Like me.
I paced the seven-by-seven prison cell. Possibly my new home, for the rest of my life.
No, I thought. There’s no such thing as an unsolvable problem, and there’s no such thing as an impossible escape.
I did push-ups against the wall, ignoring the twinge from my tortured muscles. Working my body helped to work my brain and get the ideas flowing.
What I didn’t know then—what I wouldn’t find out until later that night—was that I was working the wrong problem. I thought I’d solved the puzzle of Hive B. I hadn’t.
The truth was so much worse.
31.
First, I heard the sounds. Murmuring voices, echoing footfalls, rising up from the gallery floor far below my cell. Like they’d opened all the doors and let the inmates out for some recreation time. I felt a spark of hope; maybe the situation wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined.
Then the guards came for me.
One had a checklist on a clipboard, lined with names and cell numbers. The other two had a fresh pair of shackles for me. They marched me out onto the tier under dimmed-down lights. As we rounded the stairs, headed down, I got a look at what waited below.
Mahogany tables and candlelight. White-tuxedoed waiters with towels draped over their sleeves, ferrying drinks from a rolling wet bar. The gallery floor, surrounded by iron doors and standing in the shadow of the guard tower, had been turned into a bizarre imitation of an upscale nightclub.
“What the hell is this?” I said, hesitating. A guard’s fist jabbed into my kidney, sending me stumbling.
“You’ll find out. Shut up and do what you’re told.”
I wasn’t the first prisoner down on the floor. Four others stood in a silent, grim line off to one side of the “nightclub.” I recognized one of them. Simms looked different from when we’d tussled back in my cell. A long scar ran along one puffy eye, sealed with a row of black stitches.
I kept my mouth shut and my eyes open, trying to get a read on the situation. The waiters set out more tables and chairs, lighting elegant candles. Two men in black tuxes rolled in a baby grand piano and opened a sleek black case, taking out a polished bass. Soon the jaunty strains of a jazz duo filled the air.
The guests arrived in pairs and foursomes, dressed for a night on the red carpet. Perfect hair and designer suits, haute couture and diamond necklaces. They mingled and laughed and ordered cocktails from the bar, as if finding a swank lounge in the heart of a prison was perfectly ordinary.
I risked a whisper, glancing sidelong at the convict next to me. “Hey. What’s going on here?”
He gave a timid shake of his head and muttered, “Don’t talk. Just don’t react to anything. Safer that way.”
Given the look of the guards patrolling the floor—and the Tasers they openly carried—I took his word for it.
Still, I knew an opportunity when I saw one. My shackles had just enough give to let me reach my pocket. My fingers dipped in, scooping out the tiny plastic square of the video camera, and I palmed it like a playing card. My pinky slid across a textured switch, clicking it on. As I surveyed the room, I swiveled my wrist from side to side, furtively filming as much as I could.
I caught some familiar faces in the growing crowd. Not anyone I knew personally, faces from television. A famous golf pro, with a woman who definitely wasn’t his wife, shared drinks with an actress I’d seen in some summer action-movie blockbuster. A political pundit wore a huge lantern-jawed grin as he crossed the floor, rendezvousing with Warden Lancaster.
“Uh-oh,” Lancaster chortled, “the media’s here! Not gonna blow the whistle on us, are ya?”
The pundit laughed and raised his glass. “What, don’t you watch my show? I always say we should be tougher on crime.”
Lancaster handed him a glossy pamphlet. “On that note, here’s tonight’s program. Enjoy, enjoy.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
A few more prisoners came down from the tiers, filling out the line beside me, while Lancaster greeted his other guests and passed out more pamphlets. Two of the new arrivals headed our way. The woman, in a pink sundress and a floppy hat, I vaguely recognized from TV. She was some kind of socialite reality-show star, famous for being famous. The man at her side, a hunk of muscle in a tailored jacket, I didn’t know. They walked up and down the line, glancing from us to their pamphlets. I slipped the camera back into my pocket before they got too close.
“Ooh, this one,” she said, pointing at me. “Definitely this one. Did you read this? He’s a former assassin, sweetie. Isn’t that just the coolest?”
The man rolled his eyes. “Sure, if it’s cool to throw your father’s money away. Never bet on a first-timer. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“Longer odds.” She held the pamphlet in his face and rapped her fingernail against it. “Bigger prizes.”
“You did this exact same thing at the Kentucky Derby last May. Do you even know how statistics work? Have you ever taken a class?”
They carried their argument back to the wet bar, leaving me to stew in silence and wonder what the hell was going on here.
Lights from the guard tower flickered, strobing behind the smoky glass. Conversation hushed. The prisoner on my left tensed up, manacles rattling as his hands clenched into fists. I palmed the camera again and started filming.
Warden Lancaster took the floor with a microphone in his fist. When he spoke, speakers crackled and his sonorous voice echoed throughout the gallery.
“Ladies and gentlemen, how fine it is to welcome you to another grand event. We’ve got quite the show planned for you tonight, and a delightful time indeed. But first…I’m afraid we have a bit of unpleasant side business to take care of.”
Jablonski and another guard hauled a limp prisoner in front of the crowd, chained at the wrists and ankles with a burlap sack over his head. They ripped off the hood, and the breath caught in my throat.
Emerson squinted, dazed, through swollen eyes. His face was a mask of bruises and freshly dried blood.
“We had a bit of a…weasel in the henhouse, it appears,” Lancaster told the crowd. “This man is an undercover informant. Now, now, don’t fret. He never set foot in this hallowed hall—well, not until now, anyway.”
“Please,” Emerson gasped, his lips purple and puffy. “You can’t do this. This is wrong—”
Lancaster talked over him, leaning into the microphone. “Fortunately, he was not very good at his job.”
That drew a ripple of laughter from the audience.
“I highlight this incident,” Lancaster said, “simply to reassure you that your safety and your privacy is of utmost importance to myself and my staff. We found the problem, and we’ll fix the problem.”
He reached into his jacket. His hand came out, slow and smooth, with a long-barreled .45 revolver. The gun gleamed in the candlelight as he held it aloft for the audience’s approval. Someone in the back let out an eager hoot.
I gritted my teeth and kept the camera steady.
“Please,” Emerson begged, “I won’t tell anyone. I won’t—”
“I know you won’t, son,” Lancaster said.
Then he put the barrel to Emerson’s forehead and pulled the trigger.
The revolver boomed like a thunderclap as the bullet tore a hole through Emerson’s skull, sending him tumbling to the concrete in a haze of blood mist and shattered bone. Polite applause rippled through the crowd along with a chorus of clinking glasses, as Jablonski and the other guard dragged Emerson’s body away by his ankles.
The cavalry wasn’t coming to my rescue. The cavalry was dead.
“We’re just about ready to begin,” Lancaster told the crowd, “so get those bets in. Odds are printed in your program guides, and we’re happy to cover all requests…minus the house’s customary ten percent, of course.”
Another ripple of laughter. I stared down at the concrete floor, at the bloody smear where Emerson had fallen.
Working in pa
irs, the waiters rolled out something new: a pair of tall wire frames festooned with hooks, like tool racks in a mechanic’s workshop. Tools hung on the display: hammers, drills, chisels.
A bloodstained machete. A chainsaw. And a baseball bat wrapped with coils of barbed wire.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lancaster said, the crowd falling into an excited murmur. “It is my great honor to welcome you to tonight’s entertainment.”
He spread one arm wide, taking in the room, and flashed pearly teeth like a game-show host.
“Welcome,” he said, “to the Killing Floor.”
32.
I got the idea, fast, when the guards dragged two prisoners out of the lineup. They stood them front and center before the audience, unshackling them while Lancaster worked the room. They kept a ten-foot buffer between the open floor where the prisoners stood and the first rows of tables. A buffer thick with old, dried stains on the concrete.
“Diego Antunez,” Lancaster boomed, “a triggerman for the Cinco Calles, with an estimated seven kills to his name on the outside. Of course, he eliminated his enemies with a gun and by surprise, so take that for what it’s worth.”
Laughter from the crowd. Clinking glasses. My stomach clenched.
“And Russell Finch. Stick-up man. No kills on the outside, two on this very floor. He’s smaller, but is he faster on the draw? Betting closes in thirty seconds, ladies and gents, so make your choices now!”
Slips of paper, some pink and some green, flew like a ticker-tape parade. The audience shoved them in fistfuls at the waiters and piled them on serving trays.
Lancaster stepped aside and nodded to the guards. They made their selections from the wire racks: a short-hafted sledgehammer, and a Black and Decker chainsaw with a fourteen-inch blade. The weapons went sliding across the smooth, hard floor, skidding to a stop near the convicts’ feet.
Antunez and Finch stared at each other, bodies tensed, knees bent and ready. Frozen in time. Then a klaxon rang out from the guard tower—one short, sharp air-horn burst. They scrambled for the weapons, snatched them up and jumped back, trying to get some fighting room. Finch hefted the chainsaw. He pulled the cord to start the engine. Nothing happened.
Antunez saw his chance and charged, whipping the sledgehammer down for a killing blow. Finch darted out of the way, frantically tugging the cord, wearing his terror on his face. Antunez overshot, stumbling, almost tripping over the hammer as he tried to recover.
On the fifth pull, the chainsaw sputtered to life, deadly teeth whirring with a screech like nails on a blackboard.
Antunez spun with another wild, desperate swing for Finch’s head. Finch brought up the chainsaw; its teeth chewed into the hammer’s handle, the sudden kickback sending them both staggering, fighting to keep a grip on their weapons. Finch screamed, shrill as the saw in his double-handed grip, and charged with the blade pointed straight for Antunez’s belly.
Antunez backpedaled, raising the hammer high, and brought it down on the saw. The chainsaw jolted from Finch’s grip, hitting the floor, kicking up hot orange sparks as the blade chewed into concrete. Stunned, Finch needed a second to recover. Antunez didn’t.
The iron head of the sledgehammer slammed against Finch’s skull like the grill of a freight train, buckling his head back and snapping his neck. Finch might have still been alive when he hit the floor. Antunez wasn’t taking any chances. He dropped the hammer and grabbed the now-silent chainsaw, revving it back to life with one brutal yank on the cord.
He pressed the grinding blade to Finch’s throat, wet gore spattering his face as he sawed what was left of the man’s head from his body, and the crowd went wild. I looked away from the carnage, but what I saw in the audience only made me feel sicker. They hooted and cheered, pumping their fists in the air like frat boys at a strip club. One couple, shadowed in candlelight, were wrapped tight in each other’s arms. Making out while a man was chainsawed to death for their entertainment.
The teeth chewed into Finch’s spine, got caught in the bone, sputtered again, and died. Antunez left the blade half-buried in his victim’s neck and staggered back, panting. His eyes were as glassy and dead as his victim’s. The guards quickly shackled him again, leading him away while the audience hammered their tables and screamed for more.
Warden Lancaster took center stage, laughing, waving the crowd into silence while his staff cleaned up the mess behind him.
“Now, how was that for an appetizer? Do we not deliver, ladies and gents? Do we not deliver?”
Under a fresh torrent of applause, the guards came back to our lineup. One grabbed Simms. Jablonski grabbed me.
“Time to pop your cherry,” he said, grinning like a hyena as he clamped his hand around my elbow.
“Hey,” I said, “Jablonski.”
He paused. Our eyes met.
“Just so you know, I’m going to kill you.”
He snorted. “Better do it fast. I’m betting you’ve got about three minutes left to live. Got a chunk of my next paycheck riding on it, as a matter of fact.”
They stood us in front of the crowd, side by side, and unlocked our shackles. I felt the heat of the audience’s eyes, a gang of hungry raptors eager for their next meal. They sized me up like I was a piece of meat in a butcher-shop window.
“Leroy Simms,” the warden announced with a flourish. “Stick-up man, extortionist, arsonist. One-time winner—and what a fight that was! Can’t go wrong betting on this big bruiser.”
He gestured toward me now, his smile bright.
“Or can you? We’ve got a new contender tonight: Daniel Faust, former hit man for a Vegas crime syndicate. This one’s a wild card, ladies and gents, with long-shot odds to match! Thirty seconds to go, so get those bets in now.”
He looked on as the tickets flew and the waiters scrambled to collect the bids. “Warden,” I said.
Lancaster turned, eyebrows raised. Like he was surprised I had a voice.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “This is…this is sick. You have to know that. These are human beings.”
He cupped his palm over the microphone and shook his head.
“Son, you stopped being a human being the second you came into my prison. You’re a commodity. Think about it: you ain’t never gonna see the outside one way or another. Civilized society wants you gone. Locked up ’til you rot. So why shouldn’t I capitalize on that? You oughta thank me. I’m making your death mean something.”
He gestured to the guards by the weapon racks. As he walked off to the sidelines, he glanced back at me over his shoulder.
“Besides,” he drawled, “I got a retirement fund and a brand-new Cadillac to pay for.”
I turned to Simms. He wasn’t the same man who’d tried to shake me down my first day behind bars. His one good eye had a thousand-yard stare and he twitched like a caged animal, over two hundred pounds of muscle and barely constrained rage.
I hadn’t stood a chance against him the first time we fought. And this time, if he got me on the floor, no guards were coming to my rescue. So don’t let him, I thought. No matter what happens, can’t let him turn this into a ground fight.
His right eye, that was the key. Whatever had happened in his debut fight, that ragged line of stitches meant he was good as blind on one side. If I could get on his right and stay there, I might have a fighting chance.
The guards picked out our weapons for the bout. A baseball bat came rolling toward me, jolting to a stop against my shoe. Barbed wire wrapped the length of the stout wooden shaft, spikes caked with dried blood.
Simms got a machete.
The air horn blared and the crowd cheered, and I snatched up the bat. Simms barreled at me, roaring like a bull, swinging the machete wild and fast. I darted left, aiming for his blind spot, and brought up the bat with both hands to knock the blade aside. His beefy fist cracked against my cheekbone like a pile driver, sending me crashing to the concrete and seeing stars. No time to recover: I rolled, fast, as the machete swooped dow
n and chopped into the floor with a thundering clang.
I came up in a crouch on his blind side, pulled back, and swung the bat two-handed with everything I had. Simms howled as his kneecap shattered like a porcelain plate. He fell as I rose. No time for thought, no hesitation, I just gritted my teeth and whipped the bat around and slammed it against the back of his skull.
Simms lay sprawled at my feet, face to the concrete. Panting, spent, I unclenched my fingers. The bat tumbled from my hand and clattered onto the killing floor. Applause and cheers washed over me, but I could barely hear it over the ringing in my ears. Everything was a million miles away. Everything but Simms.
Lancaster frowned and nodded to a guard. The guard crouched at Simms’s side, putting his fingers to the big man’s neck. He shook his head at Lancaster and stepped back.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the warden announced, “the fight’s not over yet! Our friend Simms is still breathing. What weapon will Faust use for his finishing move? Will he make it fast, or slow? C’mon, give him some encouragement, folks!”
I stood transfixed by the frenzied cheering. Paralyzed. Cold blood trickled down my cheek from a stinging gash. I could barely remember how I’d gotten it.
“Fight’s not done until only one man’s breathing,” Lancaster told me, growling into the microphone. “Time for the money shot, Faust. Give these people what they paid for. How many people have you killed? This is just one more body.”
“No,” I said, and the crowd fell into a confused hush.
I looked to the audience, seething.
“Forget it,” I shouted. “I don’t kill for fun. I’m sure as hell not going to kill for your fun. You want him dead? Do it yourself.”
Now the applause turned into scattered boos and jeering. The warden calmed them down with a reassuring wave of his hand.
“Folks, folks, it’s all good. Our new contender just doesn’t know how this works yet. Lemme clarify for him.”
The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust Book 5) Page 18