Blood Cell

by Shaun Tennant

  “Good.” Leo climbed off of Josh and let him go. Josh climbed to his feet, wheezing.

  “Now tell me what they wanted with you. Every detail. When will they make their move?”

  Josh coughed. They can’t make a move. Something the warden said.”

  Leo smiled, but the air of menace remained. “Good. But they must have wanted something.”

  “No, they just wanted to get to know your cellmate. They’re really obsessed with you.”

  “Obviously,” Leo approached Josh again, backing him up against the bars of the cell door. “but if you keep holding out on me, I will not be happy. You know what I do when I’m unhappy?”

  Josh shook his head.

  “I kill you in your sleep.”

  Josh felt himself go white, the feeling of dropping down the first hill on a rollercoaster. He was locked in with a madman.

  But he still had a play. Josh grabbed the bars behind himself, and with a strong pull the door slid to the side. As it moved, Josh ducked through the opening, and on his way he jammed his pinkie into the lock mechanism on the door jamb. He fished out a small piece of balled-up toilet paper and let it drop to the ground. Before Leo could even react, Josh had the door slammed shut again, with Leo standing dumbstruck on the inside.

  A whistle blew, and a C.O. ran to Josh. He raised his hands on got down on his knees.

  “Farewell! How the hell did you get out here?”

  “Sorry, Officer, I don’t want to make trouble. But my cellmate wants to learn how to escape and I’m afraid of what’ll happen if I don’t show him.”

  “Hell with that. Never should have let the two of you house together anyway.”

  The C.O. cuffed Josh and then stood him up.

  “Time to find you a new cell, Farewell.”

  Josh smiled at Leo this time, and was led away.

  *****

  At the same time, on the third and highest level of the block, Ox Werden was hard at work. Under cover of darkness, he used a freshly made shank to scrape deep cuts into the side of a plastic mug. The shank he was using had been made from the handle of the very same mug.

  After he had six lines, evenly space around the sides of the mug, he placed it between his foot and the floor and applied pressure. The mug folded and collapsed, tearing the plastic along a few of the lines. Once that was done, he used the shank to cut away the bottom of the mug, then finished separating the side into six evenly sized pieces of rectangular plastic.

  He picked up a piece of metal. It had been tricky getting the metal, but Sonny had managed. It was thinner than a dime, and had been crudely cut into a triangle about two inches long on the long side. He placed the metal so that it overlapped the top of one piece of plastic. He placed another piece of the mug on top of that, sandwiching the metal between two pieces of plastic. Using his pillow and blankets to block the light, Ox lit his cigarette lighter and used the flame to melt the two plastic sections, fusing them into a single piece that held the steel in place. When he was done, he had a rough approximation of a box cutter—plastic handle, metal blade. All that was left was to sharpen the blade against the wall of the cell. But that could be done tomorrow. For now, he had two more shanks to finish.

  When he was done, Ox had turned a mug and three pieces of steel into three deadly weapons. He crawled beneath his bed and felt along the wall. The walls were concrete, and he had carved out a narrow crack here. He found the spot. He removed the false section of wall—a long strip about one centimetre wide and six inches tall. This false strip was made out of soap, coloured with grains of concrete from when he had carved the crack. Into the crack went all four shanks—the one he had made previously and the three new ones. Then he plugged the crack back up, and got into bed.

  Each of Ox’s trusted men had been given metal. They would have twelve more shanks just like these, for a total of sixteen. Four for the members of the motorcycle club, and twelve for some good guys they knew they could count on. More than enough to take care of Ox’s problems. Getting that guy Leo and letting Vega take the fall would be nice, but watching Vega bleed to death would be even sweeter.

  Ox was still a little bitter over that new guy Josh choosing the Latinos over his own kind. With sixteen shanks handed out, Ox was sure that at least one of them could end up in the jugular of Josh Farewell.

  *****

  Santos Vega had a lot of things on his mind. Foremost was the situation with Leo, and trying to manoeuvre a way to kill the S.O.B without any extra jail time, definitely not time in the hole. But there was also growing tension with the dirtbags in the Motorcycle Club. They were socializing, drawing in a lot of new guys to their cause. The skinheads were getting smarter, too; they had some means of getting metal out of the shop in B pod, and metal meant blades. Santos would have to make a statement soon, re-establish himself as the only superpower in this prison. Every inmate could feel a war coming, and it was in Santos’ interest to decide when and where the war took place.

  The guards and the warden were another problem. They clearly saw Santos as being too powerful, yet they left his gang intact. All they would have to do is ship Charlie and Carlos out to different pods and Santos would lose his captains, but instead, the warden was making a point of keeping them together. Santos was starting to think that he would be shot, with the cover story that his gang was threatening the guards. Or maybe they’d just kill Leo and frame Santos for it.

  He was going to have to kill Leo soon. There was no time left to plan. Santos wasn’t a man of many skills, but he could always feel danger closing in on him. It was a skill that had kept him on the streets for years after he should have been busted.

  There had been a time, back when there were only nine or ten guys in the Eighteenth, that Santos’s instincts bordered on the supernatural. Once, they had just picked up a huge shipment of hash by sticking up some white dipshits who thought they could smuggle it into town without any real security. They took the load, almost fifty pounds of the stuff, without even making a sound. They just rolled up to the dock where the drugs were being offloaded from a speedboat into a van, approached the smugglers, showed their guns and began to load the hash into their own vehicles. They poor yuppies who actually owned the stuff were too scared to even reach for their guns, so they just stood by and watched their fortune drive away.

  Santos and his crew took the stash back to a warehouse they knew would be empty and started to weigh it out into one-ounce bundles. After about an hour of work, Santos got a bad feeling. He didn’t know why, but he was sure that there was something wrong. He’d felt like the robbery was too easy, but this was something else. He wasn’t just nervous, he had a definite gut feeling telling him that there was something wrong with this stash. So he told the crew to leave the drugs and get out of the warehouse. Leo had argued, of course. He even suggested that Santos was trying to steal the drugs for himself.

  Santos had gone easy on him, just punching Leo in the mouth and tossing him into the van. And less than a half hour after they left the warehouse, the place was raided. Santos couldn’t tell you then how he had made that call to clear out, and he couldn’t tell you now. But he trusted his gut, and right now his gut told him that the best possible course of action was to kill Leo Jimenez. He couldn’t explain it to anyone but himself, but Santos knew that if Leo stayed alive, something very bad was going to happen.

  Looking back on that night at the warehouse, Santos knew that he should have let Leo get caught. Just knocked him out and left him with the hash, waiting for the cops. Or better yet, killed him then. It would have saved him so much trouble. And thinking about how Leo had accused him, how Leo was so quick to turn, thinking only of himself, Santos saw now what he should have seen then. Leo was a live wire, and Santos had allowed him to short out the entire gang. He would soon correct the mistake.

  After talking with the new guy, Josh something, Santos found a plan developing his mind. It was quite beautiful in its simplicity: a variation on ‘suicide by cop’ that
would allow for Leo to die without anyone blaming Santos. To begin with, Josh would be sent to steal one of the guards’ swipe cards. Then Josh, or one of Santos’ soldiers, would need to get into one of the guard posts and use the swipe card to get access to the gun locker. All they would need is a sidearm; it didn’t even necessarily need bullets. Getting into the guards’ office above the mess hall would be impossible, but there were small booths at the end of each walkway in the cellblock where guards controlled the cell doors. Each walkway only had one guard for most of the day, and it would be easy enough to drive them away.

  For example, they could beat the piss out Leo. That would be a good diversion to send the guard running. While he was gone, Josh could slip into the booth, open the locker and grab a gun as quick as he could. By the time the guard called for backup to pull the Eighteenth off of Leo, Josh and the gun would be long gone.

  The next step would be at the nightly lockdown. Leo only left his cell for a shower in the morning and meal times, and that was only because the guards made you go. Santos couldn’t hide a gun in the shower, and there were too many eyes on him in the mess hall, so they’d have to take the action to Leo and Josh’s cell. The plan was really quite simple.

  The guards have standing orders to shoot anyone escaping, or anyone who steals a gun. Santos would send one of his men to shove the gun into Leo’s hands, and then Santos himself would yell “Gun!” while his entire gang pointed at Leo. Leo, dumbass that he is, would be standing there holding a gun for all to see. And the guards on duty would bring him down with their sidearms within seconds. Leo would be dead, with over a hundred witnesses and security camera footage showing that Leo had pulled a gun, and that the guards had taken him down. The best time for the plan to work was either first thing in the morning or last thing at night, when more guards were in the stacks marshalling prisoners. Morning was out because it would mean that someone would have to hide a gun all night, and hope nobody noticed it missing. So that meant the plan would have to be carried out at night, when the guards came by before lights out.

  It wasn’t a perfect plan. Leo could always drop the gun and surrender before he was shot, and the person trying to plant the gun could get caught before they plant it. Josh had told them that he would get them the card to steal a gun, but wouldn’t plant the weapon himself. They agreed to that, because even though it would be easier if Josh did everything, the eighteenth wanted to kill Leo on their own.

  One thing the plan had going for it was the guards. Leo was already being watched by everyone in the place, and if they beat him up to make a distraction it would mean even more guards would be there to watch Leo when the gun was planted. More guards meant more trigger fingers.

  *****

  Josh woke up in his new cell. It was a few minutes before morning count, but Josh had been awakened by his new cellie. He was an Asian guy named Harold Kim, and on the bunk below Josh he was loudly snorting cocaine out of a small baggie. Josh smiled and lay back with his hands behind his head. This was much better than being awakened by a choke hold.

  In the late afternoon, Josh surveyed the guards on duty in the block and decided that the one with sandy brown hair looked the least intimidating.

  “Officer Williams?” asked Josh when the guard walked by his cell.

  “What is it, new guy?”

  “I got moved from my old cell in the night. I need to go get my change of clothes out of the old cell.” As he talked, Josh leaned in—it was partly to give the image of friendly conversation, and partly to test the C.O.’s boundaries. He needed a guard with a small personal bubble.

  “What cell were you in?”

  “How would I know? I was only in there for half a day.”

  Williams sighed and looked up Josh on his clipboard. “Your old cellie will be going for a shower in fifteen minutes. Wait until then.”

  Josh did as he was told, and a few minutes later he was relatively alone with Williams inside Leo’s cell, and happy in the knowledge that he could get within an arm’s reach of the C.O. without any trouble.

  As Josh packed up his clothes, he took his time, hoping Williams would start talking. It worked.

  “I asked why they moved you on your first night. They said you got out after lockup.”

  “I wasn’t going to escape again. I was just looking to get away from the maniac they had me housing with.”

  “Escape again? You can just come and go from this cell as you please?” Williams sounded incredulous, but he was jovial enough.

  “Look me up,” said Josh, “I can get out of anything. This cell, those handcuffs... probably get out of Pittman once I get to know the building.”

  Josh placed his wrists together and extended them toward the handcuffs on Williams’ belt. “Here, cuff me.”

  “No thanks,” said Williams. “I’ll take your word for it. Grab your clothes.”

  Josh nodded and gave Williams a polite you’re the boss smile. He picked up his clothes and was escorted back to Kim’s cell. Williams walked off to patrol somewhere else, and didn’t even notice that Josh had removed the swipe card from his belt.

  Two hours later, Santos slid his dinner tray onto his usual table, only this time Josh Farewell was already waiting in the seat next to him.

  “You get my swipe card?”

  Josh nodded. “From Williams.”

  Santos followed Josh’s nod to see Williams making chit-chat with the inmates in the chow line.

  “He didn’t notice?”

  “I just took it this afternoon, but you better use it soon before he notices and gets it deactivated.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Santos told him, “Just five hours to lights out.”

  “Bit of an issue,” said Josh.

  “What?”

  “I had to get myself out of that cell. Leo’s housing alone. Might make it harder to send someone else to plant the gun on him.”

  “You still on the second floor?”

  “Yeah. I’m in with some coke addict named Kim,” Josh said it in the tone you might use to say “and there were no hot towels in first class.”

  Santos took a bite of his ham. “You should eat something. It looks suspicious enough when a man sits next to me.” Josh lifted his slice of meat with his fork and smelled it. Josh seemed to Santos like a real ‘outside man’, the sort of guy who can’t stand all the things you have to put up with a prison. No wonder he escaped.

  “After dinner, go back to your cell with Kim. We’ll have to go past that cell to get to Leo. We’ll haul him out and start wailing on him. That’ll get the guard moving. Once he goes past your cell, you go get us a gun, alright? Carlos will be there to take the gun out of your hands, you won’t have to touch it for more than a few seconds.” Santos spoke in hushed tones, not wanting to be overheard. “You have to move quick—once the violence starts another three or four guards are gonna come running.”

  “I got it.” Josh looked like he was sick. He wasn’t cut out for this. Santos didn't really care. He could use Josh, so that’s what he was going to do.

  “Good. Now eat your--” before he could finish, their entire plan fell apart.

  Across the room, Terminal Thomas, the unpredictable giant, was holding Leo Jimenez over his head, which put him about ten feet from the floor. Terminal was screaming with rage. Even through his dark complexion, Santos could see that the blood was rushing to Thomas’ face. Terminal held Leo with one hand on his back, and one his ankle. Then, the hand on Leo’ back thrust him upward, while the hand holding his ankle jerked down. The result was like watching a catapult launch Leo, flipping him hard, face first, into the nearest steel table.

  Leo hitting the table sounded like a watermelon hitting the sidewalk combined with a hammer striking an anvil. There was a loud metallic bang, and a sickening hollow thud. Leo’s head probably left a dent in the table. By the time everyone at Santos’ table had even registered that something was happening, four guards on the floor were swooping in—two to tend to Leo, and tw
o to pull Thomas away from his target.

  “Oh Hell,” said Josh.

  “Leo’s gonna be locked up for a while once T.T. gets through with him,” added Charlie.

  “Goddamn him,” added Eli.

  “T.T.?” asked Josh.

  “Terminal Thomas. Real sensitive type. But he can hand out a beating.”

  “Yeah,” said Josh, watching the giant thrash Leo, “seems real sensitive.”

  Santos felt his world spinning as he considered the repercussions. He spoke, more to himself than to anyone else: “If they take him to the hospital he’ll never be put back in this pod. We gotta kill him before they take him out of the room.”

  “What? We can’t touch—“Carlos started, but Santos was already gone and heading for the crowd that had gathered around Leo and Thomas.

  In the crowd, Santos found an inmate named Mikey Woodcock. Remember Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption? Well that was Mikey, only he was young and white and had dreadlocks. Mikey was the man who could supply you with just about anything. And that made him both popular and influential. The hunger strike that Santos took credit for was mostly Mikey’s influence. Mikey had the ability to call in favours, and Santos needed one.

  “I need to stop Leo from getting out of this room alive.”

  Mikey looked sceptical. The guards were already treating Leo. What did Vega expect—a miracle?

  In the back corner of the cafeteria, Ox Werden and the motorcycle club watched in amusement.

  “Shit, you see the look on Vega’s face?” asked Sonny Ramsden with a smile.

  “What’s he doin’?” asked Ox.

  “Looks like he’s talking to Mikey.”

  “Shit, he’s up to something.”

  Ox leaned in. “You guys do your work last night?” As he asked, he pulled up his shirt. Rolled into the waistband of his pants were the four shanks he’d crafted the previous night. Sonny, Frankie, and Paul also rolled up their waistbands. They had all finished their shanks.

  “Gather the boys. The time is now.”