Free Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade by Edward Bunker Page A

the cell, sitting on the toilet.
He was looking for me. When he saw me, he blew a kiss. I didn't know who he
was. I didn't care who he was. I jumped up. "Fuck you! You fuckin' punk
motherfucker."
    "Aww, baby, don't be so mean."
    "Get in your cell, Cook," yelled the jailer
again. "Grab a hole!"
    When Cook was gone, I asked my cell partners,
"Who's that motherfucker?"
    "Billy Cook," D'Arcy said. "He killed a
family in Missouri and dumped them down a well. Then he killed some other
people while he was coming west. They caught him in Mexico and threw him back
across the border. He killed some guy that picked him up here in California. He
got sentenced to death yesterday."
    I vaguely remembered hearing about the case.
"He's got an eye that won't close, right?"
    "Yep. When he nabbed them, they didn't know if he
was awake or asleep because of that eye."
    "Front section . . . comin' open," yelled
the jailer. "Watch the gates."
    The gates of all the other cells began to vibrate;
then they opened.
    "Come on," D'Arcy said. I followed him and
Cicerone onto the runway where about a score of men were lining up at the front
while khaki trusties scooped spaghetti with a red sauce into a combination
plate and bowl. It had the width of a plate and had sides like a bowl.
    "How come we come out together and those other
guys come out one at a time?"
    "They're full-fledged monsters. We're only half
monsters."
    "The ones already sentenced to die, they keep
them apart — or if they think they might cause trouble."
    The cells were left open while we ate; then we were
locked up while trusties swept and mopped the run. When the floor was dry, the
gates in the front section were opened again. D'Arcy look a folded blanket and
spread it outside the cell doorway and plopped down two decks of Bee playing
cards. Other prisoners gathered and sat down on the runway around the blanket.
"You in?" D'Arcy asked Cicerone.
    "Uh uh. My lawyer's comin' tonight. I gotta write
some shit down for him."
    It was a poker game. Lowball, where the lowest hand
wins, and the best is ace through five. It is also, as I would learn over time,
me poker game that requires the most skill. Lying on the bottom hunk, I watched
the game without being in anyone's way.
    After dinner, the jail was quieter, though never
silent. On the walkway outside the tank, little bells dinged and little red
lights flashed. These were signals for "prowlers," the guards who
walked on quiet feet along the tanks. Cicerone was called out. While he was
gone, the game broke up for count. We had to line up on the runway in ranks of
three, so the two jailers walking along outside could count us by threes.
"Count's clear," yelled a deputy when he reached the end.
    "Want some tea?" D'Arcy said.
    "Yeah. But I'd rather have a cigarette."
    "You don't have any cigarettes? Here." He
dumped several from a pack of Camels and handed them to me. I hesitated. I
wanted no obligations. It was one of the primary unwritten rules of jail and
prison: don't get obligated. "Go ahead," he insisted, so I kept the
cigarettes.
    "Have any money?" he asked.
    I shook my head.
    "Family?"
    I shook my head.
    He shook his head. "It's a tough life if you
don't have nobody."
    He took a roll of toilet paper, unrolled and loosely
re-rolled a bunch of it; then tucked the bottom up through the hole in the
middle, put it on the rim of the toilet bowl and set it afire. It burned in a
cone, like a burner, and lasted long enough to make a metal cup of hot tea. He
poured half into another cup and handed it to me. It was good, especially with
a cigarette. He told me about Johnny Cicerone. The so-called "gangster"
squad of the LAPD was after him. He was collecting a $2,000 debt from a
wanna-be who had stiffed him. In the course of the collection, he had slapped
the guy and taken him to a cocktail lounge in a bowling alley on Vermont that
the debtor owned. That was where the money was. He'd gotten paid, but the LAPD
was trying to bury him. Because Cicerone