Four Walls

3

OFFICER TIM CICCONE WAS seriously hungover.

He had only gone to the bar last night intending to unwind after another long day at the Richmond Hill Correctional Facility. He'd spent half the day filling out paperwork and the other half standing out on the baseball diamond while the inmates played a ball game. Skinheads versus Muslims, and what dumbass bureaucrat had thought that was a good idea? COs like Ciccone knew that it was the same story in virtually every prison: race stayed with race. A disproportionate number of inmates in RHCF were either white men who hated black people or black men who hated white people.

When Lieutenant Ursitti had told his shift about the ball game, Ciccone had assumed it was a joke. He'd laughed and everything. So, of course, Uncle Cal had to put him on that detail. At least the weather had been nice-only in the sixties. Perfect baseball weather, unlike today. On the drive over from his place on Van Duzer Street this morning, Ciccone nearly got baked alive. He really needed to get the AC in his Camry fixed.

Ciccone, a lifelong Jersey Devils fan, didn't even like baseball. Unlike hockey, which was a man's game, baseball was a pansy sport. Well, except when Muslims and skinheads went at it. Greg Yoba hit a ground ball to Brett Hunt, he flipped it to Jack Mulroney-but Vance Barker did a takeout slide. Naturally, a fight broke out.

After a day that included an outdoor brawl, Ciccone had desperately needed a drink. He'd been born and raised on Staten Island, and he never wanted to live anywhere else. It was far enough away from the rest of the city that it felt like the suburbs, but close enough that he could go into Manhattan and take advantage of all the cool stuff you could do in a big city. Like any good suburb, his neighborhood had a bar where everybody knew everybody else. In this case, it was the Big Boot. It catered to goombahs like him-Italian-Americans who'd lived on Staten Island since the big immigration wave in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-and was right around the corner from his apartment, so it was within stumbling distance of home. Ciccone figured he'd have a few beers at the Boot and call it a night.

That was before Tina DiFillippo walked in. Ciccone hadn't called Tina for weeks, and Tina wanted him to make it up to her. So he did shots with her throughout the night: Jдgermeister, Harbor Lights, and some other things that Ciccone could no longer remember.

He didn't remember taking Tina home, either, but there had apparently been sex, based on the used condom he'd found on the floor.

Eventually, Ciccone would regret being too trashed to remember the sex. Right now, he just wanted someone to get the brass band the hell out of his head.

Ciccone had already downed enough coffee to float the ferry, and he still could barely keep his eyes open. But he did his usual routine, hoping to hell that Uncle Cal didn't notice anything.

First up was shaving. Ciccone had always thought allowing the inmates to shave was kind of stupid. Let the assholes grow beards; it wasn't like they needed to look good in here. But a lot of these guys had parole hearings, so they had to look their best, and besides, not letting inmates shave was the kind of stupid thing lawyers liked to sue the state over.

So they went through a routine. The CO was given a box full of razors. He handed them to each con in his group as they went into the bath area, and then when they were done shaving, they handed them back, and the CO would put them in a plastic recycling box. In maximum security, they made the cons put the razors on magnets to prove that there was really a razor in there. Cons were fond of substituting tinfoil for the blade and keeping the razor for themselves as a weapon. It was harder to do that with a safety razor, but cons could get damned ingenious when they decided they wanted a weapon. Why they couldn't put that ingenuity into getting off the charges against them, Ciccone never understood. But he didn't give much of a good goddamn, either, especially today.

Uncle Cal used to work in max security in Sing Sing. He thought the magnets were a good idea, and he somehow talked the bosses into shelling out for one off the books. The COs were supposed to use them every once in a while, keep the cons on their toes. Today, Ciccone was supposed to use it in light of yesterday's brawl, but the goddamn magnet made this humming noise that made it feel like someone was drilling right into his left eyeball. No way he was gonna be able to make it through the day with that thing going.

So he didn't bother. He checked some of the safety razors at random, but otherwise, he just wanted to get the whole thing over with. Once this task was done, he had library duty, which meant air-conditioning. The humidity of the bathroom was killing him.

If he could just make it to the library shift, everything would be fine.

Jack Mulroney couldn't believe his good luck. Mostly because he hadn't had very much of that type of luck lately.

It had all started at work. How the hell was Jack supposed to know that Billy, the new supervisor, was a fag? Billy had heard Jack and Freddie making a comment-it was some stupid joke about how you don't drop a coin in front of a Jew or a fag-and Billy went ballistic. Jack got put on probation, got a letter from HR saying that the bank didn't appreciate such commentary, that it was bad for business if the customers heard such talk-never mind that it was in the goddamn break room; he'd never tell jokes in front of the customers, he wasn't stupid-and if such comments were heard again, he would be suspended.

So he was a good little boy, did everything the fag told him to do. But that wasn't enough for Billy, oh no. He started leaving flyers in his in-box, brochures and other garbage-all gay-rights crap.

One night, after he got off work, he went out for a walk to blow off steam before hopping the subway home. Eventually, he got tired of walking and had a serious need for a beer, and he went into the first bar he could find-some dive on Thirty-fourth. He got a Bud Light-they had it on tap and everything-and gulped down half the pint right there. Already he was feeling better.

Then two guys sat next to him. Crew cuts, goatees, tight T-shirts, equally tight jeans, black boots, and one of them called the other "girlfriend."

"Jesus Christ," he said, "can't you fags get your own island or somethin'?"

One of them-the one wearing eyeliner, for God's sake-looked at him like he was peering over his glasses, except this guy wasn't actually wearing glasses, and said, "We have our own island. It's called Manhattan."

That was when Jack beat the shit out of him.

It had been stupid in lots of ways. For one thing, if you were gonna beat up a fag, you shouldn't do it in public. Public meant witnesses. Goddamn ADA who prosecuted must've brought half the damn city onto the witness stand. And if you had to do it in a bar, do it in one where they knew you and might cover for you. A stranger beating up one of the regulars wasn't gonna fly.

So Jack was stuck, especially since the DA had been on a hate-crimes kick as part of his reelection campaign, so they were going full-tilt boogie on Jack's ass.

But at least he showed those fags what for. It was worth it just for that.

After he arrived at RHCF, it didn't take long for Jack to figure out that he needed to pick one of three sides: the Muslims, the skinheads, or the victims. (There were also lots of gangs represented inside, but you had to have been one of them on the outside first.) No chance with the Muslims. Jack never had a problem with black people-hell, the guy he'd told the coin-dropping joke to was black, and he'd busted a gut laughing-but Jack was still too pale for them. And no way he was gonna just sit on the sidelines and be one of the fish they all stepped on.

Besides, when they found out he was in for "fag assault," the skinheads welcomed him with open arms.

But it was hard being a white guy in any prison-suddenly, he was the minority, which, as a white male Christian, Jack wasn't really used to. And then at the baseball game yesterday that asshole Barker had to go and do the takeout slide.

You just didn't do that. When Jack was a kid, he used to watch the Yankees' second baseman Willie Randolph jump over guys who tried that. Jack had always liked Randolph-in fact, he started paying attention to baseball again when the Mets hired Randolph to be their manager.

But Jack was no Willie Randolph. Barker's foot slammed right into him, and Jack couldn't leap out of the way fast enough. His shins still hurt.

Then they had to go and put him in the goddamn box. He spent the whole night in solitary confinement, with no windows, no light except when they opened the food slot. It was a nightmare. It was torture. He could barely sleep, mostly because closing his eyes and opening his eyes were the exact same thing. It was like living with a blanket over his head.

In the morning, they let him out. That was the first piece of good luck, as usually you were in the box for at least twenty-four hours. But Sullivan said something about how everyone thought the ball game was stupid anyhow, so they only gave him and Barker an overnight stay. Jack was grateful, as just the one night had left him exhausted, sweaty, and hyper.

They'd put Barker in the box, too, and he looked just fine coming out of it, like it was a day at the goddamn beach. Sweat plastered Jack's short hair to his scalp, but Barker only had a few dots of sweat on his dark forehead, and his hair was dry. Bastard.

From the moment of the takeout slide, Jack had wanted Barker dead, but it wasn't until the other man came out of the box pretty as a picture while Jack was a total wreck that Jack decided he needed to kill Barker himself.

First thing he did was go to Karl Fischer, as he couldn't retaliate without permission. Jack hated talking to Fischer, though. A major-league skinhead, in for murder, Fischer was only in RHCF because he was in the middle of a long appeal.

But nobody white did anything in RHCF without talking to Fischer first. Fischer had pull, and he had people. Most of the few white folks in RHCF banded together under Fischer, giving them strength in numbers, and part of that was protecting each other. Fischer had given Jack his blessing, and Jack knew that Fischer would have his back.

His good luck held: Ciccone was the CO in his block today. He'd pulled the razor out already and was pretty sure he'd be able to sneak it past Ciccone. If it had been Bolton or Sullivan, or that new guy, Andros, Jack would've been worried, but Ciccone didn't know jack or shit, so he figured he was clear.

Then Jack saw the magnet and panicked. He'd shoved the razor under his tongue, which was fine as long as he didn't talk.

But the magnet wasn't on. And Ciccone looked like hammered shit in any case. Sure enough, he took the empty safety razor, left the magnet off, and dumped it. He didn't even acknowledge Jack.

Now Jack had a weapon. He'd never killed anyone before. Beat lots of guys up, but that was it.

Barker, though, he'd earned it. He'd shown Jack up, not once, but twice. So now Jack would kill a man for the first time.

He wondered what it would feel like.