes and a lighter. Rice watched her hands tremble as she lit up. Exhaling a lungful of smoke, she said, “I didn’t come to see you at camp because it was too depressing, and you know I hate to write.”
    Rice caught his hands shaking and jammed them into his pants pockets. “Yeah, but what have you been doing , besides sticking shit up your nose?”
    Vandy cocked one hip in his direction, another move he’d taught her. “Making friends. Cultivating the right people, like you told me I should do. Hanging out.”

    â€œFriends? You mean men ?”
    Vandy flushed, then said,