“What?”
“I have a lot of money riding on this tournament,” Michaels said. “And I need Deke Jasper to win it.”
“You want me to throw the fight?”
Michaels shrugged. “All I’m sayin’ is, if you find yourself facin’ him, make sure you don’t win.”
“Losing against that guy seems a little dangerous.”
“You won’t do it?” Michaels said, stroking the sharpened end of the pick next to him.
“I’m just saying I don’t fancy getting my throat ripped out.”
“I can understand that, I really can. But see, I’ve got some leverage.” He showed me the phone again, and I could see Delaney in his high-backed chair, surrounded by Michaels’ street thugs. “Do it,” he said into the phone, and I watched as a cattle prod was placed on Delaney’s neck, giving him the good news with five thousand volts; there was a spark of electricity as he was zapped, followed instantaneously by an agonized scream.
Michaels turned back to me. “My leverage is twofold,” he said. “Firstly, I know you’re not Delaney. So far, I’ve not told anyone else in here, and I can make it stay that way. Or, if you don’t play ball, I’ll just tell everyone. And then who are you?” He laughed. “You’re expendable, someone who won’t be missed. Trust me.”
“And the second?” I asked, fearing I knew the answer already.
“And second, if you don’t lay down for Deke, I’ll get my boys there to shoot Mitch Delaney – the real one – in the head. Boom. Can you live with that? Probably got brothers and sisters, parents who’ll miss him. A girlfriend maybe, even kids, who knows? Can you take him away from them? If you can, you’re a more ruthless son of a bitch than I am.”
“Deke Jasper, you say.”
Michaels smiled in victory. “Yeah. Deke Jasper.”
“How do I know who he is?”
“Oh, you’ll know,” he said with a laugh. “You’ll know. But hey, maybe you won’t even fight him. You never know. Maybe you’ll get taken out by someone else anyway, and this whole conversation’s for nothin’, right?”
“Maybe,” I agreed.
“So, we’ve got ourselves a deal, yeah?”
I nodded. “It looks that way.”
“Good. Because even though Deke might kill you, if you fuck with me on this, you’re gonna wish you were dead. First, I’ll make you watch my boys kill the real Delaney. Then I’ll pass you around my guys here, it’ll be gang-rape central, with your ass as the guest of honor. And then I still won’t kill you, I’ll make money out of you, make you one of our gumps.”
“Gumps?”
“Inmate prostitute. I’ll rent your ass out around the prison for money and contraband. No, I won’t kill you, but I’ll put up good odds that – in the end – you’ll kill yourself. Maybe hang yourself with your laces, or else slash your wrists with a razorblade.”
“You paint a pretty picture.”
“I do, don’t I? Bottom line is, I fuckin’ own you, and you better not fuck with me on this. Okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Good.” He turned to his cellphone. “Keep Delaney alive,” he told his goons, wherever they were. “Until I say otherwise.” He turned off the phone and pocketed it, slipped the ice pick away too, and banged on the cell door.
It was opened moments later, and two guards came in, reversing the procedure when they’d cuffed me. Seconds later I was free, and – as I rested my hands against the wall and heard the men retreat out of the cell – I seriously thought about using that two and a half seconds to take out the guards, steal their weapons, and kill Trent Michaels right there in my cell. But what would I do then? My options would be severely limited, to say the least; and so I stayed where I was, until I heard the cell door slam shut, bolt sliding home.
I then allowed myself to turn back around and relax, to gather my thoughts after this surprise visit.
Shit, as if my life wasn’t complicated enough.
On the plus side, I did have confirmation that Murphy was killed while fighting, and I even had the name of the inmate who’d killed him.
Deke Jasper.
It just didn’t help thinking about the fact that I might be his next victim.
Chapter Two
I got the call the next morning, along with my breakfast. “You’re on for tonight,” the guard said.
I looked at the thin gruel he’d passed to me and grimaced. “Any chance of something more substantial for the condemned man?” I asked.
The guard laughed. “There ain’t anything more substantial in that damned kitchen,” he said. “Do well tonight, maybe we’ll import something for you.”
“That’s all the motivation I need,” I told him, taking the gruel into my cell.
The metal slot closed with a solid thunk, and I heard the guard’s boots go further down the corridor, stop at the next door. “You’re on for tonight,” I heard his muffled voice inform the next guy along.
I laughed to myself; one of my potential opponents had been living next door to me this whole time. Maybe it was even the legendary Deke Jasper himself?
I wondered if all the fighters were being housed on this corridor. It would make sense I supposed, it would make extra sure that we couldn’t tell anyone else. If everyone on this corridor was a fighter, there was nobody we could tell; we all knew, anyway.
I wonder if my neighbor had heard me working out on my makeshift punchbag?
I guessed that Bush and the organizers had been waiting for a Saturday; if the gamblers and spectators were composed of people coming from outside the prison, the weekend would probably be more realistic for getting them here. They all had jobs, presumably, and needed their Saturday night entertainment.
I decided to forego my morning routine of bodyweight exercises, and stretched instead. At my age, I needed to save my energy for later. Limbering up instead would help avoid any unnecessary injuries too. I could live with being knocked out by a better man, but if I tore a muscle because I’d gone in there too stiff, I’d never forgive myself.
I spent a full hour stretching out my body, and would do the same later in the day; but I also knew that rest was important too, and when I finished up my routine, I lay back down on my bed and shut my eyes.
I wasn’t hyped up or nervous, even now I knew I’d be fighting tonight, maybe for my life.
What was the point of getting worked up about it, anyway?
I didn’t even let last night’s threats by Trent Michaels get to me. What was the point? I would go with the flow, see what happened. I knew there was a lot riding on it – Delaney’s life, my possible recruitment into the ranks of inmate prostitution, but worrying about it wouldn’t help.
Would I let Deke Jenkins win, if I faced him?
Don’t think about it, I told myself. Don’t even think about it.
This was what I did, it’s who I was.
It was going to be just one more day at the office.
Evening came around soon enough, and with my last meal of the day came the news. “One hour,” the guard said. “Be ready.”
“I’ll put my make-up on,” I assured him.
“Sure you will, sweetheart. I’ll be back in one hour.”
He left to tell the next man, and I used the time to eat my meal and stretch my body out once more.
I then went back to lie on my bed, and waited.
The guard was as good as his word; he and three more riot-suited friends came for me exactly an hour later.
We went through the regular routine, until I was cuffed and chained; I’d considered using my two and a half seconds to take these guys out and start my escape attempt, but decided against it.
Because a part of me – the “nosy bastard” part – actually wanted to get to that tournament, no matter the risks involved.
The guards turned me around and I saw two more men in the doorway, aiming rifles at me. I hoped they were loaded with rubber bullets, but you never knew. They seemed to have rules here all their
own.
But I knew that, if I had to – if this scenario happened again, and I wanted to escape – I could meet the first two in the middle of the cell, take them out and use one of them as a human shield against the shooters in the doorway. I noticed the guards had handguns holstered at the waist, and I wondered if I’d be able to pull one out and use it on the men with the rifles, aiming around the body I was using as a shield.
It was definitely possible, I told myself, and filed the information away for future reference.
Once I was suitably secured, they led me out of my cell, into the stark, white corridor; the start of my journey into Hell.
The guards led me through one secure corridor after another, down into a subterranean passage, along another long corridor, and then back up another set of stairs, through several more security doors, until we finally reached our destination.
It was a nice touch, I had to admit – the prison’s own execution chamber had been remodeled as a fighting arena.
We were to fight in the chamber itself, while our audience looked on from three different viewing galleries. For executions, there was “family viewing” on one side, “victim viewing” on the other; and linking the two, taking up the bulk of the space, was “press viewing”. They were all full when I arrived, and through the armored glass of the injection chamber, I could see row upon row of smartly-dressed men and women, seated as if waiting for an opera to begin. The champagne was flowing freely, and Officer Bush was mixing with the happy, excited patrons.
I scanned the crowds, but didn’t see anyone I recognized. Hell, who’d I been expecting, anyway? The President?
I’d half-expected Trent Michaels to be there, but I couldn’t see him. Doubtless, he would know what was going on though; I could be pretty sure of that.
They used to gas people here, and the prison still actually had its gas chamber – known colloquially as the “coughing box” – although it was in another part of the complex. The method of choice now was lethal injection, and this room would normally have had a stretcher-like bed where the prisoner would be strapped down and pumped full of lethal drugs.
The first would be sodium thiopental or pentobarbital, injected as an anesthetic agent; then pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant that caused paralysis of the skeletal muscles – including the diaphragm and other respiratory muscles; and then – while unable to breathe or move – the “patient” would be hit with potassium chloride, which stops the heart and causes death by cardiac arrest.
Give me a bullet to the head, any day of the week.
There was a lot of debate about changing to a single-drug protocol at the moment, with many states following through with these changes. According to Powell, the movement to single-drug injections led to the company producing sodium thiopental to go bust, which in turn meant that executions had come to a standstill at San Quentin until they got the whole situation sorted out – either switching to the single-drug protocol, or finding a replacement anesthetic.
Either way, it explained why the prison’s death row was in lockdown, and also helped to explain why it was currently being repurposed. American ingenuity, there was nothing like it. There are no problems, just opportunities.
The bed where prisoners would normally be executed was gone for now, but the rest of the room looked like it hadn’t been changed much. The small room had shiny tiles on the floor which would be a sonofabitch to fight on – it would be easy to slip and slide during stand-up fighting, and it would be painful as hell to fall on, or to grapple on. But it would also have the same effect on my opponents, so perhaps it wasn’t all bad. The walls were bare and stark, and not padded in any way; and three of them consisted mostly of viewing windows. I presumed it would be armored glass, and hoped it would hold when a human body went smashing into it – as was inevitably going to happen at some stage tonight.
To the rear of the injection chamber were preparation facilities – the control room, storage, rest rooms, the prep room, staging areas and holding cells. It was ideal for Bush’s little show, little different from the backstage dressing rooms of smalltime boxing and MMA events.
I’d spent time in the holding cell when I’d first arrived, but now I was in the injection chamber – the “arena” – once more stripped to the waist as the audience stared at me, trying to gauge what sort of fighter I would make.
My opponent still wasn’t here, and I was wondering if I would win by default if he failed to show.
But it was wishful thinking.
Just moments later, a figure emerged into the room opposite me, and Bush’s voice could be heard faintly through the armored glass.
“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight – for your viewing pleasure – we have two of our prison’s finest fighters, in the first round of our special tournament. On your left,” he said, gesturing in my direction, “we have Mitchel Delaney of Oakland, San Francisco, our hometown boy.”
There were some whoops and hollers, but not many, and I could see why – the guy opposite me was visually much more impressive.
“And to your right, we have Gabriel Garcia, originally from Sao Paolo, Brazil.”
Now the whoops and hollers were for real, and Garcia deserved them. He wasn’t too tall, or too heavy, but he was lean and athletic, and his body looked both fit and functional, a dangerous combination. His dark skin was oiled up, which would make grappling with him hard, but he had long black hair tied back into a ponytail, so at least I’d have something to grab onto.
I noticed he had bare feet, and wondered if he had been trained in one of the martial arts. Perhaps he felt more comfortable, fighting with no shoes? Personally, I kept my sneakers on; they’d protect my feet when I was stomping on his head.
There was a lot of discussion going on in the viewing galleries, Bush and the other guards were getting in among the guests, and I knew a lot of money would be changing hands here tonight.
I wondered what my odds were.
At least this guy wasn’t Deke Jasper though; if I beat him, it would be with a clear conscience. And who knew? Maybe Jasper would be beaten by somebody else tonight, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it anyway?
Garcia prowled around the other end of the room like a caged animal – which I supposed he was – and he had a definite feline grace about him. I wondered again what his specialty was, if he had one. Brazilian jiujitsu was the most likely, although there were all sorts of Brazilian combat forms that had been used for decades in unlicensed no-holds-barred contests. Alongside BJJ, there was also Vale Tudo and Luta Livre. Vale Tudo literally meant “anything goes” in Portuguese and – while being the catch-all term for NHB-style contests in Brazil – it was also the name of a particular combat system too. Luta Livre, meanwhile, was a traditional rival of BJJ, and the two factions had been involved in some epic contests throughout the twentieth century. All of them were dangerous, but I knew their common strengths and weakness, and hoped I would be able to exploit them.
If he was a grappler, as I suspected, he would try and cut down on the space between us, close me down and take me into a clinch; and once he had a hold on me, he would try and take me down to the floor, where he’d look for a finishing move such as a strangulation technique. And in a set-up like this, it was unlikely he’d stop if I tapped out.
If he caught me with something I couldn’t get out of, he’d probably kill me.
“If all bets are in,” Bush announced, “then let’s get this thing started.” He looked our way and gave a single nod of his head. “Fight!”
Chapter Three
Garcia stalked forward, as I’d suspected, and I shuffled back, keeping my distance. He then faked left and I pulled back further, expecting a low tackle; but then he whipped his body around and launched an insanely-fast spinning heel kick in my direction, his foot a blur.
I tried to react, thought I’d pulled my head back in time, but in the next instant I felt a searing pain bite through my forehead.
I put a hand up to it, and it c
ame away, drenched in blood. I looked down at Garcia’s bare feet, noted a glint of reflected light down there, and realized the sonofabitch had hidden razor blades between his toes.
The method of spinning kick – foot high, head low – told me I’d been wrong about him being a grappler; he was a capoeirista, a practitioner of the Brazilian martial art of capoeira. A strange and completely unique blend of kicks, spins, dancing and acrobatics, it had been developed by Brazilian slaves hundreds of years ago; with their hands chained, they’d developed the use of their feet, and then disguised the art as a dance, in order to fool their masters. Old-style practitioners were known to have used razor blades to make their seemingly innocuous moves into potentially fatal ones.
The blood started to seep down my forehead into my eyes, blurring my vision, and it suddenly occurred to me that this was exactly what Garcia had wanted, to blind me for the fight. It was disturbing how accurate he was, and I was grateful that I’d had my chin tucked in to my chest, or else he might have gone straight for my throat and achieved one of the quickest wins in history.
With his secret out of the bag, he knew there was no point disguising his style anymore, and so he launched into the ginga, the rhythmic rocking back and forth that was the capoeirista’s signature way of moving.
I wiped the blood out of my eyes, and Garcia took the opportunity to strike again, throwing a long front kick at my gut, razor blade racing toward me. I arched my back, pulling the target out of his way, but then I realized it had been a feint; he was spinning again, the deadly foot coming around more quickly than I would have imagined possible.
Instinctively I brought my arms up to protect my face, and I felt the burning pain across them as the blade sliced through the skin, covering them in bright red blood.
He backed away, dancing and smiling; and, outside the room, the crowd were loving every second of it, cheering for their razor-bladed hero. For them, it must have been like going back in time to the Roman coliseum, except they were having a more intimate, private viewing.
THE THOUSAND DOLLAR BREAKOUT: Colt Ryder Uncovers A Deadly Fight Club At San Quentin State Prison . . . Will He Escape With His Life? Page 8