by JJ Zep
Rizzo’s suddenly crinkled his brow in concentration.
“Riz?” Julie said.
“Something else I just remembered now. Scolfield seemed to take an unnatural interest in the girl, asking her name, where she was from, stuff like that. Fucking pervert.”
That feeling of barely contained tension reverberated through Chris’ body again.
“What did you say the name of that bar was, the one in Hackensack?”
“The Wayside Tavern,” Rizzo said.
thirty
Ruby didn’t think she’d get much sleep, but when she eventually lay down on the cot she slipped off almost immediately. Her sleep was dreamless, contented, made so perhaps by the knowledge that she now had a plan, and a couple of weapons to execute it with.
She’d managed to break two fair-sized shards from the plastic tray, then spent a couple of hours shaping and keening them into razor-sharp daggers, six-inch prison shanks. With that completed she’d looked for somewhere to conceal her weapons. Her initial preference had been to slot them into her sleeves, but that was too much of a risk. If they decided to cuff her they’d find them immediately. Eventually, she’d settled on slotting them into the sides of her boots. That would make them more difficult to access. A bit of play-acting might be required. She was up for that.
Her slumber was disturbed by the sound of a heavy diesel engine. She opened her eyes and then closed them to slits again. Dazzling white light seeped into the cell from the yard, and she heard a loud metallic clunk, metal on metal. Voices now, shouts and whistles.
Ruby got up from the cot and walked to the barred window. She placed a foot on the metal frame of the bed and levered herself up. The prison yard was lit by floodlights and abuzz with activity. Poles and bales of wire and planks of wood were being offloaded from trucks by an army of orange-overalled men, some of whom were also busying themselves with digging trenches, unraveling the wire, erecting support posts.
A tow truck was dragging a couple of car wrecks into place, igniting a cascade of sparks. A tipper truck was upending its load of rubble. A grader trundled into the yard and began ripping at the earth. Most incredible of all was the sight from beyond the prison walls where a crane suddenly telescoped its metallic arm into view and hoisted a yellow bus into the night sky.
One of the guards overseeing the operation looked up and spotted her at the window, called over another, pointed. The second guard waved her away. Ruby ignored him, watched a while longer and then climbed down from the window. She’d seen enough to pique her interest. Obviously, that had been Scolfield’s intention.
Not that it mattered, one way or the other. Scolfield could construct the Sistine Chapel of fighting cages for all she cared. If things went as she planned, she’d never set foot in it.
thirty one
The Wayside Tavern sat in the middle of an uneven strip of asphalt in a former industrial precinct of Hackensack, New Jersey. The one-time warehouse had been converted into a large hall, sporting the minimum of material comforts required to pack in punters and get them drunk and betting on the fights. That is to say it had a couple of cages, four bars, an array of mismatched tables and chairs and a few booths that looked like they’d been seconded from the local Mickey D’s. There were pool tables and a row of one-armed bandits, and not much more than that.
At this time of the morning the Wayside was deserted, the cages empty, all but one of the bars closed, the rear of the building bathed in darkness. A few diehard boozers still nursed drinks at one or two of the tables, a couple of bored-looking bouncers still loitered.
Chris completed his surveillance of the place and walked swiftly towards the only hub of activity, a long bar with a large, backlit mirror and an impressive array of brand name booze lining the shelves. Julie walked beside and slightly behind him, Pete and Daisy brought up the rear.
The bartender looked up as they approached, gave a barely perceptible nod to the bouncers. From the corner of his eye, Chris saw a couple of men peel away from the wall and follow at a distance.
“Greetings folks,” the barman said as they approached. “Nightcap?” The man was tall and thin and extensively tattooed across his face and arms, he wore a grin that showed off a mouthful of stubby teeth.
“You still open?” Chris said.
“Hell yeah!” the barman said. “Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year, Christmas and the fourth included. Now, what’s your poison?”
“That real Chivas Regal?” Julie asked, pointing to one of the bottles in the back bar display.
“It is this week,” the bartender chuckled. “Although, by tomorrow it might be Makers or Jimbo or goddamn French champagne.” He gave a phlegmy laugh that was picked up by the bouncers. Chris looked in the mirror and saw that there were now five of them standing behind. He saw something else in the mirror, a sawn-off shotgun, sitting on a shelf under the counter, and beside it, something familiar, something that got his heart beating faster.
“That’s a fine blade,” he said, struggling to keep his tone even.
“Eh?” The bartender looked confused.
“The blade you’ve got under the counter,” Chris said, pointing towards the mirror. “Nice piece. Mind if I get a look at it?”
The man spun towards the mirror, looked back at Chris, the tattoos on his face unable to hide his exasperation. “Yes, I do fucking mind,” he snapped, all good-humor evaporated. “What is this, show and tell?”
Chris ignored him. “Where’d you get it?”
“None of your fucking business,” the barman said. “And while we’re at it, bar’s closed, so take a hike.”
Behind him Chris heard movement, the bouncers shuffling into position. One of them shook out a retractable baton. Julie drew a 9-mil from her belt, turned to face them. Pete and Daisy did likewise.
“I’ll tell you where you got the sword,” Chris said. “You took it off a fifteen-year-old kid, a girl who took part in one of your cage fights, name of Ruby. Am I wrong?”
“Damn straight, you’re wrong,” the barman said. “That’s a family heirloom. My daddy took it off a Chinaman in Korea.”
“Interesting,” Chris said. “Your daddy took a Japanese sword off a Chinese soldier in Korea.” He looked in the mirror, saw that Julie was still holding the bouncers at bay, looked back to the barman. “Where’s the girl?” he said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Where the fuck is my daughter?”
The barman looked back at him, his mouth opening and closing, as though reaching for words it couldn’t form.
“Mr. Burns can’t answer your questions,” a voice said from the darkness.
Chris looked into the mirror and saw nothing. He half-turned, keeping the bartender in sight. A slim man stepped from shadow, a glimmer reflecting off his wire-framed glasses.
“Mr. Burns can’t answer your questions. But I can,” the man said. He took another languid pace forward. He was dressed in a charcoal-colored suit with a Chinese collar.
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Scolfield,” the man said. “And you’re Chris Collins. Mr. Rizzo told me to expect you.”
“That son of a bitch,” Julie spat.
“Where’s my daughter?” Chris said, pushing away from the bar.
“Close at hand. I can take you to her right now. Provided, that is, you’re agreeable to my terms.”
“What makes you think I have to negotiate terms with you?”
“Just this.”
Chris heard weapons being cocked in the darkness. A squad of soldiers in night camouflage stepped forward and formed up on either side of Scolfield.
“Shall we?” Scolfield said.
thirty two
They came for her just after first light. Ruby heard the door at the end of the cellblock clank open, heard footsteps crossing the concrete a
long the corridor. She sat up on the cot where she’d lain awake these last few hours, listening to the laborers at work outside. She’d been tempted to sneak a peak at the prison yard, but she’d decided against it. Sneaking a peak would be accepting that she was going to end up in there. She wasn’t, though, she had already decided that.
The footsteps were closer. She removed one of the daggers from her boot, ran the sharp edge of it along her tongue, felt it bite, tasted the coppery flavor of blood in her mouth. Then she slid the knife back into place and lay down on the bed. The footsteps came to a halt outside her cell.
“Hey! Hey you!” A billy club rasped across the bars. Ruby sat up, feigned confusion, turned towards the guards, gave them a smile. Just two of them, two nervous-looking kids at that, one still sprouting teenage acne. Good. She stood and stretched.
“We’re here to escort you to the yard,” one of the guards said in a nervous, breaking voice.
Ruby nodded, said nothing. Her mouth was filling with blood.
“We’re going to open the door now,” the guard said. “When we do you step out into the corridor and place your hands on your head, understand?”
Ruby nodded.
“Open up,” the one guard said to the other. Let’s get the show on the road.” The last line sounded contrived, like a kid sprouting some tough guy line from a movie he’d seen.
The acne-faced guard fumbled a key into the lock and twisted, slid the door open and then backed away. Ruby took a few paces forward and stepped through into the corridor. She expected to see a larger detachment out there, but the corridor was empty. She realized something else. Neither of the guards in her escort was carrying a firearm. Scolfield was getting careless. Either that or he was underestimating her. Except neither sounded like Scolfield, which meant there was something else behind this.
“Put your hands on your head.”
One of the guards stood behind her, the other to the fore, fidgeting nervously. The cuffs hadn’t been fixed yet. Now was the time. All she had to do was bend forward and grab at her belly, eject her mouthful of blood onto the ground, fall to the floor, pretend to be convulsing, draw them in. Then, when they were close enough, she’d draw her daggers, and finish them off.
“I’m going to put on the cuffs now,” the guard said from behind her. The kid didn’t even know enough to order her onto her knees or her belly. She heard his footsteps at her back, waited until she could hear his fraught breathing and then pitched forward onto her knees and spewed.
“Hey!” the guard behind her said. “Hey! Don’t do that! Get up!”
“Ah man, she’s bleeding!”
“What?”
Ruby spat out a final wad of blood into the discharge already decorating the floor. The guard was beside her, his hand on her shoulder. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to unsheath the knife and slice him open.
But she wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it. Scolfield had known that when he’d sent in two unarmed, rookie guards to escort her. He’d gambled on her better nature and won. She was going into the cage after all.
thirty three
“Voila!”
The hood was whipped from his head and Chris quickly oriented himself. He was sitting in a chair facing a bay window with leaded, diamond-shaped panes. On the other side of the glass was a yard. He took this to be a prison yard, based on the high walls and guard towers beyond, but the yard itself looked more like an obstacle course, some crazy adventure park, designed in hell.
There were trenches and craters, piles of bricks and other rubble. A number of rusting hulks were strewn across the ground as though tossed there by an angry giant. One of those, a yellow bus, had its nose buried in the sand, its rear wheels extending into the air like a tottering skyscraper. Towards the rear, the entire breadth of the cage was cordoned off with strands of razor wire, sitting low to the ground. Beyond the cordoned area, a huge canvas was draped over the fence, depicting a skillfully rendered impression of a destroyed city.
“Best I could do with the time available,” Scolfield said from behind him. “But I’m quite pleased with the result, given the circumstances.”
Chris craned his neck in the direction of the voice, tried to stand, despite the bounds holding his arms to the chair.
“Where’s Ruby?” he said.
“Ruby’s fine,” Scolfield said, walking to the glass and looking out on the yard. He folded his arms behind his back, spoke without turning. “She’s quite a specimen, your daughter. Tell me about her. What happened to turn such a slip of a girl into a killing machine?”
“I’m not telling you anything until I see Ruby. Where is she?”
“You’ll see her soon enough. Must have been tough on you after your wife died. And those three years searching for Ruby, never knowing if you’d find her again.”
“What do you know about that?”
“Oh, I know a lot of stuff. I still have friends in Pendleton.” He raised a pair of field glasses to his eyes. “The Corporation have made me a rather generous offer for Ruby, Chris, a smaller, but not insubstantial, offer for you.”
“Is that what this is about?”
Scolfield chuckled. “Heck no,” he said. “Who gives a shit about money anymore, right? Who needs money when you can pick up just about anything you need right off the floor.”
“That used to be true, not so much any more.”
“Still is Chris, for people like myself, that is. People who are prepared to take what they want.”
“And what is it you want?”
“To be amused.”
“To be amused?”
“Sure, why not?” Scolfield chuckled. “It’s a messed up world, Chris. You gotta get your kicks where you can find them.”
“What does this have to do with Ruby?”
“You’re about to find that out.”
thirty four
“We’ve been instructed to wait here,” the guard said.
She was back in the gray-walled corridor, standing outside the door where she’d been yesterday. Only this time she knew what was in store for her. She also knew she had virtually no chance of getting out alive, not with three of those things waiting on the other side of the door. Two, she corrected herself, Juno is dead. Still, without a weapon…
“Hey, cut that out!”
The commotion was coming from the other end of the corridor. Ruby turned and saw three people being hustled towards her by a detachment of guards. One of them, the one doing the shouting, was a red-headed woman. The other two were men, one, a huge guy with a round face, the other a smaller man with unkempt, dark hair and stubble on his chin. The detachment leading them, unlike her escort, was dressed in full riot gear and carrying M-16’s. They came to a halt a few feet away.
“You kids,” the guard commander said, addressing Ruby’s guards. “Beat it!”
“But –” one of the kids started to protest.
“Shut it, junior, and move your ass before I throw you into the cage with these four.”
“Ruby?” the red-headed woman said, “Ruby, I’m Julie. Your father’s here, Ruby. He’s –”
“Shut it!”
“My father’s here?” Ruby said. What was he doing here? Had he been looking for her? Of course, he had. Had he been captured? Hurt?
She wanted answers to all these questions, but then the door rattled open and the guard commander barked “In!”
Ruby stepped through into the enclosure, looked beyond it towards the main arena, now transformed into some kind of obstacle course. The most startling feature was a yellow bus, left and slightly fore of center, its nose buried in the ground, back wheels reaching for the sky at a steep angle, there was an auto graveyard at the middle of the yard, a small mountain of rubble behind it, strands of razor wire at back, all of it backdropped by a huge painting of a dead city. There were various other craters and rubble piles and car wrecks too, places to hide and perhaps find weapons.
None of that would matter much unl
ess they got moving.
“Come on,” she said, nudging the woman – Julie, she’d said her name was. Ruby stepped across the threshold.
“Entering the arena now…Ruby Collins!” the announcer’s voice proclaimed.
She jogged towards the bus, waited till the others reached her.
“Name?” she said, pointing to the little guy.
“What?”
“What’s your name?”
“Pete,” the man said.
Ruby pointed at the big guy.
“Daisy,” he said, an idiot grin planted on his face. Ruby had seen that look before, usually on combat vets who’d visited too closely with death. It frightened her.
“Listen up,” she said, calling them into a huddle. “They’re going to send some things in here after us, Z’s, only… not. Whatever you do, we need to stick together, work as a team, you got that?”
“Wait a minute, what are these things?” Julie said.
“No time,” Ruby said. “Find some weapons, preferably something you can hold onto, a metal bar, a club, anything. Do it now, meet me…” She did a quick sweep of the arena, decided on the rubble pile, which would give them an elevated position and plenty of ammunition to launch at the Z’s. “By that pile of bricks back there. Go, now!”
As they scampered away, Ruby dropped into a crouch and withdrew the two daggers from her boots. She looked from her position into the corner of the yard where three doors stood open leading into the holding enclosure that abutted the main arena. Nothing had stepped through those doors yet. She jogged over to the rubble pile, scanned the yard, picked out a few features that might be of use to her.
The big guy, Daisy, was striding back towards her, a warped and rusted car door clutched against his left forearm like a shield, a tire iron in his right hand. The smaller guy had picked up a corroded length of pole that was likely to be about as much use as caviar at a barbeque. Julie was still foraging, and now appeared hefting a wooden club around which she’d wrapped a few stands of barbed wire.
