From the Chrysalis (25 page)

The instant he mentioned their mothers, two or three of the sentries bellowed back, “Shut the fuck up!” and he did for a while.

Dace had a bird’s eye view of everything happening below, but only if he leaned over the railing. Unfortunately, heights made him dizzy, something he’d found out the hard way when some German Shepherds had chased him up a tree years before. Which is also how he found out that trouble hatches in the most unlikely places. He could think almost fondly of it now. He’d learned a lot at that boarding school.

As for here, it looked like things were going okay in the main cell block. He couldn’t help wondering what was going on in Segregation, though. He kept hearing awful sounds. And what about Outside? If only he could be in two or three places at once. He weighed the steel bar in his hand. At least he was armed. He tossed the bar several times into the air, catching it with one hand.

The worst was keeping an eye on Big Alf and Steve. The more tired he got, the more irritated he felt about having to bribe, cajole and practically arm-wrestle the lazy buggers just to do their jobs. Not that he blamed them. They hated screws, they weren’t supposed to be guarding them, and they were all going to pay for it if anyone found out. And they would. In Dace’s bleakest moments he suspected he was a patsy, a traitor, and that he was taking everybody else down with him. Everybody except Rick. Jeez, Rick had better get his ass back here soon.

Christ. What’s that?
He checked Steve’s post again. Nah, it was nothing. Just his imagination. Nothing could get up those stairs. Just in case, they’d strung a thin wire across the bottom of the hostages’ door. He prayed anyway, appealing to his dead mother, the Virgin Mary, and his cousin Liza that the whole goddamn mess would soon be over. Because if the hostages died, he’d die too, though he figured he was as good as dead anyway. Like he was trapped in a kind of European village infiltrated by informants and Nazi sympathizers, where men could be bought for almost nothing and often were.

Given half a chance, he’d trade a hostage for a cup of java and a fresh ham sandwich, even if the stupid bastards were starting to grow on him just a little. To say he was getting fond of them would be stretching the point, but he did feel sorry for them. That’s all. Even feeling that much bothered him. Maybe that’s what happened when you looked after someone, unless you were a Gestapo guard. Or maybe he was just too goddamn tired to think straight.

For the first time in his life, Dace wondered what the guards thought when they applied to work in a federal penitentiary. Had they wanted to protect the public at large? Did it make them feel morally superior to somebody else? Did they think having that kind of job justified treating men like scum? Had they really expected to earn a paycheque and go home to their families at night as if nothing bad ever happened? That they’d never have to pay for their sins? Well, maybe. A part of Dace still expected to go home when they got locked down at night.
What am I doing here? Where and when am I going?

Enough of this. He rapped his steel bar on the iron railing. Several people looked up from the Dome and waved. He had to wake up, quit feeling sorry for the screws, with the possible exception of young Saksun. Careful
,
he cautioned himself again. It was much easier to think in black and white, like everybody else here did. Avoid the greys. Avoid the exceptions. Then again, as long as nobody found out what he was thinking, that was okay. As long as nobody learned he had supplied
guards
with his own cigarettes and blankets, and even asked young Steve to break into the canteen for extra chocolate bars, cigarettes, toothpaste and toothbrushes. How the hell would that look if anyone found out?

He was sick and tired of listening to Saksun blubber. If Rick still wanted to release him, a show of faith, Dace was game. The kid never shut the fuck up. Worse, after a while he started to look a bit like Dace’s little sister, except Rosie was a helluva lot smarter and braver.
Too brave
, Dace reminded himself. She was always using her infant charm to wheedle out of trouble or wriggle out of Father Danby’s hairy hands in that fucking school.
 

Said she couldn’t remember any of that stuff now. Good for her. Not that he wanted to go down that memory lane.

He rapped the railing again, but nobody looked up this time. Probably because some stupid fuck was screaming bloody murder as they hauled him across the floor of the Dome. Saksun was almost making as much noise. He couldn’t do much about the guy in the Dome, but …

He’d promised Rick on his mother’s grave that nothing would happen to the screws. But he swore, if Rick didn’t get his ass up here soon, he was going to put the boots to Saksun. So what if Saksun was the little bastard who’d let Sandy get the key, the guy who had set the whole goddamn bingo in motion? Let him go,
please
. Anything to stop the noise.

His head throbbed from the noise and lack of sleep. He rubbed it hard with his free hand and tried to reason with himself. Why hadn’t he left the hostages in the duct?
Because they were like a bunch of hens with a fox at the door.
And maybe because Rick was his friend and he owed him—a fact which was getting harder and harder to remember the longer the riot went on.

Saksun was still crying. “Here, take this,” Dace said, blatantly bribing him with the last Milky Way. The kid sniffled about seeing his new bride again as he licked the chocolate paper clean. Dace came real close to kicking him then. The rest of the hostages chimed in, claiming they were starving. Dace ignored them. They’d all had more than their fair share of food sent in from Outside.
 

Dace was also hungry, or would have been if he’d taken stock of his physical state instead of letting a little voice, still in touch with his old self, yap.
Give ‘em what they want. Let ‘em out, let ‘em out, let ‘em out. That’ll shut ‘em all up.
Dace smiled to himself, savouring the idea. One by one, right over the railing, plummeting to the cement floor four stories below. He wouldn’t have to worry about them then. If they didn’t croak on impact, some psycho would bop them off.

Tempted as he was, he headed back out and tested the mesh railing with his weight, although he was careful not to lean too far. At just under six feet, he was taller than most of the other cons. He figured they were all the stunted offspring of smokers who had suckled their children on bottled Coke if they fed them at all.
 

Jesus, what was taking Rick so long? He leaned over the rail again but couldn’t make out anybody with a red bandanna like Rick’s. Too much going on. The foyer entrance to the Joint was usually empty at this time of day, except for a janitorial prisoner dispiritedly dragging a stringy grey mop over the floor. The area was alive with rioters today, milling around like visitors at a country fair, most of them doped or punch drunk on the contraband substances they’d stashed or looted over the past few days.
 

At a distance of forty feet, equipped with nearly perfect vision, Dace could almost make out some of his fellow prisoners, although their faces blurred. He relied more on the way people walked to identify them. A group of guys were acting like stagehands, setting up chairs around the huge radiator which dominated the foyer. Maybe they were arguing about the placement of the chairs, a dozen or more, but he didn’t think so. He straightened up. Something about this didn’t look good.

Jesus, he didn’t have time for this, he thought, kicking the rail. He had two choices: stay and take care of the hostages or check out what was happening downstairs.
 

It was almost time to phone Rick again anyway. In addition to everything else, he had agreed to call him every half hour to report on the hostages. That’s how they were keeping the negotiating team informed. Too bad the closest black box was down a flight of stairs and around a corner. There were only a couple of wall phones in the penitentiary and the authorities had cut all but one of the lines. Fortunately they hadn’t gotten to them before quick thinking Rick had notified a local radio station about what was going on. The radio announcer was young and radical and on their side, so he had spread the news. He had also reassured everyone that the hostages were fine, buying them a chunk of time, or they’d be dust by now.

Shit. He had to get his act together. He was starting to fall asleep on his feet. Everything was happening in slow motion. He didn’t feel real. This was worse than the Hole, for God’s sake. The next time he looked over the rail, only five minutes had passed, but the crowd had shifted, opening up centre space in the Dome.
 

“Holy Mother.” He whistled through his teeth, noting the stage was set for something that looked eerily like Musical Chairs. He remembered that game from when they’d played it at School when it was somebody’s birthday. The winner had merited the dubious pleasure of a walk in the bush with Father Danby. But that was long ago. Here today stood a dozen stacking chairs, their metal legs hobbled together with multi-coloured scarves, awaiting occupation by lottery. Who were the winners? Could he be one? For protecting the most hated group in prison: the guards?
 

The most hated.
Well, not quite.
Diddlers were more despised than the guards. Child molesters, stool pigeons. Dace was hard pressed to think of a prisoner who wasn’t busting to bag one.

He remembered Liza writing about a short story called
The Lottery
and was momentarily ashamed about how happy he felt, imagining other victims in his place. But shame was a luxury at the best of times and one he could ill afford today, so he made eye contact with his sentries again.

One by one, each man’s eyes assured him
all’s well
. Well, almost each man. Alf, the stupid fuck, was snoring on the job. And Steve was just a kid. Seventeen. He’d had a rough time until Dace had taken him under his wing. One of the queens had wanted him, but Steve hadn’t wanted the queen. Well, such was life. Steve had jumped three grades in the prison classroom and won a Rookie of the Year award just before they’d canned the athletics program. If he hadn’t been raised in a string of foster homes, he would have made some mother proud. Dace caught his eye and winked.

Neither Steve, nor any of the other sentries could know what was happening below. They were too far from the action. Better not to say anything. They were too easily distracted as it was. He checked his Timex again. Christ, where had the time gone? He had to phone Rick.

Bam, bam, bam!
The hostages were thumping their feet. “One, two, three, four, we want the fuck outta here,” they chanted.

“Sure, guys.” Steve snickered. “Nice rhyme.”
 

He was oblivious to the extra set of hands which suddenly appeared behind his head.

“Look out!” Dace said.
 

Steve wasn’t listening. He shrugged, rolling his eyes at the hostages. “They’ll wear themselves out soon.” Then his eyes bugged out when two hands wrapped around his neck.

“It’s Bellissimo!” Alf shouted. “Little bastard snuck up the stairs.”
 

Steve’s homemade truncheon had rolled to the floor but somehow he kept his balance, perhaps because his assailant was twice his age and half his size. Dace, who had been diverted both by the vibrating door of the hostages’ room and the scene developing in the Dome below, sprang forward just in time.
 

“Let go, Bellissimo,” he whispered in the clinging little man’s ear. Bellissimo wasn’t strong, but he had the advantage of being crazy enough to stop at nothing that got in his way. Homemade toothbrush shanks were his speciality. He had already killed two men in the communal shower; a seam-sized shank had been slipped between their ribs at an enemy’s request and nobody had ever been the wiser.

“Whose side you guys on?” Belissimo yipped, his hold relaxing slightly, although Steve was still coughing, his face turning purple. “I’m just gonna get me one of those mother fuckin’ chicken-shit guards and have me a little fun.”
 

“The same kind of fun they have with you, right?” Dace guessed, and as Bellissimo let go of Steve, both men nodded imperceptibly. “Well, see if you can get this, you dirty skinner. I haven’t got all day to explain it to you. There’s no teenyboppers here for you to ream,” Dace said, staring into his opponent’s eyes. “You got that? So keep your hands off our fucking hostages, okay? If you don’t, we’ll all be furniture dust before we know it.”

Bellissimo ducked under Dace’s right arm. In a reflex motion, Dace’s arm shot out and the little assailant was suddenly flailing, his arms and legs reaching as he fell backwards down the stairs.