Bunny remembered it well. After all, it was he who sent him there.
Chapter Fourteen
Commander Blake knocked on the door of the warden’s office and waited. He smiled at Diann, Hanzus’ secretary. Every. Damn. Time. Hanzus liked to make you wait outside his door. Everything had to be a power trip with the man. To keep himself amused while the warden droned on and on about whatever the latest bee in his prissy little bonnet was, Blake liked to imagine in vivid detail the different ways he could kill him. His current favourite was force-feeding the man the nameplate on his desk while his little collection of snakes watched on.
“Come.”
Blake opened the door and walked through.
“Ah, Blake, it’s you.”
“Yes, sir.” Like Diann buzzed through to tell you two minutes ago.
“Take a seat.”
Blake did.
“So, how is our new arrival settling in?”
“I had the night shift keeping a very close eye on him and I rechecked the tapes myself this morning. Rourke said nothing to his cellmate. They haven’t acknowledged each other’s existence.”
“Excellent. Hopefully our little chat had the desired effect.”
“I also asked Cuts— I mean, prisoner Leo Chen to keep an eye on him, sir.”
“A good man?” asked Hanzus.
“Well, respectfully, we don’t get good men in here, sir, but he is certainly a useful one. He’s the prefect of that landing, and he delivers Breida his meals, informs the guards if he needs anything.”
“And we can trust him?”
Blake hesitated. “We can trust him to do whatever it takes for a quiet life. The man just wants to get through his time here as hassle-free as possible. He’s got three months to go.”
Hanzus nodded. “If only we had more like him.”
“Have you heard any more about the audit, sir?”
Hanzus shook his head. “No. I mean, it isn’t like I can call up and ask. It was a stroke of good fortune that we found out it was coming. All we can hope is that they get it over with quickly and that Mr Breida can go back to having his own cell before …”
The warden took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. Blake noticed how nervous this situation made the little pissant. When the warden had first brought it up, and that conversation had taken an interminably long time to get to the point, Blake had said yes almost straight away.
It wasn’t the first brown envelope he’d taken along the way. The reality was that certain prisoners were always afforded a different incarceration experience. It either happened this way, or else through other means. Blake didn’t care. If someone wanted to pay him a little extra so that one of these animals had a nicer cage, that suited him just fine.
The Breida situation was unusual – someone paying top dollar so that a certain inmate spoke to nobody. No prisoners, no guards, no visitors. All he knew was that he now had a real nice cabin by the lake. Hanzus, on the other hand … Well, not for the first time, Blake wondered if they had more than money on the man. He looked petrified every time this subject had to be dealt with. Speaking of which …
“I’ve been thinking, Warden – could we not just put Breida in solitary?”
Hanzus shook his head firmly. “No, no, no. They were very clear …” He paled suddenly. “I mean, no – the prisoner should be left where he is.”
“We could swap Rourke for Cuts – I mean, Leo Chen.”
Again, Hanzus shook his head. “We do that and it will attract attention in the audit. They’ve already noticed Breida’s cell, Commander. We can’t change anything as it’ll arouse the suspicions of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. I’m trying to place some written notes in records to explain Breida’s … situation, but that will take time.”
“I see, sir.”
“We must hold our nerve,” said Hanzus.
Blake had a hard time keeping the smirk from his lips. His nerve was totally unshakable. Hanzus was the one who looked as if he wanted to cry for his mommy. These people really must have scared the shit out of him.
“Can I suggest, sir, that maybe you contact the … interested parties and explain the situation to them?”
Hanzus looked scandalised. “Absolutely not.”
“Just … Wouldn’t it be better than them finding out on their own?”
“How would that happen?”
Blake looked at the man. How would a cartel find out about something going on in a prison? Only about a thousand different ways. Despite twenty-five years as a corrections officer, it always amazed Blake how clueless senior management were of the workings of their own prisons.
“They might, sir.”
“We need to make sure they don’t.”
Absent of any idea where even to start with that pie-in-the-sky request, Blake just nodded.
“Aside from anything else, I have no way of contacting them. They contact me.”
Blake nodded. “I see, sir. Well, maybe they’ll do that.”
Hanzus wiped his brow again. “That is very much what I am afraid of.”
Chapter Fifteen
Being born and bred in Las Vegas, Dionne knew better than anyone that it was not a city that embraced its history. In fact, it made a point of periodically imploding it, and then building over the rubble. Still, it had one, and if you were going to preserve it then the Neon Museum – a graveyard for signs that were all that remained of many of the casinos and hotels that had once lined the strip – was how to do it. As she got out of the taxi, she looked up at the Les Paul guitar from the first Hard Rock Cafe towering over the building, eighty feet high.
Vegas had a messed-up magnetism of its own. That morning was the first time she’d driven down the strip in what must be more than twelve years. She’d left the car parked at a strip mall out of town and hailed a couple of cabs, being careful to make sure she wasn’t followed. The counter-surveillance measures weren’t
