by Sean Black
Byron elected to go outside, hang in the yard, and watch some of the inmates play basketball. As he left the mess hall he saw Franco, sitting on his own, getting ready to watch a movie. Byron gave him a wide berth. No good would come from an apology. The other prisoners would see it as weakness. That might lead to another challenge and Byron didn’t want to have to hurt anyone else, or get hurt himself for that matter. Franco was best left to his own devices. With luck the warden would show some mercy and let him go.
Red wandered onto the yard and immediately headed over to where Byron was standing. It was like having a shadow.
‘What’s up?’ Red asked him.
Byron took the question as rhetorical and kept watching the basketball game. All he could do was wait for Sunday to be over. On Monday he would make his move. Delay had already cost him.
‘You have family somewhere, Davis?’ Red said.
‘Nope,’ said Byron. ‘You?’
‘Old lady and a couple of kids back in Arkansas. Haven’t seen them since I walked out six years ago next month.’
Red was obviously waiting for some kind of follow-up questions. Like why he had walked out, or how old the kids were, if he missed them. Byron gave him none of that. Partly he wasn’t all that interested. But mostly he didn’t ask because it wasn’t a subject he liked to dwell on. It was too painful.
Two guards walked onto the yard and headed in Byron and Red’s direction. Glancing up, Byron saw the guard in the watchtower raise his rifle, tracking their progress, ready to fire if any of the inmates made a move on them. Not that such a thing seemed likely. From what Byron could see the inmates were too wrapped up in their Sunday treats to want to do anyone harm.
Byron had to hand it to whoever had designed the system. During the week, long hours of laboring out in the sun drained the prisoners of the energy they’d need to cause any trouble. On Sunday they got the good stuff, and they didn’t want trouble to interrupt that. Not many dogs bit their owner when they’d just been thrown a juicy bone.
To Byron it was just an engineered way of ensuring the passivity than went on outside. The principles were the same. Keep people busy, or distracted, or fearful, or some combination of all three, set them up against each other as a way of allowing them a pressure valve, and you could pretty much do what the hell you wanted.
The guards stopped about ten yards from where Byron was standing with Red. ‘Davis,’ one guard shouted, ‘you have a visitor.’
Byron looked at the man, his heart sinking. Maybe he had misheard. ‘Warden wants to see me?’ he asked.
‘No. Visitor.’
As Byron looked up at the watchtower, he saw the guard was aiming his rifle straight at him.
29
Byron followed the guards back across the yard and towards the gate that would lead him into the main administration building. The guard in the tower tracked his every step, the center of Byron’s back never leaving the cross-hairs.
This was it.
The moment Byron had been dreading.
Capture.
He didn’t know what would follow, but he knew that it wasn’t likely to be pleasant. He doubted that it would be as simple as losing his life. There would be stages that came before death. Interrogation. Torture. A search for what had gone wrong that, he imagined, might well involve surgical procedures. If the problem lay in his brain, who knew what they might do to render him compliant?
More than fear, he felt dread. He had already lost part of his humanity. He didn’t want to lose any more. He had pondered one question during his time on the run. If they took what was left of his humanity from him, how would he know?
As he followed the guards down a corridor, Byron considered his options. Given that he was handcuff- and shackle-free, he was in a good position to overpower the guards right here and now. There were two of them but neither was in great shape. Nor would they be a match for his close-quarters combat skills. But what lay beyond them?
There would be additional security measures between the corridor and the entrance. Those didn’t faze him either. If need be, he could take the guards hostage and use the immediate threat of harming them to force whoever controlled the gate to open it. If it came down to it, and he had to, one dead guard would do the trick.
But what about whoever had come to see him? If it was a person or persons from back east they would have plans in place that anticipated him trying to escape. He could end up injuring or even killing one of the guards only to be captured. Needless death or injury was not something he wanted to inflict upon anyone.
He would surrender. Go along with whatever they had planned. Then, as soon as an opportunity arose, he would make his move.
The guards stopped outside a wooden door marked ‘Interview Room’. Byron hadn’t asked them who his visitor was. He had taken his cue from their stoic expressions. He got the impression that whoever was on the other side of the door was important.
‘Should we cuff him?’ one asked the other.
‘Too late now. Should have done it already,’ his partner answered.
The guard on the handle side opened the door. He stuck his head round. ‘Prisoner Davis for you. He’s all yours,’ he said.
The guard opened the door wider. Byron stepped inside the room.
30
Thea Martinez got up from behind a table in the center. She walked around it and extended her hand. For a moment all Byron could do was stand just inside the doorway and look at her. He had been primed for fight or flight.
Finally, he recovered his composure. Her hand felt impossibly soft against his blistered and calloused skin.
‘Did the guards not tell you who your visitor was?’ Thea said.
He shook his head.
She shot an irritated glance towards the door. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I ask the guards to inform an inmate that I’m their visitor but it always seems to slip their minds.’ She smiled. ‘I’m not exactly popular around here.’
‘You don’t seem to be popular anywhere,’ Byron said.
She frowned.
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he added.
She picked up her soft leather briefcase, took out some papers and put them on the table. ‘No, you’re quite correct. I’m not very popular around here. People like me rarely are.’
‘People like you?’
‘People who ask questions that the people in power would prefer weren’t asked.’
Silence fell between them.
‘Ms Martinez, why are you here?’
‘It’s a welfare visit. I try to check in with all my clients after their first week. Make sure they’re okay.’
Byron wasn’t sure he believed her. Unless there was an appeal pending, attorneys tended to lose interest in a client once sentence had been passed. There were exceptions. But those exceptions tended not to be public defenders. ‘From what I can recall, the last time I saw you, you didn’t seem very happy with me.’
‘I’m still interested in your welfare.’
‘Well, I’m fine,’ said Byron.
She looked up from her papers. She seemed to be studying him. He found it unnerving. He wasn’t used to people looking at him with such intensity.
‘You’re quite sure about that?’ she asked.
Byron leaned forward. ‘Why don’t you ask me what you really came here to ask me?’
She straightened up in her chair. ‘Okay, then. I’m concerned about the conditions here. How the inmates are treated. Working conditions. Violence among inmates and whether incidents are properly controlled, monitored and reported.’
‘I’m sorry, Ms Martinez, I can’t help you.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think it’s the conditions that are the real issue here, and I doubt you think they are either,’ Byron said. ‘I assume you know about the women’s prison down the track and how it’s filled with wives and children of the men in here. The authorities are building golf courses and making telev
ision screens for the Chinese with illegal slave labor masquerading as prisoners. But you know all that already so I’m not sure how I can help.’
Thea dug out a blank piece of paper. She reached into her pocket and produced a pen. She handed it to Byron and slid the paper across to him. ‘Write me a statement about what you’ve seen. About how you were picked up and charged for nothing. Tell your story.’
‘And what good will that do?’
‘On its own, probably not very much. But as one piece in the bigger picture, maybe it will make a difference. And if it doesn’t, at least I can say I tried.’
‘Who do you plan on sending your complaint to?’ Byron already knew the answer but he wanted to hear it from Thea.
‘The Department of Justice. State senators. If they won’t listen, I’ll try to get a reporter or two interested.’
Byron looked down at the blank piece of paper on the table in front of him. Writing down what he knew would be getting involved in something that wasn’t his concern. He’d only meant to be passing through. At the same time, he wanted to help Thea. No, it was more than that. He wanted her to like him. To think well of him. It was a strange feeling, but it wasn’t new. He’d wanted his wife, Julia, to like him when he’d met her. The connection startled him.
The tips of his fingers rested on the paper. He stared at it. He knew that once he started writing, it would be a long time before he stopped.
Slowly he slid the piece of paper back across the desk. ‘I’m sorry. I just want to do my time and get out of here. If anyone knows I’ve done this . . . Let’s just say I can’t afford any more complications in my life.’
Thea took the blank piece of paper and put it back at the bottom of the pile. ‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ she said. ‘The DOJ would want to be able to check any witness statements against names’
His gaze met hers. ‘Why would that be a problem?’
‘Well, I did a little digging around. You don’t actually exist, do you, Mr Davis? Not officially, anyway.’
31
Byron pulled the blank piece of paper back across the desk. ‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked.
‘I want you to tell the truth,’ Thea said, adding, ‘As you see it.’
‘Starting when?’ he asked.
She shot him an exasperated look. ‘Whenever you like.’
‘I’ll start with my arrest. How about that?’ he said.
‘You really don’t want to do this, do you?’
‘It’s not like you’ve left me much say in the matter. All I’m doing is defining the parameters of what you want me to write.’
It was clear to Byron that Thea thought he was either stonewalling or being difficult because he resented her having blackmailed him. In truth, he had written many reports in his previous life, and those reports always had preset start and end points. If you controlled where a story began and ended, you could control how it would be read. An air strike on an Afghan wedding party told one story. An air strike after a prolonged battle in which Marines had been killed and in which, less than four hours later, the Taliban had been replaced by a bunch of villagers having a wedding was a different story. Parameters could be decisive.
‘Okay. Start with your arrest and what you were doing just before. You were walking into town to get a bus, correct?’ Thea said.
Byron nodded.
‘Go from there.’
Byron took the pen from her. He began to write. It took a lot of concentration. For one thing it was a long time since he had used a pen to do more than sign for something. For another he was used to writing reports in the kind of quasi-jargon beloved of government: adopting that style would be a red flag. Last, there were parts of his story that wouldn’t paint him in the best of lights. Like biting off another prisoner’s nose.
‘You want me to get you some coffee?’ Thea asked.
‘Sure,’ said Byron.
He watched her as she got up and walked to the door. He enjoyed the sway of her hips, the subtle curve from there all the way up to her neck. It wasn’t just that he hadn’t seen a woman in a while. He hadn’t seen a woman as attractive as Thea Martinez in a very long time.
She closed the door. He could hear the clack of her heels as she walked down the corridor. He reached over to the pile of papers she had left on the table and rifled through them quickly but efficiently. He found his name on a piece of torn-off yellow legal pad that had been paper-clipped to his arrest report. On the piece of yellow paper she had written the name and date of birth he had given and below that the word ‘alias’. Then she had scrawled another name, ‘Bradley Stang’, and a Washington DC number. His heart raced a little at the DC area code.
He moved on, looking for anything else. A minute later he could hear high heels clacking down the corridor towards him. He put the papers back, and hunched over his own piece of paper. It was still blank.
She came in with two Styrofoam cups of coffee, some small packets of sugar and plastic tubs of milk. She set it all down on the table. She glanced at her papers and back at Byron. ‘Find anything interesting?’ she asked.
Byron took his cup of coffee and raised it to his lips. It wasn’t bad. They served something they called coffee in the mess hall, but Byron wasn’t sure it bore any resemblance to what most people considered coffee to be.
He took another sip, and put down the cup. Thea was looking at him, waiting for an admission of guilt.
He went back to writing his report. More time passed. He glanced up at her. ‘Who’s Bradley Stang and why were you calling him to ask about me?’
‘So you did look at my papers,’ said Thea.
‘Shall I rephrase the question?’
‘Try answering mine first. Did you go through my papers?’ Thea repeated.
‘You leave private papers on a table with an inmate, what do you think will happen? Who’s Bradley Stang?’
‘A friend of mine,’ said Thea.
Byron knew that a single phone call might sign his death warrant. His next visitor might be someone way more threatening than an attorney on some kind of civil-rights crusade. He got to his feet. He took a step around the table. To her credit, Thea stood her ground. She was either very brave, very reckless, or a combination of both.
He took another step, forcing her to move back. He was close enough to smell her perfume. ‘Who is Bradley Stang and what did you tell him about me?’
Thea put her hand up to Byron’s chest. Rather than shove him back, she let it stay there, her palm pressed against the slab of muscle. Energy crackled between them. Neither broke the other’s gaze. Byron could as easily have kissed her as struck her. In the end, he did neither. He took a step back. Her hand dropped.
‘Take a seat, John,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you.’
Byron walked back round the table and sat down. She sat opposite him.
‘Bradley was at law school with me. He works in the DOJ. I wasn’t calling him specifically about you. In fact, I never even mentioned your name. The reason I never mentioned you to him was because I already knew that John Davis wasn’t your real name and I didn’t want to cause you any more problems than you already have. Bradley has offered to help me compile evidence and then he’ll take it someone at the DOJ.’
‘So it was just coincidence that his name was next to mine?’ Byron asked.
‘I was looking at your file when I called him so that’s why I jotted it down there, yes.’
Either she was a very good liar or she was telling the truth. She showed absolutely no fear or uncertainty. If she had, Byron would have picked up on it.
‘You’re right,’ said Byron. ‘I’m not who I say I am.’ All he was doing was confirming what she already knew. ‘I can’t tell you who I am, and I’d ask that you don’t go trying to find out. For everyone’s sake.’
She didn’t say anything to that.
‘Can you do that for me?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. I could lie and say I could, but I don’t want to lie. S
o …’
They had reached an impasse. Or seemed to have. Byron had thought of a workaround. ‘Could you hold off for a week? After that you can do as much digging as you like.’
She seemed to be studying him even more intently. ‘Why a week? You planning on going somewhere? I mean, even if I entered an appeal for you . . .’ She hesitated, then corrected herself: ‘An appeal for John Davis, on Monday, it would take at least a week at best to be heard before Judge Kelsen.’
‘Can you hold off three days?’ said Byron. ‘Yes or no?’
‘I think I can rein in my curiosity for three days. Just about. Though every time I see you, you make it just a little harder.’
Byron didn’t ask whether she was still referring to her curiosity. He didn’t want to know. He was finding it hard enough to focus as it was. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘There’s one final thing, since you know I’m not who I told people I am. Do you know if checks have been run on me by anyone in Kelsen County?’
‘You mean anything that might ping on the radar somewhere else?’ said Thea.
‘Exactly,’ Byron said.
‘I can’t say for sure, but I will tell you one thing. If you want to get lost, this is as good a place as any to do it. Kelsen doesn’t feed into any of the national law-enforcement databases. They like to stay under the radar down here.’
Byron tapped the nib of his pen against the paper. ‘Hence you want this.’
‘Someone has to do it.’
‘So why haven’t they?’ he asked.
‘They’re scared. Or they like the benefits that the way things are run here have brought. You drive through the town to go to work, right?’