Jail's Bait: Parole's Victim (Book 4)

Around the time Rena was heading for Oak Grove Sanitarium, Danny was in the master bedroom at his manor house, changing into something more festive for Jamara’s birthday / Marquis’s graduation party, both of which would start in an another hour. The plan was to give the baby girl a birthday cake, let her smash her little face into it, take plenty of pictures and then let her tear open some presents before handing her off to the nanny and then giving Marquis and Michael their graduation gifts (it was agreed by general consent of the adults that Michael, by virtue of his close friendship with Marquis, should be shown respect by giving him tokens of appreciation- not to upstage his mother, of course). Michael’s mother, Cheyenne DonaTello, had to go to work after the actual graduation to cover her shift the rest of the afternoon, and so Michael came with the Hill family (and Claire) out to dinner to celebrate the boys’ high school triumph. Cheyenne was informed of the gift-giving at the grad party tonight, so she would be making her way from work straight to HT; everything was going like clockwork. Even Marquis and Michael seemed a little happier today, Danny thought to himself. Yes, he was proud of Marquis and Michael both for making it through high school, and having the whole family together on Marquis's special day was great (although the absence of Rena Howard, Marquis's grandmother, was noticeable to everyone).

Yet although he put up a great front, Danny wasn’t happy in the slightest. It had been two days since he had gotten up the courage to try and reach out to his very angry houseguest/ neo-lover. He even wondered about that (as he searched through his closets to find something that wouldn’t date him yet at the same time not make him look like he was trying to look ‘young’; a happy compromise). What was the protocol with allowing a houseguest to stay angry with you for an extended length of time..? Was he supposed to put Ray out now, was he to try again to smooth things over so Ray wouldn’t HAVE to go..? This had truly NEVER happened to him before.

*********

It was a half-hour later; by this time over at Oak Grove the doors had been locked for the night. Danny had finally found the right assembly to wear, so as to not embarrass himself- when he heard a voice speak from behind him.

“Uhhh, ya got a second..?”

It was Trey. Inwardly Danny breathed a sigh of relief that he didn’t have to be the first one to break the silence. He turned from his closet to regard the tall, still-incredibly-sexy man facing him, wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and a yellow tee shirt.

Trey’s clothes, Danny swallowed inwardly... it was he who cleaned out Trey’s apartment, closing his accounts and packing up his clothes. He couldn’t bear to throw anything away so he brought it all to his house, hanging up Trey’s clothes in the back of his bedroom closet. Ray must have found them there…

Out loud Danny replied, “Sure, I’ve got a second.”

Ray hesitated. “Well, I gotta say that I’m sorry that I took so long ta calm down,” he began. “I knew that I reminded you of yo dead lover and I know dat I got a brother out there, just might be a twin… the stories were too close, I don’t really blame you for checkin it out, seein if there might be a real connection, more than da connection of me lookin like him.”

Danny swallowed again, saying nothing.

Ray went on. “I gotz a temper, as you saw for a couple days now; I cant help dat. I jus wanted ya ta like me for ME, not cause I’m fillin in for someone else, even if that mighta been my brother, or not.”

Danny came over to Ray and put his hand out. “I’m sorry, too,” he said. “I should have found out if you were okay with being tested instead of playing ‘I-spy-with-my-crooked-eye-a-pair-of-tall-black-twins’, behind your back.”

Ray smiled then, shaking Danny’s hand in return, the matter forgotten. “Ya sho have a way wit words,” he said then. “Ya shoulda been a writer.”

“Nope, my son’s the writer in this family,” Danny said then, smiling back. “Speaking of which, would you like to come to a little family gathering we’re having tonight? My godson graduated from high school and he’s having a party; my granddaughter’s 1st birthday party is mixed into that too, sort of like the opening act to the main event. You can be my ‘friend from out of town’, if you want.”

Ray seemed to consider it. “Why not, I aint got nuthin else ta do here until ya get back home, so its like a date, huh..?”

“Well, if you call watching a baby smash up a cake a date, then I guess… yeah,” Danny grinned again.

Ray nodded. “Sorry again about my ‘anger management’ thing,” he said. “I jus gotta find a way to get over gettin hot like that without a real good reason first.

“Man, there’s no way you could ever stop being hot,” Danny reached up and kissed Ray on the lips. In response Ray grabbed Danny and planted a hot, steamy tongue-wrestle on him, making his legs weak… “Damn,” Danny said when the kiss broke off; “we should make up more often..!”

“Ya aint seen nuthin yet, man,” Ray said, grabbing Danny by the waist, stooping- and then before Danny knew it, Ray had scooped Danny up and over his shoulder, his solid muscles flexing with the sexy strain.

“Heyyy, what are you DOING,” Danny said, laughing wildly as he flailed about over Ray’s shoulder..

“Aint ya never heard of make-up sex, baby,” Ray said in his best Barry White bass voice.

Danny’s dick got instantly hard as Ray turned around and headed for the bed. “UMMMMM…” he said then nervously- “I’m in troubleeeeeee...”

…but even as Ray carried him to the bed, he knew in his heart that he was glad that Ray stayed with him- and he probably would forever.

*********

Rena stood stock-still with shock in the middle of her son’s hospital room, staring at Rah-Rah as he held up a ring of what was clearly a set of security passkeys. “Robbie,” Rena finally found her voice then, “where on earth did you get those keys..?”

“Ma, don’t you know your baby-boy by now,” he smiled at her conspiratorally. “They don’t call me ‘Houdini-in-da-hood’ for nuthin…” he sat back in his reclining chair, looking out at the full moon rising just over the stretch of dark forest outside his window. Moonlit rays hit his face full-on. “Hold up, I’m just enjoyin the last night I’ll ever spend in this place,” he said then, taking a deep breath and holding it for a full minute.

Rena stood in silence once again, no longer worried about being locked in yet scared anew for whatever her son was planning- one look at his face upturned to the moonlit sky out his window, and she could tell that whatever he was setting his mind on, it was nothing good… “Robbie, listen,” she began as he finally exhaled and looked at her. “Just give me the keys, I’ll get myself up to the front desk, give them back to the nurse and tell her the day nurse let me have them- they’ll believe the story because it’s your ‘anniversary’; they’ll think I just wanted to be with you, today of all days, and they wont question it any further.”

“If you wanna stay here, that’s on you; I’ll send u a postcard,” Rah-Rah said, getting up and heading for the bathroom, “but I’m gettin da fuk outta this place.” And he went inside and shut the bathroom door behind him. Rena could only stare nonplussed at the closed door until it opened again, and Rah-Rah emerged- fully dressed, with jeans, Timberland boots, a fitted cap and his old thug chain- a 35 inch platinum link with an platinum-coated icon of the Virgin Mary hanging from it. “Let’s go,” he replied, heading for the door to the hallway.

“Wait,” Rena cried, grasping her son by the arm. “How did you get those keys, and the clothes..? This hardly seems the type of place that would leave stuff like this just lying around..!”

Rah-Rah seemed to regard Rena; then he relaxed. “Okay, if you must know,” he started, “I started seeing someone when I first woke up.”

Rena blinked. “What do you mean, you’re seeing someone..?”

“I mean,” Rah-Rah went on, “I’ve been fukkin- I mean spending time with my physical therapist.”

“Your physical therapist- is.. it a-” Rena stammered, “I mean- are you with a…”

“It’s a female, Ma,” Rah-Rah sighed, “a white chick, actually.”

“Oh, well, that makes me feel LOADS better,” Rena said wryly.

Rah-Rah went on. “I think she’s from London or sumthin, she sounds a little British… anyway, I had been awake for a couple days and no one could tell from me never movin, but I couldn’t keep still the first time she tried bathing me right after I woke up- she got me excited, you see, and when she saw how I was packin- I mean when she saw that I was more awake that she thought I should be-”

“Say no more,” Rena said, closing her eyes and shuddering. “That’s more than I ever want to know about you, Robbie.”

“Fine,” Rah-Rah said, smirking. “Anyway, I got that white chick so twisted she would do anything I said, even get me the keys to the doors and gates on the property, ‘in case I ever wanted to sneak off and meet her’, of course. She never figured me to be the hit-it-an-quit-it type, I guess. That’s what the clothes are doin here; she made sure dat I looked normal if I got caught outside the hospital gates an not like a patient.” He went to the door and, picking the proper passkey out of the set, swiped it against the red glow. Instantly the glow turned green and an audible click! was heard as the door unlocked.

With a smile and a flourish, Rah-Rah turned the handle and pulled the door open. “After you, ma’am.”

Rena slowly stepped into the darkened hallway. The moment Rah-Rah was outside the door, he closed it and crouched along the dark wall, looking about menacingly. Looking at her son’s abrupt change in attitude, Rena was starting to worry if going along with this was a good idea…

*********

They got to the stairwell without incident. “Aren’t you worried whether or not there are cameras in the hallway..?” Rena whispered to her son as they got into the stairwell and Rah-Rah shut the door quietly.

“There ARE cameras in the hallway,” Rah-Rah whispered absently to Rena’s astonishment as he began to steal down the stairs. “But they don’t record anything.”

“Well what’s the point of them, then,” Rena admonished as she followed him down the stairwell to the floor below, at which stood the back entrance to the sanitarium, the red glow on the handle indicating the door was also locked; “to have cameras yet not tape anything?”

Rah-Rah reached the door and took out the ring of passkeys, waving the whole bunch over the red glow, which immediately turned green. “The nurses only like monitoring what’s happenin right now… and nothing ever happens here, everyone is pretty much sedated all the time; recording three floors full of criminals doped up on mescaline every night is a waste of the budget I guess. Not that I care,” he added he swung the door open to reveal the darkness beyond. “I liked the mescaline. Reminded me of when I smoked dem woolies. Woolies are when you put coke in yo weed,” he explained.

“I used to be in a gang when I was a teenager,” Rena reminded her son. “We had our psychedelic smokes too.”

“Don’t remind me,” Rah-Rah said, taking the point and following against the fence towards the back of the property. “Them drugs you took was probably why you let Joop raise my son. Probably why I’m messed up too…”

“That’s not fair,” Rena said then as they reached a locked gate. “I did the best I could- and I couldn’t stop Marquette from taking him over there. It’s not like Marquis was being raised a thug , anyway- Joop went to Berkley and graduated. He even has a teaching license; he’s a part-time Professor there.”

“What does he teach,” Rah-Rah said absently as he took the passkeys and swiped the lock on the gate; the red light turned green and the final barrier was gone. Rah-Rah stepped

“I don’t know,” Rena said as she followed him out the gate, closing it behind her. “I think it has something to do with plants-” and then she stopped talking.

Rah-Rah was standing, eyes closed, his face turned skyward. Rena realized with a shock that this was the first time her son tasted fresh air from outside the institution’s walls for ten years..! she stood back as fresh tears sprang to her eyes, allowing him this moment.

And then with Rah-Rah giving a great sigh, the moment was over- and, tossing the ring of passkeys away he opened his eyes, looking at Rena. “You ready to get outta here?” And before she could answer he started striding off down a little footpath bordering the fence.

“Sure, let’s go,” Rena said, following him- we can get down to the main road and back to my house in a little while. “This is great… the nurses think you’re locked in, so no one’s looking for you, we wont have to rush.”

“Oh, there’s no rushing, I wanna enjoy this,” Rah-Rah said, striding along. “By the way, I’m not going back to your house just yet.”

Rena hesitated. “Well, where do you want to go..? Are you hungry for food that’s not hospital issue..? A burger, some French-Fries..?”

“Naw,” Ma, Rah-Rah answered. “I’m not stopping for dinner; I’m going to that mansion on Mt. Rainier that Joop raised my son in.”

“Wait, Robbie,” Rena said, alarmed; “the graduation party is tonight; your son is now part of a famous family, there will be press, and security up there- this may not be a good idea right now…”

“Ma, I gotta go up there- I got things to do NOW,” Rah-Rah replied.

“Okay…” Rena said, trying to keep her voice light. “What… do you have to do right now, son..?”

“Well, I gotta go get my son, kill Joop and get back together with Lamar,” Rah-Rah replied pleasantly. “I’ll probably come home after that, so make some burgers for me an Marquis, iight?”

A sick swoop of horror filled Rena’s stomach as she realized that Rah-Rah wasn’t joking. “Maybe- maybe we can go to my house first, think things through,” Rena said desperately. “I just can’t let you go up there-”

WHAM.

Rena dropped soundlessly to the ground like a pole-axed cow.

Rah-Rah stood over Rena’s unconscious form, rubbing his knuckles painfully. “Ma, I’m sorry I had ta do that,” he said then with a dark look, “but ya can’t get involved with this. I aint playin; Joop aint gonna last the night. And Lamar iz gettin what’s comin to him, but I’m gonna let him live- I mean, he’s finally gonna be my shorty the way he was always supposed to. And maybe then I’ll be able ta get Marquis ta listen to me, and I’ll have my son back too..! Don’t worry, ma,” he added then as he stooped down and (with a mighty heave) hoisted her up in his arms; “I’ll get you to a hospital ta sleep it off, an by the time you wake up I’ll have my kid AND my shorty back.”

And, with his mother’s docile form draped in his arms, Rah-Rah strode off through the dark trees, whistling a light, airy tune, feeling that things were finally looking up for him.