by Mark Allen
Tattoo jerked his head back just in time. The blow meant to blind him instead caught the corner of his mouth, sliced between his lips, and ripped out the opposite corner, leaving both his lower cheek flaps dangling like fallen curtains. Blood ran down the sides of his neck.
Kane seized his advantage. Now was not the time for mercy. He immediately back-slashed and caught Tattoo’s right eye with the tip of the knife. It popped in a squishy burst. The blade skidded across the bridge of the man’s nose and narrowly missed taking out the other eye as well.
Pivoting, Kane raked the edge of the blade across Tattoo’s pinned right wrist, severing the tendons in one swift, bone-scraping cut. The inmate’s knife tumbled from fingers that suddenly no longer worked.
Kane brought his blade back around and buried it in Tattoo’s midsection a few inches below the ribcage. He felt the hard muscle give way to something much softer as the knife punctured deep.
He reached up with his free hand, grabbed the back of Tattoo’s neck, and yanked him close enough to smell the stench of peppers on his breath. He kept the knife stuck in the man’s belly.
“Listen to me and listen good,” Kane rasped, voice low and menacing but loud enough to carry to the third Mexican standing watch in the doorway. “Right now, all you’ve got is a perforated intestine. With a few stitches, you’ll survive that just fine. But feel that blade in you?” He gave it a little twist, eliciting a hiss of pain from the shish-kabobbed convict. “If I jerk that blade sideways, you’ll be standing knee-deep in your own goddamned guts. And believe me, bucko, there ain’t no coming back from that. You reading me?”
Tattoo nodded, his face a mask of blood, and his teeth—visible due to the dangling cheeks—clenched in pain.
“Good,” Kane said. “Because believe it or not, I have no real desire to kill you. Unless you act the fool when I pull this knife out, you get to walk away with nothing more than some scars, one less eye, a crippled hand, and a hole in your guts.” Kane paused. “Problem is, you’re gonna want to act like a fool because your brain is all messed up, thinking I did this to you.” He pulled Tattoo even closer. “But I didn’t do this to you. You did this to yourself when you decided to fuck with the wrong person.”
Kane glanced at the door. The guy standing there hadn’t moved, but he was clearly paying attention.
“So you get to live,” Kane told Tattoo. “The price for your life is for you to tell everyone in this shithole to leave me the fuck alone. Got it?”
Without waiting for a response, Kane pulled the shank out. It popped free with a wet sucking sound. Blood drooled from the hole to soak into the waistband of Tattoo’s gray sweat pants.
“Go on,” Kane said. “Get outta here.”
The man in the doorway moved aside as Tattoo stumbled away, then resumed his doorway-blocking position.
Still holding the bloody survival knife, Kane looked him in the eye. “You and I have a problem?”
The guy stepped into the cell, grabbed Headband by the ankle, and dragged the unconscious inmate out. When he came back in, he pointed at the beds at the back of the cell.
“Bottom bunk’s yours, amigo.”
“Do I need to sleep with my ass to the wall?”
“I’m not interested in that sort of thing, and if I change my mind, there’s a sweet little thing over in Bravo Unit who will do it for two cans of mackerel and a candy bar, so no reason for me to get myself killed trying to take you for a ride.”
“I wake up and you’re trying to share a bunk, I’ll rip your throat out,” Kane warned.
“Name’s Pedro, and you’ve really got nada to worry about from me.”
“Not looking for a little payback for what I just did to your homeboys?”
“They weren’t my homeboys,” Pedro replied as he flopped down on the other bottom bunk. “I just happen to be assigned to their cell.”
Officer Simpson barged into the room. “Good Lord, Kane, what the hell did you do to those guys?”
“You told me to get a pillow.” Kane gestured at his bunk. “I got a pillow.”
“You damn near killed one of them.”
“’Damn near’ and ‘did’ aren’t the same thing.”
“You can bet your butt that Nazareno isn’t going to care about the difference.”
“I won’t tell him if you won’t.”
Simpson shook his head. “Trust me on this, he already knows.”
Over on his bunk, Pedro nodded in agreement.
“You working for Nazareno?” Kane asked, fixing a challenging stare on the correctional officer. “Word on the street is that all you hacks are on the take.”
Simpson pointed a warning finger at him. “I don’t answer questions from a two-bit convict who rapes and murders women.” He spun on the heel of his polished black duty boot and exited the cell.
Pedro grinned, revealing a gold tooth. “Damn, hombre, you fight like a pissed-off honey badger, and you don’t mince your words. You gonna be real popular around here.”
“I don’t want to be popular. Just want to be left alone.” So I can figure out how the hell to get out of here.
Pedro chuckled. “Too late for that, amigo. You just crippled and stabbed two of Nazareno’s best enforcers.”
“Those were his best?” Kane scoffed. “They were nothing but a couple of bitches who thought a blade made them badasses.”
“Gonna be a hundred blades coming for you tomorrow,” Pedro cautioned. “You’re good, amigo, but if Nazareno wants you muerto, you gonna be dead.”
“Guess I better get some sleep, then,” Kane said. “Sounds like tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”
Pedro chuckled again. “I like your style, Kane. I really do.” He swung his legs over the side of his bunk and rummaged around in one of the lockers. He came up with a Snickers that he tossed to Kane. “Here. You missed chow, and I’m guessing they didn’t give you a bag lunch in R&D before they kicked you up the hill.”
“Thanks.” Kane tore open the wrapper and devoured the candy bar. It seemed like weeks since he had sat on the rock ledges eating lunch and watching the hawk, and despite all that had happened since then—Beta, Mad Mike, the gun shack, the grizzly bear, Luna’s murder, and his incarceration—he still found himself famished. Plus, he knew he would need all the strength he could find to survive whatever tomorrow would throw at him.
“Don’t thank me,” Pedro said. “I might have just served you your last meal.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
Pedro hesitated, then asked, “You really rape and murder women?”
Kane kept his answer simple. “No.”
“An innocent man.” Pedro laughed. “That’s what they all say. Just ask around.”
“No doubt,” Kane said. “But I’m telling the truth.”
Pedro cocked his head. “You know what, amigo?” he said solemnly. “I believe you.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“You ain’t got the look,” Pedro explained. “Don’t get me wrong, you look like a killer, but not a murderer. That make any sense?”
“More than you know.”
“And rape? I just don’t see it in you.” Pedro waved a hand. “You look more like the type who would tear a rapist’s head off his shoulders.”
“You missed your calling,” Kane said. “You should be a shrink, not a convict. What are you locked up for, anyway?”
Pedro’s eyes shifted into dark pools of sorrow. “No offense, but not sure I want to tell you that.”
Kane nodded. “Your business. Just tell me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Do I need to tear your head off your shoulders?”
Pedro hurriedly shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that.” He sighed, then muttered, “Oh, what the hell,” and said, “I killed a man.”
“Did he have it coming?”
“Heard a priest once say we all have it coming.”
“Not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Ye
ah, I know what you meant.” Pedro paused for a moment, then plunged ahead. “The man I killed was a coyote. You know what that means?”
Kane nodded.
“I paid him a lot of money to smuggle me and my daughter across the border.”
“He didn’t do it?”
“Oh, he did it,” Pedro replied. “But as soon as we were in Texas, he pulled out a pistola and shot me.” He pulled down his sweatshirt to reveal the puckered scar tissue of an old bullet wound just above his left collarbone. “I passed out from the pain, and when I came back around, the hijo de puta was raping my twelve-year-old daughter.”
Kane said, “I hope you killed the son of a bitch.”
“I picked up a rock and smashed him in the back of the head, knocking him off my daughter. He rolled onto his back and tried to pull his gun again, but I hit him in the face with the rock, and then I kept hitting him over and over again. I’m not sure how long I pounded him with that rock, but when I came back to my senses, there were ICE agents dragging me off the coyote, and his head looked like red oatmeal.”
“Good for you.”
“That’s not how the courts saw it,” Pedro said. “They cut me enough slack to avoid the needle or a life sentence, but I’m still locked up for twenty years.”
“When’s the last time you saw your daughter?”
Pedro turned away, but not before Kane caught the glimmer of tears that suddenly silvered his eyes. The convict swallowed hard, and around the lump in his throat, he managed to say, “That night. Five years ago. The ICE agents took her away. I never saw her again.”
“Any idea where she is?”
Pedro shook his head.
Kane wanted to believe him, but he was no fool, and prisons brimmed with con men. A tragic story told with a slick tongue and crocodile tears were the main components of a duping game. “That’s messed up,” Kane said. “But how do I know you’re not just bullshitting me?”
Pedro’s head whipped around so fast that centrifugal force flung the teardrops right off his cheeks. Sparks of anger joined the sadness in his eyes. “What the hell is that crap, cabron? You say you’re innocent and I take you at your word, but you ask me if I’m playing games?”
“I have my reasons,” Kane said. “If you’re telling me the truth, I might be able to help you.”
“You want me to swear on my madre’s grave or something stupido like that?”
“Is your mother dead?”
“No.”
Kane stared at him for a minute, then let out a laugh. “You’re something else, Pedro.”
“I could swear on a stack of Bibles if that’ll make you feel better.”
Kane shook his head. “No, I believe you.” Something in his gut told him Pedro’s tragic backstory was the truth, and Kane had long ago learned to trust his gut.
“Good,” Pedro said with a crooked smile. “Because I’m an atheist.”
The men enjoyed a hearty laugh at that, each aware that laughter was a rare commodity in this godforsaken place. Deep down, Kane felt a twinge of guilt that he could even muster a laugh mere hours after finding Luna dead, but he knew that sometimes laughter was the only thing that kept the madness at bay.
They soon buckled back down to serious conversation. “I need to talk to the warden,” Kane said. “How do I pull that off?”
“Easy,” Pedro replied. “Just go down to chow line in the morning. Warden Ghastin stands outside the chow hall entrance at breakfast so the inmates can ask her questions. I think she’s required to by policy.”
“So, just walk up to her and start talking?”
“Yup. But if you’re thinking she can help you, think again.”
“I’ve got a card to play.”
“I don’t care if you’ve got a deck full of aces,” Pedro said. “Warden Ghastin is Nazareno’s bitch in every way it is possible to be somebody’s bitch.”
“She a willing bitch, or is there a blade to her throat?”
“Oh, there’s a blade, all right,” Pedro said. “A big fucking blade. Word on the compound is that if Ghastin doesn’t play ball, her husband and daughter are dead meat, and it won’t be nice and clean if you catch my drift.”
“Sounds like somebody should turn Nazareno into maggot food,” Kane growled.
Pedro looked alarmed. “Watch what you say, amigo. The walls might be listening.”
“If I have my way, these damn walls are coming down.”
“Hey, from your lips to God’s ears.”
Kane grinned. “Thought you were an atheist?”
Pedro shrugged. “Can’t fucking hurt, right?”
Chapter Eleven
Black Bog Federal Prison
Despite Pedro’s repeated assurances that nobody would mess with him that night, Kane still slept with his back to the wall and one eye open. In fact, sleep wasn’t the right word for it. He would doze for no more than five or six minutes at a time, never fully relaxing. Officer Simpson made the rounds and secured the cell door at 2200 hours, but Kane knew that didn’t make him safe. With the vast majority of the guards on Nazareno’s payroll, it would be easy for one of them to crack open the door and let some assassins in to avenge Headband and Tattoo.
But it didn’t happen, and eventually, the pale light of dawn seeped through the tall, narrow, iron-barred window that looked out on the prison compound. Despite all the scratches on the window, all the etched graffiti and gang signs, Kane could still look out over the Recreation Yard and see mountains looming in the near distance.
The housing unit officer—not Simpson—unlocked the door at 0615 hours. Kane debated taking a shower but decided against it. He didn’t know if all those prison shower scenes in the movies were accurate or not, but he didn’t feel like risking it. With luck, he would be out of this hellhole by tonight and would shower then. He washed up in the sink instead. His body ached from the beating he had taken in R&D, and bruises had started to blossom in a black-and-blue patchwork.
“Buenos dias, amigo,” Pedro greeted him as he swung out of his bunk. “Sleep well?”
Kane answered honestly, “I slept like a man worried about getting a dick in the ass and a shank in the face.”
Pedro laughed. “Hate to break the news to you, Kane, but in here, sometimes it’s the other way around.”
“Charming thought.”
He dressed in his prison khakis. They were at least two sizes too small, but they served to accentuate his muscular frame, and he figured that couldn’t hurt as he took his first walk among the general population. Broadcast the message loud and clear: Mess with me, you’re gonna get hurt.
Then again, it could also make him a target for David-types looking to take down a Goliath and gain some prison cred.
As he followed Pedro down the hill, joining the flow of inmates converging on the dining facility, he felt hundreds of eyes on him. He sensed hostility, curiosity, ambivalence, and even some admiration, probably from prisoners who had heard that he’d tangled with Nazareno’s enforcers and walked away the winner.
As they joined the line waiting to enter the chow hall, Pedro pointed at a beautiful Japanese woman standing near the door. “That’s Warden Ghastin.”
“Not hard on the eyes, is she?”
“No, but if you stare too long, Nazareno will have those eyes gouged out of your head with a spork.”
“Just need to talk to her, that’s all.”
“Be careful, amigo. That’s all I can tell you.”
As the line shuffled near the warden, Kane stepped over and said, “Excuse me, warden. Can I have a word?”
Up close, he could see the misery haunting her eyes. She kept her face stoic, but Kane sensed the pain just beneath the surface. “What is it?” she asked.
“I need to meet with you.”
“I don’t meet with inmates. If you have an issue, go through your counselor.”
Lowering his voice, Kane said, “I’m not who you think I am. I can help you.”
She gave him an appraisi
ng look, then said, “Back in line, inmate. This conversation is over.”
He nodded respectfully, like a good, well-behaved convict would, and stepped back into line. He had reached out and thrown her a lifeline. Nothing more he could do right now. He just hoped she was smart enough to take it.
Inside the cafeteria, the sound of hundreds of yelling, shouting, cursing voices bounced off the concrete walls and created something close to bedlam. Kane suffered through the aural chaos as he grabbed his plastic tray. On the serving line, a white inmate with Aryan Brotherhood tattoos coloring his neck slapped a dismal heap of oatmeal onto his tray. Another server tossed him a stale cinnamon bun drizzled in some sort of white, sticky glaze that Kane didn’t trust.
Pedro grinned. “Nothing but gourmet cuisine for us convicts.”
“Better than starving, I guess,” Kane said.
Pedro gave a noncommittal shrug. “Maybe.”
They grabbed pints of milk from a plastic crate at the end of the serving line and waded back into the high-decibel roar of the chow hall.
Kane quickly deciphered how the inmates segregated the various factions. The Hispanics sat in the southeast corner. The northeast section was white-boy territory. The blacks owned the whole western side of the room, with subdivisions—Muslims, Bloods, DC Blacks, Crips, etc.—clustered in various sections. In the middle of the circus sat the motley misfits—the ones with no affiliation, the loners, outcasts, and pariahs.
Kane and Pedro headed for the middle.
As they made to sit down at a four-person table occupied by only one other man, a large white guy built like a linebacker with neck muscles that looked hard enough to shatter concrete, the convict waved them off. “This table’s taken.” His voice had the telltale rasp of too much whiskey and too many cigarettes.
Pedro turned away. “Sorry, man. We’ll sit somewhere else.”
But Kane wasn’t in the mood to back down. Plus, he knew he needed to continue to establish his don’t-fuck-with-me prison cred in case he got stuck in here for an extended period. Strength was respected, even feared; backing away would be seen as weakness.
