Chapter 4
THE NEXT MORNING I HAD BREAKFAST WITH Warden Baker and his wife. Stella and I exchanged distant glances. Our bargain was more or less sealed by the silence with which both of us avoided being unpleasant. I looked for some sign of suspicion in Warden Baker's face and voice, but could find none.
After breakfast I walked with him to the dispensary. It was a small building set apart from the other buildings. It, too, was made of the same gray, dismal stone that characterized the rest of the prison. The interior had been made a little more pleasant by flowers that grew in the prison greenhouse. When Warden Baker took me inside we were greeted by an older man who looked up from a desk in the corner.
"Mary ... I'd like you to meet Dr. Hawkins," Warden Baker said.
The older man rose and came toward me, extending his hand. His sly, dark eyes twinkled, and I thought I noticed a weary relief in them.
"I've been praying for somebody," he said, smiling at me and pumping my hand up and down. "I didn't know they were, going to send me an angel, though."
I smiled back. "I'm glad to meet you, doctor," I said. "I hope I don't disappoint you."
"No chance of that, Mary," Warden Baker said, amiably. "We don't have anything major to contend with here. If anything is really wrong with one of the men, we send him along to the hospital in Pleasanton. That right, Henry?"
Dr. Henry Hawkins screwed up his face into a mock frown. "You make me sound like a horse doctor, Ben." Then he grinned at me. "He's about right, though. Most of our ailments here are of the gold-bricking variety. The men can think up a dozen reasons a minute for getting out of a little work. You'd think this was the Army."
Warden Baker laughed and touched me on the arm. I'll leave you in Henry's hands now, Mary. I'm sure you'll feel right at home before the day is out. See you for lunch."
He waved good-bye to both of us and lumbered away on his lame foot. When he was gone, Dr. Hawkins offered me a chair.
"Might as well relax. The men won't be coming in for a half-hour yet. There's plenty of time to show you some of the ropes. Want some coffee?"
I nodded my thanks and he poured a cup for me and one for himself from a little burner on one of the tables.
"Ben was right when he said we got nothing major to treat. Cuts, bruises, headaches-nothing much worse than that. Suppose that's why the state figures they can trust this place to a broken-down practioner like me-and one nurse, course."
He looked at me shrewdly before he put my coffee cup down. He sighed. "One thing I'll say the men will certainly be glad to see you here. The nurse before you ... well ... she wasn't so much to look at. We got along fine, but if you've ever seen a grizzly bear with a toothache, that was her. Nurse Jenkins. The boys always had a time with her." He stirred his coffee and took a loud sip from it. He looked at me again. "Now with you it might be a different kind of problem."
I shrugged. "I plan to be a good nurse," I said.
He played around with the little silence that followed. Then he nodded. "That's fine. Of course, I've been reading your records. You've had good training and you graduated right near the top. But it is your first job; and this is a prison, and not a regular hospital. Men like we have here can be ... well, something besides gentlemen, if they take a notion."
I waited for the warning.
"Not that you won't find young men just like them on the outside, you understand," he continued. "Some of these men here just had a little bad luck. All kinds of reasons for locking a man up. Some of them may deserve it-undoubtedly do-and some of them are just victims of circumstances. Anyway, it's best to treat them with respect, and they'll do the same for you. But I wouldn't advise giving any one of them what's commonly called 'the eye.'"
"Don't worry," I said, calmly.
"Men locked up ... away from women like this ... can sometimes imagine things. You give one of them the eye and...."
"Doctor, I can assure you that I know all about men. And I didn't come here to flirt with them. I came here to be a nurse, and that's what I intend to be."
He looked at me steadily for a few more seconds, nodded, and raised the coffee cup to his lips for another healthy swallow. He smacked his lips and nodded, letting a little half-grin twist his lips upward. "Good. As long as we understand each other, Miss Gray, then we'll get along just fine. And by the same token, if any of the men get out of line with you, just let me know. I can promise you, they won't do it again."
"I'll remember that," I promised.
In the next hour Dr. Hawkins showed me the entire working procedure in the dispensary. It was a small, compact place. There were five beds and a well-stocked drug cabinet which was kept locked when not in use. He showed me where the medical instruments were kept and the sterilization trays. Despite his rather shaggy-dog appearance and the smelly pipe he insisted on keeping clamped between his teeth when he wasn't drinking the black, strong coffee, the dispensary had a very disciplined and well-ordered air about it. Every throat swab and roll of bandage was neatly in place.
By the time the first man on the sick list arrived, I was thoroughly familiar with the arrangement of things.
The first patient was a lanky young man of medium height, with shifting eyes and a loose, uncertain smile. His hand had been injured in the prison laundry a week before, and Dr. Hawkins had been paying careful attention to it, to prevent any kind of infection from developing.
I busied myself with the files while the doctor took care of our first patient of the day. Once or twice I glanced at the young man and he dropped his eyes quickly as if I might scream if he so much as acknowledged my presence. The doctor didn't bother to introduce us, and I considered that was the routine that would be followed throughout the day.
A few more men came in, with various kinds of ailments. Most of them had a legitimate excuse for arriving, but some of them were obviously the "gold-brickers" about whom the doctor had warned me. One or two of them had obviously just come in to look over the new nurse.
Dr. Hawkins sighed after one of these spectators had ambled out, after casing a hot wink in my direction and behind the doctor's back. "Well, I guess the word is out. We may have more patients than we can handle in the morning. They'll all have to have a look at you. But things will settle down."
About the middle of the morning, the phone rang and Dr. Hawkins conferred at some length with someone on the other end of the line. When he hung the receiver up he took off his smock and raked his battered old hat off the rack by the door.
"Got to do a little errand for the Warden," he said, looking at me carefully. "Think you can handle the office for a few minutes?"
I smiled. "Anything short of an appendectomy." I said.
He laughed. "Good girl. And remember what I said. Any of these monkeys get fresh with you, just remind them that they're still behind bars-and--likely to remain so if they don't behave."
I nodded. "I don't think I'll have any trouble."
When he was gone I was exultant, I felt that I had passed the first part of my test well enough. At least the doctor trusted me enough to leave me alone in the dispensary. Maybe that in itself was a test. I wondered if he might not be around behind the place watching me through a peephole to make sure that I was not the Mata Hari in white that some people would expect of a young woman who deliberately put herself inside a prison-in a sense well within reach of four hundred virile men.
Well, if he was looking, he would soon learn that my ambitions were strictly professional.
And then I wondered what I would do if Joe walked through the door in the next few minutes. If I was being tested-and the possibility was a real one-would I be able to carry off my nursely detachment with any kind of conviction. I was already trembling.
And then I remembered what I had seen Joe doing with Stella Baker.
To hate him for that was absurd. It wasn't his fault. It was that woman's. She deliberately set herself up as a tempting morsel for him.
I couldn't blame Joe for his weakness. He had already demonstrated that he was easy prey for women like that. It wasn't my job to condemn him, but to love him.
Dr. Hawkins had been gone only a few moments when the door opened, and a guard came in.
It was Monk.
He had the same sullen expression of the day before. When he saw me he nodded curtly and pulled off his cap. I was startled to see that his head was shaved, right down to the skin. It made him look not only sullen but vicious-like one of those ugly Nazi guards I had seen pictures of when I was in high school: brutal men who thought nothing of human life, and enjoyed inflicting pain on those poor creatures under them.
"Where's the doc," he snapped, his eyes inching over my face with cold calculation.
"He stepped out for a few minutes. I'm in charge while he's gone. May I help you?"
A small, almost scornful, laugh echoed in his throat. "You set yourself right up, eh?" he breathed.
I stared at him. Guard or no guard, I wasn't in prison-and I didn't like the tone of his voice.
"I beg your pardon," I snapped.
"Okay, okay," he breathed, edging off a little at the tone of my voice. "I just wanted to see the doc. One of the boys had a little accident."
"Maybe I can help."
"Sure you can-if you know how to bring a dead man back alive." His lips curled in a sneer. "When I said an accident, I guess I didn't make myself right clear. This guy's head has been bashed in."
"How ... how did it happen."
"Tried to escape-the ass! I had to stop him."
"You mean...."
"For a nurse you catch on real fast. But you look a little pale. You got to learn to stomach things like this, sister, if you intend to stay sane around here."
At that moment I hated him even more for his insolence. "Well, I'm sure when the doctor returns he will know what...."
"The doc knows all about it. That's what the telephone call was all about."
I stared at him. "Then why didn't he tell me."
"Figured your first day on the job was enough of a shock, I guess. Maybe he didn't think you were ready for the sight of blood."
"I've seen plenty of blood. And I've seen plenty of accidents."
"Don't blame me, sister. I just follow orders."
I felt my cheeks flaming with embarrassment and humiliation. I felt cheated that the doctor hadn't considered me ready for something like this. I stared up again at the loose, sullen grin that was spread over Monk's face.
"When you came in here, you asked if the doctor was in. If you knew where he was, then why did you pretend you didn't."
"Just a little joke, just having a little fun. You like fun, don't you?"
"I don't call that fun."
He smiled thickly. "What do you nurses call fun?" His eyes ran quickly over my breasts, pointedly studying them, then whipped down to my hips and back up again. He took a step or two toward me, and stopped. He leaned casually back on the desk and folded his arms, that grin frozen on his lips.
"I got Wednesday night off-and the weekends," he said. There's a couple of nice bars in Pleasanton we could have a couple drinks, dance a little, then...."
"No, thanks."
He eyed me carefully. "Gonna get awful lonesome living with the Warden and his wife."
"I'll keep occupied."
"Not with the boys, you won't."
I glared at him. "I think you'd better leave," I said, coldly.
He glared again. "Just a little fair warning," he breathed. "You touch one of them boys ... or let them touch you ... and you'll be out on your cute little fanny, baby."
"How dare you talk to me like that!"
"C'mon, knock it off, sweetheart. You think I don't know why you took on a job like this. The whole prison is buzzing with it. They figure you for a pushover. It's just a matter of finding the right time and place. So I'm warning you...."
"I suggest you take your own advice," I yelled. "I'm sure the Warden would love to know about you and Stella."
He shot up off the desk, his arms banging down at his sides. His eyes threw cold fire at me. "What the hell are you talking about?" he demanded.
"You know what. Stella told me all about you."
"That damned little bitch...."
"And I promised to keep quiet about it-for my own reasons-but push me too far and...."
"Reasons? What reasons?" His eyes changed to a hard challenge. "Why the hell should you protect me-unless you got something to hide yourself!"
"I don't have anything to...."
"I think you do, baby." He took another step toward me, his mouth loosening into a slack grin. "Level with me," he husked. "Maybe if you help me, I'll help you. I throw a lot of weight around this place."
"I don't want your help," I stammered, backing away. I didn't like the look on Monk's face-and coming toward me the way he was, he suddenly looked gigantic. The uniform, the gun, the thickness of his shoulders made my blood ice with fear.
He grinned, searching my face. "You don't have a boy friend or something, do you?"
"No, I...."
He laughed, cutting my words off short.
"You do ... yeah ... I can see it in your eyes. A boy friend. Say, you work fast, eh? Which one of the cruds is the lucky one? You can tell me."
"Keep away from me, Monk," I breathed.
But he didn't. He came toward me with the swagger of a bully. His grin was more sensual now, as if the idea of my having a lover had tapped some depraved reservoir of lust deep inside him.
"I had you figured right the first time I laid eyes on you," he muttered. "All that priss act is just covering up what you really want-right?"
I had backed against the filing cabinet. I made a move to escape, but his arm flashed out and caught me in a tight grip. He pushed me back hard against the cabinet and shoved his body flush against mine.
"Don't get me wrong, sweetheart," he whispered, his breath strong against my cheek. "I don't care if you service one of the guys ... or all of them. But don't forget who carries the whip around here. You gotta be extra nice to me!"
His hand pushed my arm back. Before I could struggle, his other hand found my breast and cupped it, feeling hungrily for a nipple.
"Nice," he grunted. "Real nice stuff, baby. And I'm just the guy to make you good and satisfied."
My breath jerked in my throat. "The warden," I gasped. "I'll tell the warden...."
"Tell him what, honey? That you and one of the prisoners are screwing yourselves silly right under his nose? Don't be a damned fool! We can both have our little fun ... right down the line!"
His mouth sought mine. I screamed as his lips crushed hungrily against my twisting throat.
It was as close as he got before the door was wrenched open, and footsteps pounded across the floor. Strong hands grabbed Monk and swirled him around.
Stunned, I watched Joe slam Monk hard against the wall and slap him brutally across the face. Then he shoved Monk angrily toward the door.
His face flushed from the attack, Monk roared like a wounded bear. He swung the rifle up and leveled it at Joe's chest. Joe didn't flinch. He just stood his ground with a sneer on his lips.
"You goddamned bastard," Monk shouted. "I oughta kill you for that!"
I found my voice and took a step forward. "You'll have to shoot us both!" I cried.
Joe glanced at me and our eyes locked briefly. It was really the first time for us to meet, discounting that terrible scene yesterday with Stella Baker.
"Don't worry, Mary," Joe breathed, confidently. "He's not going to shoot anybody-are you, worm?".
"Don't crowd me, Phillips. I could blow your head off right now, dammit!"
Joe smiled. "You could-but you won't. You're hanging by a thin thread right now, Monk. After this morning-after what you're going to try to convince the Warden was an accident with that poor slob-you don't want any more stink."
"I'm warning you, Phillips! You and me are going to get together one of these days...."
"Sooner than you think, Monk. Only when we do, the odds are going to be a little better. You're not going to be crawling around behind that rifle."
Monk muttered a curse low on his breath and turned to go. Then he turned and shot dark looks at both of us. A small, scornful grin etched the corners of his mouth.
"So this is the guy who's getting into your pants," Monk sneered. "Well, take my advice, doll, and don't waste your time. This jerk is going to be behind these walls all his stupid life."
"I wouldn't count on that too much, Monk," Joe breathed.
Monk laughed throatily. "We'll see, punk. We'll see about that."
Monk lumbered to the door and banged it shut behind him.
I looked at Joe ... and then we came together in each other's arms.