by Brian Parker
Rumours of Hal’s compatriots seeing some sort of spectre on the night of the death of Giuffrida had washed the prison for a time, more out of a sense of escape from the boredom than anything else, but it had served to grant Broker an aura of dread and so he had allowed it. This, however, could not stand. The play centred on a poisoning, it had been widely rumoured that he had poisoned Giuffrida and here was a cruel mockery of Giuffrida on stage, pontificating upon his own poisoning. True, the movie predated Giuffrida’s birth by several decades, but that did not remove the sting. Hal had to be behind this public accusation, there was no other explanation. Coupled with the image of the ghost pointing a finger his way for murder this was a direct challenge to Broker’s authority. He too had heard the rumours of the prison board’s interest in this performance, he had to be using this medium to draw attention to him without being seen as an informant. Broker was not fooled for a minute; he would see to it that Hal would pay for his arrogance.
Rising from his seat, Broker deigned to stay no longer. He reasoned that to stay would be seen as permission to continue and would provide an air of weakness that the boss of a criminal prison empire could ill afford. Instead, he adopted a measured pace and strode back to his cell.
Broker glanced back over his shoulder and swore. His attendants still sat, confused at his departure, the gormless expressions on their faces saying it all. True, Broker had done nothing but crow about the fall of Hal all week, saying he was looking forward to seeing the smug bastard humiliated, even if Hal couldn’t comprehend the tumultuous fall of his star–and Hal hadn’t even taken the stage as yet. Still, they should have known that if he left, so should they.
Back in the cell, Broker sat staring out of the window deep in thought. His demeanour was as dark as the night sky he observed, unseeing. He reasoned that there had to be some sort of comeback for his murder of Giuffrida. Even the prison warden, despite being as complicit in the criminal activity in the prison as he was, would not let the cold-blooded murder of a high profile prisoner stand. There would be an investigation, but the chances of anyone connecting the dots was small at best.
A former prisoner had given him the idea of using digitalis, derived from foxglove flowers, not even native to the United States. A large enough dose was smuggled in to aggravate the old man’s existing heart condition and the prison medical examiner had been extremely lazy. A heart attack and a history of heart conditions was enough for his prognosis of natural causes. No tox-screen had taken place and by now the organic compounds would be completely undetectable. All he really had to do was deny anything and the warden’s political instincts would mean that the whole thing would be forgotten all over again. After all, it was just a play and the insane idiot in charge of bringing all this back up was just a player.
Hal completed a rather lacklustre performance as Chester, a psychopathic henchman who, in a dramatic turn that was integral to his plan, was killed before the end of the play. He’d changed out of his costume in record time and made his way here, to the corridor near the warden’s office, which Broker would have to come down in order to meet with him. Hal was depending upon questions being asked about the subject matter of the play and the warden demanding to see Broker to tell him to keep things running smoothly and with no further bloodshed for the foreseeable future. The plastic of the toothbrush that Hal had been sharpening against the walls of the prison as he capered around distributing fliers was smooth in this hand, apart from the bristles that he had been obliged to keep, both for traction and so as to keep his teeth in fair condition. Too many questions followed prisoners who did not maintain their oral hygiene for toothbrushes were noted for being pressed into service as weapons. They ceased to be used for their intended purpose at this stage and so the authorities were accustomed to checking such items when gingivitis set in on a prisoner.
Crouched in the dark, Hal could feel the chill set in. The corridors were not kept heated in the night; it was as though the spirit of Giuffrida was here as witness to what was to come, a watching, waiting demon guiding him—not that Hal was a believer in such nonsense. He just knew that Giuffrida had been decent to him, and the man responsible for his death and the removal of his standing in the prison had to die. While he hadn’t been reticent regarding the deaths of his many victims, they had offended his sensibilities with their plays on the mysteries of life and death, here at least Broker respected the finality of death. Was Broker so different to that which he was? Was he offending his own sensibilities by taking retribution against one who had acted much as he himself had once? Drawing back into the dark Hal pressed his back against the cold, dark wall and cast his gaze to the ceiling. Was his nature this or something different in this moment, a spirit of vengeance and justice or simply another thug looking for his fix of life and comfort? Was this vendetta true and just? Should he suffer the consequences of fate instead of this quest to kill Broker, or should he fight that which had conspired against him? If he fought, what then awaited him? Hal reasoned that his life sentence could only be upgraded to one other, save solitary confinement (which would hardly be reasonable to impose for yet another murder), he would be taken from this place and electrocuted until he was dead.
Which was the right path to choose? What awaited him in death? He’d taken the lives of so many that had promised to tell all that could cross their palms with silver of what lay on the other side of that ethereal curtain, promised to draw it back and reveal messages from the long departed. Instead, Hal had firmly believed that once you’re dead then you’re dead. In such a universe what then awaited him if not the embrace of the dearly deceased, would it be merely a descent into a long dreamless sleep from whence there was no awakening, if indeed it was truly dreamless? If the dreams did come, what then? What dreams would his mind conjure?
In this moment, Hal knew of the reason for his offence at those who bit their thumb at the grim reaper. For Death was the final equaliser that brought fear to all, save for those brave souls who chose the manner of their passing. To peddle the story of a thereafter was to rob the dignity of those that had crossed before them. No office was sufficient, no love or law robbed the reaper, and all men feared his passing. It was only those who steeled themselves into his embrace that truly found their way past the mundane chains of their existence, the sweat of a thousand days simply to continue existing, not even living. His inaction was not, therefore, a salve he could accept. He must stand and take action, not later, postponing his passing but this very night. The knife must fall in the dark, and the dread consequences with them down upon him.
Turning back to the corridor Hal heard footsteps and rather than the sole tread of Broker that he had been planning upon he saw instead Broker’s most trusted guards checking the corridor. Now was the time, not like a thief in the night to rob a man of his life, but to make the very public spectacle that his honour demanded of his act of defiance of the fates and death itself.
Stepping from his place of concealment, Hal moved to the very centre of the corridor in clear view of the lieutenants that had been looking for signs of a concealed attacker. The thugs stepped back in surprise, for few in the prison would choose to pursue an open assault on them in concert, but this was not Hal’s plan.
“What pitiful excuses you all make. What did Broker pay you for his loyalty? Eh? Mr. Giuffrida was fair and didn’t steer you wrong, but you just accepted Broker killing him.”
“We don’t know he killed him,” one thug replied, stung into response by the accusation of complicity against him.
“You knew, you just didn’t have any evidence. Since when did we prisoners need evidence to know when one of us kills another? He was poisoned and we all know it. I know it, you know it, that shady bastard on the end looking at his boots in shame definitely knows it. Are you proud of selling out your boss? What benefits came your way? Money, respect, or was it just that you were scared of what everyone else who was bought off would do to you? Bought and sold each and every one of you. At least
whores are only rented, they retain their ownership after the lease expires. You aren’t any better than pleasure bots, owned and rented out simultaneously, never your own men, always the property of another. Even now he probably has someone watching you; for who watches the watchers?”
“Someone punch this crazy bastard,” another of the thugs yelled, sick of the delay in their task.
“What’s going on here?” a guard enquired, rounding the corner.
“Assassin!” Hal yelled in surprise as the guard rounded the corner startling him.
Spinning on his heel, his face a mask of terror Hal raised the toothbrush and stabbed it again and again into the torso of Officer Mortenson, who he believed to be assaulting him from behind, a man in the employ of Broker, the nemesis who had so wounded him and his position. Sickening squelches ripped through the corridor as the thugs did something they had thought themselves incapable of—or at least unlikely to do—and ran to the assistance of the guard. The toothbrush ripped into the yielding flesh of the guard and was torn free each time. When it was raised from the wound it pulled up with it streams of crimson blood as the pressure in the veins and arteries was released. This viscous liquid flew and splattered. On Hal, on the guard, on the prisoners pulling him away, on the corridor walls, pooling on the floor and rolling slowly away from the body that had housed it.
Snarling and spitting blood that had been drawn into his mouth by its flight through the air, Hal was dragged once again down the corridor as more guards, alerted by the screaming and the panic button on the wall being pushed by one of the prisoners. Gone was the quiet businessman that had been an item of furniture in the prison for so long, instead each man that witnessed that night saw a memory of the newspapers, the night that Hal had been captured mid-killing and dragged into a riot van by no less than seventeen armed and armoured police officers, all heavily armed. Hal had been covered in blood and gore that night as well. History had turned a full circle and Hal was slavering and wailing at a crusade once again left unfinished.
“What do we do with him?” Officer Bertram, the head guard, asked the warden.
“I don’t know. Mortenson survived, so we don’t need to do anything public. We aren’t allowed to ask for the death penalty on anything less. If he’d been able to get a more efficient weapon, we would have had a brief public outcry and an execution. Instead, we have to do something to establish order. Stuff him in solitary.”
“Is that it?”
“It’s all I can do.”
“I’ll see to it.”
“Oh, Officer Bertram?”
“Yes?”
“If Hal Chetfield should somehow find his way out of his cell on his own…well, two shots to the head would be a reasonable response given the circumstances. Wouldn’t you think?”
“Indeed I do, sir.”
Hal lay with his legs in the air. This was to be his position for the next hour, perhaps two. He hadn’t quite decided, he had time to make up his mind though. If he did change position where would he go? To the other wall to sit with his back against it? No, he’d done that yesterday. Hal decided that he would stay put and round off the day by pacing back and forth three steps across the cell and then the return journey of three steps once more, over and over again.
The drip from the tap sounded, again and again, the staccato rhythm giving time to eternity, form to the void of time. Hal could almost make out the mini-drops that formed from the impact of the initial waterfall. Time had slowed to a crawl, and at times beyond even that as the crusade of temporal armies across the universe seemed stilted and halted by the bastion of oubliette that he occupied.
A claxon sounded as Hal stood to begin his regimen of striding from one wall of his confinement to the other. Halting his first step, Hal turned, confused, towards the door that opened at first a crack and then further to swing open in the pale light of the moon. Hal gazed at the pooling light at the threshold of his captivity.
“Mr. Giuffrida? Is that you? Have you come to punish me for failing?” he asked.
No answer came and Hal moved toward the door to investigate, his steps quiet and cautious. Reaching the midpoint of his cell Hal stopped as though listening to an inner voice.
“No! I shall not.” Hal yelled into the night.
Hal climbed onto the cold stone floor and rolled under the bed to hide from attack, for surely no good would come of taking such a miraculous bait as that which dangled before him.
“No! Close the door. Here I am and here I shall stay,” he yelled at the light assaulting him in the night.
Curling into a ball, he refused to move despite the disquiet in his head.
“Sir, every night we leave the door unlocked and open and each night he just curls up under the bed. We can’t get him to leave.”
The warden slammed his fist on the desk in frustration.
“Well, drag him out and shoot him then!”
“Sir, that’s a messy solution at best. There will be witnesses, rumours.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“I don’t. He’s crazy, have him dealt with as such.”
The door opened and with all the arrogance of a man in control, Broker entered the warden’s office. Grinning widely, he spread his arms and sat down as though he owned the room.
“Gentlemen, perhaps I can be of assistance.”
“How so? It’s your mess we’re trying to clean up. Hal’s covert implication of you is what led to all this,” the warden responded.
“Well, then I should be able to solve it. A simple death by misadventure should suffice. The whole thing will be public and so… no accusations will be headed your way.”
“What do you suggest?” the warden asked cautiously.
“A boxing match, between a guard and a prisoner. I know that Officer Porter was friendly with Mortenson. He also has a daughter, one that’s recently gone missing and so would be rather keen to see her returned, something my external associates can possibly arrange. That is, if he cooperates.”
“Cooperates with what?”
“All he has to do is take the fight a little too far and I will take care of the rest.” Broker grinned and sat back, awaiting the inevitable acquiescence of the warden.
“You guarantee this will work and nothing will come back on me?” the warden inquired.
“Absolutely. Your hands will be clean.”
His fingernails scratched along the floor as Hal was dragged from the cell he’d taken to calling home and had refused to leave even when the guards informed him of his freedom. He had no wish to participate in the boxing match they had informed him of, but their insistence now saw him being dragged bodily down the corridor screaming and kicking wildly, even as he sought to grab onto the floor.
The walls passed in a blur for Hal as he envisioned his death by lethal injection before he could enact his revenge, the ultimate insult, for he had grown to hate his inability to finish his mortal business. He fought as the guards removed his jumpsuit, now sticky and stained with his own exudates. They turned a hose upon him, as he fought whenever they tried to get him in the shower. They had to hold him down as they placed the boxing accoutrements upon his unwilling frame. The gloves were hardest of all as they required lacing, even though the more modern designs had Velcro fastenings the prison recreational facilities had been tragically under-funded for many decades and only outmoded designs could be purchased with the available budget.
Finally, Hal was pushed, prodded and pulled to the hastily erected ring where he would face Officer Porter. Several hands heaved him through the ropes and a ring of guards made it clear that he wasn’t going to be allowed to come back through, no matter how hard he tried.
Staring at the baying crowd, so animalistic compared to the sedate and expectant faces that had stared back up at him the last time he had faced them from such an elevated and public position, Hal resigned himself to his fate. He would be pummelled in a boxing match after all. An energy bar was proffered through the ropes
as the announcer did his best to work the crowd into yet more baying excesses, cawing for violence and brutality. Hal took it, reasoning he would need all the energy he could muster to withstand the public beating to come. Having been on near-starvation rations, the nutty sweetness dried his mouth, so he also took the proffered water bottle when it was handed to him.
Hal took stock of his opponent, standing at six foot two. According to the announcer, he was hopelessly outmatched as his stats were nowhere near as impressive, and probably out of date given his confinement in solitary, which had started robbing him of both fat and muscle. Moving to the centre of the ring as the referee motioned him forward, Hal felt the lights grow brighter to the point of painfulness. Porter came toward him ringed in purple and tapped his gloves, the world seemed to move in slow motion and as the bell rang, Hal felt the first stab of agony in his chest.
A sucker punch snuck through his defences and snapped his nose cleanly. Hal could hardly breathe with the blood now impairing his breathing, though the difficulty did not seem to be constrained to his sinuses, it had spread quickly through his lungs as well. A blow to his stomach intensified the stabbing pain in his heart and Hal fell to the canvas stunned.
“He’s going down too easily. That’s a guy who was dragged to prison by seventeen officers,” the warden hissed to Broker who was passing by.
“That’s an unfortunate side-effect of digitalis, the victim gets rather sluggish. He’ll die soon enough though and this can all be explained by heart problems exacerbated by the boxing match,” Broker shrugged.
A ringing signified the end of the first round and Hal was dragged to his corner for another swig of bitter tasting water. Hal slumped down, knowing even in his fogged and slowed down brain that he had been drugged and was about to die. Sensing his defeated mind, his captors relaxed their guard for a brief second and Hal took his only chance. He wriggled free of their belated attempts to stop him and tried to make his way to the exit.