James Grippando - Last Call

"Move it," said MacDonald.

Theo pulled on his jumpsuit, a pair of socks, and his prison-issue tennis shoes with Velcro and no laces. "All right. Let's go."

Theo went first, and MacDonald gave him a needless shove from behind as they exited the cell. The iron door slid shut behind them, the ratchet of the lock echoing throughout the dark cell block.

"Where we headed?" said Theo.

"Eyes forward," said MacDonald. "Just do as I say."

The guard gave him another shove, and Theo started walking. Most inmates were asleep in their cells. Some stood at the bars to see what was going on, their hands protruding from the blackened cells. For Theo, it was eerily reminiscent of his predawn walk down death row.

Theo stopped at the guard's command. They were at the end of the cell block, standing before a locked security door. A buzzer sounded, and the door opened. MacDonald gave him another unnecessary shove. If this jerk didn't knock it off, he'd be in serious trouble when inmate Knight returned to his life as citizen Knight. Then again, Theo considered the possibility that it was all an act – that MacDonald was in on the undercover operation, and that he was being rough only to keep suspicions from rising among the inmates.

The security door locked behind them. MacDonald gave a nod and a hello to the guard posted in the short corridor that joined the cell block to the next wing.

"To your left," MacDonald told Theo.

Theo obliged and braced himself for another cheap shot from behind. MacDonald didn't disappoint him. This one nearly made Theo stumble forward. Each shove was a little harder than the last.

"Stop," said MacDonald.

They were standing outside the isolation chamber – not a cell, but a private room in which the guards interrogated inmates, from informants to troublemakers.

"Hands behind your back."

Theo did as he was told. MacDonald bound the prisoner's wrists with metal cuffs, unlocked the door, and pushed Theo inside. He followed right behind him, switched on the lights, and locked the door.

The room was ten feet by ten feet. It had no windows and only one door in or out. The floor was bare concrete, the walls were yellow-painted cinder blocks, and the only furniture was an old oak chair in the center of the room.

Theo had been around the proverbial cell block enough to know that it wasn't standard procedure for an interrogation to be conducted by one guard. This was the moment of truth. Either MacDonald was a player in the FBI's operation and this was going to be something good – or he wasn't, and…

A nightstick to his kidneys brought Theo to his knees and his speculation to an end. Theo remained on the floor on hands and knees, keeping his head down. He'd had the holy hell beaten out of him before, both as a child and as an adult, but his body was no longer conditioned for a blow like this one. It took a minute for him to catch his breath. The hot, stale air didn't make it any easier. He was sweating already.

MacDonald circled him in silence, and Theo could hear only the soft: step of his shoes and the steady tap of the nightstick in the palm of his hand.

"Isaac was your good buddy huh?" he said.

Theo didn't answer, which brought MacDonald's boot to his belly. Theo went over on his side, the wind gone from him again.

"You seem to have a knack for making friends with the wrong people, pal."

Theo stayed low, the right side of his face on the floor. Obviously MacDonald wasn't part of the undercover team, but Theo was beginning to think that MacDonald knew why Theo was in jail – and didn't like it one bit.

"Get up," said MacDonald, as he grabbed Theo by the collar. "In the chair."

Theo sat in the interrogation chair, his cuffed hands behind the backrest.

MacDonald faced him directly, boring the blunt end of his nightstick into Theo's chest. He turned it like a screwdriver as he increased the pressure, which hurt like a bitch.

"Nobody sits at Moses' table on his first trip to the cafeteria," said MacDonald. "Nobody but you."

"He invited me," said Theo.

"Just like that, he decides you're his new pal."

"Yeah," said Theo. "Just like that."

MacDonald bent over and stared straight into his eyes, close enough for Theo to smell the coffee on his breath. The guard said, "I can see this is gonna be a real painful lesson for you, boy."

He jammed the nightstick into Theo's groin, and Theo fell to the floor again. Theo looked up at the ceiling, but he could barely see straight. He rolled onto his side and assumed a fetal position. It had been a long time since he'd felt pain like this.

MacDonald was circling again, taunting him with that tap of the nightstick against the palm of his open hand.

"You and your buddy Isaac Reems stained my perfect record with that escape."

"It was his jailbreak."

"But you helped. That's why you're here."

The residual stabbing pain in his testicles was still making it difficult for Theo to form coherent thoughts, but that last remark suggested that MacDonald didn't know anything about Theo or his actual status. This "interrogation" appeared to be about nothing more than a petty correctional officer's bruised ego.

Theo was still lying on his side. MacDonald stepped behind him and pressed Theo's fingertips beneath his boot – slowly at first, then harder, as if trying to mash them into the concrete. Theo grimaced in pain but tried not to cry out, refusing to give MacDonald the satisfaction.

"Lucky for you, I'm a nice guy," said the guard. "I'm gonna give you a chance to help me earn back my superstar reputation."

"Is that so?" said Theo, grunting through the pain.

"Yeah. Looks like your buddy Moses killed a state trooper tonight. Shot him right in the face."

Theo said nothing. Somehow, it didn't surprise him.

MacDonald said, "You and me are gonna work together now. We're gonna catch Moses."

"What're you talkin' about?"

"I kept my eye on you and Moses. I saw your buddy-buddy act in the cafeteria. I watched you two scheming in the stairwell."

"Just jail talk, man."

"My ass," said MacDonald. "Moses blew this county five minutes after he was released. Got in his car and headed north. Police got a BOLO out, but nobody knows where he is now."

Theo's fingers were going numb, which lessened the pain. "Can't help you, dude."

"Yeah, you can. I think you know exactly where Moses was headed when he sot out of TGK."

"I don't know nothin'."

MacDonald raised his boot off Theo's fingers and gave him a kick to the kidney. This time, Theo couldn't stop from crying out in pain. He couldn't tell anyone about his undercover status – the deal was that he would take whatever came, like a regular inmate – but he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep this up.

And even if he told him, MacDonald wouldn't believe him now.

The guard knelt at Theo's side and whispered in his ear, his voice taking on the perverse and gleeful edge of a sadist: "I got all night, tough guy. We'll see exactly what you know."

Uncle Cy couldn't sleep.

Lightheadedness had forced him to leave the bar early tonight. It had come on right after Jack called to tell him that a guy named Moses had an O-Town Posse tattoo and killed a state trooper just hours after his release from TGK. Distressing news, but it didn't account for Cy's dizziness. That damn doctor still didn't have his blood pressure medication right. Cy went home and climbed into bed. It felt like the bad old days when he would drag himself home from his gigs, fall onto the bed or sometimes even the floor, and fight with the spins as he tried to find sleep.

Funny thing was, Cy had played his sax so much better when he was high. Or so he'd thought as a much younger man. The owners who fired him from the hottest clubs downtown, the managers who banned him from the big hotels on Miami Beach, the musicians who refused to play with him again – they were all racists or Uncle Toms trying to keep the black musicians down. He kept moving from one gig to the next, drinking, sniffing, snorting, popping, shooting along the way, burning bridges everywhere he went. Eventually he couldn't find work anymore – except in a place like Homeboy's, that dive of a joint where Theo's mother used to hang out. Night after night, he watched her, stoned and stumbling from one bar stool to the next in search of a twenty-dollar trick. When those pockets were emptied, she'd turn to the street. Everyone knew that story's ending.