school AB, before they wised up and started hiding the brands.
Kelly returned to his seat across the board from Boss. Boss continued to study the situation, a mildly pained expression on his face. He jerked his wide head in Sweet Boy's direction. 'Why didn't you come when she told you to?'
Walker shrugged. Shifted the unlit cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other.
'Answer him.' Kelly sprang up in Walker's face. 'You gonna make a move, GI Joe? No? Then fuckin' answer the man.'
Four men. Sure, they could take him, but it wouldn't be worth the injuries. Walker repeated his mantra. Sixteen months. Two weeks. Four days.
Boss made a noise of assent, though nothing had been said. 'Walk don't talk much, ya see. He keep to hisself. Ain't that right, Walk?' He picked up the knight, tapped it to his lips thoughtfully, set it back down. 'Things are coming to a head. Jiggers are watching all my regulars. You're a fighter. All that army time. I need you to blade up Spook when he comes off lockdown.'
'What do I get?'
'Protection.'
'I'm being serious.'
Boss snorted, waved a hand at the wall of Marlboros. 'You can live like a king. Hell, you never know when someone wants in for better living.'
Walker took in Marcus wiping himself. 'Thanks anyway.'
'You'll be part of the new order.'
'I don't even like the old order.'
'Right. Serve your time like a good Christian and get back to the world. Like it's always been.'
'Like it's always been.'
'Okay,' Boss said. 'Okay, okay, okay.' He raised his head slowly, gave Walker the famous blue stare. 'I keep order 'round here. Don't you go forgetting that.' With sudden violence he added, 'And keep the fuck outta my way.'
Sweet Boy lowered the book to his chest. It took a moment for Marcus and Kelly to untense. Walker waited to see if he was dismissed, but Boss had returned his attention to the makeshift chessboard. He occupied himself with his fingers, fussing with the miters of the Ivory bishops.
Boss finally grimaced and settled his weight back. 'Never was any good at this game.' A resigned sigh. 'How many moves he gonna beat me in, Walk?'
Walker's eyes flicked to the board. 'Three.'
He stepped back and walked out.
Plastic picnic tables bolted to the concrete. Crumbly meat loaf, watery corn, a stiff cube of cake on a white saucer. Despite the food, Walker had gained fifteen pounds on the inside, mostly lats and chest. A joint body, they called it, built by barbells and bench presses and having nothing better to do. The added weight-and a few early, effective displays of his hand-to-hand prowess-had earned him the right to eat alone. Nonaligned. Even LaRue left him be during meals, preferring to zip around and work chow-hall deals.
That's why Walker was pissed when Moses Catrell ambled up to his table at dinner and took a seat. On Moses's ebony forearm, the Black Guerrilla Family dragon coiled around a prison tower, a correctional officer in its clutch.
'Spook was just retaliating,' Moses said, picking up the strain of an argument Walker didn't know he was having. 'Boss had him ganged in the learning lab, two big fuckers. Eight stitches.'
Walker had sixteen months, two weeks, and four days to go, and the last thing he needed to be concerned with was the state of Spook Roberts's asshole. He choked down a mouthful of meat loaf, took a pull of apple juice.
'If Boss gonna escalate this motherfucker,' Moses said, 'people gonna die up in here.'
'I got no beef with Boss. I keep outta his business, he keeps outta mine.'
'You the only one could do something 'bout the shit comin' down the pipeline.'
'Not my concern.'
'Shit, fool.' Moses blew air through pursed lips, seemingly unimpressed by Walker's grasp of altruism.
Walker knew his type-little-boy temper backed up by a hood's body. Still trying to wrangle fair from life. Never learned that the world doesn't care about just and right, not when it comes to fuckups and down-and-outs like them.
'You take Boss the peace pipe,' Moses said, 'he'll listen to you.'
Walker let corn juice drain through his plastic fork. 'That so?'
'Hell, yeah. I heard about how you fight.'
'Stories.'
'Then why's even the AB stay off your back?'
'Don't involve me.'
'That all you got to say?'
Walker considered for a moment. 'Get off my table.'
Moses's mouth twitched to one side in an elaborate display of indignation. He sucked his teeth at Walker and withdrew. Walker downed the rest of his juice, chased some more corn around the plate. When he looked up, he saw LaRue coming toward him-not quite a run, more a walk with a charge in it.
Walker said, 'Well?'
LaRue bent over, breathing hard from making double time, his whisper humid against Walker's cheek. 'Left.'
Walker did his best to take in the news calmly, his fist tightening around the fork until his fingers went numb like the rest of him.
LaRue gave him a concerned glance, tapped him on the back solemnly, and darted away.
Walker bailed out the toilet to make it a conduit for eavesdropping down the unit. He sat, head tilted over the empty metal commode, listening to a rape under way down in Boss's house. The sounds of five or six large men moving quietly around a cramped space. Guttural cries stifled by a cloth gag, loud enough to reach Walker and maybe even the CO below, who sat at a sad little desk before the unit's sole exit, a rolling steel-reinforced door. The kid getting initiated was Orange County, a surfer type with shaggy hair. He was tan and skinny and didn't stand a chance. It was fifteen minutes past count time, so it wouldn't be over for him till it was over for everybody. Terminal Island was medium security, no supermax, so no central lever locked the cells. The old-fashioned key-in- door setup meant lockdowns were few and night movement easy.
Good for the wolves, bad for the sheep.
Finally the muffled struggle ceased. Boss would make his trip to the shower room at the end of the tier. He was a creature of habit, Boss, and a stickler for hygiene.
Walker moved to sit Indian style by his open cell door, looking out at the black drop beyond the railing. The silence, when it asserted itself, was awesome. A concrete warehouse, shocked at its own purpose. From time to time, the COs put on moccasins and crept into the pipe chases between cells to spy on the boarders. Of course, everyone heard them, shuffling behind the walls like giant mice.
He could still smell the aftermath of the day. The musk of a hundred close-quarters men with poor ventilation. Lingering odors off illicit hot plates-rice, beans, noodles stirred in tuna cans. He closed his eyes, waiting for the creak of the catwalk. A stress that said 280 pounds, a familiar cadence of steps. He'd spent enough time alone in the dark to read the whine of the mesh underfoot, the identities behind the breath patterns. He hadn't acquainted himself with the specific noises of men this intimately since his days with Recon.
First the vibration came through the floor, then the faint groan of metal on a half-second repeat. Another few steps and the raspy inhale joined in.
The harmonics of Boss Hahn on the move.
Walker rose, staying just inside the dark of his cell. He counted the steps, gauged the approach, and pivoted onto the catwalk, face-to-face with Boss. A ragged white towel wrapped the big man's waist and thighs. Exertion pulled Boss's lips back, revealing oddly square teeth. His cheeks and chest shone with sweat. The startled expression gave way to an arrogant smile.
Walker clenched the hard plastic against his palm. His hand was down at his side, and then it swung up and
