Part 20 (1/2)

”COs?”

”And secretaries, nurses, maintenance workers. In a few instances, senior people on the warden's staff. Everyone getting their little taste. When Hammond was in extreme isolation here, for instance, the gang activity in Ditmarsh-and, incidentally, in several other state prisons connected with Ditmarsh-continued unabated. He just ran things the same way he ran them up top, maybe better.”

”But he was completely isolated. MacKay told me his mind was a mess.”

Ruddik shook his head. ”Not true. He used COs to do his business for him. The FBI figured this out too late. From the group of COs that looked after Hammond exclusively, about a quarter of them were later charged with corruption. They did his work for him while he was locked up below. The Ditmarsh Social Club was rotten.”

”A few of them committed suicide.”

”The FBI would have arrested more if they hadn't. But once COs started killing themselves, the prosecutor got cold feet. Some people felt it was not guilt, but the pressure of the investigation that drove them to suicide. So the order came to back off.”

”So what happened to Hammond?”

”The extreme isolation tactic, if faulty in practice, seemed like a good idea. So the FBI tried removing top gang leaders from their natural habitats and dispersing them to various prisons throughout the country. They were handled only by special guards and administrators. Family visitations were cut off and contact with lawyers restricted. Effectively, those inmates were made to disappear.”

”Sounds good to me.” I did not mind the idea of the worst inmates getting treated as such.

”Hammond entered that program voluntarily. He was one of the flags.h.i.+p members. That's how he got out of Ditmarsh.”

”And Hammond turned,” I said. ”He became an informant and started making anti-gang speeches.”

”Some of the agents behind the program predicted that would happen. Once gang leaders were separated from their gangs, they would be out of danger and free to leave the code of the lifestyle. Maybe they'd start trading information for privileges. In fact, that's the story we started to tell.”

”What do you mean story?”

”We wanted to discredit or stain the reputations of the leaders who'd been dispersed, so we spread the rumor that they'd become witnesses of the state and been given new lives even outside of prison, that their cooperation had paid off big-time.”

”And that didn't actually happen?”

Ruddik shook his head. ”No one except Hammond.”

He pa.s.sed me a poor photocopy of a newspaper article. The Contra Costa Times. March 8, 1992. In the picture, a man who was obviously an inmate stood at a microphone, answering questions on a crowded stage. His arm was extended outward, cutting through the air. The same bearing and posture as the picture of Hammond I'd seen in the Time article, except the face was not blocked by a black line. Still, despite a close look, I did not recognize him from the current inmate population at Ditmarsh.

”Hammond was different. He didn't want to disappear, and he convinced someone high up he could do more good if he went public and spoke out against the gangs. He gave speeches to new inmates, telling them about the choices they had available to them during their time in detention. He had a very effective message of personal development and avoiding gang activity or drugs, very self-help oriented. A four-step process: Shed your past. Change your thinking. Adopt new behaviors. Make a better future happen. Administrators and counselors ate it up. And what wasn't to love? A high-profile murderer and gang leader was expounding personal growth and a rejection of drug use, criminal acts, and self-destructive behavior. He started doing a monthly series on tape ca.s.sette, and they distributed it to penitentiaries around the country in the hope that his message would have a major impact.”

”Brother Mike said they were compelling. They made a difference on the prison population.”

Ruddik nodded. ”They sure did. A non-gang movement began to grow. And Hammond was heralded as a kind of revolutionary of reform. They put him in Time magazine.” Ruddik pulled out a photocopy, and I leaned in to see the close-up with the blacked-out eyes again. ”Then they discovered that Hammond's tapes contained coded statements.”

”What do you mean?”

”Some researcher in a criminology program started noticing key phrases and repeated words. Then a snitch came forward to dish that Hammond's group had undergone a power struggle or a coup prior to Hammond's disavowing gang life. From a number of isolated pieces of intelligence it was possible to start st.i.tching together the whole cloth. Hammond had been undermined by his lieutenants. Once he lost that power, he looked to improve his own life first; then he set forward on an audacious objective. Through the taped messages of salvation, reconciliation, and personal responsibility he was undermining his old gang by sending out orders to a newly established criminal organization. He recruited, gave orders, developed new business lines.”

”He started a second gang in California?”

Ruddik smiled. ”No. Far better than that. He franchised nationwide. He generated dozens of small gangs all over the country. Wherever three or more men met to discuss his teachings, when we thought they were talking about Hammond's bulls.h.i.+t self-help message, they were actually focused on illegal entrepreneurial activities. With the small numbers and the lack of gang signs or credos or ethnic affiliation, it was all too micro level for us to pay attention to, and so they mostly operated below the radar screen, as isolated cells. When the FBI figured that out, they stopped f.u.c.king around and took Hammond off the grid for good. No one's seen him since the fall of 1995. You don't even hear his name anymore. He's nowhere to be found.”

”But you must know where he is?”

”Are you kidding me? They don't design those domestic rendition programs with traceable addresses. They've got prisons inside prisons inside prisons. Files and cross-files and double-blind files.”

”But you think Crowley was helping to spread Hammond's message? Is that what the comic book is all about?”

”I don't know, but there's someone out there who knows more than he's admitting.”

”Who?”

Ruddik pushed the newspaper photograph in front of me again.

”All the network modeling I showed you before, all those lines and nodes didn't lie. Look closely. Recognize anyone?”

I leaned forward, scanning the faces, randomly at first, then one by one. When I saw what Ruddik wanted me to see, I couldn't believe it. I felt that hard pit in my chest, the exact spot where betrayal goes when it gets stuck, and a little groan escaped my throat. Younger. No beard. Wearing a dress s.h.i.+rt, the sleeves rolled up, leaning into Hammond's shoulder. Described in the inscription as his spiritual adviser.

Brother Mike.

STAGE IV.

37.

He fixed the toilet by thrusting his hand into the bowl, past the t.u.r.ds and floating paper, pulling out a sock wedged deep in the pipe. Nothing. He retched until he saw little bursts of sparkles. Then, miraculously, the bowl cleared itself out with an air-sucking gasp.

At breakfast, they were out of milk, so he put the cereal bowl down and opted for greasy fried eggs and potatoes. He still hadn't got used to the color of the eggs, a radioactive orange yolk surrounded by a slippery gleaming white. Farmraised, a kitchen worker said. On what f.u.c.king farm, Josh thought, taking them just the same.

No milk for coffee either. He took a mug of watery Tang. Then he looked back up and around, wondering with the usual dread where he would sit. The only table available to him was the one for those too afraid to sit anywhere else.

It was near the door, no different to the eye from any other table in the room, but everyone who sat there was disdained. Carriers, diddlers, snitches, and skinners, a former gym teacher everyone called professor, a businessman with sores on his face. The whole rotating crew smelled of fear.

He took a seat next to an old man with an Eastern European accent and no teeth. The sound of the soft eggs slurped and then gummed up. Josh stared down at the plate and set to spooning his own food, avoiding eyes. Two men sat down on either side of him, and he pretended not to notice. Then he saw a large hand reach across his plate and scoop up a finger-ful of potatoes.

”Now, that's f.u.c.king good,” the man said, licking the food off his fingers.

Back straightening, Josh fought the urge to push his plate away.

”Look at me, boy.”

Josh looked. He recognized the face right away. Cooper Lewis from his new range. The one with the cut who'd visited him in the infirmary. Orange goatee hairs streaked with gray, broad and yellow teeth. Lewis was the kind of inmate who enjoyed making a spectacle.

”Fenton gone, and you show up. That doesn't sit right with me.”

The fact that Lewis needed to explain his bad treatment gave Josh the feeling of small victory. He kept his gaze steady. ”Fenton told me to transfer in, and I did. He said I was the kind of guy he'd like to have around.”

”Oh, he's f.u.c.king modest, isn't he,” the other man said.