Either side of them, the heavy barred doors of the cells started to clank open and inmates began to filter out. Reaper put down his tray, stood up and grabbed his towel. He was wearing loose blue cotton prison-issue pants and not much else.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Lock asked him.
‘Hit the showers,’ Reaper said.
‘Oh no you’re not,’ Lock said, putting his own tray down and sliding off his bunk.
‘What? You think you’re my mom?’
‘Mom, nursemaid, babysitter, all rolled into one, that’s me,’ said Lock. ‘Don’t you think we should see what kind of a reaction you get on the yard before you wander off to take a shower?’
Reaper sighed. ‘You’re taking this kinda seriously, aren’t you, soldier boy?’
‘And so should you, if you want to stay alive.’
While Lock finished breakfast, Reaper settled for washing himself in the sink. As he ate, Lock mulled over Reaper’s overwhelming confidence. He couldn’t decide on its source. Was it a macho veneer acquired over years spent in prison? Or did it go deeper? Did Reaper know something that either Lock or Jalicia didn’t?
Lock took his place at the sink as an orderly came back along the tier and collected the breakfast trays.
‘So, what now?’ Lock asked Reaper, unsure of what kind of day lay ahead.
‘It’s Sunday, right?’ Reaper asked him.
Lock had to stop and think about it. Already, the confined quarters were starting to distort his perception of time. ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ he said, pushing away the thought that Sunday mornings were usually reserved for walking Angel in Central Park with Carrie.
‘Then we got no work,’ said Reaper, ‘just play. And I tell you what, soldier boy,’ he went on, looking around the stark confines of their cell, ‘this sure as hell beats solitary.’
Their cell door shuddered and began to roll open.
‘Yard time,’ said Reaper. ‘Let’s go meet the neighbors’
12
As Lock stepped out on to the yard, bright sunlight caught him unawares, and he had to put his hand up to shield his eyes from the blinding glare. The yard itself was a large grassy space divided up with benches. A walking track ran round the perimeter, and beyond that was more fencing topped with razor wire. Beyond that was another yard and another set of cell blocks which emptied out into the same sub-divided central space. The entire yard fell under the watchful eye of a guard in the gun tower, who scanned the inmates from behind mirrored sunglasses while toting a Mini-14 rifle.
In addition to the guard high above them in the gun tower, there were cameras mounted at strategic points around the yard. There were also two guards on the yard itself, both armed with batons, tasers and large canisters of pepper spray. The yard had been constructed in such a way that, unlike some of the older prisons Lock had seen on TV, every inch of public space was open to scrutiny.
For the first few seconds, Lock could feel the heavy weight of the other inmates’ stares, accompanied by an ominous silence. Then it was gone, as the inmates separated into their different racial groups: the black prisoners headed for the basketball court, the Hispanics settled themselves on some benches in the far corner of the yard and the white inmates gravitated to another set of benches.
Lock nodded towards this group. ‘Who are they?’
Lock’s nod drew narrowed-eye stares from the white inmates.
Reaper stepped in front of Lock and put a massive callused hand on Lock’s chest. ‘Yard etiquette 101,’ he said. ‘First rule, you never stare at someone, you never nod towards them, and you definitely never point at anyone on the yard. Unless, of course, you want to fight them.’
‘Point taken, but you still didn’t answer my question,’ said Lock.
‘We’re cool,’ said Reaper. ‘They’re NLR for the most part.’
‘NLR?’ Lock asked.
‘Nazi Low Riders.’
‘Not Aryan Brotherhood?’
‘No,’ said Reaper, stepping away from Lock and pivoting back round, his eyes sliding across the yard towards three gargantuan white inmates standing on their own next to the fence, arms folded. ‘Those three dudes over there are AB. Now, come on, soldier boy.’
Reaper began to walk. Conversations fell away to a series of whispers. The basketball game stopped. Even though no one stared, Lock knew that they were being watched.
Lock fell into step with Reaper. But rather than head towards his old comrades near the fence, Reaper was making for the larger group of Nazi Low Riders. Whatever the etiquette, the three Aryan Brotherhood members were now openly staring at Reaper.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ said Lock as they got within ten feet of the group of Nazi Low Riders.
The group parted and an older white inmate sporting a ratty mustache and a winged death skull tattoo which ran the length of his clavicle just beneath his throat stepped towards them.
He and Reaper clasped hands and then hugged.
‘It’s been a while, Phileas,’ Reaper said to the man.
‘Too long,’ said Phileas, motioning for Reaper to take a seat on the bench next to him.
Across the yard, the three Aryan Brotherhood members were mumbling among themselves. One of them spat at the ground.
Lock had been right about one thing: Reaper had never intended to step back on to the mainline without a plan in place. However, he still had a job to do, and who was to say that Reaper’s apparent defection from the Aryan Brotherhood to their rivals, the Nazi Low Riders, would be the last betrayal the yard would see?
Lock skirted around the benches so he was closer to Reaper, only to have a huge hand pushed hard into his chest. A Nazi Low Rider gang member sporting a swastika tattooed across the centre of his forehead stared down at him — no mean feat considering that Lock was six feet two inches tall.
‘Where you going, dawg?’ he asked.
Lock kept his gaze as even as his voice. ‘Just watching my cellie’s back, brother.’
‘Well, do it somewhere else.’
Lock stood his ground, but kept his hands down by his sides. His posture was loose and unthreatening. ‘Sorry, I can’t help you there, dawg.’
Lock’s challenge had the desired effect. The man took a step towards him. Lock brought the palm of his right hand up hard and fast, finding the man’s throat and snapping his head back. Lock followed this up by slamming his knee into the man’s groin. The Nazi Low Rider folded like a bad hand of poker.
One of the guards patrolling the yard started towards them, his hand on his canister of pepper spray. The guard in the gun tower swiveled his weapon in Lock’s direction.
Lock stepped back, ready to fight some more.
Phileas, who’d been talking to Reaper, turned to the man who’d been pole-axed by Lock. ‘Knock it off,’ he said. He tapped Reaper on the elbow. ‘Let’s take a walk.’
He and Reaper headed off to the track that circled the yard. Lock fell in behind them.
As he did so, the man he’d just attacked got to his feet and grudgingly put out his hand. ‘They call me Eichmann,’ he said, by way of introduction. ‘I keep an eye out for Phileas.’
‘Lock,’ said Lock, shaking Eichmann’s hand. ‘Come on, let’s not fall behind here.’
‘What the hell you talking about?’
Reaper and Phileas were already level with the three members of the Aryan Brotherhood. If they decided to rush Reaper there would be less than twenty yards to cover. Maybe Phileas had suggested that he and Reaper take a stroll for the express purpose of getting Reaper in close enough to the hit squad.
‘I’m talking about the Three Stooges over there by the fence,’ said Lock, staring straight ahead.
‘Don’t worry about them,’ said Eichmann. ‘We got the numbers on this yard now.’
