Inside b-1

by Brenda Novak

  “And the l-loss of a man’s life means n-nothing to you?”

  Ink grinned. “Nothing at all. One minute he was creeping out to check on a noise. The next…” He whistled as he drew an imaginary line across his throat.

  What little color there was in Laurel’s face drained away. “You’re an animal, you know th-that? You make the p-perfect argument for c-capital punishment.”

  Pretty Boy resisted the urge to intercede as Ink yanked out his gun and strode forward. He told himself to let this happen, to get it over with so they could go back to California and he could try to forget. His situation gave him no other choice.

  But Ink didn’t fire. He paused, glanced at the beds, then looked in the closet. “Where’re the kids?”

  Hugging herself, she drilled him with another malevolent stare and refused to answer. “I said, where are the kids?”

  She must’ve gotten them out of the house, because they’d been here at some point. The bedding was rumpled; there were impressions on all three pillows. She definitely hadn’t been sleeping in this room alone. How she’d done it, Pretty Boy didn’t know. The windows didn’t look as if they opened wide enough, but maybe they did.

  Good for you. He could only hope Mia and Jake were well away from this house. He couldn’t tolerate seeing Ink kill a couple of kids, especially these kids. He’d watched them grow from babies via Skin’s pictures. Witnessing what Ink did to Laurel would be bad enough.

  The veins bulged in Ink’s neck. “Answer me, bitch!”

  “If you th-think I’ll tell you anything, y-you’re crazier than I th-thought!” Ducking her head, she covered up with her arms as if she expected that to be the last thing she ever said.

  Ink grabbed her by the hair and dragged her up against him, placing the gun to her temple. “Tell me, or I’ll splatter your brains against the wall.”

  She was hyperventilating, but she wasn’t pleading for her life. She wouldn’t give Ink the pleasure.

  Virgil would be proud….

  Ink struck her with the gun. “Tell me!”

  “N-never!” she said, and surprised them both by spitting in his face.

  “You’re gonna pay for that.”

  Before Ink could make good on his threat, Pointblank poked his head into the room. “You’re not done? Come on, ladies, let’s finish up and get the hell out of here, huh?”

  “The kids are gone,” Ink complained.

  Pointblank had wiped off the blade of his knife, but the marshal’s blood still stained the handle as well as his fingers. The artery he’d cut when they lured the guy outside had spurted like a geyser, spraying Pointblank’s T-shirt and face, too. Now the marshal’s body was being used as a doorstop as the ever-widening puddle of his blood fanned out on the back porch. “So?”

  “So Shady said to do them all.”

  Pointblank grimaced. “They’re just kids.”

  “Kids who are related to Skin! We didn’t come this far to do half a job, did we? How do you think that’ll go over with Shady? Besides, this bitch just spit in my face. She deserves to see them die.”

  With a curse, Pointblank sheathed his knife. “Fine. They can’t be far. I’ll find them. But don’t make a production out of this.”

  “What does that mean?” Ink called after him.

  “Kill her now and be quick about it. Who cares if she spit on you? This is a job.”

  That was the difference, Pretty Boy realized, the reason he put up with other members of The Crew but not Ink. Violence and crime weren’t a means to an end for Ink. He enjoyed inflicting pain on others.

  To make sure Pointblank didn’t find those kids, Pretty Boy started into the hall. But before he could reach the door, Ink thrust the gun he’d been waving around into his hands.

  “What the hell?” Pretty Boy tried to give it back. “I’ve got my own weapon.” He hadn’t taken his semi-automatic from where he’d shoved it in the waistband of his jeans, and that was telling, but he’d spoken the truth—he did have one.

  “Hold it for me.”

  “What for?”

  Ink was lifting his shirt and undoing his pants, which made his intent clear.

  “Come on, man. Don’t be a loser.”

  “She deserves this. And I want Skin to see it. Take out that fancy-ass phone of yours and video it.”

  “Oh, that’s smart. If the video falls into the wrong hands, they’ll put your ass back in prison and throw away the key.”

  He whirled around. “And who’s going to give it to the wrong people? You?”

  “I’m just saying you don’t create shit that can prove you’re guilty of a crime like this, man.”

  “Which is why you won’t get my head in the frame, jackass!”

  “Fuck you! Here, take your damn gun.” Once again Pretty Boy tried to return Ink’s pistol, but Ink wouldn’t take it.

  “Film it!” Throwing her on the floor, he started pulling up her nightgown.

  Laurel wasn’t going down without a fight. She was frantic—scratching and clawing and biting—but she didn’t scream. She was probably afraid that would draw the children to her, if they were still within earshot.

  Pretty Boy felt just as horrified, enraged and helpless as she did. No way was he filming this. He’d seen a lot of sick shit in his life, could tolerate almost anything—except a man beating up on a woman or a child. Being part of The Crew wasn’t supposed to be like this. In prison, they targeted rapists and child molesters, punished them for their actions. Now they were becoming just like them?

  “You getting this?” Ink grunted. She’d hit him, connected with his stomach, but it didn’t really faze him. He ripped her panties while trying to get them off her.

  Pretty Boy opened his mouth to try and talk Ink out of what he was doing, but before he could make up his mind about what to say, Pointblank yelled from the front door.

  “Found the little bastards!”

  Crying filled the house. Pointblank was coming through the living room, bringing the kids to the bedroom—probably so Ink could do the honors. Pretty Boy didn’t believe Pointblank wanted to hurt those children any more than he did. But Pointblank had a better position in The Crew, greater authority, and he’d follow any kind of order before he’d lose that.

  “They were standing out on the neighbor’s porch, shivering,” he explained with a laugh as they came closer. “No one was home, but they didn’t have the sense to go somewhere else. They just kept pushing the doorbell.”

  What’d he expect? They were kids, man. Little kids.

  God, he was in the middle of some messed up shit.

  A bead of sweat rolled from Pretty Boy’s temple, stinging his eyes. He couldn’t let this happen, didn’t want any part of it or the kind of people who could do this. Ink and Pointblank—neither of them could measure up to Skin, no matter what Skin had done since being released from the joint.

  Ink didn’t seem to care whether or not Pointblank had found the children. What Pointblank said, all the crying, none of it seemed to register. Now that he had Laurel’s panties off, he was too busy trying to force her legs apart to care about anything else.

  From what he’d seen so far, Pretty Boy thought Ink should thank him for not filming. Ink was too stoned to do much more than punch and fumble.

  “It’ll hurt less if you quit fighting,” he panted, and began to choke her.

  She did what she could to free herself, but it was no use. In another second Ink would be pumping away—

  A child’s voice, full of fear, broke through the melee. “Mommy? Mommy!” And that was the last thing Pretty Boy heard before he pulled the trigger.

  His right arm jerked with the recoil, his ears rang from the blast and the smell of gunpowder burned his nose and throat.

  Trying to convince himself that he’d really shot Ink and not just imagined it, he blinked several times to clear his vision. There was no blood, nothing like when Pointblank used his knife on the marshal, but Ink lay slumped over Laurel, motionless.
>
  Pretty Boy expected to feel instant remorse, or maybe fear for what his actions would set in motion. Instead, he experienced a rush of satisfaction, a sense of resolution that put the conflict tearing him up to rest. He’d made his choice. Maybe he’d regret it later, but he didn’t regret it now.

  “That’s what you get,” he muttered to the inert Ink. Ink was no better than all the other scumbags who’d been in the hat while he was in prison.

  Pointblank came charging into the room, dragging the children behind him. “What’s going on?”

  There was more blood on Laurel, who was shaking and crying, than on Ink. Pretty Boy wasn’t sure how that’d happened. The bullet must’ve gone all the way through him.

  It took Pointblank a second to realize that the gunshot he’d heard had resulted in Ink’s death. When Laurel managed to escape from under his limp body, Pointblank did a double take. Then he gaped at Pretty Boy. “What did you do?”

  “What I had to do.” Somehow Pretty Boy felt calmer, more like himself, than he had in weeks. But that calmness disappeared when Pointblank released the kids, who’d been tugging to get free and ran crying for their mother. “Are you crazy?” His voice ominous, Pointblank went for his knife. “Shady will kill you for saving her. He’ll kill me, too!”

  Pretty Boy hadn’t thought this part through. He liked Pointblank more than Ink. No doubt Pointblank knew it. Maybe he was counting on their friendship to save him, because it didn’t make much sense to come at him with a knife when he was holding a gun. Or Pointblank understood that he’d better do what he could to defend himself because, after this, Pretty Boy had no choice but to fire. Not if he wanted to save Laurel and the kids. And not if he wanted to get safely away. “Then I guess I should do him a favor and take care of this myself,” he said, and pulled the trigger twice.

  The children screamed. Laurel scrambled to her feet but was so unsteady she fell again. Still, she tried to pull her children behind her, to shield them. She didn’t understand why he’d done what he’d done, whether he’d kill again. She’d never met him before. For all she knew, he was on some murderous rampage….

  Raising one hand to tell her it was over, he shoved Ink’s pistol in his waistband next to his own. Tears streaked Mia’s and Jake’s faces, but they were too terrified to cry. They’d seen more than any kids should have to see. But at least the blood staining their mother’s clothes wasn’t her own.

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “You—you were with them. Wh-why did you—?” At a complete loss, she stopped talking but her meaning was clear.

  Hesitating in the doorway, he glanced back at her. “Virgil was once my best friend,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, he always will be. You see him, tell him Pretty Boy sends his best.”

  “Pretty Boy?” she repeated.

  “Rex McCready,” he corrected. He wasn’t Pretty Boy anymore. That was the nickname he’d been given by The Crew.

  She gulped for air and dashed a hand across her wet cheeks. “Why d-did you come here w-with them if—?”

  “Just be glad I did,” he broke in. “And whatever you do, don’t stay in Colorado. Take your babies far away, and if you want to be safe, don’t ever come back.”

  25

  It was nearly one in the morning. Except for some hushed talking, the occasional flush of a toilet or the jangle of keys, the Security Housing Unit was quiet this late at night but it wasn’t dark. It was never completely dark. The lights dimmed at 2200 hours after the first-watch shift change, but that was it.

  Peyton’s heels clicked as she walked down a corridor fronting eight cells. From inside one of these “pods,” the SHU appeared smaller than it was in reality. Not in terms of building size—the structure was two stories and had a central command post that sat high above both tiers—but in housing capacity. One of the largest and oldest isolation facilities in the country, Pelican Bay’s SHU housed more than twelve hundred men in gray cells made almost entirely of concrete—the bed, the chair, the desk, everything except the stainless-steel combination toilet and sink. There were no bars on these cells like in old prisons. Painted bright orange, the doors were solid steel, except for round nickel-size cutouts and a slot for the meal tray.

  Most inmates in this unit lived alone, but thanks to overcrowding more than a few had cell mates. Depending on the cell mate, sometimes it was better to be alone. Peyton couldn’t imagine spending twenty-two and a half hours a day locked in such a small space with the same person for years on end. She wondered how many marriages—even happy ones—could withstand that kind of close, unrelenting contact.

  But going without human interaction wasn’t easy, either. Pelican Bay was designed with no windows except a narrow vertical slit in each cell. The convicts couldn’t see trees or earth or sky, or at least no more than a few inches of it. They couldn’t see the outside of the building where they were being held or other inmates because no two cells lined up directly across from each other. Twice a day corrections officers brought trays of food. Every three days they delivered soap, shampoo and toothpaste in little paper cups. Beyond that, SHU residents had very limited contact with officers, and rarely received visitors. For one thing, family and friends had to call ahead, set up an appointment and get clearance, which made it a hassle. For another, Pelican Bay was too remote. Most of the inmates came from L.A., a two-day drive. Even when they did get a visitor, they had to sit in a booth separated by Plexiglas and speak via telephone. There were men in here who hadn’t received a visitor in years.

  Some mental health professionals claimed such extreme isolation pushed men over the edge, drove them insane. Pelican Bay was often the target of this kind of criticism. After what she’d witnessed, Peyton wouldn’t argue with that. At a minimum, she believed years in the SHU couldn’t be healthy, that it would do nothing to make these men less angry or less violent. Just the opposite was true. But she didn’t have a better option for curtailing gang activity. As soon as the government provided one, she’d be more than happy to implement it. That was actually one of the things she hoped to achieve in the foreseeable future. She wanted to incorporate more consistent and effective rehabilitation programs to see if that might lower the recidivism rate for Pelican Bay offenders; if so, other prisons might adopt a similar approach. The entire system needed a massive overhaul. Just for starters, Peyton felt the state should provide a structured integration program for offenders who’d be leaving conditions such as these to go back onto the streets. A whopping ninety-five percent of the twelve hundred who called the SHU home were eligible for parole, meaning they’d be free one day.

  Weston didn’t have a cellie. Peyton preferred he be alone to reflect on the actions that’d landed him in the SHU. She hoped removing him from gen pop would isolate Buzz, shift the paradigm of power enough that Virgil could make some headway. Weston belonged in the SHU, anyway. This wasn’t a place one was sent by a judge. Only those who acted up on the inside or joined a gang came here.

  Clearing her throat, she stopped at his new cell. “Sergeant Hutchinson said you had something to tell me?”

  The holes in the door darkened, indicating that he was standing on the other side. “Why you doin’ this to me, boss?”

  His voice sounded far more nasal than usual, due to the swelling of his nose. Peyton couldn’t help feeling a bit smug that he hadn’t gotten away with the one-sided beating he’d no doubt intended when he and his three buddies ganged up on Virgil.

  “You know why you’re here.”

  “No, I don’t!”

  She adjusted the goggles she’d donned to protect her eyes, a necessary precaution since so many inmates created homemade projectiles they launched with the elastic taken from the waistbands of their underwear. Although the missiles could be dangerous in their own right, she was less worried about the pointy end of such objects than what might be smeared on them. The inmates used feces, urine, semen, anything they could to spread hepatitis and HIV. She wore a knife-proof vest for the sa
me reason. It not only protected her from blow darts, it covered her vital organs in case someone tried to stab her by shoving a shank through one of the holes in the door. “Come on. You started that fight in the dining hall.”

  “Who says it was me?” A flash of white told her Weston hadn’t bothered to dress for this little interview. He was wearing boxers and a T-shirt—standard apparel. Residents of the SHU hardly ever wore the yellow jump-suits they were given, even in the daytime. What Weston had on now, together with a pair of flip-flops, was pretty much what he’d have on tomorrow. There wasn’t a lot of incentive to dress when you never saw anyone. Some of the men in the psych ward refused to wear anything at all.

  “You tell her, Wes!” someone shouted.

  With so little sensory input, the inmates became very sensitive to any change in their surroundings—and eager for the smallest distraction. No doubt the man who’d just yelled wasn’t the only one listening in. Peyton didn’t have to worry about Detric Whitehead overhearing, though. She’d been careful to put Weston in a different pod than his fearless leader. But that didn’t necessarily mean Detric wouldn’t hear about what Weston had to say, especially if it was at all out of line. “You’re telling me it wasn’t? You didn’t start the fight?”

  “No, ma’am. It was that new guy. Bennett.”

  She couldn’t see his face, couldn’t even see both eyes at once, but she sensed that he was scowling. “Bennett picked a fight with you—and your three friends?”

  “Yes! I’m not lyin’!”

  But, of course, he was. That was what he did whenever it suited him. “On his first day inside, when he doesn’t know who you are or what you can do or what the consequences might be? I find that a little difficult to swallow.”

  “Then swallow this!” someone yelled, and several others laughed, the sound of it echoing off the concrete walls.

  Just as she’d thought she would, Peyton regretted coming. If not for Virgil, she wouldn’t have bothered. “I don’t know very many guys who want to walk into something like that.”