Loose Lips (eBook)

Prologue II

Miles away from New Orleans and years away from freedom, another would-be assassin was anxious to make his first kill. Lorenzo could not sleep. He tried to relax in his bunk and think of the mission he was assigned. He still had a few hours left before the window of opportunity would close and the corrections officer would be doing the morning count.

Lorenzo was only nineteen when the Feds indicted him for armed robbery and kidnapping. He was a rebellious teen, a street kid on the wrong path. Six years later, at twenty-five years of age, he was still doing hard time. He was young but had the ice cold look that could only be acquired from years of hard time. His freshly twisted dred locks hung down to his shoulders. His body was ripped and tattooed. For seventy-two months his body had reaped the rewards of many hours of crunches, pull-ups and push-ups. He had started robbing drug dealers because he had always thought of himself as a hero, a Robin Hood of some sort. “Steal from the rich and give to the poor,” he would always say. Extreme efforts to live up to his motto had cost him his freedom. And on that very night those same efforts and plenty of heart was what the mission required.

Lorenzo had checked his commissary account twice before nine o’clock count. The last of ten postal money orders had been posted to his account. His balance was two thousand five hundred dollars which was half of his payment. The other half had already been received by his son’s mother. Now there could be no turning back, he thought. A deal is a deal.

It was a calm and quiet February morning in the prison, but Lorenzo still lay awake in his bunk at two o’clock. The previous night was Super bowl Sunday. The kind of night when many of the inmates stayed up late to drink homemade wine called “Hooch”, smoke weed and gamble. The Super bowl celebration had ended and all but a few of the inmates were asleep. The dormitory was an open dorm. There were no doors to restrict or confine the movements of the inmates within the unit. The growling of snoring men and the occasional moans of the homosexual lovers were all that could be heard throughout the unit. Lorenzo sat up in his bunk with a make-shift prison knife called a shank. The shank was cut from a clear acrylic sheet of Plexiglas that had been shaped and sharpened. A rag was wrapped and secured at its base to form a handle. It was a crude but deadly weapon in the hands of a determined killer. Lorenzo was determined. Lorenzo was a killer. He eased off of his bunk and creeped out of the six man cubicle. He was dressed in his tan prison uniform and boots. As he walked out of the cubicle he saw Evil Lynn saunter out of the shower area with a towel wrapped around his body. Evil Lynn was Snowman’s bitch. Snowman never allowed Evil Lynn to shower alone for fear that he might let another man enjoy sexual favors. Lorenzo eased back into the cubicle and waited. This was going to be easier than he had thought. Snowman was still in the shower. Once Evil Lynn was out of sight Lorenzo made his way to the shower area. He was light on his feet. His movements were sharp, smooth and calculated like a Ninja or an Indian scout. Prison life had trained him to be silent and invisible.

Snowman stood under the showerhead and let the hot water run over his body. He enjoyed taking showers. A jailhouse shower felt the same as a free world shower. He had just finished getting his back scrubbed and his dick waxed by his lover Evil Lynn. He cared a lot for his prison princess. The bitch looked like Jennifer Lopez and gave the best blow job he had ever had inside or outside of prison. It was going to hurt him a little when the time came for him to roll out next week. He was going to be released because he had made a deal with the Federal Prosecutor. He would be given freedom in return for his testimony. All he had to do was wear a wire to set up two of his associates; one in Texas, the other in New Orleans. He did not mind being labeled as a snitch. That’s the way the game goes, he thought. Get down on them before they get down on you. He wished that he had some other guys to give to the Feds because both of the guys were connections that had helped him obtain more wealth than he could have imagined possible. He only had sixty months left to serve on a crack cocaine conviction. That was too much time for a player like him. The sentence was sixty months more than he wanted to spend behind prison walls. He would do what he had to do when the time came but at that moment he needed to relax, so he closed his eyes, put his head under the warm water and fantasized about the fun and freedom that he would enjoy as a free man in New Orleans.

Lorenzo crept quietly into an empty shower stall. He removed all of his clothing and exited the shower enclosure with nothing but the tools that were needed to accomplish the hit; his shank and his wits. It was dark inside the shower area. After lights out the area relied on a night light in the connecting restrooms. The showers were officially closed after nine o’clock, but the corrections officer on duty did not mind if the inmates took late night showers after lights out. Lorenzo’s night vision was good. He could see over the shower door. Snowman was standing with his head under the running water. Lorenzo knew that he had to move fast while the element of surprise was still in his favor. The blade clutched firmly in his right hand, he eased the door open with his left. He seemed to have the speed of a panther and the strength of a lion as he leaped into the shower stall. In his mind’s eye, Lorenzo could see every move beforehand. Like time had slowed only for him. He saw his left arm wrap around Snowman’s neck and pull him close while he repeatedly plunged the blade into his throat. Six years of suppressed rage and anger drove the force of the blade each time it tore into Snowman’s windpipe. Lorenzo felt the breath seep out of Snowman’s lifeless torso as he lowered him to the floor. He had finally earned his stripe. His kill.

Lorenzo was new to the killing game, but he wasn’t new to the game. He knew that he couldn’t leave prints on the murder weapon, so he grabbed a towel that was hanging on the shower door and wiped the blade and the tape that secured the rag wrapped handle before he dropped the shank next to Snowman’s corpse. He stood under the showerhead and let the water wash the blood off of his body. He stepped out of the shower, dried himself off and retrieved his clothing from the other shower stall. He dressed quickly and checked the area to ensure that no one would see him when he left. Nobody was in sight. With caution he went back to his cubicle. Except for the snoring men and the humming ice machine the dorm was quiet. Lorenzo undressed, jumped onto his bunk, slid under the wool blanket and waited. Soon it would be three o’clock. Count time.

Correction Officer Mike Marcel had just poured himself a hot cup of coffee. His hand shook as he held the hot brew. He hoped that the strong New Orleans blend would help to reverse the effects of all the beer he drank earlier at the super bowl party. The Pittsburgh Steelers played against the Arizona Cardinals. The Steelers won 27-23. What a shitty life, he thought as he sipped his coffee. He stood to stretch his legs. He was stiff from sleeping in the gray metal office chair. When he stood his head almost touched the ceiling. He was a huge man, over six feet tall and built like a professional wrestler. He was a powerhouse. Because of his uncanny resemblance to the horrifying character in the movie Halloween, the inmates nick-named him Michael Meyers. Mike sipped his coffee and waited for the duty officer, Lieutenant Jackson, to appear for the morning count. He stepped outside to take a smoke. He hated the fact that he could no longer smoke inside of the unit. Smoking was not allowed in federal prisons because some smart-assed inmate jailhouse lawyer filed a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons claiming that he had caught lung cancer from the secondhand smoke in the prison. Everybody still smoked inside of the unit at night when all the bigwigs were gone. “How’s everything Lieutenant?” Mike asked when he noticed that the duty officer had just walked up behind him.

“Been a peaceful night so far,” Lieutenant Jackson replied. “Yep, been pretty quiet.”

Mike took another drag off his cigarette. He blew out a large cloud of smoke and plucked the butt away. “I’m ready when you are, sir,” he said.

Lieutenant Woodrow Jackson rested his hands on his beer belly. He had broad shoulders and muscular arms. His body type was the kind that if you saw him from behind you could not tell how big his stomach was. He brushed some imaginary lint off his neatly pressed shirt. “Let’s do this,” he said.

C.O. Marcel and Lt. Jackson went into the unit. The Lieutenant entered first while Officer Marcel trailed closely behind. “You check the top floor’s shower and restroom area and I’ll get the ones down here,” the Lieutenant said.

Mike made his way up the stairs to check the upstairs showers and restrooms. He checked each toilet enclosure and shower stall carefully. The area was clear. “Everything clear here, sir,” he said into his radio.

Lieutenant Jackson, a Vietnam War Army Veteran, prided himself in the fact that he paid attention to details. He did everything by the book. He checked the toilet stalls first. He walked to the rear of the restroom, did a left-face and slowly pushed open the door to the toilet...