Dressed to Kill

by Vincent Zandri

  That’s the life you lead in Little Siberia, which isn’t really life at all, but an existence of sorts until parole comes your way or you die. Either way, you get the hell out. But getting out can take a long time. An eternity. A time so long that many men have gone insane, going to their deaths a sniveling, white-haired, toothless shadow of their former selves.

  But for two inmates — Reginald Moss, a stocky, black-haired forty-something white man doing life for murder one and his cellmate, and Derrick Sweet, a skinny, pale, nervous thirty-something former computer geek who’s also doing a homicide-mandated life sentence — waiting it out until insanity and death embraces them is no longer an option. Instead, they choose freedom.

  They choose escape.

  The prison and surrounding forest are still cold even in early June, with night temperatures sometimes plunging into the thirties or forties.

  “Fuck, it’s cold,” Sweet says, pulling up the collar of his prison-green work shirt as if the act will make an ounce of difference. “Those global warming freaks are full of shit.”

  “Shut up and work,” Moss says, sawing away at the horizontally mounted main sewer line located behind their cell.

  “You’re a fucking robot, you know that, Picasso?” Sweet says, working his own blade on the same pipe so that the square opening they’re about to complete will allow both their frames access to the pipe’s interior. “What kind of human being dismembers his boss, huh? You’re a fucking psycho, you know that? Psychopath-robot-Picasso…that’s you, my friend.”

  Moss looks up. His eyes blink only when he wants them to. And right now, he’s not giving them permission.

  “You shot a sheriff’s deputy twenty-two times,” he says in his monotone drawl, his slicked back hair held perfectly in place, making his full face appear even fuller, his thick neck even thicker. “You then ran him over with your pickup. Like he wasn’t already roadkill. Like his face wasn’t entirely shot away, his brains already blown out the back of his skull. Who are you to call me a psycho? Psycho.”

  Sweet chomps down on his bottom lip, runs his hand over his cropped scalp, and down his trim mustached and goateed face. While his Adam’s apple bobs up and down inside his long turkey neck, his big brown eyes grow even wider like one of those little rubber toys you squeeze with your fist to make the eyes bulge out.

  “Fucker had it comin’, bitch. I mean, he was a cop. All cops got it comin’, you know? Got it comin’ one way or the other. Filthy bastards. Whaddya want? More dead cops. I like the way Obama keeps pissin’ on ’em. He’s got my vote next election.” Mulling over what he’s just said for a moment, as if digesting words of brilliance. Then, shrugging his shoulders, “Can we vote for a US president in Mexico?”

  “Obama’s already done his eight years, imbecile,” Moss says.

  But Sweet ignores his partner, shakes his head. “God, it’s fucking cold.”

  Then, the abrupt clang of a square metal section of pipe dropping onto another section of pipe.

  Both men lock eyes like, What the fuck!

  They stand stone stiff knowing that sounds, especially metal against metal, can reverberate throughout the concrete prison block with all the alarming concussion of a lightning strike. Time ticks by…tick, tick, tick.

  After a few beats, Moss wipes his brow with the back of his hand.

  “Be more careful, for Christ’s sakes, Sweet,” he whispers, his voice harsh but controlled. “This is our one and only shot. Mean Gene might be looking out for us, but I think he’s having second thoughts about helping us. Won’t take much for him to renege on his promise to keep the screws away from our cell tonight.”

  Sweet pictures the tall, gray-haired, middle-aged corrections officer who’s not only taken a liking to Moss over the years, but who’s been paying them both in favors for information on other inmates and, even more importantly, other COs working deep inside the Crypt. Mean Gene has also adopted an appreciation for Moss’s artwork, often trading gifts of food and other luxuries for one of Moss’s oil paintings.

  Sweet blows Moss a kiss, which Moss ignores. Instead, both men look into the dank blackness of the pipe interior.

  “Jeeze, it smells bad, Picasso,” Sweet says. “Think I’m gonna gag. Then I’m gonna puke all over my work boots.”

  “You can gag a free man or you can sleep here tonight and tomorrow night and all the nights after that ’til you die.” Cocking his head in the direction of the cell, he says, “Grab our stuff and let’s go.”

  “Why I always gotta take your orders, Picasso?”

  “’Cause I like it that way. And I’m older than you. And smarter.”

  “The sensitive artist. You’re stuck up, you know that? You think you’re better than everyone. You and that paint brush and that cock of yours…just ask Mean Gene.”

  Moss has a choice. He could grab the framing hammer that’s set on its head on the floor and jam the business end through the skinny punk’s forehead. He could bash the kid’s brains in with only the time it takes to say Merry fucking Christmas. He might then spit down into the bloody mess, drop the body off the catwalk into No Man’s Land between cell 6 blocks, and make the great escape all on his own. But instead, he chooses to suck it up and force a smile. It’s a small smile. A Mona Lisa smile. A smile that’s more common coming from one of the prison screws. Or so it seems. But he smiles the smile of a man who is about to be free of this place and free of homicidal whack-jobs like Derrick Sweet. Besides, as much as he hates the bastard, he needs a second pair of eyes to back him up. At least until they are far away from Dannemora and under the cover of the great Adirondack wilderness and the deep night.

  “Yeah, well, you’ve used that ten-inch cock to our advantage, Picasso, I gotta give you that,” Sweet remarks. “Let’s just hope Blondie is Janey-on-the-spot with the ride as soon as we get through that manhole cover.”

  Moss pictures the small blonde woman he’s been bedding down with inside Tailor Shop Number 1 for a few years now. The voice inside him says, “Yeah, it pays to have friends on the inside. Pays to have a killer porno cock too.”

  “She prefers Joyce, her real name, and don’t forget the deal, Sweet. We pay her husband a visit while he sleeps in his bed, and then we head south for Mexico.”

  “Yeah, I haven’t forgotten the deal.” He puckers his nose up again. “Can we just go now already, Picasso?”

  “Go get the shit. And don’t forget to set the painting back in place when you come back out.”

  “Yeah, fucking, yeah already, I know the drill, Picasso.”

  “And stop calling me Picasso. Van Gogh is more my style.” He pronounces Van Gogh in a formal manner. Like Van Gock.

  Sweet backs away from the pipe, about-faces, steps back up onto the metal catwalk that accesses the electrical utility boxes. He finds the back of their cell, the four-by-four hole they’ve cut through the wall concealed by a piece of cardboard painted a dull gray to mimic the painted concrete block. Grabbing their single laundry duffel and the few items of clothing and homemade weapons it contains, he makes a quick check on the bunks, both of which are stuffed with clothing and fake papier-mâché heads, making it look like the two inmates are fast asleep, just like that old Clint Eastwood “Escape from Alcatraz” movie he watched on YouTube in the library. Satisfied their plan is proceeding as well as can be expected, the nervous man once more pushes the fake wall aside and slips through onto the catwalk. Replacing the wall, he approaches Moss.

  “Got the shit,” he says, reaching into the duffel, producing their one and only flashlight, “Can we go now, Picasso? I’m freezing, and I wanna get this shit over with.”

  Moss is still staring down into the hole, not like he’s inspecting the pipe…more like he’s looking into his future. Both immediate and beyond. Like he’s seeing the beaches of Mexico, feeling the warmth on his skin, a cool drink in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. But first, he’s got to squeeze himself through this asshole of a sewer pipe, crawl through its metal, sh
it-lined intestines, and be pooped out the other end.

  “Let’s do it,” he says. Then, “Oh, and, Sweet? No bitching, you hear me? We maintain absolute silence all the way through. That clear? And like we planned, no flashlight until we’re beyond the prison walls.”

  Sweet smiles, bearing crooked, gray teeth beneath tiny, overly thin lips.

  “Yeah, Picasso,” he says, running his free hand nervously over his short stand of receding black hair. “Sweet idea. Get it?” He follows with a snort like it’s the first time he ever used the silly quip instead of the millionth.

  “You first,” Moss says. “Like we talked about. I get stuck, you don’t want me blocking your way. You’ll suffocate to death.” But the painter is also thinking this: I’m older than you. Out of shape. I don’t wanna slow you down. Yeah, he might wanna kill Sweet sometimes, but other times it pays to be considerate. He can use all the good karma he can muster up, given the crappy circumstances he’s currently faced with.

  Suddenly, Sweet’s smile disappears. Tossing in the duffel, he crouches and slips his entire torso down into the pipe headfirst, like he’s entering into an MRI machine, only narrower, tighter, longer, smellier… “God, I’m gonna puke,” comes his muted voice.

  “Shut up and get going,” Moss says, assuming a crouched position as soon as Sweet has started his crawl into the pitch blackness. He’s about to place his round head into the pipe when he remembers something. Reaching into the chest pocket on his work shirt, he pulls out a Post-it-Note. Neatly illustrated on the little square slip of yellow paper is what bigots used to refer to as a Chinaman, the face smiling, eyes sloped down towards the slit-like nose, a triangular bamboo hat set precariously on the round face’s head like the bad cliché that it is. Below the face, “Have a nice day!” is scrawled in happy-go-lucky Crayola crayon handwriting.

  Moss sticks the note onto the pipe beside the newly sawed opening, and for what feels like the first time since he entered Little Siberia years ago, he issues a short, nearly noiseless laugh. A laugh meant entirely for his own enjoyment. A laugh in the face of the rank shit stink rising from the pipe like a poisonous gas. A laugh in the face of the screws who beat him and forced him to work down inside the Dannemora Crypt, making movies with little kids barely more than a decade old. A laugh in the face of the man who is sleeping with his wife in Mexico…a man who will soon be dead. A laugh only the devil himself could understand while slipping under red satin sheets, lighting a cigarette, and pouring a snifter of brandy. A laugh befitting of a cold, evil, son of a bitch.

  Chapter Two

  Albany, New York 60 Hours Later

  I was debating whether or not to eat the second half of my Italian combo with extra provolone submarine when the goons walked in without knocking. They were big. Bigger than my five feet ten, and chestier. Not like gym rats but more like chronic 'roid users. Muscles for show rather than the smaller but more utilitarian muscles I worked on in the Albany Strength gym five days a week. Mine weren’t nearly as glamorous or tough looking. But they worked the way I expected them to on those occasions when I was required to punch someone or be punched, and that was just fine by me.

  The first goon, a black man whom I took for the leader, shot me a look from underneath a pair of sleek wrap-around Ray-Ban sunglasses. He was wearing a dark blue suit with a matching blue tie and a gray button-down shirt underneath. His shorter, whiter, but just as stocky partner wore an identical suit, shirt, tie, and sunglasses. Both of them had earbud wireless radio devices shoved in their left ear canals so that they could communicate with whoever was monitoring them from the outside. My guess was they thought they looked Jason Bourne-cool and that other people were in awe, if not fear, of them. I thought they looked like funeral directors.

  As they searched the room with their eyes, turning every now and then on the balls of their feet, I just hoped they didn’t decide to search my sandwich. I was still hungry after all.

  “Can I help you, gentlemen?”

  The taller one shot me another crooked glance. No response.

  “Someone die?” I said.

  Tall Goon gave Short Goon a look like I wasn’t supposed to say that. Or it wasn’t in their script anyway.

  “What?” Tall Goon said. “Who said anything about anyone dying?”

  I sat far back in my grandfather’s old hand-me-down swivel chair, worked up a friendly smile. “You look like funeral home directors.”

  Short Goon bit down on his bottom lip. “He’s being an asshole, Stanley. Told you everyone thinks he’s an asshole. He must have learned that shit when he was warden at Green Haven. The boss ain’t gonna like him. Thinks he’s a know-it-all. Know what I’m sayin’, Stanley?” “Forget him and concentrate on the job, Brent,” Stanley said.

  “Who called me a know-it-all?” I said. “I just wanna finish my lunch.”

  Tall Goon/Stanley completed his search of the room. Apparently satisfied that I didn’t have a bomb rigged up for his boss or that I wasn’t hiding a Fox News reporter in the corner or that the place wasn’t bugged for sound, he made for the door and waved whoever was hidden behind the wall to come in.

  When the suited man came through the door, Brent and Stanley took their places beside the open door. Each of them unbuttoned their jackets, allowed them to open just enough for me to make out the black grips on their service automatics.

  Intimidating.

  The half sandwich set before me smelled good. I didn’t want to be talking to clients right now no matter how important they were. I’d made the commitment to eating the second half of my sandwich, and damnit, that’s what I was going to do.

  The important client pulled one of the two wood chairs I reserved for visitors closer to my desk and sat down.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

  Of course, I recognized him. Everybody in New York State government knew his name. You’d have to be living under a rock not to know his face and name and political persuasion. But then, I guessed some people steered clear of politics. They knew who Bruce Caitlyn Jenner was, and who Lady Gaga was, and they even knew the precise dimensions of Kim Kardashian’s ample behind. But not who their own governor was.

  I stared at the rest of the sandwich. It screamed, Eat me! in a nice way.

  “Provolone,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  The Governor had dressed in a tailored summer-weight tan jacket, also tailored dark trousers and before he sat down, I noticed his loafers were Gucci. Because he represented the left bank of the Democratic Party, he didn’t wear a tie. His one concession to the blue-collar Marxist revolution crowd. But he wasn’t fooling anybody because the silk jacket cost more than my entire wardrobe of two blue blazers, half a dozen Converse button down shirts, three pairs of Levis 501 button flies, and two pairs of Tony Lama cowboy boots.

  “Provolone cheese,” I said, staring down at my lunch. “Did you know that it comes from Casilla near Mount Vesuvius? It was a staple of the inhabitants of Pompeii.”

  He stuffed his tongue in his cheek, looked at me with intense, unblinking eyes.

  “No,” he said. “I was not aware.”

  “You should be as an Italian-American.”

  “Italian and Libyan, if you must know the truth. Mother and father, respectively.”

  “Interesting combination. You can enjoy your pasta in the desert. Manga Allahu Akbar, so to speak.”

  I saw the eyes on Stanley go wide, even if they were masked by sunglasses. He set his shooting hand on his pistol grip. Made me tremble with fear.

  “Listen, Mr. Marconi—”

  “Keeper. Call me Keeper, your majesty.”

  Stanley took a step forward. “You watch your fuckin’ mouth, pal. That’s the Honorable Leon Valente to you.” More tickling of the holstered pistol.

  “Your boys like their guns, I see,” I said. “Thought you wanted to abolish the second amendment.”

  “Evil necessity, the very outdated United States Constitution.”

&n
bsp; I patted my rib cage where my .45 rested. “I’m quite fond of my Colt 1911. Makes me feel warm and cozy and free.”

  “Governor will be fine,” the governor said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You wished to know how to address me. So, I’m telling you.” Then, over his shoulder. “That will be enough, Stanley. Please take your hand off your sidearm.”

  Stanley resumed his solid foursquare position up against the wall, the dejection painting his face in the form of red blood blush.

  “I see that I’ve interrupted your lunch,” Valente went on. “But what I have to reveal is of the utmost importance.”

  “You want a bite?” I asked.

  He cracked a grin. “I don’t eat that kind of thing. Pork products especially.”

  “You Jewish?”

  His face was permanently tan. But it turned red at the mere suggestion.

  “I believe in God,” he said under his breath. “That’s about as far as it goes.”

  “You probably have a dietician. Someone who cooks for you. At taxpayer expense, of course. Karl Marx had a cook. So did Uncle Joe Stalin. And Obama. Perks for the public servant.”

  He cocked his head as if to say, It comes with the gig. “I like to keep fit. Box mostly. You keep fit, too, I see.”

  “I run and lift. Or they used to call it running and lifting until they decided to call it cross-training. Now they call it cross-fit. Tomorrow they’ll call it something else like trans-fit. Something that won’t insult anybody who wants to dispose of their penis.”

  “Political correctness is all about human evolution, Keeper,” he said proudly like he invented it. “It’s the essence of progressivism.”

  “I’d rather talk about maxing out on a flat bench.”

  “Stanley and Brent can bench three hundred pounds.” He smiled like he was responsible for that too.