Breakfast had been an hour ago. Now, Bunny was standing out in the exercise yard. He’d gone there as soon as possible once they’d done another of the half-dozen or so counts he could expect in a day. On his way up to the sixth landing, Bunny had noticed that inmates who couldn’t – or weren’t allowed to – make it downstairs got their breakfasts delivered to their cells by a meal cart service. All, that is, except for the Quiet Man. Cuts picked up Breida’s breakfast and dropped it outside the cell personally. When Bunny reached his cell for the count, the guy had been sitting up on his bed, watching Jeopardy on his small TV. Bunny had resisted the urge to speak and sat down on his own bunk. The Quiet Man was no longer his biggest concern.
Whiteside. Of all people, Whiteside.
The exercise area was large. A basketball court sat behind some wire fencing and was being used enthusiastically, as was a running track that ran the whole length of the perimeter, and a baseball diamond sat in the middle of it. Bunny walked around, trying to look casual and stay out of everybody else’s way without looking like he was doing so.
Cuts had looked alarmed when he’d seen Bunny hurry down the stairs. The man would no doubt have had plenty of useful survival tips to impart, but Bunny had no time. Nobody else could see it, but he was drowning. He needed to find himself a lifeboat, and fast.
As he walked along the side of the track, he also noticed the cameras, of which there were plenty. Guard towers were positioned in each corner of the yard, with an additional one in the middle of the far wall, opposite the forecourt in front of the prison buildings. Bunny knew from his briefings that in each tower there were two guards monitoring feeds from the cameras that they could move at will. They also each had AR-15 rifles, and were the only armed correction officers in the grounds. They were proficient, but they weren’t trained snipers. It wasn’t as if they had to be. If they needed to fire, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Bunny took a seat on the bleachers beside the baseball diamond. It was still only 9am, but the sun was already beating down. Bunny was not designed for this kind of heat. He reckoned sixty minutes in it and every bit of his exposed skin would be red enough to be visible from space.
As it turned out, he didn’t need the whole sixty – fifteen minutes were enough.
“Howerya, Alan,” he said, not turning around.
In the least surprising move imaginable, Whiteside had been careful to make his approach from behind. Bunny had let him get to within ten feet.
“Still got them eyes in the back of your head, do you, Bunny?”
“Not at all. You’re upwind of me. I’d know your stench from a hundred yards, Shitty.”
The playful tone slipped. “Nobody calls me that any more.”
“Really?” said Bunny. “Have you done the classic thing and come to America to re-invent yourself?”
Whiteside walked around to stand in front of Bunny. They were alone, bar a couple of old fellas playing checkers at the far end of the bleachers and studiously minding their own business. Everyone else out there was either running, playing basketball, or over in the already busy weights area.
Bunny noted that Whiteside stood a good six feet away from him as they spoke, giving himself room to run. As far as Bunny could recall, the lad had never been much in a scrap. Not the most physically imposing at only five foot eight, Shitty had been keen on knives, and keener still on guns – when he’d advanced far enough up the tree to get his hands on them. He might not have owned the two firearms found in his apartment all those years ago, but it wasn’t as if he didn’t have others elsewhere. Odds on, they were held by underage kids on his behalf, because the little shit loved that wrinkle in the law more than anything.
The sneer was still there. “You’re one to talk about re-inventing yourself, Mr Rourke.”
“Who?”
Whiteside laughed. “I asked one of the guards about you. Word has it you escaped from prison, like, twenty-eight years ago and they just caught you.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah. Very interesting, that.” The grin widened on Whiteside’s face. “Be really interesting to see what people say when they find out that’s all bullshit and you’re a fucking pig.”
“Throwing around threats now, are you, Shitty? That’s unusual for you. I mean, at least it’s at a full-grown man. Normally, you just do it to children.”
“Look at you, all high and mighty. Did you forget about planting those guns on me? It’s thanks to you I went to prison. Ain’t payback a bitch?”
Bunny leaned back. “Let’s be fair, it’s thanks to me you went to prison in Ireland. Fuck knows what you did to get yourself locked up over here. For an innocent man, you’ve been ferocious unlucky on two continents. Did you piss off a gypsy at some point? Maybe you got a child of her acquaintance hooked on smack. It would be true to form.”
“There you go, casting aspersions. Make up all the lies you want. Just to be clear, for the benefit of the wire you’re probably wearing, I want to assert that all these aspersions you’re casting on my character are bullshit.”
Bunny nodded. So Whiteside thought he was
