Prisoners of the Williwaw Read Online Free PDF Page B

the room.
    Frank reveled in her beauty for a moment, then moved to push his glasses back on his nose, but his hands were shackled.   Fifteen years in prison had taught him to set up a wall against women. "If you can't play the game," he told himself, "don't stare at the other team."
    The woman blushed when she saw the guards and the convicts.   "Excuse me," she said in a clipped accent as she left.
    Doc nudged Frank."You're drooling."
    Frank smiled.
    "Women." Doc shook his head.   "Shit, man, beats prison.   I hope they fix me up with someone like that."   The committee had insisted that, despite the island's need for a doctor, Doc would have to be married.   The Bureau of Prisons hinted that they could find a female convict who might be willing to join him.
      "I'm worried about my own situation," Frank said. "Damn them.   I put the family thing forward as an ideal;   they made it a requirement."
    "Yeah?"
    "My wife hasn't said yes."
    Doc nodded."Problem."
    Gilmore called the guard over so he could dial another number for him.
    Doc pointed to Gilmore.   "There's your answer.   You learn to manipulate the system."
    "That's not my way."
    "Well, it better be.   We're gonna go on this trip, Frank.   You and me.   Me because they need me, you because it's your idea.   Prison isn't the real world.   It's play school and play school is almost over.   You're the leader, Frank."
    "I'm not sure I want to be the leader when they dump a bunch of psychopaths on us."
    Doc tried to move his manacled hands to touch Frank.    "Frank, listen to me, the worst day on this hellhole of an island will be better than the best day in prison.   We'll be free.   Now talk about something practical - your wife.   Has she given you any indication?   How many times have you written her?"
    "Once."
    "And?"
    "No response."
    "So write again.   Tell her you'll be the leader.   Tell her you'll get kickbacks and you'll live good."
    "Fifteen years now - we've grown apart."
    "So, mend your fences.   Listen, Frank, you're sounding like the usual, whiny, prison-wimp victim.   Snap out of it.   It's Adak or it's prison."
    Frank bent way over and used the edge of the table to push his glasses back onto his nose.   "It's Adak."
    "Goddamn right."

 
    Chapter 5
     
     
    A year and five months later, in mid September,   Latisha Gilmore boarded the plane for Adak. Finally , she thought. Even as she walked across the tarmac in the Anchorage airport, the press hounded her. "Are you Boss Gilmore's wife?" "Is he trying to supplant Villa?"
    A boss's wife - that's the last thing she wanted to be known as, especially among women who were going to be her neighbors . She nodded to the pilot who stood by the door of the cockpit. He wore a cowboy hat and jeans, an indication that this was not a typical commercial flight. He had the look about him that said this plane was a wild bull that had to be wrestled to Adak.
    She smiled and felt a slight tingle in her stomach. Scary, yes, but also exciting. Why, she wondered, was she so excited about going to this terrible place of wind and rain?
    The plane was divided, as the waiting room had been, Villa's people up front, her husband's people - a noisier crowd - in the back.
    She walked down the aisle, past the minister and his schoolteacher wife - the only staff for this venture - past the wives and children of some of the three hundred. With her tan suit, her guarded eyes and quiet manner, she hoped to appear as a black businesswoman. Anything but a boss' woman . At work she was often mistaken for a model. Her delicate features and glistening black hair led people to think she had just stepped out of the pages of Essence. "Girl," her mother used to tell her, "you've got the complexion us women of color envy, and a figure all women want."
    She took a seat in the middle of the two groups, trying to identify with neither of them. Next to her sat a pudgy white woman.
    The doors closed and the stairs were rolled