Dorsey left the Buick in a parking lot near the perimeter of the prison compound, located in a windy hollow between two mountains. Looking for the visitor’s check-in, he crossed through an area that might be taken for a mobile-home court, filled with Airstreams and Avions. But Dorsey knew it for what it was: housing for the trusties who worked the prison farm. He recalled a time several years earlier when he had interviewed an inmate who had begun pulling in compensation checks just before sentencing. The inmate claimed to be in constant excruciating back pain. After the interview, using binoculars from a perch atop one of the guard towers, Dorsey watched for two hours as the inmate bounced along on a tractor, jumping on and off during breaks, plowing a field.
At the visitor’s check-in, still outside the high red-brick walls, Dorsey found that Preach was as good as his word: Dorsey’s name had recently been placed on inmate Demory’s list of approved visitors. Dorsey was given a brief lecture on prison regulations and the penalties for smuggling things inside. After he browsed for a few minutes in a gift shop that carried inmate art work, mostly depressingly dark sketches of prison scenes, Dorsey’s name was called and he was escorted to the main gate.
Next to the barred gate was a walk-through entrance, the final security checkpoint. A gray-uniformed corrections officer handed Dorsey a plastic tray, instructing him to empty his pockets into the tray, along with his belt. The officer then motioned to a second officer seated in a glass observation booth overlooking the gate. Holding his pants up by the belt loops, Dorsey passed through the metal detectors and entered the maximum security area of Huntingdon SCI.
Dorsey retrieved his belongings and walked through a small garden, brown with winter, following a sign for the visiting center. In a long one-story wing, he found a lounge equipped with easy chairs and vending machines where inmates, dressed in uniforms of varying colors depending on their housing and work assignments, mixed with visitors. At the far end were three doors; Dorsey made his way through groups of families and girlfriends to the door marked ATTORNEY’S CONFERENCE and slipped inside, locking the door behind him. The room was ten by twelve, divided by a waist-high counter across its middle. From the countertop to the ceiling was wire-reinforced glass, with a metal speaking portal at the height of a sitting man. A chair sat at the portal; a companion chair was beyond the glass.
Dorsey sat at the divider, took a pen and steno pad from his coat pocket, and placed them on the counter. As he watched the door at the opposite end of the room, his thoughts trailed back to Gretchen and that farmhouse, now three hours away. She’d be back, he was sure . . . almost sure. She’ll be back and you’ll make it work, he promised himself, or nothing’s ever going to go right again.
With a metallic clang, the steel security door’s deadbolt was released. Dorsey nervously ran his hands down his sides, checking his appearance, as if he were the subject of the interview. A short, heavily gutted guard swung open the door and motioned an even shorter black man into the room. Unlike the officer, the black man was very thin and looked to Dorsey as though he was only beginning his recovery from a serious illness. The skin of his face was tight to the bone, and his eyes were more brown than white. The sleeves of his orange coveralls were rolled to the elbows and ballooned out from there. His hair was trimmed close to the scalp with a razor part on the left, and when he came opposite Dorsey at the glass he fished two packs of cigarettes from his pockets. Dorsey checked the two vertical scars on his chin and figured them for a cell game that got out of hand.
“Word is you’ve got the room for as long as you want.” The guard turned to Demory as he began to close the door. “Art, bang on the door when you’re through. Or if you need more smokes. Just keep at it, I’ll hear ya eventually. Okay?”
Demory watched the door shut then dropped into the chair. “You Dorsey? The guy Lou Preach sent?”
“That’s me,” Dorsey said. “You believe me, don’t you? How many visitors you get up here in the mountains? I could show you some ID, perhaps a major credit card?”
Demory snorted out a laugh. “Fuck, no. This is good. Preach said you’d be good for a talk. But you’re who you’re supposed to be?”
“Yes, I am. I is me.” Dorsey flipped open the steno pad.
“This is gonna be okay,” Demory said. “You gotta realize. My day is full of hangin’ out with cons or bullshittin’ to guards, assholes like the one that brought me here. On a good day I get to pull the psychiatrist’s leg.” Demory lit a cigarette. “I shouldn’t call the guy who brought me here an asshole. He ain’t bad. But here you are, my fuckin’ diversion for today.”
The ground rules were set, as far as Dorsey could tell. No hard-ass bullshit, no threats, valid or otherwise. You’ve seen him before. He wants to talk, to impress on you that he is no ordinary jailbird. Lead him a little and sit back for the ride. And, of course, make sure he’s not a fraud, a put-up job by Lou Preach.
“I read up on you on the way here,” Dorsey said, tapping at the glass. “Your home turf, I’m familiar with it.”
“Fuck you know about Aliquippa?” Demory laughed and took a deep pull on his smoke. He flicked the ash to the floor. “What you know, maybe, is the Serbian Club, some Italians, and the mill. You don’t know shit.”
“Somebody say something about Aliquippa?” Dorsey registered confusion. “Plan Eleven, that’s the place I had in mind.”
Demory grinned and wagged a finger at Dorsey. “You know the Plan? Damn straight. The Plan, that’s where I spent what I like to think of as my formative years.”
“And learned your profession?”
“That’s right.” Demory shook a cigarette free from one of the packs on the counter. He lit the fresh smoke from the butt of the one he was finishing. “Doors, locks, windows, iron bars. Ain’t nothin’ could keep me outa your house. If you had something I wanted, you could bet your sweet ass I’d take it away from you.”
“Don’t know about that,” Dorsey said. “No matter how good you are, even the best get caught. They caught you and put your skinny black ass in Beaver jail. With our mutual friend Tony Ruggerio.”
“Antonio motherfuckin’ Ruggerio.” Demory drew it out through his teeth. “That fat-ass. Me and Tony was tight. He’s a hard fuckin’ guy, gets on your shit, but we was tight. I was in Beaver County twice. Second time, I made trusty. We was tight.”
“Good man,” Dorsey said. “Not many like him.”
“Shit, ain’t nobody like him.” Demory hit off his smoke. “Up at the Wall there ain’t nobody like him. Hard place, know what I mean? Fuckin’ hard.”
It was starting to move for Dorsey. Give it a little push, he thought. The inmate is ready to talk. Dorsey watched him take yet another cigarette and light it off the butt. Good Christ, Dorsey thought, his lungs must resemble the walls of a coal mine.
Dorsey didn’t have to push. The jailbird was moving under his own power.
“The Wall,” he said. “Can’t help but pick up a few things in a place like that. I learned plenty.”
“Heard a guy call it a finishing school once.” Dorsey chuckled. “What courses did you take? Must’ve done pretty well. You stayed clean a long time.”
The compliment drew a nod from Demory. “Picked up general stuff, first year or so. Stuff everybody learns. Like how to lie so well you believe it yourself. So you could fool anybody.”
“What you might call the core courses?” So this is what it boils down to, Dorsey thought. You’re sitting in this room with a guy who likes to think of himself as the master of deception, and you’ve got to hang on his every word. The crapshoot of a lifetime. “Then what?” he asked.
Demory pulled at his cigarette and coughed back the smoke. He spit on the floor and shrugged his shoulders, collecting himself. “Preach was right. He said you’d be worth talkin’ to.” Demory stared back at his cigarette. “It was this white guy I knew at the Wall. It pissed off the brothers, me hangin’ with him, but it was worth it. The guy really knew some shit. Called him the Professor; me and three other guys called him that. The Professor stayed in his cell most all day except for chow. He was older, fifty or sixty; he was afraid some guys would fuck with him. But it was okay because me and these other guys would spend our time in there with him, on the floor by his bunk, squattin’, kind of. Just hung with him till whenever.”
“Sounds like story time at the children’s library,” Dorsey said.
“Weren’t no fuckin’ kids in that cell,” Demory said. “And the Professor, he knew a game that beat shit outa creepin’ around somebody’s house in the dark. This guy pulled in more on one job than I ever did in a month of doin’ houses. The Professor was a fall-down artist. He was behind the Wall for likin’ little girls too much, but he made his livin’ on beatin’ insurance companies. And he taught it all to me.”
Verification, Dorsey realized, was in his own backyard. This is your turf; he can’t bullshit you. It’s why Preach put us together. He knows you and he knows this jailbird, and he knows one can’t fool the other. “Tell me about it,” Dorsey said.
“For a while,” Demory said, flicking ashes to the floor, “I did most of my work in department stores. On escalators. Had this shoe with a ragged toe. I’d head down the escalator when it was crowded. At the bottom, I’d fall down and start screamin’. I mean really bawlin’. And then I fell flat on my face. Nobody could see what was happening, but even still, with all the screamin’ and the nasty end of my shoe, they thought they was witnesses. After the first-aid room I went to the risk manager’s office, a guy who knew a nuisance claim when he saw one and wanted out. So I’d sign a release for a check and head down the street to the next target.”
“Slick, very slick.” Dorsey stretched and linked his hands at the back of his neck. “What else?”
“Icy sidewalks in winter, maybe a fall down a flight of steps. Some of that, anyway. And auto accidents: whiplash. Used rental cars, always used rentals. The rental agency pushes through the settlement. That way, nobody gets the idea their cars are a piece of shit. You better believe that takes a certain touch, hitting a bus or a car just so, especially if you want it to look like the other guy’s fault. Make the other guy look like an asshole. Which he fuckin’ is.”
Carmen Avolio and his Brownsville rent-a-cars flashed through Dorsey’s mind, along with Kenny Borek and all the other happy motorists. They had taken it one step further. They got the liability settlements and cashed in on disability policies.
“This drivin’ business,” Demory said, his cigarette at the corner of his mouth. “The Professor, he could only tell us about that. No cars behind the Wall to practice on. Had to develop the touch on the job.”
Demory continued, explaining how it had been necessary to stay on the move, going from city to city in an east-west direction. He kept to the larger urban areas, where one injury claim looked much like the next and overloaded claims adjustors paid out settlements quickly to keep the paperwork flowing. And where a fall-down man could, at least for a time, remain invisible. Dorsey liked the feel of it. It was all genuine; the ring of truth was there from the first. Only one stumbling block remained. Why, Dorsey asked himself, if the money is good and easy, why branch out to armed robbery?
“And through this—ah, private practice of yours, you came to meet up with Jack Stockman, right?” Dorsey caught the grin on the inmate’s face, his reaction to “private practice.” “You two being colleagues and all, in the same line of work. And through P. I. you met the priest. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Demory fired a cigarette off of the security glass, laughing when Dorsey instinctively ducked the red embers. “That’s about how it went,” Demory said. “but I only met the priest once, and that was later on.” Demory lit another smoke. “I did a job in Pittsburgh. Figured it would go easy like all the rest. During regular visiting hours, I go to this hospital and look for the housekeeping department. You know, the janitors and shit? What I was lookin’ for was a janitor with a mop and bucket, to lead me to that nice wet floor where he just mopped up somebody’s puke. But I can’t find any. So, like a million fuckin’ other visitors, I go to the snack bar for a milkshake, the only thing my poor sick relative can keep down. From there I find a nice quiet wing of the hospital and step up to the counter at the nurses’ station. The shake goes on the edge of the counter and while I ask for directions to my loved one’s room the cup goes over the side, and there’s milkshake all over the floor. I fumble around sayin’ how sorry I am while they call housekeeping. Fifteen minutes later, just after the janitor finishes the floor and leaves, I come on back to apologize again. And my feet fly out from under me on the wet tile and I hit the deck. All because of one slick spot the janitor left behind. Instant fall-down.”
Dorsey laughed. “Sounds easy, the way you tell it. But I guess it takes a true artist. Tell me about Stockman.”
“The fuckin’ hospital risk manager turned out to be a hard motherfucker. Must’ve read the report on how it happened and decided not to pay.”
“And you being a smart-ass, you pushed him.”
“Should’ve let it pass.” Demory shrugged. “Pissed me off, him not payin’ up, so I figured on calling his bluff. Asked some people I knew and heard Jack Stockman was the man. Looked like an easy case, so Jack took it. Without checking me out first.”
“P. I. never knew it was fake?” Dorsey asked.
“Never got around to that part. Jack said he knew the risk manager, and the two of them would work it out. Jack said the guy knew how the game was played and there’d be some money coming my way. Anyways, Jack and the hospital guy had a meeting, and Jack read the accident report. Next thing Jack did was boot my ass out of his office. But he must’ve liked me, ’cause he called when he needed me.”
“Just a second,” Dorsey said, working up an inquisitive expression. “Needed you for what? To consult on a case maybe?”
“In a way.” Demory coughed, gagging, and nearly doubled over before overcoming it. “Who you think taught all them union boys? Personal injury, auto, workers’ comp. Gold mine of knowledge, that’s what I am. Them union boys didn’t know their ass from first base. I’m the one changed all that.”
So we’ve finally arrived, Dorsey thought. But should we go further? He’s a talker, but is he a bullshitter? Let’s not waste any more time entertaining this jailbird, not in this green metal cage. C’mon, man, call for the check.
“I could listen all day.” Dorsey gave one last smile before going serious. “But war stories I can get anytime. You want to tell me about P. I. Stockman and the priest. And believe me, I appreciate it. But I gotta be straight with you. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“Fuck you talkin’ about?” Demory ground out his cigarette on the countertop, then pushed back his chair, screeching across the tile floor. One hell of a reaction, Dorsey thought, impressed. Wasted half a cigarette.
Dorsey rose to his feet and braced himself against the counter, his face inches from the glass. “I’ll tell you what the fuck I’m talkin’ about. So you think you’re hot shit, no insurance scam you can’t pull off. The money pours in and you live the good life, nice stable income. It’s all going great, no reason to stray. But just the same, you grab a gun and hit a convenience store. What the fuck is that about? Why didn’t you stay with what works? Tell me; I’m anxious to hear all about it.”
“Can’t do that shit forever,” Demory said.
“Why the fuck not?” Dorsey watched the anger drain from the black man’s face; his lips and tongue worked silently in a search for words. “That’s right, Arthur, you’ve got a job here to do. And you’re supposed to convince me to believe you. So get going, Arthur, make a believer out of me.”
“They know, man.” Demory spoke to the floor. “I’ve been indexed.”
“Yeah, sure, I’ve seen the Criminal Index report on you. Inspiring, but who gives a shit?”
“No, no, not that.” Demory held his hands with palms out as if surrendering. “Ain’t talkin’ about the Criminal motherfuckin’ Index. This is the Claims Index. They got my identity. So I’m fucked.”
“And that’s how the hospital risk manager caught on to you. And that’s why P. I. Stockman sent you packing. He’s handled shaky cases before. But you being on the index, that must’ve really pissed him off. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You got it right,” Demory said. “Congratu-fucking-lations.”
Dorsey pulled back from the glass and paced the room. There’s no doubt this man is the genuine article, he thought. Only an insider would know the indexes. Somewhere along the line some adjuster knew Demory for a fraud and gave his ID to an index service, those noble listings of repeat claimants. Guys who have a habit of falling down on every other sidewalk they cross. Dorsey laughed as he thought of the hospital risk manager running Demory’s name and statistics through the service. He pictured the computer lighting up like a Christmas tree. Son of a bitch, this guy is the real thing.
“Which index service has your name?” Dorsey stood behind the chair, leaning into the back supports. “Or didn’t the Professor tell you the names?”
“He told me everything.” Demory pulled his chair close to the glass and sat and fired a cigarette. The grin was back on his face. “Cleveland Index for sure; that’s what fucked me locally. Probably one or two more, I figure out west. That’s where I did most of my work. Satisfied?”
Dorsey stepped around the chair, took his pen and steno pad from the countertop, and sat. “I’ll be satisfied if you don’t kack out from the smokes before we get through.” Dorsey clicked out the tip of his ballpoint. “Now tell me all about it.”
With Dorsey interrupting with questions, it took four hours to get the whole story. Twice they called the guard to bring more cigarettes for Demory, who never missed a link in the chain; one cigarette ignited the next. Dorsey didn’t dispute the facts; his questions served only to fill in the gaps in the story. Relaxed, the inmate explained that his second contact with Stockman was after the robbery.
“It was maybe three weeks after the cops cracked me. I was in county jail, Pittsburgh, all that time. My record, and the gun, sent my bail through the fuckin’ ceilin’. Judge decided I was a danger to the community and a sure bet to take off. Which I was planning to do. Bail was set at seventy-five thousand. Like I was some kinda motherfuckin’ baby raper or some shit. Anyways, there was no way to get up bail, so I sat.”
“And in steps P. I., right?”
“That’s it. Fuckin’ P. I.” Demory shook his head, laughing at the nickname. “Guard just took me off the range and walked me to this office. And get this, the office was outside the security area. And right behind this desk is Stockman. The guard sits me in the chair and leaves, shuttin’ the door. Now, check it out. I got no cuffs on my wrists and no manacles on my legs, and I’m outside of the range in a room where a guy could hand me a howitzer. In an office, not no glass and telephone like on visiting day. So I knew Stockman had clout, pull like I never seen. And I know if this guy says he can do something, he can.”
“And what was that? What did he say he could do?” Dorsey took notes and got the date of the meeting. Feed me P. I., he thought. C’mon, serve him up.
“Said he could get me out,” Demory said. “Said he could get the bail lowered and that he would come up with the bond money. Then he tried to flatter the shit outa me. Said a man of my experience was wasted in jail, that my talents were needed elsewhere.”
“But still, what was it the judge had said?” Dorsey concentrated on the inmate. “You’re a potential jumper, considering your record, which you’re proud of. P. I. is one savvy son of a bitch. How’d he figure to keep you from running?”
Demory smiled and tapped the ash from his cigarette. “You got it right. P. I. is one savvy son of a bitch. He promised some money I could hold onto if I went inside, which is where I am. And he never doubted I would go inside. Must admit, he got me a good lawyer, free, and that lawyer cut a pretty fair deal. Sentence could have been a lot worse. And one other thing. P. I. said if I jumped he’d send private detectives to bring me back to Pennsylvania, and that my legs might break on the difficult journey back.”
“C’mon, hell,” Dorsey said. “A hard-ass like you, afraid of P. I.?”
“Get fuckin’ real, man,” Demory said. “I’m a fuckin’ inmate in a county jail, a dangerous motherfucker as far as the world is concerned. Surefire maximum security material. And I’m in a closed room with a guy from the outside. I knew if a guy could arrange this, he could do the job. Besides, I could’ve jumped bail once I was out, but I done time before. And bein’ a fugitive, it’s a real fuckin’ drag.”
As Dorsey continued to take notes, Demory explained that bail had been lowered the next day and bond posted. On release he was met on Ross Street, at the jail’s public entrance, by two burly and capable-looking men. He was taken to a second-floor apartment on Penn Avenue in Greensburg. The place was clean and the refrigerator was stocked with food and beer. One of the two men told him to rest up, take a few days off.
“Should’ve seen the ride they drove, piece of shit. This rusted-out Chrysler.”
Dorsey chuckled and remembered the car that had rescued Father Jancek at the funeral. Must be Movement Together’s company car. He had Demory repeat the address and the date he arrived.
“And two days was what I got,” Demory continued. “Laid around and worked on the refrigerator. Didn’t see a soul. And then, seven o’clock on the third morning, Stockman showed up. From then on I didn’t get a rest till I was sentenced here. I needed a vacation.”
“Let’s hear about this meeting,” Dorsey said. “All you can remember.”
Demory wheezed from deep in his chest and spat phlegm at the floor. “Maybe he didn’t think I was all the way on his side, because he started in with the flattery shit again. How I was this great resource. I guess I’m your resource now.”
“Just keep going.”
“So he tells me how my talents could be used in the interests of the people.” Demory coughed and spat.
Interests of the people. Dorsey rolled it around on his tongue. P. I. the closet radical, Father Jancek’s college chum. The radical gospel according to Father Jancek. “And so you served the people.”
“Damned straight. Now I was the Professor.”
Dorsey grinned as he thought of how even the most corrupt learning is passed by word of mouth, generation to generation. Taking notes, he listened as Demory laid out the scope of the conspiracy. The auto accidents were Stockman’s idea, but Demory insisted on using rental cars. “P. I., he knew some stuff, but this would’ve never flown without me. Why wreck your own ride?”
“Can we get into the workers’ comp and disability side of the deal?” Dorsey peered at the inmate over the top of the steno pad.
“Again,” Demory said, “P. I. had some good ideas, and he came up with the people who were willing to play the part. But no fuckin’ organization. Bunch of guys don’t fall down all on the same day without somebody catchin’ on. Has to be spread out. They wanted the money fast. Takin’ our time was hard to sell to these people.”
“Carlisle Steel, that was the biggest operation,” Dorsey said. “Am I right?”
“Biggest I ever saw.” Demory stuck a cigarette in his mouth and applauded the idea. “Moved on greased wheels. It was an inside job; a girl in the personnel office was in our pocket. She let us know if our people were going in the next layoff. The boys found it easier to play along when they were about to lose their jobs anyway. The fall-down is easy when you know you’ll be taken care of.”
Dorsey switched gears and moved from the big picture to the details, the individual brush strokes. He pressed for meeting dates and who attended and who said what. In the time it took to do in five cigarettes, Demory provided a detailed chronology that hung the Carlisle employees, Claudia Maynard, and P. I. Stockman. Impressed with the inmate’s powers of recall, Dorsey told Russie’s memory that one of the big ones was in the bag. Now for the other.
“So far, you’ve maybe left someone out?” Dorsey asked. Demory expelled a packet of gray smoke and gently nodded his head, looking at Dorsey as a teacher looks at a star pupil.
“The priest,” Demory said. “Like I mentioned before, he showed himself only once. But that’s enough if it’s done right.”
Demory told Dorsey it was three months into the fraud before he met Father Jancek. “It was up and going, fan-fucking-tastic. My people learned quick and stayed smart. So, and you’re thinkin’ we were fuckin’ crazy, we threw a party. Stupid, right? Fuck it, that’s what we did. Had it in the back room of this bar in Latrobe. P. I. covered the whole thing: beer and liquor, food, and some of the guys blew a couple joints. And after things start to cook, when they are really goin’, Father Jancek kind of slips in. No round collar, just a sweater, and hardly any of these guys even catch on to who he is at first. P. I. took me by the arm and just about drags me across the room to meet the fuckin’ guy. So then the priest starts in on how he was aware of my contribution. That’s what he kept calling it, my contribution. That must sit better with him than theft by deception. And he kept on telling me, more for his own benefit than mine, that my contribution was necessary for the economic recovery. And how nobody would really understand it, so it was best to keep it under our hats.”
“Keep going.” Dorsey flipped a page on the steno book. “What else about the priest? There’s more, I hope.”
Demory took a long pull on his cigarette and held it, thinking. “Not much. The man shook a few hands, patted a few backs, and left.”
Dorsey took down the date of the party and the bar’s address and asked Demory about any other meetings he had with Father Jancek.
“Never saw the man again,” Demory said. “Except on TV.”
Only P. I., Dorsey told himself, you might just have to settle for his ass. Demory’s testimony and some further corroboration from a few more reputable Movement Together members once they crack under pressure should nail him. But in court, the priest walks. But not on TV and not in the papers. And not in the book Hickcock puts together, if that slippery bastard is to be trusted. Sorry, Al, sorry, Russie, it’s the best I can do.
Dorsey flipped through his eighteen pages of notes, checking for any inconsistencies. Satisfied, he closed the steno book and clicked his pen, retracting the point. “Look, from what I can see you’ve got more pull around here than the warden’s wife.”
Demory grinned.
“What I need,” Dorsey said, “is for you to call that guard in here and arrange for me to use a typewriter in one of the offices around here. It’ll take me a little while, but I’m going to type up your statement. And then you’ll sign, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll sign,” Demory said. “But you be quiet about this shit, especially while you’re here. Lotta shit can happen to a guy, and Lou Preach ain’t got that much pull. I’ll sign and I’ll testify in court, but that’s later, after indictments are handed down and I become too important to fuck with. Be cool, and I’ll sign.”
“Guaranteed,” Dorsey said. “I’ll type. You sign.”