Up on the tier, Lock lay on his bunk, his hands clasped behind his head, and listened to the commotion with a quiet feeling of satisfaction.
Reaper’s head appeared above his. ‘Think you’re real cute, don’t you?’
Lock stared right through him. ‘No idea what you’re talking about.’
Reaper’s legs swung over the edge of the bunk, the soles of his feet directly above Lock’s chest. He pushed off with his arms and landed on the floor of the cell.
‘Where’d you hide ’em?’
‘Where’d I hide what?’
‘Those pieces from the fence you must have snuck when we were painting it.’
‘That what all this is about?’ said Lock, getting to his feet.
Reaper stepped towards him so that inches separated them. Lock stood his ground.
‘The deal was I got back to the mainline or I didn’t testify.’
Lock spread out his arms. ‘You’re on the mainline.’
‘I spent five years in the SHU, cooped up in a cell. No yard time. No phone calls. Nothing to do but go crazy. I ain’t doin’ it any more. So, I want you to tell me where those pieces are.’
Lock’s eyes slid to Reaper’s hands. He tensed, waiting for him to make a move. There were often pinch points with a principal, usually revolving around trivial issues such as them asking the bodyguard to carry their luggage, or to get them coffee at three in the morning. This was slightly different.
‘You think this’ll get you out of stabbing your buddy?’
Still Lock didn’t react.
Reaper blinked first, stepping back and beginning to search the cell. ‘They find them in our house and it’s bad news for you and me both.’
Lock knew Reaper was lying. The warden could have found half a kilo of coke, a keg of Bud and a Playboy Playmate in the cell and Reaper would still be heading for sunny San Francisco in less than two days’ time.
From outside the cell came the slamming of heavy reinforced steel doors and the barked orders of cops as they moved methodically through the unit. Lock was counting on them hitting this cell soon, and finding the three pieces of metal fence he’d secreted well enough to make it look like he’d made an effort to hide them, but not so well that they wouldn’t find them.
The pieces were his ticket to the warden’s office, where he was going to suggest that it was time to move Reaper out, as well as him and Ty.
‘Well, what do we have here?’
Lock stayed where he was as Reaper sucked the blood from a couple of tiny cuts on the end of his fingertips where the metal taped under the bunk had caught his hand. Then Reaper ducked his head under, and less than thirty seconds later came up with the three hasps of metal.
Shouldering past Lock, he crouched down by the cell door. There was a gap at the bottom. Less than half an inch. He waited until all the guards were inside cells and batted the metal under the door. The pieces scooted across the walkway and fell down on to the floor of the unit. If they made a sound when they landed, Lock didn’t hear it over the cacophony of orders and protests.
There was a shout, and below Lock’s cell the guards gathered round the three small pieces of chain-link. The guard who’d spotted them first glanced up, his index finger pointing at three cells on the second floor from where the metal might have been ejected. Then he shouted up to the cons gathered at those doors: ‘Smart move, assholes.’
Reaper stepped back to his bunk, his fingertips still red. He dug out a sharpened toothbrush he’d shown Lock before and handed it to Lock. ‘Take it, because believe me, you’re gonna need it.’
‘I need to speak to the warden,’ Lock said to the young floor cop who was the first to reach his cell, knowing that such a request, made in the open, where other inmates could hear, was a high-risk maneuver
‘What’s the matter? Coffee too cold? Your pillows too hard? Sheets not got a high enough thread count?’ The cop was clearly still pissed at the missing metal, which had disrupted the day’s routine. Like any other large institution, Pelican Bay was, by necessity, all about routine.
‘Just tell him, OK?’
Reaper clapped a meaty paw on to Lock’s shoulder. ‘Yard time, soldier boy. No avoiding it.’
Lock knew that all he could do now was tough it out.
When he found himself standing at the door that opened on to the yard, Lock felt as though he was standing in one of the tunnels leading into the Coliseum, a gladiator waiting to emerge blinking into the sunlight, knowing that there were only two possible outcomes: victory or death.
Out on the yard, the white inmates immediately took one set of benches in the corner furthest from the block. Lock scanned the other groups: to his left, the group of Nortenos eyed the white inmates; on the other bench were the black inmates, Ty at the centre.
‘They know something’s up,’ Lock said, stalling for time.
The eyes of every white inmate swiveled towards him.
A metal shank appeared suddenly in Phileas’s hand. Sharper than the jagged-edged toothbrush, a razor-sharp tip with barbs running all the way up it, so that it would do even more damage coming out than going in. ‘No time like the present,’ Phileas said, the inmates standing around Lock fading away like snow in the Sahara.
Only Reaper remained standing next to him. ‘What the hell you fools doin’? He walks across the yard alone, the toads’ll know something’s up for sure.’
The mist of bodies moved back in.
‘We all stay real close,’ Reaper continued. ‘Do it on the way back in.’
‘No,’ said Lock. ‘If I’m gonna do it, let me do it now.’
Ty watched as Lock broke away from the group of white inmates and headed straight for the dozen black inmates sweating it out across the yard.
‘They’re getting ready to make a move,’ Marvin muttered in his ear.
Ty could sense it too. It was like a change in air pressure. It had built all the way up to the lockdown when the metal pieces on the fence had gone missing. Their disappearance had to be down to Lock. His way of trying to contain Reaper, or make sure that no one got to him.
‘You ready?’ Marvin asked.
‘I’m good,’ Ty said, aware that his lips were barely moving.
By now, Lock was less than fifteen feet away, and he had been joined by a phalanx of white inmates. Phileas was on his left, Reaper on his right.
Ty rose. He and Marvin started towards the white inmates.
The yard fell silent. Ty could feel everyone’s eyes on him as he kept walking. The Nortenos were already moving from their bench in anticipation of what might happen, hands by their sides, relaxed, not looking to engage but readying themselves should they have to.
They were within ten feet now. A few more steps and Ty would be close enough to the white inmates to prompt a rush from them.
Ty’s eyes fixed on his target. Using a technique Lock had taught him, he began shading Phileas’s body grey, leaving only the main target areas of head and groin red. You focused on the red areas; the rest took care of themselves.
Two of the guards on the yard had stopped what they were doing and were looking up. One had his radio keyed, keeping it open.
To his right, Ty saw one of the black inmates break ranks, pushing off hard and running full pelt towards the white inmates. The next second he sensed the blur of movement that was Marvin making his move — the physical equivalent of the side of a mountain slipping into the sea. Then it was on, and they were toe to toe on the yard.
19
Ty threw the open palm of his left hand into Phileas’s face, following up by slamming the elbow of his right arm at his nose. Phileas’s torso shifted back, but his feet stayed planted. A fist flew into Ty’s chest, landing hard close to his solar plexus. The air punched out hard from his chest, but he kept fighting, throwing a knee up into Phileas’s groin. Then another. And another. Phileas groaned. His head came down, earning him another knee, this one finding his face.