Spellbinder by Collin Wilcox Read Free Book Online

fight—a quick, vicious fight between two lovers. Gallagher had cocked the stick, stepped in quickly and swung all in one motion. He’d moved on his toes, lightly and delicately. Like a ballet dancer. The inmate—Farwell—had dropped in his tracks, twitched for a moment, then lay still, staring up at the sky. Blood had begun to trickle slowly from his nose, and each ear. Three days later, Carson had heard two guards discussing the killing. The problem, they’d said, was that Gallagher carried a weighted baton. And you couldn’t calculate the force of the blow, using a weighted baton.
    Still he stood before the small metal desk, waiting. Gallagher wasn’t finished with him.
    “What’re you in for, anyhow?” the guard asked.
    Still with his eyes centered on the broad, beefy chest, he cleared his throat. “Sodomy.”
    Again, Gallagher blew out his thick lips. “You’re one of those, eh? Not that I had to be told. All I got to do is look at you, to tell. What’d you do, anyhow?” Now Gallagher’s lips twisted into a leering smile. “Tell me about it.”
    “Well, there—” Again, he cleared his throat. “There was this girl. She lived around the corner from me, and she kept—you know—asking for it.”
    The distorted smile widened. “I don’t think I ever heard one of you kinks come right out and admit that it was your idea. It’s always that someone talks you into it. What’d you do to her, anyhow?”
    “Well, I just—you know—we just—”
    “How old was she, anyhow? Tell me that, before you tell me how you gave it to her. Tell me a little something about, her. Describe her.”
    “I—I don’t remember how old she was. I—”
    “Bullshit, you don’t remember. You remember everything about it. You know how old she was, and what she wore and what she said and how she felt. There isn’t anything about it that you don’t remember. You think about it all the time. Every day, and every night, with your meat in your hand, you think about it. So tell me.” Suddenly the bogus smile was gone. The guard’s eyes were hard and ugly: two dark, malevolent agates beneath brows whitened and mottled by ancient scars.
    “She was—twelve.”
    “And how old were you?” Asking the question, Gallagher’s voice had roughened. Resting side by side on the table, his knob-knuckled hands began to clench into fists. The agate eyes were smouldering now, like coals snatched straight from hell.
    “I was—twenty.”
    “All right—” Slowly, deliberately, the guard unclenched one fist, gesturing. “All right. Now tell me how you did it to her. And tell me the truth, goddammit. Because all I got to do is pull your file, you know. And then, if you lied to me, so help me, I’ll …”
    Suddenly a bell jangled: the small telephone hung on the green concrete wall. Angrily motioning for him to remain, Gallagher snatched the receiver from its hook.
    “Station thirty-four. Gallagher speaking.”
    Stealing a direct look, Carson saw the guard’s eyes narrow dangerously as he listened, pressing the receiver hard against his ear. Finally he grated, “Yessir, that’s right. But …”
    From the phone, Carson could hear a sharp, staccato voice, interrupting. Suddenly Gallagher’s eyes met his directly. Angrily, Gallagher was waving at the day-room door, gesturing for him to go inside.
    First looking through the small, wire-reinforced window, he pushed open the heavy door. Eleven men sat on a mismatched collection of plastic-covered sofas and chairs. Some-of them were reading magazines taken from racks bolted to the concrete walls. Others watched a nineteen-inch color TV set, also bolted to the wall. There were only three color TV sets in the institution, one for each of the three day rooms. Only trustees and inmates with fewer than thirty days left to serve were allowed in the day rooms. The other inmates watched TV on black and white sets located in the cell block corridors, controlled by the guards.
    In this