P.S. I Love You
Mail call. It was the time of day Billy Ray Jackson most looked forward to, the only time that made his miserable existence bearable. He did not always receive a letter from her, even though she wrote him faithfully every day. But there were times when he received more than one, so it all balanced out in the end.
He remembered the first letter she had written him. Unfortunately, at that time he saw no reason to keep it. It came shortly after he arrived at the Essex County Correctional Facility where he was to serve a fifty-year sentence for armed robbery and murder. The letter arrived along with the latest copy of Sports Illustrated. He glanced at the envelope. The name on the return address, Marion Downing, meant nothing to him; but since life behind prison walls held little entertainment, Billy Ray opened the envelope and read the letter.
Dear William, it began. No one called him William, not even the police or prosecutors. I read with a good deal of interest the details of your recent trial, and after due consideration of the facts, I have come to the conclusion that you are innocent of the crimes with which you were charged and convicted. I therefore think it was abominable that you received such a harsh sentence. If you are not averse to the idea, I would like very much to correspond with you during your internment. If you are agreeable, please reply to the address listed below. Sincerely yours, Marion Downing.
Billy Ray's initial impulse was to simply ignore the letter. The woman sounded like either a stuffy, old-maid schoolteacher or a librarian. Moments after tossing it into the trash, however, he reconsidered. He had little enough to look forward to during the next fifty years (other than getting out of prison); perhaps writing to Marion Downing, even though she might very well be a dried-up old prune, would at least provide him with a few laughs.
Ms. Downing's second letter was not nearly as formal as the first had been. This one began with Dear Bill and sounded less like a lesson on improving one's vocabulary and grammar. Maybe he had unfairly misjudged her, he thought, in a rare moment of charity.
It was the third letter, or rather the photograph that Marion enclosed within it, that attracted and held Billy Ray's attention. Far from being an old, plain, spinsterish woman, Marion Downing was, in Billy Ray's vernacular, a "hot chick." Her long auburn hair fell past her shoulders in soft waves that framed her heart-shaped face, her lips were full and her large brown eyes were warm and full of humor.
Billy Ray proudly showed Marion's picture to his cellmate, Yancy Underwood, and asked, "What do you think of her?"
Yancy whistled in appreciation.
"Is that your ol' lady?"
"Nah. Just some broad I'm writin' to."
"It figures. A fox like that is probably married to some rich dude."
Billy Ray didn't answer. Marion had never mentioned a husband, but he supposed there could be one. Yet even if there was, what difference would it make to him? He was behind bars and she was free, so their relationship was doomed to being that of pen pals.
In the weeks that followed, Billy Ray received several more letters from Marion. Through them, he learned that she was not now and never had been married although she admitted she had been engaged at one time.
That romance ended in disaster, she wrote candidly. I doubt if I will ever agree to marry anyone else.
Billy Ray guessed that was the reason she was writing to him. As a man locked away behind bars, he was "safe." He represented no threat to her. There would be no question of commitment, so there could be no betrayal.
As the months went by, Marion's letters arrived more frequently and became more intimate. Their relationship progressed even further when she made the long trip to the prison to visit him. Billy Ray stared at her through the wire grate. She was even more beautiful in person. The photograph he had of her had been taken from the neck up. Now he could see that Marion's body was as lovely as her face. He wondered if she was disappointed in what she saw. After all, he was no George Clooney. If she was, she gave no indication of it. The two of them talked for close to an hour, and then the guard came to take him back to his cell.
"Will you come back again?" Billy Ray asked hopefully.
"Maybe I can get some time off from work in a couple of weeks," she said sweetly and walked toward the exit.
From then on, Marion wrote to him on a daily basis and visited him every month. Additionally, Billy Ray saved up his cigarette money to telephone her once a week. Marion jokingly said that they were now "going steady." Billy Ray never had a steady girl, not even in school. He had been a tough kid who grew up on the streets. Sure, there had been women in his life, quite a few, but they were mostly one-night stands he picked up in cheap bars and strip clubs. Marion was the first "nice" girl he had ever known. She was the kind of girl that "good" boys took home to their mothers. Of course, Billy Ray's own mother, a crack addict and prostitute, would not have been too hard to please.
"I just don't understand these women who write to guys in the pen," Yancy said. "Take Marion, for instance. She knows you're in here on a murder rap, and yet she isn't afraid of you."
"Maybe she likes the danger. Fear can be a big turn-on. But I won't look a gift horse in the mouth, my friend. Marion is the best thing that's ever happened to me."
Yancy roared with laughter.
"Shit, man! You've got to be kidding! What good is havin' such a fine-lookin' lady like that when you're stuck in here and she's on the outside? Hell, I'd rather have one ugly broad here in the cell with me than a harem of beautiful women on the other side of the bars."
Billy Ray could see Yancy's point. Every time Marion visited him he felt like a weight watcher looking through a bakery window at all the high-calorie goodies inside. Yet just as their love-letter romance had escalated after Marion's first visit to the prison, so, too, did it begin to cool after her last. The letters became much shorter, and they contained fewer terms of endearment. Soon the frequency of her correspondence dropped from a letter each day to two a month.
Allowed only one fifteen-minute telephone call per week, Billy Ray, on the last three occasions he tried to reach Marion, had gotten an unanswered ring when he dialed her number. Worst of all, Marion failed to show up on her regularly scheduled visiting day.
Yancy teased him unmercifully, albeit good-naturedly.
"I guess your pretty lady finally wised up and decided a rooster in the hand was better than one in the pen."
Billy Ray was not in a joking mood, however. He took a swing at Yancy and blackened his cellmate's eye, an incident that earned him thirty days in solitary confinement. When he returned to his cell after the time was up, the prisoner had expected to find a couple of letters from Marion, but there was only one. He read it quickly and then crumpled it into a ball and tossed it on the floor.
* * *
A month passed with still no letter from Marion. Billy Ray invested his cigarette allowance in another telephone call. This time not to Marion Downing but to an old friend: Harlan Larrabee, a former Boston police detective turned private investigator, a shady character whose methods and ethics were both questionable, to say the least.
"I need a favor," Billy Ray told him.
"You know the price," Harlan replied.
"And you know I'm good for it."
"Yeah. I suppose so. What's the job?"
"I need you to find a woman for me. Her name's Marion Downing, and she lives at 118 West Tenth Street in the city. She might have moved, though, because my letters were returned, and her phone's been disconnected."
"What should I do when I find her?" Larrabee inquired.
"Nothin'. I only want you to find out where she lives now."
"That sounds easy enough. I should have the information for you in a few days."
"I'll call you back in a week. That's the extent of my phone privileges."
Three days later the Essex County Correctional Facility received a new prisoner, Charley Sawyer, who was assigned to work in the laundry with Billy Ray. As the two men piled sheets and towels into the industrial clothes washer, Billy Ray struck up a conversation.
"What're you in for?" he asked.
"Possession with intent to distribute," Charley replied matter-of-factly. "You?"
"Armed robbery and murder."
"No kiddin'? Who'd you kill?"
"Me and two other guys knocked over a bank. As we were runnin' out, some yahoo decided to play hero and tried to tackle me. I shot him and ran outside, only to find that my 'friends' were already speedin' away down the street."
"What a pisser!"
"Yeah! You got that right."
"What about the money?"
Billy Ray's mouth tightened with anger, and his eyes glittered with hatred.
"Let's just say I've got some very wealthy friends livin' somewhere in Mexico."
"Yeah, but your ass is stuck in this hell hole. If I was you, pal, I'd want to get even with them somehow."
Billy Ray looked at Charley with suspicion.
"Now don't go gettin' the wrong idea, man," Charley said with a laugh. "I ain't no undercover cop tryin' to trick you into rattin' your former friends out. I'm talkin' about a little private, personal justice. You interested?"
"Keep talkin'."
Charley lowered his voice.
"I'm not particularly fond of these no-frills accommodations they've got here, so I don't plan on servin' my entire sentence. In fact, I'll be out of here in about three weeks."
"You talkin' about an escape plan?"
"A foolproof one. I don't wanna go into any details now, but I've spread a little money around among a few of the Commonwealth's underpaid prison guards."
"Why are you tellin' me?"
"I'm a gamblin' man, one who knows that in this world you have to take chances to make money. I'm bettin' that if I take you with me when I leave here, you'll head straight for Mexico and pay a visit to your rich friends. I'm willin' to take the chance that you'll remember who it was that helped you out of this place."
"If it ever comes to that, Charley, I will remember to be duly grateful."
* * *
Three weeks later Charley Sawyer and Billy Ray Jackson were headed south on Interstate 95 in a beat-up Honda Accord.
"Hey, Charley, how would you like to earn a little more bankable gratitude once I get my cut of the take?"
"What are you talkin' about?" Sawyer asked uneasily.
"I want you to make one quick stop," Bill Ray replied.
"For what?"
"There's a girl ...."
Charley cut him off.
"No can do, buddy. We ain't got the time to make any social calls. If we get caught now, it'll mean another five years tacked on to our sentences. Now that may not mean much to someone servin' a murder rap, but ...."
"We're not gonna get caught because we won't be stayin' long. You just pull up outside, and I'll run in and talk to her. I'll probably be out in less than an hour."
"Sorry, man. It's too great a chance to take. You can call her when we get to Mexico."
"I'll pay you ten thousand dollars once I get my money."
Billy Ray could see Charley was wavering, so he upped his offer.
"Fifteen thousand. Okay, twenty."
"All right, but you better make it quick. You understand? If you're not out in an hour, I'm gonna have to leave you behind, as much as I'd hate to do that to you."
Charlie slowed down in front of the rundown apartment house whose address Harlan Larrabee had given him. Billy Ray was surprised that a classy-looking girl like Marion Downing lived in such a rat hole.
I'll take her away from all this, he vowed. We can live like royalty down in Mexico once I get my hands on that money.
The Honda came to a stop, and Billy Ray jumped out of the passenger seat while the engine was still running.
"I'll be waitin' in the grocery store parkin' lot across the street," Charley announced. "The car will be much less conspicuous there."
Billy Ray raced up four flights of stairs, praying that Marion was home. If she wasn't, he'd have to leave a letter for her, but he thought his chances of convincing her to marry him were greater if they were face to face.
As he knocked on the door of Apartment 4D, his heart raced with anticipation. He held his breath, waiting; then he knocked again. The door slowly opened a crack.
"Bill!" Marion whispered in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"I gotta talk to you, sweetheart. Please open the door and let me in."
Marion promptly shut the door in his face, without any further word. But then he heard the chain lock being drawn, and the door opened wide.
"Marion," he moaned, embracing her and nearly crushing her in his arms.
It was the first time they had been together with no prison barrier between them.
"I'm on my way to Mexico," he said quickly. "Why don't you throw a few things in a bag and come with me. We can be married on the way. See, I told you I loved you, that I was serious about my feelings for you."
"I can't go to Mexico," she protested. "My job is here."
"You don't need a job. I'll have more than enough money to support us both."
"But I have a family, friends—a life."
Billy Ray glared at her with suspicion.
"There's another man, isn't there?"
"The last time we spoke you said I would probably meet someone on the outside eventually. The idea didn't seem to bother you then."
"So that's it? Just because I didn't jump at the chance to marry you when you asked, you ran out and found someone else. You'll be sorry, you tramp. I promise you!"
"That's no way to talk to a lady, pal."
Billy Ray spun around to find Charley Sawyer standing in the doorway.
"What are you doin' here?"
"You asked me to stop here, remember?"
"But how did you know which apartment I'd be in?"
"Marion and I go back a long way. I helped her find this place."
"What the f—?"
Charley punched Billy Ray in the jaw and sent him tumbling over the ripped couch.
"I told you to watch your language!"
"Just who the hell are you?" Billy Ray demanded to know.
"A man who holds a grudge."
"What grudge? What did I ever do to you? I never even met you until a month ago."
"That's true," Charley laughed. "I usually associate with a much better class of people."
"I get it now," Billy Ray said, messaging his jaw. "You're a cop after all. You wanted me to lead you to the money."
"I told you this didn't involve the police. This is a matter of private, personal vengeance—for me and Marion and for a few others as well."
"What the hell are you talkin' about?"
Marion stepped forward and explained.
"That man you shot in the bank: he was my fiancé."
"And my brother," Charley added. "Do you know anything about the man you killed?"
"Only that he should've minded his own damned business and not gotten involved."
"I agree with you there. But, you see, our family owned the bank, and I'm sure my brother felt our father would be proud of him if he had at least put up a fight."
"If your family owns a bank, you must be loaded," Billy Ray reasoned.
"We both are," Charley said, meaning Marion and himself. "How else do you think we arranged for the escape to come off so smoothly?"
"Why bother, man? Why not just put a contract out on me? A hitman could have picked me off either before or after I went to prison."
It was Marion who answered.
"If we had killed you as a man who was facing a fifty-year prison sentence, we might actually have been doing you a favor. No. I wanted you to believe there was a real chance for you to have love, happiness and the freedom to enjoy them both. That way I could see them being snatched from you just when you were ready to reach out and grab them. You see, I wanted you to feel the pain of loss that I knew."
"And now what? Which one of you has the guts to kill me?"
"You're the murderer," Marion said viciously, "not us."
"That's right," Charley said. "Neither one of us is going to hurt you. Instead, we've recruited some outside talent to take care of you."
"That figures! People like you don't like to get any blood on your hands, do you?"
"That's true."
Charley walked to a closed door at the end of the hall and opened it.
"Remember us?" asked one of Billy Ray's partners in the bank robbery.
Both men were holding guns equipped with silencers.
"You guys have got some nerve! I should be the one gunnin' for you after the way you left me holdin' the bag."
"Which is precisely what you were going to do," Charley said. "That's why your two friends were more than willing to help me out. With you out of the way, they can rest a little easier."
Charley then took Marion's arm and led her toward the door.
"I trust you two gentlemen can handle it from here on?"
The gunmen nodded, and Charley and Marion, savoring the sweet taste of revenge, left the squalid apartment house and never looked back.
Salem doesn't think it's odd that women fall in love with prisoners. Whenever he goes into a cage, he always finds feminine companionship.
