Michael Prescott - In Dark Places

Gray allowed himself to be caged in the rear of the van.

The transportation deputies climbed into the front. "What'll it be today?" the driver asked. "Me, I'm feelin' a little bit country."

He cranked up the stereo, tuned to a hillbilly station, and the van pulled away.

In the rear compartment, Gray brushed his manacled hands together, feeling the tool he had hidden under his sleeve.

It was a screwdriver, a small one, slender, seven inches long, rusty, dirty, the most beautiful thing Gray had ever seen. Ten days ago he'd found it, when he was riding in the prison vaneither this van or another one just like it; like the Dawgs, the vans all looked the same. He'd noticed the screwie rolling on the floor near his shoes. How it had gotten there, he couldn't say. Maybe it had dropped out of a workman's toolkit while he was making repairs in the prisoner cage.

He had captured the screwie between his shoes, then slipped it under his sleeve when no one was looking. But he'd known there was no way to get it through the metal detector. So after being unloaded from the van, he had faked a stumble and dropped the screwie behind the fire hydrant. It had lain there ever since.

He had been patient. If he stumbled twice in a row, even the dumb-ass hayseed plowboys who pulled guard duty at Twin Towers might get suspicious. Ten days seemed long enough to ensure that the two deputies had forgotten all about his earlier mishap. Minutes ago, while getting to his feet and using the fire hydrant for support, he'd palmed the screwie and slipped it down his sleeve.

He took a look around. There was a large fish-eye mirror mounted behind him, which gave the Dawg riding shotgun a decent view of Gray. But the Dawg wasn't paying attention. He and the driver were involved in an intense conversation about the relative merits of NASCAR drivers.

"Tell you what," the driver was saying over the radio's blare, "there hasn't been one of 'em worth a damn since Dale Earnhardt died."

"Not even Dale Junior? You telling me you don't like Dale Junior? Everybody loves Dale Junior."

"Dale Junior can kiss my spotted ass."

Couple of good ol' boys. One of them would be dead soon. Maybe both. Gray smiled at the prospect. He'd never killed a bona fide redneck. He was looking forward to it.

He slipped his right hand inside his left sleeve and carefully removed the screwdriver, positioning it between his second and third fingers, flat across his palm.

When he held his hand palm downward, the tool was invisible.

Up front the debate continued. "I'm just saying, okay, maybe he's not as good as his old man, but he's still pretty damn good."

"Hell, my grandma could drive better than him, and she's ninety-two years old and blind as a mole."

"I don't see how you can say that about Dale Junior. Everybody loves Dale Junior."

"Dale Junior can kiss my spotted amp;"

Gray separated his hands, placing one on each knee.

Step one and step two had been accomplished.

In Doc Robin's office he would finish the job.

"Hey, Dr. R." As he stepped into the waiting room, Gray showed the doc a big shit-eating grin, which he noticed she didn't return.

"Hello, Justin," she said coolly.

The two deputy dickwads hustled him through the waiting room, into the office. The doc followed. Gray gave her the eye over his shoulder.

"Gonna poke around inside my noggin some more? I keep telling you, there's nothing to find."

"I think we've found a great deal already."

"You're an optimist. You say my brain is half-full. Me, I say it's half-empty."

He was keeping up the patter, staying loose. Usually he liked to be a little blitzed when he pulled off dangerous shit like this, but right now he had some kind of major buzz going. Adrenaline or some goddamn thing.

The deputies removed his handcuffs and leg irons, standard procedure in the doc's office. She didn't want her patient all trussed up like a prize turkey. Still, he had to be kept under some restraint. The two hacks sat him down in the metal chair and belted his wrists to the armrests, cinching the metal buckles.

"It ain't enough I'm caged all the livelong day," he groused. "Even when I'm out and about, I gotta be friggin' immobilized."

"It's for your own protection," the doc said.

"Yeah, right. Everything you fuckers do to me is for my own good. When you put that helmet on me and nose around in my brain, that's for my own good too."

"It will be, in the long run."

He was strapped in good and tight now. Deputies Dumb and Dumber seemed satisfied. "I'll be in the other room if you need me," one of them said.

Gray knew that the driver would sit in the van while his partner hung out in the waiting room. And he was pleased to see that Forrest Gump and his partner had kept their sidearms on their Sam Brownes, even while off-loading him. That was contrary to regulationsguns weren't supposed to be worn within reach of a prisonerbut he guessed the hacks were just too lazy or too butt-stupid to stow the guns like they were supposed to. That was good. He wanted the Dawg in the waiting room to be armed. There was no sport in icing an unarmed man.

When they were gone, and the office door was closed, the doc pulled up the swivel chair from her desk, setting it between his chair and the computer gear, and sat beside him. She was looking good today, he noticed, even if she was dressed in her standard ensemble, a beige suit jacket, a blouse in pastel blue, a pair of neatly laundered slacks, and sensible shoes. He wished she would wear a skirt. He was sure she had great legs. And he wouldn't have minded seeing her blouse unbuttoned a notch or two to reveal more of the smooth, tight skin below her collarbone.

"How are you feeling, Justin?"

"Footloose 'n' fancy-free." This was true.

"I'm serious. I need to monitor your progress."

"My progress? I live in a cage, Doc. Only progress I make is when I walk from my rack to the toilet and back again."

"I'm talking about progress inside."

"Yeah, I feel ya. Hamlet's kind of progress." He smiled at her incomprehension. " 'I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space amp;' Didn't think I knew that one, did you?"

"Honestly, no."

"First time I was in stir, my roommate got hold of a Shakespeare play. We took turns reading it. Wasn't Hamlet , though."

"Which one was it?"

"The one about the fairies."

"A Midsummer Night's Dream?"

"That's the one. Gotta say, I made one hell of a Titania."

"I'm sure you did." She rearranged some papers on her lap. "Well, let's get started."

"Don't you want to know the rest of the story?"

"Is there more?"

"Darn tootin'. I didn't say where I found Hamlet ."

"Where?"

"It was in Susan Miller's backpack."

Her voice went cold. "I see."

Susan Miller was one of the five teenage girls Gray had killed.

"I went through her stuff," he went on blithely, "after I was done with her. Guess she was carrying it around for her English class. I figured I ought to read it, since I liked the one about the fairies. And I always try to further my education. We're a lot alike in that way, Dr. R."

"Are we?"

"Sure. You're furthering your education right now." He met and held her gaze. "By studying me."

She broke their eye contact. "We need to begin."

"You're the boss."

"We'll start with the inkblots."

He didn't like that. He wanted her to turn out the lights, start fiddling with the controls of her mind machine, quit looking at him. There was a chance she'd see what was hidden in his right hand.

"Fucking inkblots again?" He sighed noisily. "Damn, I was hoping you'd bring some more interesting pictures. Naked ladies, for instance."