Insiders by Olivia Goldsmith Read Free Book Online Page A

we could do for Suki. I think Suki made us all better women.
    â€˜Damn right I took ‘em,’ Cher said proudly. ‘When I saw that those shoes were a size eight, I took that for a sign.’ Cher lived by signs and omens like Theresa lived by sayings. ‘My parole date is comin’ up, and I figure those pointy shoes were pointing directly to my getting outta here.’
    â€˜Girl,’ I said with a sigh, ‘you can’t just keep stealin’. You’re gonna get caught, lose your chance at parole and damn it, it’s wrong.’
    â€˜You know what they say about stealing, don’t you?’ Theresa chimed in. ‘They say that God helps those that help themselves. That’s what they say about stealing.’
    I was never sure with Theresa if she meant to support me or sass me when she said somethin’ like that.
    â€˜That’s not what God meant,’ Suki protested. ‘God said, “Thou shalt not steal.”’
    â€˜NBD – No Big Deal – I haven’t stolen from God since I used to swipe money out of the collection plate at Sunday school,’ Cher laughed. ‘And I never take nothin’ from people who can’t spare it. Won’t steal from the simple minded, neither,’ she added.
    Cher was a thief and she didn’t mind saying so. She didn’t see anything wrong with what she did. What was wrong to Cher was that everyone else had more than she did, and the only way to make up the difference was for her to take what she needed. That’s what she’d done to get herself incarcerated and what she did every time a new inmate was processed into Jennings. She just put the things shedidn’t want into a bag with the new inmate’s name and number on it, and she put the good stuff into another bag with a different name and number. No one would ever reclaim the second bag, because the name and number on that bag belonged to a dead or released inmate. Cher had perfected the system, and now had plenty of bags hidden right out in plain sight.
    â€˜What was she wearing?’ Theresa wanted to know.
    â€˜Armani!’ Cher giggled. ‘I’ve never managed to steal Armani before. It’s so damned expensive that the stores usually have it wired to the rack.’
    â€˜Well, I don’t think 71036 ever had to steal anything,’ Suki said. ‘It said in the papers that she’s really rich.’
    â€˜Yeah. And greedy, too. She got busted for stealing that money on Wall Street,’ Cher shot back. ‘That makes her a thief just like me.’
    â€˜But did you see her on the TV news?’ Suki asked. ‘She looks just like a movie star.’
    â€˜Well, you know what they say about pictures, don’t you?’ Theresa began.
    â€˜Yeah, we all know what they say about pictures, Theresa,’ I said in exasperation. ‘You all act like we never had us a celebrity prisoner before. What about Jackie James, the sick little twist from Montgomery who killed her two babies on a tourist trip to New York, then said they’d been kidnapped by a black brotha’? That was in all the papers.’
    â€˜Nobody likes baby killers,’ Cher said.
    â€˜Or baby rapers,’ Theresa added. ‘Whatever happened to that teacher, Camille Lazzaro, who decided to teach one of her boy students more than geography? Didn’t she just give a whole new meaning to the term “teacher’s pet”? She had the baby and the daddy wasn’t even thirteen years old yet.’
    â€˜Or that Carole Waters over in Unit Three?’ Cher added. ‘She got her boyfriend to murder both her husband and her mother-in-law just for the insurance and the inheritance. She was in all the papers, too.’
    â€˜I steer clear of anyone who kills for money.’ Theresa shook her head. ‘It’s one thing if you catch your man screwin’ your sister or your daughter. I say shoot ‘em. But to