by Paul Herron
I peer through the window, watching the gates open all the way. The morning light is yellow, an apocalyptic taint I’ve never seen before.
The bus starts moving.
“The fuck, man?” someone shouts. “You can’t take us out in that!”
“Stop being a pussy!” yells Evans, almost screaming to be heard above the roaring wind. “You’re not getting out of work detail, you little bitch!”
The headlights illuminate the torrential rain as we edge out of the depot. It’s blowing in heavy horizontal sheets that surge and flick with the wind. The driver leans forward in his seat, squinting through the windshield.
“Move faster!” shouts Evans.
The driver doesn’t even glance at him, just keeps his gaze focused outside.
The bus turns right onto a small road. I can just make out the spotlights every ten feet or so. At night, they illuminate the prison grounds. Now they’re reduced to weak halos that make the rain glow like molten metal.
I’ve never seen anything like this storm. The clouds look like they’re boiling, bulging out into liver-colored knots, twisting away in the wind and then roiling back on themselves. It’s hypnotic and terrifying at the same time.
After a few minutes, the bus edges onto the road that leads down to the perimeter fence. It descends the hill and then turns left when we reach the front gate of the prison, moving onto a smaller road and back up the hill again on the opposite side of a secondary fence that separates the Glasshouse from the rest of Ravenhill.
The ride grows bumpy as the road changes from smooth tar to a patchy potholed mess. No one has bothered with upkeep. Why would they? The old prison was abandoned years ago. The only reason it’s still standing is because some social activist group claimed it was a site of interest and wanted it listed as a historical building. God knows why. The place is a dump. An eyesore that looks like it belongs in the Victorian era. Crumbling redbrick face, heavy steel bars painted with chipped gray enamel on the windows. It looms against the stormy sky like the opening scene in a horror movie.
The bus eventually stops before a set of old-fashioned iron gates. The high beams pick out a massive chain held together by a rusted padlock.
“Who’s got the key?” calls out the driver.
“Gonzalez!” shouts Evans.
Gonzalez looks nervously out the window. “Why do I have to do it?”
“Number one, because you’re the rookie and I’m not. And number two, because you already have the key. Move your ass.”
Gonzalez sighs and unbuckles himself. He unlocks the door to the cage and heads to the front of the bus. Evans unlocks the second gate and the driver hits the button to open the bus doors.
Torrential rain and wind explode inside. Gonzalez stumbles back, his hand raised to cover his face. He squints into the storm, steadying himself with his other hand.
“Get out!” screams the driver.
Gonzalez staggers into the wind, his face turned to the side.
“Hey, Gonzalez!” shouts Felix. “You might wanna take an umbrella. Looks like it’s gonna rain.”
The inmates roar with laughter.
I press my head against the window and watch Gonzalez struggle to reach the gate. The road is a muddy river. The brown water breaks against him as he wades forward. Before he reaches the gate, he stumbles. He fights to keep his footing, but a fierce gust slams him from the side and he goes down. He hits the ground hard, then starts to roll, the wind shoving and bullying him until he manages to slap his hands flat against the ground, keeping low while he regains his breath.
The inmates are all laughing. Even Evans has a grin on his face. Personally, I would have preferred to see Evans out there on his ass, but there’s no way he’s going to get his hands dirty if he can order someone else to do it.
Gonzalez slowly pushes himself to his feet and staggers to the gate. It takes him a while to get the key to turn, but he finally manages to open the padlock and yanks the chain off. He drops it to the side and pulls open the gates, then starts to head back to the bus, but the right gate swings closed again as soon as he lets go. The driver honks his horn and gestures. Gonzalez looks back. His mouth moves in a curse and he wades back to hold the gate open while the bus edges forward.
The driver waits on the other side and Gonzalez scrambles back inside, the doors slamming shut behind him.
“Hey, Gonzalez!” shouts Perez. “You been on vacation? You look like you caught some sun, man.”
The rest of the bus cracks up and Gonzalez just slumps against the side of the cage and flips Perez the bird.
We move along the road and stop before another solid metal gate recessed into the perimeter wall of the Glasshouse. It looks like the entrance to some medieval castle. Evans turns to Gonzalez.
“You’re already wet,” he says.
“Fuck sake.” Gonzalez stumbles outside again, the doors quickly sliding closed behind him. He moves to a door set off to the side of the gate. It’s unlocked, and he slips inside, slamming it shut behind him.
We wait a few seconds, then the gates part down the middle and swing inward. We edge beneath the prison wall and into a short tunnel lit by flickering orange lamps hanging from the bricks. The gates behind us slam shut and two identical gates in front open to reveal a concrete courtyard lit by bright floodlights.
Gonzalez climbs back into the bus and it shoots forward, the driver eager to get this over with. The Glasshouse towers above us. The driver doesn’t go straight for the main entrance, but drives to the left and around the side of the prison. We finally turn into a tunnel that slants down beneath ground level and come to a stop in a loading bay.
Evans unlocks the cage and gestures for us to get up. “Move it. I don’t have all day.”
We climb reluctantly from the bus. Once we’re clear, it immediately starts reversing back up the ramp, Gonzalez still on board.
“They leaving you alone with us, Evans?” Murphy asks.
“Don’t get smart. They’re coming back. Unless you want to clean out the cells on your own? I mean, I’m happy to let you. Might do you all some good. Learn a bit of work ethic. Just thought you’d want some company while you all bitch and complain.”
He glares at us, then turns and pulls open a rusted metal door, holding it wide as we file inside the Glasshouse.
We follow Evans into a service corridor that smells of rotten cabbages. It reminds me of being a kid and going to my grandma’s house on Sunday afternoons. That same pungent smell, like old wet socks and dampness. We move at a fast pace, kicking and crunching over the fragments of the past: broken lightbulbs, rotting magazines, smashed tiles.
At least some of the lights are working. Someone must have come across earlier and flipped the breaker to get this place powered up. They built these old places to last.
After about five minutes of walking through various corridors, Evans leads us into a laundry room. Massive antique washing machines line one wall, while industrial dryers take up the other. A metal table covered in black sheets travels down the center of the long room. It’s only as we walk past that I notice the sheets aren’t supposed to be that color. They’re black with mildew, rotting away from the humidity.
We move through the room into a narrow corridor. Terra-cotta tiles cover the floor, half of them cracked, most of them invisible beneath mud and debris. The walls are covered in rectangular white tiles that must have once been shiny, but are now smeared in grime and dull with the passing of years.
The corridor ends at a heavy metal gate. Evans pulls out a ring of keys and jams them, one after the other, into the lock, swearing and cursing until he finds the one that fits.
“That how your wife feels, Evans?” someone calls out.
He ignores the comment, turns the key with a solid clunk, and pushes the gate open. It shifts reluctantly, with a shriek of protest.
“And that’s what she sounds like when she wakes up and sees you in the morning!” shouts Perez.
This gets a few more chuckles
, but Evans just pushes through the gate. We move deeper into the Glasshouse, through narrow, winding corridors, some dimly lit with old hanging bulbs, some not lit at all. Cracked tiles, flickering lights, chipped enamel paint, abandoned offices and rooms strewn with mildewed books and old rotting files.
We exit the service corridors and pass through the front area of the prison, where visitors once came to sign in. It’s similar in style to the Admin reception—I think it must have been modeled on Admin. The only real difference is that this one has a massive circular desk that looks like it’s made from solid mahogany. It could easily sit twenty people around it. The vast room is cut in half by a wall of metal bars with two locked gates—one to either side of the circular desk. There are no metal detectors. The visitors would have moved, one by one, through the gates to be patted down by guards before filing into waiting rooms to the right.
We move through reception and into the visiting area. Metal tables are bolted to the floor. An old, damaged vending machine lies on its side, tipped over and smashed. Someone has scrawled graffiti on the wall, which is weird seeing as the guards would be the only ones with access to spray paint. I try to read the writing as we pass through, but years of dust and mildew have made it illegible.
More twisting, dimly lit corridors follow, until finally we walk through a wide arch into the single prison block of the Glasshouse.
The Rotunda.
I’ve never seen anything like it. The Rotunda is a towering hollow cylinder easily a hundred feet high. The cells circle the inside, receding up into the distance and looking out over the empty central shaft. The floors all meld together the higher up I look. I try to count the levels, but give up after twenty.
Access to each floor is by metal stairs with lockable gates. There’s also an old-fashioned elevator, one of those old brass- and-wood things with the metal grate you have to slam shut.
A twenty-foot tower topped with a security pod stands in the center. The pod has 360 degrees of safety glass so the COs could see everything that was going on. It must have been a really shitty assignment. Exposed to the eyes of hundreds of inmates who want to do nothing more than slit your throat.
There are cleaning utensils sitting next to the elevator doors: brooms and plastic trash bags, mops and buckets.
“I don’t think I have to explain it to you,” says Evans. “You guys take Level 1. Get cleaning. Sooner you finish, the sooner you get back for lunch.”
“We’re not doing all the levels, are we?” asks Deacon.
“You deaf as well as stupid? I said Level 1. Other inmates are being brought in to help.”
I grab a broom and wait while Evans unlocks the gate to the first floor. Then we set to work, brushing out years of dust and debris.
About ten minutes after we start, another group arrives. They take Level 2. After another ten minutes, a third group enters the chamber and they take Level 3. This goes on until the first ten levels are filled with shouting and swearing inmates grudgingly cleaning out cells that haven’t been looked at in years.
“Yo!” someone shouts from somewhere above. “How the hell does a used condom get in here? The place is supposed to be abandoned!”
Evans is sitting on the floor below with his eyes closed, his back against the central pillar, cradling his shotgun against his shoulder. “Just pick it up!” he shouts, without even opening his eyes.
“I ain’t touchin’ that thing! There’s black stuff inside it.”
We’ve been working for about two hours. The joking and shouting has died down. Everyone just wants to finish up and get back to their cells.
Felix and I have a good system going. I sweep the shit out onto the walkway. Felix carts in a bucket of water and throws it down, then mops up while I gather all the crap into plastic bags before moving on to the next cell. It’s killing my back, though. The next time Felix heads out to refill the bucket, I lean the broom against the wall and stretch, hearing my spine crack and pop as I do so.
“Hey there, Jack,” says a voice from behind me. “Long time no see.”
I turn around.
Malcolm Kincaid stands in the door to the cell.
Malcolm fucking Kincaid.
Shit…
Four
Four years ago
The day Malcolm Kincaid’s case goes before the judge, a drizzle the temperature of warm piss falls from the sky. It makes the heat of the day even worse, creating a damp, cloying blanket that shrouds Miami, turning the whole city into the equivalent of a steam room at a back-alley gym.
Mason and I sit in the car outside the courthouse, waiting for an update from Captain Mendes. The AC doesn’t work. Sweat prickles my skin, makes my shirt stick to the cracked vinyl seat.
“How long you think he’ll get?” asks Mason.
“Fuck knows.” I chew nervously on a nail. “Not long. Too many people owe him favors. But a couple years at least.”
“It’s not enough.”
It’s definitely not enough. Malcolm Kincaid deserves to be put away for life. He’s one of the nastiest pieces of work I’ve ever come across, and that includes my tour in Afghanistan.
It’s the casual nature of his villainy that gets to me. It’s an old-fashioned word, villainy. I felt like an idiot the first time it entered my head. But it fits him perfectly. Kincaid isn’t the typical Hollywood-type bad guy you usually find on the streets. All show. All bark. Doing everything for the look of it. Making sure everyone knows exactly how mean he really is.
No. Kincaid lets the reputation he’s built up over the decades speak for itself. He’s the top of the criminal food chain in Miami, and he lives a life that reflects that. Beachfront villas. Fingers in the property market—all legit, of course, so he can prove he’s an honest-to-God businessman.
But it’s all a front. The guy is legit psycho. Not a raging, go-on-a-killing-spree psycho, but an I’ll-wait-three-years-for- revenge-then-slit-your-throat-at-your-kid’s-ballet-recital psycho.
The only problem with being top dog is that everyone wants to challenge you. The younger generation, those just getting into the game, they all think they’re better than Kincaid. Stronger. They see what he has and they want it, without necessarily putting in the time. When they challenge him—and they always do—Kincaid likes to show them personally how dumb an idea that was.
That’s how I caught him. His arrogance. His ego. It’s the weak spot I always knew would bring him down.
“What the actual fuck?” says Mason.
I look up. Malcolm Kincaid stands at the top of the courthouse stairs, shaking hands with his lawyers.
My stomach sinks. I watch as they share a joke, Kincaid laughing and slapping one of them on the back.
Once again Malcolm fucking Kincaid has dodged the charges.
I was so sure this time. A witness literally placed him at the scene of the crime. A necklacing—something I’d read about in South African history books—where a car tire is placed around the victim’s neck and set alight. The aftermath was one of the most horrific things I’d ever seen. Skin and tendon burned away, rubber fused to blackened vertebrae, weeping red burns crawling up the victim’s face like bloody ivy creeping up a wall.
I always knew Kincaid was powerful, but I thought this time it would be different. The case Mason and I had built up was airtight. I was convinced he was going down.
I was wrong.
He descends the stairs, heading toward a black Mercedes. His wife is waiting for him, leaning against the car. She’s the same age as Kincaid, late fifties, but looking good for it. Black hair, tanned skin, slim figure. A wide smile on her face as Kincaid pulls her into a kiss.
I shove open the car door, but Mason grabs my arm.
“Don’t,” she says.
I resist briefly, but then sink back into the seat. I slam the door, harder than necessary.
The noise alerts Kincaid. He looks up, says something to his wife, then approaches the car.
“Stay cool,” warns Mason.
“I’m always cool,” I mutter.
The side window’s already down. Kincaid crouches and nods to Mason.
“Detective.”
She ignores him, so he turns his attention to me, a sympathetic look on his face.
“Jackie-boy,” he says. “How you feeling?”
I don’t answer.
“I’m thinking not too good. Bet you thought you had me, huh?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Don’t feel bad. Better cops than you have tried to put me away. They all gave up in the end.” He leans close and lowers his voice so only I can hear. “Either that or they ended up dead.” He pats my arm, then straightens up and strolls back to his car.
I throw the door open. I’m out of the car before Mason can stop me. Kincaid hears me coming, starts to turn around.
He’s too late. I grab him by the shirt, slam my fist into his face. We both fall to the ground. He gets his hands around my neck, flips me over so I’m lying on the wet asphalt with his grinning face above me, blood from his lip dripping onto my shirt.
Mason appears behind him, yanking him off, pulling him to his feet. He lets her do her thing, moving away a couple of steps without resisting.
“I’m gonna give you that one, Detective,” he says. “I understand. It’s hard failing like that.” He wipes his mouth on his sleeve and shakes his head. “Pussy punch anyway.”
He gets in the car with his wife and drives off.
I watch him go, realizing in a moment of icy clarity that he’s never going to prison. Ever. He has too many city officials in his pockets.
That’s the exact moment I decide to frame him.
Whatever I do, it has to be ironclad. However good I thought the case was last time, this one has to be ten times stronger. So strong that even the most corrupt judge can’t let him go.
First things first. I take the shirt Kincaid bled on and I hide it in the garage. After a few days I carefully scrape the dried blood into an evidence bag. It’s not much. A few flakes. But it’s all I need. I have his DNA now and I sure as fuck am going to make sure I put it to good use.