The Devil Went Down to Austin (Tres Navarre #3)(93)

The prison corridors smelled like dayold meat loaf. The walls were brown and beige, in keeping with Travis County's Hershey Bar patrol colours. We walked past the med ward—the psych patients, the newbies waiting for their TB tests to pass. Guards in white lab coats did their rounds, slipping food and drugs through the little slots in the cell doors. All the deputies knew Vic. They highfived him, asked him what was up, gave Maia Lee appreciative glances.

We waited for the elevator with four inmates in bluegreen scrubs who were helping a deputy transport a supply cart.

Lopez looked at one of the inmates, a young Anglo guy with starchwhite hair and a pasty face and a nervous smile. Vic said, "How you doing, Hans?"

The jail deputy grinned, as if pleased by some inside joke.

Hans said, "Fine, sir. I'm fine."

"These boys treating you okay?" Lopez asked.

I looked down at Hans' feet. He was the only one of the inmates without shoes.

"They're treating me fine," he said.

Two of the other guys—both Latinos with hair nets—grinned at each other.

Hans mumbled, "I got hope. My boss knows he ain't going to get his deposits in the bank next Friday without me. I got hope."

"You got to have hope," the other deputy said.

"That's right, brother," Lopez said.

At the top of the elevator, the inmates let us get out first. One held the door for us.

Everybody called Maia "ma'am."

Lopez and I walked up to the guard station. The sentry, a Weebleesque woman, was talking on the phone.

We waited.

The deputy from the elevator led his four charges to their cell block and told them it was time to declare contraband items. The inmates started patting down their clothes.

There were no bars anywhere, just plexiglass walls and big brown metal doors. Inside the block, I could see a metal picnic bench with welded seats, like at a highway rest stop. A little TV was mounted from the ceiling. Along the back wall was a row of tenbyten cells, each with its own brown metal door, each crammed with books and magazines. The whole block was intensely quiet. Much quieter than any jail I'd ever been in.

Three of the inmates showed the deputy their empty hands. One of the Latinos, almost bashfully, offered up a spoon and a comb— two potentially deadly weapons.

The deputy looked satisfied. He took the spoon and the comb and buzzed the cell block door open.

"You bust Hans?" I asked Lopez.

"It isn't Hans, Navarre—it's Hands. Only been in here a couple of days. Killed a guy he owed money to—dumped the body in the woods and thought we'd never be able to track the victim's identity if he cut off the hands and threw them in the Colorado River.

Absolute stupidity. Local fishermen found the left hand. Catfish probably ate the right."

"And he's really getting out of here?" Maia asked.

Lopez laughed. "Not a chance. His boss wouldn't touch him. But that's how easy it is, getting suckered into the logic of losers. Other guys you shared an elevator with are real sweethearts, too— that was a drug dealer, a hit man, and the Barton Creek ra**st.

But you talk to them for a minute, you can almost buy that they're rational, nice human beings. Scary."

The inmates filed into their cell block. Hands looked reluctant to go. The deputy gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder, turned him around, then gently pushed him into the block. The door slid closed.

The sentry behind the glass finally ended her call. She said, "Sorry, gentlemen.

Ma'am."

"Hey, Peg." Lopez grinned. "How's your fun factor today?"

"Oh, real high, Vic. Real high."

"We need to see Garrett Navarre."

Deputy Peg barked a laugh. "It just got higher. What room you want?"

Lopez looked at us. "I hate those interview rooms. You want to put your mouth on one of those greasy phones? Look, Peg—how about you bring him upstairs to the rec area.

Can you do that?"

She shrugged. "You know the way."

The outdoor rec area was on the top floor—a cagedin basketball court that looked out over the city. The panorama was obstructed by a tenstory Justice Department building to the left, but we could still see the wooded hills of Clarksville, clusters of apartments at the edge of UT, the green ribbons of undeveloped land that marked Shoal Creek and Barton Creek.

"Nice," I said.

"Oh yeah," Lopez agreed. "This was an apartment, you'd have to pay big bucks for a view like this. You kill somebody, you get it for free."

The door opened behind us. A guard came out with Garrett.

His bluegreen prisoner scrubs were way too big for him, the pant legs tucked under him in neat blue squares. His beard had been trimmed severely, his ponytail cut off.

He had a shiner for a left eye. He hadn't had that this morning.

"If it isn't my brother," he said. "Captain of the Good Ship Forklift."

"Your eye," Maia said. "What happened?"

Garrett touched the bruised skin. "Don't worry about it. Clyde's in the cell block with me—we've got things under control."

The jail guard smiled amiably, moved off to one side, picked up a basketball. He started twirling it on his finger.

"Don't suppose you've come to get me out," Garrett said.