The Killing Floor Blues (11 page)

I try not to bluff with an unloaded gun, but you work with what you have. Kim and I stared at each other, neither of us blinking, neither standing down.

He swallowed. The slightest hint of a nervous gulp.

“I don’t ask for reasons,” he said. “Not my business.”

“So you’ll murder anyone, as long as the money’s green?”

Kim snorted. “How many men have you killed in the name of Nicky Agnelli’s bank account? Don’t act like you’re better than me.”

“You don’t know the whole story.”

“Don’t presume you know mine.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “So Fleiss didn’t say why she had it in for me?”

“No. But she wanted the job done as soon as possible. I normally take at least two weeks to prepare for a hit. Studying the target, securing the killing ground, preparing evac routes…no. She wanted you done
immediately
. And the more it hurt, the better.” He frowned, as if jolted by a strange memory.

“She said something you didn’t like. Something that threw you off-balance. What was it? C’mon, you can tell me. We’re both pros here.”

He shook his head. “That was odd, now that you mention it. I’ve had special requests like that, where the client wants me to take my time, really make the target suffer. But two things always go along with that. First, they always whine about the target and all the reasons they deserve to die slow. Even when I say I don’t care, they’ve got to go on, and on, and on.
Justifying
themselves. She didn’t.”

“So she didn’t act like she had a hate-on for me, but she still wanted me to suffer. What’s the other thing?”

“They always want me to deliver some stupid
speech
. The target always has to know who sent me, and why they’re about to die, and—” He shook his head. “It’s ridiculous. And embarrassing.”

“People have no respect for professionalism,” I said.

“
Exactly
.” He waggled the tip of the knife at me, wincing as his fractured arm shifted an inch. “
You
get it. I’m trying to provide an efficient, skilled service, but no, they want me to stand there and
talk
the target to death, like I’m some kind of Saturday morning cartoon villain. Anyway, that was the other weird thing with Fleiss. No message.”

“She didn’t want me to know she sent you?”

“She didn’t
care
. I even asked her, since she’d requested a slow death, and she just looked at me like she didn’t understand the question. It was as if…you were important, but you weren’t important. Like ordering your death was something on a to-do list, right between laundry and shopping.”

“So she arranged for you to infiltrate the prison?”

He rolled his eyes. “Please. My partner and I did that ourselves. You aren’t the first target we’ve killed in that shower. It’s always been gang-related before, though. Oh. That was the other weird thing. We actually had a better plan, but she said no.”

“Yeah? What was it?”

“Fake some transfer paperwork and make them move you,” Kim said. “Plan was to ambush the bus on the road back to Aberdeen. We’d perch on the roadside with a concealed machine gun, wait for the bus to roll by, and open fire on full auto. Maybe lay a spike strip along the road. With the wheels blown, you’d be a sitting duck in there. Quick, easy, and no need for us to risk infiltrating the prison.”

I tried not to shudder, thinking about how I woke up on the bus to Eisenberg Correctional. Crammed in like sardines, wrists chained to waist-belts and prisoner chained to prisoner. A front-row seat for the meat grinder.

“Workable plan,” I said, keeping my tone even. “She didn’t like it?”

“She said it had to be done
here
.” Kim shifted his shoulder, leaning on the stall divider. “You had to die on the prison grounds, no matter what. That was crucial.”

Mister Kim might have known more about murder than me, but I was pretty sure I knew more about magic than him—and this had all the hallmarks of a spell. Bloodshed was a common part of ritual; so was pain, harnessed to raise ecstatic levels of power. And it had to be done here. My blood had to soak the floors of Eisenberg Correctional, nowhere else.

Kim hadn’t been hired to assassinate me. He’d been hired to
sacrifice
me.

No chance this wasn’t connected to Buddy somehow. He and his sister insisted I’d swapped places with “the Thief,” whoever that was.
The very fact that you’re here
, Cassandra had said,
standing in the Thief’s shoes, means the Enemy has already won. He’s changing the rules
.

The Enemy. The man with the Cheshire smile. I still didn’t know who he was—or
what
he was—but I knew how I’d landed on his radar. Fleiss must be the connection. I’d pulled that heist in Chicago for her “boss,” who turned out to be nothing but a puppet, a prisoner in his own mansion. If Fleiss was really working for the Enemy, that’d make me one hell of a convenient pawn.

By the rules of whatever game these people are playing
,
the Thief has to die in this prison
, I thought
. But the smiling man doesn’t want the Thief dead. So they pulled a substitution play. I take the hit, and the real Thief goes on his merry way
.

I bit back a surge of anger. It’d be one thing if this were personal. If I’d done something to cross the smiling man, if this were payback, at least I could understand it. But it wasn’t even
about
me. I was just the unlucky bastard whose entire life got uprooted and rewritten, condemned to die behind bars so some other guy didn’t have to. I was nothing but a living get-out-of-jail-free card.

It was an understatement to say this entire situation was out of my league. The kind of magic that changed
reality
was in play here. Mythical stuff, a ritual on a scope I couldn’t begin to wrap my brain around. I was just a street sorcerer with a few nasty tricks.

Cassandra was right. I wasn’t “the chosen one.” I was only a man. A man who still had his wits, two good fists, and a burning desire to demonstrate what happened when people tried to play me. I’d start with handing the Enemy a double defeat: I wasn’t going to die in here, and when I made my exit, Buddy was coming with me.

Then, once I was breathing free air again, Fleiss and I were going to have a nice long chat.

“So,” Kim said softly as he slumped back, his face beaded with sweat, “what now?”

I had to think about that.

“You came in undercover, as a prisoner,” I told him. “What’s your exfiltration strategy? I imagine you’re not going to serve out a full sentence.”

He half smiled. “That’s exactly the plan. My forged jacket was backdated, saying I’ve been in here for three years. My ‘sentence’ is almost up. First thing tomorrow, I walk out of here a free man. Easiest escape ever. That is…assuming.”

“Assuming,” I echoed. I looked down at his knife. I ran the pad of my thumb over the hilt of my own. “Assuming we can work this situation out. Don’t suppose you could just tell her you killed me?”

Kim wrinkled his nose like he smelled something foul. “I never lie to a client. Besides, I take a job, I do the job.”

I almost laughed. I’d said pretty much those exact same words to Caitlin when I agreed to pull the heist for Fleiss. I guess I had more in common with Kim than I thought.

“But you can’t do
this
job,” I said, “not without a very good chance of leaving in a body bag. You don’t want this fight any more than I do. So…could you tell her you tried but never got the chance to seal the deal?”

He thought it over. “I’d…have to return her advance. And it would be bad for my reputation. I’m not known for failure.”

“I’d call that the least-worst choice out of a handful of bad options.”

“Maybe so.” He sighed. “Maybe so. But don’t imagine we have a truce. Once my arm heals, if she sends me after you again—”

“I’ll expect you to try harder,” I said. That put a tired smile on his face. “And I don’t think that’ll be a problem. Fleiss needs me to die behind bars. By the time you’re ready for a rematch, I won’t
be
behind bars.”

“We’ll see,” he told me. “So how do you want to do this?”

I left first. Backing away, slowly, slipping out of reach before a wounded viper could bite. I didn’t turn my back until my shoulders bumped the bathroom door. I hid my knife in my waistband, then stepped outside.

Brisco, still leaning against the wall, gave me a questioning look.

“He’s gonna come out in a few minutes,” I said. “Let him go. Situation’s defused. He won’t be a problem for anybody.”

He blinked, from me to the door and back again.

“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.

“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.

“Knife’s taken care of,” Westie said. “Give it to me tomorrow morning. By the time we’re ready to move, it’ll be stashed safe halfway to the visitation center.”

I nodded. “Good. I’m getting in touch with my people today, making sure we have ‘visitors’ lined up for each of us.”

“Not sure about the route.” Paul took a drag from the cigarette, clutching it in trembling fingers. He nearly dropped it passing it over to Jake. “I spent the morning in the library, pulling together whatever I could, but any maps I could scrounge up were either too vague to be helpful or ten years outdated.”

“Don’t worry,” I told him. “We’ll just have to play that part by ear. As long as we can make it to a good-sized town, ditch the buggies, and steal fresh rides and some civilian clothes, we’ll be fine.”

Jake put the cigarette to his lips, glancing over his shoulder as he exhaled a plume of gray smoke.

“Think I’ve got a diversion planned out. On my shift this afternoon, I’ll move all the pieces into place.” He handed Westie the cigarette. “Holy shit, we’re really doing this, aren’t we?”

Westie grinned. “First men to ever escape the Iceberg. Hell, I bet they’ll make a movie about us. George Clooney might play me.”

“You don’t look anything like George Clooney,” Jake said.

“Said
might
, not
would
. Don’t piss on a man’s dreams.”

“
Shit
,” Paul hissed. “We gotta split up. Don’t look, but Jablonski’s up on the guard tower behind us. He’s watching.”

Jake arched an eyebrow. “So? Fuck Jablonski. Let him watch.”

“
You’re
not the one who got him angry,” Paul said. “We don’t need attention, not from him, not right now. I’ll see you guys later.”

“Paul, c’mon—” Westie said, but Paul waved him off and stomped toward the picnic benches.

“He’s tense,” I said. “He’s got reason to be. You heard they grabbed Simms last night?”

“Another poor bastard gone to Hive B,” Westie said. “Everyone’s heard. What of it?”

“We heard them talking. Our cell’s next on their hit list. Only reason they didn’t grab one of
us
last night is because one of the guards had a grudge against Simms.”

Jake let out a long, low whistle. Westie offered me the cigarette. I was tempted, but I shook my head.

“Did they let on what they’re taking people for?” Jake asked.

“Nope, but it’s nothing good. All that matters right now is making sure we’re long gone before their next shopping trip.”

“Hold up.” Jake’s eyes narrowed. His head was on a swivel, glancing left and right. We slowed to a near stop.

“Aw, Christ,” Westie muttered. “Apaches on the warpath.”

I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“You ain’t been here long enough to read the signs. All right, casual-like, take a peek over toward the weight benches.”

Body language was the same book, inside prison and out. Raymundo and his crew were taut as steel coils compressed to the breaking point. That much I could see.

“Watch the blockers,” Westie told me.

I figured he meant the men only pretending to work out, the ones who just happened to be standing in the line of sight from the guard towers, inching sideways to cover the convicts behind them.

The ones crouched in the scrub, digging with their hands.

Over at Brisco’s table, his boys jumped up like ants boiling out of a kicked-over hive. Some ran for other patches of scrub; others walked fast, hands casually down by their waists but flashing finger signals like they were sending out an emergency telegraph in rapid-fire sign language. Silent panic washed over the yard, a dry tsunami of looming dread.

One of Raymundo’s diggers came up from a crouch. The sunlight glinted off the steel spike in his hand.

The world froze, for just a heartbeat, under the Nevada sun. A single moment crystallized in time.

Then the crystal shattered.

A convict fell with a grunt, blitzed from the side, a shiv buried in his guts. Another went down under a pile of bodies, kicking and punching. The violence swirled around us, a siege in miniature as the Calles launched their attack, war-cries splitting the air. Jake, Westie, and I went shoulder-to-shoulder, forming a loose triangle.

“Where’s Paul?” Jake shouted.

“By the picnic tables,” I said. Then a wave of panic hit me. “Where’s
Buddy?
”

Talking to his chess pieces. Oblivious to the world as a Calles with a shiv ran up on him from behind.

The air turned to molasses. I charged, too slow, trying to close the gap. “Hey, asshole,” I shouted. “
I’m
the one you want!”

I lunged, throwing a wild punch, and he turned just in time for me to feel the cartilage of his nose splatter under my knuckles. He staggered back, but he wasn’t alone; hands looped under my arms, grappling me and pinning me in place. They hauled me around, and the next thing I saw was Raymundo’s fist slamming into my stomach like a pile driver, blasting the air from my lungs.

Raymundo held up his weapon—a razor blade wedged onto the end of an old toothbrush—so I could get a good look.

“Gonna bleed you like a pig,
cabron
,” he snarled. He was too focused on me to see Jake coming in hot. The biker’s fist cracked across the back of Raymundo’s skull just as Westie tackled my grappler, all three of us crashing into a struggling pile in the dirt.

The tower alarms shrieked across the yard, reverberating with the blood roaring in my ears. I didn’t know how long they’d been blaring, nothing but background noise for the brawl. Then a rifle shot boomed like a peal of graveyard thunder, and the brawl was over.

All across the yard, prisoners dropped to their knees and laced their fingers behind their heads. I pulled myself out of the tangle, rolled onto my belly in the dirt, and knelt up, struggling to catch my breath.

The hive doors burst open and uniforms filled the yard. All was silent but the groans of the injured, loaded up on stretchers and carted out one by one.

“This ain’t over,” Raymundo hissed, kneeling a few feet away.

“When Jennifer gets back,” I said, “you are gonna owe me one hell of an apology.”

“She ain’t comin’ back,” he sneered.

I locked eyes with him. He gave me a bloody-toothed grin.

“What 
exactly
do you mean by that?”

“Just sayin’. Word from the outside is JJ ain’t in a position to call any shots, not anymore. Change in management. Pretty soon she ain’t gonna be in a position to do
anything
.”

I took a deep breath and struggled to keep my fingers laced behind my head. They wanted to be wrapped around his throat. They wanted it more than anything.

“Raymundo, I’m going to ask you a question. And I want you to consider it the most important question you’ve been asked in your entire life.
Where is Jennifer?
”

Two guards seized him from behind, hauling him to his feet and shackling him, while another scooped up his razor-blade toothbrush from the dirt.

“Take this one to solitary,” the guard with the blade said. “Gang unit’s gonna want a word with him.”

“
Raymundo
,” I shouted, “
where is she?
”

He just laughed as they dragged him away.

“Easy,” Jake told me, “calm down, man. Don’t give ’em an excuse to get trigger happy.”

Westie hadn’t said a word. His head was turned, gazing across the yard. His shoulders sagged.

“Aw, no,” he whispered. “Damn it all. Damn it all to hell.”

I followed his gaze.

We’d heard the rifle go off, the thunder that ended the fight. The last word of the argument. I just hadn’t seen where the bullet landed.

Paul lay sprawled in the scrub, his beige uniform soaked with blood where his heart used to be. His eyes wide and glassy, staring up at the cloudless sky. A perfect kill shot.

Up on the tower catwalk, I saw Jablonski. Clutching his rifle and grinning like a big-game hunter who’d just bagged a rhino. Another guard strolled by and gave him a pat on the back.