‘Go right ahead. You might learn something.’
Lock flicked past Reaper’s well-thumbed copy of Mein Kampf and settled instead on an equally dog-eared edition of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. He held it up. ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?’
Reaper looked up. ‘It wasn’t Sun Tzu who said that.’
‘Who was it then?’
Reaper laid aside his food tray and hopped down from his perch. ‘Michael Corleone in The Godfather.’ He plucked the book from Lock’s hands and held it up. ‘No, what Sun Tzu said was this: “Engage people with what they expect. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”’
Reaper seemed to be reciting the passage from memory.
‘And what does that mean?’ Lock asked him.
Reaper hopped back up on to the top bunk with a grace that belied his age. ‘You’ll know it when you see it.’
‘An extraordinary moment?’
Reaper chuckled to himself. ‘Oh, it’ll be extraordinary all right.’
Lock felt a ripple of concern. Since he’d stepped into the cell, Reaper hadn’t come across as a man worried for his life. He also seemed to be finding great amusement in a secret only he was privy to. The more Lock thought about it, the more suspect Reaper’s testimony seemed to be. There was a game being played, but he wasn’t sure it was the game Jalicia and Coburn thought it was.
Lock was torn from his thoughts by the sound of cell doors being opened on the ground floor of the unit.
‘OK, gentlemen,’ shouted Lieutenant Williams, standing with his hands on his hips, in the centre of the floor. ‘Showers. Two cells at a time. And just so you know, if there’s any more trouble in this unit, you’ll be back on lockdown.’
Inside their cell, Reaper wagged a finger at Lock, and smirked. ‘You hear that, soldier boy?’
Half an hour later their cell door opened and, stripped to the waist, Lock and Reaper stepped out on to the tier along with two Hispanic inmates from the cell next door. Lock signaled for Reaper to hang back but Reaper pushed past the two smaller Hispanics and made his way towards the showers, which were at the far end of the unit. Lock took his time, keeping an eye on the two Hispanics as they followed Reaper into the showers.
Reaper soaped up and set about washing himself. Lock and the other two inmates did the same.
Reaper closed his eyes and let the hot water cascade across his face. ‘Lock, will you stop looking at my ass.’
The two Hispanics sniggered and traded a look, then glanced over at Lock.
Lock stared at them. ‘What are you looking at?’
His challenge seemed to do the trick, as they quickly looked away.
Lock washed up as best he could with the gritty prison-issue soap, keeping an eye on the door leading into the showers. He thought about what Lieutenant Williams had just said about no one being allowed out of their cells if there was any more trouble.
They dried off, dressed and headed back up to their cell. Twenty minutes later, once everyone in the unit had been given the opportunity to get cleaned up, the unit’s cells were opened one at a time and the general housing inmates filtered out to work within the prison or to attend class. Lock and Reaper were left to last, which was fine by Lock.
Together, they stepped out on to an empty tier and walked down the stairs. Waiting for them at the bottom was Lieutenant Williams, who motioned them to follow him out on to the yard.
‘You see that?’ Williams said, pointing to the chain-link fence that encircled the yard area.
Lock noticed that every piece of metal on the fence, every attaching link, was slashed with a dash of purple paint. The colour was starting to fade though, ravaged no doubt by the sea air and wind.
Lieutenant Williams nodded towards a tin of paint and two brushes sitting next to the fence. ‘I want you to paint over every slash of purple that’s already there,’ he said.
Reaper shrugged. ‘Want us to count the bricks in the unit when we’re done?’
‘Watch your mouth, Hays,’ Williams said, marching back towards the unit.
Lock stared at the fence for a moment.
‘They mark all the pieces that someone might break off and use as a shank,’ Reaper explained. ‘If there’s no paint where there should be, it’s easier to see.’
Of course, thought Lock, a piece of metal from the fence provided the basic material for a very deadly weapon. It took a lot less energy to drive metal into someone’s body than plastic.
By the time lunch was called, dark patches of sweat had formed under Lock’s prison blues, and the inmates from the unit were starting to filter back from their work details and classes. First back were some of the white inmates. Phileas led this group, with Eichmann next to his boss. Behind them came a group of black inmates, Ty among them. Ty split from them, and nodded for Lock to join him. Lock rested his paintbrush on the edge of the can of purple paint and got up.
Reaper shot him a look that was loaded with anger. ‘Where the hell are you going, Lock?’ he hissed.
Lock noticed that Reaper wasn’t the only one looking at him as he joined Ty. The other white inmates were openly staring as Lock caught up with Ty next to the wall.
‘What’s up?’ Lock asked Ty.
‘The Aryan Brotherhood have given the contract to the Mexican Mafia, and they’ve kicked it down to the Nortenos,’ Ty whispered.
‘Thanks. You hear anything else, you let me know.’
15
‘The Nortenos have taken over the contract on you,’ Lock said, digging his fork into a piece of mystery meat on his lunch tray.
Reaper shrugged. ‘Figures. But we’ve got bigger problems than that.’ He slammed down his tray. ‘What were you doing back there talking to that toad on the yard? I damn told you the rules, soldier boy.’
Lock eyed Reaper coolly. ‘Those are your rules, not mine.’
‘Wrong, they’re the yard’s rules,’ Reaper said. ‘To us, someone who associates with the blacks is worse than a snitch, worse than a child molester. Now, I warned you, but you had to do it your way, and now you’re going to have to deal with the fall-out.’
‘Your concern’s touching, but I can handle myself.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Reaper.
An hour later, he and Reaper were out on the basketball court. Lock looked around at his companions. With their low brows, dumb-muscle bulk and yellowing, crank-rotten dentistry, Lock wasn’t sure this was what people meant by the term ‘master race’.
Behind them, the black inmates, Ty among them, had taken the benches in an orderly handover. Distance was maintained between the two groups as they did so. It occurred to Lock that every group on the yard operated as its own personal escort section. If these guys hadn’t been such lousy criminals, they might have made halfway decent close-protection operatives.
The whites had divided into two teams, Lock finding himself on the same team as Reaper but up against Phileas. Not ideal. It would have been easier to keep an eye on Reaper if he’d been up against him. The court, mid-game, would be a good place for a hit too. Lots of movement buying vital seconds before any guards on the yard or, more crucially, in the gun tower noticed anything was happening.
At first all went well, the mid-afternoon heat ensuring that a brisk pace, with lots of baskets and fouls that bordered on common assault, quickly slowed the game to a walking pace. Lock went up against Phileas, dribbling the ball round him and catching an elbow in his abdomen for his trouble. As Lock doubled over, Phileas stole the ball and headed for the basket. Reaper stuck out a foot to trip him but Phileas feinted left and scored a deft two-pointer which sparked whoops of delight from his team-mates.
After fifteen minutes of barely contained mayhem, Phileas, the gnarled leader of the Nazi Low Riders, called a time-out and both teams gathered under the basket to catch their breath. Reaper scraped a hand across his stubble, then grabbed the ball and was off, moving down court at a steady clip. Lock jogged after him, as did Phileas, the proper game seemingly over.