He shrugged and waited for Albright to respond. For a long moment, the chaplain stood there in silence, but then a smile slowly stretched across his face.
“Yes, Father?”
The smile spread into a wide grin. “Omar was right. I thought you might trust me, but he said there was no way.”
“He’s a smart man. Always has been.”
“Okay. He told me to tell you the honor is all his.”
Now Ribisi smiled. As he gave Albright a nod, he chuckled through his smile. “All right, Father. You’ve both got a deal. Tell Marquez the Sicilians won’t disturb the peace. In fact, tell him we’ll help enforce it, if he’s willing.”
“Do you think that’ll be needed?”
“You hear about Diggs? Aryan took a poke at him yesterday. Banger’s bodyguard is laid up, and Diggs is plenty pissed about it. And the Aryans still have their real target walking around. Yeah, I think it’ll be necessary. Tell Marquez I’m good for it.”
“I’ll do that right away.”
“Good.”
Albright turned and began to hurry away from the cell.
“Father?”
The chaplain stopped. “Yes, Anton?”
“I meant no offense.”
“I know.”
“And just so Marquez knows the message is from me, tell him he’s a greasy spic.”
***
Darren stepped quickly along the steel and concrete walkway. Maybe he could spread the word to Sweeny and Diggs. If they agreed to the terms, there was hope that everything might just turn out okay. Wouldn’t Ron like that?
But if Anton’s words were true, Sweeny and Diggs were part of the trouble, two violent men just itching for the chance to hurt each other. Trying to decide what to do made Darren’s head hurt.
A whimper brought him to a halt. He turned toward the sound and saw a cell filled with shadows, a concrete hole that emanated sadness. The sound came again, like the cry of an injured puppy. Albright stepped toward the cell, and then he heard a voice. Unlike the first sound, the voice was rough, angry.
“Shut the fuck up, Maggot.”
Darren stepped closer, and he saw through the shadows to the men inside. One of them was an inmate he had never seen before, a muscled man with a shaved head and cruel face. The tattoos on his arms were a roadmap of hate. In fact, the word popped up more than once on his skin, each time followed by a different religion or race. I hate niggers. I hate Jews. The man lay stretched across the top bunk, shooting eye-daggers, but Darren did his best to ignore it and concentrate on the hate-monger’s cellmate.
This man he’d seen before. He recognized the thin, pale face and arms and the stringy hair. Most everybody called the man Maggot, but Albright remembered his real name.
“Jim?”
The small man looked up, and Darren saw that his eyes were red and wet. He’d been crying long and hard. His lip quivered, and that puppy-sound escaped again.
“Is it Jim? I haven’t talked to you more than once or twice. I’m sorry if I got your name wrong.”
“You did get it wrong,” the skinhead said. “His name’s Maggot, Father, because that’s what he is.”
“That’s enough.”
“Whatever you say, Pope-sucker.”
He ignored the insult. He’d heard worse and more imaginative in his day. This guy was an amateur.
“It is Jim, isn’t it?”
The thin man nodded, his eyes locked on Albright’s.
“Do you remember my name, Jim? It’s Darren.”
“Not Father?”
He gave the man a small smile. “I’m a priest, yes. You can call me Father if you want to. Do you want to talk about anything, Jim?”
“He doesn’t,” the skinhead said. “Why don’t you just fuck off?”
He continued to ignore the man, instead fixing his eyes on Jim.
“It’s okay. I’m here so you can talk if you want. We can talk about anything at all.”
Jim tilted back his head, fixing his tired eyes on the mattress above him, on the weight it supported. When he finally looked away, he bolted to the cell’s door. His fingers wrapped around the bars and tightened until the knuckles flared white.
“Father, I need out. This whole place has gone bad. Very, very bad.” His eyes bugged wide, and Darren could see how bloodshot and wild they were.
“What’s gone bad, Jim? Is it your cell? Has something--”
“That’s enough!” It was the skinhead. He jumped down from his bunk and grabbed Jim by the shoulder. “Get the fuck out of here, priest. Maggot, get back to bed.”
Jim let out another pained whimper. He whispered, “I am sorry, sir.”
“You will be.”
“Take your hand off of him,” Darren said.
The man paused. “What was that?”
“You heard me loud and clear.”
The man smiled, a wicked grin that was short at least two teeth.
“Is that so? You go and grow yourself a pair of balls or something? Tired of touching little boys, and now you want the real thing?”
Darren held the man’s gaze. “Tell me your name.”
“Benning.”
“No first name?”
“None you need to know.”
“Fine.” He took in a slow breath, let it back out again. “Benning, I’m having a conversation with Jim. Take your hand off of him and return to your bunk.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Absolutely.”
Benning shook his head. “I guess it’s a shame these bars are here, then. See, you can’t come in here and make me take my hand off of him, and I can tell you to fuck off.”
Darren leaned in closer, lowered his voice. “You’re right. I can’t come in there. I, personally, can’t go in there and make you take your hands off of Jim and force you to lie down in your bunk and be quiet like a good little boy.
“What I can do, though, is yell for one of these guards and tell him you tried to stick your tongue in my mouth.”
Benning’s mouth dropped open the slightest bit.
“Now, I’m not sure how hard the guards will beat your ass, but I am sure they’ll throw you in solitary afterward. Hey, you’re with the Brotherhood, aren’t you? Wasn’t one of your guys killed in solitary a couple nights ago?”
The skinhead retreated a step.
“I saw the body,” Darren said. “It looked like he went painfully. So, maybe you should get back in your bunk now.”
Benning slowly removed his hand from Jim’s shoulder. “You think this is over, kiddie-raper?” he said. “You don’t know the half of it.” He backed away, his eyes never leaving Darren’s. When he reached his bunk, he climbed up and rolled over to face the wall.
Darren smiled.
“Thank you,” Jim said.
“Let me know if he bothers you again. I might be able to get you put in a different cell.”
“Will not help.”
“You don’t think so? Why?”
“I told you. The whole place has gone bad.”
“You mean Burnham?”
Jim’s eyes seemed to lose their focus, drifting somewhere else.
“I work in the morgue, Father.”
“Oh.”
“I was late yesterday, sick. I saw Dr. Wilson and the rest. What happened to them, that guard...And they were not even the first, were they?”
Darren shook his head. “That’s why we went to lockdown, though. We’re keeping you all safe.”
“You cannot,” Jim replied. “I keep telling you. This whole place went bad.”
“Jim, they’ll find out who--”
“I can hear it, Father. It is like a heart beating too fast. And I can smell it. At night. I bet if you asked, everybody would tell you they can smell it, like old meat, just rotting. Happens at night, when you can smell how bad the place has turned.”
“Rotting meat?”
“
Yes. And Father?”
“What is it, Jim?”
“I think there is something in here at night. In Burnham. It showed up a few days ago. Sometimes I can hear it moving.”
“You can hear it? What does it sound like?”
“People. It sounds like people, but they don’t talk. I don’t think they can anymore.”
He studied Jim’s face. He thought the man was telling the truth, but he couldn’t be sure. Most of the men in Burnham were born liars. They possessed skills with words few could even imagine.
“Jim, are you making this up?”
“I wish I was. I really do.”
His fingers slipped over Darren’s hands, and fresh tears spilled from his cheeks.
“I am so scared in here, Father. So scared of whatever is out there. Sooner or later, it will get every one of us.”
Darren watched the thin man in amazement, any doubt of his sincerity gone. He reached out and patted the man’s stringy hair.
“It’ll be all right, Jim. We’ll take care of it.”
Jim shook his head. His hair whipped back and forth with the frantic motion.
“Don’t leave me here. Please don’t leave.”
“I have to, Jim. I have other prisoners who need my attention.”
“Please!”
Darren jerked away from the cell as Jim’s arms shot out to grab him, clutching fingers missing him by inches. Jim reached, screaming, and then collapsed to the floor of his cell. His body lurched violently. The screaming turned into a choking sound, and then Jim vomited all over himself. As he reached up and began to yank clumps of hair from his head, Darren saw blood in the man’s bile.
“Please! Please! PLEASE!”
“Officer!”
A pair of guards rushed over from opposite ends of the walkway.
“Get him to the infirmary,” Darren ordered. “See that he gets cleaned up and calmed down.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Mother of shit,” the other officer groaned.
They threw open the cell door, then dashed inside and grabbed Jim by the arms and legs, wrestling him out onto the walkway. The prisoner continued to scream and tear at his scalp as they slammed the cell shut behind them and ushered him toward the stairs.
Darren watched as more guards joined the spectacle. By the time they reached the ground floor, five men held Jim, trying to keep him from hurting himself. The other prisoners cheered, jeered, or just screamed for the sheer joy of it, but Darren heard Jim’s cries over all the rest.
“Dear God, have mercy,” he whispered.
Four
“What do you mean, ‘Nothing?’” Timms eyed Morrow expectantly. The officer only shrugged, a look like he’d just been caught robbing the cookie jar plastered across his face. He shifted from one foot to the other, and Timms wondered if a time out would do the man any good.
“C’mon. You’re not just going to shrug at me and smile, are you? What are you, five? Give me a goddamn answer.”
“Ron, I put the C.O.’s in teams myself. Nobody found anything. Not Dr. Wilson, not Dunlap, and not a single one of the dead inmates, let alone the two who are just missing. They’re all just gone.”
“You expect me to accept that? Those bodies had to go somewhere, dammit. Jesus, Ray, do you even expect me to believe that? They didn’t get up, shout ‘Adios!’ and then turn invisible!”
“They’re not here. I don’t know what else to say.”
Timms buried his face in his hands. He felt his headache swell and throb, the same pain he’d had for three days now. Rubbing at his face, he began to wonder if the pain had become a permanent part of him, something he would have to live with forever. When he looked up, Morrow had taken a seat across from him.
“I wish I had better news. Really, I do,” the guard said.
“Fine. So let’s run it down, then. How can somebody get rid of a body around here?”
“It could be bricked up in a wall?”
He sighed. “Well, let’s assume there’s no masonry materials around here, because there fucking aren’t. How else? We handle all of our laundry on site.”
“Garbage.”
“Yeah, there’s garbage. But eight bodies? I’m not so sure.”
“Food deliveries three times a week. Any unused meat goes back in boxes. And today’s a Wednesday. It’s a delivery day.”
“I’d have an easier time believing they were smuggled out in the garbage. Either the purveyor would have to be in on it, or we would have gotten a call about the rather human-looking Salisbury steak that was returned recently.”
“Could be they haven’t gotten a chance to unload the truck yet. We can’t be their only stop.”
“We search all the trucks on the way out.”
“Ron, are you sure you want to just scratch this off the list of possibilities?”
“Sure? No way. Truth is, I haven’t got a clue where else to look. I’m running out of ideas nice and quick. I’ve got both the media and the Governor breathing down my neck. It’s only been a few days, and already I’ve got some public faces screaming for me to resign. I’ve got a feeling that I’ve only got another day or two before I have to fight like hell just to keep from drowning in this shit.”
He looked up to catch Morrow nodding, his expression sympathetic. “I’ll give the food service a call, see if they can locate the truck and have it searched.”
“Thanks.”
“If you want, I can have the boys do another round of searches.”
“It can’t hurt. Besides, the Governor’s probably going to have her own people come down and take a look if anything else happens.”
Ron’s phone rang, and he punched the intercom button.
“Yes?”
“It’s Father Albright, Warden.” Shelly’s voice. “He’d like to see you.”
“Send him in.”
A second later, the door swung open and Albright entered. He looked troubled, but so had everybody else over the last few days.
“Hello, Darren.”
“Ron. Ray,” Albright replied.
Officer Morrow gave the priest a small wave. “Your day suck, too?”
“I’ve had better, but it wasn’t all bad.”
“Some good news?” Timms asked. “Well, sit down and tell us about it, Darren. Has the church eased up on that celibacy thing?”
“If only. I spoke with Omar Marquez and Anton Ribisi this morning. I did it separately, at their cells. They’ve agreed to uphold the peace we’ve talked about.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Do we even need it right now?” Morrow asked. “Lockdown should take care of that.”
“Yeah,” Darren said, “But what about when the lockdown’s over, and the inmates want to blow off some steam? Look, we’ve gone over this before, and I don’t think rehashing it’s going to do a bit of good. I just thought I’d let you know where some of the factions stand.”
“We can handle the inmates once the lockdown’s over. Don’t you worry about that,” Morrow said. His tone was a little angry.
“You wouldn’t want two of the families to ease up, maybe even back you in enforcing the peace?”
“I don’t need help from two pieces of shit like Marquez and Ribisi.”
“You didn’t seem to be against it when I held the meeting the other day.”
“I wasn’t, Father. And I’m not against it now, I just find the notion of needing the Sicilians and Mexicans to help me do my job more than a little insulting. If you--”
“Ray, calm down,” Timms said. He kept his voice soft, but firm. He watched Morrow take in a deep breath, let it out, then he turned to Albright. “What about Sweeny and Diggs? Aren’t they the ones we really need to worry about?”
“Definitely. I haven’t gotten a chance to speak with them yet, though. I got distracted on my way to see them.”
“What happened?”
“Jim Chambers.”
“Maggot?” Morrow asked.
“No, but I’d hardly call that guy a man. He’s a Grade A freak, nothing more.”
“Ron, you want to back me up here?”
“Not particularly. Jim Chambers should have been put in a hospital with padded walls. This isn’t the place for him.”
“My God.”
“Sorry, Darren. That’s just the way I feel. I’ve read the man’s file, and quite frankly it creeped the fuck out of me. Every day he’s not found beat to death in a storage closet is a day I wonder what’s taking so long.”
“Well, Chambers is in the infirmary right now. He’s so terrified he threw up all over himself.”
“Jesus,” Morrow murmured. He followed it with a “Sorry, Father.”
“Terrified?” Timms asked. “Has he been having trouble with his cellmate? Tough luck.”
“With his cellmate?” Morrow said. “C’mon. Maggot’s been having trouble with every living creature in here, with the possible exception of Darren, here.”
“He was one of the first to see Dr. Wilson and the other victims,” Albright said. “Now, he’s saying, ‘The whole place has turned bad.’ He even says he can smell how rotten it’s gone.”
“Of course he can. He’s crazy as all hell. He can probably smell Brad Pitt’s hairspray every other Tuesday.”
“It doesn’t mean Jim’s imagining things, though. We’ve had seven deaths in the past two days. Marquez seemed a little spooked, too.”
“Really?” Timms asked. “What about Ribisi?”
“Anton didn’t let anything show, but then again, he never does.”
“Tell me about it,” Morrow said.
Ron glanced at the officer, and Morrow got up to fix himself a cup of coffee. He shook his head and looked back to Albright.
“So the natives are restless. What do you want to do about it?”
“I don’t know yet. I think ending the lockdown as soon as possible will help.”
Lights Out Page 9
