Part 11 (1/2)

”Yes. But what inspires the need for revenge?”

I didn't answer. We might have been in an empty world. No sound but the truck engine and the vents and our breath.

”Justice,” he said. ”Some inmates, a surprising number of them, get p.i.s.sed off when they see a CO getting away with something illegal. It offends their sense of justice.”

”They play you.”

”They play,” he agreed. ”Some of them love it. They play one side against the other like they're playing chess. Some of them think they're geniuses. I've met a couple who really were. Most of them are stupider than they realize. We have to get them out in a hurry when they make a mistake and go too far. Crowley did. Of course they say it's suicide. But I know it wasn't. You know it, too.”

”Who's we?”

He didn't answer. ”We've got warrants. We've got wiretaps. We're monitoring bank accounts. We're setting up relations.h.i.+ps. We're starting to figure things out.”

The words sank in. It made me queasy to think about an investigation of that scale going on. Who would go down? Then he turned on me.

”If any of this information gets out, I'll know you are the one who told it. If you tip anyone off, if you tell your best friend or your hairdresser, I'll know it was you. If a CO gets out of the country in a hurry, I'll know it was your fault.”

I thought about Tony Pinckney and the three-week honeymoon he'd just taken to Australia. It was ridiculous. It was insane.

I said, ”If there was something serious going on, Keeper Wallace would do something about it.” It was a leading statement.

”Keeper Wallace is dirty,” he answered. ”A few months ago I got one of my guys to circulate five one-hundred-dollar bills inside to buy some particular services. I had my suspicions. When the money was in, we began to follow Wallace. We followed him for a weekend and saw nothing out of the ordinary. But then, a half hour before we were going to close it down on a Sunday afternoon, he walked into a jewelry store in the mall and came out with a small plastic bag. We went into the jewelry store and asked the clerk what he had bought and how he had paid for it. A necklace. In cash. We confiscated the cash. Two of the hundred-dollar bills turned up.”

”It could have gotten to him a hundred different ways. It could have been money owed to him by another CO, someone who really is dirty.” Who would have expected me to defend Wallace? But I felt threatened by the information, the applecart of my little world overturned by it. I'd admired Wallace once. Part of the reason why his actions had hurt me was because I admired him still.

”It wasn't proof,” Ruddik said. ”It just lined up some more arrows. They're pointing to places you wouldn't believe.”

I could barely breathe. I cracked my window to let the air in. I wanted the cold to bring me back to life.

”I'm angry,” he said. ”I'm doing something here that I would never normally do. I've been watching you. I think I know where you stand, what kind of person you are. I've thought about this for a while. We've been inching along. It's not going fast enough. We need reinforcements.”

”I don't know if I can do that,” I said. ”I'm not like that.”

A rat was a rat.

”My best informant was very close to Jon Crowley. Through his information I came to believe that Crowley knew something important. I started working Crowley, bringing him along. I wanted him to know that we could stop the beatings, give him some protection if he helped us out. Imagine my surprise when he disappears and then hangs himself in the City. It's almost laughable.”

I tried to swallow it down, sick to my stomach. I saw Crowley dangling forward, frozen in flight, the noose eating into his neck.

”You saw his body. What do you think? Ever been pepper sprayed in the eyes? In the old days, the boys would put you in a room, douse you with it, and block the vents and door cracks so the air couldn't clear and you couldn't get away. Ever been tasered so bad your skin burned? Ever gone days locked in darkness, thinking you might never see another person again? I don't think it matters if they made that noose and hung him with it or left him down there and told him they were coming back for more. Do you want to find out why?”

I did and I didn't. I thought of Ray MacKay, oxygen mask lowered to his chin, and couldn't get the hard lump out of my throat.

”I want you to do me one favor,” Ruddik said.

He put a business card in my hands.

”There's an Internet address and a pa.s.sword on this,” he said. ”Go to the site and see for yourself.”

”What is it?” I managed to ask.

”A video. Just watch it. Let me know if it reminds you of anything. If it does, and you want to do something about it, call me.”

Then he opened the door and was gone.

19.

If he thought Fenton wasn't watching, Josh would have snaked his way through the hallways back to the kitchen. Instead, he opened the door to the yard and stepped out. The air was cold. The night was dazzlingly bright, the cold air crystallizing into sparkles all around him. The noise of the cart cras.h.i.+ng and banging across the uneven stones was louder than he expected. He stopped. No one else in the entire world existed except for him. He was the last man alive. Two pills in his hand. He had no idea what they were. He looked up into the sky, just like Fenton told him to. The sight of the stars piercing the empty blackness took his breath away. The thought of his own little life in the midst of so much dense s.p.a.ce made him tremble. He took the pills, swallowed them hard. How good it was, despite everything, to be alive.

A hundred feet later he thought of the sentries in the guard towers. They'd be astonished to see him moving about. No doubt they had him in their sights. A sniper shot. A bullet in the back of his head as a final joke. Could Fenton arrange something like that? Checkmate. The paranoia was upon him. It happened no matter what drugs he took. The fear of total loss of control. The sense that he was under someone else's influence.

Reaching the cafeteria building, Josh expected to wait in the cold until the duty guard roused himself, but the gate was ajar and Josh simply pushed the cart in on his own. In through the cafeteria, marveling at his own sense of direction, he emerged into the kitchen. Roy was gone. Jacko sipped from a tin cup, smoking a cigarette.

”Where's Fenton?”

”He sent me to fill up,” Josh said, lifting one of the large empty containers from the cart and placing it under the spigot of the cooking pot.

”I'll get that,” Jacko said, and stumbled over.

He stirred the hot chocolate with the huge wooden paddle, peered in to examine the contents. ”Needs more water,” he said. He reached down and grabbed a plastic mop bucket, then poured the dirty water into the steaming cocoa.

”Oh, s.h.i.+t.” Holding the empty mop bucket in his hand and looking down to the place where he had grabbed it from. Another bucket beside it, this one filled with clean water. He chucked the mop bucket across the room and picked up the wooden paddle again.

”Advice from the cook. Go easy on the hot chocolate.”

”Roger that,” Josh said.

He went back to D block through the hub. There were moments when he didn't know how many steps he had taken, how much time had pa.s.sed. He kept remembering what he was doing, waking up to his present awareness, realizing that he was pus.h.i.+ng a cart down a long hallway in a prison. His heart had never beat so rapidly. He felt as if his face were on fire. He knew his teeth were shedding. There was a finger inside his skull, sc.r.a.ping at the inner sh.e.l.l of his cranium with a nail, a hollow sound he realized mimicked the squeaky wheel of the cart.

He couldn't find Fenton. Not waiting in the hub, not waiting outside the nest in D. The mess was gone. The jack was nowhere to be seen. Josh didn't know what to do. ”Hot chocolate and doughnuts!” he yelled, and behold, the gate opened and he was drawn inside, pus.h.i.+ng the cart before him. He went from cell to cell on his own. The men said things to him, he spoke back. There was no communication to it, no connection.

Back in the hub, all the ranges finished, he crossed over to Keeper's Hall. He saw a roomful of guards. They called out to him, and he stopped and wished them a happy New Year, offering up his wares, the last box of doughnuts. They grabbed the box from him and chewed and stuffed their faces. Released, he pushed on down the hallway, more minutes gone by, and realized he was lost. Then he heard a strange sound, a faint animal growling, and pushed on farther, turning a bend. The noise was coming from behind a door, and for some reason, some unexpected bravery or curiosity in him, he pushed the door open and peered inside. A female CO, her s.h.i.+rt unb.u.t.toned, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s free, stood in the middle of the room, bent over but facing him, her hands braced on a table, her long hair dangling, her blue uniform pants in a pile on the floor. Behind her, thrusting hard, was Fenton, the widest smile on his face Josh had ever seen, recognition mixed with pride even as he maintained his rhythmic dance.

”Connie! We've got an audience!”

The jack's face lifted and stared at Josh, her mouth rounding, her eyes widening, a pleading expression. ”Oh Jesus Christ.”

And Fenton laughing. And Josh fleeing down the hall, the cart rattling wildly until he abandoned it and ran into the hub. Somewhere the tick of a clock struck twelve, and a thousand voices roared in mock celebration, like a beast awakened. He walked as fast as he could, almost a run, sweat on his neck, voices in his ears, and broke for the tunnel to the infirmary and home.