CHERUB: Maximum Security

by Robert Muchamore

  Only when the gates behind the bus were locked could the second set of gates leading into the prison be opened. Once they’d passed into the compound, James pressed his face to the window and looked out at the concrete cellblocks radiating across the desert.

  He watched the inmates in the wire-fenced exercise yards around each unit. There were armed guards on the roof of the buildings, ready to take a shot if trouble broke out, and tiny specks of men standing inside the air-conditioned watch towers dotted along the perimeter, several hundred metres away in every direction.

  Hacks received the prisoners as the bus drew up outside each cellblock. The men got dropped off first, then the women, then Chaz Wallerstein was left outside the supermax block and his single cell on Death Row. The young offender unit was the final stop, a quarter mile further along the road, past a stretch of bare ground set aside for building more cellblocks.

  The ankle chain was kept short to stop a prisoner from moving fast. It also meant the only way off the bus was a two-footed jump off the step. Abe, who didn’t seem the most athletic type, managed to lose his balance. One of the hacks grabbed him out of the dust and bounced him furiously against the wire fence.

  ‘Better keep upright if you don’t want your ass kicked.’

  The two hacks shoved the kids through a wire gate and towards the cellblock. The twin-level building was made out of prefabricated concrete sections, with a flat metal roof and every window deliberately narrower than a human body. They passed through a steel door, into a spartan reception area, with a long plywood counter down the middle and showers off to the side. A black inmate, who looked about fifteen, stood behind the counter.

  One hack removed James’ chains and told him to strip off and run to the shower stall at the end of the room. The other one shook green disinfectant powder over James’ head and handed him a chewed-up bar of soap.

  James felt sorry for Abe as he twirled in the shower next to him. There was no muscle anywhere on Abe’s body and his arms and legs were like sticks. James reckoned Lauren could have taken him in a fight. He wouldn’t even make a light snack for the prison bullies.

  ‘Ain’t got all day,’ the guard shouted, as he dragged James from under the water and handed him a towel. James put the towel to his face and realised it was damp and musty, like it had been used plenty of times before.

  By the time James threw his towel down, the guard had pulled a thin flashlight out of his shirt pocket and stretched a set of disposable gloves over his fingers.

  ‘Face the wall.’

  The hack began his search at the bottom, making James lift each foot in turn, to inspect his soles and in-between his toes. Next he made James bend forward and pull apart his butt cheeks, before shining the torch under James’ armpits, in and behind his ears and vigorously rubbing his fingers against James’ scalp to make sure nothing was hidden in his hair.

  ‘Face front.’

  The hack shone the light in James’ eyes, up his nose and inside of his mouth, including under his tongue and around his gums, assisted by a finger that tasted of rubber. He crouched down and flashed the light into James’ belly button, before making him lift up his penis and balls and finally roll back his foreskin in case he’d stashed anything naughty up there. When the hack was done, he gently smacked James on the arse.

  ‘OK, get dressed.’

  The black kid behind the counter had laid out three sets of prison kit. The clothes they’d arrived in were gone. The other guard was holding the two yellow ESCAPE RISK bibs in the air and James instantly knew there was going to be trouble.

  ‘Do you know how many people have ever escaped from this prison, James Rose?’ asked the tubby little superintendent, whose name was Frey.

  James didn’t want to act smart, so he lied. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Nobody has ever escaped from Arizona Max,’ Frey said, stepping forward and grinding the heel of his boot against James’ foot. ‘Got that?’

  ‘Yes sir,’ James said, determined not to let the pain show on his face.

  Frey took his boot away, leaving James with a red horseshoe across the top of his foot.

  James pulled on grimy prison boxers and T-shirt. The outer clothing was grey cotton shorts and a baggy orange polo shirt with escape risk printed on it.

  ‘If you’re classified as an escape risk, you’ve got to wear the orange shirt whenever you’re out of the cell,’ the inmate explained. ‘If they catch you without it, they’ll stick you in the hole and just as likely stomp on you as well.’

  After pulling on the shirt, James looked under the counter and saw that his Nikes had been replaced by a pair of flimsy cotton slippers.

  ‘Prison issue only,’ the inmate explained. ‘No possessions from the outside, except your legal paperwork and two family photographs. Anything else you want must be purchased from the prison commissary.’

  The commissary was a kind of prison shop. James had read about it in the rulebook the day before.

  He picked his meagre possessions off the bench: identity card with his picture and inmate number, a prison rule book, a threadbare towel, bedding, one spare pair of boxers, one T-shirt, a plastic cup, toothbrush, toothpaste, a bar of soap and a roll of toilet paper.

  14. CELL

  The thirty-strong population of Cell T4 stopped what they were doing and stared at the three new inmates in the doorway. There were murmurs about James and Dave’s orange escape risk T-shirts, including a shout:

  ‘When you going over the wall, man?’

  Dave smiled. ‘A week next Tuesday. Wanna tag along?’

  The noise inside the cell was intense. Prisoners were allowed to buy radios and tiny black and white TVs. Each one was tuned to a different station, with the volume up high.

  The smell was even more in your face. There were fans near the ceiling at either end of the cell, but the sun had been cooking the metal roof all day, pushing the temperature into the forties. It was like living under the armpit of someone who never washed.

  There were six empty beds in the middle of the room. James and Dave knew the names of their cellmates, what crimes they’d committed and how long they had to serve, but a few seconds looking around gave them more essential knowledge than all the background reading.

  Curtis Oxford had a bed next to the entrance, surrounded by the beds of the toughest white inmates, who were all skinheads. The areas around these guys’ lockers were overflowing with personal possessions. Their prison-issue clothes looked pristine and were accessorised with brand-name trainers and tracksuit tops, in clear breach of the prison rules. As you got to the middle of the cell, the inmates looked steadily weaker until you got down to fragile looking kids who possessed nothing, except nervous dispositions and the prison-issue clothes they stood up in.

  The empty beds at the centre of the cell marked a racial divide. The radio stations and chatter beyond this point was mostly Spanish. The inmates were all Latino, and the beds at the bottom of the cell were an olive-skinned mirror of the beds near the door, with the biggest and meanest of the Latinos strutting in crisp underclothes and designer accessories.

  Short of turfing someone off their bunk, James and Dave’s only immediate option was to take two beds next to each other in the centre of the room, while Abe grabbed one across the aisle. James spread his sheet and blanket over his skimpy plastic mattress, then crouched down and put everything else in his locker before crashing out on the bed.

  *

  It took a couple of hours for the loud conversations and competing radios and TVs to really start drilling into James’ skull. It was seven at night and the closest thing to excitement came when an inmate passed through the cell with a food trolley. Everyone got a paper bag containing sandwiches, a quart of government-surplus milk and two chocolate cookies.

  According to Mark – a kid with a black eye who had the bed next to James – lunch was the only hot meal of the day. To save the expense of a large canteen and seating area, inmates got served in twenty-minute shifts be
tween 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., in a small building on the exercise yard.

  Like most teenage boys, James was always hungry. He now wished he’d had the stomach for Lauren’s pancakes at breakfast. He’d flushed most of the revolting sandwich at the courthouse and the Arizona Max offering was worse: perspiring cheese, brown lettuce and mayonnaise that had soaked through the bread.

  ‘Not eating that?’ Dave asked, as he snatched James’ cling-film package off the partition between the beds.

  ‘Mayo makes me spew.’

  As Dave crammed the sandwich down his neck, James stared miserably into his paper bag and bit the corner off his last cookie.

  ‘Can I have one of your cookies, for the sandwich?’ James asked.

  ‘Can’t,’ Dave said, as the tip of his tongue lapped up an oily streak dribbling down his chin.

  ‘Come on,’ James begged. ‘That’s a good trade, one cookie for a whole sandwich.’

  ‘Already eaten them, though,’ Dave said.

  James fumed as he slumped down on his mattress. The only things he’d eaten all day were two cookies and a few forced mouthfuls of sandwich. He was getting serious hunger pangs and knew they’d get worse through the night.

  ‘Did you get your commissary form?’ Dave asked. ‘It’s in the food bag.’

  James found his folded sheet of paper and a stubby – too short to stab someone with – pencil. His inmate number was scrawled at the top of the form and he started reading the commissary rules printed on the back.

  To discourage bullying, gambling and drug dealing, inmates weren’t allowed cash. Every prisoner got a commissary account and up to $50 per week could be paid in by a friend or relative on the outside. Prisoners got a commissary form every week and you put a tick next to whatever items you wanted to order, up to your spending limit. The hundreds of items ranged from miniature TVs at $99, down to phone-cards, Marlboro cigarettes, hair mousse, strawberry pop tarts and Reese’s peanut butter cups.

  According to James’ form, the balance of his account was $103.17, which included $20 given to all young inmates by a prisoners’ welfare charity and $83.17 that had supposedly been transferred from a commissary account in Nebraska.

  Abe came over to the foot of James’ bed, holding a cookie and his commissary form.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ Abe said, smiling like he wanted a favour.

  ‘Cheers,’ James said, snapping the cookie in half and downing it in two bites.

  ‘I don’t get this,’ Abe said, waving the form.

  James took the form and started explaining how the commissary worked. All Abe had in his account was $20 from the charity.

  ‘You’ll need to speak with your mum, or whoever, and try to get them to pay money in every week,’ James explained. ‘You should buy a ten-dollar phone-card first, so you can call her.’

  ‘And these?’ Abe asked, running his finger down the list of items.

  ‘You tick the box for whatever you want, hand in the form and collect your parcel a few days later.’

  ‘Can you help me choose? I don’t read so good.’

  James grabbed Abe’s form and ticked the box next to where it said phone-card. He looked up and realised there were two guys closing in. The absence of cash was supposed to discourage extortion and bullying amongst the inmates, but all it really did was turn the commissary forms themselves into a kind of currency.

  To Raymond and Stanley Duff, the sight of two new prisoners with commissary forms had the same effect as a shark sniffing blood in the water. The red-headed brothers weren’t quite among the cell’s elite, but they were hard enough to hold a place near the top of the pecking order. They were fifteen and sixteen, heavy-set, with flabby stomachs sagging over the waistbands of their shorts.

  The Duff brothers were serving life without parole for kidnapping and murdering an eight-year-old girl. Nearly all of James’ cellmates were killers, but this was the crime that got under his skin when he read about it. The dimple-cheeked victim pictured in the newspaper clipping had been born two days after Lauren and even looked a little like her.

  ‘We’ll help Skinny with his commissary,’ Raymond, the younger of the brothers, grinned as he reached out to snatch the form off James.

  ‘Rob him blind, more like,’ James said, scurrying backwards across his bed to keep the form out of reach.

  ‘You don’t want to give us trouble,’ Raymond said, tutting and shaking his head.

  Dave stood up and faced off the two redheads.

  ‘Lay one finger on my brother, I dare you.’

  Anyone could have worked out that Dave packed muscle where Stanley had flab, but brainpower didn’t seem to be the Duff brothers’ forte.

  Stanley swung his thick arm. The punch might have hurt, but Dave could have sat on his bed and clipped his toenails in the time it would have taken to connect. After easily intercepting the fist, Dave plunged an elbow into Stanley’s guts, before sweeping his feet from under him as he doubled over in pain.

  James remembered what Scott said about going in hard. He sprung up and charged at Raymond. His chunky opponent stumbled backwards across the aisle under a blitz of well-aimed punches, ending up spread-eagled on Abe’s bed with a bloody nose and split lip.

  James jumped on top and pinned Raymond’s arms to his side. James could see the dimple-cheeked face of the little girl Raymond had killed. Bristling with rage, he used one hand to clamp Raymond’s neck to the mattress and pulled back his arm, intending to smash Raymond’s jaw.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Dave shouted.

  James realised he’d overdone it and let Dave pull him away. They had to step over Stanley, who was sprawled out on the floor in a daze.

  ‘Sorry,’ James gasped.

  One of the Latinos shouted a warning. ‘On the rail.’

  James looked up to see a hack stepping on to the metal gantry that ran the length of the cell above the beds on Abe’s side of the room.

  ‘Standing count,’ the guard shouted.

  James and Dave didn’t know what this meant, but the others all scrambled. They switched off their TVs and radios and stood at the foot of their beds, ready to be counted. Once they twigged, James and Dave did the same.

  Stanley Duff managed to drag himself into position, but Raymond remained on Abe’s bed, holding his hands over his face and sobbing in pain. The hack leaned over the balcony, inspecting Raymond’s face.

  ‘All keep still,’ the hack shouted. ‘Anyone who moves or opens their smart mouth gets two nights in the hole.’

  The hack moved briskly to the end of the rail and grabbed a telephone. If the threat of the tiny pitch-black cell known as the hole wasn’t enough to keep the inmates in line, there was a rack at the end of the metal gantry, containing stun grenades and guns that could fire tear-gas cartridges, or plastic baton rounds.

  The boys stood to attention for a quarter of an hour, waiting for two trustee inmates from the prison hospital. When they’d rolled Raymond on to a stretcher and taken him away, the hack gave the order to stand down.

  People started moving around and the radios and TVs got switched back on. James looked at the smears of blood on his hands, then at Dave, expecting some kind of rebuke.

  ‘Well,’ Dave said, as he raised a single eyebrow. ‘I guess everyone knows we’ve arrived.’

  15. TACTICS

  Going to the bathroom meant taking a trip into Latino territory. James and Dave walked down the aisle between the beds, stepping over a dice game and respectfully asking people to move aside.

  A scrawny fourteen-year-old Latino boy kept the bathroom spotless. Everyone called him BAM, which was short for bucket and mop. In return for his cleaning duties, BAM got looked after by the toughest Latinos, who slept close to the bathroom entrance and didn’t want to be troubled by nasty smells.

  After James had used the urinal and washed his hands, face and arms, he realised he ought to clean the blood off his T-shirt as well. He tugged it over his head, while BAM fussed over a few splashes on the
floor around the urinals. James didn’t have his bar of soap, so all he could do was give the shirt a soaking and rub out as much blood as he could, before quickly wringing out the water and heading for the exit.

  ‘We like our toilet clean,’ one of the Latinos said.

  Cesar was a big shot, dressed in a black Fila tracksuit with a gold chain around his neck. He had his hairy palm against the wall, blocking the exit of the bathroom.

  ‘You respect our toilet, yeah?’ Cesar said. ‘Then we’ll respect you.’

  Dave nodded. ‘We’ve got no problem with that.’

  ‘And you,’ Cesar said, putting his hand on James’ bare shoulder and giving it a friendly squeeze, ‘you messed up that baby killer. Good for you. Give your shirt to BAM and he’ll wash it properly. We have soap powder. He puts it up near the fans and makes it dry for you by morning.’

  James handed his soggy T-shirt to BAM and nodded his appreciation to Cesar, who took his hand off the wall to allow them out of the bathroom.

  Cesar looked at one of his lieutenants. ‘Have we still got the lemon soft?’

  The lieutenant reached under his bed and produced two plump yellow rolls of toilet tissue for James and Dave.

  ‘Thank you, Cesar,’ Dave said.

  ‘The prison issue is brutal,’ Cesar grinned. ‘You need anything else?’

  Dave shook his head. ‘We’re cool.’

  ‘You’re two tough guys,’ Cesar said. ‘As long as you leave my people alone, you and I have no problems.’

  ‘You haven’t got any food going, have you?’ James interrupted. ‘I’ll replace it when I get my commissary order.’

  Dave gave James a stern look, as if to say don’t push your luck; but Cesar laughed noisily and grabbed a melted Snickers bar and a small can of sour-cream Pringles out of his locker.

  ‘Beauty,’ James grinned.

  James ripped the lid off the Pringles can as he led Dave back to their beds.