Savannah Swingsaw

5

"You know those prison movies where the new fish comes in and his cellmate is this muscle-bound asshole that tells him to take the top bunk or else get his head busted?"

Bolan nodded. "Yeah."

The muscular black man in the wheelchair looked at Bolan menacingly. "Well, you got the top bunk, new fish."

Bolan didn't move. "What if I'm afraid of heights?"

The man rolled his wheelchair to within three inches of Bolan's feet.

"How do you feel about a shank in your gut?"

Bolan aimed up to the top bunk, bounced on the thin mattress. "Hmm, not as high as I'd thought."

The black man in the wheelchair grinned.

"Well, well, fish. You're a lot smarter than most guys in here. One look at me in this chair and they figure they can take me. All they got to do is maybe tip over my chair or run around behind me. Some tried." He chuckled in a gruff rumble.

Bolan jumped down from the bunk, carrying his toothbrush to the sink. The black man whirled his chair around faster than Bolan thought was possible in the small cell. He was in his late thirties, but his arms were huge globes of muscles with thick veins crisscrossing his forearms like underground cables.

His chest was equally as developed, slabs of dark stone straining at the cotton prison shirt.

Only the legs looked out of place, shriveled stems flopping limply from side to side as he moved the chair.

"My life story isn't any of your business, chump, so don't ask," he snapped, catching Bolan's stare.

"Right," Bolan said. He didn't have to ask.

He'd seen men like that before. And there was a look in the man's eyes, the kind of hidden pain recognizable only by someone who'd shared at least a glimmer of that pain. Bolan splashed some cold water on his eyes and turned to face the man in the wheelchair.

"Nam?"

The black frowned with surprise, nodding slowly.

"When?" Bolan asked.

"Sixty-six, near Saigon. We bulldozed some rubber plantations near the Cambodian border."

Bolan nodded. "Operation Cedar Falls."

"Yeah, that's right. You there?"

Bolan hesitated. He heard a hopeful note in the man's voice, but being in Nam wasn't part of the biographical file he and Brognola had created for Damon Blue. If there was going to be any chance at all of this, mission succeeding, he'd have to stick to the script. "Nah, I wasn't there. My brother had a friend. He yapped about it all the time."

"Sure," the man in the wheelchair said bitterly. "Everybody had a friend. Shit." He spun his chair around and wheeled forward to the bars. "Just stay outta my face, Blue."

"Fair enough. Only what's your name? I like to know whose face I'm staying out of."

The big man in the wheelchair kept his back to Bolan, his dead knees pressed against the bars. He didn't bother answering.

"Lyle Carrew," Gordon Schultz said.

He blew his nose into his napkin, then peeked into the napkin before crumpling it and tossing it onto his lunch tray. "That's his name. Shame about him being crippled and all."

Bolan shrugged, spooned more tomato soup into his mouth. The food wasn't too bad, no worse than most hospitals, but there wasn't enough of it. He'd finished his Salisbury steak and beet salad and had given Gordon Schultz two cigarettes for his soup and half a pack of crackers. The information came free.

Schultz stashed the smokes in his shirt pocket.

"Cripple or not," he went on, "the guy can handle himself. Saw him bust the arm of Billy Fieldstone last week. Young Billy's from down Folkston way, that's Okefenokee Swamp land, and he's got a bit of the KKK in his blood. Figured Carrew was an easy target. Learned different real fast."

"What's he in for?"

"Lyle?" Schultz smiled. "He's 'waitin' trial like us. Only he ain't as smart. At least you and me was just practicin' our trade, tryin' to make a buck. You holdin' up the liquor store, me a bank. But Lyle there..." Schultz chuckled "...he was just havin' fun. Tore up a whole wing of the V.A. hospital. Dumped files, beat up a doctor, scared the hell outta the nurses. Tossed a desk and a coupla TV'S from the eighth-floor window. Took four cops to cuff him. Not bad for a guy in a wheelchair."

Bolan stopped in midsip and looked across the room to where Lyle was eating at a table by himself.

"Has a temper, huh?"

"Damn straight. And that ain't the first time he tore that joint up. Last time he got thirty days. This time, I dunno. If he opens his smartass mouth to the judge...." Schultz shook his head to indicate it would be plenty of time. "They usually keep guys in wheelchairs in the infirmary, but Lyle put up such a fuss, you know, discrimination against the handicapped, that kinda crap, they stuck him in here with the rest of us. Some victory, huh?"

Bolan shrugged. "That's his problem, not mine. He's just my cellmate." He pointed his spoon at a table across the isle where Dodge Reed sat hunched over his ice tea looking frightened. He seemed even younger than in the photograph Hal Brognola had shown him. "What's the kid doing here? Mess up on some fraternity prank?"

"Him? That's, uh, Reed. Got some stupid first name, what is it? Chevy or Ford. Somethin' like that." Schultz laughed. "We got him coupla days ago from the downtown jail. Some kind of embezzlin' from a record store. Kid stuff. Well, he's going to do some growin' up real soon."

Bolan kept his voice bored, indifferent.

"Whaddya mean?"

"See that guy over there? The one with the bullet head and the tiny eyes."

Bolan followed Schultz's gaze to a tall lanky man stacking empty trays and glancing possessively at Reed. "Big fella."

"Yeah, about six-six. Strong, too. Name's Bertrand Stovell, but calls hisself Rodeo. He's let it known that the Reed kid is his."

Bolan studied Rodeo from across the room. There was the mean look in the eyes that Gus had talked about.

Tattooed snakes crawled out of each sleeve of his shirt and coiled around his wrists like bracelets. He was completely bald except for one six-inch tail of braided hair at his nape.

Reed glanced up from his tray once and saw Rodeo looking straight at him. Rodeo grinned, showing a set of brown, twisted teeth.

Reed frantically looked back into ice tea.

"Rodeo always get what he wants?" Bolan asked.

Schultz snickered. "Mostly. Hell, just look at him. This ain't no federal pen, Blue. Not the Big A or anythin', where they got your hard-core dopers and killers. This is county, mostly made up of nonviolent types who're just pullin' their time, smokin' a little weed now and then. But basically they're just tryin' to get as much good time as possible to get out. They don't want no hassles. Problem is, we got a hell of a lot more cons in Georgia than we got cells, so the Big A, that's the Atlanta pen, been sendin' their overflow here. Screwed everythin' up, man. Those guys got their own rules, their own way of doin' shit, man. The rest of us just stay outta their way. Rodeo wants the Reed kid, fine. Who's gonna stop him? There'll be more tomorrow. One thing this place ain't short on, it's residents."