Step On A Crack

Chapter 110

WE HAD TO CROSS a footbridge bonneted in razor ribbon just to get to Sing Sing’s main gate. Though none of us was too happy about it, because firearms are under no circumstances permitted in maximum-security facilities, the dozen of us cops and Bureau agents had to check our weapons at the window of the arsenal before being buzzed inside.

“The men who staged the sick-out have already been summoned into the lineup room,” Warden Clark said as we arrived in the drab hallway outside his office.

An urgent-sounding squall ripped from Warden Clark’s radio as we were coming down a flight of stairs on our way to the muster room. The warden listened closely.

“What is it?” I said.

“A-Block,” the warden said. “Something’s happening. A lot of screaming and yelling anyway. Probably nothing. Our guests are always complaining about the service.”

“Are you sure all the men from the shift are there?” I said as we arrived at the mesh-windowed door of the muster room.

The warden looked intently through the wired glass at the nervous-looking uniformed corrections officers.

“I think so. Wait. No,” the warden said. “Sergeant Rhodes and Sergeant Williams. The two shift foremen. They’re not here yet. Where the hell are they?”

The shift foremen, I thought. Sure sounded like ringleaders to me. I thought about the message the warden had just gotten on his radio.

“Let me guess,” I said. “The shift foremen are stationed to A-Block?”

Clark nodded. “Our largest maximum-security building,” he said.

“We have to go in there,” I told him. “Now.”