Deadlock

10

After dinner, which Reaper had consumed in silence, Lock watched his new companion embark on a punishing regime of physical exercises. Midway through a series of combination push-ups and squats known as burpees, Reaper, his torso slick with sweat, glanced up at Lock and spoke for the first time since Lock had informed him why he was here.

‘So you’re a bodyguard, huh?’ Reaper asked.

‘Something like that.’

‘ My bodyguard?’

‘That’s how it’s going to work.’

‘That so? Well, let me tell you something, the one thing I don’t need around me is another guard.’

Lock lowered his voice, aware that while the block of cells was a cacophony of shouts and grunts as inmates worked through their own exercise routines, someone might be listening in. ‘Well, you’re stuck with me for now.’

Reaper got to his feet, rubbing away at the rivulets of sweat streaming down his body with a towel. ‘That’s what the last two guys who shared a cell with me thought.’

Lock had anticipated that an inmate like Reaper might not take too kindly to his presence.

‘Just so we’re clear, I don’t intimidate that easy,’ he said, standing right in close to him. ‘Plus, you do anything to me, and you can forget whatever deal you’ve cut with the US Attorney’s Office.’

‘Might not be me you have to worry about. Only one thing that cons hate more than a snitch.’

‘And what’s that?’ said Lock.

‘A snitch’s bitch.’

Lock jammed his thumb hard into Reaper’s neck just below the angle of his jaw. He applied just enough pressure to get his attention.

‘Listen to me, you piece of shit, you keep this up and you getting on to that stand won’t be an issue, because I’ll kill you myself. Now, I don’t like you, and you don’t like me, but for the next five days we’re stuck with each other, so you do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, and we’ll be just fine.’

Reaper’s face was flushed. Lock dug his thumb in a little bit harder.

‘You got me?’

Reaper forced a nod. Lock gradually reduced the pressure, then let go, prepared for some sort of counter-attack. If Reaper had been criminally unstable before his incarceration, who knew the state of his mind now, especially given his near-suicidal demand to return to the mainline?

Reaper stepped back and massaged his neck. ‘You scare easy, Lock. All I’m saying is I’ve had a lot of years down on my own, so it’s not going to be easy to share a cell again. We’re gonna need some rules.’

‘Agreed,’ said Lock. ‘And my first rule is, your books sleep on the floor, not me.’

‘Fine, but no going near my shit unless you ask first.’

‘Well, I’m not big into handicraft,’ Lock countered, nodding towards Reaper’s crocheting. ‘Anything else?’

‘Keep the cell clean. And don’t be running off your mouth about shit that doesn’t interest me.’

As a list of dos and don’ts went, this wasn’t any more extensive than many of the people Lock had protected.

‘I hear you. I was in the military long enough to cope with sharing confined quarters.’

‘Same here,’ Reaper said. ‘But the Bay’s a little different. First, you got the toads. You gotta watch out for them.’

‘Toads?’

‘Toads. Blacks. Negroes. Then you got your Nortenos and Surenos. You getting this? Nortenos are the Hispanics from northern California, Surenos are from the south. The ones from Mexico are the Border Brothers. They associate separately on the yard, but they all fall under the control of the Mexican Mafia.’

‘That’s the gang they call La Eme?’

‘Nice to see you did some homework, Lock. Yeah, La Eme got their shit down cold.’

‘I thought they were tight with the Aryan Brotherhood too.’

‘They’re allied to whoever doesn’t draw any heat on them. Remember, out on that yard and in the unit, all that matters is that you stand with your own. Check all that black and white together bullshit at the door. Don’t matter who you are, who you roll with, or who you’re talking to. In Pelican Bay, you’re in the jungle.’