Under two days of stubble, Brisco’s cheeks turned pale.
“Jesus,” he breathed. “You’re serious.”
“It gets worse. I’ve seen their ‘shopping list,’ the roster of who they’re gonna grab next.” I looked him dead in the eye. “You’re on it. Two weeks from tonight, they’ll be coming for you.”
He bought it. Brisco put his palms against a grimy sink and leaned in, taking a deep breath.
“We’ve gotta—we’ve gotta do something.”
“And we will,” I told him. “I’ve got a plan to blow this whole place wide open, but I need your help. Your influence.”
“Name it, man. Anything you need. Anything.”
“First,” I said, holding out the tiny camera. “Hold onto this, and guard it with your life. It’s evidence. I’m going to be captured in…about five minutes, I’m guessing, and I can’t risk them finding it on me. I’ll come get it from you later.”
He took the camera, holding it like a stick of nitroglycerin.
“If you’re gonna be captured, how can you—”
I held up my hand. “Second. I need some things smuggled to me in my cell. Use the food service: have your guys in the cafeteria claim I need a special diet for medical reasons. Dr. Valentino’s on our side; if anyone asks, he’ll back the story up.”
I gave him the list of what I needed. Brisco squinted at me.
“How is that gonna help?”
“Didn’t you ever watch MacGyver? That guy could make bombs out of paper clips and chewing gum.”
“Yeah, but…you aren’t MacGyver.”
I shook my head. “Oh ye of little faith. Just make sure I get everything on that list, and fast. Otherwise I’m a dead man—and you’re next.”
Outside the bathroom door, a klaxon wound up, screaming like a tornado siren.
“This is a security lockdown,” boomed a voice over a loudspeaker. “Return to your cells immediately for counting and inspection. This is a security lockdown.”
“You better go,” I said. “I think that’s my cue.”
As prisoners scattered, rushing back to their cells, I took a leisurely stroll down to the gallery floor.
Just ahead, five black-masked riot guards moved in, closing in a semicircle. Tasers and batons at the ready, and one brandishing a Plexiglas shield.
I smiled and showed them my open hands.
“I believe you gentlemen are looking for me,” I said, lacing my fingers behind my neck and sinking to my knees.
As rough, gloved hands wrenched my wrists back, cold shackles locking tight, I felt a moment of strange satisfaction. Sure, the odds were long. My first escape attempt had been a disaster and this one was likely to land me in an unmarked grave, but the situation wasn’t all bad. At least I was able to cross one thing off my bucket list.
You know all those movies where the bad guy gets captured, but it turns out that was the key to his master plan all along?
Not gonna lie. I’d always wanted to do that.
35.
“Where is he?” Lancaster asked. He sat behind his desk, imperious, the office door closed and locked. I couldn’t have jumped him if I wanted to, not with both wrists handcuffed to my chair. And not with Jablonski pacing the carpet behind me, openly carrying his pistol in a too-tight grip.
“Who?”
“O’Neill,” Jablonski snapped.
“I’ll repeat my question. Who?”
“The guard,” Lancaster said, “who was supposed to escort you to the infirmary. An appointment you never arrived for. The guard who vanished.”
“Oh,” I said. “You mean the guard who said he’d smuggle me out of here, then weaseled out on the deal.”
Jablonski was on me like a shot, pressing the barrel of his gun to my temple.
“You lyin’ sack! O’Neill is a buddy of mine. He’d never do that!”
I inhaled through gritted teeth, fighting to keep my cool. The muzzle of the gun felt like ice against my skin, trembling in his grip.
“Check the visitor logs,” I said. “My lawyer came to see me a few days ago. Brought me some paperwork.”
“What of it?” Lancaster frowned.
“That was just a cover. He smuggled in cash for me. Twenty grand in large bills, unmarked and nonsequential. Clean as fresh linen sheets.”
The muzzle pressed harder, my head tilted so far to the side that my neck ached. I could feel Jablonski’s finger tightening on the trigger.
“You’re full of shit. You got strip-searched before you landed in Ad Seg. No way you were hiding twenty grand on you.”
“Because it wasn’t on me,” I said. “It was hidden in Hive C, in the third-tier bathrooms. You know, where the surveillance camera has been busted for weeks.”
Lancaster looked to Jablonski. “Is that true?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I…I mean…”
“Is. That. True? Is there another broken camera on the grid that you haven’t bothered reporting?”
“Yeah.” Jablonski sagged. “Just haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet, that’s all. But that doesn’t mean—”
Lancaster waved his hand, shooing him back. Slowly, reluctantly, the gun barrel fell away from my temple. I straightened up in my chair.
“It was sealed in a plastic bag,” I told Lancaster, “and taped under the water-tank lid on one of the broken toilets. See, the first time I tried to break out of here, I didn’t have time to retrieve it. I told O’Neill about the cash. He talked a good game, then he screwed me.”
“Meaning?”
“He took me to Hive C, on a route that avoided most of the cameras. The working ones, anyway. I gave him the money, and he told me to wait there, hiding in plain sight with all the other cons. Said he’d come right back with a spare guard uniform and smuggle me out of the prison. Next thing I know, the alarm’s going off and he’s long gone.”
Jablonski paced, frustrated, trying to break my story.
“But O’Neill didn’t clock out!”
I squinted at him. “Why would he?”
Lancaster looked to Jablonski. “Did you check the employee lot? Is his car still here?”
“I think he carpools with somebody.”
The warden slouched in his chair and stared up at the ceiling.
“Find out who, maybe? And pull security footage, see if we can spot a glimpse of him sneaking out.”
“Boss, he’s lying.” The pistol swung in Jablonski’s frustrated grip. “You know he’s—”
Lancaster slammed his fist down on the desk.
“Goddamnit, Jablonski, stop waving that gun around! And use your head. Buddy of yours or not, twenty thousand dollars can induce a man to some ill-advised life choices. Believe you me, I’ve seen that before.” He looked my way. “Now what are we gonna do with you?”
I shrugged.
“Well,” I said, “the way I see it, you’ve got two options. You can let Jablonski here put a bullet in my head, or you can…I don’t know, force me to compete in some kind of illegal prison gladiator fight? One way, you get money. The other, you get jack. I know what I’d pick if I was in your shoes.”
Lancaster steepled his fingers, thinking it over. Then he chuckled and wagged his finger at me.
“Y’know, son, you gave us a pretty good show last night. Real David-and-Goliath action. The audience eats that stuff up. Too bad you pussied out at the end.”
“I’ll let you in on a little secret. Killing somebody yourself, with your own two hands, is a little harder than standing back and making somebody else do it at gunpoint. But you wouldn’t know what that’s like.”
The warden’s eyes narrowed.
“You might be surprised what I know and what I’ve done,” he said.
I spread my open hands as far as the cuffs would let me and smiled.
“Well, hell, sounds like a challenge in the making! What do you say, Warden? You and me, on the killing floor. Toe to toe. I’ll even let you pick the weapons.”
He
snorted. “I don’t think so, son. See, I’ve got this…beast of a man, two hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle, and he’s been cooling his heels in solitary for four months now. He was crazy when he went in, and he doesn’t have a whole lot going on in his noggin anymore, but put a butcher knife in his hands and he turns into a world-class hibachi chef. Your ass is the steak, in case my metaphor ain’t entirely clear.”
“Sounds a little one-sided.”
“Well, that depends on you,” Lancaster said. “Do your time like a good boy and don’t give my men any more trouble, and I’ll send you onto the floor with an oiled-up chainsaw. Piss me off one more time? You get a butter knife.”
“I think we understand each other,” I said.
“Good.” He turned to Jablonski. “Take him back to his cell. In one piece, too, no ‘accidents’ along the way. Mr. Faust here is gonna make us some money.”
* * *
Back in solitary, I sat on the edge of my bunk. Waiting, hoping Brisco had held up his end of the deal. If he hadn’t, I was good as dead.
I jumped up as my cell door rattled and the bottom slot opened. A plastic tray slid halfway in. I stopped it with the side of my foot.
“Supposed to be a special meal for me,” I called out. “I have allergies.”
Another slot slid open at chest height. Hard eyes, so dark brown they were nearly black, stared in at me.
“Nobody gets special meals in here,” he grunted.
I clenched my hands at my sides. If Brisco couldn’t follow through—
“Check,” I said. “Dr. Valentino’s orders. If I eat the wrong food, I’ll be dead of anaphylactic shock by morning. Which means I can’t fight. Which means Warden Lancaster’s gonna lose a bundle of cash, and that’ll be on your head.”
The slot slammed shut. I waited, holding my breath.
The first tray pulled back under the door, replaced by a new one—dull orange plastic instead of brown.
I pulled the tray in, hustling to my bunk and resting it on my lap. My meal was a plastic single-serving cup of vanilla yogurt, a hunk of bread a little smaller than a billiard ball, and a carton of milk. I pinched the top of the bread and gave it a gentle pull.
It gave way. The chunk of bread was nothing but a hollow shell of crust, its innards scooped out to make a perfect hiding place. Inside, a small tuft of steel wool and a nine-volt battery were waiting for me. I snatched my treasures and stashed them under the bunk.
Once I’d eaten, I kept the yogurt container too, along with its carefully peeled foil lid. When I passed the empty tray back through the slot, the guard either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
The convicts in Hive B only got one meal a day. Maybe out of petty sadism, probably just to save money. Either way, twenty-four hours with nothing but some yogurt and a crust of bread had my stomach growling. The next day brought the same meal but a different special delivery inside the hollowed-out bread: a razor blade, and two tiny travel-size bottles of baby oil. I stashed the goods and devoured the rest.
The hours dragged on, and on, and on. The light in my cell never turned off, not for an instant, and the only way to tell the time was the delivery of my next meal. I attacked the bread crusts like a rabid dog; after four days, my stomach was tied in knots.
Trying to pass the time with exercise ended fast when a string of energetic sit-ups pummeled me with a blossoming headache and a wave of nausea that sent me running for the stainless-steel toilet. I figured rest had to be good for a concussion. So I rested. I lay on the bunk, and sometimes I stared at the eggshell-white ceiling and sometimes I closed my eyes. When I was exhausted, I slept. When I wasn’t, I hungered.
On the fifth day, like the fourth, a fistful of tiny yellow salt packets from the cafeteria filled the hollow crust. That and a little bundle of twine, like the kind the prisoners in Hive C used to kite messages from cell to cell.
I had everything I needed.
And I only had a few hours left before they’d call me back down to the killing floor.
Now I welcomed the hunger. I let the want, the empty ache, course through my bruised and aching muscles and flood my bone marrow with its bitter pangs. I sat down with the razor blade and the twine, slicing the coarse thread into small, even pieces.
I finished my preparations. Then I took off one shoe, wore it over my hand, and smashed its rubber sole against the light as hard as I could. The wire cage rattled but held fast. Another hit and it started to buckle.
By the sixth hit, the wire was dented and deformed, pressed right up against the square of light. I reached back, turning my face away from the glow, and threw another punch. The light broke with a sound like a china plate shattering on concrete, and plunged my cell into pitch darkness.
36.
The chest-height slot in my cell door slid open. Piggish eyes peered in at me, the guard’s face silhouetted by the light outside.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Jablonski said.
“Light just went out,” I said, crouching in the dark.
He shook his head. “You think I’m that stupid? Oh, sure, lemme just walk into a dark cell and get jumped. You think you’re the first con to try and pull that trick?”
“Wow,” I said. “Guess you’re just too smart for me.”
“Forget you. You can sit in the dark and rot. You’re gonna die tonight anyway.”
The slot slammed shut, bathing me in perfect darkness. I stayed crouched, counting down slow from twenty, making sure he wasn’t coming back. Then I felt my way around the cell. I’d trained myself with my eyes closed, rehearsing how to retrieve my hidden contraband by touch alone.
Showtime.
* * *
Jablonski came back a few hours later with another guard in tow.
“Come up to the door,” he barked through the slot. “Lace your hands behind your head. Warden says I can’t kill you, but I’ve got fifty thousand volts for your ass if you try anything stupid.”
I obliged. In fact, I all but jumped out to join them the second the door swung open.
“Hey, guys!” I gushed, beaming. “Is it time to fight now? Can I? Can I, huh?”
They both looked at me like I’d grown a second head, but I kept up the patter while Jablonski’s partner shackled me.
“C’mon, buddy,” I said, “hurry up, will ya? I’ve been looking forward to this all week. I’ve got some brand-new moves and everything!”
“Solitary,” Jablonski said to his buddy, twirling his finger next to his ear and rolling his eyes. I hummed the tune to “Eye of the Tiger” and bounced as we walked.
We paused halfway down the stairs as Jablonski corralled another guard. I recognized this one: Vasquez, one of the guards we’d taken hostage on our first escape attempt. From the scowl on his face, he recognized me too.
“Hey,” Jablonski said, “get up to cell four-forty-six and fix the light. This asshole smashed it.”
Vasquez put his hands on his hips. “So? Let him sit in the dark.”
“It ain’t for him. It’s for the next prisoner who gets put in there, after this guy bites it tonight.” Jablonski shot me a glare. “I’ve lost enough money on you already.”
“That’s because you bet against me last time.” I gave him a cheerful smile. “Don’t make that mistake tonight. I might just surprise you.”
A jaunty jazz tune rose up from the floor below as the piano and bass duo started to swing. We walked down the corrugated metal steps while waiters flitted from table to table and lit votive candles in ornate glass sconces. A tiny sea of pinprick lights at the edge of the killing floor. They’d rolled out the wet bar, and the first guests were already arriving, dressed for a five-star evening, arm in arm and sharing soft laughter.
I lined up with the other ragged-looking prisoners. A pair of socialites strolled past, sizing us up, discussing their brochures for the night’s festivities. They talked about us like you might talk about a horse in a race or a pedigree show dog. Not like human beings.
; My hatred and my hunger became one, simmering in my gut. I wasn’t a man anymore. I was a shark on two legs, and I smelled blood.
“Warden,” I said as Lancaster strolled past. He paused in the middle of glad-handing one of his guests and came my way.
“Faust. Nice to see you made it five days without another escape attempt.”
I stared at his throat.
“Does that mean I get the chainsaw tonight?”
His brow furrowed. “You seem…eager.”
“Well,” I said, “I’ve had all week to think about killing someone. I can’t wait. Put me in the first fight?”
He took a half step back. He knew something was wrong, I could see it in his eyes, but he didn’t have a clue what it was or where to start looking.
“Maybe,” he said and turned on his heel. More new arrivals to greet.
The seats filled in, and the champagne flowed. I stared into the crowd, marking faces, burning the ones I didn’t recognize from television or the news into my memory. All the while, a hot and nervous tingle grew in the pit of my stomach. It was the anticipation of violence, the feeling of staring down a cocked fist or a loaded gun. That queasy sensation that came from knowing blood was about to spill.
Lights from the guard tower strobed behind the smoky glass, signaling it was time to begin. The sound system crackled and hummed as Lancaster took up his microphone.
“Ladies, gentlemen, welcome! We have a great show for you tonight. A banquet of thrills and excitement you just can’t get anywhere else. Well…anywhere legal, anyway.”
He paused, wrapped in a smug smile, as the audience tittered. Then he gestured toward me. Jablonski grabbed my shoulder, tugging me out in front of the crowd. Behind us, waiters rolled the weapon racks into place, teasing the crowd with promises of the carnage to come.
“Our first fighter tonight,” Lancaster said, “is last week’s returning long shot, Daniel Faust. Can this one-time winner beat the odds and survive another night on the killing floor?”
Jablonski unlocked my shackles. I slowly flexed my freed wrists, staring him in the eye. As applause rippled through the room, Lancaster cupped his palm over his microphone and leaned in to murmur in my ear.
The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust Book 5) Page 20
