Simple Intent by Linda Sands Read Free Book Online Page B

books and broke two shelves, he got up. 
    “Hey! That’s enough!”
    The two men scuffled on the floor, arms and legs akimbo, hands slapping, mouths going.
    “Watch it!”
    “You dumb fuck!”
    “That’s mine!” The bigger guy on top rolled onto the squirming smaller guy.
    Ray yelled again, and when they didn’t stop, he smacked the big guy in the head with a book. 
    “Take it outside! This is not the time or place!” 
    They actually looked sorry as Ray picked up the books and papers. They fell off each other, and the smaller one started to giggle. The big guy looked at him, then drew back his fist and smashed his little buddy’s teeth in, saying, “That was my book, Squirrel. Next time you ask before you touch it.”
    Ray dialed an extension he knew all too well, and in a few minutes a guard, a janitor and a nurse arrived.
    It was a typical morning at Graterford, until a skinny black guy with a head like a bobble doll showed up. 
    DeShawn “Stash” Neely sat across the table from Ray and said, “This new fish told me, if the cop beats you when you was signing that bullshit paper he wrote up, then you can get a new trial. That right? I mean, how do I get my justice, dawg?”
    Ray wondered who the new fish was and why he was giving legal advice. “There are laws against coercing a confession, Stash. But proving it is another thing. You need witnesses who’ll talk, other cases against the same cop, and I gotta warn you, the CO’s won’t like you going after one of their own. Even if you get through all that, it’ll take time. A long time.”
    “Time I got, and as far as the CO’s, I be ass out anyway. It’s justice I want, lawdawg. I want him to go down! Dicks never should have left me alone with him! They all knew what that motherfucker was gonna do. Shit! Berger done fucked me up, couldn’t piss for a goddamn week, and my mind, it still don’t work right. Gotta take all these meds now. Shee-it.” 
    Berger? Ray looked up from his pad, pencil in mid-air. “Detective Hiram Berger? Of the Twenty-First?” 
    “There another one?”
    Ray shook his head.
    “Better not be, cuz one of those motherfucker’s enough, know what I mean?”
    Ray knew what he meant.
    Stash said, “Fuckin’ Berger beat me half-stupid with the phone book. The business section. When I finally came to, I was in lockup and going down hard.” 
    He looked in Ray’s eyes, “That was eleven years ago. I been all up and down the state, supposed to be for my own good. That’s bullshit! Had me doing diesel therapy, that’s all.” He leaned in. “When I came to Graterford last year, they hemmed me up in PC, then some bum rap landed me in the J-cat wing. They finally figured I wasn’t supposed to be there, so they put me back in the mainline. Now, from what this fish said, I think maybe I got something comin’.” He spread his arms and leaned back. “So, here I am, whatever you need, dawg, you just ask Stash. I can get you tailors, the real smokes, bro.” He looked around. “Or you want some more books?”
    Ray stared at Stash Neely and saw more than books and cigarettes. He saw a loophole—one to approach cautiously.
    Ray said, “Look Stash, I don’t know you or your people. But if I get involved in this, shit’s gonna roll, you understand? I’m telling you now, you better be straight up with me.” 
    Stash bobbed his head and smiled, revealing one gold tooth that seemed out of place alongside its yellow neighbors. “It ain’t no thing. Stash be a righteous con, lawdawg.” 
    Ray picked up his pencil. “All right, start from the beginning and go nice and slow. Don’t leave anything out.”

    At Montgomery, Deluca, Banning and Scott, plans for the interns were underway. Len Banning pulled files from a box labeled ‘Pro Bono’. He remembered his early years, homeless advocacy, prisoners’ civil rights. The poor, the crazy and the forgotten. Now he was too busy nursing martinis on the nineteenth hole and