Night Sun

by Tom Barber

  ‘No, but it’s a start.’ Nicky stepped down onto the concrete. ‘Now we just gotta find out what they’re up to.’

  *

  Two days later, with the city red hot in the search for their group of wanted fugitives, police units and Marshals’ task forces with ATF support in Cleveland were searching residence-by-residence in the neighborhood near St Clair where Reyes and O’Mara had dumped their Chrysler. The area was flooded with armed cops and agents carrying out intensive searches, an APB for the bodega owner’s car out over the radio, but the pair seemed to have vanished into thin air.

  At the same time across the city, Lupinetti swore as he saw another police cruiser approaching from the opposite direction and turned into a parking lot, waiting for the cop car to pass and hoping it hadn’t seen the car’s plates. They’d found a way out of downtown, but were now stuck in another suburb called Lakewood. Sitting in a bay surrounded by other vehicles, they heard the sound of at least two choppers overhead somewhere. ‘Gonna be more federal agents than people in this city in a few hours,’ he muttered. ‘I worked manhunts back in the day. You boys killed police and State troopers. ATF, Marshals, FBI, they’ll all be wanting a piece of us.’

  ‘Rest of that money stash you’ve been saying you got,’ Brooks suddenly said, checking behind them from the front passenger seat. ‘We’re gonna need it now. Your ticket on this ride ain’t free.’

  Lupinetti was caught off guard. ‘OK, but I gotta contact someone back home. Gonna take a bit of time.’

  Brooks looked at him before taking the pistol from the holster on his stolen police belt and thumbed out the bullets on the magazine, seeing he only had three left. The rifle and shotgun were dry too; blasting their way through the second roadblock getting out of West Virginia and the shootout at the robbery earlier had eaten up most of their bullets and shotgun shells. ‘We need more ammo,’ Billy told him, reading his big brother’s mind. As they sat there in the car, hearing police sirens and the sound of choppers in the distance, Brooks dug into his pocket; he took out the cell phone belonging to the man of the couple they’d killed the night before for this car, and switched it on before carrying out a quick search.

  ‘Gun store, six blocks away,’ he said. ‘This says it’s open. We gotta dump this ride anyway.’

  ‘Right now?’ Lupinetti asked.

  ‘Yeah, right now.’ They got out, and Brooks was about to stamp on the phone in case the cops had realized they’d stolen that too and could track it. But then he had another idea.

  ‘Who the hell are you calling?’ Billy asked, watching his big brother dial a number and lift the phone to his ear.

  ‘911,’ Brooks said, as the other two looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. ‘They’re looking for us, right?’

  TWENTY THREE

  After Nicky and Prez had left the yard with the other inmates on that late afternoon two days ago, they followed the line to the chow hall, the last meal of the day before the prisoners were all returned to their cells for the night. But after collecting their food, the two cellmates deviated from where they normally sat to approach an old man parked at a table by himself.

  ‘OK if we join you, Wes?’ Prez asked.

  The senior inmate shrugged without looking up, and they placed their trays down opposite him before taking a seat.

  ‘You know more than most people what’s going down in here, Wesley,’ Prez told him.

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  Prez leaned forward as Nicky glanced around. In his peripheral vision, he thought he noticed Brooks Loughlin briefly look their way, the huge man sitting with Billy, Hoffmeier, Kattar and Lupinetti as they all shoveled what passed for dinner into their mouths. ‘You heard of anyone planning a vacation outta this place anytime soon?’ Prez asked, keeping his voice low. ‘Say, two brothers who’ve been running laps in the yard.’

  ‘Caught that too, huh?’

  ‘My celly did,’ Prez answered. Wesley looked up at Nicky, who nodded.

  ‘If I knew something and passed it on to you, be worth some time with that tin can and string of yours,’ Wesley told Rainey. ‘You’re the only man on C Block with a phone who I care to talk to.’

  ‘Long as I get it back.’

  ‘I ain’t in here for stealing.’

  The biker nodded and offered his hand. ‘You got a deal.’

  Wes shook it. ‘Since those two’ve been working in the laundry, they’ve got to watching the guards at the gate checking inside the back of the truck when it leaves. Picked up the morning shift ain’t too thorough. Alarms were goin’ off a month back remember? The screws still didn’t do it proper then.’

  ‘They planning to take advantage?’ Prez asked.

  ‘You bet. A riot’s coming in four days,’ he muttered. ‘While all the shit’s goin’ down, they’re getting out in the laundry truck.’ Wesley ate a mouthful of mashed potatoes. ‘The screws have gotten lazy. They think no-one can break out of here.’

  ‘How’d you know all this?’ Nicky asked.

  ‘I work in the library with Kattar. Boy struggles so hard to keep his mouth shut, surprised he don’t catch flies.’

  ‘Who’s gettin’ out?’ Prez asked.

  ‘Brooks, Billy and their little brother, but he’s at the other place. He’s only in for two years but guess he’s had enough and is running with them too. Kattar said him and Hoff are also going. Their job is to start the riot.’

  ‘What about that ex-cop? The one from New York.’

  ‘Yeah, him too. Promised them a load of cash if they get his ass outta here. Kattar said he’s got a stash hidden that he’s willing to split.’

  ‘That’s a lot for one laundry truck,’ Prez replied. ‘Gonna be pretty crowded in there.’

  ‘Guess Brooks has it all worked out.’ Wes peered up at them briefly, then focused again on his tray. ‘Or Kattar and Hoff are too dumb to see what’s clear as day.’

  As Wes spoke, Nicky glanced over at Hoffmeier, Kattar and the former NYPD lieutenant who’d been tagging along with them lately, bandaging visible around his arm from where he’d gotten cut last week by another couple of inmates. Lupinetti seemed to have been let into the Loughlins’ circle since he got jumped, but Wes was right. For an ex-cop to be tolerated by guys like that, there had to be a lot of money changing hands and only in one direction.

  Wes stopped eating the potatoes on his tray for a moment, his eyes large behind his spectacles as he focused on Prez and Nicky. ‘Why you two so interested in what those boys are up to?’

  ‘My friend here’s looking to hitch a ride,’ Prez said after a moment, deciding to trust him.

  ‘So close to release? Don’t be stupid, kid. Take it from me, you don’t wanna be an old man in a place like this.’

  ‘He’s got his reasons,’ Prez said.

  ‘And a breakout four days from now doesn’t help me,’ Nicky replied worriedly. ‘She’s pulling this thing in less than two.’

  ‘Don’t need to know, don’t wanna know.’ Wesley opened a packet of cruddy margarine and started spreading it on a couple of slices of bread with a spoon. The prison didn’t allow the inmates to have plastic knives. ‘But I could spread a rumor. Say the guards are planning to start shiftin’ people around on rotation in the kitchen and laundry, startin’ Saturday. That could get Finn and Sawyer over there bumpin’ up their schedule.’

  ‘What would it take?’ Prez asked.

  Wesley smiled, looking at their trays. ‘Your pieces of fruit.’

  An hour later, when the inmates were locked in their cells, Wesley wheeled a cart of books and magazines past the cells and stopped by Prez’s and Nicky’s on the upper southside tier. He held out a novel through the bars; Prez moved forward to take it as Nicky stayed in the back, having unsuccessfully tried Kat several more times on his cellmate’s contraband cell phone.

  Prez opened the book and pulled out a small piece of paper as Wesley rolled on, quickly reading what had been scrawled on it as Nicky joined him.

  v
acation starts tomorrow after bfast. plan changed. ex-cop found out he’s getting transferred in morning, so bumped forward anyway

  need that tin cup next week to call my grandson

  ‘Now we’re talking,’ Nicky whispered, as Prez checked the tier to make sure they weren’t being watched.

  ‘Yeah, but now we gotta figure out how to get you out too without the COs or the Loughlin boys noticing. And we’ve only got ten hours to do-’

  *

  Prez’s voice suddenly cut off, in the present. ‘Then what?’ Marquez asked, having taken a seat on a bench in the sunny Jonesville police evidence compound. She’d been totally absorbed in Rainey’s tale, realizing she was almost certainly the only person other than a few Gatlin inmates to get the inside details on the events leading up to the riot and the breakouts.

  ‘Boss is coming. Gotta go.’

  ‘Wait, Rainey, call me wh-’ she remonstrated, but the line had already gone dead. She swore, knowing better than to dial him back; she just had to hope he’d contact her when he could. ‘God dammit,’ she muttered, before wandering back to the laundry truck, desperate to know what had happened next.

  ‘Yeah, I think I just saw some of the people from the news!’ Brooks said on a 911 call from the Lakewood parking lot, Lupinetti immediately catching on to what he was doing. ‘Two real big guys and another one. They were near the stadium,’

  ‘Which stadium?’ the operator asked.

  ‘Sorry, I’m from out of town; I think it’s the one where the basketball team plays!’ Brooks said quickly before hanging up. He then dropped the phone to the concrete and stamped it to pieces before picking up the fragments and dropping them in a nearby trash can.

  ‘They can still trace where the call came from,’ Lupinetti said. ‘I’ve done that before.’

  ‘They’ll follow the tip first. Gets them off our ass for a spell. That’s all we need.’

  The three fugitives then moved across the lot, carrying their bag of guns and the holdall from the heist. They waited until they saw a chopper east of them peel off, taking the bait, and once there was no sign of any police cars, the trio crossed the street, quickly making their way to the gun store six blocks away.

  TWENTY FOUR

  In his hotel room, having managed to get that half hour of sleep, Archer was now back on his temporary burner phone with the detective-sergeant from Robbery/Homicide, who’d been given his number by Lieutenant Richie. The man, who’d introduced himself as Allen Glick, had news.

  ‘The four dead thieves who hit the truck were career criminals,’ he told Archer. ‘Three guys, one chick, lists of arrests and time spent inside. The guys were all former guests at the State pen in Elkton or at Lebanon Correctional. Dead woman served time at ORW in Marysville.’

  ‘ORW?’

  ‘Ohio Reformatory for Women. Our largest equivalent for females.’

  ‘What about Reyes’ sister?’

  ‘She’s the odd one out. Girl comes from a wealthy background. Daddy was a multi-millionaire but she’s done time in ORW too.’

  ‘For burglary?’

  ‘No, doctor shopping. She was caught with pills she’d bought illegally from faking out prescriptions. Did fifteen months when she was twenty five, five years ago. You said she got tagged pretty bad?’

  ‘To the body,’ Archer said, remembering seeing her slumped against the mailbox clutching her side after being shot by one of the Loughlins, leaving bloodstains on the concrete once she was gone. ‘If she hasn’t died already, she might soon if Reyes doesn’t get her to a hospital or finds a doctor.’

  ‘Search units are on it. Construction crew who’ve been working the site on Superior with the wrecking ball were called first thing telling them the mayor ordered no work done today. Said his office didn’t want noise complaints on the holiday weekend so gave them the day off. By the time they realized it was a hoax when their foreman contacted their supervisor to doublecheck, the ball was already swinging into that truck.’

  ‘An inside man? They’d need keys.’

  ‘You got it. One of the thieves had been hired onto the construction team a month ago. Vaughn Till. He’s Kat’s roommate’s brother. Two of the guys on our squad have arrested him before. The company gave him the job despite his past. Guess they’re regretting that right about now.’

  ‘News reports are saying none of the Gatlin boys have been found yet,’ Archer said, watching the TV in the room.

  ‘911 operators just got a call about the brothers being seen near the Cavs stadium so units are pouring over there. There are roadblocks choking off the city all the way out past the suburbs. We’ll get your man.’

  ‘What about Reyes and O’Mara?’

  ‘No sighting of them since they dumped the Chrysler for that bodega owner’s, but she’ll be hurting real bad like you said. They should be easier to find if she’s injured. Can’t move as fast as the other three and we got the details of the car they’re in.’

  ‘It took Gatlin almost twelve hours before they realized Reyes wasn’t in his cell. Don’t underestimate him. He’s proving to be just as smart as Brooks Loughlin.’ Archer looked at the street below again. ‘Did the bank come back on those safe deposit boxes?’

  ‘We confirmed just two are missing. The owners are being contacted so we can find out what they contain.’

  ‘Now we know why you helped your celly break out, Rainey,’ the captain at USP Gatlin told Prez, having been grilling him for almost an hour with the prison’s warden, three State police detectives and three of the US Marshals who’d been at the facility the day before. The biker had been pulled from his cell immediately after he’d dropped his call with Marquez, the phone quickly hidden in its usual place just before the COs had stopped outside his cell to collect him. ‘He had to get to Ohio to help his girl out with this bank truck.’

  ‘Bank truck? How about some details, boss?’

  ‘Like you don’t know?’

  ‘He didn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘He’s not gonna last long out there,’ one of the Marshals said. ‘O’Mara got shot and he dumped their first car. It had Georgia plates. We just learned that you’re from Georgia, Kevin.’

  ‘Yeah, I parked it out on the highway for him. Gave it a good wax and polish before I strolled back in through the gate in time for lunch.’

  ‘You want him to survive long enough to wear an orange jumpsuit again, I’d start talking.’

  ‘The kid didn’t tell me shit and anything I say won’t make a difference anyway. You’ll catch him eventually. We all know it.’

  Rainey was marched back to his cell by two waiting COs and locked inside. He was tempted to immediately retrieve the phone and pick up with Marquez in case she had more news he could pry out of her but held off, suspicious why he’d been returned here to C Block instead of being taken to the SHU after remembering the captain’s threats yesterday.

  He walked to the door and looked through the bars down at a lower cell on the opposite side holding Wesley. The old man was reading a book but hadn’t missed Prez getting pulled before being returned to his cell.

  Rainey made a twisting motion with his right arm, and Wes gave a brief nod.

  A screw was lurking.

  Prez lay on his bunk and waited for almost twenty minutes, then heard a door quietly open and close, the hinges creaking. He got up and looked back at Wesley again. Still holding the book, he subtly gave a thumb’s up.

  The CO who’d been lingering was gone.

  Prez retrieved the phone from its hiding place, turned it on and waited. As expected, he had a couple of missed calls and a voicemail, but they weren’t from the lady police detective from New York.

  ‘I need your help, old man,’ a familiar voice said, sounding stressed. ‘If they didn’t throw you in the SHU with Janks yet or find your phone, call me back soon as you can.’

  *

  The night before the escape, once they’d come up with a rough plan, ironed out the kinks and Prez had sent some
now-deleted messages to the outside with a couple of urgent requests, Nicky was on the top bunk studying a map of the local area on his cellmate’s smartphone. He was examining the highways, the routes and other smaller roads, committing the whole landscape to memory as best he could. If he was found missing early, Lee County was going to be a labyrinth of law enforcement to try and elude tomorrow. He needed to have imprinted into his mind every possible way to get out.

  His tired eyes flicked to the time on the device; almost 12:30am. It reminded him of when he was a kid, up late studying for an exam or with a deadline that he was trying to meet. At some point he had to try to sleep, and the long hours of night would suddenly be gone.

  Then it would be morning and there really would be no turning back.

  He powered down the phone and leaned over the side of the bed to hand it back to Prez, then saw why he’d been so quiet for the past half hour. ‘What you doing’?’ Nicky asked curiously, and quietly.

  ‘Making you something,’ Prez replied. ‘You’re gonna need the calories.’

  Nicky swung his legs off his bunk and dropped down. To his surprise, he saw the motorcycle club president had separated a pack of Oreos and crushed up the cookies with water to make layers. The cream from between each biscuit had been used as icing, peanut butter in another, and he’d even mashed up a bag of M&Ms for the top layer. ‘You son of a bitch,’ Nicky said, looking at the correctional cake. ‘You used up your supplies.’

  ‘Cookies are out of date,’ Prez lied. ‘Don’t feel special.’ He placed the cake on the book on his bed, then used the edge of the hardback novel Wesley had passed them earlier to separate it into slices. It crumbled slightly but held together; he offered it for Nicky to take a piece, which he did, holding it on another book.

  As he leaned against the wall with the slice, he glanced down at the lower tier and saw the Loughlin brothers were both lying on their bunks; he was too far away to see if they were asleep. Probably not, considering what they had planned in a few hours’ time.