Tampa Star (Blackfox Chronicles Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

up at the man and then, embarrassed at being so docile, looked away towards the window.
    “Well, good,” the man said while walking towards the door. He turned as if forgetting something and added—“They should be bringing around breakfast trays in a little while. Keep up the good behavior and there is no reason to feel bad while you ’re our guest.”
    The cop guarding him was not so nice. He sat in a chair immediately outside the room and came in regularly to check on Jimmy and check the security of the handcuff.  Normally this seemed to occur when Jimmy was asleep; the cop would roughly shake the cuffs, until Jimmy awoke, then scowl at him, like Jimmy was a heap of dog-shit the cop had discovered on his shoe. 
    Once, when Jimmy had to piss, he beckoned to the cop to untie his restraints and allow him to use the bathroom. The cop pointedly told him to shut the fuck up and use the piss-bottle.
    The afternoon cop was not much better and he was usually asleep when the cop who had the midnight shift arrived.  Jimmy awoke one night to hear soft rhythmic snoring coming from behind
    the curtain separating the beds and thought that they had moved another patient in with him, only to discover later that it was the cop who had the midnight shift.
    He was a tremendously fat man, with a big red face and a bucket shaped head that seemed to sit directly on his body without the benefit of a neck. The only saving grace about the man was that he did not bother Jimmy at all, but seemed more interested in sleeping than checking that his prisoner   was secure. 
    After noting the fat slob’s particular behavior, Jimmy took to observing the man’s conduct. He would normally arrive a few minutes before his shift started and jovially bullshit with the swing shift guy, who in response was curt to the point of rudeness.  The fat cop would wait about ten minutes or so, come into his room carrying a barn shaped grey lunch box and thermos, lie back on the vacant bed, plunk the box down on the hospital tray stand, and loudly commence eating, slurping  coffee in between chomping bites.  Given his corpulence, it was not surprising that the slurping and munching sounds went on for a long time. 
    A short time after the eating sounds would stop, they would be replaced by snoring in a volume loud enough to keep Jimmy from falling asleep.  He noticed that the cop awoke the following morning only when light began to filter into the window next to his bed—Jimmy estimated it was probably about five thirty or so.  He heard the bed groan in relief as the fat man struggled to his feet.  Jimmy closed his eyes feigning sleep, all the time imagining the man straightening his tie, tucking his tent size shirt back into his clown sized pants, placing his cop-hat back on bucket shaped head and waddling out of the room.  It seemed to Jimmy that his prospects for an early release just brightened considerably.    
    After morning shift change, the same orderly came into his room to change the IV bottles. He seemed friendlier than usual and even shot the breeze with Jimmy as he labored. He confided in Jimmy that he had a cousin in the penitentiary for robbery, like Jimmy, but his preferred target was jewelry stores, until an encounter with a shotgun wielding store owner cut short his career.
    Jimmy laughed at this and figured he had enough rapport to ask him if he knew when he would be transferred.
    “ Any day now” was a response that didn’t entirely surprise him, given the expense of round the clock security and the fact that Angola had a complete prison hospital.
    After the nurse left, Jimmy managed to get a few hours’ sleep.  He awoke excited and began planning; he would need a paperclip or two to practice opening the cuffs, a set of clothes, and a way to escape in a hurry.  The paperclip would be first however as there would be no way he could get out of bed and arrange the other two without them. Later in the day, the day shift cop