Blow Fly

72

A RADIO WITH A DIPOLE antenna is not required for Jean-Baptiste Chandonne to know the breaking news.

"Hey, Hair Ball!" Beast yells. "You heard? Guess not, since you don't got no fucking radio, like I do. Guess what? Guess what I just heard? Your lawyer ate his gun in Poland."

Jean-Baptiste carefully moves his pen with the skilled hand of a surgeon, tracing over the words on death row and on the front row of life. He brushes his fingertips over the indentations on white paper as he composes a letter to Scarpetta that will be forwarded to her by his lawyer, who now Jean-Baptiste learns is supposedly dead. If Rocco is dead, Jean-Baptiste has no emotions about it, but he is curious to know whether the death is significant or simply a random suicidal whim that carried Rocco away.

The news of the suicide creates an uproar of the usual obscenities, cruel remarks and questions.

Information.

On death row, information is precious. Anything new to hear is devoured. The men are starved for rumors, gossip, information, information. So this is a big day for them. None of the inmates ever met Rocco Caggiano, but whenever Jean-Baptiste's name has been mentioned on the news, Rocco has been mentioned too, and vice versa. A simple deduction is enough for Jean-Baptiste to accept that Rocco's death is of interest to the press only because he represents the notorious Jean-Baptiste, alias Le Loup-Garou, alias Hair Ball, Mini-Me Dick and Wolfman and oh… What was the newest appellation that Beast-the ever-clever Beast-conjured up earlier today?

PUBIC Enemy Number One.

He wrote it on a folded note that was slid under Jean-Baptiste's door, complete with a pubic hair, Beast's pubic hair. Jean-Baptiste ate the note, tasting the words, and blew the pubic hair out his barred window. It drifted to the floor outside his cell.

"If I was Wolfman's lawyer, I'd eat my gun, too!" Beast calls out.

Laughter, and the bang, bang of inmates kicking their steel doors.

"Shut up! What the hell's going on in here?"

The mayhem doesn't last long. Corrections officers restore order to the pod immediately, and a pair of brown eyes appear in the barred window of Jean-Baptiste's door.

Jean-Baptiste feels the low energy of the stare. He never stares back.