Black And Blue (Quentin Black Mystery #5) (18 page)

He wasn’t lying entirely.

His wife had blood from both of those tribes. To him, that made them family.

And he sure as fuck wasn’t about to paint swastikas on his body or hang with those Aryan assholes around the weight area, trading horror stories about killing blacks and Mexicans.

The old man sitting with the group to his right spoke to the others, too low for him to pick up. Then he raised his voice to Black.

“What
T’lingit
? Which tribe?”

“
Hinyaa Ḵwáan,
” Black said.

Miriam’s grandmother’s tribe.

His throat tightened briefly at the thought.

He found himself touching his bicep unconsciously, fingering the freshly stitched cut there, which also appeared in the last ten hours or so while he was unconscious. They’d cut the RFID chip right out of his arm. Which meant someone knew to look for it.

He heard murmuring from his right again, but kept his eyes on the big white guy, who was now frowning at him like he was a piece of dog shit he’d just scraped off his shoe.

None of them stopped eating.

Black knew why. He wouldn’t have much time in here, so no one could afford to not fill their bellies while they had the chance.

For the same reason, he didn’t stop eating either. Shoveling more of the beef stew into his mouth, he gulped water between bites. He needed to do whatever he could to keep his head clear and to flush the drugs they’d used on him out of his system.

As for his attempt to establish a link to the “chiefs,” as they were called in here, he knew he had maybe a 50/50 chance of being taken in, if that. He couldn’t quite pull off the Native look, but he also knew not all tribals looked the same.

Even as he thought it, the old man spoke again.

“You got white blood too?”

Black nodded, still staring at the blue eyes across from him. “Obviously.”

“You look white...
wasichu.
Why don’t you go play with your white friends?”

Black’s voice remained as expressionless as his face.

“I don’t like them very much.” He continued staring at the blond guy with the crew cut. “And where I grew up, they didn’t agree with you on the passing part. I don’t think my mom would like it much, either.”

A few low chuckles broke out among the group of Native Americans. The next time the old man spoke, his voice had a smile in it.

“You grow up on the rez?”

Black nodded, once. “Not here. Canada.”

“You grow up
T’lingit,
too? You’re pretty tall for one of them.”

“The girls were okay with that.”

More chuckles, even a few snorts. The leader spoke again.

“Which one? Which rez?”

“
Nisutlin Bay 15.” Again, Miri’s grandmother.

“How your
Wazhazhe
people get way the hell up there?”

Black shrugged. “Gold rush. White people brought some. Some came for gold. Maybe that’s where I got the white blood, too.”

There was another silence. That one felt more loaded.

“Why you wearing a dog collar,
wasichu?
” the old man asked.

Black kept his voice deadpan. “They seem to think I’m dangerous.” His eyes stayed on the guy with the iron crosses on each hand, who was openly frowning now, glaring between Black and the cluster of men sitting just down the table from him.

“Are you?” the old man asked. “Dangerous?”

Black shrugged. “Depends on who you ask. My wife doesn’t think so. But then she’s FBI
Wazhazhe
, so she’d probably stab me in my sleep if I pissed her off.
”

By “FBI” he meant “Full-blooded Indian,” which was slang Miriam taught him. She’d joked she lost her “FBI” card when she found out her father was seer.

His comment did the trick.

More chuckles broke out among the cluster of men sitting on the other side of the table. That time, the laughter was definitely warmer.

Then the old man spoke to one of the others beside him.

“Okay. Tell this white boy to leave our brother alone.”

Black fought to keep the relief off his face, knowing the white supremacist with the tattooed hands was watching him minutely still. He knew this wouldn’t protect him for long, not even from the other inmates. Even so, some part of him couldn’t suppress that relief, however fleeting.
 

Of course, the real reason for that didn’t escape him either.

Along with that relief, he felt a stab of longing for his wife so intense it blanked out his vision entirely for a few seconds.

He knew that would get worse, too.
 

A lot worse.

Separation pain tried to overwhelm him again at the thought.

He hadn’t been lying to her in the restaurant, about how bad things were for both of them right now. He already knew that pain would start to affect him in other ways too, if he ended up being in here more than a few days. He’d never had to control it wearing a collar before. If it went on too long, he wouldn’t be
able
to control it, no matter what he did. He’d be in serious fucking trouble if that happened, in more ways than one.

The collar would make all of that exponentially worse.

Either way, that connectedness with her was a feeling he intended to hold onto––he knew he’d need it if he planned to get out of here alive.

Maybe that’s the real reason he approached the chiefs.

Even in here, she protected him. It felt that way anyway.

Ten

NEW GUY

DOG GRINNED AT him, his teeth white in a tanned face, his lean body bent at an angle inside his royal blue prison shirt as he watched Black.
 

“...That fucker who was hassling you, bro? The one with Aryan shit painted all over him? He’s in for
multiple
homicides, man, including some of the People. You don’t want to mess with him... front and all that, that’s part of being in, but don’t go too far with those guys and don’t let ‘em get you alone. Guys like that, they don’t like guys like you, with big brains and smart mouths... get you killed, bro. Serious.”

Black grimaced, pulling his entire weight up so that his chin came over the thick metal bar. His shoulder hurt and he still felt sick from the drugs. Nausea from separation pain hit at his chest briefly, too, but he was determined to power through.

Once high enough, he lowered himself again, using his whole weight and moving his muscles at the same even pace.

“You’re like a machine, man,” Dog said, grinning. “It’s like watching one of those robot arms do reps. Like you’re greased...” He paused. “Hey, what kind of music do you like? You into music, man?”

Without waiting for his answer, he went on, grinning as he pushed himself off and down off the bar rhythmically, like he was juiced on nervous energy.
 

“I’m really into skate punk... but I like tribal stuff, too. You heard any of the modern tribal stuff? There’s this alternative band that mixes in trad music in Albuquerque... they are totally the shit. Like, awesome. Kick ass lyrics, too...”

Without commenting or letting his arms fully extend, Black brought himself back up again.
 

They didn’t have free weights in the yard, which was unfortunate, but didn’t exactly surprise him. They wouldn’t want prisoners getting too big. Anyway, weights could be used as weapons, unlike bars welded into the cement.

A few of the bigger guys were using one another as weights. Also not a surprise.

Where there was a will, there was always a way.

The young chief standing below him, watching him do pull-ups with seemingly zero interest in doing the same, the others called Dog.

No one explained to Black why he was called Dog.

Black already knew a few things about Dog, though, besides his taste in music.

Dog was here for armed robbery, having worked with a four-man crew across multiple states. He said the others flipped on him so he got the worst haul. Also, he got the worst lawyer. His public defender was a grade-A racist prick with a stick up his ass for The People, so Dog got fucked with that same shitty stick.

Dog liked to talk.

On a bench just to the left of the bar Black was using, the old man from the chow hall sat.

He wasn’t that old really, now that Black could see him up close. Late fifties, early sixties, and he still had a fair bit of muscle on him. He had a broad, sun-lined face and gray hair woven into his braid, which might make him look older than he was.

His name was Joseph.

Dog said Joseph was a professional boxer at one time, and he had the build for it. Joseph was in for murder, though; he’d killed a white federal agent who came out on the rez and pissed him off in some way the others didn’t elaborate about and Joseph didn’t talk about at all.

Joseph had been inside the system for over twenty-five years now.

Three others in the “chiefs” camp sat next to him on the bench. Black got their names as Devin, Frank and Easton. Black wasn’t sure if Easton was his first name or last name. He supposed it didn’t matter.

He didn’t know what those three were in for, since Dog did most of the talking.

“You might want to go easy on the staring, brother,” Dog was saying now. “Those weird-ass eyes of yours... they’re unnerving, man. Someone might want to stab you, just for those. Not like white man unnerving... not NDN either. You look like a white man fucked a wolf or something, then took a bunch of steroids and fucked a tiger...”

Joseph, Frank and Easton laughed from the metal bench. Devin smiled.

Black knew “NDN” was more rez speak, shorthand for Native American.

Dog talked a lot. He was young, probably only twenty-two, twenty-three years old.

Black glanced at the Latino man who approached on his right. The guy motioned towards the empty space on the bar and Black motioned his head in silent invitation. The tattooed guy grabbed for the section of bar next to Black and hauled his own considerable bulk up in a pull up.

Once Black was reasonably sure the guy didn’t want any trouble with him, he glanced back at Dog, nodding towards the metal bleachers about thirty meters to his right, past the basketball court where a group of African-American inmates were playing.

“Who’s that guy?” he said, when he reached the top of another pull-up. “Long sleeves. Sword tattoo on his neck? You know him?”

He continued staring at the man as he said it. The object of his curiosity sat alone, wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt under his prison jersey and baggy, royal blue prison pants.

Black brought his body back down again, even and slow, breathing out as he lowered himself down, his knees bent to keep his legs off the ground.

The Latino guy with the tats dropped from the bar after ten or so pull-ups. He shook his head at Black, watching him a few seconds more with an incredulous look on his face before he wandered away, muttering.

Black’s eyes never left the man on the bleachers.

The guy sat there like he hadn’t a care in the world, his feet planted, legs apart in a sprawl, his face tilted up to the sun. Black had already noted his physical characteristics so he’d recognize him again, something he had to remember to do when he was cut off from his seer’s sight. The man was well-muscled, but in an inconspicuous way, almost in a way he seemed to be hiding it. He had blunt-cut, dirty-blond hair, a scruff beard, and strangely predatory, light-colored eyes above high cheekbones.