From the Chrysalis (22 page)

“Good work, Peter Pan,” Dace said, watching him hide four or five good sized pieces of the bell under some trash. “I thought that baby was cast iron.”
 

When Dace got back upstairs, Rick was already there. “Shouldn’t you be in a meeting?” he tried to say, but Rick was busy talking.
 

The smell of wood smoke hung in the air. Wooden furniture, smashed for container fires, had burned all night. Books had met the same fate, almost causing George the library con to have a seizure. Dace had taken him to the Infirmary, off at the end of the building in a conflict-free zone. As far as the librarian was concerned, nothing worse could happen. Dace hoped he was right, but there were a lot of variables. What if the diddlers or—

Oh, Christ. How likely was that? The army was coming through. That sneaky, scuttling noise on the roof—it had to be them. Or it could be one of Sandy’s men, plotting an alternate escape route, but he doubted it. That’s it, he decided, going up to Rick and pulling him aside.

“Enough about the press,” he said, his lips barely moving. “They write stuff. They don’t make it happen. We could, though. Why the hell should Sandy’s boys have all the fun?”

Rick’s eyes bulged. “You mean you want to take over?”
 

Dace cocked his head at the ceiling, hearing a sound. “The hostages?” he asked. “Do I look crazy?”
What do you think that sound is?
he mouthed. “Besides, there’s no percentage in taking over, even though we could do a much better job than that asshole Sandy.”

“Jesus, your little sister Rosie could do a better job.”

“We need to make a list of demands. You can’t keep going empty-handed to the press. It’s pointless.”

“I’ve haven’t been doing that!” Rick protested.

“Let me then,” a teenager named Steve, volunteered. Another boxer, he was the youngest recruit on Dace’s police team.
 

People laughed when Rick glared at Steve, but he ignored them. “Forget it, chump,
I’ll
talk to the press,” he snapped. “There’s no telling what a fish like you might say. Some of us want to get out of here alive. Right, Dace?”
 

Everybody groaned. They wanted to hear about the press meetings, though. Those were their only hope of a resolution, their last chance.

“Jesus Christ. When are they sending in some food? I’m starving!” Steve ventured.

“Hey, Ricky-man. Tell them we want total amnesty!”

“Flights to Brazil!”

“I’d settle for roast beef on Sunday night.”

“More recreational time.”

“I want to fuck my old lady.”

“Yeah, that’s right. What d’you call it? Get some conjugating visits.”

“That’s
conjugal,
you dork!”

“Who you calling—”

“Ah, relax, man!”

“And tell them we don’t want no physical reprisals.”

Dace listened for several minutes, then he grabbed the last speaker by the throat. It happened to be Steve. “Fuck!” he spat into the terrified boy’s face. “What a bunch of dreamers! Let’s get real here. You know the guards are gonna beat the crap out of us the first chance they get. That’s if they don’t shoot everybody in the face. Or in the nuts. That’s more their style.
Give everybody amnesty!”
he mimicked, allowing Steve to slump, unharmed, to the floor. “What the hell are you telling them, Rick? These fucking demands for better food and more play time are stupid. What the hell is this, fifth grade?”

“Easy, big guy, easy,” Rick replied, patting Dace’s shoulder. “You have a point. We want to get across how we’ve been systematically brutalized by both the employees of Maitland Penitentiary and the penal system in general.”

“Yeah, like John Q. Public will care!” Dace interrupted with a derisive snort. “How about modernizing the prison educational system? Or being paid a minimum wage instead of doing slave labour? And why isn’t somebody taking notes?”

Rick shoved something at him.“Go to it. Here’s a pencil and paper,” he said.

“Fucking fancy talk,” somebody else muttered, shooting a nervous glance at Dace, but several other men nodded.
 

Dace snapped the pencil in half, trying to calm down.
We’re pulling in way too many directions,
he thought as he jotted down their concerns.
 

Jesus, everybody had their own agenda, even if it were just to get high. Look at Rick. Every time he got back from one of his goddamn press meetings, he was all fired up with his own frigging self-importance. In prison he was the same person he’d always been: a bit of a show-off. Never mind that Dace had always admired his style, his outgoing personality, his
joie de vivre
. In another life Rick would have made a fine politician, a character actor or even a circus clown, but he was nothing here.

The men in B Block ran out of demands at just about the same time Dace’s pencil broke for good. If he hadn’t been used to writing a lot, he would have had a cramp in his hand. Shooting his foot out, he tripped Rick to his knees, bringing him closer. Rick looked a little shaky but pulled a cigarette from out of his pants and offered Dace a smoke.

“Shit, it’s quiet,” Dace said quietly as he lit up, although quiet was relative. From what he could tell, a bunch of stupid drunks were arguing in the Dome. “What a difference it makes now that we don’t have to listen to that dumb ass bell anymore.”
 

“Maybe we should get some shut eye,” Rick said. “I don’t know about the rest of the population, but we didn’t sleep a wink here last night.”

Dace nodded. He hadn’t either. Something told him that they were in for a long siege, but he couldn’t sleep. Not now. Maybe Rick … No. Rick was even more hyper and distracted than ever. Dace’s heart sank. What the fuck had Rick gotten into now?

Dace didn’t want to say anything. What people did was their own business. But he couldn’t help himself. The guy had a responsibility and he was blowing it. “Looks like you visited Sandy on your way to meeting the press. I thought you couldn’t stand that guy. What did you take?”
 

“Speed,” Rick said. “I got a lot on my mind. I need you—”

“You wanted the job!”
 

“What the hell else was I supposed to do?” Rick gave a helpless shrug.

The shrug set Dace off. “You couldn’t pay me to talk to the army, the government or the goddamn press,” he shouted. “Goddammit. Nobody has the balls to take charge of this mess!”
 

On a roll now, he detailed the absurdity of all their demands and the remote chance any of them would ever be met. Pausing for breath, he almost lost his train of thought. He had already lost Rick, who was just standing there, tapping his right shoe. Jesus Christ. What was he doing, anyway? He hated talking. He had to think.
 

They needed a plan. Even if it were just to get more food and water. Fresh water was at a premium and the kitchen was outside the rioters’ area of control. The rioters could have guaranteed access to the kitchen if any of this had been planned! Although there was almost no fresh meat and produce in the Joint at any given time, there were gallon cans of pork and beans, peas, corn, peaches, spaghetti and an assortment of Campbell’s soups on open shelving in the huge larder. Those staples of prison fare he had scorned the other day now seemed like the number one thing on his wish list.
 

Stupid,
Dace thought, but just because the biggest bingo in Canadian history was underway, it didn’t mean anybody gave a fuck if the insurgents got fed. He wasn’t sure about the offence’s strategy, but starving people into submission was one option. He doubted they’d do that, though. That would mean they’d risk the hostages, too. All six of them. Jesus. Why the hell had they taken so many goddamn hostages?

Rick held out his arm. “What?” Dace asked, but he already knew what his friend wanted. Familiarity. Something to which they both returned when they needed reassurance.

Shit
, Dace thought with distaste. The man reeked of sweat and nicotine. But Dace sat on the floor and prepared to arm wrestle him anyway. When they clapped their hands together, part of him was repelled, but Dace also ached for what for what his friend had so recently enjoyed: more cigarettes and maybe a little something stronger. Ice, speed. Once or twice Dace had cranked up, when a dirty guard had snuck some dope into the Joint, mixed with the white detergent in the laundry truck. That’d be a nice escape right now.

Rick lay almost flat on his back after the first round, his fighting arm bent an awkward angle. He wanted to have another go and at this point it was easier to wrestle than look him in the face. After the second round Dace felt a little better, but Rick re-launched his appeal, like it was the loser’s prerogative.

“What’s the point of talking to the man?” Dace asked when Rick ran out of breath. “All I want is to get out of here and that’s not going to happen.”

“I’m not asking you to negotiate, man,” Rick insisted.

“No, because you think I’m too fucking hot-headed.”

Rick’s words raced out. “I’ve been planning this bingo for ages and I’m on the goddamn Inmate Committee.”

“Jesus. You and McAllister?” Dace asked.

“Yeah, well, I know he’s crazy, but he couldn’t have done it without me. One of my buddies in the kitchen made a working model of the key to the gun cage. Oh man. You weren’t there when they busted in, but it felt like we’d all died and gone to heaven.”

“Who made the key?”

Rick shook his head. “No names, Dace,” he said almost sadly. “You know the code. I didn’t expect this to come off. It was just good luck that the new guard was so careless in rec hall the other day. We didn’t even need our key. Where was I? Oh, yeah. So Dace, all I’m asking for is a little help.”

“Fuck. You sound like the goddamn Beatles. Who the hell’s been watching your back?”

“You have! But now you gotta watch the hostages when I’m gone,” Rick continued, running his finger through his thinning hair. Once his mother’s pride and joy, most of Rick’s ginger hair had fallen out the first time he’d been arrested in Maitland. He swore it was the prison food, but Dace knew better. Rick worked in the prison kitchen and cooked most of his own food anyway.
 

“It’s the drink,” Rick’s mother always said. Well, could be. Rick was always drinking some demon away. He’d been released on the manslaughter charge just last year—he hadn’t got quite as much time as Dace—but had gotten into more trouble right away. Now he was doing more time for a heist gone bad.
 

For several minutes Rick tugged at his head, pulling it with both his strong, freckled hands. Dace stared gloomily at the sixteen cells across the way, their doors all askew, an open invitation to the prison at large.
 

“I think that we should leave the guards with Sandy,” he finally said, feeling every inch a pompous ass.

Rick snorted. “Good one! You’ve seen Sandy. We can’t let that stupid shit keep his dumb hostages. What do you think he’ll do to them when he realizes Admin won’t give into his demands? He claims he was convicted with a bunch of lies. He told the Press he was forced to talk because somebody nailed his goddamn testicles to a chair. And now he wants a pardon, for Chrissakes.”

“As if—”

Rick shook his head. “Well, he’s not negotiating for better prison conditions for us, that’s for sure. And now he’s halfway up the hostages’ asses. He’ll whack them off one by one and have more fun than a fat brat shooting balls at the village fair. And where will that leave you and me, friend? Up shit creek without a paddle, that’s where. I stopped by there and I’m telling you, he was
drooling
over Saksun. You know, the young ‘un all the queens like.”

“What? That fat—”

“I’m just saying there ain’t
nobody
getting paroled if this bingo goes bad. That means you too, Dace.”