The Corruptions

by Vincent Zandri

  “Don’t look now,” I said, stepping aside, allowing her to enter our space.

  “Got a date for tonight, big fella?” she said, a grin planted on her pretty face.

  “You don’t mess around with small talk do you, little lady?” Blood said.

  She swayed slightly. “I’m a drittle lunk,” she said. Then, giggling, “I mean, I a lunkle riddle…Oh crap, you know what I mean.”

  “I do,” Blood said. He took her little hand in his, caressed it. “Sadly, I’m on my way to work. But another time perhaps.”

  He then leaned down and kissed her gently on the cheek. I thought she’d faint, so I made ready by standing foursquare behind her. When he released her hand, he started for the door. Blonde Bombshell silently watched the black god exit the bar.

  “I’m Keeper,” I said after a beat, holding out my hand. “Keeper Marconi.”

  “How nice for you,” she said, walking away.

  “There anymore peanut butter, Picasso?”

  “No. How about you get off your ass, end this vacation now, and head to the Stop and Shop and get us some?”

  Derrick Sweet shifts his head on the cot pillow so that he’s looking up at Reginald Moss from only a foot and half above the concrete floor of the secluded underground bunker. His fingers jammed into the mostly empty Skippy smooth peanut butter jar, he chuckles.

  “I’m resting. Recharging my batteries. We got a long walk ahead of us now that Joyce decided to shaft us…bitch that she is. And to think of all the time we spent servicing her. Don’t seem right, Picasso.” He tosses the empty plastic jar across the single room, 1950s era shelter. “By the way, you were kidding about the Stop and Shop run, right? I mean, that would be, like, stupid, right? Am I right?”

  Moss crosses thick arms over barrel chest. His shoulders are stained shit brown from crawling through that pipe that led directly to the sewer main and eventually to a manhole that opened up onto Main Street in downtown Dannemora. The escape had gone off without a hitch. Except for one thing: Joyce Mathews and their getaway vehicle never showed.

  “I knew that bitch didn’t want her husband dead,” he mumbles. “She caved, chickened out at the last minute and now we gotta either steal a car or go north to Canada. Only thing that’s gone our way is the location of this shelter.”

  “Steal a car. That sounds like a better plan. Got my heart set on Mexico, Picasso.”

  Moss steps on over to an easy chair covered in a red and black-checked wool blanket. He grabs hold of one of two pump-action shotguns that rest up against it. He pumps the action, allows a #3 buckshot shell to enter into the chamber.

  “The woods up there are crawling,” he says. “Only a matter of time ’til they stumble on us. Way I see it is like this: we either hoof it back through the woods to Dannemora and find a car to steal, which is like entering back into the hornet’s nest, or we find another town and steal a car there.”

  “Okay, Picasso,” Sweet says from down on the cot, examining the nails on his fingers, “we can’t go back home, so to speak. So where’s the nearest town? Gnome, Alaska?”

  Moss turns, approaches the far concrete wall which supports a large framed topo map of the six-million-acre Adirondack State Park. He studies it for a moment. Until he raises his right hand, index finger extended, and pokes an area to the direct east of the underground shelter.

  “Willsboro,” he says after a time.

  “Never heard of it,” Sweet says.

  “There’s a shocker,” Moss says, his eyes glued to the small settlement nestled in the middle of thick woods, streams, lakes, and mountains. At least that’s the way it looks according to the map’s brown, green, and blue topographical makeup. “It’s a long walk though. Woods are gonna be jam packed with cops and troopers. Better we travel at night.”

  Just then, the sound of muted voices. Several muted voices all talking over one another. The voices come to them via the air ducts that connect the shelter interior to the exterior up above.

  Sweet sits up fast. “That what I think it is, Picasso?”

  Shifting himself back to the easy chair, he grabs hold of the second shotgun.

  “They’re fucking coming,” he barks. “Looks like we’re going nowhere for now.”

  “So what do we do, then?”

  “Maintain silence until I say otherwise.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means shut the fuck up, asshole.”

  Two hours including a stop at Dick’s Sporting Good later, we were driving north on the highway in my recently refurbished fire engine red Toyota 4Runner. It was mid-June so we had plenty of sunshine for a drive that would take us somewhere around three and a half hours from Albany. We were dressed in clothing better suited for the great outdoors than Albany’s downtown concrete jungle.

  Like any other day, I was wearing a pair of Levis jeans, but instead of cowboy boots for footwear, I had on a pair of Chippewas lace-up work boots with indestructible Vibram soles over wool socks, a black cotton T-shirt that bore the words Bomb Squad from a favorite thriller series of mine, an olive green work shirt over that, and finally, a waterproof windbreaker with lots of pockets for my smartphone, a compass, my combo walkie-talkie GPS finder, waterproof matches, toilet paper, water purifying pills, granola bars, Swiss Army knife and other assorted necessities should I get lost in the woods for a few days. I also carried a Colt .45 strapped to my chest and two extra magazines should I suddenly find myself needing to shoot a bear.

  Blood carried the same gear I did, only he looked much cooler doing it. Excepting his black windbreaker, his outfit of black jeans and T-shirt looked almost identical to the one he might wear down on Sherman Street. We were also hauling in the back cargo area of the 4Runner, two AR-15 semi-automatic rifles and five hundred rounds of .223 caliber Remmington ammo, some freeze-dried food, a case of bottled spring water, a two-man tent, sleeping bags, cooking equipment, portable stove, an eight-inch fighting knife apiece, night vision devices, and a case of beer. If nothing else, we were up for a nice vacation away from it all in the great Adirondack Mountains.

  But somehow, I knew this was going to be anything but. If the voice that seemed to be getting louder and louder inside my gut was any indication, we were up for more than just a hike in the woods. We were about to come face to face with two killers who, already being charged with life sentences for their separate murders, had absolutely nothing to lose.

  We arrived in the small town of Dannemora just after eight p.m. Like Blood had said, there wasn’t much to the place other than the giant walls of the penitentiary to the right side of Main Street as we entered it, and the small commercial establishments on the left, and beyond those the small suburb made mostly of ramshackle wood clapboard homes. You could feel the tension in the air, the same way you might feel the presence of an intruder standing at the foot of your bed in the middle of the night.

  More than one front porch contained a man or woman holding a shotgun or rifle. The streets weren’t by any means crowded, but several people were dressed in camo as if it were hunting season, holstered pistols plainly visible.

  You asked me, this was a small town where people were scared. On edge. And when that happened, you could almost guarantee someone was going to get shot, one way or another.

  We passed by the many network news mobile broadcasting trucks, the camera crews, producers, and glamorous on-the-spot reporters who lazily roamed the Dannemora Prison parking lot, smoking cigarettes, mobile phones pressed up against their ears, or simply pacing the asphalt lot, waiting for something disastrous to happen. Something that would boost their ratings and extend their contracts.

  We pulled into the Super Eight Motel within eyeshot of the prison, exited the 4Runner, stretched out, and entered into the check-in office located at the far north end of the two-story motel-no-tell. Unlike the parking lot, which was full of cars and trucks belonging to the many reporters and cops who’d converged on the scene, the reception area was empty. I went up to the
counter, slapped the bell. And waited.

  Blood stood by my side. Taller. Bigger. More put together.

  “Not many keys left,” he said, referring to the pegboard mounted to the wall behind the counter, and the small hooks that supported the room keys which were almost entirely picked over.

  “Only one left,” I said.

  “Hope there’s two beds,” he said.

  “Don’t tell me you’re homophobic, Blood. Just last week the president lit the White House up in the colors of the rainbow to celebrate gay marriage.”

  “His house, his choice.”

  I laughed. “Blood, say it ain’t true. You are homophobic.”

  “I don’t care what anybody does between consenting adults behind closed doors. But I don’t cross swords, you dig?”

  I laughed some more. “I’ll try to keep my teeny weeny package away from your Jimmy Dean pork sausage if worse comes to worse.”

  “I sleep on the floor worse comes to worse, Mr. Teeny Weeny.”

  A man appeared from out of the back office. He was Asian Indian, and small, and wearing black, square horn-rimmed glasses.

  “Can I help you?” he said in a heavy Indian accent.

  “We’d like a room,” I said. “Preferably with the two beds.”

  The clerk nervously pulled on the top button of his cotton cardigan sweater, cleared his throat, then turned to look at the board.

  “You are together?” he said.

  “We work together is all,” Blood said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, turning back to the keyboard. “But there are no more rooms. The entire town is sold out. Many apologies.”

  I turned to Blood. “I guess we could set up the tent in the park. Camp out.”

  Blood’s eyes went wide. “I prefer civilization for as long as I can get it.” Nodding to the final key hanging off the board. “What about that one?”

  Again, the clerk nervously pulled on the button, smiled.

  “I am sorry, sir,” he said in his almost sing-song voice, “but that would be quite impossible. You see, that room is reserved.”

  “What?” Blood said, shifting his massive torso so that it hung over the counter and therefore over the little clerk. “Reserved for who? We here first. First come, first served. That’s the law of the land.”

  The clerk cleared his throat once more, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “That room is for Mr. Anderson Cooper. He would be very disappointed if I were to give his room away.”

  “Anderson Cooper,” I said. “The CNN guy.”

  “Reporter,” Blood said. “CNN big shot.”

  Nodding, the clerk said, “You do not like CNN?”

  “What I don’t like,” Blood said, “is Mr. Cooper acting like he more important than me.”

  “Blood,” I said, “Mr. Cooper has a reservation. Let’s go pitch the tent.”

  He turned to me.

  “You getting soft,” he said. Then, stretching his long frame over the counter, he reached out above the clerk’s head and grabbed hold of the key.

  “Please, sir!” the clerk shot back.

  Blood planted his feet, pocketed the key in his jacket. Then he dug into his black jean’s pocket, pulled out an impressive roll of bills.

  “How much for the room?”

  The clerk held up his hands. “Under normal circumstances, fifty for the night. Ten extra for towels and maid service.”

  Blood shaved three hundred off the stack, slapped it down onto the counter.

  “That’s for three nights. Not sure we staying that long since it’s possible we heading into the woods for a time.”

  The clerk’s eyes lit up as he looked one way and then the other, and pocketed the cash in his trouser pocket and therefore, under the table.

  “How much Mr. Anderson Cooper paying?” Blood said.

  “Fifty,” the clerk said. “Per night. Corporate Amex.”

  Blood cracked a smile. “See, we better clients. You make a better profit on us. No credit, cash. Keep Uncle Sam out of it.”

  Blood pulled the key back out of his jacket pocket, about-faced, and walked out of the office.

  “Thanks,” I said to the clerk, turning for the door.

  “Excuse me?” he said as I put my hand on the opener. “What shall I say when Mr. Cooper arrives?”

  “Tell him the truth,” I said over my shoulder, opening the door.

  “What truth would that be?”

  “That a man named Blood is currently staying in that room, and Blood doesn’t cross swords.”

  Laughing on the inside, I walked out.

  The first-floor, far corner room housed two beds after all.

  We tossed our packs on our respective beds, along with the weapons, the ammo, and the case of beer. The rest of the gear remained stored in the 4Runner.

  “You think he being straight about a celebrity like Anderson Cooper taking this room?” Blood said, stealing a beer from the case, popping the top. “Or you think he trying to take us for some dough?” He drank some of the beer.

  “If he took us…you…for some dough with that story, then he deserves the money.” I grabbed one of the beers, opened it, drank. The cool, as opposed to cold, beer tasted good after the long drive.

  He smirked. “Guess you right. Blood, taken in by a little Indian man.”

  “Don’t let it bother you, Blood. Even super humans have their vulnerabilities.”

  “Superman could use a real drink,” he said, sneering at his beer can like it was beneath him. And it was. “Some food too.”

  “How about that Chinese restaurant?” I said. “Fangs.”

  “Only restaurant in town not attached to a chain,” Blood said.

  “Should be full of interesting people. Some of whom we might like to speak to in the interest of pinning down our escaped cons.”

  “My guess is most people don’t know shit. Especially the police.”

  “Come on, Blood,” I said, draining my beer. “Let’s go make some friends.”

  _ _ _

  Since Fangs was located only a few hundred feet from the motel, we took it on foot to the many sounds of the prison leaking over the big concrete wall. Electronic buzzers sounding off, metal smashing against metal, tinny indiscernible voices blaring over loudspeakers. The prison was a living, breathing entity. The beating heart of Dannemora.

  There were a lot a vehicles parked out front of Fangs, which told us business was booming these days for the Fang family. Soon as Blood and I entered into the single-story, wide open dining room, the entire crowd fell silent while turning to stare at us, size us up. As we stood side by side beside a tall table that held maybe a half dozen, plastic-coated menus and that was presided over by a short Chinese woman in her mid to late 70s, all you could make out was the piped-in Chinese music. Listening closely, I could tell the music was actually Christmas songs being performed on traditional Chinese instruments.

  “Isn’t that Silent Night, Blood?” I said, making out the twang of a Chinese harp and the sad bowing of a violin-like instrument.

  “That it is,” he said. “Silent Night…in June. Kinda makes me homesick.”

  “Maybe we’ve entered a time warp. Like that FOX series, Wayward Pines.”

  “Maybe it’s the year 4045,” he said. “Christmas time. Good to know there’s a still Christmas in 4045.”

  Maybe a dozen tables filled the wide open, brightly lit space. Some long and other’s round. No booths. Two tables to our right were occupied by what looked to be reporters. You could tell by the many mobile cameras that rested on the floor and the amount of empty beer and wine bottles that sat on the table beside plates of Moo Goo Gai Pan, poo poo platters, bowls of shrimp low mein, pork chow mein, and wanton soup. One of the women sitting at the closer table was tall, with dirty blonde hair. Her Fox News T-shirt fit her snuggly. I recognized her from the local Albany Fox News affiliate. She caught my glance and smiled. For a split second I assumed she was smiling at Blood. But when I realized her happy face wa
s devoted to me and me alone, I felt a wave of warmth shoot up my spine. I smiled back.

  A couple more of the long tables were occupied by the state police. Their table was far more orderly, with soft drinks only on hand set beside their gray Stetsons. Sitting at the head of the closest table was a short, fit man, his hair brush-cut short, his grey and blue uniform impeccable. To his credit, he was the only man from the table not staring at us while he carefully sipped soup from a white ceramic spoon.

  The long table beyond them was filled with big men dressed in uniform blues, the sleeves on their shirts rolled up, showing off bulging, HGH-fed biceps. The patches on their shirts revealed their occupation as corrections officers for the Empire State of New York. Their drinks of choice were shots and beer chasers. And from where I was standing, most of them looked plastered.

  One of them, a man with no neck, his hair shaved, and bearing a goatee and mustache, cupped his hands over his mouth.

  “Go home, cocksuckers!” he shouted, to the laughs and snorts of his compatriots.

  Funny…

  The tables of reporters shot him a quick glance, but quickly returned to their meals, as if they were used to his outbursts by now. Like an exhausted set of parents made to endure yet another temper tantrum from their toddler.

  “So much for making friends,” I said.

  “Tension thick enough to shoot a bullet through it,” Blood said under his breath.

  To our left was a bar. There were a couple of people seated at it drinking, including one very attractive woman who was also dressed in a gray and blue law enforcement uniform.

  “Maybe we should enjoy a cocktail first,” I said, “while the tables and the rabble clear out. Keep the peace that way.”

  “Couldn’t agree more,” Blood said. “I hate to hurt anybody on an empty stomach.”

  “You like table now?” the sweet little Chinese woman said.

  “We’re gonna grab a drink or three if you don’t mind,” I said.

  “Three?” she said. “You must be boozer, like prison guards.”