Hell and Gone

by Duane Swierczynski

  “What are you saying?” Hardie asked.

  “It’s obvious. Someone in this room is collaborating with the prisoners, trying to engineer a revolt.”

  “Who?”

  Yankee looked away. “I’m not that insane.”

  That’s when Hardie realized that the staff distrust didn’t apply just to him. The whole guard staff didn’t trust each other. When something went wrong, like a prisoner busting out of his cell, they all started looking at each other.

  “Nobody’s going to say it out loud,” said Yankee. “But we all know who’s responsible.”

  “Who?” Hardie asked. He felt stupid again—repeating who like a goddamned owl. Wasn’t this his meeting? What had happened?

  Yankee now stood, smiled, and pointed at Victor. “Anybody ask Victor there where he was right before Horsehead broke free?”

  “What?” Victor said, now sliding up to a full sitting position. “Fuck you, mate! Have you lost your mind?”

  The room jolted, as though someone had sent a current up through the very floor.

  “You haven’t told him, have you?” Yankee asked.

  “Told me what?”

  Hardie gave himself credit. At least he hadn’t asked: Who?

  “Nothing,” Victor said.

  “Nothing my ass.” Yankee turned to address Hardie. “Your boy there, your lead guard? He’s real close with one of the prisoners.”

  “Shut up.”

  “No, it’s true. Prisoner Three. You haven’t heard him speak yet, but when he does, it’ll be with an Australian accent. That’s because the prisoner and Victor over there used to be partners in the outside world. Oh, yeah.”

  “Shut the fuck up, I’m warning you! Am I the only person who remembers the rules in this place?”

  “Ol’ Victor there’s sworn his allegiance up and down, renounced his old buddy and everything, but none of us ever believed him. And we think he’s taking advantage of your arrival to make his play.”

  “We need to question him,” Whiskey said.

  Yankee looked around the room. “Any objections? Shall we finally get to the bottom of this bullshit and stop these escape attempts?”

  Victor slid out of his chair and started to move toward the door. Yankee moved to block the door while Whiskey and X-Ray removed their batons from their belts. Victor, back now against the wall, darted his eyes around nervously. The man knew he was outnumbered; his play for the door was more a reflex than a real plan. He muttered, “I don’t believe this shit” to himself. And stole a glance at Hardie.

  “Do it,” Yankee said. “Warden, consider this a favor. A little welcome present. Taking care of a problem so you won’t have to.” Sparks popped from the end of Whiskey’s baton. They moved in…

  “No.”

  Hardie, cane and all, put himself between Victor and the other guards. He didn’t know how to lead, or motivate, or any of that shit. But he wasn’t going to let these people devolve into savagery.

  He was no fool; he knew this would end badly. It was three on two, and he was lame and weaponless. Still, Hardie could feel the lizard part of his brain twitching. Scanning the room, building a futile plan of attack. If he could count on Victor to take out X-Ray, maybe he could use his cane and whip Whiskey across the shins, take her down. If it breaks, so be it. He’d take the jagged edge and use it as a knife…

  Then something strange happened.

  All three of them—X-Ray, Whiskey, and Yankee—smiled. They even started to applaud.

  From behind, Victor slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “It’s all right, mate. We just had to know.”

  Later, Victor showed up in Hardie’s room, hands hidden behind his back. “Got a little surprise for you.” Victor revealed his treasure: two bottles of nonalcoholic beer. Left over from a case that was sent down a long, long time ago, Victor explained. He’d hoarded them away. Hardie stared at the bottle before accepting it. “Near beer sucks,” he said.

  “It does suck,” Victor explained, “but it’s better than no beer at all.”

  Hardie took one, twisted off the top—of course it would be a twist-off—and took a swig. The beer tasted like it had skunked sometime around the turn of the century. If you’d been given one in a blind taste test, you’d be hard-pressed to identify the liquid as anything close to beer. Hardie drank it anyway, knowing that he’d need to down at least a case of these to feel even the slightest buzz. The near beer made Hardie miss the real thing all the more. But he didn’t say anything to Victor. He didn’t want to offend his new bestest friend.

  After the meeting broke up, Victor had stayed behind and explained:

  “Really sorry about that, but we had to be sure. A new warden comes down here, and right away he’s aligning himself with the prisoners…well, you can see how that can be troublesome. They don’t tell us anything, other than that a new warden is coming down. You understand, right?”

  Hardie had nodded, his nerves still jumpy from the confrontation. Sometimes the anticipation of an ass-beating could be worse than the actual ass-beating.

  “But you stuck up for me—and you just won major points in everyone’s eyes. Just like I told them. I knew you’d be all right. They only send the best down here, and I suspect you’re better than anyone realizes.”

  “Thanks,” Hardie had said, then made a beeline for his room. He wanted to sleep. Think everything through with a fresh brain. So far, that hadn’t happened. Every time he woke up, he felt more confused, more fuzzy. There was no sleep that left him feeling refreshed. Even when he slept through two shifts in a row.

  What was this place? Was he really down here to reform it?

  Now Victor was here with his near beer peace offering, and in the mood to talk.

  “How was that?” he asked, a big grin on his face, tipping his own bottle of near beer toward Hardie’s.

  “Good,” Hardie lied.

  “I wanted to level with you up front, but we have to be cautious,” Victor continued. “Prisoner Three was indeed my partner. We worked in Syd…well, you know I’m not allowed to tell you anything. Rules are still rules. But we were close. Completely different in skills and styles, mind you, but I considered him a blood brother. I didn’t learn his true side, the side he kept hidden behind a human mask, until it was too late. Sometimes I think I’m here to keep an eye on him. My own personal burden, you know? As if he’s still my responsibility, even though he’s locked up here forever.”

  Hardie nodded. He’d had a partner once. A blood brother. And things had not turned out the way he expected.

  “Anyway,” Victor continued, “that’s why I don’t have a cute nickname for him. His real name is bad enough. It burns a hole in my mind as it is. Better to think of him as a number. Nothing more.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Eh?”

  Hardie looked at Victor. “What did he do, to deserve being here?”

  Victor took another swig of beer, stared off at the far wall of Hardie’s room. He swished the beer around in his mouth before he worked it down his throat.

  “You know I can’t say anything. But think of the worst kind of betrayal, at the worst possible moment…and then multiply that by a thousand. The man’s a monster. He had been the whole time. And I’m ashamed it took me so long to recognize that.”

  Victor seemed convinced that his former pal was a monster. But monster was a word that was thrown around a lot. What was he—a cold-blooded hit man? A secret serial killer who dressed up in a black leather gimp suit and sliced up entire families in suburban houses?

  See, the thing that bothered Hardie the most was that he had no files on these “prisoners.” There was no rap sheet, no news accounts. They were just human beings, boxed up for someone’s convenience. But whose? And why? The Industry, as Mann called it, certainly had enemies.

  Or was he simply allowing Prisoner Two to color his thinking? Maybe she was every bit as diabolical as Victor claimed she was. Wouldn’t be tough to dig up old newspaper ar
ticles about Hardie’s exploits in Philadelphia involving his good friend Nate Parish—and, by extension, FBI agent Deke Clark. She could be one of those savants who easily matches names to faces. She could be a brilliant actress, expressing surprise when Hardie popped out of that shower drain—and instantly knowing what to say to make him doubt everything.

  There was, of course, a way to find out.

  Before Victor left, Hardie gestured for him to come closer. “Now that I’ve cleared my name, I really need a favor.”

  “That’s the last of the beer, I swear.”

  “Two favors, actually.”

  “Okay, let’s hear them.”

  “I need a weapon.”

  Victor stared at him for a moment, a smile almost breaking out on his face before he turned serious again. “A weapon? For what?”

  “For the second favor, which you’ll hear about in a second.”

  Victor gave it a moment to roll around in his mind. “I don’t know what to tell you, mate. Weapons are rationed out here. You’re given what you’re given, and that’s it. You’ll notice I don’t carry one of those electrified baton things. That’s because I broke mine during an altercation, and the Prisonmaster didn’t see fit to send me a replacement. You’re not going to find any other guards willing to give up their weapons, either. Even to you.”

  “So I’ve got no options.”

  “You’ve got your cane. Maybe that was intended to double as a weapon.”

  “Sure. I can poke a prisoner to death.”

  “And…oh, hell. What do you need a weapon for?”

  “I’ve got to have something,” Hardie pleaded. “Come on. I feel defenseless down here. What if I get into a jam?”

  Again Victor let Hardie’s words sink in, but this time he was looking at Hardie with a guilty expression. Finally Victor reached around, fished something out of his back pocket, handed it to Hardie. It looked like a black pen, complete with a pocket clip. Only the tip didn’t feature a rollerball or anything else that carried ink.

  “What the hell’s this?” Hardie asked. “A pen?”

  “No, sir. That’s a Smith & Wesson tactical pen. Police and military version, which is longer, and skips the screw-on cap.”

  “This is your idea of a weapon?”

  “Like I said, I lost my baton. Here. Let me show you.”

  Victor took the pen back, holding it up as though he were a spokesmodel. “Made from aircraft aluminum. This end’s the fun end. Jam it into a nerve bundle, your opponent goes down. Jam it into an eye, no more 3-D movies.” He pulled off the cap on the other end, which took a bit of effort. “Other side, ballpoint pen. You can fill out your tax forms. Genius, isn’t it?”

  “A pen?”

  “Best I can do.”

  Hardie took it anyway, slid it into his right trouser pocket. Great. Now he was fully prepared to cross a street and fill out a parking ticket. “Thanks.”

  “What’s the second favor, for which you require a weapon?”

  “I need you to sneak me into a cell.”

  17

  Get it up or I’ll cut it off.

  —Roberta Collins, The Big Doll House

  HARDIE CAME UP with the plan: use Zero as a distraction. Victor could claim that some of Zero’s piss tubes were loose. Victor would summon X-Ray, leaving only Whiskey, who would be asleep—in turn leaving Hardie alone with Prisoner Two. For a few minutes, anyway.

  He stood there now, waiting.

  A soft voice spoke from behind the mask. “Come closer. I won’t bite.”

  She was awake. She could see him. Outwardly, she gave no sign of being conscious or even alive, her body in some kind of ultra​​relaxed yoga-style suspended animation, chest barely moving. Hardie stepped closer to her cell—cane, leg, cane, leg—until he was right up against the bars. He cleared his throat and told her he didn’t have much time.

  “I want to hear everything, right now,” Hardie said. “Who you are, why Deke hired you, how you got here—”

  “Help me take this off.”

  With that, she stood up gracefully, made her way to the bars, and bowed her head.

  Hardie paused momentarily, then put his right arm through the opening between two bars and reached around to the back of her head. She took his hand and guided it to the clasp in back, where it locked. Shit, the lock. All the masks were locked. Hardie started to tell her, “I don’t have a—” when she slipped her other hand into his pants pocket and removed a thin electronic key. She pressed it into Hardie’s left palm. Her fingertips were cold. Hardie had to lean against the bars for balance, but he managed to snap open the lock, then ease the mask—heavier than he thought—off the top of her head.

  Prisoner Two touched her fingers to her lips, then puckered them. Pressed the fingers of both hands into her cheekbones. “Are you alone?” she murmured, her voice so quiet Hardie could barely hear it.

  “Yeah, I’m alone.”

  “No one else on the floor?”

  Hardie shook his head and was about to say no when she turned, narrowed her eyes, then spit something hard and phlegmy into his face. Some of the wet blast was blocked by the bars, but not enough.

  “Been saving that for you,” she said, louder.

  “What? Seriously?”

  Her expression changed slightly; some of the fury softened. “Hurt me,” she whispered. “Pull me in close to the bars. Now, do it.”

  “What do you want?”

  Under her breath: “Someone is probably watching or listening. You don’t hurt me, we’re all dead. Do it now, fucking hurt me.”

  In his previous life Charlie Hardie would never have hit a woman, ever. Recent events, however, had caused him to abandon that code. He’d punched Mann in the eye and didn’t feel an ounce of guilt about it. So he reached inside the bars and pulled the prisoner forward, banging her head on the bars. She cried out, and seemed to lose her balance.

  What the hell am I doing? Hardie thought, his stomach suddenly sick.

  The prisoner rolled her eyes up to glare at him, a sardonic smile on her face. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “Enough of this hurt me shit. Who are you, and how do you know me?”

  She whispered,

  “The name’s Eve Bell and I was hired to find you, you stupid asshole.”

  This disappointed Hardie on at least three levels.

  For starters, the name Eve Bell sounded about as made-up as you can get. What—were Modesty Blaise and Pussy Galore already taken?

  Also, it was disappointing that she didn’t identify herself as a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That would have meant a battalion of Kansas farm boys with heavy artillery was waiting outside for a signal, a raid would ensue, and he’d be plucked out of this nightmare.

  And finally—stupid asshole? Really? Was this Catholic grade school all over again?

  “Well, you found me,” Hardie said. “Congratulations.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did you get here?”

  Eve smiled, then slammed a fist into Hardie’s right ear. A tiny explosion went off in his skull. The moment he lowered his head to recoil, Eve’s other hand was grabbing his shirt collar, yanking him closer, throwing him off balance. Hardie pulled Eve’s head forward, pressing it against the bars, pinning it there. Both of them slid down the bars until they were on the floor.

  “One night I went to bed in a chain motel in Grand Island, Nebraska, and I woke up in this place.”

  It took Hardie a minute to realize that Eve was answering his question.

  “Why were you in Nebraska?”

  “Looking for you.”

  “Why did you think I was in Nebraska?”

  Hardie had never been to Nebraska—at least, not that he knew of. And he’d never heard of Grand Island before. How could there be an island in the middle of a landlocked state? Briefly he considered the possibility that the prisoner here, this “Eve,” was making shit up off the top of her head.

  But if so…how d
id she know Deke’s name?

  “I was following a lead,” she whispered. “There was a rumor you were there. Turned out to be a trap, and it was a pretty good one, too. Usually I can detect a grab site from a hundred miles away.”

  “And you say Deke Clark hired you.”

  “Yeah. Which is why I was pretty shocked to find you popping up out of the drain in the shower room. Kind of thought I’d botched the case, being kidnapped and thrown into a secret prison and all. But with you standing here—gee whiz, I can finally call Deke and collect my final check.”

  Hardie blinked. “You’re in contact with him?”

  Eve gave him a squinty-eyed duh look, then said,

  “Hit me again.”

  “What is wrong with you?”

  “Somebody’s watching. If you don’t brutalize the prisoners, it looks suspicious. Especially with you being so new. So hit me. Later you can explain it away as punishing me for the shower-room incident.”

  “No.”

  “I can take it, believe me.”

  “No.”

  “Charlie, it’s vital you stay the warden if we’re going to get out of this, and if you want to stay warden, you need to fucking hit me now.”

  Hardie removed his hands from her head, slid backward, then searched for his cane.

  Eve sighed. “Then we’re done talking. Come back when you find your balls and your brains. But whatever you do—stay the warden. It’s our only chance.”

  “What do you mean, stay the warden?”

  “Keep your fucking job,” she hissed. “The guards are the bad guys. We’re the real guards, trapped in these cells.”

  Victor turned the corner and appeared at Hardie’s side, as if he’d materialized out of thin air. “What did she just say?”

  18

  If you’re standing out in the yard in San Quentin and something’s going to come down, you’re scared to death and you can’t show it. Inside you’re dying, but outside you’re saying, Bring it!