Hey there everyone! Sorry it's been so long! I haven't abandoned this, but other things have kinda had to come first...Anyway, here is chapter thirteen. Okay, in this chapter, Roxie meets Velma for the first time, in prison. Now, I hear you shouting: "But it's a year after the movie! Velma isn't still in prison!" And Cira even pointed that out in a review...:D But, I have thought this through, and she is still in jail. All will be revealed...

Chapter 13 "Unlucky"

"What?" shouted Roxie sleepily.

"You heard," replied Harrison tersely.

"Yeah, sure I heard, but what the-"

He didn't wait any longer. He roughly pulled her out of bed, threw a coat at her, and hustled her outside.

"Get her in the van, Joe," as she was shoved into the prison van.

At the Cook County Jail, Roxie was stripped, measured, pulled around, asked questions about drugs and her job, squeezed into some scratchy brown clothes, and made to sit down in a dingy room to wait for the warden. She was told to put her cigarette out (something she made no move to do), stop talking (likewise) and remove her rhinestone garter that the guard could see when she crossed her legs. Before she could, the female guard was replaced- with a man, who just stared at it. She smiled at him, and stopped having a conversation with the woman next to her to bat her eyelashes at him. After about three minutes of sitting there in silence, with all the room gaping at the ex-jazz honey, the warder came in. Roxie's guard was startled out of his stupor, and quickly jumped up and shouted, "On your feet!"

From that moment, Roxie's world went hazy. She dimly saw a figure in the doorway as it swung open, but after that...it was like she was dreaming. She thought she heard the Matron singing!

When she came round, the warder was walking around the room, telling the women that they would get no special treatment from her...unless she got "special treatment" back. Most of the prisoners didn't understand, the rest did, and were shocked. But Roxie had learnt that to survive in the smoky jazz scene of Chicago, you couldn't afford to have morals, and she met Mama Morton's eye with a smile curling around her lip. She thought that the two would be able to come to some kind of...arrangement...soon.

As the prisoners were filed out of the door, Roxie, last to leave, was stopped by the Matron. Roxie looked unflinchingly into her face.

"You're Hart," It wasn't a question.

"Yes, Ma'am," Roxie replied.

"No, hon. Call me Mama. God knows, everyone else does, and I like the look of you. Now, you'll be habitating down in the East Block. Murderess Row, we call it."

Last year, Roxie would have been naive enough to ask if that was nicer. By this time, she was as hardened a criminal as ever was, and just raised her eyebrows.

"Sounds great," she said sarcastically. Mama threw her head back and laughed.

"You know, Hart, the more I see of you, the more I like you. You're in line for some privileges...if you've got the cash."

"Oh, don't you worry about that, Mama." Roxie replied, and the two left together for the East Block. On the way, Mama slipped perfume into garters, took money from behind ears, put cigarettes in mouths...Roxie was amazed at the amount of black market trading the woman indulged in, and wondered just how far her money would take her.

They got to Roxie's cell. Next door was a haggard looking woman, much older than Roxie, with black hair that needed a trim, and a hooker's amount of makeup that just seemed to emphasise the dark circles under her eyes, and wrinkles on her forehead and in the corner of her eyes. As Mama Morton passed her, she started, and ran eagerly to the bars.

"Anything for me, Mama?" she asked. The matron shook her head, and the other woman sat back down on her bench. Roxie looked at Mama.

"Very sad," she whispered, "Velma Kelly was once the town's most loved jazz singer." She paused, and Roxie jumped in.

"Velma Kelly? The Velma Kelly? Who plugged her sister and her husband? But...she was my idol! I wanted to be like her! I saw her at The Onyx the night she got arrested."

Morton looked amused at the kid (Roxie was young enough to be her daughter) who had been so cool and calm, giving herself away like this.

"Yeah? You and half of Chicago. Anyway, Velma got taken on by Billy Flynn, best damm lawyer in all of Illinois. You'll need Billy, kiddo. But where was I? Oh yeah. Well, Billy got her off- some bullshit about her blacking out and not knowing what she was doing, it's not important- and she was a free woman. Papers had been building up a load of publicity about her, and I'd even arranged for her to play Big Jim's. You know Big Jim's?"

Roxie nodded- it was the top jazz venue in town, her dream, her one ambition.

"Well," continued Mama, "If she didn't throw away everything by lying in court in another case going on at the time. That would have been Liz, nice girl, but had an obsession, with popping gum. Shot her boyfriend after he got on her nerves doing it. Liz needed help...anyway, Vel tried to help her get off by telling the jury about a diary or something. She was found out. Liz hung, and Velma got ten years."

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