Russell Blake - Silver Justice

Richard returned, dismissed the guard, and resumed his position at her side.

Silver glanced at the mirror along the far wall and exhaled with frustration and fatigue.

She looked at Richard. “Do we have enough?”

“I’d say so.”

She turned back to Howard. “What are you going to do now? You keep saying you had a reason for doing all this that goes beyond revenge. What’s the grand plan, Howard?”

“I’m writing a book. I’ll have to write fast, I know. But I figure that the memoirs of The Regulator will be interesting reading to a public with a short attention span, and I can document what was done and name the names of those even more deeply responsible than the few I exterminated — then perhaps there will be sufficient awareness so more action takes place. At the very least, it will be impossible for the system to pretend it doesn’t know what was done, or by whom. That’s my final gift. My legacy.”

“Then this was all a publicity stunt for the book?”

“I suppose if you were cynical you could say so. I prefer to say this was a way of ensuring people were interested in receiving a message they need to hear.”

The interrogation lasted another fifteen minutes. After it had concluded, Howard was taken away, leaving Silver and Richard alone.

“You hungry?” he asked her.

“Not really. I think I lost my appetite for the rest of my life.”

“Want to watch me eat? I’m sloppy, and I make noise.”

“You do know how to lure the ladies in.”

“I hear my belching is irresistible.”

“Then lead the way.”

“They sent a team to the penthouse. We both know what they’ll find,” Richard said as he scanned the menu of a little Italian place two blocks from headquarters.

“Can you imagine what it would be like to find out you’re going to die in another two or three days? In agony?”

“I’d say that’s what Howard is looking forward to, only in another few months. I don’t know which is worse.”

“He’s so calm. Do you think he’s a sociopath?” Silver asked.

“You know, I really don’t. He shows regret and obviously cared about others. He even seems to care how you’re doing. It could all be an act, but I don’t think so. I think Howard is something different. I’m not sure there’s a word for it. He’s a man who’s simply seen too much.”

“That’s what creeps me out. He’s so normal. And he makes it sound so rational.”

Richard didn’t say anything. The waiter came, and he ordered cannelloni. She opted for a salad.

“It’s a hard one, Silver. I have to say I’m glad I’m not going to be on the jury.”

“We both know he’ll never live long enough for this to go to a jury.”

“It’s really the perfect crime.”

“You sound like you…like you understand him.”

“I sort of do,” Richard admitted.

“But you can’t condone what he’s done. It’s wrong. You can’t just kill everyone you think has been bad. That’s what the law is for. The system.”

“Yes. I know. But he does raise an interesting question. What do you do when the system is broken?”

“Obviously, you need to work within the system to change it.”

“Sure. But if your research has shown that change is impossible? That the bad guys are just going to get away with it because the system itself is so flawed meaningful change is impossible?”

“I don’t know, Richard.”

“If someone broke into your house and raped Kennedy, and then you discovered that it was the mayor’s son, and because it was him, that he’d never be prosecuted…what would you do? No, even better, if you discovered that he did it all the time and had never been stopped and never would be?”

“I don’t like that kind of question.”

“I know. But that’s the question he’s forcing us to consider. It’s very much like that. We know who committed the crime, we know they’ve done it before, we know they’ll do it again, and we know nobody is ever going to stop them. So what’s your responsibility in that case?”

Their food came, and they ate in silence.

After a while Silver said, “I suddenly don’t like the world I’m living in.”

“I know. Me neither.”

“Then what’s the solution? What’s the right answer?” Silver asked, putting her fork down disgustedly.

“I don’t think there is one. I think there’s just a right answer for you. I think the hard part is when you remove all the rules and have to decide what’s right, not because you’re afraid of being punished or caught, but because of what you’ve decided. For me, I think all we can do is try to be happy and be glad we’re not in Howard’s position.” Richard took another bite of pasta.

“That’s it? Try to be happy? That’s your solution?”

“I didn’t say it was a complete solution. But it’s the only one I’ve come up with. So I’ll keep going to work every day, put one foot in front of the other, put a bad guy in jail every now and then, and try to focus on the good in my life — of which you are one of the big things at the moment.”

“The good?”

He nodded. “The best.”

“Is this where we talk about us?”

“I think we just did. You want a chocolaty dessert?”

The guards moved with Rob through the prison corridor, his feet shuffling due to the hobbling from the restraints around his ankles. His wrists were likewise bound, and the two huge guards escorting him towered over his lanky frame.

He had been pulled out of his cell at seven a.m. with no warning or explanation other than that he was being transferred to a new facility. No reason had been given, but he knew when he heard the words super max that his life was about to change for the worse.

The larger of the two guards grinned his enjoyment of Rob’s predicament. “Hey, buddy, I hear you’re headed to Southport. That should be fun, huh? Rest of your life in an eight by twelve box. If you’re good, you get one hour a day in the yard. Rest of the time you’re in solitary.”

“I’ll be back before you know it. They got no grounds to move me to super max,” Rob said with confidence.

“I won’t be putting any money into that pool. I hear you pissed off the wrong people.”

Rob struggled vainly against the four point restraint system as he was led to the prison loading dock, where a truck much like an armored car waited to ferry him to his new home. Three guards stood impassively by as he was manhandled into the back of the truck, which was a specially constructed vault designed for prisoner transport. The driver signed a sheaf of forms, and the back slammed shut with a heavy thud. A few moments later, they were moving.

After several hours on the road, the truck lurched to a halt, and the door opened. Four guards stood waiting, and a fifth signed the paperwork, taking receipt of the former motorcycle gang chief. He glared at them. The guard that had signed for him moved into his field of vision. Rob noted that part of his face had burn scars on it.

“Hello, douchebag. Welcome to Southport. This is your new home until the end of time. There are some rules you’ll need to learn, and I’ll let the boys fill you in about them. But I’m here to let you know about the only ones you need to remember. You are not here to be rehabilitated. You are not here to improve your mental health. You are not here to operate a criminal enterprise, or network with others, or piss anyone here off, or you will find yourself in an absolute world of hurt. Contrary to what you might believe, you have no rights. You have no expectation of fair treatment. You live and you will die by however I feel, and I’m usually pissed-off that my life consists of looking after scum like you. That makes me very angry on a good day. You do not want to test that anger. It is sudden and swift, and it will land on you like a piano dropped from a twenty-story building if I even imagine you’re giving me problems. I’m the head of the day shift on your block. The night guy is not as patient or compassionate as I am. You will sit in your cell and rot until you die, which for me can’t happen soon enough. I won’t bother asking you if you have any questions because I don’t care. You are nothing. A zero. So begins the rest of your miserable life, which my sole aim is to make as unpleasant as humanly possible.”