The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust #5)(5)

A sign plastered to the mirrored wall, just left of the guards’ key-carded doorway, read “NO WARNING SHOTS WILL BE FIRED.”

I was feeling the warning shots from the gallery floor, myself. The open space around the tower was a free-for-all, prisoners milling around or sitting at round plastic tables with bench seats, some playing cards or flipping dominoes. I’d felt watched from the yard outside, but now that scrutiny was as focused and hot as a surgical laser.

It wasn’t like the movies. There weren’t any catcalls; nobody threw anything—not even a harsh word—but my quiet sense of apprehension grew worse with each passing glance. I knew the score: regardless of what Correctional Officer Jablonski wanted to believe, this was their house. And I wasn’t invited.

“Faust,” Emerson said, pointing up. “Your cell is two-thirty-two. Go up those stairs, hang a left.”

As he gave the other newcomers their cell numbers, I realized what little safety I’d felt was long gone. Emerson wasn’t here to protect me; he was here to process me into the system. Now I was processed and forgotten.

I walked into the mix, alone.

Chin up, I thought, coaching myself. Eyes front. Don’t walk too fast. If they smell fear on you, you’re finished. You don’t care about any of this. Repeat that until you believe it. You just don’t care.

Nobody reacted to me, nobody said a word. I was a ghost. A ghost with a hundred pairs of eyes following his every move.

I wasn’t prepared for the stench. Air didn’t flow through the hive so much as hang there like a pair of dirty sweat socks. It smelled like body odor and stale piss and food from a dead refrigerator. More than anything, it reminded me of the monkey house at a zoo. I climbed up to the second tier and went looking for my new cage.

They squeezed a lot of furniture into a space not much bigger than Caitlin’s closet. Two narrow beds, one on each side, with beige blankets that matched my uniform, a stainless-steel sink, a toilet and a mirror, a narrow desk, and a pair of wall-mounted cabinets with sliding doors. My cell already had an occupant. He lay back on one bed and paged through a dog-eared paperback of John-Paul Sartre’s No Exit.

“‘Hell is other people,’” I quoted, leaning against the open cell door.

He lowered the book, tapped the pages, and smiled. He was maybe in his late forties, a little pudgy, with a wiry salt-and-pepper beard and cheap prescription glasses.

“Indeed it is,” he said. “Ever seen the play?”

“I’ve only read it.”

“Reading about hell,” he said, swinging his legs around and sitting up, “makes me feel better about being here. It reminds me that there’s always someplace worse you can go. I’m Paul, by the way.”

“Daniel.” I shook his hand. “I’m apparently your new roommate.”

“I already like you better than the last one. His ideal use for a book was hollowing one out to hide contraband. Not much of a conversationalist.”

“Well,” I said, “don’t get too used to me. I’m not supposed to be here.”

Paul smirked. “Because you’re innocent, right? Everybody here is innocent. Well, except for me. I’m the only guilty man in the whole place. You know anybody in here?”

“Not a soul. Mind giving me the lay of the land?”

He gestured to the opposite bunk, and I took a seat. The mattress was thinner than my index finger, layered over a slab of concrete.

“Here’s the high points,” Paul said. “First off, we just got off lockdown a couple of days ago, so tensions are running high. A couple of bangers brought their outside beefs in with them. That’s a big no-no, but it happens. This is a black-on-brown deal, we’re staying out of it, so do yourself a favor and keep strictly to the white corner of the yard until it all gets sorted out.”

“Gotta tell ya,” I said, “I’m not really big on the whole racial segregation deal.”

Paul snorted and pushed up a sleeve. “Hey, you see a swastika on my arm? Outside of those Aryan Brotherhood *s—and stay clear of them, because they’re high and crazy—it isn’t a racist thing. Just a race thing.”

“Not real clear on the difference.”

“It’s not about hate. It’s about having a group of people around who’ll watch your back when the shit starts to fly. We all wear the same uniform, so what’s that leave us? Skin. Each color polices their own, and the shot-callers try to keep the peace. Keep in mind that whites are outnumbered five to one in here. Bad odds for a lone wolf.”

“So run with a pack,” I said. “Noted. What else?”

“Watch the guards. Emerson, Emerson’s okay—he just started working here, too new to pick up bad habits—but the rest of them…” He shook his head. “Never be alone with a guard if you can help it, and don’t try to get familiar. All you’ll do is end up on their radar, and you don’t want that.”

“I already met Jablonski in processing.”

“Jablonski’s a sadist,” Paul said, frowning. “Worse, he’s a stone killer. Likes to sit up in that tower and masturbate with a sniper rifle in his free hand, that’s what I think.”

“I saw him beat the crap out of a guy for nothing. How do they get away with that?”