Power and Empire

20

I’m… I’m not even supposed to be here,” Eddie Feng stammered, his back against the cinder-block wall of Dallas County’s Lew Sterrett jail. Individual cells ran around the edge of the open dayroom and down the corridors that radiated out like the spokes of a wheel. Time for lights-out was fast approaching, but for now, the prisoners in this pod sat in small knots of congruent color and race around the open bay. Some watched a small television in a cage on the wall. Some played cards. Some, Feng imagined, plotted to kill him. There was a control room at the far end, staffed by two DSOs who faced in opposite directions, dividing their time between a set of far too many monitors and the dayroom of a different pod. Feng doubted they would see a triple homicide if it went down right in front of them. The place smelled like farts and Lysol, but it didn’t matter, he was so scared he could hardly breathe anyway. The African American detention services officer standing beside him was nice enough. She was about the same size as Feng, with hair buzzed as short as humanly possible but that could still be called hair, and an oval face that said she would have been attractive out of the formless green uniform. The tag on her chest identified her as Officer Lincoln. Feng thought she’d smiled at him once while he was standing on the red line at the book-in counter, but the more he talked to her now, the more he thought maybe she just had indigestion.

“I’m not kidding,” Feng yammered on. “I really should be in solitary. I’m helping out the FBI on some high-level stuff.”

The DSO rolled her eyes, then scanned the crowded dayroom full of inmates. She kept her voice low, just loud enough for him to hear. “Why don’t you speak up a little bit? I’m sure there are a lot of nice citizens in here who never met a real live rat before.”

Feng gulped, pulling his arms, turtle-like, inside the top of his orange jail scrubs in an effort to chase away the chill. For some reason, they kept this place like a damned refrigerator.

“Right,” he said. “I’ve just never been in jail before.” He shrugged, armless, and inched closer to Officer Lincoln like a frightened child looking to make friends with the teacher at recess.

Lincoln gave him a glare. Her voice boomed. “Back off, inmate!”

A husky DSO with a blond porn-star mustache glanced up. Lincoln shook her head and raised a hand to let him know she had the situation under control. He went back to watching the inmates as they lined up at the pay phones.

Feng took a step back, grimacing at her sudden outburst. She gave a slow nod. “You’re welcome,” she said.

“What?”

She continued to look out at the dayroom. “I just gave you some undeserved street cred in here, inmate. These animals think you popped off to me, and they’ll give you a little space for a minute. People in here smell fear. Know what I’m sayin’?”

“Got it,” Feng said. “Thank you. Would you mind making a call to the FBI for me? Tell them something’s messed up?”

Officer Lincoln turned now and gave him a disgusted stare. “Seriously, inmate. You really need to back off.”

Across the dayroom, DSO Tony Chang stepped out of the control room and made his way across the open floor. A couple other correctional officers rolled their eyes, but the inmates moved out of his way. He spent a lot of time in the gym and was proud that his girlfriend had taken up the sides of his size-seventeen uniform shirt so it formed a tight V from his lats down to his thirty-two-inch waist. The inmates needed to see they weren’t the only ones who could do pull-ups. Reaching the 2 East Corridor, Chang gave a quiet nod to an Asian inmate lined up at the bank of pay phones. The young man at the phones, who had a Sun Yee On triangle tattooed on his neck, was a recent initiate, and Chang knew he was eager to prove his devotion to the brotherhood.

Chang had been the one to handle Eddie Feng’s booking. A simple tick in the wrong computer box saw to it that he didn’t end up in solitary like the FBI requested. Chang tried to get the guy thrown in with the triad brothers who’d been arrested at Chicas, but they’d all been put on lockdown, so it was all up to him.

On cue, the tattooed man spun in line and punched the nearest inmate in the throat. This man, who happened to be a short but extremely muscular member of La Eme, staggered backward just long enough to catch his breath. The Mexican Mafia soldier recovered quickly and rushed the lighter Asian who had dared to disrespect him, driving him into the concrete wall. Four other triad members, unaware of any arrangement with Officer Chang, jumped to the defense of their embattled brother, piling on in a flurry of fists and elbows and teeth. Their presence drew more La Eme foot soldiers into the fight.

Ethnic and rival gang tensions boiled just below the surface of these men, incarcerated nose-to-nose with people who they’d just as soon see dead on the street. In prison, gang members might be segregated. County jails did what they could, but space was at more of a premium.

Alarms began to sound, echoing off the concrete-and-steel enclosure. Inmates not involved in the fight reluctantly stepped away from the free entertainment as the bored-sounding intercom announcement that accompanied the alarms ordered them to their cells.

Seconds later, heavy boots slapped the tile floor as detention officers poured into the dayroom from various points around the jail. Officer Chang stayed where he was, glancing up at the control room. The two officers inside stood up so they could see over their screens.

Inmates filed by, returning to their assigned cells. When Eddie Feng shuffled past, arms tucked inside the sleeves of his scrubs, Officer Chang fell in behind and followed him to his cell.

“Hold up,” Chang said, pulling Feng aside to give the other inmates time to move to their own cells and get out of earshot. “Aren’t you supposed to be in solitary?”

Feng’s mouth fell open. “Finally!” he said. “Somebody’s got their shit together. Thank you. Seriously, man, thank you.”

Klaxons still raged, not quite drowning out the free-for-all that had broken out in the dayroom.

“Come on,” Chang said, motioning down the now empty corridor toward the heavy steel door. “Roll up your stuff. I was just coming to look for you.”

Feng’s two cellmates would be involved in the fight, so it would just be Chang and the inmate.

The inmate was so happy about moving to solitary he was humming when he walked into the cell and didn’t see Chang place the small rubber wedge that would keep the door from closing all the way. All Feng’s personal belongings had been taken, either by the FBI or at booking. He’d been issued a wool blanket and a stubby pink toothbrush made of flexible rubber. It wasn’t much, but when nothing is all you have, even a toothbrush that looks like a kid’s toy is a treasure worth guarding.

Chang took the small syringe from his shirt pocket and stepped forward, jamming the needle into the back of Feng’s thigh at the same moment the singing idiot decided to turn around and thank him again. Feng jerked away, swiping at Chang with one hand and throwing the pitiful toothbrush with the other. The syringe went flying and landed in the stainless-steel sink/toilet combination. Unfortunately, Chang had been in mid-push and the contents of the syringe that hadn’t gone into Feng’s leg ended up on the floor.

Chang grabbed Feng by the throat and drove him backward into the lower bunk, fingers squeezing tight to keep him from crying out. With the syringe gone, he had no way of knowing how much fentanyl had made it into Feng’s muscle. Three milligrams would be enough to kill a normal-sized man — and Feng was a runt. Even so, Chang had intended to give him half again that much, just to be on the safe side.

The DSO was making a decent side living selling fentanyl in the jail. The markup was incredible, with a five-hundred-dollar investment bringing him as much as ten grand. He could have made more out on the street. These inmates weren’t exactly rolling in cash — and he sure as shit wasn’t going to take Cup O’ Noodles or honey buns in trade. Still, ten grand was ten grand. The fentanyl came in from China, where it was manufactured in legal labs — and then stashed in the little desiccant packs of silica in pairs of running shoes he ordered online. It was almost too easy — and he got to keep the running shoes.

Everybody knew the fentanyl was coming inside — the inmates called it Murder 8. When it didn’t kill them, it made them lethargic and easy to deal with — unlike the spice and other toxic shit that was being smuggled in. Chang sometimes felt that he was providing a service of calm for his fellow DSOs.

Feng had been so flighty at booking that no one would question it if he died of an overdose. Chang had the stuff on hand already. A call from a contact said the Sun Yee On brothers needed a favor — and there would be an extra twenty G’s in it for him.

It would have been so easy if the dumb bastard hadn’t turned around.

Chang held him against the bed with his body weight, one hand on his neck, the other flat across his mouth. Finally, he felt the man go limp. Seconds later, he gave a series of gurgling croaks. If Chang had injected enough, Feng should have stopped breathing — but he didn’t. His pupils constricted to tiny black dots. His lips turned blue and his breathing was labored, but his stupid lungs still pumped away.

The syringe lay on the ground at Chang’s feet in a puddle of liquid. He thought about picking it up and trying to inject any remaining drops, but the syringe was wet. He felt in his pocket for nitrile gloves and came up with only one. That wasn’t going to work. Fentanyl was potent stuff and could be absorbed through the skin.

Chang let the man drop face-first onto the lower bunk, stifling the urge to bash his head against the wall or simply choke the life out of him. Either would leave far too much physical evidence — but if it came to that, he’d do what he had to do and work out the rest later. He couldn’t leave Feng like this. If the drug wore off without killing him, Chang would end up in jail himself — and correctional officers didn’t do well on the inside.

Alarms still sounded up and down the corridor, but the riot would be quelled at any moment. Whatever Chang did, he had to do it quickly. An army of detention officers would have descended on the dayroom by now. His Sun Yee On brothers had done what they could, but they could keep the diversion going for only so long. Chang pulled the feed to the camera in this cell just before the fight broke out, leaving the control room no time to notice the gray screen among the dozens they already had to watch.

He scanned the tiny space, racking his brain for some sort of plan. Then he looked down at Feng and realized the answer was right there in front of him.

Jail administrators went to great lengths to keep inmates from harming themselves, but if someone was determined to die, they found a way. Chang had seen some ingenious methods over his four years as a correctional officer. One guy had even stuffed enough toilet paper down his own throat that it was impossible to get out. It was interesting to watch, but Chang didn’t have time for that now. This needed to be much quicker. Fortunately, prisoners had developed several methods to bring about their own deaths that were relatively quick, and, at least as important, could be applied right under the noses of their guards.

Chang slowly released his grip on the near catatonic Feng.

“Lucky bastard,” he whispered. “On the outside, they’d kill you with an ax.”

Chang rolled the lolling man onto his belly. He stepped back long enough to grab the cuffs of Feng’s inmate-uniform trousers and pull them off in one quick motion. Feng’s head was turned sideways, and Chang could see a flash of panic in his eyes as he pulled away the man’s pants. Immobile and exposed, there was absolutely nothing Feng could do.

Chang chuckled as he ripped the scrub pants with his teeth, tearing them lengthwise from cuff to cuff before twisting the orange cloth into a makeshift rope.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s gonna be a hell of a lot worse than you think.”

Working quickly, he tied a fixed loop in one end and a slip knot in the other. Crouching over the bunk, Chang slipped the larger loop around Feng’s neck so the knot was in the back of his head. Then, grabbing Feng’s foot, Chang bent it up and over Feng’s back, pulling the knee upward until he was able to loop the slip knot over Feng’s foot, arching his back as though he were hog-tied. Dead weight from Feng’s own paralyzed leg pulled the noose tight, putting pressure against the already bulging carotid arteries in the side of his neck.

The noose did the trick of stopping blood to Feng’s brain, but it wasn’t quite tight enough to compress his airway. Gagging noises escaped his open mouth and his face rapidly took on the hue of an eggplant. His eyes fluttered. Chang relaxed a notch. Finally. It wouldn’t be long now.

Chang spun on his heel and scooped up the rubber chock he’d left in the cell door to keep him from getting locked inside. He took one last look at the choking man. When he turned around, Officer Pankita Lincoln blocked his path.

Her eyes looked right through him. “What the hell?”

Chang feigned a smile. He was big enough that he could run right over this puny bitch if he wanted to.

“Inmate troubles,” he said — and threw what he thought was a pretty damned good left hook.

Unfortunately for him, Pankita Lincoln’s father had taught her how to box.

Chang’s eyes and then his shoulder telegraphed his intention to throw the hook a mile away. She faded backward, just enough to let the hook slip by. Pepper spray in hand, she gave him a full blast directly in the face before driving her knee into his groin in a repeated, rapid-fire attack.

Chang roared in pain. His eyes slammed shut and he staggered back, instinctively trying to put more distance between himself and the searing burn. Defensive-tactics instructors taught their students to use the fingers of the nondominant hand to hold open one eye — but DT class was nothing like real life. There was no getting ready, no time to prepare. This whole thing had gone to shit.

Flailing blindly, Chang forced his eyes into a grimacing squint. His lungs rebelled, convulsing each time he tried to draw the smallest breath. Mucous membranes kicked into overtime, sending strings of snot draining from his nose. If he could just get hold of her, he could shut her up for good, maybe even make it look like she’d killed Feng — at least long enough for him to get away.

Pankita Lincoln had other ideas.