“Okay.”
“So he snuck in a cell phone,” she said. “It’s in his desk. Only a matter of time before it’s found and confiscated, but unless it happened within the last few days while I was gone, it should still be there.”
“Thank God for Bill’s paranoia. Make sure you still have the keys.”
She felt her pockets for them.
“Shit.”
“Not there?”
“No.”
Without her keys we couldn’t get in the building, let alone Bill’s office.
“They could be on the chapel floor or anywhere on the ground between here and there.”
“Sorry.”
“Other options,” I said. “Think. We could try to get the attention of the guard in Tower II.”
“Assuming he’s not in on it,” she said, “we’d draw the attention of our, ah, pursuers too. They’d get to us before he could get down out of the tower. And no way he’d fire at other officers just because we yelled up they were after us––and that’s if he could hear us. And if he radios anyone, it’ll be the control room. Randy Wayne will just make up some bullshit story. Hell, he may even convince him to fire down at us.”
“If we could just figure out a really good hiding place, we could stay hidden until morning when other officers and staff arrived. It’d be far better for you and the baby.”
“But if they found us, we’d be dead. Couldn’t run.”
“Why it’d have to be the perfect spot,” I said.
“Can you think of any?” she asked.
“Not so far.”
“Me either.”
“We need to keep moving,” I said.
“Where?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure.”
“Okay. Wait,” she said, as she started to push herself up.
“What is it? The baby?”
“The keys. They were on the ground beside me. Must have slid out of my pocket when I sat down.”
I helped her up and kissed her.
“Where to?” she said.
“Back door of Classification,” I said.
I looked around. Saw nothing. And we were off again.
No matter which direction we ran, no matter how our course shifted and corrected, we always seemed to be facing the glowing red orb.
Unbidden, a line of Robert Frost came to mind. We ran as if to meet the moon.
39
Moving toward Classification. Feeling our way through the fog.
Slower now.
Darkness. Difficult to see.
Eerie red glow on the edges of the fog.
Occasional security light in the distance. Weak. Wan. There, then gone.
Tension.
Who was watching us? Was someone there in the fog? Coiled? About to strike?
Deal with it when it happens. Keep moving.
Behind me, Anna’s breathing sounded bad. I knew she was scared and in pain, and there was nothing I could do.
To occupy my mind, I made a mental list of what we needed to do and gather up in Classification. I went through what I thought might be in there and how we might use it.
Finally, we reached the back door.
As we stood there, scanning the area and unlocking the door, we could see Confinement on the other side of the fence that separated the two buildings.
“Someone will certainly be in there,” she said.
“True, but we can’t even get to the building, let alone inside.”
“Maybe we could get their attention somehow.”
She unlocked and opened the door. I looked inside, then we were in, the door closed and locked behind us.
Pausing a minute before we continued, I tried to get a sense if anyone else was in the dark hallway.
“Should I turn on the light?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. Which office is his?”
“Last on the right. It’s a double. He shares it with Fredericka.”
“You okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“Stay close. Can I hold your hand?”
“Please.”
The long, narrow corridor had empty sheetrock walls, a tile floor, and offices off each side. Like every other part of the prison save the personal space of staff offices, it held nothing decorative, no clutter, no random objects of any kind.
It was a clear, straight shot and we felt our way through it, moving slowly, cautiously.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
I squeezed her hand a little tighter. “We’re almost there.”
“Randy Wayne knows I have keys to Classification. They’ll come here when they don’t find us in the chapel.”
“Let’s try to be gone before they get here,” I said.
Finally, we reached the door and she unlocked it.
“You find the phone,” I said. “I’ll search both desks and work areas for anything else we can use.”
While she rummaged through Bill’s desk, I did the same across from her in Fredericka’s.
“Please let her be a smoker,” I said.
“She is,” Anna said without looking up.
We had left the lights off and were using the little illumination streaming in the window from a security lamp next to the first dorm on the lower compound, but it was far in the distance and blanketed by fog so mostly what we were doing was feeling our way through the drawers.
I found two lighters and a few packs of matches, a small can of hairspray, a nail file, some bobbie pins, a couple of bite-size Snickers bars, an orange, a couple of paperback romances, a few random keys, tape, some paperclips, a deck of cold case playing cards, rubber bands, and Band-Aids.
“She doesn’t have any shoes over there, does she?” Anna asked.
“No. Why?”
“Lost mine while we were running and my feet are killing me.”
“So sorry, baby. I had no idea. Any in your office?”
“I’m sure I have something.”
“Any progress over there?”
“Haven’t found the phone yet, but here’s a MoonPie.”
Something rattled under Bill’s desk.
“Wait,” she said. “What is this? Oh, Bill, you beautiful paranoid little man.”
“What is it?”
“Baseball bat,” she said. “Must have snagged it from the rec yard.”
“Score.”
“He had it taped underneath his desk. But no phone.”
“Really? Have you already gone through every drawer?”
“Pretty much, yeah, but . . .”
“Nothing it could be in?”
“That’s what I’m checking now. This bag of potato chips isn’t crunching the right way.”
I stood and felt my way around the rest of the room.
“Bingo,” she said.
“Got it.”
“Yep. Shit. It’s dead. Fuck.”
“Is there a potato chip covered charger in there?”
“No. Damn it man. Really thought that was our––wait. No. Here. Here it is. This is it. Has to be. Plug it in or bring it with us?”
I stepped to the door and looked out into the darkness.
“Hand me the bat and plug it in.”
40
The phone had charged for no more than a minute when the electricity went off.
“Time to motor,” I said. “Bring the charger. We’ll find a place with power.”
A phone from down the hall started ringing.
“That’s mine,” she said.
From somewhere in the building a door clanged shut, the sound of its heavy metal impact reverberating down the hard-surfaced corridors.
Emergency backup lights blinked on in the institutional hallways.
Though still dim, there was at least now some visibility.
“Whatta we do?” Anna whispered.
I looked through the narrow pane of glass in both directions––the exit we had entered through and the door opposite it but closer to us now that led to Ps
ychology.
“Hadn’t we better move now? John?”
“I’m thinking. Just a––”
A young white inmate with prison tats on his hands, neck, and part of his face––the only areas of his skin exposed––walked through the door connecting to Psychology carrying the largest, longest prison knife I had ever seen.
It was over a foot in length with an extremely sharp blade that gleamed even in the very low light, its handle a wrap of white athletic tape, on which were drawn black felt-tip swastikas.
“Get down behind the desk,” I whispered to Anna, trying to block out the image of that cold, cruel weapon running through her and her unborn child.
She did.
I backed away from the window to an angle where I could remain unseen while seeing him as he passed by.
The pale, inked inmate was part of the Aryan Brotherhood or some other group like it––or would be once he iced us.
Gangs like them made up less than one tenth of one percent of the prison population but accounted for some thirty percent of murders committed inside.
His head was scabbed and skinned, still bleeding in spots, his face scarred and pocked and acne ravaged.
I didn’t recognize him, but I knew him. Knew his mindset and mentality, knew his unreasonableness and rage, knew his lack of empathy, compassion, or even conscience.
After he had passed by, I slid closer to the window again.
The outer door at the other end of the hall, the one Anna and I had entered, opened and two officers walked in, their radios squawking.
One of the men was Pine. I couldn’t see the other man because he was behind the behemoth.
“Anything?” Pine asked.
“Ain’t seen shit.”
Pine radioed Control.
“No sign of ’em here,” he said.
“Tell Butler to search the building room by room––and to be thorough. You take Cantor back outside and set him loose.”
“Ten-four.”
“If Butler finds them, tell him to radio you and you bring Cantor back in.”
“Copy that,” he said into the radio, then to the two present, “You heard the man.”
Pine then turned and unlocked the door behind him and he and Cantor walked out, leaving Butler alone in the hallway.
Beginning with the first door on his left, Butler unlocked it, crouched in a defensive position, reached in and turned on the light, looked around, then walked in, the door falling shut behind him.
“What’s goin’ on?” Anna said.
I told her.
“Whatta we do?”
“Either try to sneak out while he’s searching one of the offices or jump him when he comes in this one. Or something I haven’t thought of but you have.”
“No, that seems like our only two options.”
“Which one you think we should try?”
“There is no try. Just do or do not do,” she said.
“Which one do you think we should do, Mr. Miyagi?”
“Not for me to say, Daniel-san. You must decide.”
“Think I’ll watch him a little longer first,” I said.
“Very wise Daniel-san. Make Miyagi proud.”
Though he had used a lot of caution entering the room, Butler walked out normally.
As he got closer and I could make him out more, I recognized him. Last year he was involved in an incident on an outside grounds crew where an inmate was tied to a tree and beaten. Though severely beaten, the inmate survived and ultimately recovered. Three of the five officers involved were fired and were awaiting trial. Butler was one of the two who were neither charged nor fired. He and the other officer claimed to not have been involved and to have actually tried to stop it. So far neither the inmate involved nor the other three officers had given contradictory evidence. Perhaps he had cut a deal and his involvement here tonight was part of the payment.
“Whatta you think?” Anna asked.
“There’s no way to know how long he’ll be in any given room. Some he comes right back out, others he’s a minute or more. He enters cautiously but exits casually.”
“Ah ha,” she said.
“Ah ha?”
“Miyagi think best time to brain with bat.”
Waiting.
Officer Butler was in the office two doors down from the one I had been in with Anna just a few moments before.
He had entered some thirty seconds ago and I was waiting for him to come out, hoping no one else showed up from either end of the hall and saw me.
Anna was still hiding behind Bill’s desk. Waiting until the unpleasantness was over, which I hoped would be soon.
I heard or sensed movement behind the door, maybe even a passing shadow on the floor.
I hadn’t played baseball since junior high and wasn’t any good even back then, but I gripped the bat like a minor leaguer who had just made it to the Show, and prepared to swing for the fences.
His hand on the handle . . .
Batter, batter, batter.
The door beginning to open.
Batter, batter, batter.
Open now, him stepping out.
Batter, batter, batter, SWING batter.
My swing took too long. Seeing it coming, he had stepped back and held his hands up, his arms taking the brunt of the blow.
Hesitating a moment, but only a moment, I stepped up and shoved him into the room, bringing the bat up again.
He fell to the floor and began backing up in a kind of broken-arm crab crawl.
Not wanting to hit him in the face, I brought the bat up above me and down on the top of his head.
He tried to lift his injured arms to ward off the blow but was too late.
Trying to hit him hard enough to knock him out but not so hard as to do any lasting damage, my conflicted swing was weaker than it should have been, hard enough to stun him but not to knock him out.
He slumped down, completely still for a moment, then eventually began to reach for his radio.
Before he could depress the button on the mic clipped to his shoulder, I swung the bat, hitting him on the side of the head and this time knocking him out.
As quickly as I could, I gathered his cuffs and keys and radio and belt and gloves and lighter, turned off the light in the office, and went to get Anna.
41
Are you okay?” Anna asked.
I nodded.
She was standing near the door waiting on me when I came back into Bill and Fredericka’s office.
“Sure?”
I nodded again.
“Where to?”
“Whatta you think?” I asked.
“Somewhere close. Somewhere to hide. Somewhere with power.”
“Wonder if they cut the power to this entire building or just this side?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “This key won’t get us into Medical.”
“So wherever we go to get power, we’ll have to break in. Not something I’m sure we can do, or if we can do, do quietly enough to avoid detection.”
“Should we just hide here? How long do you think we’d have to make it?”
“I think there’s a possibility Rachel Peterson is on her way,” I said. “If so, and if she can actually get in, and they can’t convince her we’re not here or distract her with other things, I’d say about an hour and a half. If we have to wait for the first employees to arrive . . . Shift change is not until seven, but . . . someone who works in Food Services comes in early to supervise breakfast, right? If Rachel doesn’t come tonight or doesn’t even know to look for us, I’d say between three and four hours.”
“That’s a very long time to survive in here like this,” she said.
“Not for two badasses like us,” I said.
She smiled, but tears appeared in her eyes. “I notice there’s no blood on your bat, badass,” she said. “You tried not to hurt him, just knock him out, didn’t you?”
“It’s possible I’m not completely clear on the definiti
on.”
We fell silent a moment and I thought about our options.
Psychology was just one hallway on this side of the building, which meant the electricity was most likely off in it too. Medical was on the other side of this same building, Laundry on the other side of it. Both would have to be broken into––something I didn’t think we had the tools to do. And even if we did, we’d most likely be spotted before we could get in.
Food Services was directly across the asphalt road from where we were now. Moving toward it would make us visible to Tower II and exposed to everyone for a longer period of time, and it too would have to be broken into. But it was larger with more places to hide––even on the exterior of the building, the back of which held a loading dock, a cinderblock wall cleaning area, and a fenced-in trash pile, and was littered with empty trays and racks and other random items.
If I could break the lock on the gate to the trash pile, I could hide Anna inside. If I could break into Laundry, I could hide her beneath the clothes in one of the many large canvas laundry carts. If I had wings and could fly, I could soar us out of here to safety.
“Anything?” Randy Wayne asked.
His voice coming through the radio sounded like he was in the room.
“Let’s go,” I said to Anna.
I double-checked the hallway in both directions, then opened the door and led her out.
As we walked down the hallway toward the back door, I pulled my shirt up in front of my mouth, depressed the button on the mic, and spoke into it, hoping the muffling from the shirt and the echoing of the hallway would help disguise my deception.
“Nothin’ so far,” I said softly with slightly more of a Southern accent than I normally had. “’Bout halfway through.”
“Let me know. And speed it up a bit, man. Clock’s tickin’.”
“Will do.”
As we neared the back door, I could hear a key being inserted into it from the other side.
“Here,” I whispered.
I turned to the door on my right, unlocked it, and led her inside.
I was fairly certain they had the back door open and were in the hallway with more than enough time to see or hear what we had just done. I stepped to the side of the door, moved Anna behind me, and readied the bat.
And waited.
“BUTLER,” Pine yelled. “WHERE YOU AT?”
Innocent Blood; Blood Money; Blood Moon Page 54