Part 24 (1/2)

I was wrong about everything. And now it was way late. This Jessop, he wouldn't be a street guy. Even with it being so warm out, he'd be inside, someplace. Maybe a bar.

Rena was right. Small town or not, it was way too big for me to find anyone in it.

That map worked just like she said it would.

When the garage door closed behind me, I left the key in the ignition, so I wouldn't have to walk through the house looking for the right spot to put it.

The clock was showing 4:57 with a blinking sun when I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, the clock said 1:01 with a moon. While I was under the shower, I was thinking, this part was kind of like solitary, too. That's the only place where you can take a shower by yourself. You put your back against the cell door, hands through the slot. That way, they can box-cuff you before they have to open the door. Two guards walk you down, give you maybe five minutes, and back you go.

That's in Ad-Seg, not PC. The cons in Ad-Seg, they're supposed to be dangerous, I guess. PC, protective custody, the only way you get in there is if you ask for it, or if they decide you wouldn't be safe in Population.

Only, that isn't how it really worked. I was never in PC, but I know for a fact that the shot-caller of any gang, he can ask for volunteers to go there.

At least the Spanish ones can. I was still out in Population when this skinny young boy tells the guards he's afraid of getting raped. That's an automatic PC. But that skinny kid, he was in for murder. Not some drive-by, either; he'd used a blade.

Some of the weak ones, they run to a gang for protection when they get Inside. But this kid, he was already a Latin King on the street. That's where he picked up his charge. Word was, somebody owed money for dope, and the kid collected in blood. He was never going home.

Another reason to ask for a lockup is if you're a rat. A known rat. That skinny kid, he was in PC maybe two weeks before he shanked a guy who'd ratted on a whole bunch of Latin Kings.

He must have been quick-there's no blind corners in PC. And a real artist, too. Most of the time, a guy gets shanked, they can save him. I've seen guys stuck like a pincus.h.i.+on-two, three cons doing the work at the same time-and they still live through it. They know how to handle stab wounds in prison. But this Spanish kid, he hit the rat a perfect kidney shot, spun him around, and planted the spike in his neck before the guards could get to them.

I know the story because, by the time they transferred the kid to Ad-Seg, I was already there.

For me, landing in there was just pure luck. I don't know why those two black guys jumped me. I saw them coming in plenty of time to call for a CO, but I didn't do that. You can't do that.

I got cut a few times. Not stabbed, sliced. It's a big, big difference.

I wasn't dumb enough to think I was going to win that hearing they have to give you before they toss you into Ad-Seg. Everybody in the whole joint knew it was self-defense: What kind of maniac's gonna jump two guys, specially when they're carrying? But one of them had a fractured skull, and the other got a splintered rib that tore a lung, so they had to lock me up.

I still don't know why they went after me-it wasn't that I made some first-timer's mistake, like I had with the weights. They were real young, so maybe it was some kind of initiation. But a lot of the white guys thought it was me, representing.

And the guards-in Ad-Seg, I mean-they gave me a lot of play. Treated me good. Nothing out-loud special...maybe a few extra minutes in the shower, not tearing up my cell when they searched, calling me by my name. Doesn't sound like much, but in there, that's a lot.

Truth is, I kind of liked it. I didn't have any friends out in Population, and I wasn't going to make new ones.

”Do your own time,” is what they always say, but that's no good anymore. Probably never was. I just caught a break, is all-if it'd been white guys who jumped me, I'd've been screwed.

Different color could mean a random shot. But a same-color hit, that couldn't be random. So it'd look like I was locked down for some some kind of wrong reason-snitching, not paying a debt. Or, even worse, being what the Aryans call a ”race traitor.” kind of wrong reason-snitching, not paying a debt. Or, even worse, being what the Aryans call a ”race traitor.”

I just wanted the five years to go away. I didn't need to play dominoes or work some two-bit racket. I had a little radio, with earphones and all. And those books and magazines Solly had sent in.

I didn't even miss working out. You don't need equipment to do that, and I never skipped a day.

The only really lousy thing was the food. Even with my heavy commissary draw, I didn't have a whole lot of choices. I just stayed with what I knew, drank lots of water, and let every day fall into the night.

I woke up one morning when they key-slapped the slot and told me to roll it up, all the way. I guess they were a little surprised that I didn't get more excited about it.

That's prison for you. I'm too dangerous to be put in a population of nothing but criminals, but they kick me straight out into a much bigger population. What, I'm not dangerous to the public?

A couple of the guards wished me luck. The way they say it, it's always the same: ”I don't want to see you back here, Sugar.”

Like I'd be trying to break into the place.

I went down to the kitchen, but n.o.body was there. Not in the gym, either. The place was too big for me to go poking around on my own. And even if it wasn't, if I tried to find Albie's little book, I'd probably set off a hundred alarms.

So I went back to the kitchen and made myself something to eat. Killed another hour, doing that.

You don't want to work out right after you have food. Besides, something was gnawing at me, and I couldn't nail it down. Something about looking around...

That's when I went back to the place she'd put me in. But I didn't stay there. I went into the garage. If she was around, I could always say I hoped I'd done the right thing, leaving the keys in the Lincoln last night.

The Lincoln was still there. But not the little car. A Thunderbird, Rena had told me it was. A '57, like that was real special. All-original, like that was even more more special. There was only one place in town that she trusted to work on her car. Maybe that's where she was. special. There was only one place in town that she trusted to work on her car. Maybe that's where she was.

Only, I couldn't see Rena sitting around while people worked on her car. For all I knew, she'd be back any second. Too many ”maybe”s for me.

I broke it down into zones. Safe zones, like you do in prison. You have to learn them for yourself. Prison's a crazy place, and you better have it mapped if you want to move around and stay alive while you're doing it.

I figured it was the same way in Albie's house. The safe zone was from the garage all the way through to the living room or the kitchen. The gym was safe, too.

If you get caught in any place that's not yours, you always have to have a good reason. In that little suite, I didn't need to have a reason. Probably that was where they always put guests. But if I was in the kitchen, I'd better be eating. And if I was in the gym, I'd have to be working out.

The living room was no good at all. What would I be doing in there? The place I was staying in had its own TV.

I rechecked my map a few times before I got it. I already had all the cus.h.i.+on I needed. I don't know how to check for bugs on a telephone, and I wasn't going to use their phone anyway. I know you can hide those little cameras just about anywhere, but I didn't care about them, either-what was anyone going to see?

And even if they had cameras, they wouldn't have an X-ray machine. n.o.body could see through the closet doors. And Rena, she had to have been in there herself, to get all those sizes right. Having a good eye, that would never be enough.

But by the time I went out the first time, I was wearing the stuff she'd picked out for me. So she'd already gotten in there, somehow.

With no windows, the place stayed dark all the time. I know there's cameras that can see in the dark, and I didn't want to make anyone watching suspicious, so I left the lights on when I opened the closet door.

I went through the clothes, all the new stuff. The closet was big, but I only used one of the two doors to get inside. What I wanted was to feel the wall behind the clothes. Just feel it, not look. I didn't take a flashlight. Besides, if there was a camera, the light would have given the game away.

The back wall wasn't wood. Or, if it was, it was covered in soft black stuff, like a layer of foam. I kept going in and out of the closet, every time bringing a different piece of clothing and laying it out on the bed, like I wanted to see how it looked in the light.

It took me a few tries, but I found it. Just a thin cut, but it went all the way down to the floor. Any decent burglar would have run across setups like that plenty of times: a fake wall, with a door behind it. The way this one was rigged, whoever was inside the closet couldn't use it, only someone on the other side. Probably had a pull-ring, so they could go into the closet, do whatever they wanted, and disappear back out.

A lot of work just to get clothing sizes. She couldn't know if I was a light sleeper, so she must have been real real quiet. quiet.

For what?

I flopped back on the bed, stared at the ceiling until my eyelids got heavy.