by Sean Black
Lock turned round. In front of him, two more correctional officers were puzzling over his paperwork. The guard who’d just cavity-searched him nodded towards Ty. ‘You and your homeboy here might have come in together, but once you’re on block together you might want to keep your distance. The white cons frown on any of their number hanging with a black.’
By ‘frown’, Lock knew that the guard meant ‘would murder in cold blood’. The racial segregation strictly enforced by the prisoners was also something he and Ty had discussed. It would make communication difficult but gave each of them access to two separate powerful groups. If Lock’s cover was blown, or a hit on Reaper was imminent, Ty was more likely to hear it from the black prisoners. Lock’s first warning would likely be a knife in the back while taking a shower.
The two guards staring at the clipboard were still deep in conversation. Finally, they looked over to Ty. ‘OK, Johnson, you’re A-block, unit 8. You too, Lock. But be aware of what you were just told. You guys associate in here and something jumps off, that’s down to you.’
The older of the two guards chipped in. ‘Stick with your own kind and you’ll be fine.’ He paused. ‘Probably.’
In cell 845, Reaper was sitting cross-legged on the top bunk, deftly crocheting what looked to Lock like a multicolored beanie hat. The crocheting was a surprise, Reaper’s appearance slightly less so. Even sitting down, Lock could tell that he was vast. Rather than his decade in prison having withered him, it had only succeeded in putting even more muscle on his bones. The image that flashed into Lock’s mind was that of a Great White Shark patrolling the vast ocean in a remorseless death-quest. And he was stepping inside a cage with the beast.
Six feet four tall and two hundred and fifty pounds, with a huge barrel chest and freakishly big biceps, everything about Reaper seemed inflated. Atop broad shoulders, a square head sported a walrus mustache His eyes were dark grey, bordering on black. Like many of the original members of the Aryan Brotherhood, he could have stepped straight from the pages of one of the Louis L’Amour dime-store westerns the gang so respected.
When Reaper looked up, Lock’s focus shifted from the man himself to his environment. Unlike the other cells, which Lock had passed with the floor cop who was escorting him, Reaper’s home was bereft of pin-ups. Instead, it looked like the place had been recently vacated by some strange hybrid of domestic goddess — Martha Stewart, say — and Eva Braun. On the walls were tacked needlepoint samplers, and stacked at the end of the top bunk was a neatly folded array of knitted sweaters.
Reaper carefully placed the crochet hook and the hat on the bunk next to him. ‘Who the hell’s this?’
‘This here’s your new cellie.’
‘Reaper don’t share his house with no one. Least of all not some punk-ass fish.’ He turned back to his crocheting. ‘Find him somewhere else.’
The young floor cop hitched his thumbs into his utility belt. ‘One more word from you, Reaper, and you can go back to the SHU.’
Reaper jumped down from the bunk and landed softly on the concrete floor. As he did so, the floor cop moved his right hand to the oversized can of pepper spray on his belt.
Reaper glanced at the bottom bunk, although ‘bunk’ was a rather grandiose word for what amounted to a solid concrete slab that he was using to store his collection of books, which ran the gamut from jailhouse classics such as Mein Kampf and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil all the way to the slightly more practical Stitch ’N’ Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook. Lock reflected that somehow in these surroundings even the title of a book on knitting could take on a sinister edge.
Reaper’s gaze, steady and unflinching, honed no doubt by years of prison face-offs, shifted to Lock. ‘You can sleep on the floor.’
The floor cop stepped out on to the walkway and waved to the other correctional officer situated in the control pod a few yards away. ‘Good to close 845.’
A second later, the barred door of the cell slid back into place, sealing Lock inside with Reaper.
One tier down and two cells along, Ty’s reception was proving a little warmer. In fact, he felt like the prodigal son returned to the fold. His new cellie grasped both of Ty’s hands and burst into a warm laugh. ‘Look who it ain’t. I heard a rumor you were heading to these fair shores. Never thought you’d be my cellie though.’
Ty threw his meagre possessions on the bottom slab and looked at the three-hundred-pound colossus who filled most of the rest of the space. ‘How you doin’, Marvin? How’s your mama?’
‘She good. Her kidneys are bad. Too much salt.’
Given the neighbourhood that Ty had grown up in, and the fact that most of his graduating class in high school had proved criminally precocious by graduating a few years ahead of schedule to juvenile hall, he’d anticipated meeting a few old faces.
Marvin had fallen in with a street gang known as the Crips, one of the two major black street gangs in California, the other being the Bloods. He was known in Crips circles as Lil Dawg, which demonstrated that even organised criminal gangs don’t always lack a sense of humour.
Marvin enveloped Ty in a hug. ‘You finally gave up on that war hero shit, huh?’
Ty shrugged. ‘Guess so. What you here for?’
‘Some trumped-up bullshit, that’s what.’
Ty let it go. Ask any of the inmates whether they were guilty or not and they would tell you they were innocent, or that there had been some misunderstanding, most of which involved either guns, drugs, or a combination of both. There was no point arguing with them.
Ty sat down, and Marvin began to regale him with a list of old faces from the neighbourhood and their current status, which divided evenly into the dead and the incarcerated. Far from being disappointed that the one person he’d grown up with who’d gone on to live a productive life was now in jail, Marvin seemed delighted to see Ty. It was as if in some perverse manner Ty was some kind of statistical aberration. Which, in a way, Ty knew he was. As Marvin rattled off the names of their old friends who weren’t dead, what particular part of the California penal system they now called home, and what sentence they were currently serving, Ty grew more depressed.
‘So, who do I need to watch out for in this unit?’ he asked when Marvin finally paused for breath.
‘Everyone in here is a bad ass. You come in here as a murderer, that don’t make you jackshit.’ Marvin stopped. ‘Not that I’m saying you’re jackshit. I mean, with you being in the military, you’ve probably capped more mofos than anyone else down in this place.’
Ty humored him with a smile. ‘Something like that.’
‘Tell you who we do got on this unit right now though. Came in today in fact. Just before you got here.’
Ty shrugged a ‘who?’
‘That Reaper mofo. Just got moved in here from the SHU.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Not someone we want on our unit,’ said Marvin, with a sniff reminiscent of a suburban housewife who didn’t approve of the new neighbors
‘That still don’t tell me who he is.’
Marvin looked Ty straight in the eye. ‘He’s the guy that you and your homeboy are supposed to be babysitting.’
‘What the hell you talking about, Marvin?’
‘How much they paying you, Tyrone? Because whatever it is, it ain’t gonna be enough.’
Ty sighed. ‘How’d you know?’
‘Reaper has been locked down in the SHU for years. All of a sudden he’s out on the mainline and you and your buddy come riding into town on some bullshit manslaughter charges no one’s heard about. Never try to con a convict, Ty.’
Ty thought of Lock, and his ashen face when he realised who had been murdered along with his family. He turned to Marvin. ‘I’m gonna need your help to make sure nothing happens to Hays.’
‘And you’re asking me?’
Ty took a breath. ‘Yeah, I am.’
‘You know what that mofo is in here for? Killing two little black girls and their papa. Those littl
e girls could have been our sisters.’
‘I’ve been in the military, right?’ Ty said.
‘I know that.’
‘Well, sometimes you find yourself on some strange sides.’
Marvin glanced round the cell. ‘No shit, Tyrone.’ He paced to the edge of the cell door and back again.
‘I’m asking you as a friend.’
Marvin puffed out his cheeks, then exhaled. ‘OK, here’s how we’re going to play this. I’m gonna make sure that we got your back on the yard. You do what you came here to do. But as for your homeboy and Reaper, if it jumps off, they’re on their own. And, man, in this place it don’t take much for the shit to jump off.’
9
‘ID, please.’
The blue-blazered security guard standing in the lobby of the Federal Court building in downtown San Francisco reached out a hand as the young white woman with the thick mane of blonde hair and baby bump squinted at him through the sunlight.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I need to see some ID,’ he repeated.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, rifling through her bag and finally coming up with her California driver’s license The name on it was Jessica Summers, but her real name was Freya Vaden. To her associates, and those closest to her, she was known simply as Chance.
The guard glanced at the license for less than a second and passed it back to her. ‘Thank you, Ms Summers.’
Chance handed over her bag to be passed through the scanner and walked through the metal detector. The detector alarm sounded, bringing a call for a ‘female assist’ from a male supervisor.
‘Ma’am, if you could step to the side.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Chance said, her hands moving to rub her swollen belly.
‘Latisha, could you come check this lady for me?’
As Chance waited to be searched, she checked out the lobby and the steady procession of people in and out. Through the glass windows and doors of the entrance she could see a gaggle of TV news people. Next to them was a phalanx of heavily armed US Marshals, all of them here for the opening of the trial of six members of the Aryan Brotherhood on conspiracy charges.
A female courthouse guard stepped out from behind the scanner. Standing behind Chance, she performed a cursory pat-down.
‘When you due, honey?’
‘I’m only fourteen weeks, long way to go,’ Chance said, smiling.
‘This your first?’
Chance nodded.
‘I could tell. You got that glow about you. Now, I just need to wand you, OK?’
The female guard reached back and grabbed a hand-held metal detector as Chance held out her arms. As the guard wanded her chest there was a beeping sound.
‘Underwire bra?’ the guard asked matter-of-factly.
Chance looked at the floor and blushed.
‘OK, you go on ahead now,’ said the guard. ‘Oh, and good luck.’
‘Thanks.’
Chance gathered her bag and took a left towards the bank of elevators. She rode the elevator all the way up to the floor where the trial was taking place, then made her way towards the courtroom. A cheerful-looking black guy sporting the same blue US Marshals security jacket as the guards downstairs opened the door for her as she approached.
She ducked past him and into the courtroom. For a moment, she worried that proceedings would stop and people would turn to look at her. But no one did. It only worked like that in the movies anyway. The reality was that for most big trials court staff, attorneys, members of the press and members of the public flitted in and out of the courtroom all day.
Chance took a seat at the back, near to where she guessed the media were. Opening her bag, she pulled out a yellow legal pad and a pen and began sketching the layout of the courtroom.
At the front of the courtroom a woman was on her feet. Chance recognized her from TV coverage as the lead prosecutor, Jalicia Jones. Jalicia was making some long speech, which Chance ignored, focusing instead on the men in the dock. Greying hair, the occasional pair of reading glasses, offset by old-school mustaches and beards — they looked like an eccentric gathering of grandfathers. Chance knew, though, that this was the leadership of the Aryan Brotherhood. Each sat with an accompanying armed guard. Two more armed guards, US Marshals, flanked the judge’s bench on one side of the court and the dock on the other.
Chance noted where everyone was positioned, along with the weapons being carried, plus all the entry and exit points. Then she flipped the page and started to sketch the layout of the courtroom in relation to the rest of the building.
By the time she’d finished sketching, half an hour had passed and a large LCD monitor was being wheeled in on a stand. Chance closed her pad and put it back into her bag. She’d have to wait until a break to leave now, plus she had her own reasons for wanting to stay a little longer, especially for this part of the proceedings.
Jalicia had wandered over to the jury. Chance took a while to study them. A couple of blacks. Three Hispanics. The rest were white, by the looks of them your typical middle-class San Franciscans. Wow, thought Chance, the guys in the dock didn’t stand a hope in hell.
Jalicia was speaking to the jury. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to see is extremely graphic and disturbing. This was the footage mentioned in my opening statement, which was sent to my office prior to the initial indictments being made. It shows Agent Prager of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives being tortured and executed, alongside his wife and teenage son. What I will prove beyond a reasonable doubt is that these murders were ordered by the men you see in the dock today as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise. Remember from my opening statement that to order someone else to commit a crime makes them as guilty as if they had pulled the trigger themselves.’
Jalicia sat down, and the lights were dimmed. Chance noted how dark it became in the room. Not dark enough, though. Not with those big old windows running one whole side of the room.
She leaned forward to watch what was on screen. Partly because that’s what everyone else was doing, and she didn’t want to stand out. But mainly because she’d never seen herself on screen before.
10
After dinner, which Reaper had consumed in silence, Lock watched his new companion embark on a punishing regime of physical exercises. Midway through a series of combination push-ups and squats known as burpees, Reaper, his torso slick with sweat, glanced up at Lock and spoke for the first time since Lock had informed him why he was here.
‘So you’re a bodyguard, huh?’ Reaper asked.
‘Something like that.’
‘ My bodyguard?’
‘That’s how it’s going to work.’
‘That so? Well, let me tell you something, the one thing I don’t need around me is another guard.’
Lock lowered his voice, aware that while the block of cells was a cacophony of shouts and grunts as inmates worked through their own exercise routines, someone might be listening in. ‘Well, you’re stuck with me for now.’
Reaper got to his feet, rubbing away at the rivulets of sweat streaming down his body with a towel. ‘That’s what the last two guys who shared a cell with me thought.’
Lock had anticipated that an inmate like Reaper might not take too kindly to his presence.
‘Just so we’re clear, I don’t intimidate that easy,’ he said, standing right in close to him. ‘Plus, you do anything to me, and you can forget whatever deal you’ve cut with the US Attorney’s Office.’
‘Might not be me you have to worry about. Only one thing that cons hate more than a snitch.’
‘And what’s that?’ said Lock.
‘A snitch’s bitch.’
Lock jammed his thumb hard into Reaper’s neck just below the angle of his jaw. He applied just enough pressure to get his attention.
‘Listen to me, you piece of shit, you keep this up and you getting on to that stand won’t be an issue, because I’ll kill you myself. Now, I don’t like you, a
nd you don’t like me, but for the next five days we’re stuck with each other, so you do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, and we’ll be just fine.’
Reaper’s face was flushed. Lock dug his thumb in a little bit harder.
‘You got me?’
Reaper forced a nod. Lock gradually reduced the pressure, then let go, prepared for some sort of counter-attack. If Reaper had been criminally unstable before his incarceration, who knew the state of his mind now, especially given his near-suicidal demand to return to the mainline?
Reaper stepped back and massaged his neck. ‘You scare easy, Lock. All I’m saying is I’ve had a lot of years down on my own, so it’s not going to be easy to share a cell again. We’re gonna need some rules.’
‘Agreed,’ said Lock. ‘And my first rule is, your books sleep on the floor, not me.’
‘Fine, but no going near my shit unless you ask first.’
‘Well, I’m not big into handicraft,’ Lock countered, nodding towards Reaper’s crocheting. ‘Anything else?’
‘Keep the cell clean. And don’t be running off your mouth about shit that doesn’t interest me.’
As a list of dos and don’ts went, this wasn’t any more extensive than many of the people Lock had protected.
‘I hear you. I was in the military long enough to cope with sharing confined quarters.’
‘Same here,’ Reaper said. ‘But the Bay’s a little different. First, you got the toads. You gotta watch out for them.’
‘Toads?’
‘Toads. Blacks. Negroes. Then you got your Nortenos and Surenos. You getting this? Nortenos are the Hispanics from northern California, Surenos are from the south. The ones from Mexico are the Border Brothers. They associate separately on the yard, but they all fall under the control of the Mexican Mafia.’
