by Scott Cook
“You’re going to offer to take over the laundry shift as soon as possible,” Crowe said. When Eddie protested, one of the other assholes kicked him in the inside of his thigh again, sending fresh waves of pain up his femoral artery. “And after you take care of that, you’re going to give Mr. Hodge a guided tour of all the blind spots on the floor before he starts his first shift. Then you’re going to watch him like he was a baby crawling around the edge of a shark tank. Do you understand all that, Eddie?”
He had nodded. Of course Hodge needed to know the blind spots, so he could avoid any potential ambushes, which were bound to come sooner rather than later. It would make Eddie’s job of keeping an eye on the man that much easier. He considered asking Crowe why Hodge didn’t just stay in his cell – he wasn’t obliged to work, certainly not in the least secure environment possible for seventy-five cents an hour – but the pain in his leg told him to keep his mouth shut.
Eddie got up from the lunch table, bundled the remains of his sandwich into his napkin, and tossed it in the trash. His first shift on laundry would be the following morning (Casson and Eddie’s supervisor had both seemed stunned at the transfer request, though likely for different reasons). Part of the duty would still be to escort Hodge to and from his cell. He would take the ugly bastard down early and give him his tour, then begin his full-time tenure as the man’s guardian angel. He thought of the newfound irony of his vanity plate – GUARDIAN – and his stomach buzzed and zapped. How long would he have to do this job? Months? Years? And what happened if he couldn’t stop an attack? What if someone managed to punch Hodge’s ticket before Eddie could get to him? Would the email with the video attachment go out? How long would it be after that before his life started to unravel before his eyes? Hours? Minutes?
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a roll of antacids. Grimacing, he chewed four of them, swallowing the chalky goop into the firestorm that was his belly.
#
The next morning, Eddie escorted Hodge to the mess hall for breakfast. He was tired (the rat-faced kid had come to him in his dreams during the night, jeering at him for wetting his pants) and unsure of what, exactly, he was supposed to do now. Hodge, meanwhile, was his usual serene self as he strolled along in front of Eddie, the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“You seem awfully chipper,” Eddie griped as they entered the eating area. He had to keep up appearances in front of his colleagues; wouldn’t do to be seen getting chummy with Public Enemy No. 1. “Just another day in paradise, eh?”
He caught Hodge scanning the room, easily the largest open space in the Badlands. Tables stood in rows of five, lined so that the ends faced the chow line. Forty or so inmates who were assigned to the early serving sat at tables eating, or stood single file, waiting for food. Hodge’s grin widened a bit but stopped short of his gray eyes, and for a brief moment, Eddie’s mind locked onto a bizarre image: That’s how a shark looks at a school of fish. He shook the thought away and walked toward the other guards as Hodge ambled his way to the serving line.
Mitch Casson, who was starting his first day out of the laundry on early mess duty, looked over and raised his chin in salute as Eddie approached. Casson was a newbie, but he had an impressive physique, and Eddie had to admit he cast a considerable shadow of authority in his new position.
“Hey, buddy,” Casson said. “Thanks again for the new duty. I was beginning to think I’d spend the rest of my life in a pool of crotch sweat, you know?” He grinned. “This is still a pit, but, you know, a better pit.”
“Eyes front, asshole,” Eddie growled, not looking at him. “This isn’t the laundry; shit can happen fast here. You need to see it coming and shut it down before it escalates.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Casson straighten up and turn his gaze toward the dozens of orange jumpsuits milling about the room. The dressing down might have been harsher than absolutely necessary, but it was a lesson the younger guard needed to learn. Official on-the-job training was all but nonexistent in prisons, so you had to take your education where you could get it. Plus it had the added benefit of steering conversation away from the reasons why Eddie had asked for laundry duty.
He needn’t have worried; Casson changed the subject on his own.
“Your boy Hodge is the talk of the town,” he said, keeping his eyes on the room. “Rumor is there’s a price on his head.”
“I’m sure there is,” said Eddie, trying to sound cool.
“Sooo . . .?”
“So what?”
Casson gave him a quick, confused glance. “So what are you going to do if it happens?”
Eddie scowled. “I’m going to do my fucking job, Officer Casson. I suggest you be prepared to do the same, because if I ever see you hanging back from anything that involves Hodge, I’ll take you out myself. Is that clear?”
He could almost feel the heat radiating from Casson’s cheeks. “Ab-absolutely,” the younger guard stammered. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I just thought . . . ”
“Thought what?” But he knew the answer. Everyone knows you gave him those bruises.
“Nothing,” Casson said quietly.
“Good.”
Eddie watched as one of the old inmate trustees filled Hodge’s tray with a lump of grayish eggs and a few of the shriveled brown hockey pucks that passed for sausage rounds in the Badlands. He hoped Casson would assume his new attitude about the ugly man was the result of an official reprimand, maybe even spread it around among the rest of the guards. He would lose face in the eyes of some, but he hoped it would make his new life as Hodge’s unofficial bodyguard somewhat more bearable.
Eddie watched as Hodge, breakfast in hand, scanned the room. He expected him to choose an empty table, as he had at every other meal since arriving at the Badlands. On the surface, Hodge had been a model prisoner thus far: predictable, quiet, and keeping as far away from trouble as he could. Eddie hoped he would stay that way.
Then, out of nowhere, Hodge deviated from his pattern, strolling toward a table where half a dozen men sat drinking coffee. Eddie’s stomach lurched. He could feel Casson tense up beside him as Hodge got closer to the table, and the inmates looked up at their visitor.
“Shit,” Casson muttered, stiffening visibly. “Isn’t that. . .?”
“Yes,” Eddie said. He could feel his pulse quicken. “Get ready to move.”
Five of the men at the table were greeners – newer arrivals, wannabe gang-bangers who sucked up to the big fish – but the sixth was Billy Trinh. Guards rarely knew what specific crimes an inmate was serving time for, or even their last names, but everyone knew Trinh. Like Hodge, they couldn’t not know him – he was the little brother of Joe Trinh, the leader of the Stetson Dragons, and he was the gang’s top man on the inside. Unlike most criminal organizations, the Dragons were equal opportunity employers, recruiting new immigrants from all across Asia, Russia, the Middle East, Mexico – anyone who could add to the headcount, which made them very popular among inmates. Trinh, a Vietnamese refugee, was also one of the biggest Asians Eddie had ever seen; not overly tall, but wrapped in the kind of hard slab muscle that only years in a prison yard could develop.
More importantly, Trinh had developed a habit lately of talking about Hodge in the past tense whenever he was around Eddie. If anyone was going to punch the ugly man’s ticket, it would be him. Trinh was serving life with another twenty years before he could even apply for parole, and Darcy Flowers had told Eddie that Trinh had a baby mama on the outside. A hundred thousand dollar bounty would go a long way toward taking care of the kid, plus the Stetson Dragons would have the right to absorb the Wild Roses’ meth trade by association, and Trinh would have unlimited street cred for the remainder of his long stay at the Badlands.
And he thinks I’m going to be looking the other way when it happens, Eddie thought morosely. The joke’s on him. And me.
The men at the table stopped talking abruptly as Hodge reached the table, his enig
matic smile still firmly in place. They glanced at each other, then all of them at Billy Trinh. His face was impassive, but the temperature in the room had risen notably.
“Room for one more?” Hodge drawled.
Eddie tensed as the biggest of the greeners, a bald Latino with fierce black eyes and a rabbit tattooed on his neck, moved to stand up. He needn’t have worried – Billy Trinh raised a hand and the man sat back down, quite possibly saving his life in the process. Trinh’s moon face beamed as he raised his hands in a gesture of welcome.
“Always room for a celebrity,” Trinh said. “You honor me by choosing my table, and all that Asian shit. Right, boys?”
The greeners’ faces were a mix of hatred and horror. All around the room, conversations had dried up as every eye turned to Billy Trinh’s table. Eddie noted a group of Aryans watching with particular interest from several tables away, and his gut rolled. His left hand instinctively crept toward the radio handset clipped to his collar, while his right came to rest on the handle of the baton at his side. He saw the other guards in the room, mostly experienced men like himself, start to move away from the walls and towards the eating area. They did it ever so slowly, trying to look casual, not wanting to spook the inmates and end up causing the very thing they were trying to avoid.
Hodge’s grin widened as he sat down across from Billy Trinh. “I seen you around,” he said, extending his right hand. “Rufus Hodge. But you can call me Hodge. The only one who ever called me Rufus was my ma, and she’s dead.”
Trinh blinked at the hand stupidly for several moments before taking it in his own. “Billy Trinh,” he said. He looked as if he expected something to jump out at him from some hidden corner. Hodge gave the hand a single pump before disengaging and tucking into his breakfast.
Eddie stared as the scene unfolded in front of the mess hall like a surreal one-act play. Everyone was watching it openly, including the other guards, as if they’d paid for the show. The bald men at the Aryan table leaned closer, elbows on their knees, not even trying to hide their interest.
Hodge was oblivious to it all as he gnawed his sausages thoughtfully. “So,” he said through a mouthful of food. “How’s business?”
Eddie wasn’t sure who was more stunned, himself or Trinh. Everyone in the room had surely been preparing themselves for something ugly, and here was Hodge trying to make small talk like he was waiting on the C-Train.
Trinh’s smile widened, though Eddie could tell he was still wary. He slouched back in his chair and draped a beefy arm over the back. “Business is beautiful, my man. Recruitment’s high. My brother tells me all sorts of new markets are openin up.”
Hodge was digging the nail of his pinky finger between a couple of teeth. He fished out a string of gristle and flicked it onto his now empty tray. “Yeah, I heard the same thing,” he said. “Plenty of money to be made out there.” At this, he leaned forward and locked eyes with Trinh. “Plenty for everybody.”
Trinh’s eyebrows rose an inch. “Is that right?”
“Sure. Whadda those suits call it? ‘Equitable partnerships.’ Beats a hostile takeover any day. A lot more profit with a lot less mess. You know?”
The greeners looked baffled by the exchange, but Eddie could see keen interest in Billy Trinh’s face. The other guards were already backing off to their usual spots, obviously bored by the conversation, and relieved by the fact that tensions had eased. Eddie himself released his grip on the baton at his side and moved back a few feet.
Trinh scratched his thick, ink-black hair. “I gotta say, man, I’m intrigued. Share the wealth, baby, that’s the philosophy that made my homeland great. Unfortunately, I’m not the CEO – that’s my brother, Jack. But he listens to me. I could maybe make a recommendation to him, if a deal could be struck that was in our best interests.”
Hodge grinned. “I like a reasonable man. How bout we talk about this more in the laundry? You on shift today?”
“You know it. We Asians are big on clean shirts.” He scrunched up his face. “Starch you colla, mistah?”
Hodge chuckled. The greeners looked at each other, wondering whether to laugh. Eddie glanced around at the other guards. They had all gone back to their previous state of bored alertness, along with most of the inmates. Eddie was the only one listening in on the conversation; even the Aryans had gone back to their coffee.
Is this why he wanted the laundry job? Eddie wondered. Why he willingly put himself into the lion’s mouth, knowing that Trinh worked there? So he can do business away from the cameras and save his own skin? He allowed himself to relax a bit. Maybe his new job as bodyguard wouldn’t be so onerous after all. Hell, if Hodge is so interested in business, maybe Eddie himself could get a taste. He was a reasonable man. And it was only fair, given what he was risking.
Hodge finished his conversation with Trinh and carried his tray back to the bussing cart. Eddie watched as one of the Aryans – a tall dude, bald like the others, with a goatee and a crucifix tattooed on each forearm – approached Hodge. He tensed for a moment before realizing the ugly man was still in a talkative mood. Hodge and the Aryan chatted for a about five minutes before he headed back to where Eddie stood.
“We good to go?” Hodge asked. “Time to get to work.”
“I’ll tell you when it’s time to go,” Eddie said sternly. Gotta keep up appearances. He glanced at his watch. It was time to get him to the laundry if they wanted a few minutes before everyone else showed up. Hodge smiled at him. Fuck.
#
Eddie, a naturally lean fellow who worked out religiously, was better suited to the muggy interior of the laundry than most of his colleagues, but it was still uncomfortable. The Badlands’ air circulation system was mediocre at the best of times, and it had only gotten worse as the temperatures rose into the low thirties. Prisoner comfort wasn’t high on the priority list – they weren’t in the Badlands for jaywalking, after all – but that meant the guards had to put up with the same discomforts while on the job.
The laundry consisted of six drum-style stainless steel washing machines, six large front-loading dryers, and an eight-by-ten wooden table for folding in the middle of the room. A couple of old-school steam pressing tables sat dormant and dusty on the side opposite the washers (Eddie wondered why the hell maximum-security prisoners had ever needed their sheets pressed). The facility was much larger than it needed to be these days – it was designed in the 1940s as an industrial laundry, but the advent of technology had seen the clunky, oversized equipment become smaller and smaller over the years. As old equipment was moved out, more and more empty spaces were created.
Hodge surveyed the room as Eddie led him around the perimeter. The ugly man appeared bored by the process, which pissed Eddie off. He wasn’t exactly thrilled to be playing tour guide himself, thank you very much. Breathe, he told himself. At least you want have to save him from an assassination attempt. Today, anyway.
They reached the corner that stood diagonally opposite the security camera mounted on the wall behind the platform at the front door. A vertical bulkhead projected out from the wall, creating an alcove that effectively made the eight-foot-square corner into its own doorless room. The camera could sweep up to seventy degrees, but this corner was forever outside the viewing area of its electronic eye. Even if it wasn’t, the room’s artificial light fell far short of the alcove, leaving it in perpetual shadow.
Eddie flinched when he saw a couple of ancient condoms shriveled up on the concrete floor. “This is it,” he said flatly. “This is as dark a corner as you’re going to find in the Badlands. Do whatever you want in here; the camera won’t see it.”
“Perfect,” said Hodge. He glanced at the old rubbers, then winked at Eddie. “Anyone I know, officer?”
Hot blood filled Eddie’s cheeks once again. For a fraction of a second he thought about killing Hodge right here, while the room was empty, where the camera couldn’t see them. Choking the ugly man with his baton, crushing the thick cartilege of his trachea i
nto pulp as he spat a bloody mist into the air and clawed at his bulging eyes. He could get away with it. It was self-defense. Hodge was a cop-killer; no one would care. Hell, they’d give Eddie a fucking medal. Fuck Jason Crowe and his video file!
But even as the urge struck, he could see a change in Hodge. A sudden tensing of the muscles in his jaw, a flash behind his steel gray eyes, a barely noticeable crouch. Eddie had been in enough martial arts matches to know that, somehow, the ugly man could sense Eddie’s fury and was instantly prepared to respond. In that moment, Eddie knew – knew completely, without question – that Hodge could kill him there and then, without hesitation, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. In that moment, Eddie, whose entire self worth was tied to his ability to inflict pain on others, understood how an animal must feel when faced with a larger, fiercer predator.
Rage rushed out of him in a shaky breath, and he watched the spark in Hodge’s eyes fade along with it. The animal look was quickly replaced with the ugly man’s signature half-grin.
“Too bad,” Hodge said amiably. “Woulda been fun.”
Eddie didn’t respond. His breathing was all over the map. Remember your training! He took a deep breath, let out another quivering exhale. It was starting to work when Hodge dropped a leathery hand on Eddie’s shoulder and his heart rate skyrocketed again.
“Relax, officer,” Hodge cooed. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I like you.”
Eddie blanched. What the hell am I supposed to say to that?
“In fact,” Hodge continued, “I’m gonna share a lesson with you today. Teach you something.”
“I don’t – I don’t get what you mean.”
“You will. Just watch and learn.”
They left the alcove and moved towards the center of the room, just as the rest of the laundry shift was walking in. Eddie put on his trademark scowl, hoping to hide how rattled he was, and climbed the stairs to the platform by the door where he would spend the next five hours.
