car’s door sign identified it as Grounds Control. No weapons that I could see. Not even pepper spray.
“My husband was brought here from Ironwood this morning and I’m having trouble getting a message to him. This is Basal, right?”
“Go through his attorney. Quickest way. It’ll still take at least a week.”
“A week?”
He was eyeing my body and I glanced down. Only then did it hit me that in my frantic haste to leave the condo, I had quickly pulled on a pair of jeans but forgotten to change my top. Or fix my hair. Not that my hair needed fixing—I normally wore it down, and messy hair was somewhat in style. But my yellow-checkered flannel top screamed pajamas…
“I don’t have a week.”
“I’m sorry, but this is a restricted area. You need to turn your car around and leave.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“You don’t understand. You have an inmate inside whose life’s in danger. I have to talk to the warden. Please, I’m begging you.”
“And you know his life’s in danger how?”
I hesitated. “I was told.”
The guard didn’t look impressed. “Ma’am, if even one in a hundred threats made in correctional institutions were carried out, the prisons would be graveyards. Let me put your mind to rest. Your…husband, did you say?”
“My friend.”
“Trust me, your friend’s in the safest prison in California,” he said, “in part because of Basal’s strict policies regarding isolation. He’s been selected for the program for a reason, and you’re going to have to trust in that.”
I looked back at my car, scrambling for an angle, but I couldn’t find one. Maybe I was overreacting. It wouldn’t be the first time. Then again, maybe not.
I faced the man, who clearly had more patience than I did. “I got a phone call from a stranger this morning threatening to kill him.”
“Kill who, did you say?”
“I didn’t.”
The corners of the man’s mouth pulled up into a cockeyed smile. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“I got a shoe box.”
“A what?”
No, I couldn’t go there.
“Someone’s threatening to kill him, so like it or not, I am worried.”
“Look, Basal has a zero-tolerance policy regarding violence. Without weapons at their disposal, inmates use words. All the time. That’s assuming the threat came from Basal, which is highly unlikely.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He just got here this morning?”
“Yes.”
The guard shook his head. “I doubt he’s met any of the prisoners yet, much less had time to make enemies. Besides, all phone calls are monitored. Is your friend a violent man?”
“No.” Not anymore, anyway. Although I had no doubt Danny could put both of these guards on their backs without breaking a sweat.
“He make a habit of screaming obscenities at people who walk by?”
“Of course not.”
The guard shrugged. “He’s perfectly safe here. Wherever that call came from, it wasn’t Basal. And whoever made it will have an even harder time getting in here than you. Follow? What prison did you say he was transferred from?”
“Ironwood.”
“There you go. Impossible to spend time at Ironwood without making enemies. Now, if you don’t mind, you really need to turn your car around and leave. And just so you know, the minute any car hits our blacktop, we know. Go home and take a deep breath. If you still think you need to get a message inside, you best work with an attorney.”
“Do you know an inmate named Bruce Randell?”
The guard’s eyes flickered and I knew I’d hit a chord.
“Not directly, no. I’m not at liberty to speak about any members. I think it’s best for you to leave.”
I knew then that I had no hope of getting in to see Danny without someone’s help. That’s when I decided to start with whoever had first put Bruce Randell behind bars. Know your enemy’s enemy, Danny had once taught me. They will likely be your ally.
“Thank you,” I said, eager to leave. “What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t.” He grinned. “Martin. Please don’t return until you have the right paperwork. There’s an armed gate around the corner a hundred yards up. No one gets past it unless we want them to. Follow?”
“Follow,” I said.
But the only path I was following was the one that led me to Danny, and that path now led me to Bruce Randell, Danny’s newest enemy.
6
THE DINING HALL was located in the south wing, just off the hub, a self-serve affair that rewarded those who lined up for chow with a compartmentalized plate not unlike those sold as TV dinners. Today’s lunch consisted of one spoonful of fake whipped spuds, three or four small chunks of corned beef, a dozen green beans, an apple, a thick slice cut from a French roll, and something like margarine spread thinner than a snitch’s word across the surface. Choice of drink: water, apple juice, lime soda, or lemonade.
The hall contained thirty long tables, three rows of ten. According to Godfrey, the prison had a maximum capacity of 300 but was considered full at 250, allowing the warden the spare cells needed to shuffle members between wings as required. Lunch was served to the commoners in two shifts, although privileged members, currently numbering forty-seven, could eat in the hall if they so desired. At least half took advantage of the better meals delivered to the guest rooms, as the privileged cells were called. Members in the basement meditation wing were fed rolls of highly enriched bread in their cells.
On Danny’s first day there were roughly a hundred members in the room, seated at the tables or in line, talking quietly, casting glances only occasionally at the table where Danny sat alone with Godfrey and a very shy Pete Manning.
The boy looked young for his twenty years, hardly more than a pubescent teenager, not because he was small but because his features were fine. Short blond hair covered his head, straight but slightly disheveled. The lashes above his light blue eyes were long, and the fingers holding his plastic spoon as he toyed with his whipped spuds looked like they hadn’t seen a day’s labor in years. He was pale and his skin was unblemished except for a bruise on his right cheekbone.
The only sign that he was anything but perfectly normal came in the way he carried himself, delicately and on edge, as if he knew of some imminent danger hidden from the rest of them.
A quick count identified seven privileged members eating at the tables, and five employed in the serving line, all easily distinguished by their street clothes in a sea of members dressed in blue pants and tan shirts. Roughly half were white, perhaps a third were black, the rest, Latino. Danny found this odd, considering the overwhelming percentage of minorities imprisoned in California’s prison system, one of the great injustices of law enforcement.
A single CO—or facilitator, Godfrey had called them—lounged in a chair near the door, apparently bored stiff. In most prisons, guards were sparsely stationed for efficiency in high-traffic areas. A show of force was only required when trouble erupted. In some larger institutions, inmates might see corrections officers only a few times
