Part 23 (1/2)

”Put yourself in my shoes.” Calm, dismissive. ”Everything in here happens behind big walls. Without someone telling me what's going on, how would I know?”

”And you trust that their version is right?”

”I don't trust anyone. Anybody telling you something they shouldn't has got a reason for it. Doesn't mean they don't know what's going on. You can't dig up s.h.i.+t without smelling some sewer.”

I thought of Melinda Reizner and her justifications for working with informants.

”I got a feeling it's not going to matter what I show you or how I act. You'll just write what you want anyway.”

He told me to cut the tour guide s.h.i.+t and do my rounds, and we could work on the mutual understanding later. I laughed. It was better than telling him to f.u.c.k off.

I took him into dis, where all good inmates were snug in their drums, but they'd been roused by something, every third or fourth man at his face slot. I didn't like it. A voice yelled out, ”You want to really know what's going on in here, ask me!” It was as if they knew Stone was a reporter. How? Porous walls, psychic talents, a CO letting the information slide to an inmate? ”You want to know the whole truth?” another voice shouted. Four cells ahead, a splash of something liquid shot through the slot and hit the floor, startling me.

”All right, this is no good.” I pulled Stone back by his thick and ungiving arm, nudging him reluctantly around and walking us hard for the exit. You weren't supposed to show fear, and I was showing it now by abandoning dis, but I had responsibility for a civilian. I needed to keep his GQ duds dry and stain-free.

I spoke into my radio and buzzed for exit, but got no response. f.u.c.k me, I thought as the hoots and jeers got louder. One Mississippi, two Mississippi ... I buzzed again. Then the click, and I pushed the door forward and hustled Stone out. How heavy and solid the steel felt under my shove.

”Nice show,” Stone said, as if I'd arranged it. ”You let them out during the day?”

”Special caged playground, three at a time max, one hour give or take. We're not cruel. You want to see where we watch them take a c.r.a.p?”

I showed Stone the evidence rooms and the floppy s.p.a.ceman gloves tubed into the gla.s.s buckets by the inmate c.r.a.pper.

”You really get your hands dirty here, don't you?” he asked.

”Somebody's got to,” I said. ”You want people to understand, you write about this. I'll give you a detailed description of the typical encounter.”

I thought of taking him to the infirmary, showing him the bugs and the howlers and the ones wasting away like plants that never got watered, but I didn't want to stray too far from the bubble. I wanted to be in there, if possible, when the exchange between Fenton and Ruddik took place, just to make sure. So we walked back down the long tunnel to the hub.

”You want to know what I'd be doing right now if you weren't here?”

He nodded, the patronizing s.h.i.+t, and gave me his blessing to proceed.

”Officially, if I was on walk-around, that means I do timed checks of all the ranges on one of the blocks. I walk down each tier five times over the course of the night, counting heads. Brilliant, huh? Think you could do a mile in my shoes?”

”Sounds rough,” he said.

”It's not,” I said, ”unless something happens.”

”And what could happen?”

My turn to shrug. ”A wind chime. An OD or other medical condition. A splasher. You'd love those. Did you know it burns the eyes? Maybe a group disturbance. A bad count. A hot shot. A gasher. Maybe you spend half your s.h.i.+ft talking someone down from some drug they took. Maybe an incident on another range stirs up your range. Who knows how the news gets pa.s.sed along. The boys get pretty good at hand signals and flying kites. But if you catch a kite, you probably can't read it. And you sure as h.e.l.l can't read a hand signal. You just know it means something's about to happen. On a good night, it's mundane as h.e.l.l, and you're grateful. But if you walk the s.h.i.+ft believing it will be like every other, that's the night you'll get shot by a zip gun tipped with HIV or you'll miss a stringer even though you swear the dead man was sound asleep in his cot when you went by.”

”Doesn't sound like you guards are actually running the show.”

”'Dynamic security minimally manned' is supposed to give us the empowerment to handle an environment that's inherently unstable, but it brings up ratio issues. What it really means is we don't have enough COs to maintain total control. You can write it down and call me your unidentified source. The government's too cheap to let us do the job right, and people are endangered as a result. Not just COs-inmates, too.” I couldn't wait to see that in print.

”Total control,” he said. ”You sound paranoid.”

”Inmates are trying to subvert control all the time. To injure, con, overpower, manipulate, dominate, and corrupt COs and other inmates on a more or less constant basis. Would you say paranoia is the right or wrong response in that circ.u.mstance?”

”That's what I'm trying to find out.”

The hub was empty, and the lights around the gallery were dim.

”You think we could go in there?” Stone asked.

I didn't answer, but led us to the bubble. I was able to see nothing inside from my low angle, but I stood before the door and signaled my desire to enter. Was Cutler alone or had Droune arrived?

No response from the barred door, as though someone inside was wondering what the f.u.c.k I was doing.

”What's next?” Stone asked. He hadn't noticed the delay, or he was too jacked up to feel anything subtle.

Then the door unlocked.

”We sit for a while,” I answered. ”You think we work this hard without a break?”

I swung the heavy door shut behind me and followed Stone up the five steps onto the raised platform of the bubble.

Cutler swiveled around at the console, a big man, fat and cheerful. Droune, a bit sulky I thought, made himself look busy, checking b.u.t.tons before one of the monitors. He probably resented that a snowstorm got him knocked off the glory duty.

”What's going on?” I said.

”You here to show our writer friend who really runs this inst.i.tution?” Cutler asked.

Stone, on cue, began to ask questions, and the boys obliged.

”This is your central command,” Cutler said. He loved the attention. ”We've got cameras on all access points and hallways, same system as there is in the Keeper's Hall and the front gate.”

I made my way to the console board in order to watch the monitors, as if curious myself. The third floor of B block was empty and dark.

”So what makes it central command if there are two other setups just like it?”

”Att.i.tude.” Cutler laughed. ”Isn't that right, Droune?”

Droune gave no response, just kept his hands on the control deck, locked into one of those dark and solitary moods that can hit a CO once in a while, usually just before he hits his wife. I watched the boards.

Cutler kept talking. ”Basically, we're first in line when it comes to movement and response. And even though we're inside the security perimeter, we've got a s.h.i.+tload of ammunition in here with us.”

”And where's that?” Stone asked. ”I don't see any weapons.”

”Down below,” Cutler answered, and pointed to the hatch. The upside-down fallout shelter sign above the stairs. ”Everything's in the gun lockers down the hatch. But the inmates know it's all within reach. They sense our power. You get that?”

”I'm not sure I do,” Stone said.

”Well, let me give you a subtle demonstration.”

I looked over, slightly alarmed, and wondered what Cutler had in mind.

He picked up a bottle of household cleaner from the floor at his feet, the kind with the spray nozzle, lifted it up, then turned on the microphone switch on B block. Leaning in, he put his mouth close to the microphone, spun the dial to maximum, and intoned, ”Good night, boys. Pleasant dreams.”