by Black, Sean
Lock sank to his knees, letting rip with a primal scream. Then a black tunnel was all around him, sucking him back into the sky and away from being able to help either Carrie or Ty.
Lock woke to the sound of his cell phone’s alarm, the gun still by his side, the steering wheel in front of him. Disoriented by the images from his nightmare, he peered out of the windshield and both side windows, a thin sheen of sweat coating his face. He wiped the worst of it away with his sleeve, opened the door of the car and stepped out into the fresh air, shaking out the cramp from his legs. He took a walk round the rest stop area, then got back in the car, took a sip of water, wishing it were coffee, started the engine and continued his journey.
It was dusk by the time Lock drove past the unmanned security booth and into the parking lot that fronted the administration building of the prison. Coming in this way, a visitor would have little idea of the security that lay beyond. He pushed open the main door, stepped on to the sparkling linoleum that covered the lobby floor, then took a left towards the warden’s office. The two middle-aged women who served as administrators were packing up, ready to go home.
Lieutenant Williams stepped from his office next to the warden’s. He didn’t look particularly pleased to see Lock.
‘Warden Marquez still here?’ Lock asked him. ‘It won’t take long.’
Williams hitched up his equipment belt. ‘Thought you might have had enough of this place for a lifetime,’ he observed, turning into the warden’s office.
Marquez emerged a few moments later. ‘It’s not a good time, Lock,’ he said.
‘The timing isn’t of my choosing. I guess you heard about events in Medford?’
Marquez rubbed his prosthetic eye. ‘We got the SHU and the mainline on lockdown because of it.’
‘Problem?’
‘Soon as word came that the AB leadership had been wiped out, the Nazi Low Riders made their move.’
‘What kind of move?’
‘Told all the white inmates that anyone that was AB could either switch to the NLR or die.’
‘What about the AB leader who survived? I heard he was shipped back here. You still have him?’
‘He was smart, he PCed up,’ said Marquez.
PC, Lock knew, stood for protective custody. There was a separate part of solitary reserved for these prisoners.
‘I’d like to speak to him if I may.’
Lock waited for a speech about how his request breached protocol. Instead, Marquez glanced at Williams with his good eye while his other eye stayed on Lock.
Williams shrugged. ‘He might not want to speak to you.’
‘And Phileas. I’d like a moment with him too.’
Williams’s mustache curled up at its tips as he smiled. ‘I bet you would.’
‘If anyone here knows what Reaper’s next move is, he does.’
Warden Marquez crossed to a desk and lifted the phone. ‘I’m not making you any promises, Lock.’
‘Fine by me. I’ve had enough promises to last me a lifetime.’
45
The tension was plain in the faces of the guards as Williams escorted Lock across the vast expanse of No Man’s Land towards the SHU. They passed through a second control point, then swung a left into the part of the SHU known as the Transitional Housing Unit. This was where the lone AB leader – William Young, Williams had told Lock, though he went by the moniker Pinky – was being held. Lock tried to conjure the man’s face from the trial, but with their facial hair, the AB leaders had looked more or less broadly alike.
Pinky was waiting for Lock in a small anteroom off one of the main spurs. For someone who’d recently cheated death, he looked calm, although Lock knew better than most that appearance in this environment was essential to a person’s survival. Even giving the impression of being weak or, worse, scared was a good way to get yourself killed. He was glad he had this at the front of his mind because Williams wasn’t for hanging around.
‘I’m going to look into your other request, if that’s OK with you?’ Williams said.
‘I’ll be fine. Would you mind if your officer here stands outside?’
Williams nodded to the guard, and they both left the room.
Lock settled into a chair opposite Pinky. ‘Miracle we both got out of there alive.’
Pinky stared at Lock stony-faced. ‘Build rapport. I like it.’
‘Just making an observation.’
‘You’re the crazy man they brought in to keep Reaper alive, ain’t you?’
‘The one and only.’
‘Maybe if you hadn’t done as good a job my brothers would still be alive,’ Pinky said, eyes narrowing.
‘If you want me to pretend I have sympathy,’ Lock said, holding his palms open, ‘sorry, I’m all out. But I think we can agree on one thing.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘We both got played by Reaper.’
Pinky tugged at his mustache with a cuffed hand. ‘Nah, brother. You got played. We knew all along what Reaper was about.’
‘And what was that?’
Pinky seemed to study Lock. ‘Let’s just say we had i-dee-ah-logical differences.’
‘He claimed you were all about the green, and he was all about the white,’ said Lock, referencing the colour of money.
Pinky smiled. ‘Man, you’re nothing but a tourist. You don’t know our world.’
Lock put his hands up, conceding the point. ‘Then explain it to me.’
Pinky seemed to mull it over. His foot tapped out a military cadence, and he stared at it as if it wasn’t under his control.
‘You’re looking at a death sentence anyway, Pinky. The NLR are going to run things now, and they’ll be looking to mop up someone like you. Maybe I can speak to someone, get you shipped somewhere safer?’
‘My attorneys are already working on that.’
‘So what are you going to do when the cash from selling drugs starts to dry up? The AB’s a busted flush now, you know it and so do I. The people who sprang Reaper, they’re the same people who killed Prager, aren’t they?’ Lock leaned towards him, trying to establish eye contact. ‘The woman, Pinky. Who is she?’
‘I’ve got about as much of an idea about that as you,’ Pinky said. Then he too leaned in so that there were maybe three feet between his face and Lock’s. ‘You want to know the funny part of this whole deal?’
‘Go on,’ said Lock. ‘I could use a chuckle or two.’
‘We didn’t green-light Prager.’
‘So who did?’
‘Reaper.’
Lock sat back. ‘So why didn’t you just tell that to Jalicia Jones?’
Pinky gave Lock a broad grin. ‘We were about to, but Jones wouldn’t deal. She had the version of events she wanted.’
Lock thought this through. Jalicia had certainly been obsessed with getting a conviction against the AB, so what Pinky was saying made sense in a weird sort of way. It still left a lot of unanswered questions though.
‘Why’d you wait so long? Why let it go as far as a trial?’
Pinky glanced from one corner of the box-like room to another. ‘Hell, we wasn’t about to miss the change of scenery.’
From there on in, Pinky clammed up. He didn’t know who Reaper’s people on the outside were. He didn’t know who the woman was, or whether they were planning to flee the country. What’s more, he was past caring. They’d all been suckered according to Pinky, and now Reaper had what he wanted. The AB was finished and he was out of Pelican Bay.
When Lock stepped out of the room, Lieutenant Williams was waiting for him in the short stretch of corridor. His arms were folded across his chest.
‘I spoke to Phileas.’
‘And?’
‘He says you can go to hell.’
Lock sighed. He hadn’t expected anything else.
‘But there’s more,’ said Williams. ‘We just decoded a kite that’s been going out to all Nazi Low Rider members.’
‘What did it say?’
Williams’s eyes fell away from Lock’s. ‘You and your buddy, Ty…’
‘What about us?’ Lock asked, tensing, not liking Williams’s refusal to meet his eye.
‘They’ve green-lit you both. Any Nazi Low Rider or associate either here or on the outside is under orders to kill you on sight.’
46
Cell phone coverage was patchy this far north, whatever the main carriers claimed, so Lock used the phone in Warden Marquez’s office to call Coburn and alert him to the NLR threat.
‘I have someone calling San Francisco Police Department right now,’ Coburn said. ‘We’ll make sure they get someone over to Ty’s hospital room. I’m back in the city now anyway. You get anything out of the Aryan Brotherhood survivor?’
‘He said Reaper ordered Prager’s execution.’
‘So why didn’t his side tell Jalicia that?’ Coburn asked.
‘My first question too. He said they tried to, but Jalicia turned it down.’
‘That I can believe. Once she got something in her head…’
There was silence, followed by a click as Coburn ended the call.
Warden Marquez sent Lock off to San Francisco with a cup of coffee strong enough to negate narcolepsy, and a word of caution. ‘Be careful out there,’ he said, punching Lock on the arm. ‘The NLR don’t screw about, and their tails are up right now.’
Lock shook his hand and left him to get back to his job. It wasn’t one that he envied.
‘Good luck,’ said Marquez.
‘You too,’ Lock shouted back as he jogged to his car, keen to get to Ty and see with his own eyes that he was safe. If the NLR were serious about their threat, they’d probably know that Ty was the easiest target of all right now. A stationary one.
Lock sipped at his coffee, the windows down, the Pacific roaring away on his right as he navigated the single-lane road out of Crescent City. On a sunny day it was a breathtaking drive, but night was closing in and his sole focus was getting to San Francisco.
The rental car didn’t help matters, its tires losing traction as Lock threw the vehicle into tight bends and pulled back out on to the straights. He hunched over the wheel, fatigue engrained in his bones.
Signs flashed by outside at irregular intervals. An invitation to view the world’s tallest tree. To drive through a hollowed-out redwood. To view an exhibit dedicated to Sasquatch, the legendary California Bigfoot – half man, half beast.
The miles ticked down, every minute bringing him closer to the place where it had all started nearly a week ago now, when he met Ty in San Francisco. As he got within striking distance he started to relax a little. Even the place names of the small towns he passed through seemed more genteel, less threatening. Cloverdale. Windsor. Roseland.
He stopped for gas at a Chevron station on the outskirts of Santa Rosa, aware of figures in the shadows as he filled up. A couple of bikers pulled in behind him and he ducked back in the car, tucking the SIG into his jeans and covering it with his jacket. He didn’t want to be ambushed, but equally he didn’t want to take a bullet from an overly paranoid gas station attendant who’d spotted the gun and thought he was going to rob them. But the bikers didn’t even glance in his direction as they grabbed a couple of six-packs from the fridge and made their way back out.
The traffic thickened as he neared the city, and soon he was pulling up to a toll booth on the Golden Gate Bridge. He’d made it into the city without incident.
Fifteen minutes later, as he rounded the corridor in the hospital, heading for Ty’s room, Lock guessed that things weren’t about to stay that way. Four cops and a couple of medical staff were clustered round what Lock guessed was the door leading into Ty’s room. For a moment Lock froze, fearing the worst, then he saw Ty’s head above the melee. He was fully dressed and engaged in a heated discussion with one of the cops.
‘Sir, we’re under orders to make sure that you stay safe,’ the cop was saying.
‘You think I can’t take care of myself? Is that what you’re saying?’ came Ty’s belligerent reply. Like Lock, Ty had what the Marine Corps had designated a ‘problem with authority’, which had only deepened now that he’d entered civilian life.
At least Coburn had been as good as his word, thought Lock, as Ty spotted him.
‘Hey, Ryan, can you explain to these good people that I’d like to leave now?’ Ty said, pushing his way through the cluster of bodies.
Lock felt a rush of relief at seeing his friend, one of the few people he was able to trust without question.
‘Are you sure you’re well enough to leave?’ he asked Ty.
‘Man, have you looked at your own damn self in the mirror?’
One of the medical staff, a young resident in his mid-twenties, touched Lock’s arm. ‘You don’t look great.’
He smiled. ‘I’ve had about four hours’ sleep in the last twenty-four.’
‘I can relate to that,’ said the resident.
‘And how do you cope?’
‘Coffee and, if it’s really bad, a shot of B12.’
‘Then hook me up,’ Lock said. He nodded at Ty. ‘Is he really well enough to leave?’
‘As long as he’s at home taking it easy, he should be fine.’
Lock clasped Ty’s good shoulder. ‘I’ll make sure of it,’ he said.
Together they had a fighting chance of finding Reaper and his posse. But to do that, Lock knew they had to go back to the source.
47
After a long drive and a few more snatched hours of sleep in the car, Lock and Ty pulled up next to the former Prager residence out in Lancaster. It lay in a street of foreclosed houses with yellowing, weed-infested lawns and boarded-up windows. Even amid such generalized misery and misfortune, the house gave out a vibe all of its own. Lock, however, was more concerned with the fact that Ty had insisted on them taking his car. Given that a place like Lancaster was prime territory for white supremacist skinhead gangs, and therefore, by extension, for the Nazi Low Riders, a purple classic car was not an ideal choice.
On the drive there they had debated their next move. Lock had admitted to Ty that although there were a lot of threads, nothing pulled them all together. He therefore felt it was best to go back to the beginning, back to Prager’s investigation. Ty wasn’t sure it was the right thing to be doing, but equally he wasn’t sure what else they could do, so he’d agreed to go with Lock’s hazy outline.
Next door to where the Pragers lived, a woman was packing her kids into the car. She kept on glancing over at their car.
‘I’ll go talk to her,’ Lock said. ‘You keep the pimp-mobile running in case she thinks you’re a white slaver.’
Ty flipped him the bird as the woman slammed the rear passenger door on the two kids and hurried to get in herself.
‘Ma’am? Excuse me?’ Lock jogged the last few yards towards her. ‘Ma’am?’
‘Why can’t you people just leave us alone?’ she shouted. ‘We don’t have any money!’
Clearly, the much-vaunted economic recovery had not made it as far as Lancaster just yet.
Lock noticed the lack of a For Sale sign in her yard. He put up his hands. ‘Ma’am, I just wanted to ask you aboutyour former neighbors.’
‘Even better,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘A reporter.’
‘No, ma’am, I’m trying to understand a few things about what happened to them.’
‘You’re a private investigator?’
Lock stopped, deciding to tell the truth. ‘Aaron was my godson. I hadn’t seen his mom or dad for a few years after they moved out west.’
The woman reached in and turned on the engine so the kids could get the benefit of the air con, then she took a step towards Lock. ‘I’m sorry. I thought…’
‘It’s OK. I’d be suspicious under the circumstances as well.’
‘I’m not sure how I can help you though.’
‘You lived next door to them.’
‘Yes, but that’s kind of it.’
‘I h
eard that Aaron fell in with a bad crowd.’
‘Not exactly difficult round here.’ She sighed.
‘Kids at school?’
‘Maybe a few of them. There’s a couple of those skinhead gangs round here. I think he started hanging out with one of them.’
‘You know which one?’
‘I don’t know the names. But I could tell you where they like to hang out. There’s a McDonald’s down on Challenger Way, I’ve seen ’em there.’
‘What about Mrs Prager – Janet?’
‘I only really got to know her before… They said her husband was an undercover agent?’
‘That’s right. For the ATF.’
The woman looked away, then spoke again. ‘You know, it’s so weird.’
‘What is?’
The woman worried at her wedding band, twisting and turning it on her finger. ‘I’m not sure I should be telling you this.’
Lock moved closer. ‘Listen, it’s OK. No one can hurt them now.’ He clasped his hands together, mirroring the woman’s body language. ‘I really need some closure,’ he added.
The woman studied her driveway, and nodded silently. ‘The last time I saw her, she was hammered.’
‘Janet? Drunk?’ Lock was surprised. Ken’s wife had never been a drinker.
‘Yeah, as a skunk. I took her in. Tried to get some coffee into her. I didn’t want her son seeing her in that state.’
‘Something had upset her?’
‘She told me that she thought her husband was having an affair. I didn’t know he was undercover. All she said was that it was someone he’d met through work.’
Lock took in a quick breath, glancing back over his shoulder at the Pragers’ old house, the paint peeling from the eaves, the gutters choked with leaves. This changed everything.
Inside the car, the woman’s kids were starting to squabble, and Lock knew his time was about up.
‘She mention a name?’ he asked.
The woman sighed. ‘Not unless “that blonde bitch” is a name. She said that Ken had gotten her pregnant.’
48
Chance sat in the back of a Toyota Camry rented the previous evening at San Francisco International Airport and watched as Glenn Love emerged, yawning, from his house, clambered into his work truck and backed out of his driveway. She noted the time, the make and model of the truck, the reg and the decal.