Trace: Chapter Eight

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Chapter Eight

Analise was shown into the ward not long after Colin finished eating. He'd been given another cup of the toxic-tasting tea and was sipping it, making a face at the flavor, when she arrived. She looked concerned, especially when she saw how washed-out his skin was in the white infirmary pajamas.

"Sweetheart," Colin managed, but it was mostly breath; the noise didn't carry very far. Analise waited for the orderly and the guard to leave, but the guard just stepped back, up against the far wall.

"Joseph's taking you out of here," she said quietly, face and voice both so serious, and he hated to see that -- she'd been good to him and she didn't like how often he and Joseph both scared her. "He made the call last night, he'll have your release papers here by noon."

"Why?" Colin asked. Analise gave him a sardonic look.

"You're sick, hon," she said. "I know you told him you were fine, but he heard about this other fight you got into -- "

"It wasn't a fight," Colin complained hoarsely. "It wasn't me, anyway, it was Laney."

"Who's Laney?" she asked, tilting her head.

"Just...a friend," Colin said, unwilling to expend energy explaining the basic functions of prison life to her.

"I'm sure he can look after himself, then," she said. "There are obviously people in here who don't like you. And you can get better care in a real hospital."

"It's the flu, I'm not dying," Colin croaked. "You have to explain to him."

"You want me to convince Joseph to let you stay here?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"I'm useful here," he insisted.

"How?"

"Analise, just -- " he let his head fall back on the pillow. "Tell him I think one of the orderlies is in on it. Something. Anything."

She put a hand on his arm; the guard against the wall shifted slightly. Colin ignored it and gave her his most level look, which probably wasn't as impressive as it would have been if his eyes weren't rimmed with red.

"Why do you want to stay so badly?" she asked. "Is it this Laney?"

"What? No. I..." he coughed into his arm, waiting for the burn in his throat to pass before he tried again. He suspected going anywhere near the concept of unfinished business would get him pulled out even faster. "He shouldn't have sent you," he said.

"He didn't," she answered, and he gave her a startled look. "I came on my own, after he told me what happened. I just wanted to let you know you won't be here much longer."

"Ah." He looked down at his hands. "Sorry."

She lifted her hand and rubbed her knuckles against his cheek, affectionate. Colin glanced warily at the guard, who had a hand on his baton.

"Lean back," he said softly.

"What?" she asked.

"The guard's watching us. You have to stop touching me."

Analise, to her credit, didn't turn; she casually pulled back, folding her hands in her lap. The guard relaxed his hold on his baton.

"They're jumpy," Colin said. "Everyone is."

"More reason to get you out of here," she told him.

"More reason for me to stay," he argued. "If I disappear now, someone's going to suspect. It keeps him safer if I'm here," he added, feeling brilliant. Analise looked unconvinced.

"He's going after your tip tonight. I don't think I'm supposed to know that, but..." she smiled.

"Then tell him to pull me tomorrow morning. If he finds something, great. If he doesn't, I've done all I can," Colin said, ending this little speech with another coughing fit. Analise unclasped her hands, like she wanted to touch him again, but then stilled her movement and leaned back.

"I'll tell him what you said," she said finally. "I can't promise anything, Colin."

"Thank you," he grated, reaching for the lukewarm tea and taking another sip.

The guard cleared his throat. Analise gave him a discontented look, but she smiled at Colin, patted his arm one last time, and stood to follow the guard out.

Colin, done with trying to think his way out of all this, lay back and concentrated on walking the fine line between 'too sick to go back to gen pop' and 'not quite sick enough to vomit'.

***

When Colin was born, in an overcrowded charity ward on Chicago's south side, his mother had already chosen his name: Colm, after Colm Cille, Saint Columba. Columba was the descendant of Irish kings, one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland, a warlike saint and a literate man when many weren't. Colin's mother had been something of a romantic, and he knew she'd wanted a fierce, intelligent life for her son. He wasn't sure if he'd lived up to it yet.

Colm Byrne was what it said on his birth certificate, but there was some kind of problem with the spelling on his vaccination records. It was easier to enter him into school (many different schools, none of them interesting, most of them temporary at any rate) as Colin, the name on his medical file and his social security card.

He drifted into New York under the name Colin when he was a teenager; was arrested and tried and convicted under the name Colin, as if the rightful spelling was simply an embarrassing error on a slip of paper he didn't even know the location of anymore. If he needed a birth certificate for whatever reason, he just forged one, and it was easier to put Colin and save himself some time. Or to put some other name entirely. It was boring, true, but boring meant nobody noticed you, and in his line of work not being noticed was important.

Nobody living knew his name was Colm. Grace had; he'd told her the story, but Grace was dead. He'd suspect Joseph of knowing, but if Joseph had known he would have insisted Colin's records be changed, that he be tried under his real name.

Most of the time it didn't even occur to him to think about it. He'd been called Colin his whole life.

Colm was his last line of defense, the place he went when he had no other resource left. It had got him through his mother's death, through pneumonia a few years later, a couple of hard times in Railburg. Colm was the one who had called Joseph from a bus station in Hoboken, begging for help because he didn't have anyone else and Grace was dead. Colm wasn't strong, but if he went there then Colin could be a shield, when his other defenses failed him.

There wasn't much else to do on the ward but sit and contemplate things. He was the only one there -- much to the surprise of the infirmary doctor, who expected a dozen prisoners to come in with influenza the day after one had -- and it wasn't like they piped television in.

He was startled, that evening, to see Joseph bringing him dinner, carrying a tray through the secure doors into the ward. Joseph went first to the guard on infirmary duty and bent to speak in his ear; the guard nodded and left, and Joseph set the tray down on the little plastic shelf that swung out over Colin's lap from one side of the bed.

"Thanks for keeping me in," Colin said, poking at the food with his fork. Standard fare for hospital inmates -- bland, high on protein and vegetables, and in Railburg's case, nearly inedible. There was mold on the bread.

"Don't thank me," Joseph said. "Analise was persuasive. I'm still not comfortable leaving you here tonight. You been eating?"

"Yeah," Colin said, picking around the raw portion of the small hamburger steak on the tray. "Kinda." He glanced up at Joseph, who seemed not to see the condition of the food. He wondered if any of the guards did.

"So you think some of the infirmary staff are involved?" Joseph asked, crossing his arms. The baton at his hip swung a little with the movement.

"Maybe," Colin hedged, and Joseph seemed to buy it, rubbing his eyes with one hand as he sighed. He looked tired; swing shift must be taking its toll.

"I should pull you now," he muttered.

"Do and I'll blow cover," Colin threatened. It was his last card to play, and he hadn't wanted to, but he needed this one last night.

"No, you won't," Joseph replied evenly. "You wouldn't sabotage a case."

"Try me," Colin challenged. It still hurt to talk.

Joseph leaned in a little. "You're lying, Colin. You wouldn't kill a case out of petulance."

Colin gave him a sullen look. "You got your warrant, right?" he rasped.

"Yeah. Everything goes down like it should, you'll be out tomorrow anyway. Is it really that important that you stay here?"

Colin nodded. "You wouldn't understand why."

Any other time, any other place, Joseph would have challenged that -- he'd have said Then make me understand or Explain it. Here, he seemed to know better. He settled down in the chair Analise had used earlier in the day and stretched out, crossing his ankles, regarding Colin.

"You don't like it here," Colin observed, picking through the vegetables for some that weren't wilted. Joseph shook his head.

"I miss my suits," he said. "Miss wearing a belt that hasn't got a can of mace attached. This place gives me the creeps."

Colin smiled a little. "You sent me here. Before, I mean," he said, waving his fork. "Anyway, you're pretty good with that baton. Experience, or are you just a natural?"

Joseph's eyes unfocused a little. "I wasn't even thinking about it, to be honest. He had a blade, you were there...it's pretty vicious, huh? Packs a punch when it hits."

"Twenty-one inches of tempered steel will do that," Colin agreed.

"I have to get out," Joseph said. "You too. You're different here. It's eerie. Your eyes are lighter."

Colin raised his eyebrows. He supposed if he could see the shade when Joseph couldn't, Joseph might see something in his own eyes that he wasn't aware of.

"When you went in the first time," Joseph was saying, lost in some memory, "I flagged your file. I wanted to make sure you survived your sentence."

"I'm touched," Colin said, coughing.

"Don't be. You were my case, I follow my cases. I just thought you weren't the kind of guy who'd do very well in prison," Joseph answered. Colin gave him a dry look. "And then...nothing. First time you show up in the infirmary is a year in for some shop injury."

Colin laughed, mostly silent, just a little crackle of noise. "Yeah, back when they still let me work in the machine shop. Ripped a chunk out of my arm on a fan belt."

"You make yourself useful," Joseph said. "And you have Satan's own luck."

"Or I never reported anything else," Colin said, and Joseph frowned. Colin grinned, making light. "Don't worry, I can look out for myself."

"Most of the time," Joseph said. Colin was struck with a memory, something Joseph was recalling, not even his own: the way he'd seen Colin, fresh from prison, trapped in grief over Grace. Raw, sneaking, headstrong, glad to be out but not used to freedom yet, trying to trick people into protecting him or prove he was higher in the food chain than they were. It was shameful, seeing these things through Joseph's eyes.

When he'd called Joseph, because he was out of money and Grace had died and he didn't know what to do, Joseph should have hung up on his ass. Instead Joseph and Analise had ignored his games, shoved him into line when he stepped out, and tried to show him how to be a human being. And here he was, lying to Joseph, angling to murder Galano, fighting with the Aryans.

They had to leave soon. Joseph was right. Starting over again from that place, the place he'd been then, didn't bear thinking about.

"Why are you here?" Colin asked suddenly. Joseph had sent the other guard away and seemed perfectly comfortable where he was, which wasn't natural. This wasn't the way prisoners were treated. "Bringing me food, I mean."

"I'm supposed to make sure you don't pick your way out of your restraints with the fork," Joseph told him. Colin snorted. "You finished?"

Colin shoved the tray back a little. Most of the food was still there, but none of it was edible. "Sure."

"Okay. Be ready to go tomorrow. I'll let you know what's going on as soon as I can."

Colin watched Joseph walk away with the tray. The other guard came back in and Colin lowered his eyes quickly -- but not so quickly he didn't see the figure slinking in behind him.

He glanced up, then raised his head and stared openly. One of the Darkman's riders was standing in the room, in a parody of the guard's posture, chest puffed out and hands clasped behind his back.

"Fuck are you staring at?" the guard demanded, glancing at the rider standing next to him. "Jesus, you guys are like cats."

"Sir," Colin mumbled, lowering his head again. When he looked up, using only his eyes and very briefly, the rider was gone.

***

The infirmary, like the cells, locked down in the evening and the lights went out automatically at ten. Apparently nobody thought Colin, alone, was worth stationing a guard for overnight.

He had a bed check at eleven, and about twenty minutes later he could hear footsteps. Shadows moved in the other room, behind the tempered glass, and then Laney stepped through the glass, grinning. He held up his finger, slunk along to the door, tested it with the back of his hand like he thought it might be hot -- there was no handle on this side, no way to open the door without an electric buzz from a command button in the locked admissions office -- and then pushed it open. Gutierrez walked in, staying close to the walls as he approached Colin's bed.

"Hey, man, you look like shit," he said, when Colin pushed himself up and gripped Gutierrez's hand tightly.

"Thanks," Colin answered. He gave Laney a nod of greeting. "You're picking up tricks fast."

"Mojo comes when you need it," Laney said with a shrug.

"You've been talking with Noel, too."

Laney just kept grinning. "Any sign of Galano yet?" When Colin shook his head, he continued. "Sure you're up for this? Gutierrez is right, you look half dead."

"I got pasty skin," Colin murmured, and Laney chuckled. "It looks worse than it is," he added. He'd been consciously letting go of his throat since dinner, willing the rawness to fade -- willing the fever to drop, and his body to heal itself. "Listen, though, there's a problem."

"Isn't there always?" Gutierrez asked.

"I promised my guard I wouldn't touch Galano," he said. Laney sucked in a breath through his teeth, shaking his head in disapproval. "I can't put a hand on him."

"Make us do all the hard work, I see how it is," Gutierrez teased. He pulled up a chair like he was just settling in for a visit instead of an unauthorized break-in.

"Hey, we got some kind of fucking plan?" Laney asked.

It looked like this gnawed at him, and it had gnawed at Colin too: it felt as though they were about to perform a complicated, dangerous task with no plan whatsoever. It wouldn't be the first time in his life he'd winged it -- he'd spent most of his youth doing that -- but usually winging it didn't carry death as a consequence of failure.

"I got a few ideas," Gutierrez said. He pulled up his sleeve and showed them the inside of his forearm, newly tattooed in stark black ink, the skin red and angry. It was a fairly common prison tattoo: a large clock, with a dangling pendulum that almost looked real enough to move, numbers around the face but no hour hand or minute hand. Doing time.

"That's pretty permanent for a one-time party," Colin observed. "Noel do that?"

"Would I go to someone else?" Gutierrez asked. "He said it's got mojo. Besides, it's a big party," he added, rolling his sleeve back down.

"You think Galano can get out of Seg?" Laney asked.

"As long as he knows I'm here," Colin said.

"Does he?" Gutierrez tilted his head.

"Yeah. He told me last night," Colin answered, and scrubbed his face with his hands. "So, no plan? No divine wisdom from God?"

"God thinks I'm a fucking idiot," Gutierrez replied. Colin laughed. "You boys too."

"Ain't no God anyway," Laney muttered. "We save ourselves."

"Fine by me," Colin said. He glanced around. "You bring some playing cards or something?"

"Yeah. Now we wait," Gutierrez answered, sitting back. Laney tossed Colin a pack of cards. "Let Galano make the first move."

"Can't steal first base," Colin murmured. He looked at Laney. "You seen any riders today?"

Laney glanced back at the doorway. "Yeah. They all up in the prison now. Soldiers too. Nobody else sees 'em, though. Well, Noel says he don't, don't nobody else talk about them. Noel says good luck," he added.

"He'd only get in the way," Gutierrez said, before any of them could voice the thought in their minds: Noel should be there, he was one of them. Noel probably wanted to be there. Colin stayed silent, shuffling the cards.

"You ever exorcise a whole prison before?" he asked Gutierrez, as he dealt a hand.

"Never done an exorcism at all before," Gutierrez replied. "Hell, man, I was an atheist when I was sent inside."

"I saw one, once," Laney said. Both men looked at him. "Boring as shit, man. This fat priest just kept sayin' In the name of God I cast you out. They ain't even supposed to."

"When was this?" Colin asked, curious. Laney shrugged.

"Dunno, when I was a kid. We were stayin' with cousins who got religion, they thought one of their boys had a demon in him."

"What happened?" Gutierrez asked.

"Priest said he couldn't do nothing for him. Darkman got him," Laney said. "Couple weeks later. He's a rider now."

"No shit," Colin said, impressed.

"Hardly praise for the priest," Gutierrez remarked. "But we can try. If it gets rid of Galano, I'm for it."

"You think he's possessing this whole place?" Laney asked, craning his neck to look up and around at the ceiling, the walls, the barred windows.

"Unless you have a better idea," Colin said. Laney shook his head. "Okay then," Colin continued, and handed the cards to Gutierrez to deal. "He comes to us."

***

Joseph had managed to get his hands on a master key to the offices -- Colin was right, they weren't hard to come by -- and was alone in the day captain's office when the power went out. He'd left the lights off on purpose, but he could see the crack of light under the door die, and hear the sharp whirr of the captain's computer powering down.

He'd watched one of the guards go into the office earlier and come back out again, probably (hopefully) consulting the ledger they weren't even sure existed yet. It was the same routine they'd followed since he joined the swing shift, so he casually ignored it. He'd waited hours, in fact, until everyone was on bed check or patrolling the walls, before he doubled back to the break room and let himself inside.

He had a warrant in his pocket, should anyone catch him, but he didn't want to blow things this early; when the power died he was in the middle of breaking into the desk, lockpicks raking away at the pins in the drawer lock. Always a useful skill, lockpicking, even as a cop -- maybe especially as a cop -- but he was out of practice and it was taking more time than he'd like.

Outside, in the wider darkness, he could hear voices as guards found their way back into the break room, flashlight beams throwing brief shimmers of light through the crack under the door. Joseph waited, unmoving, for the emergency backup generator to kick in. Most of the cell door locks weren't electronic, so no worries there; those that were had failsafes that auto-bolted when the power died. Still, a prison was a micro-community, and a power outage was not only a major inconvenience but a safety hazard for everyone. The air circulation would die, and the prisoners in Seg and in the interior cells of each wing would notice.

Nothing happened. No blink of light under the door, no sign that the generators even existed.

Which meant he was faced with a decision: sneak out of the office and join the guard squads that were supposed to muster in the yard in emergencies like this, or keep working. The idea of sneaking back in a second time didn't appeal, and it was true he was a lot less likely to get caught in a blackout, though he might get his ass busted for not joining the muster in the yard.

He turned back to the lock and worked frantically at it as the shouts outside increased. Stupid fiddly little thing. Small simple locks were sometimes harder than big complex ones, and he wasn't exactly a pro at this.

There was a click that sounded overly loud in the dark room, and Joseph sighed in relief. He tugged the drawer open, rifled blindly but cautiously through the office supplies it contained, found nothing big enough, and took out his flashlight, holding it inside the hollow where the drawer had been. He shone it down into the second drawer, lifting up a file folder, a book on prison management, a half-empty flask bottle of scotch --

There, under a pile of large manila envelopes. A plain cheap accounting book, no title or name on the outside. He opened it with the very tips of his fingers.

Jackpot.

Inside were scrawled columns of accounts, debits and credits, names, times, divided overages, payments in cash to suppliers, and on the inside cover a list of the shell companies the prison was making deposits to. They couldn't have done better if they'd gift-wrapped it for him. He clenched his flashlight between his teeth and pulled his phone out of his breast pocket, snapping images of the lists, page after page. It was enough to get arrest warrants and when they came back for the ledger later they could dust for prints.

He carefully replaced the ledger and the drawer, fiddled with the lock long enough to secure it again, and slipped out of the day captain's office to find the break room empty. The prisoners were shouting, some screaming, most of them just making noise because they could, because it was something to do and the power outage was an exciting unplanned event in their regimented lives.

There was no way for them to riot, locked in their cells, and no particular reason the guards should feel unsafe with the doors bolted, but who needed a reason for irrational fear? He avoided the cellblock doors when he could, hurrying along exterior hallways in the direction of the muster yard. The monitor cameras were out, there were no corridor lights, and some of the blocks had to be plunged into deep darkness. Without any electricity, infirmary patients would --

Colin.

Joseph skidded to a stop. Colin was in the infirmary. The lights were out. Galano had it in for Colin and Joseph had heard murmurs that he thought were just hyperbole, metaphor, exaggeration, about how Eric Galano couldn't be caught, how Joseph was the only guard who'd ever managed to touch him. In the dark, and knowing what he now knew about Railburg, Joseph wondered.

The cell doors were shut but the block doors were only failsafe-bolted, and could be picked with a little ingenuity. Including the block doors to the Seg cells.

He turned sharply and broke into a run, back down the hall, following the fastest route to the infirmary, heedless of the jeers every time he passed a block door. If Galano got out, Colin would be next to defenseless. If he had to, he'd take Colin out now, haul him free under the cover of darkness, and damn the release paperwork.

As he barreled down the corridor towards the open, gaping infirmary doors, someone began to scream.

Chapter Nine
Epilogue