Or, even worse, being what the Aryans call a “race traitor.”
I just wanted the five years to go away. I didn’t need to play dominoes or work some two-bit racket. I had a little radio, with earphones and all. And those books and magazines Solly had sent in.
I didn’t even miss working out. You don’t need equipment to do that, and I never skipped a day.
The only really lousy thing was the food. Even with my heavy commissary draw, I didn’t have a whole lot of choices. I just stayed with what I knew, drank lots of water, and let every day fall into the night.
I woke up one morning when they key-slapped the slot and told me to roll it up, all the way. I guess they were a little surprised that I didn’t get more excited about it.
That’s prison for you. I’m too dangerous to be put in a population of nothing but criminals, but they kick me straight out into a much bigger population. What, I’m not dangerous to the public?
A couple of the guards wished me luck. The way they say it, it’s always the same: “I don’t want to see you back here, Sugar.”
Like I’d be trying to break into the place.
I went down to the kitchen, but nobody was there. Not in the gym, either. The place was too big for me to go poking around on my own. And even if it wasn’t, if I tried to find Albie’s little book, I’d probably set off a hundred alarms.
So I went back to the kitchen and made myself something to eat. Killed another hour, doing that.
You don’t want to work out right after you have food. Besides, something was gnawing at me, and I couldn’t nail it down. Something about looking around …
That’s when I went back to the place she’d put me in. But I didn’t stay there. I went into the garage. If she was around, I could always say I hoped I’d done the right thing, leaving the keys in the Lincoln last night.
The Lincoln was still there. But not the little car. A Thunderbird, Rena had told me it was. A ’57, like that was real special. All-original, like that was even more special. There was only one place in town that she trusted to work on her car. Maybe that’s where she was.
Only, I couldn’t see Rena sitting around while people worked on her car. For all I knew, she’d be back any second. Too many “maybe”s for me.
I broke it down into zones. Safe zones, like you do in prison. You have to learn them for yourself. Prison’s a crazy place, and you better have it mapped if you want to move around and stay alive while you’re doing it.
I figured it was the same way in Albie’s house. The safe zone was from the garage all the way through to the living room or the kitchen. The gym was safe, too.
If you get caught in any place that’s not yours, you always have to have a good reason. In that little suite, I didn’t need to have a reason. Probably that was where they always put guests. But if I was in the kitchen, I’d better be eating. And if I was in the gym, I’d have to be working out.
The living room was no good at all. What would I be doing in there? The place I was staying in had its own TV.
I rechecked my map a few times before I got it. I already had all the cushion I needed. I don’t know how to check for bugs on a telephone, and I wasn’t going to use their phone anyway. I know you can hide those little cameras just about anywhere, but I didn’t care about them, either—what was anyone going to see?
And even if they had cameras, they wouldn’t have an X-ray machine. Nobody could see through the closet doors. And Rena, she had to have been in there herself, to get all those sizes right. Having a good eye, that would never be enough.
But by the time I went out the first time, I was wearing the stuff she’d picked out for me. So she’d already gotten in there, somehow.
With no windows, the place stayed dark all the time. I know there’s cameras that can see in the dark, and I didn’t want to make anyone watching suspicious, so I left the lights on when I opened the closet door.