the metal might have been ejected. Then he shouted up to the cons gathered at those doors: ‘Smart move, assholes.’
Reaper stepped back to his bunk, his fingertips still red. He dug out a sharpened toothbrush he’d shown Lock before and handed it to Lock. ‘Take it, because believe me, you’re gonna need it.’
‘I need to speak to the warden,’ Lock said to the young floor cop who was the first to reach his cell, knowing that such a request, made in the open, where other inmates could hear, was a high-risk maneuver
‘What’s the matter? Coffee too cold? Your pillows too hard? Sheets not got a high enough thread count?’ The cop was clearly still pissed at the missing metal, which had disrupted the day’s routine. Like any other large institution, Pelican Bay was, by necessity, all about routine.
‘Just tell him, OK?’
Reaper clapped a meaty paw on to Lock’s shoulder. ‘Yard time, soldier boy. No avoiding it.’
Lock knew that all he could do now was tough it out.
When he found himself standing at the door that opened on to the yard, Lock felt as though he was standing in one of the tunnels leading into the Coliseum, a gladiator waiting to emerge blinking into the sunlight, knowing that there were only two possible outcomes: victory or death.
Out on the yard, the white inmates immediately took one set of benches in the corner furthest from the block. Lock scanned the other groups: to his left, the group of Nortenos eyed the white inmates; on the other bench were the black inmates, Ty at the centre.
‘They know something’s up,’ Lock said, stalling for time.
The eyes of every white inmate swiveled towards him.
A metal shank appeared suddenly in Phileas’s hand. Sharper than the jagged-edged toothbrush, a razor-sharp tip with barbs running all the way up it, so that it would do even more damage coming out than going in. ‘No time like the present,’ Phileas said, the inmates standing around Lock fading away like snow in the Sahara.
Only Reaper remained standing next to him. ‘What the hell you fools doin’? He walks across the yard alone, the toads’ll know something’s up for sure.’
The mist of bodies moved back in.
‘We all stay real close,’ Reaper continued. ‘Do it on the way back in.’
‘No,’ said Lock. ‘If I’m gonna do it, let me do it now.’
Ty watched as Lock broke away from the group of white inmates and headed straight for the dozen black inmates sweating it out across the yard.
‘They’re getting ready to make a move,’ Marvin muttered in his ear.
Ty could sense it too. It was like a change in air pressure. It had built all the way up to the lockdown when the metal pieces on the fence had gone missing. Their disappearance had to be down to Lock. His way of trying to contain Reaper, or make sure that no one got to him.
‘You ready?’ Marvin asked.
‘I’m good,’ Ty said, aware that his lips were barely moving.
By now, Lock was less than fifteen feet away, and he had been joined by a phalanx of white inmates. Phileas was on his left, Reaper on his right.
Ty rose. He and Marvin started towards the white inmates.
The yard fell silent. Ty could feel everyone’s eyes on him as he kept walking. The Nortenos were already moving from their bench in anticipation of what might happen, hands by their sides, relaxed, not looking to engage but readying themselves should they have to.
They were within ten feet now. A few more steps and Ty would be close enough to the white inmates to prompt a rush from them.
Ty’s eyes fixed on his target. Using a technique Lock had taught him, he began shading Phileas’s body grey, leaving only the main target areas of head and groin red. You focused on the red areas; the rest took care of themselves.
Two of the guards on the yard had stopped what they were doing and were looking up. One had his radio keyed, keeping it open.
To his right, Ty saw one of the black inmates break ranks, pushing off hard and running full pelt towards the white inmates. The next second he sensed the blur of movement that was Marvin making his move — the physical equivalent of the side of a mountain slipping into the sea. Then it was on, and they were toe to toe on the yard.
19
Ty threw the open palm of his left hand into Phileas’s face, following up by slamming the elbow of his right arm at his nose. Phileas’s torso shifted back, but his feet stayed planted. A fist flew into Ty’s chest, landing hard close to his solar plexus. The air punched out hard from his chest, but he kept fighting, throwing a knee up into Phileas’s groin. Then another. And another. Phileas groaned. His head came down, earning him another knee, this one finding his face.
Ty’s height gave him leverage and he set about using every inch of it. Blood clotted in the dust as he continued to rain in blows on the older man. Then what felt like an express train clobbered the side of his head and he was on the ground. There was no sensation of falling. One minute he was standing, the next he was looking up at the bloodied face of Phileas, smiling down at him through broken teeth, and raising a foot, which crashed hard into Ty’s nose, snapping the cartilage.
Lock had moved hard right to avoid direct engagement with Ty. Glancing back, he saw Reaper on his shoulder — for a big man who’d spent a large part of his life in a small box, he moved fast. The other white inmates clustered round them in a tight phalanx.
The shank was down by Lock’s side. Time to do something about that. He slowed his pace fractionally and the front of someone’s foot caught the back of his heel. He was ready for it so he didn’t fall, but he did stumble, and as he grabbed someone behind him to steady himself, the weapon tumbled from his hand.
Ahead of him, he could see Ty giving a good account of himself. Marvin was getting the worst of it from one of the Nazi Low Riders who had him pinned to the ground and was throwing punches with bowling-ball-size fists at Marvin’s head. The remainder of the black inmates were also pressing in to get some of the action. A couple rushed to Marvin and Ty’s side while the rest pivoted hard left towards Lock and his group.
On the periphery, the two guards on the yard drew their canisters of pepper spray from their hips, stepped back and let loose at the edges of the melee in a futile attempt at delaying the inevitable.
There was a flurry of limbs as the two groups clashed in a mass of roundhouse kicks and brutal punches. Lock found himself facing a black inmate about his own height but twenty pounds heavier with the word ‘Thug’ bannered in blue ink across his forehead. Lock stayed low in an effort to minimise the target area offered to his opponent, then stood and slammed his right shoulder as hard as he could into the centre of Thug’s chest. Tear gas swirled around the yard, and Lock stepped back, noticing as he did so that the mass engagement had broken into small clusters of two or three bodies.
Blood spurted in a regular pulse from the neck of a black inmate to Lock’s left as two of the Nazi Low Riders went to work, one pinning him down while the other stabbed him repeatedly in the face and body. The stabber paused and grinned at Lock before plunging his shank back into his prostrate victim.
Lock looked round for Ty, then caught another whiff of tear gas which stung his eyes and blurred his vision.
Staying low, he charged Thug, coming up hard again, this time with an elbow to his opponent’s chin. It was a clean connection, right on the button, and Thug’s legs buckled under him. Lock helped him along, sweeping the hapless black inmate to the floor by grabbing his prison blues around the collar and bringing his right leg hard into the back of Thug’s knees. Lock gave him a final kick in the head for good measure, keeping the arc of his foot low, and started to skirt round the bodies.
Amid the mayhem, he’d lost sight of Ty.
Wisps of tear gas clung low to the ground, lending a near-medieval tinge to the scene as Lock glimpsed half a dozen guards in full riot gear opening a gate into the yard and rolling on through. Wielding tasers and batons they
