Rhozier Brown - DC Noir 2 - The Classics

“Yes, I do.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Just because I done a lot of wrongs don’t mean I can’t do one right.”

“Why this? Why me?”

“You’re what I got,” whispered Lucus.

Kevin pushed off the wall. “See you.”

“I can save your life!”

“No, you can’t,” said his son. Nineteen-year-old Kevin spread his arms out like Jesus. “Besides, what’s it worth?”

And he walked away. Strutted toward his bros.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, Lucus went back to his cell.

Jackster and H.L.S. were there, waiting out the last few minutes before yard time.

Nobody said anything.

Soon as Kevin got sent to the institution, Lucus put the few pictures the boy’s grandmother had grudgingly sent him in a paperback book where, like now, he could flip through them without a ritualized search that might betray his heart. With those childhood snapshots were pictures that Emma had somehow scissored from high school yearbooks for both years Kevin had attended.

Lucus glanced at his cell walls. Pictures of wide outdoors. Pictures of Emma — she sent him a new one every three months. Who says we can’t grow old together? she once told him through the phone and glass in the maximum designates’ visitation room.

Couple minutes to go, Lucus leaned on the bars. Stared nowhere.

“What you doing?” asked Jackster.

“Nothing,” mumbled Lucus.

“What you gonna do?” asked Jackster.

Lucus stood wordless until the Klaxon blared the “All out” for those residents with permission to choose the ninety-minute exterior exercise, general population period.

The blade rode up Lucas’s sleeve when he slipped into his blue-denim prison jacket. As his cellmates grabbed their jackets, Lucus said: “Nice day out there.”

The yard.

Inside the Wall, chop a couple football fields and box them in a square with three mammoth cellblocks, double chain-link fences topped with razor and barbed wire. Build guard towers for snipers. Lay down a running track that circles inside the fence a couple steps from the dead zone trip wire. Pave a dozen basketball half-courts in one corner, stick some rusted barbells and concrete benches beside them. Paint some white lines on a cellblock and call them handball courts. Smack in the center, throw up a water tower surrounded by a chain-link fence. Build chain-link fence funnels from the cellblocks and admin building.

Loose the animals down those funnels.

The D-Designates clink out there with their chains for thirty minutes after breakfast. General population gets ninety minutes in the afternoon. A-Designates have lunch to dinner access.

Institution procedures assign twelve pairs of corrections officers to roaming yard patrol during general population period. The budget that day sent five pairs of jerks out to the yard.

Several hundred inmates funneled through the tunnels.

Go to the core, thought Lucus. Go to the center of the yard, where you can watch and be ready to move any which way.

H.L.S. casually strolled a step behind Lucus’s right side.

No matter how Jackster shuffled, the old dudes hung behind him a half-step and herded him where they wanted.

J.C. and a squad paraded toward the concrete chess tables in the best sun. J.C. showed his empty face to Lucus. Manster sent the lone wolf a sneer.

Lucus thought: The hitters’ll take their time, make sure the play is set.

Kevin and a handful of his crew entered the yard laughing and looking drunk.

Count six, thought Lucus. Q Street Rockers supposed to be a dozen strong.

Barry strolled by with three attentive supplicants under his protection.

The orange-jumpsuited and blue-jacketed sea of inmates parted for Cooley. The hulk’s beady eyes jumped around the yard, seeking a fish.

“Yo, Jackster!” An inmate Darnell’s age popped out of the crowd twenty feet away, a worn brown basketball spinning in his hands. “We shooting hoops or what?”

“Ah …” Darnell looked to his cellmates. “I got a game.”

“Better win,” said Lucus. And he smiled.

Darnell got an empty stare from Hard Luck Sam.

Jackster followed the man with the ball to a half-court.

Twitch stood by the water-tower fence, alone, an invisible wind roaring around him. His gloves were gone, strips of an old blue shirt were wrapped around his hands. Twitch’s eyes bore through Lucus.

Lucus used both hands to rub his temples, like to rub away the pain.

Jerome and a posse of his Orchard Terrace crew, a dozen dudes, strolled into the yard, headed for turf opposite Kevin and his bros. Like nothing was on.

Looking once at Jerome, the world couldn’t tell him apart from Kevin.

There, in the crowd on Kevin’s flank, positioning by the dead zone wire: one, two — no, three Orchard Terrace boys, the O.T.s fanning out and holding. Waiting.

Making the box, thought Lucus. No need to check the other flank, O.T.s would be there too.

The shiv burned along Lucus’s forearm.

Across the yard, a b-ball game filled a court, the ball clinking through the chain hoop, bouncing off the backboard.

Jackster caught a pass, made a fast break to the hoop, and laid the ball up in the air. A teammate tipped it in. Dude on the other team slapped Jackster five and jogged down the court with him, mouths a-working. Time out and the five-slapper waved a sub in for himself. Time in. Standing on the sidelines, a spectator got the word on the game from the five-slapper. Dunk shot. Ball in play. Spectator got bored, strolled away from the courts, through the crowd, cut left, cut right, materialized alongside the O.T. posse. Whispered in the main man’s ear. Got a nod. The main man put his arm around Jerome, leaned in to him.

Standing beside Lucus, H.L.S. said: “Catch that?”

“Oh yeah,” said Lucus. Two tan uniformed jerks picked their way through the orange-jumpsuited crowd: Adkins and Tate, a too-lean and too-short combo who always got stuck with yard duty and always walked the same beat. They headed for their shake-the-water-tower-fence-gate check, after which they would angle toward the barbells.

Lucus saw the O.T. posse adjust their cluster, the flankers anticipating the patrol, not letting anybody use the guards to outmaneuver the game plan.

Adkins, the lean guard, swung the keys retracto-chained to his belt. Shorty Tate kept his eyes on the ground, like he was looking for something. Everybody knew his eyes were in the dust so the cons wouldn’t see his fear. As if they needed to see it. Fear hung like smoke over the small man, who wished yard officers were armed and he didn’t have to rely on the wall snipers.

Adkins swung his keys and complained about the union and the World Series. Tate locked his eyes in the dust, thinking about how after checking the gate to the water tower, they’d only need to—

Twitch threw a punch smack between Tate’s shoulder blades, and the small guard crashed into the dust.

Adkins dropped his keys and the retracto-chain snapped them back to his belt. But before he could whirl around, Twitch was on his back, sliding a thick strip of old shirt around the guard’s neck. One end of the strap was tied to Twitch’s wrist. He looped it around his hand, cinched it tight so the shiv in his fist was locked with the point digging into the guard’s neck.

“Nobody move!” screamed Twitch. “Anybody moves, I cut his head off and let the mice run out! Nobody moves!”

The cons cared zero about Adkins, but Twitch’s play stunned them into stillness.

On the ground, Tate gasped, but managed to push the button on his belt radio.

Twitch backed toward the water tower, hugging Adkins in front of him with the knife pinned at the base of his skull.