The Baddest Ass (Billy Lafitte #3) Read online

  "Give me the helmet and the vest."

  "No, just, here…" The guard walks over to the desk beside the door leading out to the metal detectors. She pulls out a drawer, takes Colleen's phone and keys, hands the over. "Let's just go, please. You take me with you!"

  "Can't trust you now. Just…give me the shit and hide under the desk until I get back. Alright? I'm coming right back with them. I swear."

  The guard unstraps her helmet and hands it over. Then her flak jacket. "You get me out of here, how much do I get to keep my mouth shut about all this?"

  "What?"

  "How much? I'll stick with your story. Garner won't get anything. Ten thousand? That's a lot less than what you were going to pay."

  Colleen one-hands the helmet onto her head, no straps, and wrestles into the jacket so she can keep the gun on the woman. "It's not enough for me to save your ass?"

  "I can walk out any time I want. It's you who needs me." She crosses her arms, teeth chattering.

  Colleen checks the gun, makes sure it's ready. She knows guns, knows the AR-15, knows her Glock, knows her daddy's shotguns and Nate's collection of the baddest asses he could find—.44 by Dan Wesson, Desert Eagle, .357 Colt with a six-inch barrel, the revolver that fires magnums and .410 shells, the sawed-off pump he found in a burned-out meth lab. All hers now.

  The AR-15 sucks. She hates it. But it'll do.

  "When I get back, be here." She starts down the hall, then turns, has to grab the helmet before it falls off. "And the only way you're getting any money is if I can shove it straight up your cunt."

  Turns her back and off she goes. That bitch doesn't have the balls to ambush her. What the hell were they thinking? They could make a shit ton more money helping the cons bring in drugs than they ever could off her and Rome's payday. And if they wanted Lafitte dead so bad, why not just do it, right? No money at all. Do it. Just do it. This was like some sort of retard nightmare.

  She turns her phone on. A couple of unanswered calls. She dials 911. It never connects. Never rings. Shit. No time.

  Around the corner, there's a pile of dead guards, one or two flashlight beams still on and crossing midair. Guns without clips tossed on their bodies. SWAT shit was useless. Colleen dropped her helmet. Ahead, a steel door is closing as if on its own. No, wait, someone behind it, pulling it closed carefully. The magnetic locks aren't working. He must not have heard her. She thinks she hears a man's voice, low and rough. Then a woman's. Yeah, it is. A man and a woman talking. Coming from right behind that door. If she plays it right, maybe she can do this only firing one or two shots. Then, down falls Lafitte. Finally. She and Rome can keep the money, get on with their lives. Finally.

  She eggshells it past the dead guards, heading for that door.

  Chapter 13

  Ri'Chess waits in the cafeteria with Jean Robert and a few trustee kitchen workers who Ri'Chess owes big time. Couldn't have done it without them. It smells warmer in here than in the rest of the joint. Fresh rolls baking. But the rest, good god, man, whatever meat they got back there smells like toasted rubber or something. If it didn't smell like that all the time, Ri'Chess could've blamed it on his trustees out making sure this fake riot turned into a real one. But it is what it is—bad meat simmering in vats of bad cream of mushroom soup for bad hot dish.

  Goddamned stupid name, "hot dish". Ri'Chess says this to Jean Robert and then says, "Call it casserole like the rest of us. No, no, wait, call it what it really is. Call it digestible lube, so, like, later the rape'll go smoother."

  Jean Robert barely grins. What the hell, he understands English, right? He thinks it's not funny? Motherfucker rapes every type of man in this joint, but he won't laugh at a rape joke?

  "Fuck you, man." Ri'Chess shakes his head. "Crazy nigga, some sort of, uh, like Rocky villain. Shit."

  About that time comes shouting from the hallway outside, then some of his men, acting like they just scored a TD, whooping it up, fist-pumping. Following behind are two big sons a bitches, a pissed-off white guy being carried/dragged, whatever, between them. Guy in a fine Captain's uniform. Guy with preacher hair.

  "The fuck you think you trying to pull here?" Garner shouts from half the cafeteria away, thinking he still has a say in this, Ri'Chess knows. It's going to get fun up in here.

  "Mr. Garner, we couldn't have done it without you."

  "It didn't work!" Garner, closer now, tries to pull himself away from the cons. Ri'Chess nods and they let go. Got to play it out a little longer for some real laughs, you know. Especially if he has to stay behind and probably be transferred out again. He's thinking somewhere warm this time. Garner's still going off. "It didn't work, and now Lafitte's out running around, everybody's out and we've got visitors stuck inside. And now you send these assholes to bring me to you? Call this back. We've got to shut it down. Time for Plan B."

  White man in his face. Yeah, got no weapon, no back-up, no chance, and still he's so used to black boys trembling at his every word that he ain't figured it out quite yet.

  "I don't have a Plan B, Boss."

  Garner shakes his head. "Yours is mine, you fucking moron. We have to shut it all down, get the power going, which it already should've been. You need to bottle up these guys. It was just supposed to be the gym, right? That's your part."

  "So improvise. We out. What you going to do about it?"

  "I can sell the warden on a power outage. We can get everyone in here, get the heat going from the ovens, get all the men fed, until we can get up to the control room."

  Ri'Chess can't help but grin as his guys start to break up a little. That serious gangsta shit, you know, just playin'. Then they all laughing. Ri'Chess holds up his hands as he tries to calm himself down, tries to calm them down, Garner getting redder in the face.

  Ri'Chess says, "I'm sorry, Boss, I'm sorry. Didn't mean no disrespect just now. We…we didn't."

  "Getting too cute, Ricardo."

  "Sir, sir, listen, sir." Ri'Chess steps over and lays his hand on the Captain's shoulder like a good friend would. "I'm sorry, but what did you expect me to do? What would playing along with your puppet show get us in the end, right? It's got to be something more. So we took it while we could."

  "Took what?"

  "Shit, son, we done took your prison. The power comes back on when I say so. The doors won't lock again until I say so. And you don't even want to know how many of your guys we've killed."

  Garner doesn't say anything. He's still red, but Ri'Chess knows the man's not going to blow up now. He's got to regain control. He won't. He can't. But let him try.

  "Look, you don't understand. Someone's already noticed we're offline. Has to be. I'm betting they've got a whole goddamned army on its way to figure out why. That blizzard isn't going to stop them from busting in and shooting anything that doesn't drop to the ground. You want that? Or do you want what I promised? One way, you get paid. The other, I don't even want to guess."

  Ri'Chess shrugs. "The fuck I need with money? I've got more money that that in my Chrysler, man. In the glovebox, I'm saying. This ain't about money. You handed over the keys to your kingdom, sir. It's mine now."

  Another nod at his guys. Garner catches it too late. Too busy being superior to realize he's not. Men on both sides grab his arms. He can't even squirm, so tight they've got him. Drag him over to one of the long, cold aluminum tables, still dirty with streaks from last night's dinner, spilled coffee and tea, congealed cheese sauce. Jean Robert reaches down for the kicking legs and stills them like they're a couple of tree branches. They're that easy to break, at least. He lifts Garner's legs while the other two grit their teeth and swing the rest of the cop on top of the table, then hold him down while he yells and curses and thrashes. But those legs, just one man's hands keep them from moving at all. Ri'Chess is impressed, as always. Goddamned voodoo or something, this nigga.

  Garner yells, "What do you want, then? I can give it to you! Do this, you're fucked! You're so fucked! You're fucked!"

  "Yea
h, you'd think so." Ri'Chess pulls a chair from the next table, takes a seat. Standing that long makes his feet hurt. Like he's been exercising. Sweating, even. Too hot in his own skin to notice everyone else shivering. He's just thinking about those fresh-baked rolls. "Thing is, boss, listen. No matter what I do in here, this whole thing looks worse for you guys. Shoving us in a place not even finished yet while you got the white boys in proper cells. Even the Indians, and compared to them, we're like the Jetsons, we're so civilized. But African-Americans? More of us than anyone else? We get the gym."

  "It's not my fault! I just work here, and I handed you a golden ticket. You shit all over it! Come on, man, after it's all over, just think what I can set you up with."

  "I already know." He grins, shows some teeth, even. "And it's like some sorta mousetrap. Whatever you give, you can take away. Get me to do anything you want like that, am I right? You ain't giving me shit. You just giving yourself your own personal nigga. Gonna buy me, that's it."

  "Come on, you're full of shit."

  "Shit. Full of shit. Lot of shit being thrown around, sounds like to me. Once I get done talking to a few reporters, or a congressman, or, hey, maybe some sort of special Congressional hearing. Imagine me on C-SPAN? In a suit, brother? Soon as I tell them what sort of way you run this place? I bet you I'll either be out on the streets again, or at least in a white man's prison. Talking golf courses, shit like that."

  Garner shakes his head. "They don't have that any more. Long gone."

  "Got to be better than this, though. Power goes off, we all turn into Popsicles? Got to be better than this."

  "They won't believe you. Stick with me, though, I'll back up your story. We'll both get out of here. Blame the warden. Blame the system. I don't care, we'll both get a better deal."

  "Mm mm." Ri'Chess closes his eyes and hums like his grandma used to when she knew he was fibbing. "Again, Mr. Garner, sir, that all depends on you being good to your word, and let's face it. You ain't. You ain't now and you certainly wouldn't be after this here, would you?"

  Could be he really was that dumb as to just now be figuring out what's about to happen. Could be. Or to think that he can bargain his way out. What sort of cop is so arrogant as to think he can tell a lifer, now, to trust him and then let him have the run of it all? Like a steak opening a lion's cage, right?

  Garner's still chirping. "They won't believe you. Somebody here will talk. You'll get sent someplace even worse than this. You'll die for this. You know I'm right."

  Ri'Chess laughs. He imagines how Buddha must've sounded when he laughed. Bet it's pretty close. The men standing around him know better than to join in because this is Ri'Chess's moment. This is how it all turns their way. "Mr. Garner, you ever eat the food our fine cafeteria serves up for the men? I don't mean the specials they fix you, but the actual convict-made, convict-ate meals off the line?"

  He doesn't wait for an answer. Just raises his hand and snaps his fingers. Two trustee cooks in their spattered aprons and funny paper hats fast-walk out of the back with a big goddamn pot between them, steam flowing behind. Sloshing the white cream of mushroom goop over, dripping like curdled milk down the stainless steel before going splat on the floor.

  "Almost every day, boss. Every day. Some sort of big ass vat of oozing diarrhea. They were going to make this one into hot dish. Again. Goddamn, this some bad motherfucking shit." Ri'Chess rubs his nose. "Good god, man, you letting them feed this to us? You ever tasted it?"

  Garner wrenches his neck back to watch the trustees. "You want better food? It's yours. Gourmet, even. Fried chicken, even! Whatever you want. Barbecue? Sweet potatoes?"

  Even Jean Robert smiles at that one. Everybody except the two men straining with the pot laughs—one of them, little white boy got twig arms, but goddamn if every muscle in them ain't working hard to keep holding on—and one of the soldiers says to Garner, "You racist even when you about to die. That's stone cold, man. Gotta respect."

  "I'm sorry, okay? Come on. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I didn't. I'm really trying here, guys. This wasn't all just for me, but for you, too."

  "Enough," Ri'Chess says, slices his hand across his neck. "I didn't say nothing about fried chicken and collards, Massa. I asked you if you tried this hot dish. Have you?"

  "My mom always cooked a great hot dish."

  "Was it this one? You getting on my nerves now, boss."

  "No, okay, no, no, I haven't. I've never eaten this food, okay? You want me to taste it, I'll taste it. Okay? Just…yes, I'll taste it."

  Ri'Chess shrugs. "If I were you, I'd've said no. But hey, it's your funeral."

  Another nod and the two trustees with the pot of bubbling cream of whatever stumble over and upend the whole pot on Garner's face. He doesn't even get a chance to scream because they aimed right for his mouth. Now he's thrashing his head, and the two men holding the cop's arms are getting splashed on and yelling "Shit!" because it burns and shit.

  Ri'Chess yells out, "No, y'all doing it too fast! I said slow!"

  Because then there's none left and Garner is spitting it every which way and hacking, trying to get a scream out, his back going rigid and arcing as they hold his arms and legs. The goop slides off his face, taking strips of skin with it, everything blistered and torn and angry red.

  The guys with the pot set it on the next table. Sheepish. The little white boy said, "It was heavy and hot, that's all. I'm sorry. We've got more in the back, you want to try again."

  Ri'Chess rocks in his chair until the momentum carries him up. He steps over to Garner's side, careful to avoid all the shit on the floor. The boss is still with it, sort of. His eyes are wide but blistered. He's finally cleared his mouth and nose and is taking in quick loud breaths. Ruh ruh ruh. His neck, his cheeks, his ears, all a pulpy mess. Chopped mushrooms and onions slide down his cheeks. Cream soup streaked with red. Can't even tell if the man realizes where he is anymore. Good. It isn't what Ri'Chess expected, but he's glad he got to see the motherfucker suffer this bad. He looks up at the two cooks.

  "Yeah, why don't y'all try that again? Slow this time."

  Chapter 14

  If Billy is cold, he's not showing it. Short, thin sleeves on the guard's shirt. Mrs. Hoeck imagines the even colder body of the man he took it from. She's glad Ham never took his coat off. In all the hubbub, it would have been left behind like her pink fluffy one, which she very much wishes she had now. The only thing keeping her from shivering is her silent prayer, over and over, You sent him to me, now help him lead us out.

  Hard to think of Billy as an angel, but the Lord works in mysterious ways and this is one time where He's having to work with what's available. Too sudden of a supernatural intervention—an instant clearing of the snow and eighty degree weather, or all the prisoners going to sleep just as a helicopter shows up—would fly in the face of faith. While the old Bible types needed such shows of the miraculous to get them on board, God now preferred more subtle methods.

  Billy keeps ahead of them when they come to corners, takes the rear on long stretches, always circling. Then another open door, this one with a sheet shoved hard into the crack so that the lock couldn't catch when the power came back on. Echoes of shouting prisoners from every corner make Mrs. Hoeck flinch and lose her train of thought. The prayer reduced to Dear Lord dear Lord dear Lord.

  The door ahead, with its wire-enforced glass, looks more like the inside of a hospital than a prison. To the left is a glassed-in control room, able to keep an eye inside and out at all times. A big man appears at the door. He fills the entire doorway, then steps into the hall, fills most of that too. Fat but hard. Young, barely out of his teens. He's an Indian, Mrs. Hoeck knows, a Lakota, because it's part of her blood, too. Several generations back, not so prominent anymore, but you could still see it in the faces of her nieces, nephews, and cousins.

  He nods to Billy as much as he can, too much neck fat in the way. "Lafitte."

  "I need in."

  "We can't do that."


  Past this wall-of-man, Mrs. Hoeck sees faces drifting in and out of view at the glass. More Indian men, taking turns looking at Lafitte and his family. The cellblock behind them is smoky, a fire in the middle of the floor. The smell of melting plastic, scorched hair, and…she doesn't want to know what else, but she knows. Closes her eyes.

  "Billy…"

  He reaches back without turning and pats her arm. Quiet. "Zee. You know what's going on."

  "Not about us. When they come for you, they won't find you with us."

  "Is Al on board with that, too?"

  Zee steps out of the way, lifts a hand towards the door. "You think he'd still be in there if he could be out here?"

  "Like I'd know."

  Shrugs. "He's long gone. First thing his people did was shank him. He didn't even light up that good. No fat on him."

  Mrs. Hoeck gags, holds her hand to her mouth.

  Zee says, "Sorry, ma'am." To Lafitte. "It's no go."

  "Idiot, I'm not hiding out. I'm trying to get them out. I've got to go through E Block."

  Zee stares like he heard Billy all wrong. "No one's in E Block."

  "I know better. I'm going through E-block, and I'd rather it be nice and friendly."

  The crowd at the glass begins to rumble, talk to each other, nod their heads. Going to be some sort of showdown.

  Ham crowds closer to his grandmother, and she feels his shame. In front of all these men, in front of his own father, he can't help but grab hold of Nana for a lifeline. Like any man in here wouldn't tug on their own mommies' skirts all over again, though, if given the chance.