by Tony Masero
Everything was done military style. With precise Intel and planning. All communication was coded and orders carried out with prompt attention. If not, well, the offending party just disappeared. They vanished from view as if they had never been. If a fellow got antsy or started playing the bold upstart he was gone, like a puff of smoke, as if he had never existed.
There had been a few like that. Tough guys who didn’t know any better. The ones who came back from overseas so full of singular angst that they were convinced they would suffer no shit from anybody and could take on the world and get away with it. A bad mistake with someone like Leeward Penevale.
His right hand man had been a smartly dressed ogre called Abraham Bones. Abe had been a master sergeant in Vietnam, although his appearance was more of a nightclub doorman than a non-com and gentleman. A big, glowering, muscular Negro who said little but was devoted to Penevale and carried out his instructions to the letter, whatever they were.
They had been a strange pair, the Southern gentleman and his Negro attendant. All of it more reminiscent of a situation out of the antebellum Confederacy than any modern day sensibilities. But it was no step-n-fetchit kind of relationship, this was a cold-blooded and ruthless coupling and despite his smart appearance Abe Bones would cut the flesh from your body without a second thought at a word from his boss.
The hit was on a Besafe Securities armored vehicle. It was transporting bank cash and a collection of precious stones, part of an exhibition display that was taking place in Seattle.
It should have been easy with all the ex-military hardware they were carrying but the guards were young and keen and made a fight of it. The coned charges on the van doors should have stunned the three of them inside but they were a resilient trio protected by a newly added wall of steel bolted inside and all the gang met when it pushed through the blasted van doors was a hail of defensive fire. The gun battle had run out into the street and there had been lead winging around more viciously than any firefight in the jungle that Cole had experienced. They had all died, the guards and the four others from Penevale’s crew who were part of the team with Cole and Benny. Also an innocent passerby, a young mother walking the street and killed by a stray in the crossfire. And that was how they ended up with the baby.
The getaway van had proved a write-off after some slugs passed through the engine and demolished the radiator and carburetor. Cole and Benny had loaded the baby carriage with the cash and diamonds and strolled off as if a pair of family guys out with their offspring. They were stopped once at a roadblock but a casual look by the officer at the sleeping child had gained them safe passage. The cops had been expecting a racing getaway car or something more volatile than two fellows with a baby.
Two days later they had hit the high country, hiring the mountain bikes and trailer carriage at a place called Omak and making like tourists with British Columbia and Vancouver as their proposed escape destination. Then they had hit the washout and met up with the biker. He had been no off-duty cop. Cole had worked that one out subsequently and he guessed that Penevale had covered all angles once he had heard they had made it away with the cash and diamonds. He was one smart guy and he would have known they would be making for the north. It was the nearest border and he would have sent men out in a wide net across their expected path.
Cole had headed east then instead of going north. He had left the child at the door of the orphanage in Spokane and hitched his way on into Montana. There he found work on a ranch. He had settled, taking on a new name and shedding his old identity. It had been a college kid who had arranged that for him. A boy who had managed things for draft dodgers back in the day. The kid had no criminal connections, he was acting out of belief rather than being motivated by profit so Cole knew it was unlikely that Penevale would get to hear of his new identity. Cole steadied himself and kept a low profile. After three years he had left the ranch, earned himself a qualification as a plumber and after working for a plumbing contractor for five years had moved quietly into Rivers Bend and set up shop on his own.
He never touched the diamonds. They were fine pieces mounted in unique settings. He knew that if they appeared on the open market or at any word from a fence then Penevale would get to hear of it and turn his life into five levels of hell. Penevale was not the kind of man to forget.
That last sad thought was brushed aside as he pulled up and parked outside Caitlin’s place.
Chapter Eight
‘Baby left this morning,
Broke my heart in two,
Seems like I got nothing,
Nothing left to do.
It’s the babychain blues,
I got those babychain blues.
Don’t have no expectations
Nothing left to lose.’
Took me to the preacher,
Tied me a ball and chain,
Locked me in this prison cell
And fed me grief and pain.
So take me to the station,
Put me on the train
Help me get away from
My baby’s babychain.’
The old Negro sat alone under the main stairway of the rec hall and strummed out the melody on a beat-up guitar. His long and slender black fingers moved like spider’s legs and he slid the bottleneck easily through the barred chords and dibbled an intricate riff up between each verse. The metal strings whined under the metal bottleneck cut from a length of machine shop pipe and the sound rose above the general hubbub in the room. His voice was husky, almost a murmur sometimes but it was a soul felt complaint and hard not to listen to.
Except for Demus that is.
‘Aw, hell,’ he complained, from where he lay flat out on his stomach on the upper bunk. ‘That nigger going sing that cotton-picking crap all day? Don’t nobody in this dump play some decent country sounds?’
‘Shut your mouth,’ Gil told him abruptly. ‘That old fellow there, Wee Willy Carter, he’s eighty-four years old. He’s been in here since he was thirty. He saw more and done more long before your daddy ever dumped a load from his sorry sack and brought your sad existence into the world.’
‘So?’ Demus shrugged. ‘Just an old black man beating up on a miserable guitar.’
Buck chuckled, ‘You don’t know nothing, do you, fish?’
‘What’s to know?’ shrugged Demus.
‘Something’s going down, dumb ass. That’s what’s happening here.’
That caught Demus’ attention and he turned his gaze to stare at the elderly guitar player more attentively. He watched as a trio of black brothers came over to the old man and appeared to be appreciating the singer’s playing.
A metal rod was screwed through the head and into the neck of the guitar as if a support. Covered by the other two, one of the men, a large, gorilla-like character with an earring, baldhead and skin the color of coal, used his stubby fingers to twist the head of the rod free whilst the old man continued to play. Deftly the big man drew out a foot long, half-inch rod of solid steel sharpened to a needlepoint. Holding the piece down by his leg he turned abruptly and strode across the room.
‘What’s he doing?’ Demus whispered hoarsely.
‘Watch the card playing spic,’ advised Buck.
The Hispanic was a flabby-looking fellow in a loose fitting tee shirt that came down to his knees. He wore flip-flops and baggy shorts that allowed view of his tat-covered legs. A brutish looking face pondered over his cards and did not see the black man approaching swiftly behind him. Those with him though saw the looming presence and backed away quickly, pushing their metal chairs aside in a rush of noise as they jumped to their feet.
The Hispanic looked up at the sound, his eyes widened and he was about to turn around but it was too late. The black man was on him in an instant, the metal rod flashing as it was buried deep into the inmate’s fleshy back. Swiftly the giant repeated the blow several times, the sharpened slender steel finding little resistance in the broad back of the screaming man as it was pummeled into his body.
Blood flowed and the Hispanic crashed forward into the aluminum card table, his chair sliding away from under him as he collapsed onto the floor. Men rushed away from the conflict and in the rush the Negro quickly joined them, backing away as an alarm siren blared out and guards ran into the room.
The bloody rod was slipped back into the guitar neck in the ensuing panic and holding his guitar close to his chest the old bluesman backed away into his cell.
‘This is going to mean a lock-down,’ observed Gil, getting up from his seat and stepping over his friend Randy’s spread legs, he made his way across to the seat-less toilet and pissed loudly into the pot. ‘You alright Randy?’ he asked his friend over his shoulder as he peed.
Randy mumbled something, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the cement floor.
‘Don’t worry, bro. Ain’t nothing to worry about,’ Gill assured him.
Two white prisoners appeared at the cell door, making the most of the distraction going on in the main room behind them.
‘Gil?’ said one. He was a short, stocky fellow with close-cropped hair and a large swastika tattooed on his neck complemented by SS lightning flashes on his forearm. His friend was bigger and more wary, the obvious bodyguard, his eyes watched the room behind all the time.
‘What’s up?’ asked Gil, fastening his fly.
‘How much you want for the new one?’ the little fellow asked, with a nod up at Demus, who promptly crawled back deeper into his bunk.
‘What you got?’ asked Gil.
‘Maybe some meth and speed.’
‘You got any seven-up?’
The short fellow shook his head negatively from side to side.
‘Come back when you have,’ Gil said, sitting back down again and ignoring the two.
A guard appeared alongside the two Brotherhood men, ‘Move along,’ he ordered brusquely. ‘Back to your cells.’
‘Be seeing you,’ said the short man, with a leering glance up at Demus. The bodyguard alongside peeled back his lips and bared a smile composed of bad uneven teeth and winked meaningfully, his eyes fixed hungrily on Demus as they left.
‘Gurns, you see any of this?’ the guard asked, raising a thumb over his shoulder.
Gil looked over at the sprawled Hispanic lying dead on the floor in an expanding pool of blood.
‘No, sir. I was relieving myself at the time.’
The guard hurried away, ushering more noisy inmates back into their cells.
‘You ain’t going to, are you?’ whispered Demus, peering nervously over the edge of his bunk.
‘What?’ Gill asked with an indifferent sigh.
‘Sell me to them fellows.’
‘Why not?’ Gil shrugged his heavy shoulders and returned to pondering the game of chess he was playing with Buck.
‘You can’t,’ gasped Demus. ‘I mean, Gil…. Please. Don’t do that.’
‘Listen, fish,’ said Gil. ‘This is the life you walked into. No good complaining.’
‘But, I…. I….’ for the first time in his life Demus was at a loss for words. ‘Oh, shit!’ he whined in desperation. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’
Prisoners were beginning to shout loudly and the loudspeakers were warning all the inmates to get back inside and ordering the cell doors closed. There was a general racket that echoed through the unit and made hearing difficult.
‘This could get worse,’ Gil observed to Buck.
‘Right,’ Buck agreed, looking out through the bars of the cell door as it slid shut.
‘Watch and wait,’ advised Gil, with a secretive sidelong glance at his chess opponent.
‘Got it,’ said Buck. ‘You’re in check, by the way.’
‘They ain’t coming to get me, are they?’ Randy wailed suddenly. He had begun to roll his body in agitation. Holding his arms wrapped around himself and rocking backwards and forwards as the noise outside the cell increased.
‘No, buddy,’ Gil assured him with only half a mind as he concentrated on the chess pieces.
‘I don’t want no more,’ moaned Randy.
In exasperation, Gil made a quick, decisive but ill-considered move and turned to look at him. ‘It’s okay, Randy. I promise, nobody’s going to come get you.’
‘See,’ said Demus urgently, staring down over the edge of his bunk. ‘See what they done to him. I don’t want to end up like that.’
Gil looked up at him, his eyes cold and distant. ‘If you don’t be still, fish, I’ll end it for you right here and now.’
‘Steady,’ muttered Buck. ‘We can’t afford no trouble.’
Gil looked across at him quickly, ‘I know it,’ he said, with a sharp nod of irritation as if Buck had no place telling him anything anyhow.
‘No, no, no,’ whimpered Randy, holding his hands over his ears as the noise from the cellblock grew louder and developed into one great booming row.
‘Calm down, Randy.’ Gil crossed over and put a comforting meaty hand on his friend’s shoulder but Randy twisted away from the touch.
‘They’re animals, Gil,’ he said, staring up, his deeply sunken eyes wild and full of tears. ‘I can’t tell you. It’s…. it’s disgusting. Loathsome, I feel it crawling all over my body,’ his hands tore at his shirtfront.
‘You need some peacetime,’ advised Gil. ‘I’ll see you alright. Don’t worry; I’ll get you a taste. You’ll be fine.’
‘I need it now, Gil.’
‘I know. Soon as they settle down I’ll see you alright. They got us in lockdown right now, just hang in there a while. Then I’ll see you made well, I promise.’
‘Thank you, thank you, Gil,’ Randy moaned, grasping Gil’s hand and holding it to his cheek. ‘You’re a real friend.’
‘It’s nothing, bro. Just you stay strong a while. We’ll be okay.’
Buck watched the two of them with a troubled frown on his face, and then he moved his bishop and finished Gil with a checkmate.
The prison was restless.
There was a war brewing and the governor knew it. He placed all the prison guards on a full alert and had more than one marksman stationed in the prison towers on a twenty-four hour basis. Those guys loved it, they were pulling extra overtime and all they had to do was shoot people to earn it.
The blacks and Hispanics were about to confront each other and the murder of the Spanish American had only acerbated the brewing discontent. It was how things escalated in the enclosed environment. It often started over an inconsequential event, as it had here, an unfortunate turn of phrase made to a black by a Latin who had poor English and the perceived insult had magnified out of all proportion. In the super sensitive and overcharged atmosphere of violent and dangerous men forced into close proximity with each other and fueled by drug use, it was inevitable that something bad would happen.
It was later, after the lock-down was over and during another scuffle that things changed for Gil.
For no apparent reason one prisoner set upon another. They fought it out across the hall, punching and kicking at each other. Backwards and forwards across the room, wildly swinging and landing heavy blows. Like a fuse lit, a few others joined in. Most though, backed away, allowing those fired by their own aggression to work it out.
Gil and Buck, who had been called on to make a delivery of amphetamine to a second story inmate, leant over the upper rail and watched as the scattering of bodies wove to and fro below them.
‘Ooh-wee!’ whistled Buck as he watched a punch land squarely on one of the fighting men.
‘Here comes the cavalry,’ observed Gil, as bunches of officers burst into the hall.
At their arrival most of the fights broke up but two of the more aggressive inmates began to take it out on the guards, none of whom were bold men and backed away from the two cautiously. Both prison inmates looped around the area, running energetically from place to place and hissing angrily at the guards who tried to surround them.
One prisoner lunged forward, a ballpoint pen clasped in his fist and he drove it dagger-like
, deep into a guard’s ear. With a cry the guard collapsed to the floor.
‘Fuck that!’ whispered Buck, ‘That’s torn it, there’ll be hell to pay now.’
The guards seemed to be emboldened by the attack and surged forward and one burly fellow lunged at the pen-touting inmate and threw him to the floor. Soon other guards swarmed over the man and the handcuffs were out.
‘That’s it, I guess,’ said Gil, as the final fighter surrendered to the inevitable and gave himself up.
With the fracas over they descended the staircase to go back in their cell and at the door Gil stopped suddenly, ‘Where’s Randy?’ he asked Demus, who still stuck to the safety of his bunk. Last time Gil had looked, Randy had been on a heroin high, feeling quite happy and confident.
‘Dunno, he was here a minute ago. I was watching the fight, didn’t see him leave.’
Gil was about to go search out his friend but the nervous guards were herding all the inmates back inside for yet another lock-down.
Gil bunched his fists around the cell bars and peered out, trying to make out where Randy had disappeared to.
‘Those last two fighting out there were the Brotherhood,’ said Buck, standing at his elbow.
‘Those Nazi bastards,’ snarled Gil. ‘They want a deal.’
‘You mean for the new fish?’
Gil nodded, ‘Distracted us and hiked Randy away. They’ll want to do an exchange, they know I care for that boy.’
Buck drew a long breath. ‘We need him.’
‘I know it. Don’t worry, I’ll arrange things.’
‘Where they taken him, d’you think?’
‘No idea. They’ll keep him out of sight until the play is over.’
