by Alan Lee
“Inmate Sinatra,” said the first detention officer. He sneered the name. “We got orders to move you. Let’s go.”
Move him. A disaster.
Prison is a violent and cruel world. And sometimes my staff is worse than the inmates, said the warden.
Manny held up his hands. “Amigos. It’s important I stay in this cell. And not move.” Even as he uttered the syllables, he knew they landed like bags of concrete at his feet, not remotely connecting with their ears.
He cleared his throat and tried again.
I’m a federal marshal with a Supremacy License. I have a phone in my bed and I cannot leave because I need access to it. I’m departing the prison tomorrow but before then I need to squeeze one of your prisoners for more information. Or maybe kill him. So let’s all go to sleep and forget this. And don’t tell anyone. Especially not the other prisoners.
None of that came out, because it’d get him killed. What actually came out of his mouth was, “I’m not moving.”
“Yeah. You are.”
“It’ll take all of you.”
The guards laughed. The closest guy clicked his taser and an arc of blue electricity flickered in his fist. Manny had been tased before. He preferred to avoid it.
He raised his hand to block a beam of flashlight and he said, “Hey. You. You’re the bartender. And a night guard?” It was the gorilla who tended bar in Gate City, the man who called him José and made a poor whiskey sour.
The gorilla chuckled. “You’re the spic who threw his drink at me.”
“Yeah. It was awful. So…use your brain, gorilla night guard. I was in your bar. Now I’m here. Bet you can figure out why I need to stay in this cell.”
The blue lightening crackled again.
The man said, “Bet you can figure out where I’m gonna shove this taser, José."
“As long as it’s made in America, señor.”
They laughed again. Two more guards squeezed into the cell. Four against one.
“You’ll get me,” he said, voice strong. “I admit it, you guys are too fat. I can’t beat you all. But it’ll cost you broken noses now and broken careers later.”
“Worth it.”
“Mind if I make a phone call real quick?
They advanced.
Manny kicked the guy’s hand. The hand lurched upwards, jabbing the taser into his own fat neck. Blue sparked. The fat detention officer made a sound, half a scream and half rolling his R’s, tumbling backwards, Manny following, stepping up the electrocuted officer like a foot ladder. Quick punches, as a boxer would, Manny snapping fists and elbows into faces and throats before they could react. The gorilla falling with a broken nose, dropping his flashlight.
A can of mace hissed and emitted a thick stream of pungent OC spray. Bottled agony. The stream caught Manny in the ear and forehead, and drenched the bartender.
Manny leaped for the door but they caught him by the waist. His fingers grabbing the doorway, eyes filling, and he gagged. So did the detention officers. OC spray, awful stuff.
“But really,” he wheezed. “I need to stay in this cell. Let’s be cool, amigos.”
They didn’t release. Manny desperate now, smashing his elbow into the closest officer’s face, bruising his olecranon bone and destroying the man’s cartilage. Again and again.
Someone inside the cell vomited. He hoped it wasn’t Ignacio. The OC fog was thick and rolling out of the doorway.
He squirmed free outside the cell and pulled himself up on the railing. The general population was awake and alert to the mayhem. Shouting and calling.
Rooting for Manny.
It’s the inmates versus the guards.
Convicts versus cops, that’s the code.
But I’m a cop!
More lights came on with heavy clangs. Guards running through doors and charging the stairs.
He’d never get his phone now. Four fat inmates were in his way, even if they could barely breathe.
Manny hopped the railing, lowered himself fist over fist like a hand ladder, and dropped the remaining two feet to the second floor railing. He landed in a crouched perch, only just keeping his balance, and went over again. Hand over hand, until hanging by his fingertips. He released and fell the six feet to the common area floor.
The guards on the third floor gaped at him. They couldn’t do that.
All his time in the gym, paying off.
“Sinatra, imbécil, the game is up,” he told himself. Did he have options? Escape from a level five state prison? Doubtful—this prison was made in America, after all. Hide? Meh. He needed Norris or Johnston. Lead the guards away, circle back for the phone, and call for—
An electroshock device pressed firmly below his hairline and activated. An alligator biting his neck, he felt like. A tornado funnel opening in his head. Sticking his face into an industrial 220 volt outlet.
He lost muscular control. The world hit reset, turned white, and blinked back on in reverse.
He was on the ground, looking up, twitching.
The face of Norris hovered over him. His patchy beard was bad. His green eye was brighter than the blue.
“My, my, inmate Sinatra. You ain’t doing too well, huh.”
33
The guards took turns beating him with riot batons, cracking his ribs. His lip split and both lower bicuspids on the left side loosened. He ignored the pain, the way he’d learned as a child. Getting hurt wasn’t the worst thing in the world, he knew. The teeth would refasten and ribs would knit. Retreat inside and return later to heal.
He was taken to the basement of Cell Block C and thrown roughly into a solitary confinement cell. It was the size of a small bathroom and he hit the wall hard. He watched Norris in the doorway through his good eye—the other would swell shut soon. Norris should have been his contact to the outside world, yet the man had participated in the beating. His loyalty had shifted.
“Norris.” Manny’s words slurred. “You work for Hubert?”
“A dumbass question, Sinatra. I know the man, sure. But we both get paid by the powers that be. Know what I mean?”
“You work with the underworld.”
“Call it what you like.”
“You tell him why I’m here?”
Norris snorted. “I don’t know why you’re here. Told him you were snooping around.”
“Whatever they’re paying you, it’s not worth it.”
“Worth what?”
“Defiling the sanctity of America.”
A laugh. “The horse shit that comes out of your mouth.”
“It’s not worth treason. You talked with Johnston, you know who I am. This is national security.”
“Down here? There is no American government. They don’t know and don’t care what happens here. They give us keys for a reason, Sinatra. Keep guys in, yeah. But also it keeps them out, cause there’s things they don’t wanna know.”
Manny got to his feet. Winced, held his ribs.
“I need to talk to Johnston.”
“Johnston ain’t here, boy.”
“The American government’s gonna tear you apart, Norris.”
“You’re in hell, Marshal. It ain’t me you should be worried about.”
The door clanged home.
34
The bodily damage wasn’t significant. No permanent injuries. Two or three weeks tops, good to go. He’d conquered pain before.
The worst part was, Catalina would get on a plane and leave. Again. And topple a country in Central America. Again. The American government was underestimating her.
He stared at the ceiling, listening to the sounds from the bottom of the world. Nearby prisoners shrieked to ease the boredom. Over his head he detected the thump and bang of doors. Distant words blared through the PA system.
His mental clock kept time. No one brought him breakfast. By lunch time he guessed Rafael García had been released, a free man.
How ironic.
No food until dinner; a tray of over boiled gree
n beans and fish goop slid through the slot. He’d need to be a lot hungrier before he tried that mess.
He was lost in the system, he knew. Norris would take his time submitting the transfer paperwork because no one would ask. And by the time Johnston or Beck or someone came for him Norris would feign ignorance and help look, but Manny’d be dead.
This kinda thing happened. A lot. There were a million ways for the system to abuse criminals.
Somewhere deep inside his chest, Manny felt a pang of guilt. He had a reputation for being rough with the men he chased. He bragged about it, felt he was doing good. He didn’t believe in warnings and the criminals certainly deserved punishment. Being on the other side of the violence, however, it seemed less noble.
The walls closed in and he couldn’t sleep. Hour by hour he diminished in his own eyes. Confidence shot, he lost his mind trying to keep track of time. Was it midnight? Four in the morning? He’d been in here his whole life. Solitary madness and failure crept in through his nose and ears, until he finally dozed…
They came for him. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. It was morning, Saturday, he bet.
The door opened. Guards with mace cautiously entered, ready to blast him. Cans held out like a shield, batons raised. He stood and a hooked rod pinioned him face first to the painted cinderblock by his neck. They held the mace on him and cuffed his wrists.
Two guards marched him down a hall with low ceilings under the watch of Norris. Walking the green mile, he knew. A death march, his final minutes.
“Take the cuffs off, Norris,” he said. “Let’s settle this like men.”
“How’s that?”
“You choose. Arm wrestling? Thumb war?”
Norris didn’t answer. His lips were pressed firm. He looked gray and he sweated.
“Let me go and I still have time to stop an international terrorist.”
“You know,” said one of the guards. “If your eye weren’t busted, if your lips weren’t split, if your face wasn’t mostly purple and green, you might be the prettiest man I ever saw.”
“Cut the carbs,” replied Manny. “It’ll help.”
“Shut it, Davis,” Norris snapped. “Let’s get this over with.”
They led him to the bathroom. Not the showers, those were separate. Again a rod was used to pinion him face first against the cold wall and his cuffs were removed. The guard pocketed them and the pressure eased enough for him to rotate.
“Now strip.”
“Norris, now’s not the time for flirting.”
Norris smiled nervously without humor. “You need to wash up. Take off the jumpsuit.”
Manny, still pinned to the wall by his neck with the eight-foot rod, grinned. His lip partially split open again. “Maybe you come here and make me.”
Norris took a can of mace from the second guard. Shook it and came close enough to aim directly at Manny’s uninjured eye.
“This is happening, Sinatra. You wanna take off the jumpsuit? Or you want mace in your eye and then take off the jumpsuit?”
“There a third option?”
“I could fire a taser at your balls. Then mace you. Then make you strip.”
“Norris, you had a disturbed childhood, I think.” But Manny didn’t want to absorb an eyeful of OC spray so he unzipped. Wiggled until the jumpsuit fell to his ankles, then stepped onto the legs to pull free as best he could while pinned by the neck. The slippers on his feet tugged loose.
“Now,” said Norris and he licked his lips. “Get on in there and wash up. We’ll wait here.”
“What’s in the bathroom, Norris?”
“Only what you deserve. Get on.”
They took no chances. The pinion rod scraped against the wall, guiding Manny into the doorway. The guard kept steady pressure, pushing him down the short hall that opened into the bathroom behind the wall. Two sinks. Two toilets. And four inmates.
Bill Wolfe stood at the sink with another white supremacist. Plus Chilly the Kid and a second Latino bruiser. They had unzipped their jumpsuits down to the waist and tied the arms like a belt. Each man outweighed him by fifty pounds.
He’d be beaten to death by the very men he put here. Poetry.
“Look who it is,” said Wolfe. He chuckled, dark circles under his eyes. His bald head glinted. One of his tattoos was a swastika. “It’s the spic, ol’ Man-well Martinez. Man-well the marshal.”
Chilly the Kid held up his fingers. His tattoos were branded on and raised. “You remember me, policia? You broke my finger in the door. Know what I’m gonna do to you? To each one of your got’damn fingers?”
Manny shrugged. “You killed two girlfriends with those fingers, Chilly, is what the jury decided.”
“Gonna see how long we can make this last, marshal. Make it till lunch before you bleed out.”
Manny held up a hand. “First, though, por favor, I got an idea.”
He moved, sudden and quick. Snagged the rod still pressing into his neck and tugged it out of the startled guard’s grip. Manny spun it like a staff and caught Chilly near the eye. Norris shouting. Chilly fell backwards and Manny shoved the pinion hook into Wolfe’s face. The hook didn’t go round his neck, but the left point inserted into the man’s open mouth. Wolfe falling, gagging, hands on the rod and ripping it from Manny.
The two inmates Manny didn’t know came for him. He needed space.
Manny bolted from the bathroom and dove for the floor at the guards’ boots. Trying to slide through. Jets of OC spray arced over him, missing. The floor wasn’t slick; he didn’t slide—his skin caught and he rolled into their legs.
A tangle on the floor now.
Sheer weight subdued Manny. Pinned beneath hundreds of pounds, he couldn’t breathe. Convict and guard working in unison against a common enemy. His wrists and ankles were grabbed and he was lifted up. Carried by each appendage back toward the bathroom.
He struggled. Useless. Out of time, out of options.
Then there was a woman.
She shouted. “Hold it!”
Then a man’s voice. “What the hell is happening?”
Beck and Allan Johnston came through the doorway from the stairwell, like a couple entering a nightmare. Johnston wore jeans and a short-sleeved flannel shirt—Beck had rousted him from home and it looked like she hadn’t slept.
Manny chuckled but it hurt. “The fellas and I are bathing each other. It’s my turn.”
“Norris…” Johnston, black eyes drilling, didn’t know what to say. “Explain.”
Norris declined. He ran a tongue along his lower teeth. A man weighing his options.
Beck smoothly undid the strap on her holster and drew her service Glock. She saw the same thing Manny saw—Johnston’s authority over the situation wasn’t guaranteed.
No cameras down here. Four violent inmates out of their cages. And Norris suddenly staring at jail time if he laid down. Indecision balanced on a knife.
Manny was dropped to the floor.
Allan Johnston snapped, “Davis, Barton, escort the prisoners to their cell block.”
David and Barton, holding riot batons and mace, glanced at each other and at Norris. Murmured, “Yes sir,” but they didn’t move.
This place was hell, Norris had said. And he took money from the underworld. The guards could be worse than the inmates.
Lives on a scale, bobbing up and down.
“Beck,” Manny said and he nodded at Norris. “He’s the one. He’s with APOG.”
She understood. She held the only firearm. And Norris stood as their leader.
“Lay down,” she ordered. Strong voice. In a Weaver stance. Glaring down the sight at Norris. “On the ground. Now.”
“Lady, who the hell—”
She shot him. A single round, passing under the outermost layers of flesh on his left thigh. The blast wrecked their ears; the slug pinged off the wall. Norris flopped onto the floor tile and screamed. Crimson pooled under.
She turned the gun onto the inmates.
/> “Davis, Barton, move!” Johnston roared.
Under the threat of her gun, the guards shouted orders at the inmates and the circus moved toward the stairwell. Wolfe, his mouth bleeding, and Chilly glaring at Manny. Johnston took a pair of cuffs from Davis. He triggered his radio and kept up the shouting, relaying orders. He got on his knees near Norris and snapped on a cuff. The might of the American government swinging into place.
“Norris, damn it,” he said. “What in the hell.”
Norris whimpered.
Manny moved to the corner, panting, and rested a moment on top of his puddled jumpsuit. His head dropped back against the wall. “Beck.” He panted. Felt like a rib was stuck in his lung. “The most beautiful señorita alive.”
Beck lowered her gun. The barrel quavered and so did her voice. “Good grief, Sinatra.”
“Not bad for a computer nerd, Beck.”
“You have a lot of tattoos.”
“I used to be impulsive.” He winked. “Partner.”
“Don’t ‘partner’ me,” she said. “And get your ass up.”
35
Manny dressed in the vacant office of the warden. Ay caramba, that man would have a macabre report waiting when he returned.
He came out, adjusting his belt with the silver buckle. He had missed his clothes, even if his shirt was torn and burnt. Matched the rest of him. Glock at the small of his back, revolver under his arm.
Beck waited in the outer office; it was Saturday and the warden’s assistant hadn’t come in. She indicated his face. “You look awful.”
“Mean guys hit me.”
“We lost Rafael yesterday. FBI had a Hawk Owl in the air but he never showed. We think he had inside help; he waited until daylight and went through the woods and got picked up a couple miles away. I personally planted a tracker inside his jacket hem but we found it discarded near the door.”
Manny cursed, though this didn’t surprise him. They left the hard world of concrete walls and moved into the parking lot.
She tapped her ear and kept talking. “I’m getting constant updates through bluetooth. An hour ago a state trooper picked up a caravan headed north on Interstate 81. Four black Toyota sedans with tinted windows. We sent it to MASINT and now we’ve got a plane shadowing the caravan two miles out. Right on schedule with the private flight out of Roanoke. Marshals are there. So are the FBI’s special operations and surveillance groups."
