Framed by Lynda La Plante Read Free Book Online Page B

hygiene. In his present situation he knew it would be a mistake to think ahead: it would erode his confidence in his own ability to survive the intentions of lesser people.
What he must do, first and foremost, was cling to his sense of himself. He must remain secure in the understanding that he was above matters of simple confinement. Liberty was his medium, he would gravitate to freedom because his karma was in balance. His fundamental condition could not be withheld from him for long, because such a denial went against nature.
It was hard though. The smells were like a fog seeping into his head, clouding his certainty. The filthiness of the cell was disheartening, and there was not one pleasant thing to look at. He closed his eyes tightly, making his breathing slow and shallow. He concentrated fiercely, remembering the primary code for those who would survive and prevail; he saw it printed in silver letters against the darkness of his eyelids:

    cling tightly to your personhood, your dignity, your sense of self.

Sense of self was hardest. In here, kept forcibly from all he loved and craved, it felt like old times, very old times, back in the days when he was the person they were calling him now, Eddie Myers. Those were the hardest days, days of spiritual darkness. They were gone. He was Philip Von Joel, that was his sole identity, his fresh incarnation.

He was a man of substance insulated from the world by deep, tight layers of culture and wealth. All former personas were dead and of no significance.
He closed his eyes tighter as the smell of excrement rose in a dank wave from the gurgling drunk behind him.
1 am Philip Von Joel and 1 do not belong in this place. . . .
The addict grunted sharply. Von Joel opened his eyes and saw him roll on his back, draw up his knees, then turn on his side again and vomit in a steaming gush on to the floor.
Von Joel jammed his eyes shut, trying not to breathe the stink. "Dignity." He hissed, "Sense of self . . ."
He told himself firmly, over and over, just who he was, and that he didn't belong in that place. He whispered his name and imagined his personhood protected by the force of his will.
The addict knelt up suddenly. His chest heaved, his wide eyes cavernous as empty sockets in the oblique light. He vomited again, spewing whatever he had left in his guts across and down his own skeleton chest. Von Joel watched the bloated insects biting, sucking, watched as the ants streamed over the puke, and swallowed, turning away. The stench was horrific, and the heat had to be way over a hundred and ten degrees. His whole body was drenched, his three-hundred-pound shirt dripping, the waistband of his tailored handmade trousers sopping. He could feel the perspiration trickle down from his neck over his belly, drip from his hair, slithering down his neck. He rested his head back against the brick wall, and then out of the corner of his eye he saw the fat cockroach crawling and inching its way along the wall toward him. He shut his eyes and his hands clenched together as he felt the insect moving onto his shoulder, but he made no move to swipe it away. As he felt its clawlike feet easing up his neck, he began to wait, timing it. Now it was crawling to his chin, positioned just below his lower lip. . . . He waited, could feel the cockroach easing onto his lip, and he suddenly snapped his mouth open, biting the creature into two sections, then he spat it out. He had decided if he killed three, his time was up, but only on the condition he did not move a single muscle but his mouth . . . three: two more to go.

Susan got back to the hotel at half-past eleven. By that time Larry was pacing the floor. He had come back after nine to find the boys tucked up in bed asleep and no clue as to where Susan might be. When she finally swept in, dressed up in her best, her makeup carefully overdone, it was evident she had drunk too much. She closed the door and leaned on it, grinning lopsidedly at Larry.

"Where