The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust #5)(6)

Paul leaned over on his cot, glancing out the open cell door and up toward the top of the guard tower.

“You aren’t just a ward of the state, my friend. The Iceberg is a private prison. Corporate owned and taxpayer financed. The guards aren’t members of the state union, and they don’t answer to anybody but the bean counters at Rehabilitation Dynamics. On that note? Stay out of the bathrooms on tier three.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

Paul shot another glance toward the open cell door. “Worst-kept secret in Hive C: the security camera in there’s been broken for a month, and either nobody’s bothered calling in a repair order or the bean counters don’t want to pay for a new one. The guards only poke their heads in once a day. That place is Grand Central Station when it comes to dirty business.”

A snaggletoothed con with a head like a bullet loomed in the doorway. He jerked his thumb my way and looked at Paul.

“He ain’t seen Brisco yet.”

“Brisco’s the shot-caller for the whites in here,” Paul told me. “You should go talk to him, introduce yourself. It’s a respect thing. Respect is very important in here.”

I stood up and stretched. Moving, but taking my time.

“Well,” I said, “seeing as I’ve got an escort and everything, let’s go meet the man in charge.”





3.




Bullethead led me down to the floor of the hive. Inmates got out of our way, and fast. It was a calculated action, though; gazes flicked the other way, or it was suddenly time to wave and walk over to someone on the far side of the lockup, any excuse to suddenly be elsewhere. Everybody wanted to keep out of Bullethead’s path, but nobody wanted to look like they were doing it because of him.

The man of the hour sat at a round plastic table, throwing down cards from a losing hand. He wore a permanent scowl, and he’d stripped down to his undershirt to show off muscles like steel cables under sleeves of cheap prison ink. I didn’t need an introduction to know he was the shot-caller. The way all conversation died when we walked up to the table, and the way the four other players looked his way, told me all I needed to know.

“Brisco, I presume,” I said, nodding his way.

He looked down at my empty hands. “That’s right. Where’s your jacket?”

“Jacket?”

His buddies had a snicker at that. Brisco sighed and laid his palms flat on the table.

“Your papers.”

“They lost ’em,” I said. “Emerson said he’d send them over as soon as the office got it sorted out.”

They didn’t like the sound of that. I wasn’t sure what I’d said wrong, but there wasn’t a friendly face at the table. They didn’t invite me to sit down, either.

“Listen, fish.” Brisco’s eyes went hard. “I need to know who you are, and where you’ve been. And jackets don’t lie. Now sometimes, just sometimes, we get new arrivals who think they can hide their tracks. Like rapists. People who rape kids, even.”

He left it at that, tossing me the verbal ball. I locked eyes with him. I knew I was standing in a minefield. Worse, the mines had been planted according to a specific list of rules, and nobody had bothered giving me a copy. The last thing I wanted was a fight with Brisco, and going on the offensive could buy me more trouble than I could handle. At the same time, backing down felt like a bad, bad idea.

“If somebody said that about me,” I replied, taking it slow, “they’d better be ready to back that up with some proof, or there’s going to be more than harsh words between us.”

He shrugged one shoulder.

“My boy Zap,” Brisco said, “he’s a trustee. He’s allowed up in the front offices, and it’s real easy for him to snag a few minutes of computer time. Now, when this conversation’s over, he’s gonna go check you out. So I ask you: is there anything in your jacket you wanna tell me about? Because if you man up and tell it straight, right here, right now, it’ll go a lot easier than if Zap finds something I don’t like.”

I thought about a fervent denial, but in the end I just shrugged right back at him. “Let him look.”

Everyone at the table turned to Brisco. He rapped his fingers on the fallen cards and nodded. “Okay,” he said, “we can do it that way. Probably wanna go back up to your cell.”

I obliged him. This is bad, I thought, climbing up the stairs. I didn’t have a jacket because I wasn’t even supposed to be in prison. What would Brisco’s guy say when a database search came up empty? This place ran on rules. Rigid, unbending rules, the kind that get enforced with a shiv in the kidneys. I didn’t think Brisco was the type of guy who’d be happy with an unknown factor in his house.

Paul glanced up from his book as I walked in. “I need to talk to the warden,” I told him.

“Jesus,” he said, setting the paperback in his lap. “What’d you do?”

“Like I said, I’m not supposed to be here. The guards won’t listen. I’ve got to go higher up the food chain.”

Paul waved a hand. “You don’t want that kind of attention. Look, just take it easy. Tomorrow you’ll get a work assignment. Earn a little money and you can use the pay phones, get in touch with your lawyer.”