time to think it over because just maybe I might be able to help a thickheaded lackwit like you.” Okay, that wasn’t very diplomatic, or angelic, but sometimes subtlety sucked.
“Leave. Me. The. Hell. Alone.” Sonnier didn’t even look at him now as he spoke, just kept walking.
“Listen, shit-for-brains, I just finished auditioning prison lovebirds Sam Olson and Georgie Dupree, doing a pantomime of Sonny and Cher’s ‘I Got You, Babe.’ Then, river dancing by six lifers, none of whom came close to being a Lord of the Dance, especially wearing heavy work boots. Followed by a former drug dealer who whistled, farted, and wiggled his ears at the same time. And how could I forget the Mississippi triple murderer who can polka standing on his hands?” He saw a smile twitch at Sonnier’s lips; so he continued, “And the icing on my personal cake of misery was a three-hundred-pound convict named Bubba doing a tap dance to ‘Happy Feet.’ So, if you have even a modicum of talent, I’m going to be the personal barnacle on your ass until you agree to help me out.”
“No way!”
“I could really use your help, buddy.”
Sonnier stopped to stare at him incredulously. “Number one, we are not buddies. Two, I should help you . . . why?”
“It’s a nice thing to do,” Ivak offered.
“Do I look like a fucking Mother Teresa?” Leroy resumed walking.
And so did Ivak. “No. You look like a man who could use my help.”
“Pfff! I thought you were the one in need of help.”
“We could help each other.”
“Not interested.”
“What would it take to get you to participate in the talent show?”
“A busload of hookers parked inside the prison gate for my personal convenience.”
“I could do that . . .”
Leroy snorted. “And I could swim the Mississippi and escape to Alabama.”
“ . . . but my boss would object.”
“Tell me about it. Benton has a Puritan streak a mile wide.”
“Benton isn’t my boss. I answer to a higher authority.”
Sonnier rolled his eyes. “You are seriously weird.”
“I’ve been told that before.” Suddenly, Ivak noticed something alarming. There were twin marks at the side of Sonnier’s neck. Without warning, he leaned close and sniffed. Yep, lemony. Leroy had been bitten by a Lucie. Just a small sin taint at this point, which could account for the inmate’s bad attitude. But whoa! The very fact that there was a demon vampire inside the prison compound caused red flags to go up in Ivak’s radar. Where there was one there could be more. He’d already told Vikar that he suspected a Lucipire presence outside the prison grounds. Now he knew for sure they were inside, too.
Sonnier shoved him away. “Hey! I don’t swing that way.”
He must have thought Ivak was trying to kiss him. Yeech! “I don’t swing that way, either. I was getting a closer look at that . . . um, mosquito . . . bite on your neck.”
“That’s not a mosquito bite. I was out at Cypress camp yesterday, and some idiot Striper tried a turning out on me. Not the first time. You know how it is here, there’s always some yay-hoo trying to turn you into his bitch.”
Ivak was very much aware of the “turning out” ritual that existed at Angola and every other prison in the world. It usually involved the brutal gang rape of a new inmate, or any prisoner deemed to have a weakness. The act was not so much sexual as symbolic of stripping a man of his masculinity and redefining him as a female. Thereafter, the victim could be used, abused, sold, gambled away, whatever, and no one did a damn thing about the “gal boys,” “whores,” “old ladies,” “wives,” or whatever names they were given. Sad, it was, and tragic, much like the slavery of the Old South. In fact, Angola had been a slave-breeding plantation at one time. Ironic? Oh yeah! Ivak saved those he could from this life of degradation, but there were so many he was unable to reach.
Sonnier had still been talking
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