The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust #5)(40)

“And how about you and me?”

“Listen,” I told him. “I respect what you’re trying to do. You don’t want your people getting hurt in a war that’s got nothing to do with you. I get that. Just like you need to get that coming after me again, even in a roundabout way, would be a very, very bad play. We on the same page here?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, a little too quick. “Sure.”

“I can’t tell you what I’m planning, but I can give you my word: in two days, the Cinco Calles won’t be after me anymore. No friction between the whites and the Latinos, nothing for the guards to use against you. Can you be cool for two days?”

He glanced to one side, thinking. Then he stuck out his hand. We shook on it.

*

A warning klaxon sounded five minutes before lights-out. Back in my cell, I kept my eyes on the door until the second klaxon sounded and it slowly rattled shut. I felt safer sleeping behind a locked and barred door, at least until Mister Kim left the prison tomorrow morning. I was pretty sure he’d keep his word and back off, but better safe than sorry. Or dead.

“Gonna miss this place,” Paul said softly as the lights along the tier flickered out one by one.

“Really?”

“Hell no.” He lay back on his cot. “You really think we can pull this off?”

“I like our chances. Besides, whatever happens, it beats the alternative.”

Guards walked the shadowed tiers with penlights and clipboards, running cell checks and making sure all the good little convicts were tucked in for the night. I got as comfortable as I could and shut my eyes, trying to relax. We had a lot of hard work ahead of us.

I wasn’t sure what time it was when my eyes snapped open in the darkness. Something had roused me, a sound different from the distant clamor and clanking and snoring that filled the prison hive. My muscles tensed as my body jolted into high alert.

I caught motion in the corner of my eye. Paul, waving a frantic hand. He made eye contact, then pantomimed being asleep. I followed his lead, lying on my back, watching the cell door through eyes narrowed to slits.

Figures crept into view on the other side of the bars. Four men in black riot gear, two hefting Plexiglas shields. The strobe of a penlight gleamed across the cell. I shut my eyes completely and I did my best impression of a corpse as the white light washed over my face.

The CRT, Jake and Westie had called them. Cell Reclamation Team. The ones who came in the night, picking out prisoners to send to Hive B.





21.




“Cell two thirty-two,” the guard with the penlight murmured. I heard paper rustle. “They’re both on the list. Which one first?”

I tensed. The knife was under my cot. Could I get to it in time? They’d bum-rush us with the riot shields. Press in and force us down. Even if I could slip around, find an angle of attack, their armor looked bulky. Ceramic plates, I guessed. Good chance of turning a blade, unless I got lucky and found a weak spot.

I’d have to get lucky four times in a handful of heartbeats. In the dark, outnumbered and outgunned by men who did takedowns like this for a living. That was lottery-winner luck. No matter how I played it, I couldn’t see a fight going my way.

I tensed up and got ready for one anyway. My hand crept under the blanket, snail slow, toward the edge of the cot.

“I want two thirty-four,” growled another guard. “Bastard kicked me when we broke up that fight two days ago. My knee still hurts.”

“Fine,” the first said. I heard the penlight click. “These two’ll keep until next time.”

They crept away. I opened my eyes and looked over at Paul. He stared back from the shadows, petrified.

“Don’t worry,” I mouthed.

He pulled his blanket up over his shoulders and clutched it like a little kid afraid of the dark.

Not like we needed more motivation to escape, I thought, but there it is.

Everything happened at once. I heard the electric hum and rattling of a barred door two cells down. Then the quick, hard stampede of boots on concrete and a confused, sleepy shout of surprise cut short by the crack of a truncheon. Even with a black sack over his head, I recognized the bulky prisoner they dragged, shackled and squirming, past our cell door: Simms, who’d tried shaking me down on my first day. He shouted but his voice was muffled, like he had a gag in his mouth. One of the guards jabbed a stun gun into his kidney. He crashed to his knees, grunting; they hauled him back to his feet and kept moving.

Paul and I waited until they were long gone, and another ten minutes after that for good measure, before either of us said a word.

“You heard that, right?” he whispered.

“Day after tomorrow,” I breathed. “Eyes on the prize, Paul. By the time they come for us, we’ll be long gone.”

That was the plan, anyway.

*

I drowsed more than slept, drifting in and out of anxious nightmares until the morning klaxon shrilled and our cell door rattled open. Brisco’s boys covered me while I showered, and this time, they didn’t vanish. Breakfast was another lump of cold, watery eggs and a charred, rock-hard wedge of something that might have been hash browns. I would have killed for a cup of espresso.

I met up with my makeshift crew out on the yard. Paul, Westie, Jake, and I walked in a ragged line along the jogging track, and they passed a cigarette back and forth while we talked.