by Tom Barber
At that point, Nicky retreated to somewhere inside his head, trying to find an escape from the complete lack of dignity, the ammonia smell of urine, the fast beating of his heart and the fear that he was trying to keep concealed and prevent from paralyzing him. But there wasn’t anywhere to hide except just to draw into himself like a terrified animal caught in a cage. He was checked for contraband in every major orifice and then was unceremoniously handed a set of prison-issue boxers which he pulled on quickly. Next thing he knew, a hard-faced woman with a cloud of red hair and who reeked of cigarette smoke was asking him questions while she filled out a form; then he was given his jumpsuit, basic canvas shoes and marched through the prison into C Block towards his waiting cell.
As he walked through a torrent of jeers and profanity from the other cells, Nicky was just relieved he’d been given the pair of boxers, not marched in naked like he’d seen in some movies. He was led to a cell on the upper southside tier, pushed inside and five seconds later, the grilled barred door slid closed behind him.
His mouth was bone-dry; he tried to swallow, but couldn’t. He turned and saw a dark-haired bearded man lying on the lower bunk, reading a magazine. He had tattoos on his arms and was much bigger than Nicky.
‘Welcome to prison, kid,’ the man said nonchalantly, turning the page on his magazine.
Gatlin C Block’s newest and youngest resident only managed to force down a mouthful of food at chow, sitting alone, and was still awake at midnight when his cell door was unlocked and then quietly slid open on its greased hinges.
Turning his head, Nicky saw two figures illuminated by the moonlight coming in through the cell’s window. One of them was around his size, the other enormous, and he could see they both had their eyes on him, the smaller one holding something made of fabric that was dragging on the ground.
‘Wakey, wakey,’ the bigger one said, stepping into the cell. But then a voice quietly spoke from the bunk below.
‘Lay a finger on him and I’ll break every bone in your hand, Billy.’
‘Stay out of this, Prez,’ the giant answered, as Nicky backed up on his bunk in terror. ‘We get to pop his cherry.’
‘One more step into the cell, I’ll kill you both.’
‘You ain’t serving life, Rainey. You’re talking real big for a guy who got busted moving around Tec-9s and-’ But before Billy Loughlin could speak further, the man in the bunk below Nicky was on his feet and had him up against the wall, a sharpened pen pushed against his neck. The smaller man holding the scrunched-up garment of clothing dropped it and moved forward, but Nicky’s cellmate pressed the shiv harder, eliciting a panicked gargle as he drew a stream of blood from the shiv.
‘Want to explain to Brooks how you got his little brother killed, Hoffmeier?’
‘Let him go.’
‘We stay clear of each other,’ Prez told Billy. ‘That’s always been the deal. Now it includes anyone I share a cell with.’
‘You claiming him?’
‘You sure as hell ain’t.’ Prez hauled Billy to the door and shoved him roughly onto the tier before grabbing Hoffmeier and doing the same, kicking out the garment the latter had been carrying. Prez glanced down and although he couldn’t see any of the COs, knew immediately which one was likely to have opened their door. The two men slunk off back into the dark cell block, taking the article of clothing with them, as Nicky looked fearfully at the big man who’d just protected him. The guy turned and tossed him the shiv. ‘You got first watch, kid. Wake me up in a couple hours and I’ll take over. They might be back.’
Nicky’s first night in prison was the longest of his life. He didn’t wake the bigger man so had stayed up until the pink early morning light of dawn started shining through their window, holding that shiv and waiting for the two inmates to return.
They never did.
*
In Cleveland, the woman who’d visited Nicky at the prison, his sister according to visitor records, had just arrived at her home in the westside Clark-Fulton neighborhood and took out her keys as she walked up to her door. Federal deputies watched her every step from various concealed positions; they’d been on her for several hours.
‘Keep eyes on the street. Be ready for an approach,’ an Asian American US Marshal from their Cleveland headquarters instructed over his radio, sitting some distance down the street in an unmarked car. ‘Guy escaped from Gatlin ten hours ago. He could be in Ohio already.’
‘She looks edgy.’
‘I would too, living down here.’
Kat O’Mara glanced around the street as she opened her door. The deputy was right; she did look anxious. ‘Chief wants us staked on the place all night,’ the lead Marshal said into his radio once she’d gone inside and closed the door. ‘And the phone tapped first thing tomorrow morning. Virginia’s saying this guy Reyes has got no other contacts on the outside other than this chick.’
‘We’ll need a warrant for the tap.’
‘Chief’ll get that and then we’ll get Reyes. He’ll try to raise this girl. Clear as day.’
*
‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ Prez asked Nicky the morning after that long first night, as the inmates were waiting to be released from their cells for breakfast. Nicky had already returned the shiv, his cellmate secreting it behind their basin.
‘You did enough. Why’d you step in like that?’ he asked in reverse.
‘Wanted a full night’s sleep.’ Nicky knew that wasn’t quite the whole truth and smiled at the bigger man. ‘Don’t look at me like that, kid.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like you owe me one. Don’t let the animals in here ever see that. You can’t show any weakness in this place. Wrap those feelings up, lock ’em in a box and save it for when you get out.’
The smile gone, Nicky looked out at the lower tier, and saw the two men who’d come for him in the night standing near the bars in their cells, watching him. ‘What’s to stop them coming back tonight?’
‘We’ll take shifts until I can talk to the sergeant. He’s got a Triumph I helped repair for him so he owes me. Couple of the COs can be bought like you saw last night, but they won’t risk getting caught. Most of them are OK.’
‘What are you in for?’ Nicky asked, as the doors opened. ‘Guy last night mentioned moving around g-’
‘Two places where you gotta have eyes in the back of your head,’ Rainey told him, ignoring the question. ‘Chow hall and the showers. Don’t hang around. Eat fast and shower faster.’
The truth of the biker’s warnings became evident very quickly; within ten minutes, in fact. The two inmates from the night before came for Nicky again at breakfast and this time they weren’t looking for love.
The eighteen year old was in the food hall with a tray, almost at his turn at the front of the line, when he saw the closest CO who’d been watching the prisoners suddenly turn away. Nicky had noticed during dinner the previous night that there were only four of the guards on duty in here, with about a hundred inmates. His cellmate’s warning rang in his ears. The CO had turned his back for a reason.
Someone had left a large metal wheeled container used to transport empty trays just ahead of the line. Its polished end was facing Nicky, allowing him to see what was going on behind him, and in the container’s dull reflection, he picked up the two inmates from the previous night, Derek Hoffmeier and Billy Loughlin, as they stepped out of the line and started moving towards him. He knew he was in trouble and this time was going to have to fight them off on his own.
His eyes darted around quickly, to anything within reach that he could use. One of the inmates working the other side of the counter, placing packets of oatmeal, slices of bread and packets of grape jelly and margarine onto trays, had a drink beside his hand. From his time in the county jail back in Ohio, Nicky recognized it as a ‘prison latte’, a carton of milk stuck under a faucet of hot water before instant coffee and maple syrup was added. Hot, sticky liquid. Nicky saw steam coming out of the opened car
ton, which told him it was freshly made.
Lunging forward, he grabbed the milk carton and in one swift turn slammed it up into Billy Loughlin’s face just as the man was about to rip into Nicky’s torso with a shank. The latte wasn’t hot enough to cause serious burns, but the shock of a face-full of hot milk, coffee and syrup was enough to stop the huge man for a moment. In that following second, Nicky gripped his tray and smashed it into Hoffmeier’s chin, repeating the action with Billy Loughlin before shoving them both back. Billy fell into the other inmates who pushed him away as he wiped his eyes, still unable to see. Prisoners started to shout as the fight caught the attention of those already sitting down, but before the two men could hit back at Nicky, more COs joined the other others in the hall and ran forward to separate the three inmates, taking them out of the chow hall.
It had cost him breakfast, and he was starving after barely eating the night before, but Nicky felt like he’d made a statement and knew the whole of the block had seen it. On his way back to his cell, he glanced into the open cells on the north side, and saw the garment that had been in Hoffmeier’s hand last night, dumped on the floor: a dirty, blood-stained white dress.
The sight of how ludicrous it looked there made him smile for the first time since he’d arrived here yesterday.
But then it occurred to him what they’d intended it for.
*
A small pool of condensation had suctioned Marquez’s tequila to the desk in her motel room. She felt as cold as the ice inside the glass. ‘Do I wanna know?’ she asked.
‘Billy, Hoff and sometimes Kattar used to have a tradition to welcome the new boys,’ Prez told her. ‘Back then, any fresh meat who caught their eye had the dress pulled on before they were raped on their first night. Sometimes, it happened every day to the same new fish for a couple months.’
Without looking at the cup, Marquez pulled it off the desk and took a mouthful before setting the drink back down. ‘But not to Nicky.’
‘No. What he did to Billy at chow that morning dictated terms between him and the brothers. That shit’s never changed since.’ Still listening closely, Marquez rose to pour herself the second of her two mini tequila bottles, brought down with her from New York in her bag. ‘Billy targeted the kid just like he had others since he’d been inside, but Nicky fought back, which Loughlin junior wasn’t used to. Humiliated him in front of the whole cell block.’
‘Did he come at him again?’
‘He tried. I kept an eye out and after a while he and Hoff gave up and focused on the other new guys instead. Billy and his brother both got released, so we thought that was the end of it, but then they ended up right back here again four years ago, this time for good. I wasn’t surprised. Half of all the guys in the country who ever end up in prison end up getting sent back down at some point after they get out.’
‘Their beef with Reyes wasn’t just forgotten, I guess.’
‘Right, and something had changed with those two. They were real bad before, but once they killed that college girl? After that it’s just numbers; can’t get punished any worse than what the judge already gave them, apart from the needle. You get what I mean?’
She did, aware before she’d been sent down here of Gatlin’s rep as one of the most dangerous federal prisons in the country. An average of more than ten prisoners died prematurely in the facility every year and not all of them committed suicide. From what Prez was saying, Brooks and Billy were responsible for some of the deaths.
‘Brooks didn’t have anything personal going with the kid, he just took against him after he made a clown of his brother, and that family never drops a grudge. Any chance they could get they’d have cut him open, but Nicky learned fast. Made sure they couldn’t get a shot. But right now if Brooks and Billy find out he used them to get out of here, they’re gonna want more than to pop his cherry.’
‘So he used them,’ she said, noticing the detail Prez had let slip. ‘Tell me how he busted out.’
‘Not yet.’
‘At least tell me why.’
‘Why’d you think? To be free.’
‘Bullshit, Rainey, he’d be a free man in less than week. Made it almost twelve years and he couldn’t do another six days?’
‘Call me tomorrow night and I’ll tell you.’
‘I thought you said this conversation squared us away?’
‘I got time to kill and no-one else to talk to right now. Hit me up at 1pm. You work out how he got out of the prison, I’ll tell you why he did it.’
SEVENTEEN
‘Police picked up two more guys from your bus last night,’ she told Archer the next morning, who was using a prepaid disposable phone he’d just bought at a gas station a few miles south of Cleveland, Ohio. His rental car from the airport last night was parked in a rest spot away from the pumps, now with a full tank. He was also realizing that people almost always held their phone to the same ear, including him, and had been forced to switch to his left thanks to his Sig Sauer going off an inch from the right. ‘A black guy from Big Sandy and someone from USP Lee who they can’t get to shut up.’
‘Yeah, he was making everyone’s ears bleed.’ Archer opened a canned energy drink and took a sip before placing it on the roof of the car. ‘What about Nicky Reyes? He’s the only one no-one has seen since this all began.’
‘The roadblocks that Highway Patrol and other authorities set up haven’t scored anything. He might still be down here in southern Virginia for all we know. Waiting for things to settle.’
‘He gave himself a huge head start to get out of the area. Someone smart enough to break out of federal prison without anyone noticing wouldn’t be dumb enough not to use that time effectively, right?’
‘Well, his anonymity’s about to end. His photo’s on the news in Ohio this morning, same as all over West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee. But everyone here’s assuming he’s heading for Cleveland to meet the girl who used to visit him in prison.’
‘Not if he’s as bright as he appears to be.’ Archer had called the Marshal deputy from the bridge again earlier, using another gas station’s payphone when he was just over the WV-Ohio State Line, and had learned there’d been two suspected sightings of the Loughlin brothers and Lupinetti during the night. The first hotline call came from outside Canton, the other two hours later further north on a road outside Akron by a trucker who thought he’d seen them in a car waiting at a red light. Archer had checked a map he’d bought in the rental office at the airport and saw if the sightings were accurate and the brothers and Frank kept following that path, they’d be arriving in Cleveland sometime this morning. If that was a coincidence or not, he wasn’t quite sure yet. But something about this felt peculiar. ‘Any fresh tips on the brothers and Frank?’
‘Nothing yet. Looks like Brooks and Billy have managed not to kill anyone for a few hours, so no idea where they are right now.’ Archer walked across the gas station forecourt to the window and saw the TV on the wall inside was playing an episode of some soap opera. The clerk working the counter was about to ring up a trucker buying some coffee and a sandwich when Archer showed his badge and pointed at the television.
‘News?’ he mouthed. The guy understood and changed the channel. Archer watched until the four fugitives’ photos flashed up, Craig’s photo replaced with Nicky’s. ‘Reyes looks pretty young, Lis,’ he said, looking at the newest addition to the line-up. ‘Taking another look at his mugshot on the TV.’
‘They’re using the photo from when he first went into prison. Not like he’s needed a new driving license for the last twelve years or anything. Guards say his hair’s grown out some and his face has matured, obviously.’
Archer nodded. Hard time would put years on a man’s face; especially somewhere like Gatlin. ‘That’ll come in useful for him. And I get why Reyes might be heading to Cleveland,’ he added, looking at the screen one last time before returning towards his car. ‘But if we’re right, what’s the sudden draw in the city for
the other three?’
‘No idea,’ Marquez replied, speaking to Archer from an auto-shop she’d sourced in Jonesville, watching as the NYPD Ford was examined. She’d already made sure to secure the compartment holding the weapons in the trunk. ‘I can’t get a clear view on a lot of this.’
‘How’d that laundry truck driver make out?’
‘He’s hanging on. I called the hospital soon as I woke up first thing. Whoever out of the two Loughlins cut him sliced his vocal cords but missed his arteries. He was at death’s door and about to start knocking but looks like our man who called 911 and wadded jumpsuits to his neck saved his life.’
‘Reyes. It must’ve been.’
‘Wouldn’t have been the Loughlins, that’s for goddamn sure.’
‘Do we know yet how Reyes broke out?’
‘I’m working on it,’ she said, glancing at her watch and remembering Prez’s deal: if she figured out how the man’s celly escaped, he’d tell her why he chose to do it so close to release. That information could prove very useful to investigators trying to catch all the fugitives, so she intended to keep the conversation going for the time being. She suspected he wasn’t talking to her just because he was bored, but was using her to try and find out what the police currently knew; two could play that game.
‘How’s the Ford?’
‘Dunno, hang on. How long’s it gonna take?’ she called out to one of the mechanics working on the NYPD vehicle.
‘Couple hours,’ he said, stopping to walk over as he wiped his hands on a rag. ‘You got an issue with the fuel pump. We gotta do some work then hook it up to a tablet to clear the fault.’
‘I’m gonna leave and come back if that’s cool.’
‘Sure, write down your number,’ he said, taking a clipboard off a table and pinning a sheet onto it. ‘I’ll hit you up when it’s ready.’
‘It’ll be good in a couple hours, Arch. I’ll call you back.’ She scribbled down her number, then handed the board back. ‘You know where the local police impound is?’ she asked the mechanic. He did, and ten minutes later she was in a cab heading over there, wanting to see if they’d let her examine the laundry truck found off the highway yesterday.