From the Chrysalis (24 page)

Dace had to move them. “The bastards are going to suffocate in here,” Dace tried explaining to Sandy’s men. “Do you really want a freezer full of dead meat?”

“You gotta ask Sandy.”
 

For a moment, Dace envied Sandy’s hold on these men. He bided his time, though, knowing the fewer goons he had on his ass, the better it would be. Big Alf didn’t think so. When he woke up, he listed the stuff he wanted to do to Sandy’s henchmen. Ended up he didn’t have to do anything, because after a while Sandy’s men just left.

Dace followed them, stepping outside the heating duct and shouting at their retreating backs. “Is it something I said?”

The last man sauntered off without a word, perhaps in search of lunch. Who knew? Maybe there were still some sandwiches on the table they’d set up in the Dome. Dace’s own belly had stopped rumbling hours ago, but he was surprised to notice he was beginning to miss the routines of the place. The smug, all-knowing clock outside the heating duct didn’t help. It was almost noon. At this time yesterday they would have finished breakfast and lunch and still had dinner to go. Jesus Christ, had the highlight of his life really been three squares a day?

Better get everybody moving, he thought, but just as he turned back to the hostages’ makeshift cell, he bumped into Sandy McAllister himself. They eyed each other, toe to toe.
 

Both Big Alf and Steve looked a little agitated. “Finders keepers,” Steve said.
 

Yeah, right, Dace thought, recoiling from Sandy’s alcohol saturated breath. He wanted to sock him, but he couldn’t. He knew himself too well, and once he started he wouldn’t be able to stop. What the hell did Sandy expect? He’d apparently been gone for hours. Dace glared at Sandy, thinking about the sanctimonious pig and all the shit he’d started. Next thing he knew, he had Sandy in a neck hold while the guy made funny noises and pulled at his arm. Christ, it felt good.

“Dace,” Steve said quietly, but he barely heard him. Dace wished he had killed Sandy a long time ago. If he had, they probably wouldn’t be in this mess. Why the hell had he waited so long?
 

“Dace!” Steve repeated and Dace reluctantly released his hold.
 

Sandy went limp but straightened quickly. “Aw, Jeez. Aw, Jeez,” he gasped, his eyes bulging. “Are you fucking crazy or what?” he demanded, spittle flying from his mouth. “Where’s everybody? What’s happened to my fucking so-called friends? Did the cunts all bail out?”
 

A big gob of saliva smacked Dace in the face and he fought the urge to jump Sandy again. Big Alf looked inclined to do the same, but Dace waved him back with one hand. He had almost lost it … again. Whatever happened, he had to keep cool. Even if Sandy was screaming “Give me my fucking hostages!” into Dace’s face, over and over. His life, all their lives, depended on Dace’s keeping control of his rage.
 

“Dace, allow me,” Big Alf pleaded, licking his lips and rubbing his hands together with anticipation.

“No,” he said. “It’s okay. I think our friend is just leaving. Right, Sandy?”

Sandy stopped. He looked exhausted. He glared at them a moment, then turned and left.
 

It was the hostages’ turn next. “We’re not going anywhere,” Murray said, evidently their spokesperson. “Some of those guys are worse than McAllister.”
 

“You think?” Steve said.

Big Alf didn’t wait for Dace’s permission this time. “You ungrateful cunts,” he said, seizing the man closest to him. Two or three minutes later, all the hostages had sailed through the door. Dace came out of the duct and assessed the men in their stained, ill-fitting inmate clothes.
Five had landed on their feet. The sixth belly crawled along the floor.

Steve laughed. “Look!” he said. “What’s the matter with him? It’s Saksun, isn’t it? Looks like a bitch in heat.”

“Shut up. He’s scared, stupid,” Dace said, then yanked Saksun up by his collar and pushed him out where he could see him. He gave him a couple of boots, and the other hostages fell in behind, along with Big Alf and Steve.

Except for Saksun, the hostages were manageable. When they reached the Dome, Dace elbowed a couple of intruders in the gut and when one man persisted, he floored him. The look of gratitude on Saksun’s face was almost comical. Men jumped out of hidden corners as they walked, and Dace wondered if they could smell the captives.

“Hey, Dace,” one man shouted, delirious with freedom. “What are you herding bulls for? Where you going? Can we come too?”

“Look at us!” another shrieked, leering in Saksun’s terrified face. “We’re free! We’re free!”

From what Dace could see, several subgroups of prisoners controlled the living quarters in the cruciform. Those all appeared to be in a drug induced fool’s paradise. The outside yard was No-Man’s land. Fifty or so men were packed into the Dome in growling groups of four or five, like roving packs of dogs.
 

Although everybody figured the army was at the gates, their estimated entry time and choice of weaponry was still a matter of heated debate. Every time a shout went up, the rebels stampeded to the wall furthest from the broken gate, anticipating a tsunami of soldiers equipped with rubber hoses, truncheons or worse. Sometimes somebody shouted just for fun.
 

One end of the Dome, where the floor sloped down, was deep with filthy water, overflow from the broken toilets. When they reached this point, Saksun slipped and fell, his eyes rolling back in his head. An onlooker shouted, “Leave him, we’ll take care of him!” but young Saksun didn’t react. The other hostages took over and dragged him the rest of the way.
 

It concerned Dace that things were going relatively well. In his experience, when things got easy, it was time to watch out. Guards were wily. Their docility could be an act. On the other hand, the loss of their uniforms—a retributive tactic they themselves had employed many times before—could have contributed to their co-operation.

Had he been in one of their places, Dace would have been pondering his personal worth. It was in their own best interests for the Joint to negotiate for these guards, but he wondered if they would. Why negotiate for a guard who could easily be replaced when you could just throw him to the dogs? Sure, the public didn’t want them hurt, but what if there were a greater good?

From the moment Dace had entered the heating duct, he’d known the captives were no longer prison guards, they were just scared people. But the thought was so uncomfortable he’d pushed it away. They got as far as Cell Block B before Murray, the oldest and heaviest of the hostages, saw the stairs. “Where the fuck are we going?” he asked, massaging his left arm.
 

Dace didn’t hesitate. “Let’s go,” he shouted, taking the old guard’s arm and ordering everybody else ahead. “Haul Saksun’s ass upstairs.” He matched his steps to Saksun’s and Murray’s, hoping the old guy wouldn’t drop dead of a heart attack on the stairs. “It’s okay, Gramps. We’ll just take it easy,” he said.

After they got everybody upstairs, Big Alf and Steve boarded up the pass at the top of the stairs with a heap of mattresses and some busted metal cots.

“Now what?” Steve asked. He looked a little green but still seemed to be raring to go.

“Easy,” Dace said. “Our mission is to keep the hostages safe. How hard can that be?” he quipped. “Loony Tunes is our main threat. Sooner or later he’s gonna want his hostages back. You saw him.”

Big Alf didn’t see a problem, but then he never did. “Aw, Sandy’s crazy. He shouldn’t even be here. He belongs in Penetang.”
 

“He might be crazy, but he knows how valuable his hostages are,” Dace said, then shrugged. “He’ll definitely try to get them again. He assaulted a guard to get the key. That’s worth at least five more years in jail. Those screws were the only leverage he had.”

“Well, they’re our babies now.”

“You gotta take care of babies, though. Deliver these guys safely and we’ll have something to bargain with. Get them killed and the whole prison population is done for. The army will come in and shoot half of us in the head, while the rest … There’s a lot of guys here with nothing to lose. You get a twenty-five year stretch, what’s a few more?”

“Jesus,” Steve said, “Not me! They were talking about paroling me in three months.”

“Yeah, kid,” Dace replied, scaling their makeshift barrier and staring down the narrow staircase. “Me, too.”
 

Loony Tunes might come up with a couple of buddies at any moment, murder on their minds. A dark part of Dace almost wished he could be with them. “The stairs are too narrow. He and his buddies’ll have to come up one at a time,” he said, grinning at Big Alf and Steve. “I can’t wait. One kick, that’s all it’ll take.”

Little by little, the hostages settled in and everybody, Dace included, lost track of time. They were babysitters, inglorious babysitters, that’s all. For a while the hostages even got a second wind, almost garrulous with relief that they were still alive.
 

“More food,” they shouted.

“More smokes.”
 

And “Jesus fuck, it’s getting hot in here. What are you trying to do, roast us to death?”

“Ha, ha. Roast pig,” Big Alf joked.

Periodically one of them even took it into his head to try and talk sense into his captors or plead his own case. Murray’s heart was palpitating, or Saksun wanted to go home …

“I’m getting to know more about these bastards than I want to know,” Steve complained. “It’s like they’re regular people or something. I don’t like it.”

“Let me in there,” Big Alf said, flexing a length of torn cloth between his two great hands. “I know what to do.”

By the third day, every cell in Dace’s body was screaming to shut down. He saw stars when he yawned, but when it was his turn he still couldn’t sleep. Plenty of time for sleep later, he reminded himself, tightening a black bandana around his forehead to keep his eyes open.

Try as he might to convince himself that his job was as important as Rick had claimed, his euphoria was fading fast. He couldn’t get past the notion that his inmate police force was a bit of a joke. “Police force” implied members had competed for positions and undergone rigorous training, or at least pulled strings. “Police force”
also suggested members might be in uniform. Dace’s team looked like they were auditioning for
Moby Dick.
 

“Wake the fuck up,” he hissed through clenched teeth. Big Alf’s eyes were rolling back into his head. Christ, the guy looked stupid. All he had to do was watch the West stairs, one of three steel-edged staircases leading from different cell blocks.
 

It had been a mistake to take on a man over forty, but Alf had practically begged for the job. He was used to playing second fiddle in the banks he’d robbed and he didn’t mind doing the same thing now. He liked life on the edge. And he was strong enough—when he was awake.
 

“I’m not asleep, I’m not asleep,” he repeated, his bristly grey head bobbing up and down. He flicked his eyes towards Dace, then frowned. “Jesus, I was just checking for blood on the fucking stairs,” he said.
 

“Okay, okay, man,” Dace agreed.

Simmering down a little, Alf nodded at the cells. “It’s awfully quiet in there,” he said. “Do you think they’re all right?”

“Look at them. They’re just sitting at that little table playing cards. Kind like a bunch of old Greek guys in the park.”

Alf smirked. “Probably all tuckered out.”

At first the hostages had argued with each other, but they were playing euchre now and whispering too quietly for their captors to hear. Murray, who would have retired long ago if his youngest child weren’t wasting time in the Music Department at Maitland University, occasionally stopped shuffling cards and yelled something like,

“What are you punks trying to accomplish? Rick Lowery and his goddamn Inmate Committee be damned! Do you really think Ottawa’s going to cave in to your demands? What
are
your demands, anyway? Better food? You already eat better than most of us, that’s why you keep coming back! C’mon, you jokers, you can’t trust your buddies, you can’t trust the authorities, you can’t trust John Q. Public! Hell, most of you can’t even trust your own mothers!”