After several months of this Fran told me a friend of hers had a very private two -bedroom condo for rent in the Georgetown Villas in Lyndhurst. I knew it was dicey, but by then I missed having an actual home so much, I thought it would be worth the risk. I took the place using my "John Welling" alias and set up housekeeping. First thing I did was indulge my legitimate paranoia and build an escape hatch in case the police came through the front door. I cut a hole in the ceiling of a closet that would let me climb up to an attic, then marked out where I could break back down into an adjoining condo and get away. This contingency arrangement made me feel a little better about the chance I was taking.
I came into the Broward County Jail in Florida for a three-month stretch (I'll explain why soon) at the age of thirty-six with my back straight and showing no fear. I cast dirty looks at the more intimidating of my fellow inmates, which got me a lot of catcalls and derisive remarks at first, but I kept it up and didn't look away. The jail wasn't well designed, and was kind of just an afterthought extension to the courthouse, so there was no exercise yard — in effect, we were on twenty-four hour lockdown — but I did chin-ups by the hundreds on the cell-block bars to demonstrate my upper-body strength. It wasn't to show off but to make sure guys knew I wasn't some couch-potato white-collar embezzler who couldn't and wouldn't defend himself. Early on I established that I wouldn't take too kindly to someone trying to f* me in the ass, that I'd rather get killed fighting back and would make sure to seriously damage..
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