Oh damn.
And while all these theories are swirling in my head, the big tornado keeps ripping through, throwing everything else out of the way: Is my son still alive?
The back of my head pressed down on the pillow, I try to pull my arms and legs free, but they are shackled. I feel helpless. Time passes. I don’t know how much. I am plotting, and I’m coming up with nothing.
The wall phone rings. Carlos stands, walks toward it, picks it up. He turns so his back is to me and speaks low. I can’t make out what he’s saying. After a few seconds, he hangs the receiver back on the wall. Lester and Hal both turn to Carlos. Carlos nods.
“It’s time,” Carlos says.
Hal takes out a small key. He unlocks my ankles first, then my wrists. Carlos and Lester stand over me as though they expect me to break for it. I obviously don’t. I massage my wrists.
“Get up,” Hitch Hal snaps.
I feel woozy. I sit up slowly — too slowly for Hitch. He reaches down and grabs me by the hair and pulls me up. Blood rushes south. My head reels in protest.
“I said,” Hitch spits out between clenched teeth, “get up.”
Hitch rips the blankets off me. I hear Sumner start laughing again. Then Hitch picks up my feet and throws them to the side. I swing with them so that they land on the floor. I manage to get myself to a standing position. My legs are rubber. I take a step and stumble like a marionette before I’m able to get my footing.
Ross Sumner is enjoying this. He sings, “Nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey hey hey...”
My skull aches. “Where are we going?” I ask.
Carlos puts a hand on my back and gives me a gentle shove. I almost trip and fall.
“Let’s go,” Carlos says.
Hitch and Lester stand on either side of me. They take hold of my arms, making sure they grip that pressure point beneath both elbows hard. They half escort, half drag me out of the infirmary.
“Where are you taking me?”
But the only reply is Ross Sumner finishing up his repeat of the opening stanza and waving, “...Goodbye!”
I try to clear my head, but the cobwebs cling stubbornly to the corners. Carlos leads the way. Lester is on my right arm, Hitch on my left. Hitch’s stare is palpable, a beating thing of hate. My pulse picks up. What now? Where the hell are we going? And a reminder:
A guard tried to kill me last night.
That’s the headline here, right? Curly had taken me into an abandoned corridor in the hospital and tried to stick me with a shiv. The wound on my forearm from that blade is wrapped now in thick gauze, but I can feel it pulsating.
The four of us trudge down a corridor and through a tunnel lined with light bulbs protected by metal cages. The walk is doing me some good. My head clears. Not completely. But enough. At the end of the tunnel, we head up a flight of stairs. I see daylight through a window. Okay, so the clock was at eight a.m., not p.m. Made sense. A sign lets me know we are now in the ADMINISTRATIVE WING. It is quiet, but office hours don’t start, I know, until nine a.m.
So what are we doing here now?
I debate trying to make a move of some kind, just to make sure someone would know where I am. But what good would that do? Like I said, it’s just after eight in the morning. No one is even here yet.
Carlos stops in front of a closed door. He knocks and a muffled voice tells him to come in. Carlos turns the knob. The door opens. I peer inside.
Curly is standing there.
My stomach drops. I try to backpedal, but Hal and Lester have both my arms. They shove me forward.
Curly sneers at me. “You son of a bitch.”
Our eyes lock. He is trying yet again to look so tough, but I can see that once again, Curly is scared and close to tears. I am about to protest, to ask him why he tried to kill me, but again, what’s the point? What’s the play here?
Then I hear a familiar voice say, “Okay, Ted, that’s enough.”
Relief floods my veins.
I lean into the room and turn to the right. It’s Uncle Philip.
I’m safe. I think.
I try to catch the old man’s eye, but he does not so much as glance in my direction. He is dressed in a blue suit and red tie. He stands by the window for another second before crossing the room and shaking Curly Ted’s hand.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Ted.”
“Of course, Warden.”
Philip Mackenzie’s gaze sweeps past me and finds the three guards who escorted me here. “I’ll handle the prisoner now,” he says. “You all go back to your regular duties.”
Carlos says, “Yes, Warden.”
I hadn’t really thought about this before, but I am still clad only in my flimsy hospital smock, which opens in the back. I wear socks that I assume are hospital issue. I don’t have my canvas shoes anymore. I feel suddenly exposed and near naked, but to them, all of them, I must also appear like no threat.
Curly heads toward either me or the door, it is hard to know which. He slows as he gets closer to me and tries again to give me his toughest gaze, but there is nothing behind it. It’s for show.
The man is terrified.
As Curly reaches the door, Philip Mackenzie says, “Ted?”
He turns back toward the warden.
“The prisoner will be with me for the rest of the day. Who is working your block?”
“I am,” Ted said. “I’m on until three.”
“You’ve been up all night.”
“I feel fine.”
“Are you sure? You can take this shift off. No one would blame you.”
“I’d rather work, Warden, if that’s okay.”
“Very well then. I doubt we’ll be done with him before your shift is through. Just as well. Tell your replacement.”
“Yes, Warden.”
Curly steps out of the room. Hitch Hal greets him with a buddy-clap on the back. Philip has still not so much as glanced my way. Curly and Hal start down the corridor. Lester follows. Carlos leans his head in and says, “You need me, Warden?”
“Not right now, Carlos. I’ll contact you if I need a statement.”
Carlos looked over at me, then back to Philip. “Okay then.”
“Carlos?”
“Yes?”
“Please close the door on your way out.”
“You sure, Warden?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
Carlos nods and closes the door. Philip and I are alone. Before I can say anything, Philip signals me to take a seat. I do so. He stays standing.
“Ted Weston says you tried to kill him last night.”
Label me surprised.
Philip folds his arms and leans across the front of his desk. “He claims you faked an illness to get him to take you to the infirmary. Because of your earlier altercation with an inmate named Ross Sumner where you sustained injuries, he took you at your word.”
Philip turns his head to the right and points to the shiv — I assume it’s the one Curly used last night — on his desk. The blade is sealed in a plastic crime-scene bag. “He further claims that once you were alone, you pulled this on him and tried to stab him. You two fought. He wrestled the weapon away from you, slicing your arm in the process. Then you ran down the corridor. Another correctional officer heard the commotion and subdued you.”
“It’s a lie, Philip.”
He says nothing.
“What motive would I have?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Didn’t you come to see me yesterday for the first time and beg me to get you out?”
“So...?”
“So maybe you became desperate. You get in a fight with a high-profile inmate—”
“That psycho jumped me—”
“And that gets you to the infirmary. Maybe that’s part of your escape plan, I don’t know. Or maybe you get the weapon from Ross Sumner once you’re there. Maybe you’re working together.”