“Which one is— Agh!”
The scream was because Arthur had just noticed a short olive-skinned nun standing behind him, who had seemingly appeared out of thin air.
“Yes,” said Dionne, not turning around. “She does that.”
Chapter Eleven
Bunny was back in the waiting room, sitting on the chair which was seemingly designed for maximum irritation. He was tired, hungry and bursting for a pee. After his meeting with Warden Hanzus, he’d been brought back here and left on his own. Seeing as he’d already been processed, Bunny was pretty sure it was a psychological move. He was being left to stew.
Whatever the deal was with his soon-to-be cellmate, they were obviously concerned about it. Enough that they wanted to make sure he was as compliant as possible. In hindsight, Bunny knew it would’ve made more sense to have smiled and nodded in the meeting, kept his mouth shut and played the part. Unfortunately, he was hard-wired to speak out against bullying in all its forms and couldn’t stop himself from reacting to it. Also, while snakes didn’t bother him, he had a soft spot for mice. Rats, on the other hand, deserved everything they had coming to them.
When he’d returned to the waiting room, he’d found a little present had been left for him – with the emphasis on “little”. Laid on the chair was a towel the size of a facecloth, a toothbrush the size of a toothpick, a tube of toothpaste (in proportion with the brush, if not with reality), and a bit of soap that was just big enough to comfortably wash Bunny’s left leg.
There was also a spare jumpsuit in the same fetching orange as the one he was wearing and two pairs of pink boxer shorts. Bunny knew that somebody somewhere thought that dyeing the boxers that colour would have a psychological effect, but they had greatly overestimated how much attention Bunny paid to his underwear.
So far, nothing he’d seen had caught him off-guard. He was coming in as a guy who’d escaped prison once before, and that was bound to make him a little unpopular with the powers that be. The information about the original Anthony Rourke had been a little sketchy, but from what Zoya and her contacts had been able to find out from the files, he had managed to hide himself and a buddy away in a laundry truck and get shipped out of the prison. His accomplice had been picked up two months later at his mother’s house, but Rourke had disappeared off the face of the earth. Maybe he’d gone to ground and been good at it, found himself a new identity, or maybe the fella had just died and never been identified. Either way, thankfully, it seemed like the chances of him turning up now were remote.
Zoya had also gone through the databases and determined that nobody in Longhurst had served time with or been a known associate of Anthony Rourke. That was more of a concern, but still, this was the best plan they had, and so far it was working. It had by no means been a certainty, but Dionne had told him they’d try to get him sharing a cell with this Breida fella, and clearly they’d managed it. All in all, things were going swimmingly.
Why was it, then, that he had this awful sense of unfounded foreboding? Maybe it was just the reality of the rubber meeting the road. Large metal gates slamming closed behind him. That did things to a man – any man – and Bunny couldn’t pretend he was immune.
Or it could just be that he was desperate to pee.
The door opened and in walked Blake, with Officer Truant trailing in his wake. He gave Bunny a wide smile.
“There you are, Mr Rourke. We’d forgotten all about you.”
“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t want to be any trouble. I was considering letting myself out.”
“That wit is going to serve you well. I can’t wait to see how funny you are in a few days. Let’s go.”
Truant gathered up Bunny’s haul of free toiletries and spare clothes as Blake escorted Bunny into the cell block.
This time he got the walk. It was like he was expecting, only not. Cold eyes stared out at him from inside the cells, but nobody made a sound. In a way, it was worse. Bunny guessed from the way Blake stared at the prisoners that their respectful if resentful silence said more about the man with a firm grip on his arm than anything. Commander Blake was a man you didn’t mess with.
“This is the west building,” explained the commander. “One of four in this facility. I assume you can figure out the other names. West will be your home for the next fourteen years. You might notice that birds of a feather flock together. The first two floors are Caucasian, three and most of four are African-American, and the rest of four and five are Hispanic gentlemen. It goes along similar lines in the other buildings.”
They reached one of the two wire-mesh central stairways that stretched up through the middle of the block. The one they were on was red in colour, the other blue. Signs indicated that red was the upstairs and blue the down. A system designed to limit inmates passing within easy shivving distance of each other.
“I guess you’re wondering which floor you’ll be on?” asked Blake.
Bunny said nothing.
“That’s right – six. Who is on level six, Officer Truant?”
“Screamers, spitters and shitters.”
“That’s right. It’s where we keep our inmates who are, well, a little odd. Where they’re less of a disturbance. We occasionally call it the belfry.”
“Yeah,” said Truant, “on account of all the cuckoos up there.”
Blake rolled his eyes and decided to just let it go.
Each landing was behind thick metal fencing, to prevent anyone from taking a way down that was quicker than the stairs, but the prisoners looked free to walk between floors.
Truant started to
