stuffing them into the bag until the cans were trapped at the bottom. Finally, I hailed a cab and told the driver to drop me at 39th and Tenth, a block from The Ludlum Foundation.
The adrenaline pumping through my veins kept telling me to hurry, but I deliberately slowed down, saving it for Calvin. The weapon I’d constructed was perfectly legal, at least until I used it. Up at Cortlandt, the administration gives prisoners a small canvas bag to carry commissary back and forth from the cells to the courts. A few cans of tomatoes transforms a swag bag into a weapon. It’s not much use against a shank because it takes too much time to put the bag in motion, but a shank isn’t always available to newly arrived convicts, while the potential for violence exists from day one.
I found Calvin on the third floor. He was in the shower, all alone. The symmetry was delicious. I stepped into the mist and swung the bag in a vicious arc, taking him in the lower ribs. He never saw it coming, and by the time he looked up from the floor, he was in too much pain to do anything but moan. Not everyone can beat a helpless man into the hospital. It takes special skills, the kind you develop in the course of an Institutional life.
I worked on Calvin until my shoulders ached, until he begged for mercy, until he stopped begging. Then I went looking for Sing-Sing. I found him in the dining room, sitting at a small table by himself. He tried to muster up his bad-ass prison stare, but the sight of me, dripping wet, raised just enough doubt to show in his eyes.
“Your boss needs you upstairs, Sing-Sing,” I hissed. “When you get up there, you take a good look at him, because that’s gonna be you if you disrespect me again. Ever again. I don’t want no part of whatever bullshit scam you’re running, but I will kill you. I’ll walk away from your corpse like you were a cockroach under my shoe.”
He started to get up, but I grabbed his wrist and pinned it to the table, leaning forward until our faces were inches apart. “You hear what I’m tellin’ you, asshole?” I gave him a chance to answer, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he tried to yank his wrist away, but he didn’t come close to succeeding. “You think I spent ten years in Cortlandt just to run away from a piece of shit like you? You’re in over your head, Sing-Sing. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
When I said the word Cortlandt, a glimmer of understanding finally showed in his eyes. Cortlandt is the ultimate threat wielded by administrations in the various minimum- and medium-security institutions. You fuck up one too many times and you get an administrative transfer to a prison where you can be controlled. Cortlandt is the end of the line.
“You hear me, Sing-Sing?” I repeated.
“I hear you,” he said finally. “How come you didn’t say nothin’ ’bout Cortlandt last night?”
“That’s not the way it works, Sing-Sing. People who talk their way out of trouble are soft, and soft don’t take you out of the shit. Calvin disrespected me and he paid the price. From where I’m sitting, the only thing you owe me is respect.”
“What about Calvin?”
“Go upstairs and find out for yourself.”
SEVEN
I LEFT THE SHELTER as soon as Sing-Sing was out of sight, walking south a few blocks before giving the canned tomatoes to a knot of homeless men gathered around a fifty-five gallon drum filled with burning planks. The tote went into the sewer and the newspapers into a corner trash can. There was no sense in returning to the Foundation before the excitement died down, so I hiked over to Macy’s and bought myself a pair of jeans, a knit shirt, and three pair of underpants. The prices amazed me. When I went inside, you could still buy a pair of jeans for under twenty dollars. The first pair I picked off the shelf in Macy’s had a French name on the back pocket and a sixty-dollar price tag. Even the Wranglers I eventually bought cost me twenty-eight bucks. By the
The adrenaline pumping through my veins kept telling me to hurry, but I deliberately slowed down, saving it for Calvin. The weapon I’d constructed was perfectly legal, at least until I used it. Up at Cortlandt, the administration gives prisoners a small canvas bag to carry commissary back and forth from the cells to the courts. A few cans of tomatoes transforms a swag bag into a weapon. It’s not much use against a shank because it takes too much time to put the bag in motion, but a shank isn’t always available to newly arrived convicts, while the potential for violence exists from day one.
I found Calvin on the third floor. He was in the shower, all alone. The symmetry was delicious. I stepped into the mist and swung the bag in a vicious arc, taking him in the lower ribs. He never saw it coming, and by the time he looked up from the floor, he was in too much pain to do anything but moan. Not everyone can beat a helpless man into the hospital. It takes special skills, the kind you develop in the course of an Institutional life.
I worked on Calvin until my shoulders ached, until he begged for mercy, until he stopped begging. Then I went looking for Sing-Sing. I found him in the dining room, sitting at a small table by himself. He tried to muster up his bad-ass prison stare, but the sight of me, dripping wet, raised just enough doubt to show in his eyes.
“Your boss needs you upstairs, Sing-Sing,” I hissed. “When you get up there, you take a good look at him, because that’s gonna be you if you disrespect me again. Ever again. I don’t want no part of whatever bullshit scam you’re running, but I will kill you. I’ll walk away from your corpse like you were a cockroach under my shoe.”
He started to get up, but I grabbed his wrist and pinned it to the table, leaning forward until our faces were inches apart. “You hear what I’m tellin’ you, asshole?” I gave him a chance to answer, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he tried to yank his wrist away, but he didn’t come close to succeeding. “You think I spent ten years in Cortlandt just to run away from a piece of shit like you? You’re in over your head, Sing-Sing. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
When I said the word Cortlandt, a glimmer of understanding finally showed in his eyes. Cortlandt is the ultimate threat wielded by administrations in the various minimum- and medium-security institutions. You fuck up one too many times and you get an administrative transfer to a prison where you can be controlled. Cortlandt is the end of the line.
“You hear me, Sing-Sing?” I repeated.
“I hear you,” he said finally. “How come you didn’t say nothin’ ’bout Cortlandt last night?”
“That’s not the way it works, Sing-Sing. People who talk their way out of trouble are soft, and soft don’t take you out of the shit. Calvin disrespected me and he paid the price. From where I’m sitting, the only thing you owe me is respect.”
“What about Calvin?”
“Go upstairs and find out for yourself.”
SEVEN
I LEFT THE SHELTER as soon as Sing-Sing was out of sight, walking south a few blocks before giving the canned tomatoes to a knot of homeless men gathered around a fifty-five gallon drum filled with burning planks. The tote went into the sewer and the newspapers into a corner trash can. There was no sense in returning to the Foundation before the excitement died down, so I hiked over to Macy’s and bought myself a pair of jeans, a knit shirt, and three pair of underpants. The prices amazed me. When I went inside, you could still buy a pair of jeans for under twenty dollars. The first pair I picked off the shelf in Macy’s had a French name on the back pocket and a sixty-dollar price tag. Even the Wranglers I eventually bought cost me twenty-eight bucks. By the
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