by Matt Rogers
Up the back of the room there was a toilet built into the wall, complete with a small partition for privacy. King assumed the object was a rare sight in the pavilion. Above the toilet, a dirty glass window faced out onto an open field of dead grass, running all the way to the prison’s perimeter. An unimpressive view, yet a view all the same. Cooking appliances were scattered across the floor, most homemade. They were nothing more than electric rings mounted on paint tins, but they would heat food well enough.
The height of luxury.
‘King, meet my other three bodyguards,’ Tevin said.
The three men approached him warily, as he expected. The sudden arrival of a new prisoner would warrant suspicion. He had been let into Tevin’s personal quarters almost immediately. And he was foreign. King imagined signs of favouritism were treated with hostility by men who had worked hard to earn their positions. Nevertheless, they listened to their boss. They shook his hand, a couple grunting and nodding in greeting. King nodded back.
A row of beds rested against the far wall. Tevin crossed the room and lay down on one of them, sinking into the mattress. He rested his head against a filthy pillow.
King sat on one of the empty chairs.
‘Someone put me in here for a reason, Tevin,’ he said. ‘They framed me.’
Tevin said nothing. Just stared at the ceiling, smiling to himself.
‘I need to get out,’ King said.
The man continued smiling.
‘Tevin…’
He turned and made eye contact with King. ‘You’re living in a fantasy.’
‘What?’
‘You don’t get out of here. Don’t you think — with the influence I have — I would have escaped years ago if there was a way?’
‘I was under the impression anything could be bought.’
‘Anything except freedom, my friend. Especially if you’ve been locked up for a reason. Are you a rich man?’
King patted his jeans pocket, checking that the roll of bolivares was still there. ‘I’ve got enough. On the outside I’ve got much more.’
‘Then you can afford a decent life in here,’ he said. ‘You work for me, and you buy your way to basic amenities, and you’ll manage. But don’t consider anything else. Don’t get your hopes up. They’ll only be torn down by reality.’
‘I can get out of here.’
Tevin chuckled. ‘Just because you were a soldier doesn’t mean you’re above the guards. There’s no way out.’
‘How do I find out why I’m here?’
Tevin turned to him. ‘Do you think you’re special?’
‘What?’
‘Half the men in here used to be good citizens of society. But they pissed off a politician, or angered a gang. Now they’re in here for the rest of their life. If you keep denying it you’ll end up just like them. Useless drug addicts on the verge of death. They realised too late that they’re never getting out, and it tore them apart. Don’t let that happen to you, my friend.’
King lapsed into silence, mulling over what had occurred. A small window built into the end of the room faced out onto the prison yard, exposing the setting sun melting into the horizon.
He stayed quiet as it grew dark. A bulb in the ceiling flickered to life, casting a dim glow over the contents of the room. The knot in his gut had yet to loosen. In fact, it grew tighter with each passing moment. He knew his motivation would fade the longer he spent in El Infierno.
Which could well be the rest of his life, just as Rico had said.
One of the bodyguards left the room and returned five minutes later carrying a large bowl of curry. Probably purchased from one of the guards for a hefty fee. They ate in silence. Tevin noticed King’s change in demeanour and didn’t probe him any further.
The rest of the evening passed in similar fashion. Several times Tevin attempted to strike up conversation, yet King had withdrawn into himself. He was not in the mood to talk.
Finally, late at night, when the five of them were ready to fall asleep, he opened his mouth.
‘What are you in here for, Tevin?’ he said.
The man turned from his position on the lower bunk. ‘Murder. Three counts of it.’
‘Justified?’
‘Not at all. They were my competition. Three brothers, setting up a hardware shop across the road from mine. They had family money. It wouldn’t have taken long for them to put me out of business. So I beheaded them while they slept.’
With that he rolled over and grew quiet, drifting into sleep.
King relaxed back into the chair and stared up at the damp ceiling, wondering just how he’d ended up in this mess. It seemed that wherever he turned, trouble followed. It had his whole career, but that came with the job. Now he could not shake the past. Peace and relaxation were concepts that hovered on the horizon, seemingly in reach. Whenever he tried to grab them, chaos would occur. Perhaps he was destined for this.
He used the toilet, unperturbed by some of the room’s occupants watching him as he did so. The partition gave him partial privacy — a lot better than what he was used to out in the field. It put his career into perspective somewhat. Even in the bowels of corrupt Venezuela, he felt as if he were living in relative comfort.
He returned to the chair and closed his eyes as a wave of tiredness washed over him. The stress of recent events had taken their toll. The grounds outside grew dark and the constant screaming within the pavilion began to subside. Apparently even the junkies had to sleep at some point. King drifted into short restless bouts of unconsciousness.
He came to at some point in the night. It was pitch dark outside. The sound of rustling had woken him. It came from somewhere nearby, and — while it could have been one of the bodyguards — he opened his eyes. The noise was frantic. Panicked. He took one look across and saw a stranger inside Tevin’s quarters, one hand dipped into the man’s possessions. The guy’s beady eyes darted from body to body, searching for any sign of movement in the lowlight.
He didn’t know King was awake.
The man continued to rustle through piles of clothes, searching hurriedly. His skin clung to his bones like a walking skeleton. The guy was emaciated. King waited until he withdrew a roll of bolivares from Tevin’s belongings, then vaulted off the chair and wrapped a hand around the guy’s shirt.
The man almost jumped out of his skin. He shrieked, a rabid cry, flecks of spit dotting King’s shirt. He slapped a feeble hand against King’s chest, trying to fend him off. King ripped the bolivares out of his hand and threw him out into the hallway. The door had been pushed open while they slept. Someone had accidentally left it ajar.
The guy clattered to the floor outside in a loud tumble of limbs, waking everyone in the room. Tevin was up in an instant, feet planted on the floor before King had time to blink. He’d produced a crude semi-automatic pistol from somewhere in his bunk. An instinctive reaction ingrained by years of living on edge.
‘All clear,’ King said.
‘The fuck was that?’ Tevin said.
‘One of the inmates. He was looking for money.’
‘Did he take any?’
King held up the roll of banknotes. ‘He tried.’
‘Fucking prick!’
He gestured to one of his bodyguards, the biggest of the three. A short sharp signal that could have meant anything. But the man got the message. He grunted his understanding and reached under one of the sofas. He came out with a heavy machete. Its edge was serrated, and clearly sharpened regularly. A formidable weapon.
‘What’s that for?’ King said.
Tevin looked at him like he was stupid. ‘These wild fucks need to be kept in line. How do you think I’ve stayed on top all these years?’
‘Clearly by being a reasonable and kind leader.’
‘You need to set an example,’ Tevin said, ignoring the retort. ‘Show the whole pavilion what happens to those who try and disrupt the order of things.’
The man with the machete made for the doorway, s
cything it through the air in short practice swings. He got halfway across the room when Tevin stopped him.
‘Wait!’ he cried.
The bodyguard paused and turned to face his boss. Tevin spoke rapidly in Spanish, gesticulating to get his point across. Just from his actions alone, King understood the gist of his demands.
‘No,’ King said even before the bodyguard could pass him the machete.
Tevin locked eyes with him. ‘You will do it.’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘If you work for me, Jason King, then you will do as I say.’
‘I guess we’re going to have to disagree on that.’
‘You do not disagree with me.’
‘I just did.’
A palpable tension crept into the room. Tevin snarled. ‘Kill him. Or we will kill you. Just like I have killed many sapos before.’
‘Any other options?’ King said.
The other two bodyguards rose off the sofa in the corner. They shifted from foot-to-foot, staring at their boss. Obedient as always. Ready to fight at a moment’s notice.
‘No other options.’
‘Loco,’ one of the bodyguards whispered, which King knew meant “crazy”. He didn’t imagine prisoners talked back to Tevin very often.
‘There’s always a third option,’ he said.
He jerked forward and broke Tevin’s nose with a single head-butt.
CHAPTER 12
The fierce high of life-or-death combat ripped through King’s system. In an instant his entire demeanour changed. A second ago he’d held a casual stance with his arms relaxed, his shoulders slumped, his head bowed. Not a hint of aggression or hostility. That was the key. If people saw an attack coming they could prepare themselves. Tense up. Dodge the first blow.
Tevin couldn’t.
The sharp crack of broken nasal bones echoed off the walls. Blood fountained from his nostrils and he fell back onto his bunk, reeling from the shock of such a painful injury. By then King had already moved past him, throwing him aside, charging at the man wielding the machete. He was most dangerous. So King would deal with him first.
He hoped that the opening blow had its intended effect. In groups, many rely on the leader for commands. However he acts often carries over to his men. Tevin howled from the pain of his injury. The sharp outcry ripped through the room. His men heard it. They hesitated.
If one man shows fear, King thought, then it will spread.
He came within range and delivered a second vicious head-butt, thrusting the thick skull of his forehead into the guy’s nose. It was the most effective method of taking the fight out of a dangerous opponent at such close quarters. Get so close that a machete swing is impossible. Then lash out with a blow they’d be least expecting.
The guy peeled away, groaning in agony, clutching his shattered septum. The machete dropped out of his hands.
King scooped it up by the handle and threw it across the room at the two remaining bodyguards charging at him. It turned end-over-end in the air, whistling past them, and buried itself in the far wall. Both men remained unharmed. But that was never the intention. A large knife hurtling through the air towards you creates an involuntary reaction. They both flinched, bringing both hands up in a rudimentary shield, closing their eyes for a moment, praying the blade didn’t slice open their organs.
Perfect.
King surged across the room and threw a four-punch combo at the man on the left. He alternated between the body and the head. The first winded him. The second cracked across his chin. The third struck the liver. The fourth hit him just above the ear and rattled his brain around inside his skull, putting him out on his feet.
His legs gave out at the same time that the last bodyguard pulled out a gun.
King’s heart spiked. A pang of shock ripped through him. The guy was too far away. He brought the pistol out of his waistband and levelled the barrel at King’s head. For a fleeting moment King looked death in the eye. He ducked as fast as he could, contracting the available surface area that the man had to aim at.
The guy squeezed a single shot off. The report tore through the room, deafening inside the confined space, accompanied by a blinding muzzle flare.
King didn’t care where it went. All that mattered was it missed. He didn’t feel the explosion of nerve endings that signified a bullet wound. He dropped low and powered off the floor, tensing his glutes. He charged across the room. He wrapped both arms around the guy’s legs and drove him back off his feet.
Before the man could fire a second round, the back of his head crashed against the concrete. It made enough noise for King to recognise that the fight was over. A concussion would be the least of his problems. Spurred on by blind rage, he snatched up the pistol and fired a round through the base of the man’s skull.
You try to kill me. I try to kill you.
That’s fair.
The aftermath of sudden massive violence settled over the room. It became eerily quiet after such an intense brawl. Ears ringing, King clambered off the dead bodyguard and crawled onto the nearest chair. He clutched the gun between his fingers. The weapon was another Zamorana. Purchased from either the local or national police forces. He panted for breath, sucking air into his lungs, recovering from the high of combat. He checked the repercussions.
One bodyguard was dead. Blood pooled from his head onto the concrete floor, coagulating with the dust to form a viscous brown substance. Another was unconscious, lit up by King’s barrage of punches. The guy who’d held the machete rested in the doorway, clutching his bleeding nose and moaning. Tevin was in a similar position. Both nostrils poured blood onto his white bedsheets, ruining them. He looked across the room at King with disbelief plastered across his face.
‘You don’t know what you’ve done,’ he said, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor.
‘I have an idea,’ King said. ‘Looks like I just fucked you all up.’
‘You’ll regret this. You haven’t been here long enough. You don’t know who I am.’
King rose off the chair. He towered over the now-feeble old man. ‘I think you’ve got things the wrong way around, Tevin.’
‘What?’
‘You don’t know who I am.’
‘A soldier. Who cares? I’ve seen plenty of tough guys in my time. I’ll get my men to kill you as soon as you turn your back.’
‘I’ve seen some shit that makes this place look like Disneyland,’ King said. ‘So if you think you’re going to scare me, or intimidate me, then give it your best shot. I’ll be outside. Send anyone. I’ll fucking tear them apart.’
He let the threat hang in the air, then left the three men in their sorry states. He stepped out into the hallway and saw the skinny thief still resting on the dirty floor, staring into Tevin’s room in a state of shock.
‘Lay low for a while, kid,’ King said. ‘They’ll be angry.’
The guy stared vacantly, completely unaware. No English, evidently.
King walked past him and set off down the corridor, heading back for the pavilion. He kept the Zamorana in his grip, eyes flicking left and right, searching for confrontation. He found none. Whether due to the look in his eyes or his imposing stature, the prisoners left him alone. It must have dawned on them that he was a different breed. Not a clueless drug smuggler, crawling into their territory weak and feeble and cowering. Something else.
They were in his territory now.
He shoved past a group of Spanish thugs and headed for one corner of the pavilion. There was no furniture of any kind in the cage. It was nothing but a bare room packed with inmates. No room for cover. King felt his stomach sinking as he sat down with his back resting against the wall. Tevin was right. He had a gun, but he would have to fall asleep eventually. It wouldn’t take much to outnumber him. Unless he decided to kill half the men in the pavilion, he would end up catching a knife in the back or a bullet between the eyes soon enough.
Most of the prisoners were asleep. Outside it was still d
ark, with a faint glimmer of light creeping over one of El Infierno’s walls. He could make it through the coming day, and probably the entire night after. He’d kept watch longer than that during his time in the special forces. But then what? Eventually he had to break. He couldn’t sleep deprive himself forever.
One by one, the inmates stirred as the sun rose. All of them were caked in mud, gazing around the putrid room with glassy expressions. They didn’t care about the conditions, as long as they could get their hands on the next fix. King watched them all. Some seemed to have their wits together. They communicated with each other in hushed whispers, minding their own business. Others drooled onto the floor, scratching at scabs and staring into space.
King gripped the Zamorana tighter. There seemed to be no threats in this area of the pavilion. His line of sight was obscured by the crowds, so he couldn’t see if Tevin or his men had emerged from their room yet. He imagined they would, looking for revenge. He would be ready.
It was an uncomfortable position to hold. He had to stay constantly wary, never letting his guard drop, scanning the crowd for any kind of threats.
He heard a noise from outside the pavilion. A foot scraping against concrete. He glanced out through the steel mesh and saw Rico approaching the cage. The man kept his hands behind his back, strolling leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world. He noted the gun in King’s hands and grinned.
‘Bet you’re not used to a prison like this,’ he said.
‘I’m not used to any prison,’ King said.
‘I’m sure you aren’t, scum.’
‘What’s to stop me shooting you right now?’