Go for tomorrow. Put earpiece in when cam light flashes three times.
It hadn’t even been a week, but Bunny was royally sick of prison life. Some birds you just can’t cage. Whiteside was getting out the day after tomorrow. If this all worked, he’d be telling tales on a ghost.
That was the good news, then there was the ever-increasing pile of bad news. While improvising to cover an enforcer from the Aryan Brotherhood getting walloped in the back of the head by a certain package, Bunny had propositioned said gang member. The lad hadn’t appeared to be into it. Bunny couldn’t decide which of the two potential reactions would’ve been worse. Not that he had any problem with anyone else’s sexuality – back in the day, he’d regularly dropped into the George pub in Dublin for a pint, and he was good mates with Lady Sunday who performed there, having helped her out with a couple of issues. Still, Bunny was saving himself for the right girl, assuming he ever bloody found her, and he didn’t fancy getting intimate with Guber.
Luckily, the lad had seemed as if he wanted to kill Bunny for making the offer, which Bunny was more used to dealing with, at least. Then, of course, there was his boss: Satan. Bunny guessed that seeing as it’d taken them a few days to get around to him, Shitty Whiteside wasn’t their most popular member. However, now Bunny had declined a meeting, he imagined he was moving up on the Aryan Brotherhood’s to-do list.
All of that paled into insignificance beside Commander Blake. The most senior CO in the whole place had cheerfully told Bunny that he was basically a serial killer. As soon as the conversation was over, a voice in Bunny’s brain told him that it was all nonsense – the man had just been trying to scare him.
Still, though, Bunny had enough experience of these things to know the difference. All of that time in uniform taught you some things. Despite the impression you get from the media, most murders are just acts of passion, greed or pure stupidity. The person who does it because they like it – really like it – is a rarity.
In Bunny’s career, he’d seen that kind of evil only a couple of times. It stayed with you. Deep down. He was also certain that it had placed its arm around his shoulder earlier on in the yard. When all this was done – when they’d got Bernadette and Assumpta back, and through them he’d found Simone – then he’d have to circle back and take a look at Commander Blake. He couldn’t let something like that be. It wasn’t in Bunny’s nature.
Since he’d got back to the cell, Carlos had been watching re-runs of Jeopardy with the sound down. They’d ignored each other, as required. Bunny had been nervous about that. The poor lad had the mentality of a child – Bunny didn’t know how long he could be relied upon to keep it together. He made the decision not to tell Carlos that an escape was coming. There was no benefit to it. He’d just have to hope that when the time came, Carlos would be willing to trust Bunny and do what he said.
He still had the eye under his mattress. He didn’t know what difference it would make, but he was going to fix the teddy bear if he could. Maybe it’d help the poor lad trust him. Even if it didn’t, after an ugly week there was something worthwhile about doing something good for someone else, however small. Places like this tried to strip away your humanity, make life into a dirty scrap for survival where man was set against man, race set against race, and it turned Bunny’s stomach. It did him good to remember that this was not the way it had to be.
“Breida!”
Bunny jumped as Commander Blake stood at the door of their cell.
“Front and centre. Walkies time.”
Carlos obediently hopped down from his bunk and turned around in front of Blake. The big fella grinned a guileless grin at Bunny, which he ignored. The commander strapped the cuffs on him and then began attaching the mask while looking over Carlos’s shoulder at Bunny.
“Mr Rourke, how we doing tonight?”
“Fine, boss.”
“I really enjoyed our little chat earlier.”
Bunny said nothing.
With a grin, Blake pulled Carlos out onto the landing and raised his voice. “Lockdown in thirty seconds.”
The shout was repeated on the lower floors, and Bunny could hear the scurry as men raced to get back into their own cells.
As the cell doors slammed shut, Blake gave Bunny a nod and moved off, his firm grip on Carlos’s arm guiding him forward, two other guards walking in front of him. Prisoners watched in silence as the Quiet Man and his retinue proceeded down the stairs and out into the exercise yard.
After a couple of minutes, a buzzer sounded and the cells unlocked.
Cuts appeared in the doorway. “Hey, don’t suppose you have a mind to play some poker?”
Bunny grinned. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Dionne rubbed her hands on her knees nervously. This was the last thing she needed.
The email had arrived an hour ago. The people who had Bernadette and Assumpta wanted to talk. Previously, over the last few months, they had spoken once every few weeks. Each video call had followed the same routine – they would see Bernadette and Assumpta sitting there in silence, and then one of them would hold up that day’s newspaper. Then, the voice behind the camera would enquire as to where Carlos Breida was. The exchanges had grown increasingly terse as time went on. Patience was running out. The
