The Immorality Clause (21 page)

FOURTEEN: THURSDAY

I eyed the big guy up and down, unintimidated by his size. I’d studied Krav Maga, the Israeli self-defense program, for fifteen years. I started it as an elective in college my junior year and kept it up ever since. It saved my ass on the streets more than a few times and helped give me the self-confidence to know that I could handle myself in almost any situation.

The problem wasn’t the big guy, it was the thirty others standing around us in a circle anticipating a show. This had the potential to get out of hand quickly.

The NOPD didn’t separate the real convicts from the perps awaiting trial out on Sabatier Island; it was just easier for us and worked great as a deterrent for the normal street thug. The problem was that cops don’t usually fare well in the general population.

“It’ll take ‘em a bit to get down here,” the behemoth in front of me grinned and flashed a sharpened metal object down by his beltline. “By then, you’ll be whistling every time you fart, cop.”

Jeers and catcalls answered his threat to me.

“Are we really gonna do this here too?” I sighed.

“Shit on my dick or blood on my shiv. Which one’s it gonna be?”

“I guess so,” I stated, not acknowledging the man’s question. “Alright, let’s do this then.”

He came at me with his arms wide, intent on wrapping me up and then possibly stabbing me in the back. It was a stupid move by an untrained fighter. I ducked under his arm and punched him in the side of the cheek, directly between his jaw and temple. His head snapped to the side and he dropped like a stone, hitting the floor as alarm bells began to ring.

The ring of thugs scurried away like roaches when the lights come on and I stood over my opponent. His back rose and fell slightly. He was breathing, but unconscious. The trigeminal nerve runs along the front portion of the jaw, up the cheek and plunges below the temple into the brain. The punch hit that nerve and jarred the big guy’s brain, causing him to black out. He’d be fine in a few minutes, but he’d have a raging headache.

It wouldn’t teach him any lessons but maybe it’d make all of the prisoners in the pod think twice before trying to fuck with me next time. Or, they’d gang up on me and pummel the shit out of me.

I knelt beside the prone giant and placed my hands on the back of my head. Booted feet pounded down the stairs from the watch positions above and I waited for them to come.

“Come on, Forrest,” one of the guards shouted. “It’s been less than an hour. How’d you pick a fight with the pod leader already?”

“My charming personality; it’s irresistible,” I replied as I relaxed my shoulder muscles so my joints wouldn’t be wrenched out of socket when the guards put me back in handcuffs.

The metal bracelets encircled my wrists and two guards lifted me to my feet by my armpits. “Let’s go. You can’t stay in this pod.”

“There’s a knife in his hand,” I tilted my head toward the unconscious man.

“I’ll call it in to Central,” their sergeant said. “Let them know that we’re transferring him to Alpha Pod.”

“They ain’t gonna like that, Sarge. It’ll be his third one in less than twenty-four hours.”

“Well, we can’t leave him here. He’s gonna kill somebody. I sure as heck can’t take that kind of stress.”

“So long, fellas,” I called to the faces peering out of their rooms at the procession of guards. “Maybe you should buy me dinner before you try to fuck me next time. It might go better for you.”

“Shut up,” the sergeant ordered. “There’s a strict no cursing rule in Cellblock Three.”

“Well, fuck me. How the fuck do you run a prison without allowing a shit ton of cursing and jokes about dicks?”

“Keep it up, Forrest. I’ll put you back in there and we may have a power failure in the pod. No power, no lights. You know what gangs of prisoners like to do in the dark when nobody’s watching.”

They pulled me up the stairs to the landing that led out of Delta Pod and swiped me through into a secure corridor where more guards watched me through ballistic glass. They weren’t scared of me, but I could tell that the ones who met my eyes were impressed. In the two general population pods they’d put me into, I’d defended myself against the biggest guys without getting touched.

“What’s your deal, man?” the sergeant asked. “Why can’t you get along with anyone?”

I jerked my head toward the door behind me. “Come on, Sergeant. You saw what happened, I was sitting there, minding my own business when that big fucker came up and picked a fight with me. I don’t take kindly to anyone threatening to rape me.”

“Tell that to your victim.”

“I didn’t do it, you goddamned rent-a-cop.”

“Language,
please
.”

“Whatever. I was framed. As soon as my AI can verify my locations, they’ll release me.”

Three or four of the guards laughed. I got the feeling they’d heard that line a thousand times. “No, I mean it. I really am innocent.”

“Write your congressman,” the sergeant jeered. “Come on, let’s go to Alpha Pod. Maybe this time, I’ll leave you in handcuffs, give the rest of the inmates a fighting chance.”

I trudged down the corridor between four guards and the sergeant until we came to a four-way intersection. Each corridor led to a different general population living area known as a pod. Inmates spent every hour of their lives inside the pod, only leaving to go to chow or the exercise yard.

So far, I’d been in two of them.

We turned left, following the signs for Alpha Pod. I didn’t want to fight and I certainly hadn’t sought it out in the other two pods, but I wasn’t about to let someone try to intimidate or harm me, so I stood my ground.
I’ll do it again in Alpha Pod if someone threatens me
.

The procession reached the door to the pod and the sergeant’s radio crackled to life. “Sergeant Jackson, this is Captain Spiels. I don’t want to take any more chances with Detective Forrest. He’s going to pick a fight with the wrong person and end up dead. That’s a lot of paperwork that I don’t want to deal with; put him in solitary.”

“Uh… Sir, Cellblock Three doesn’t have a solitary confinement area.”

“Just put him somewhere, I can’t risk putting him in with the convicts.”

I laughed at the ineptitude of the guards. Of course they couldn’t put a pre-trial confinement prisoner in with the convicted offenders, especially a cop. The media would have a field day with that. “I wasn’t aware that the prison’s guard force was a bunch of—” I stopped myself; goading the guards further didn’t serve any purpose. Besides, I
might
need them if a fight went bad. “You know what? It’s not worth it. You heard the man, Sergeant. Find me a place to stay.”

We walked back to the four-way intersection and the sergeant led me straight across. “You two, empty the closet.”

I watched the two men in front pick up their pace until they came to a doorway centered between the pod door ahead and the intersection behind us. They began pulling brooms and mop buckets out of the janitor’s closet, then took out the various chemicals and cleaners. Finally, they manhandled a large set of wire shelving out of the closet.

I peeked inside. “Oh, this is charming.”

“Well, you should have behaved and not gotten into any fights, Forrest,” Sergeant Jackson retorted.

“I didn’t start either of those fights.”

“You sure as heck didn’t try to avoid them either,” he muttered and shoved me inside.

“Hey! Forgetting something?” I asked, lifting my handcuffed hands as far out as they’d go behind me.

“Oh, sorry,” the sergeant replied and keyed the cuffs.

One of the clasps opened and I rolled my shoulder, expecting him to take the other one off. “Turn around, Forrest.”

I complied and held out my shackled wrist for him to take them off. “Nope. Other hand.”

“Come on. Are you serious? What damage am I gonna do in a closet?”

“From what I’ve seen with the pod leaders, you’re gonna do whatever the heck you feel like. I ain’t gonna have that on my watch.” Jackson pointed toward my hand. “Other wrist.”

I sighed and held it out. “Can you at least use two pair; link them in the middle to give me a little bit of room to move?”

“No funny business?”

“I’m in a closet and I’m an innocent man. Do you think I want to screw up my chance of exoneration with an escape attempt? I just need a little extra room for my shoulders.”

“Fine, but first sign of anything out of the ordinary and you’re getting a full set of shackles.”

“Deal,” I agreed. “You don’t have anything to worry about with me.”

He put a second set of cuffs on my other wrist and linked them together in front of me, then backed out, closing me into the darkness of the closet. Only a little light seeped in underneath the heavy wooden door.

I sat down, leaning my back against the cool brick. “Well, this sure is a fucked up situation,” I told the sink before I closed my eyes.

I measured the days by bathroom breaks and meals. Forget showers, those didn’t happen. I was miserable in my closet and I even considered playing nice with the other inmates. Pride shot that idea down, so I stayed in the darkness, stinking up the small space.

Finally, sometime on the fourth day—or night, I wasn’t sure—the door opened and Sergeant Jackson stood silhouetted in the rectangle of light.

“Get up, Forrest,” Jackson said. “It’s time to wash your stinking rear end. Some bigwig wants to talk to you and they’ll be in Cellblock Three communications center at seventeen thirty.”

I did the calculation in my head; 5:30 p.m. “What, so
now
I’m given my basic human rights just because somebody wants to talk to me?” I scoffed.

“You chose to be the fighter in both of those pods, Forrest,” the sergeant replied. “Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, instructed us to turn the other cheek.”

“Yeah, and how’d that work out for him?”

“He died on that cross so that our sins may be forgiven. Even yours.”

I yawned. “I’m glad you have something to believe in, Sergeant, but I don’t have time for any of that. Like you said, I need a shower and a fresh set of clothes, these ones smell like your breath; that ain’t any way to meet somebody important.”

“Your mouth is the reason you’re in this situation and you can’t even ease up on your insults for just a smidge of time.”

“Let’s agree to disagree. You think I caused those fights by not allowing them to beat me up and I think your violations of basic inmate rights should be investigated. Seems even to me.”

I could see that the idea of an investigation into the treatment of prisoners hadn’t crossed his mind until then. It suddenly became very real for him, so I pressed my advantage. “Yes, sir. The things you’ve done to me alone are enough to get you into one of these pretty, bright yellow outfits.” Then, I let the hammer drop. “Those boys would
love
to have you on the other side with them. I saw it in their eyes when you came around. You’ve got such a firm ass in that uniform, they’d enjoy every moment they had with you. That’s only half of them; the others simply hate you, Sergeant. They’d beat you to death with…” Inspiration from my case hit me. “They’d beat you to death with a table leg and then use your blood for ink in their little tattooing operation.”

“Why… Why would you say such things?”

“You don’t spend a lot of time actually talking to the guys who live in the pods, do you?

“No… Other than going in for routine inspections and transfers, I don’t.”

“Figures. They’re not nice people and you don’t make them any nicer.”

“Uh, uh—” He stammered for a moment and then said, “Come on, it’s time to go.”

We went through a few doors and two security stations before coming to a small observation room where a woman sat in front of the large window. “Oh, hey, it’s the detective,” she leered. “You put on a good show when you came in, let’s have a replay.”

“Are you serious?” I replied. “I’m not some goddamned convict. This entire operation needs to be investigated.”

She shrugged and pushed a button on the wall, turning on the sprayers. “I don’t care if you were the president himself. If you come through those doors into my showers, you will strip naked for cleaning before going to speak to your lawyer, girlfriend or whoever else may be here to see you.”