Текст книги "Ascension Day"

Автор книги: John Matthews

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 38 страниц)

14

Death. Everyone at Libreville thought about it. Those on Death Row perhaps more than they should: even if their execution might be five or ten years away, with any number of possible lifelines in-between – appeals and clemency pleas, State Governors offering across the board pardons upon retirement from office, as had happened once before – death was still there in some dark corner of their minds where they pushed everything they didn’t want to face, gnawing steadily away.

But with an impending execution among their number, only thirty-six days away, it was that much harder to push away and not think about. Larry Durrant’s approaching death hung over all of them. Sudden, stark reminder that it could be them next. And maybe not so long away as they thought.

Death reached out its icy hand to every corner of the prison, trickled down cell walls along with the ingrained grime and sweat, the smeared blood and faeces, brought a chill to the air and to inmates’ spines, even when it was touching 90?. And if Death Row was the nucleus of that at Libreville, the queen bee’s hive, it didn’t lack for supporting drones.

Eighty-two per cent of inmates incarcerated at Libreville would die there; of pneumonia, heart failure, cancer, tumours, drugs overdoses, AIDS, murdered by fellow prisoners, or simply of old age. So there was a prison hospice, a chapel for prayers for the dead, and a graveyard. Libreville seemed reluctant to let go of its inmates, even in death. And while most prisoner’s families would choose to take the body home for burial – their only chance to get loved ones back – many had been so long forgotten by their families that burial at Libreville remained the only option.

Of that amount, the executioner would grim-reap less than two per cent. But that small number by far overshadowed all other deaths, because it underscored the reason they were all there. You commit murder, we kill you. When we’re good and ready.

And the passage of time, while helping inmates push the spectre of death away in their minds, also made it like a slow-drip torture; death might be trickling down their cell walls slowly, but that ensured its omnipresence. Paradoxically, of all of them Larry Durrant was probably the least worried, because he’d resigned himself to death long ago. But others on Death Row watched with foreboding that passage of approaching death as the days wound down to Larry Durrant’s execution, wondering when it might next reach out to claim them.

There were spaces though in the prison where you could escape: places that breathed life, transported you to the world outside in your mind, or simply numbed you, made you forget where you were.

For Rodriguez, it was the prison radio and communication room, all that contact with the outside world made it easy to transport himself, if only for a few moments here and there, to where that contact came from; or when he was playing songs, closing his eyes and imagining he was a DJ at some far-flung station – TKLM, Tahiti – or remembering where he’d been and what he’d been doing when he’d first heard that song. For Larry, it was the library and his books that would let him drift to other places in his mind.

And for other inmates it might be working the ranch, the annual rodeo or the muscle yard. Rodriguez had never been much for muscle training and category A prisoners weren’t allowed to work the open ranch, so the only common area where he found a quiet corner was the showers. Not for the reason they were favoured by many inmates – scoping for prison bitches – but because, with his head back, eyes closed and the water running down his body, he could escape.

He could be anywhere: under a waterfall on some South Pacific isle, waiting for one of his stable of fine women to join him under its spray, or maybe at home when he was younger and his mom calling out if he was going to be long because dinner was ready.

It washed away the sweat and grime, the invisible aura of stale and trapped humanity, of oppression and death, that seemed to cling to the skin like a sticky blanket within hours.

Wash it away. Wash it away.

Rodriguez scrubbed hard. Then, when he felt he’d washed the prison away, he tilted his head back and closed his eyes, letting himself drift with the spray hitting his face and running down his body. Pacific waterfalls, fine women soaping his body, at home and about to put on his best threads for a Saturday night out.

And he’d been more successful in his reverie this time, Rodriguez thought, because he’d even managed to tune out the clamour and echo of the other voices in the showers.

The hand clamping suddenly over his mouth snapped his eyes sharply open.

Two striplights his end of the showers had been switched off and the five guys showering in his section and the guard by the showers’ open entrance had suddenly gone.

Probably the other people showering and the guards further along out of sight were still there, but as Rodriguez writhed and tried to call out to get their attention, he made no more than a muted whimper. The hand across his mouth was clamped too firmly.

Rodriguez couldn’t see who was holding him – the arm too across his chest was clamped tight – only feel his breath against the back of his neck. The only person he could see, in that instant sliding into the side of his vision a few paces away, was Tally Shavell: a towel around his waist, upper body glistening, muscles tensed like steel chords, the veins in his neck taut as he grimaced malevolently.

‘Sorry. Didn’t bring no reading matter wi’ me this time.’

The open razor at towel level in Shavell’s right hand was flicked out silently, imperceptibly, as he stepped closer.

And Rodriguez knew in that moment that death had come for him sooner than he had thought.

‘Should be no problem handling two addresses. I got a friend, Mo, who does much the same as me. I’ve only got one Bell uniform, but I can head over to his place after I’ve finished and hand it to him.’

‘Are you sure it will fit?’ Nel-M quipped.

‘Very funny,’ Barry responded dryly. ‘But if it looks like there’s a problem, I can always stitch up the back for him.’

Barry Lassitter had become Barry-L, then simply ‘Barrel’, since he’d been three hundred pounds for more years than he cared to remember. But he was one of the best ex-Bell men that Nel-M knew and, from the name he’d given his company, ‘Warpspeed Communications’, he obviously didn’t mind the world knowing that he was an ardent ‘Trekkie’. Nel-M would have put in the bug himself if it wasn’t for the fact that Truelle would recognize him; also, he needed someone who could do it in one minute flat rather than five or six.

‘Nothing like a good stitch up,’ Nel-M commented. ‘Also, make sure there’s no tell-tale egg or ketchup stains down the front that might give the game away that it’s the same uniform.’

Barrel huffed and muttered a response that Nel-M didn’t hear.

‘And let me know as soon as they’re both in place and we’re live.’

Larry had just gone through the gate at the end of his cell block to head down to the showers when he was approached by one of the guards, Dan Warrell.

‘You’re wanted up in the library.’

‘Am I back on duty there, then?’

Warrell shrugged. ‘Don’t know about that. All I know is the guy up there, Perinni-’

‘Peretti.’

‘Yeah. Well, he’s apparently stuck with something. Needs a hand.’

‘Okay,’ Larry nodded. He wasn’t suspicious. Warrell didn’t have any allegiances with Bateson, was very much his own man. If you had a grievance and wanted it dealt with fairly and evenly, Warrell or Torvald Engelson were the best to go to.

‘I’ll see your way up there.’ Warrell led the way up the two flights of steel steps, then along forty yards of corridor, half of it flanked by cells.

Warrell took out his security card as they approached the gate. Beyond lay store rooms, a guards’ watch room and canteen, and the library.

Peretti was at the far end of the library and looked surprised to see Larry, though pleasantly so.

‘Back to give me a hand then?’ He smiled crookedly. ‘Couldn’t trust me to be on my own too long in case I screwed everything up?’

‘But you said you wanted a help out with something?’ Larry pressed, one eyebrow arching.

‘Not me. Naah.’ Peretti shook his head.

Larry turned to Warrell, his eyes narrowing. ‘I thought you said I was wanted here?’

‘Yeah. That was what I was told.’

‘ Whotold you?’

With the intensity of Larry’s glare and his cutting tone, Warrell flinched slightly. ‘Uh… Bateson. Glenn Bateson.’

Jesus.

Larry ran ahead of Warrell, realizing he needed him as he came up to the gate.

‘Get me back through this. And quick.’

Under Larry’s icy glare, Warrell’s hand shook uncertainly as he slid in his card. He wasn’t about to argue or question.

Back along the corridor, down the two flights of stairs, leaping them three and four steps at a time, Larry was already breathless as he hit the passage by his cell block at full pelt. One more flight down to the shower stalls, and another thirty yards of passage before the security gate by the shower stalls.

Breath ragged, heart pounding, Larry saw that there were five or six men by the gate to the showers, being handed towels and waiting for that same number to come out so that they could go through; the normal routine.

But what was not normal, Larry quickly picked out, were the lights out at the far end and no guard looking into that section.

‘Man in distress at the far end!’ Larry shouted, pushing through the men waiting.

The guard by the gate, Fisk, in thick with Bateson, blocked his way defiantly. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I said man in distress at the far end!’ Larry raised his voice to screaming pitch. His only hope was rousing the attention of the three guards by the early sections, and hoping to God they weren’t all in on it with Bateson. ‘ Man in distress!’

One of the guards looked uncertainly towards the rear cubicles then back at the gate, confused.

Larry saw the alarm button a yard to one side, and, remembering Rodriguez in the boiler-room, leapt across and hit it.

The jangling bell finally galvanized the guard into action, Larry keeping up his mantra, ‘Man in distress… man in distress,’ as the guard darted towards the rear cubicles. Though Larry feared that it was already too late.

15

‘Bye-bye’ had got his nickname because fellow Malastra capos and soldiers had noticed that it was usually the last thing he said before he wasted someone with his favoured Cougar 9mm; and, as Malastra’s main trigger-man, it was something he said often.

Though with the name apparently came some unintentional humour: often when he called out ‘Bye-bye’ in parting, others would flinch or lift one arm up, worried that any second his Cougar would be pointing and firing.

But it was difficult for George Jouliern to laugh about it now, because pretty soon those words would probably be the last thing he’d hear.

They were in an old warehouse, musty and humid, and Jouliern looked morosely at the blue plastic sheet, usually used as a damp membrane in construction, spread beneath him. Eight yards away a furnace, probably lit over two hours ago, glowed red from its aperture.

Jouliern sat in the middle of the blue sheet, his hands tied behind his back, but his ankles free. Bye-bye held his Cougar on him steadily from three paces away and, at points when Bye-bye had leant over or turned, Jouliern had noticed the sheathed machete and knife tucked in the back of his belt.

Jouliern knew the routine well enough. He’d be shot with the Cougar, his body chopped into pieces, the whole mess then wrapped in the blue plastic and thrown into the furnace. Within forty minutes there’d be absolutely no trace of him. Jouliern’s stomach sank at the thought of it.

He looked up, trying to inject a hopeful tone into his voice. ‘You kill me – you’re not going to find out who else was in on it with me. You think I did the whole thing alone?’

Bye-bye smiled tightly. ‘You know there’s no deals on something like this. You know the score, George.’

‘I know.’ Jouliern’s tone sank back as he arched an eyebrow. ‘So, you’re saying you don’t want to know who else was involved?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ Bye-bye contemplated his shoes for a second. ‘Look, if you tell me who else was in with you – the best I can offer is to make it quick and clean. Painless.’

Now it was Jouliern’s turn to look down, contemplating. But when he looked up again, his stare was icy.

‘Fuck you… that’s what I say.’ Then, twisting himself as he rose up without warning, he lunged head-first towards Bye-bye, his voice rising to a scream. ‘FUCK YOU!…FUCK Y-’

Bye-bye took him down with two shots before he’d moved a yard. Didn’t even get time to deliver his favourite words.

‘That was good,’ Malastra commented when Bye-bye returned and explained what had happened. ‘So he got his quick and painless death withouthaving to give us any names?’

Bye-bye shuffled uncomfortably. ‘Happened so quick, boss.’

Malastra held his stare on him a moment longer. All RAM and no hard-drive; but the advantage was that by the time of Bye-bye’s next cheeseburger, he’d have forgotten all about killing George Jouliern. He’d sleep easy that night.

‘Okay.’ Malastra waved him away, his gaze shifting back to his computer screen.

His eyes narrowed as the first image of the Bay Tree Casino floor came up on the screen. He’d have to find out who else Jouliern had been involved with by tracing who he’d met over the past year, and what might have passed between them – particularly any envelopes.

‘ And one of the key questions raised is alwayswhy they wanted to die? You think all of that’s going to happen without your son ever finding out?’

‘ It’ll only be the first year or so, I can keep it hidden from him for that time. Besides, as you say, and I also know from bitter past experience – Larry is always so close-mouthed. No way is he going to admit that his wanting to die is down to his son not making contact. He’s going to say just what he told you: that he’s simply sick of facing more time in prison, and this is his going to God. His “Ascension Day”.’

As much as Joshua Durrant tried to shake the conversation he had overheard loose from his head over the following days, it kept re-playing.

He tapped fast and furiously at the keyboard: Frank G1427, FrankG4217, Frank G7412…

Frank was a good enough guy, and that wasn’t Joshua simply sharing his mother’s standpoint because he’d been good to them; Joshua liked him because Frank gave him quality time when needed and accepted him as if he was his own. But there were times when Frank’s reasoning ran thin, and more often than not it involved Josh’s father.

Joshua had accepted at the time his mom’s and Frank’s reasoning over the e-mails, and the last thing he’d want to do is upset them or cause any problems. But now with what he’d overheard, his father wanting to die unless he sent more e-mails– that smashed through every possible rulebook, was something he couldn’t bear for a second being responsible for. And what Frank and his mom didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

FG2417, FLG2417, FLG7412, FG7412, FG1427, FG4217…

‘Are you okay there, Josh?’ his mom’s voice trailed from the kitchen.

His hands paused on the keyboard, heart thumping in his chest. ‘Yes, fine, Mom.’

‘It’s nice to see you getting down to your homework so early… but you do seem to be putting in a lot on this project.’

‘I… I’ve got to finish by the end of the week – I’m already late with it.’

Frank had password-blocked all internet access. Josh had fed in over a hundred possible keywords in the half hour before Frank got in the night before – mostly around Frank’s name, initials and birth-date – without success, and now he was on Frank’s lucky numbers. Hopefully his mom wasn’t getting suspicious. He looked at intervals over his shoulder as he resumed tapping. The computer was in a small recess in the hallway – but even if she came out from the kitchen, she probably wouldn’t know the difference between his searching for entry keywords and his school project work. Just in case, to one side he had a project page with the Civil War and Paul Revere to click on and cover.

He tried another batch of combinations and glanced anxiously at his watch. Another six or seven minutes, then he’d have to quit until the next night. But as he continued, he started to sense the futility: he might have thousands more possibilities to work through, and even if he hit gold, while he could delete the e-mails sent, how on earth was he going to cover-up the replies? Unless they arrived in the half an hour before Frank got home, he was sunk.

His hands slowed on the keyboard. He’d give it his best shot that night, but if there was still no breakthrough, tomorrow he’d approach Danny Thorne, one of his closest school-friends. And, the resolve made, his hands picked up speed again on the keyboard, becoming suddenly a furious race against time to find the password, because he knew now this would probably be his last opportunity… FrankLG4217, FrankLG2417, FrankLG7412…

Or maybe it was his and his mom’s initials or the first three letters of their names – combined with Frank’s lucky numbers.

Joshua continued working through the combinations, and was over halfway through when the screen-door suddenly slamming made him jump. He’d got so engrossed that he hadn’t even heard Frank’s car pull up. His heart beating wildly, his hand trembling and suddenly clammy on the mouse, he quickly clicked off the password page and clicked on Paul Revere.

The document leapt to the forefront just a second before the door swung open and Frank stepped into the hallway.

‘Like FortKnox. Four heavy dead bolts on the door as I was let in. And, as you suspected, motion alarms in the main lounge and the hallway.’

At his end of the line, Nel-M nodded thoughtfully as Barry Lassitter ran through his visit to Truelle’s apartment. The main factors that had stopped Nel-M simply breaking in and planting the bug himself.

‘He hovered for a bit, watching me, but he had a coffee in his hand – so I nodded to it, “smells nice”. He offered me one, and I finished up while he was back in the kitchen.’

‘And he took the bait that his phone had been bugged?’

‘Yeah. Held it up for him to see. Exact duplicate of what I’d just wired in while he was making my coffee.’

‘Good going. Let me know when the other one’s done.’

Lassitter’s return call came at 11.43 the next morning. ‘Just got the nod from Mo. Everything went fine at his office, too. No hitches.’

‘Thanks.’ Nel-M hardly paused for breath before calling Vic Farrelia. ‘That’s a go now for lines two and three as well.’ Then he called Adelay Roche. ‘My man just phoned. Truelle’s just been done too – home andoffice. So we’re live on all fronts.’

‘That’s good to hear,’ Roche commented. ‘Now we might be able to better decide just who needs to be dead.’

When Joshua broached the subject with Danny Thorne of using his home computer, Danny was wary. ‘It’s not to go porn-surfing, is it?’

‘No, no. Nothing like that.’ Out of his three closest friends at Elbrooke High, he’d chosen Danny because he was the only one to have his own, non-parentally controlled internet access. He’d worked before at Danny’s house on school projects, so no eyebrows would be raised by him going over there for an hour or two after school. But from the concern on Danny’s face, he was suddenly reminded that Danny was probably also his most cautious, conservative friend. ‘It’s to send some e-mails to my father.’

‘Oh.’ From Danny’s heavy exhalation, it was unclear whether that was actually worse than porn-surfing. ‘Why can’t you send the e-mails from home? You were sending some before – I remember you telling me?’

‘My mom would still let me like a shot. But Frank’s stepped in – put his foot down.’ He could see the clouds of doubt forming rapidly in Danny’s eyes. ‘Please, Danny… you’ve got to help me out here. If there was any other way, you know I wouldn’t be asking.’

‘Okay … okay. Let me think on it a bit, I’ll let you know tomorrow.’

By the next day, Joshua had spent another frantic half hour keyword searching without success before Frank got home, so was even more desperate. But Danny’s doubts and concerns seemed to have increased.

‘I’m worried about my parents finding out, and from there you know it’s only a heartbeat before yours find out, too.’

‘ Howwill they find out?’

‘Get real. You know they speak sometimes on the phone, and they’ll get talking even more if you’re round my place once or twice a week. Reminding you what time dinner’s ready… or Josh has forgot this or that. And I know my dad checks my e-mails now and then. He’d kill me if he found out I was trading e-mails in and out of Libreville when I shouldn’t.’

They were in the corridor just after a lesson, and as their voices raised, they’d started to get the attention of some of the other students filing out.

‘Come on, Danny. I’m real stuck here… can’t you at least…’

But Danny was already sidling away as Joshua reached one hand out imploringly, and then they were both distracted by one of the onlookers, Ellis Calpar, who’d stopped to pay more attention to their conversation.

‘That’s the problem wit’ those oreole’s,’ Ellis called out, moving a step closer. ‘When it comes t’ the crunch – the white, tight-assed, be ever-so-careful anal side always wins t’rough.’

Danny was mixed race, and as his friend headed away along the corridor, Joshua fired him a tight grimace that made it clear he wasn’t keen on the barb either. But then you expected no less from Ellis Calpar.

‘Libreville? That’s where your ol’ man is, isn’t it? Not much time lef’ now, from what I see on the news. So what’s the beef with you and Danny? I thought yo’ two were always like that.’ Ellis interlocked two fingers.

At first, Joshua wasn’t going to say anything. But Ellis’s tone was weighted with understanding more than teasing, and he recalled one time when one of Ellis’s crew had started to give him a tough time and Ellis had stepped in. ‘ Go easy on him, man. His ol’ man’s at Libreville. For murder!’ The crew member had jolted back a pace as if hit with an electric shock. To Ellis and his buddies, having a father in prison for murder was a mark of respect rather than one of ridicule.

As Joshua explained, Ellis’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. He put a welcoming arm over Joshua’s shoulder.

‘Look no further – you have just foun’ your Libreville e-mail sender. Not me personally – I don’t have a computer. But one o’ my crew, Friggy, does. That’s our main message centre.’

Joshua felt immediately uncomfortable. He’d never got involved with Ellis before, let alone with something as personal as this.

‘It’s okay, Ellis… you don’t have to trouble yourself none. I’m sure I can find another way round this.’

‘No sweat t’all, man… would be a real pleasure passin’ e-mails in and out of Libreville to your ol’ man.’ Ellis smiled slyly. ‘And the fact that your mom and new dad are against it and yo’ not meant t’do it, makes it all the mo’ fun.’ Ellis gave Joshua’s shoulder one last pat as he broke away and went ahead of him along the corridor. ‘I’ll talk to Friggy and let you know the timin’. Later, man.’

But as Joshua watched Ellis get swallowed up among the other students filling the corridor, he couldn’t resist a sense of foreboding. He might have solved his e-mail problem, but how was he going to explain away to his mom and Frank spending time after school with Ellis Calpar and his crew? For sure they’d fear he was getting primed for future auto-theft or crack dealing.