Unauthorized Vacation: Phone Call To Hector

A bus station is a magnet for all types of seedy characters so Spratt didn’t want to spend much time there.  He walked through the terminal gate and out the front door where he hailed the first taxi that he saw.  Spratt had lived in Charlotte years ago and knew where most of the mid-range motels were so he directed the taxi driver to take him to Independence Blvd.  He saw a motel next to an ‘International House of Pancakes’ restaurant that advertised low weekly rates and checked in paying a week in advance.  When he got to his room, he realized that the hotel had certainly deteriorated since the last time he stayed there.  The room was dingy with very low wattage light bulbs; the heater was stuck in the ‘on’ position and felt like a furnace; the sink was dripping and the toilet was running.  A cockroach peeked out from behind a threadbare towel hanging on the rack.  The TV remote felt greasy in his hand!  “Yuck” thought Spratt, “but it’s better than being in prison!”

Spratt wasn’t sure what the North Carolina inmate uniforms were like so he didn’t want to spend too much time outside while the sun was still up.  He ordered some takeout food from the IHOP and returned to his room to watch TV until dusk when he would feel more comfortable walking to the nearby Wal-Mart to buy some clothes.  While he waited, the old fashioned phone rang three different times.  Spratt was startled at first but answered it thinking it might be the front desk.  It wasn’t the front desk…crackwhores wanting to come ‘visit’.  “Fuck Off!” Spratt told each one of them.  Spratt is not the stereotypical criminal and didn’t thrive off of the underworld of petty scams, drugs, and prostitutes; he despised them but usually just let them be figuring ‘to each, his own’.  In this situation though, he needed to make sure that everybody around knew to leave him alone because those types of people are ‘cop magnets’ and draw a lot of attention which was the last thing that Spratt needed.

At dusk, Spratt walked to the Wal-Mart and bought three pairs of jeans, three cheap Polo style shirts, socks, underwear, a pair of sneakers, a cheap ‘duffle’ type bag, a couple of packs of cigarettes, and a case of beer.  Spratt returned to his room, took a quick shower, changed into his new clothes, and drank a couple of beers before venturing out.  Spratt could see a bowling alley from his room window and knew they would have a bar in there.  He put his prison uniform in a trash bag and threw them in the hotel dumpster on his way to the bowling alley where he spent the next few hours talking, laughing, and drinking with the other patrons.  He almost felt normal.

The next couple of weeks were pretty much uneventful for Spratt.  He made a concerted effort to not contact anybody in his family until he could figure out what he was going to do in the long run.  He looked for employment but it was difficult since he didn’t have any valid identification.  He had once been married in South Carolina so he took a bus to Columbia in order to get a copy of his marriage license.  That in hand, he took a bus to Georgia (very nervously) to get a copy of his birth certificate hoping that these two documents would be sufficient to get a replacement social security card.  He took another Greyhound to Orlando, Florida and checked into another weekly motel to establish an address for the social security card to be sent to. 

While in Orlando, he met an out of town contractor who offered him a menial labor job which he took in order to sustain himself as his money (Hector’s money) was running out.  He had already sold the DVD player and was down to his last hundred dollars when he took the job.  He worked with the contractor for a couple of weeks and earned his trust.  The contractor decided to fly back home for a long weekend and asked Spratt to drive him to the airport.  He left Spratt the keys to his car and told him he could use it if he needed to go anywhere over the weekend.  He told Spratt to pick him up at the airport on Monday afternoon.  Spratt went back to the hotel, ate supper, had a few beers, and went to sleep.

The next morning, a Saturday, Spratt began drinking early.  He was bored since there was no work to do with the contractor out of town.  He started thinking about his situation and felt a strong desire to talk to his wife and children. Spratt went to Wal-Mart and bought an AT&T calling card.  He knew that there were anonymous pre-paid phones but he thought it would be more difficult to trace the calling card since you had to call through to an ‘800’ number, enter the card number, and have the computer place the call for you from a remote location.  He knew that the ‘Caller ID’ would display the number of the line from which the system placed the call and not the actual number that he was calling from.  He returned to the hotel with a one hundred dollar card and a cache of beer.  He locked the door and started drinking while contemplating whether or not he should make the call.

Spratt wasn’t even sure if his family knew that he had escaped.  He didn’t have a clue about what might have transpired after he left the hotel in Atlanta and wanted to get some idea of what the current atmosphere was prior to calling his wife.  Who could he call though?  It was Saturday and no government office would be open.  Anybody at Idaho Department of Corrections that would have details about the situation wouldn’t be back until Monday and any police officers currently on duty in any jurisdiction would only be able to confirm if there was a warrant or not…no specific information.  He didn’t have the personal numbers of anybody involved that he might be able to call on the weekend…or did he?  Spratt remembered Hector’s cell phone and dug it out of the duffle bag.

Spratt installed the battery in the phone and waited for it to power up.  When it finally booted up, he attempted to call a random number to check the service but it was still de-activated…if he called anybody, he would have to use the card that he purchased that morning.  He knew he couldn’t call Hector because he had Hector’s phone but maybe the Sergeant’s phone number might be in there.  Spratt opened the phone’s directory and searched for the Sergeant’s number while wondering if he would actually have the ‘balls’ to call him.  “Why not,” thought Spratt, “what the hell could he do to me?  He doesn’t know where I am!  Fuck it!  I’m gonna call him!”

Spratt knew the Sergeant’s first and last name but all of the numbers in Hector’s phone were listed under nicknames and he couldn’t figure out which one might actually belong to the Sergeant.  He did see one listed as ‘Querida’ which means ‘dear’ or ‘darling’ in English but surely that couldn’t be the Sergeant's number unless Hector had a strange sense of humor.  Spratt drank another beer while inspecting the numbers in the phone and looked at the call history.  The last call made prior to Spratt’s call to the grandmother in Puerto Rico was to ‘Querida’.  Spratt remembered Hector making a call to his girlfriend in the Atlanta hotel room and surmised that she must be ‘Querida’.  Spratt drank another beer wondering why this fraud ‘expert’ hadn’t locked his phone with a passcode to keep someone from accessing his information.  “Dumbass,” thought Spratt as he decided to call ‘Querida’.

Spratt dialed the number through the AT&T card system and a female answered on the third ring with a “Hello?”  “Could I speak with Hector?” Spratt asked in Spanish.  “Who is calling?” the female asked.  “This is Spratt” he told her.  “Who?”  “Just tell him that this is his favorite fugitive,” Spratt said as he popped open another beer.  A moment later, Hector was on the line!  “You Motherfucker!” screamed Hector.  “Who the fuck do you think you are calling my girlfriend’s cell phone!?!” he demanded.  “Well,” replied Spratt half laughing and trying to keep the beer from going through his nostrils, “I tried to call your number but nobody answered!  Oh, that’s right!  YOU don’t have your phone…I do!”  “I’m looking for you MOTHERFUCKER!” Hector gravely stated.  “For what?” asked Spratt amused at the statement.  “To kill you!” replied Hector. 

The last statement from Hector sobered Spratt up a little bit because he had first-hand knowledge of the corruption in the Puerto Rico Police Department and he knew that this threat was not meant in the figurative sense…Hector would try to kill him if he could; he had no doubt about that but was surprised at the viciousness and vehemence in Hector’s voice.  “What the fuck,” thought Spratt, “prisoners escape all the time and the people that they escape from don’t usually develop a murderous vendetta to achieve!”  This statement also angered Spratt and he decided to taunt Hector.

“Hector!  How did it feel to get home and find out that you didn’t have any money in the bank?”  Spratt continued with, “Did the big bad fraud expert have to borrow some cash from his girlfriend?”  “Look you son-of-a-BITCH…” replied Hector, “…I am a PROFESSIONAL police officer and I WILL catch your ass!”  Spratt laughed and told Hector, “If you were so goddamned professional, Hector, you would be talking to me through the bars of a Puerto Rican prison instead of on your girlfriend’s cell phone!  Ha Ha!  How professional can you be to get drunk and lose a prisoner!?”  “We didn’t have ANYTHING to drink you bastard!”  “What motherfucker?!  Are you trying to say that you didn’t drink anything in Atlanta?!” Spratt was incredulous!  “How the FUCK did I get away from you then?!” 

Hector changed the subject and tried to bluff Spratt by saying, “I KNOW that you have been in contact with your wife and that she is helping you out by sending you money!  I am going to arrest her and charge her with obstruction of justice if you don’t turn yourself in!”  This statement concerned Spratt.  He hadn’t had any contact at all with his family so he knew that Hector was just guessing but he wondered how vulnerable his wife was due to living in the jurisdiction of Puerto Rico and how much authority Hector might actually be able to wield over her.  Spratt told Hector in all seriousness, “Listen to me dickhead!  You don’t have a FUCKING clue where I am right now but I know EXACTLY where you live!  If you fuck with my wife or anybody else in my family…I will be the one doing the killing and YOU will be the first one on my list!”  Hector hung up.  Spratt tried to call back several times but nobody answered the phone.