"Mistaken Identity" - читать интересную книгу автора (Scottoline Lisa)

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Alice Connolly lay on the thin bed in her cell. No inmate stayed in her cell during unrestricted time unless she was doing something she didn’t want the guards to see or was doing something with the guards she didn’t want anyone else to see, but Alice spent all her time alone in her cell. She had laid down the law with her white-trash cellie, Diane. Stay the fuck out. Diane had gone along. She was only twenty-three, but looked fifty because of the crack. Pipers looked like they were born at fifty.

Alice squirmed to get comfortable in the bed. The cell, of gray cinderblock, contained a stainless steel sink and over it a plastic mirror the size of a tabloid. A skinny Formica ledge built into the wall was supposed to be a desk, with a beat-up stool bolted to the floor next to the stainless toilet bowl. The bowl had no lid and the cell stank all the time. Alice didn’t turn away from the toilet; it wouldn’t do any good. She lay in the uncomfortable bed and stared at the blank wall opposite her.

Alice kept no personal articles in her cell, unlike most inmates. No pictures of boyfriends with beer cans in their hands or school photos of kids in front of a fake blue sky. The latest fad in the house was magazine pages folded into an accordion fan. The women set them in pencil holders like goddamn flowers, trying to make the shithole a home. Christ. Alice didn’t see the point. Ever since the day they handed her her blues and showed her the cell, she had spent every minute of every day thinking of a way out. She’d be convicted for sure. She wasn’t about to go to trial and let Pennsylvania plug her full of joy juice.

So from day one, Alice became the model inmate. Scrubbed the kitchen floor, scraped scum off the shower stalls, taught computer. Tried to find anywhere she could slip out, any way. Connected with the gang leaders, the do-rags and the spics, trying to learn what she could. Even tapped her little wetback mule, Valencia, for information. But in a year Alice had gotten nowhere. Her trial was around the corner.

And then it had fallen into her lap. The only bit of luck in her life. It happened the day the guard knocked on her cell door and told her somebody named William Winslow had come for a visit.

I don’t know any Winslow, Alice had said, but she was curious. She’d changed into the ugly orange jumpsuit after the pat-down, gotten the plastic bracelet with the bar code on it, and gone down to the visiting room. It was a large room, with steel chairs facing each other in groups of four, and the seats were full. Families yapped and boyfriends copped feels under the NO KISSING sign. Sitting by himself was an old man who looked like a scarecrow. He was tall and thin and his head dipped forward like his neck was stuffed with hay. He wore a tweed sportjacket with a flannel shirt and a brown felt hat that he tugged off when he spotted Alice.

This old coot was her visitor? Alice had almost laughed out loud. She went over and sat down opposite him. The man kept clearing his throat, but he couldn’t seem to get a word out. Up close his face was thick with tan and wrinkles. Alice asked him who he was and why was he here. Then he’d told her she was his little girl. He said he’d given her up for adoption.

What the fuck are you talking about? she’d said. She wasn’t adopted, not that she knew, but her parents were too dead to ask. Not that they’d been the greatest parents anyway, even when they were alive.

This is you, as a baby, the scarecrow had said. Holding a black-and-white photo in a shaking hand.

Fine. Whatever. He was a geezer, maybe he was senile. She took the photo, of a fat baby with round eyes. It looked like every baby in the world. Alice handed him back his picture and told him to get fucked. He’d been in the cornfield way too long. But from then on, Bill kept coming back to visit, once a month for about six months. The guards kidded her that she had a groupie, it happened all the time. Crazy johns who liked bad girls, bringing them shit. Some of the shit they made, like the young Jamaican who brought Diane little boxes with pictures pasted on them. Others brought money.

Winslow never offered Alice money, but she took his visit most months, figuring he could be used down the line. Everybody could be used somehow, even a wacko. He always asked about her defense, frowning every time Alice said her lawyer sucked. She noticed his reaction and worked it, playing him to get her a new lawyer. Then, the other day, the old man dropped the bombshell: You’re a twin, Alice. Your twin sister is the best lawyer in the city. She knows all about the police. It’s time for you to call her. Show her this.

Fuckin’ Bill. He’d held out an envelope. Alice took one look at the stuff inside and felt like she won the lottery. She didn’t care if it was true or if the coot was just plain crazy. Alice could spin this straw into gold. It was her ticket out. Only one thing she didn’t understand: Why the fuck didn’t you tell me before? I been rotting in the shithole for a year. I coulda called Rosato a long time ago!

The scarecrow was startled at her sudden anger, clenching and unclenching the brim of the hat hanging in his hands. I thought you’d be okay, Alice. I thought you had a good lawyer. Now I know you need Bennie.

Alice shifted her weight in the sagging bed. What a joke. Bennie Rosato, famed hotshit lawyer, was her twin? So what? She didn’t know if Rosato was her twin and she didn’t give a fuck, just so she got off. But Alice had to convince Rosato they were twins, so she got busy. Read the newspapers and memorized the articles about Rosato and her cases. Cruised the Internet to see if Rosato’s firm had a website, and when she found it, saw how the lawyer looked and dressed. Started eating to pack on the pounds and decided to grow her hair in like Rosato’s. Even watched the TV news and COURT-TV, so she could imitate Rosato’s voice.

Alice became a twin expert, too. Crammed like her life depended on it, since it did. Logged onto the Net, researching books and webpages about twins, so she could pick up a few details to sell Rosato the story. Studied the medical angle and picked up the memories from the womb, for fuck’s sake. Alice hadn’t had much time and learned what she could in a few days. She almost became convinced of it herself. Maybe she was adopted. Maybe she really was a twin. It would explain some things, like how she didn’t like being alone. And how she never thought she looked like her parents. They were so different from her. Boring. Stupid. Losers.

Alice got herself psyched to meet Rosato. She knew she was ready the night the lawyer came on the news. Just one quick shot of Rosato and a do-rag watching TV had called out, She look like you, Alice.

She sure do, Alice had thought to herself. She’d called Rosato the next morning and the lawyer had come running. Their meeting hadn’t gone that well, but Rosato would come back. The lawyer was confused, but she’d get past that. She’d be curious about Alice. About herself.

Alice’s thoughts were interrupted by a chubby figure in blues scuffling down the hall. Valencia Mendoza arrived at the door and stuck her head inside the cell. Long, thick curls framed features smoothed by excess fat and thick makeup. Alice sat up in bed with a loud sigh. “What do you want?” she asked, as Valencia’s cheap perfume filled the cell. It overpowered the stench of the toilet, but Alice wasn’t sure she preferred it.

“I don’t want nothin’,” Valencia answered, in her baby voice.

“Then why are you here?”

“I worryin’.”

“I don’t have time for your worrying.” What a pain in the ass this spic was. They made good workers, used to taking orders, but they could be such a goddamn pain. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“I no hear my Santo for a week,” Valencia said, anxious. “My mother, she call every week says how he is. She put him on the phone. She no call this week. Somethin’s wrong.”

“Santo is fine. Your mother got her money yesterday.” Alice paused, double-checking in her mind. It was hard to keep track of the payments without the laptop, but nobody was giving out Powerbooks to prison inmates. It was cruel and unusual. “Santo is fine.”

“She got de money yesterday? Why she didn’t call?”

“I don’t know, Valencia. I don’t know your mother. Maybe she met somebody.”

Valencia’s black-lined eyelids fluttered briefly. “Santo, he had ’nother ear ’fection, las’ time I talk to her. Doctor say he get one more ear ’fection, he need tubes. Tha’s ’spensive.”

“You shakin’ me down, Valencia?” Alice’s eyes narrowed, and Valencia’s crimson nails flew to the blue plastic rosary she wore around her neck.

“No, no, Alice. No. Not me.”

“It’s not like you. I thought you were a good girl,” Alice said, eyeing her employee. Valencia was the girlfriend of one of the bantamweights, and Alice had recruited her right away. Valencia was smarter than most of them, timely on the pickups, and always did what she was told. Then she got pregnant and it ruined her. She’d stuck powder in Santo’s diaper and got busted. Oldest trick in the book.

“I am good,” Valencia said. “I no shake you down. Never. Not me.”

“Your mother gets her money every week, if you stay quiet. That’s the deal. You know the deal, even though you’re not so good with de English?”

“Right.”

“Right, what?”

“Jes, I know the deal.” Valencia nodded. “I swear.”

“Ain’t nothing else in the deal. No tubes, nothin’.” Alice stood up, put a hand on Valencia’s soft shoulder, and squeezed. “As soon as you stop being a good girl, I stop the money. What happens to Santo then? Huh, Valencia?”

“I don’ say nothin’.” Valencia’s eyebrows sloped downward. They were so heavily penciled it looked like a kid scribbled outside of the lines. Same with her lipstick, the color of cherry Jell-O, crayoned on puffy lips.

“You love Santo, don’t you?” Alice dug strong fingers into Valencia’s shoulder.

“O’ course I love my Santo. He my baby. I don’ say nothin’.”

“Miguel’s not gonna take care of Santo, is he? Not on the fights he gets. Hell, he won’t even marry you. Now will he?” Valencia’s brown eyes welled up, and Alice felt disgusted. “Will he, Valencia?”

“No,” she answered, almost a whisper.

“Who takes care of Santo, Valencia?”

“You do.”

“That’s right. I do. Remember that.” Alice released her grip. “Quit crying. If the baby needs tubes, he’ll get tubes. From me. You hear?”

“Jes.” Valencia’s lower lip trembled and a tear rolled down her cheek.

“What you gotta do, Valencia? Do you know?”

“I know.”

“You gotta shut up. You gotta shut the fuck up.”

“I shut the fuck up,” Valencia repeated, bursting into tears, and Alice smiled grimly. Valencia was definitely a loose end. And Alice couldn’t afford a loose end anymore.