Page 35 of Pulling Strings

“Oh, you are funny,” Jax said, but his tone was far from amused.

Clyde’s chair scooted back, and he stood, towering over our visitors. He must have been seven feet tall and half as broad. No need to seek out the biggest guy in the yard to propel my way to the top of the prison food chain. He was right in front of me.

“Time to go,” Clyde told Jax.

“Relax, Big C.” The weaselly man held up his hands. “We aren’t gonna break your new toy.”

Clyde didn’t speak again. He didn’t need to.

Jax worked his jaw a moment before huffing a breath. “Maybe next time.” He winked a yellow eye at me. His turn toward the exit signaled the other two, and they all filed out.

Clyde pulled the cell door shut in their wake. I stayed against the wall, watching as he shuffled back to the desk chair and sat.

“They’re bad news,” he said of our now absent guests. “And he lied about your tattoo. Don’t hide it. That’s how your friends will find you.”

I nodded while a pertinent question remained unasked:Are you my friend, Clyde?

I hoped so because ours were close quarters, and his fists were the size of my head. Clyde could probably bench-press Vinton, and that was saying something.

Turning toward the bunkbed ladder, I gripped the metal rungs.

“I’m gonna lay down,” I said. “Not feeling so hot.”

Clyde grunted. “You’ll get used to it.”

So I’d been told.

I made it up the ladder and crawled across the mattress. Collapsing onto it, I immediately felt every slatunderneath. My stomach grumbled. I was hungry, tired, and already done with today.

Rolling over, I peered at the drawings taped to the wall above Clyde’s desk. All people, it appeared, most of the same person. I’d seen enough police sketch artist renderings of myself to recognize the hallmarks: hollow cheeks, shaggy undercut, lip ring…

“Clyde?” I cleared my throat. “Whatcha working on?”

He paused mid-scrawl and turned, holding up his notebook. “New art for my fan site. I upload every Wednesday. Library day.” This most current work featured two people in a compromising position. One was the same floppy-haired, tatted guy from the other drawings, and the other looked a lot—too much—like Avery.

“Fan site, huh?” I sat up on the bunk, rubbing the back of my neck. “For who?”

“Marionette,” Clyde murmured.

“Marionette?” My nose scrunched. “As in… me?”

Clyde gazed at the notebook with the nearest thing to love in his eyes. “He is my muse.”

“Oh.” I paused. “Marionette is more of a media thing. Sensational journalism and shit. Most everybody else just calls me Fitch…” The longer I stared at the drawings, the more cringeworthy they became. It was a shrine, after all. A gay smut shrine.

“I like girls, too, you know,” I said at last.

The big man shrugged.

“Hey, Clyde!” A curly-haired woman poked her head between the cell bars, making me jump. She flashed a gap-toothed smile as she announced, “Turn on your radio. AM 785. Marionette’s on the news.” She caught me with a passing glance, then waved. “Hey, new guy.”

Before I could respond, she disappeared.

Holland’s warning about the public learning of my arrest resurfaced in my mind. On its heels came the vivid image of my head mounted on a plaque. Maybe they’d hang it in the Investigative Department, stuffed and fitted with dead glass eyes like a prized buck.

Static crackled as Clyde turned the dials on a tiny clock radio. Notes of passing songs blipped by before he found the right station. It wasn’t a news broadcast at all, rather a local talk show with a shock jock DJ whose whiny voice rubbed my nerves like a cheese grater.

“Big news from the Capitol this morning, ladies and gents,” the DJ said. “Call him Fitch Farrow, call him Marionette, I don’t care as long as they call him convicted. That’s right, the Bloody Hex’s string-pulling assassin has been captured.”

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