To The Lions - 02 (21 page)

“A
fisherman,” Gage replied, having memorized the cover story.

“You
admit this?”

“I
do.”

She
beamed, showing very large and white teeth with a distinctive gap in their
center.
 
“Well, Gregory, kudos to your
honesty.”

Gage
said nothing.

“And
why did you kill this fisherman?”

“We
had a business disagreement.
 
Things got
out of hand.”

“Hmmm,”
she purred.
 
“Weren’t you and the so-called
fisherman
exporting narcotics to
Europe, and the disagreement revolved around that?”

“I
wasn’t convicted for that, ma’am.
 
The
reason was simply a business disagreement.”

“Where
in the U.S. are you from?”

“All
over, really.
 
I grew up in the north.”

“Not
that it’s pertinent here, but I adore the United States.
 
I go every year.
 
My preference is Manhattan, but I also love
San Diego and even the heartland of Nebraska, where I’ve a good friend whose
husband is an airline pilot.”

Unsure
of what to say, Gage said, “That’s good to know.”

“Did
you attempt to have the United States intervene in your case?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“They
did nothing to help me.”

“No
shock there,” she said.
 
Then she reset
her countenance.
 
“I’m the administrator
here, Gregory.
 
My name is Capitana de la
Mancha.
 
I’ve been charged with Berga for
thirteen years now…” again the dazzling smile, “…thirteen
successful
years, and I take my responsibilities very
seriously.”
 

She
narrowed her eyes as the mirth slid away from her expression.
 
“Gregory, you have an intelligence about you,
I can tell, so I will not patronize you by mincing words.
 
Forget what you know about prisons.
 
Berga is nothing like any penitentiary you
might find in the United States, or Spain for that matter.
 
We’re truly unique here.”
 
Capitana de la Mancha began taking slow steps
toward him as she spoke.
 
“My job isn’t
about rehabilitation or nurturing—not at all.
 
Rather, it’s about shielding the Spanish citizenry, and our
tourism
which, as I’m sure you know, is
a large portion of our economy and is responsible for putting food in the
mouths of our beloved people.”
 

She
stepped directly in front of him and lowered her voice.
 
“I’m assuming, since it was Africa, that you
were exporting either opium or, with the burgeoning industry that I hear has
popped up, poorly-produced
africano
cocaine.
 
These drugs are quite important to our
tourism here and I truly could care less if people choose to use them.”
 

Had
Gage been given a hundred chances to hypothesize what the warden’s welcome to
Berga would be like, he’d have never come close to guessing anything such as
this.
 
Capitana de la Mancha was close
enough that he could smell her perfume, which was quite strong.
 

“But
enough about me, Gregory.
 
In short
order, you will be inserted into the population and, according to our detailed
statistics, there is a twenty-seven percent chance you will be in the prison
hospital within one hour.
 
That number
rises to nearly fifty percent after twenty-four hours.
 
Those who can survive the first twenty-four
hours without a hospital trip typically fare quite well here.”
 
She lifted her free hand, tipped with long
red nails, starting with his left shoulder, running her hand downward over his
chest and stomach, lingering at his belt as the corner of her mouth ticked
upward.

“You’ve
a nice, hard body, Gregory.
 
Most
Spaniards aren’t as big as you and, while that could portend well for your
future, my fellow Spaniards are also a proud people.
 
Expect them to come at you with ferocity.
 
They won’t like the fact that you’re a
gabacho
, and they won’t like the fact
that you’re large, well-muscled and, I must say, quite handsome.”
 
Her hand brushed downward, below his belt,
before falling back to her side.
 
Then,
with surprising force, she knifed the plastic clipboard upward, striking Gage’s
testicles and sending him lurching forward in agonizing pain.

“I’d
suggest you pick up your game because you’ll need faster reflexes than that, Gregory.”
 
As he tried to catch his breath, her heels
could be heard again as she said in Spanish, “Have him examined and then get
him in-processed.”

The
two guards hoisted Gage to his feet and took him to the infirmary.

* * *

After
inventorying his scant personal items, the supply worker told Gage that
everything other than his toiletries would be kept in a locker until his
release.
 
That done, Gage was herded to
another station where he was issued four pair of thin green pants and four
lightweight shirts.
 
The clothes were
cousins to hospital scrubs, probably made flimsy for a multitude of
reasons.
 
His boots were taken and he was
issued flat thong sandals, like a person might wear in a public shower.
 
Gage’s sandals were a few sizes too small
and, when he mentioned this, the attendant, a small prisoner with only one eye,
mumbled something to Gage about stopping his bitching.

“If
I’m going to wear sandals, I’d like the correct size.”

The
diminutive attendant slung another pair at Gage, hitting him in the face.
 
Gage didn’t budge, didn’t even twitch.
 
He continued to eye the little man until the
guard behind him nudged him with his baton.
 
Once Gage scooped up his new sandals and slid them on, he continued on
to the end of the stark hallway, to a door marked
Enfermería
.
 
The guard opened
the door and, with a painful whack to Gage’s right kidney, propelled him inside.
 
He’d been there ever since.

Standing
alone in a white room with no chairs, it occurred to Gage that he didn’t know
what time he’d arrived.
 
He estimated
that he’d been in the infirmary for about ninety minutes, an hour of which
constituted waiting.
 
He’d first been
given a cursory physical by a gruff man he assumed to be a doctor.
 
The man had been quite old, and he stunk of
far too many cigarettes.
 
His skin was
sallow and, due to his foghorn voice and bizarre accent, Gage had hardly been
able to understand his Spanish.

Next
was an x-ray and a cavity search in the presence of two guards.
 
Their jokes tested Gage’s patience.
 
He closed his eyes and counted the
seconds.
 

Mercifully
finished with the physical, the guards shoved Gage out and instructed him to
follow the painted yellow line.
 
They
walked quite a distance in a bright, hospital-like corridor.
 
At the end of the corridor, built into the
wall, was a gray clock mated to an intercom system.
 
The clock was the same type a person might
find in a school or hospital, almost certainly wired to the other prison clocks
for precision.
 
To the right of the clock,
Gage noticed a series of wire glass windows.
 

“Stop
at the door,” the escorting guard barked.
 
From a hallway on the left, two more guards, these outfitted with riot
masks and shields, appeared.
 
They both carried
leather-handled batons.
 
The guards took
up a position just behind the door and waited.

The
first guard moved beside Gage.
 
“You will
be escorted to your cell, after which time everything will come clear as you
experience a few days.
 
Evening meal is
at eighteen-hundred-hours and will be announced by three blasts of the
alarm.
 
Lights out, in your cell, will
occur at twenty-three-hundred.
 
Got it?”

Gage
nodded.

“Toe
the door.”

Gage
walked to the door and did a military right-face.
 
He sucked in a great breath of air, wondering
if he’d be alive in twenty-four hours.
 
The attendant punched a metal knob on the wall with his hand, making the
door swing out.

From
behind him, Gage heard one of the two guards yell “Entra!”
 
Putting one foot in front of the other, Gage
stepped into the gladiator’s arena, immediately smelling the piss and sweat of
the prison’s male inhabitants.
 
The din
slowly faded away as the mostly tattooed, largely bald prisoners stopped what
they were doing to turn and stare at the new arrival.

In
all his years, Gage could honestly say he’d never felt quite so singled out.

Behind
Gage, standing at the door, Capitana de la Mancha had appeared.
 
She discreetly crossed herself as she
whispered, “Que Dios esté con usted.”
  
Even
with no idea who Gage really was, de la Mancha found him interesting.

She
also wondered if his first trip back through the door would be to the infirmary
or, perhaps, to the walk-in kitchen refrigerator that doubled as a makeshift
mortuary.

Chapter Thirteen

The
walk to Gage’s cell passed without incident.
 
The main bay, as it was called, was hexagonal and three floors
high.
 
Wide concourses ringed the top two
floors of cells, protected by floor to ceiling chain link fencing—presumably so
no one would take an accidental, or deliberate, tumble to the floor of the main
bay.
 
The center of the main bay, on the
first level, was the common area.
 
There
were built-in steel tables and chairs, along with Plexiglas encased televisions
mounted on several large columns.
 

As
the guards instructed Gage to climb to the second floor, he viewed the
prisoners staring back at him.
 
Some had
been playing cards, others watching TV.
 
On the concourses, men who had been shooting dice, stacks of
strange-looking money in piles by their feet, eyed Gage with dripping contempt.
 
There were clumps of men standing on the
concourses and, as Gage could see when he passed by each cell, occasional
prisoners reading or chatting on their bunk.
 

Every
prisoner stopped what they were doing to stare down the new arrival.

Ignoring
the gawkers, Gage turned to take in a sweeping view of the main bay as he
ascended.
 
Despite its modern appearance,
it was the devil’s gut, churning with acidity, eating away at every man forced
to call it home.
 
The smell intensified
with each step upward, redolent of sweaty men in need of soap and
deodorant.
 
Gage halted, memorizing the
image, forcing himself to accept it as his new home.
 
A baton poked his already sore lower back as
his escort growled at him to keep moving.

There
were a total of six staircases leading to the higher floors, one on each line
of the hexagon.
 
At the top of the tall
flight of stairs, Gage was told to move straight ahead before being ordered to
halt.
 
Next to him was an open door of a
cell.
 
One man was inside, on the lower
bunk, reading.
 
Upon hearing the guards
he sat up, sneering at Gage.

“Meet
Salvador.
 
He’s your new best friend,”
one of the guards chuckled.
 
“Go in and
make your bunk according to the diagram on the wall.”
 
At the end of the top bunk, military-like
linens and a blanket lay “stockaded” much in the same way Gage recalled from
Army basic training.
 
There was a small
diagram affixed to the wall at the end of each bunk, showing a properly-made
bed.
 
Both guards laughed before their
heavy boots could be heard clanging back down the steel stairs.

Inside
his cell, Salvador, Gage’s new best friend, stood and tossed his book on the
bed.
 
Unlike many of the other prisoners
Gage had seen, Salvador had a full head of hair with a pronounced widow’s
peak.
 
His face was lean and menacing as
he rolled a toothpick steadily back and forth between his narrow lips.
 
Salvador’s most prominent feature, obviously
a mark of his gang, was the massive tattoo of a horse emerging from under his
prison uniform.
 
Done in black ink, the
horse’s head exploded from his narrow chest and terminated on the highest area
of Salvador’s neck.
 
The tattoo was
dominated by the steed’s piercing red eyes.
 
Therefore, Gage pegged Salvador as a Semental gang member.
 
Based on what he’d read, the Sementals had a
small presence in Berga.

Despite
the menacing tattoo, the remainder of Salvador was unremarkable.
 
He appeared to be about 5’9” and weighed at
least sixty pounds less than Gage.
 
Maybe
seventy.

Upon
entering the cell, Gage got a full whiff of Salvador’s scent as he perused the
square confines of his new home.
 
The
bunks were naval steel beds with rounded corners protruding from the wall and
supported by hinges so they could be folded to the wall.
 
The mattress was very thin, like two
magazines stacked on top of one another.
 
Next to the bunks, also built of stainless steel and rounded, was a
sink.
 
Beside it, a pubic hair-encrusted
toilet with no lid and no seat.
 
The far
wall held three recessed shelves, all holding paperback books, and the rest of
the wall, and nearly the entire cell, was covered by pictures of a woman and
two boys in various stages of youth.
 
All
in all, the cell was bigger than what Gage might have envisioned, approximately
fifteen feet square.
 
He nodded to his
cellmate, seeing a clear plastic container on his bunk containing his
toiletries.
 
Gage noticed the bottle of
shaving cream.

Prisoners
began gathering outside the cell.

Ignoring
them and Salvador, Gage reached for the container on his bunk.
 
Salvador grasped Gage’s arm and threw it
backward, shouting an unintelligible threat and leveling a finger at Gage’s
face.
 

Shit.

Hating
the fact that he was already being challenged but steeling himself to stick
with his plan, Gage took two steps backward.

Salvador
came forward and swiped at Gage with an open hand but missed.

Gage
raised his fists and bounced on his toes.
 
Outside the cell, the prisoners stood ten deep.
 
Money began to change hands as bets were
levied.

Salvador
took up a fighting stance and began to circle.

Here we go.

Salvador’s
smile was broad and threatening, glinting at the corners due to his gold-capped
canines.
 
He must not have thought much
of Gage, or he was a good actor, because Salvador looked like a sneaky fox
who’d just been granted access to the fattened hens’ coop.
 
His first action took Gage by surprise as he suddenly
dropped and attempted a front sweep by spinning himself with his right leg
extended.
 

It
was a piss-poor fighting movement for this setting.

Gage
was far enough back, and in an athletic enough position, that he countered the
sweep by taking one step back before he unleashed a hard straight right, catching
the exposed Salvador above his right ear and knocking him unconscious.
 
Because of his vulnerable position, Salvador
fell unnaturally on his already bent left leg.
 
It twisted abnormally before springing out, leaving the prisoner spread
eagle on the concrete floor.

It
was not a dramatic fight at all.
 
Outside
the cell, “oohs” and “aahs” were followed by derisive laughter.
 
Gage heard a number of prisoners mocking
Salvador.

Despite
knowing he was being watched, and judged, Gage simply couldn’t bring himself to
continue to beat on an unconscious opponent.
 
Suddenly, the sound of sandals slapping the concrete floor took priority
over everything.
 
Whirling right, making
sure to leave few feet between himself and the back wall, Gage surveyed the
situation.
 
Two men, tattooed like
Salvador, stormed into the cell, yelling a similar battle cry.
 
Gage had no illusions that this next encounter
would be as easy as the last.
 
The lead
man was as large as he was, muscles rippling as he thrust forward with his arm pulled
back for a punch.

Though
he didn’t feel natural by remaining still, Gage held his ground until the man
swung, ducking the telegraphed punch as he caught the man in the midsection and
thrust his own body upward, cartwheeling the man over his head and sending him crashing
down onto the toilet in a hail of grunts and curses. By the time he turned to
the man’s partner it was too late to see the punch coming.
 
It caught Gage in the nose and cheek,
instantly making his eyes water and giving him the taste of salty blood in his
mouth.

Rather
than give the man a clean shot at another punch, Gage leapt over Salvador,
putting his back to the bars at the front of the cell as he glanced down.
 
Salvador was now awake but didn’t seem
inclined to get up.
 
The man who had hit
the toilet was coming to his feet, gripping his shoulder and cursing as he
grimaced in pain.
 
The third gangster,
the one dancing in front of Gage, was tall and wiry and seemed to move with
fluidity.

Having
a distinct feeling that the man in front of him had a boxing background, Gage
did the only thing he knew to do.
 
Ignoring the looping punch that grazed above his ear, he plowed forward,
catching the man as he tried to whirl away.
 
The two fell hard against Salvador’s bunk and, after scrabbling, tumbled
to the floor next to the wide-eyed, still motionless Salvador.
 
As Gage struggled to mount his skilled
aggressor, he noticed the man with the wounded shoulder staggering out of the
cell, saying something to someone.
 
No
one else seemed to be wading into the fray, leaving Gage free to ignore the
pestering blows from his downed quarry as he rained down his own elbows and
punches.

Hand-to-hand
combat had never been Gage’s favorite skill to practice, but he’d always been
good at it.
 
An uncontested left elbow caught
the downed man’s temple and, as soon as it connected, Gage knew he had
him.
 
The man’s eyes rolled back in his
head, causing Gage to slow the thundering right he was bringing down.
 
Gage glanced to his left, seeing Salvador
still lying motionless, like a saucer-eyed possum.
 
Just as Gage was about to dismount his
opponent, a ripping, stinging pain sent him tumbling forward.

As
he fell, the nerves in his upper back relayed enough of their frantic message
to Gage’s brain for him to realize that he’d just been stabbed.
 
By the time the second thrust caught him,
this time in the shoulder, Gage had spun, grabbing the stabber’s knees and
twisting him to the floor.
 
Gage quickly
cinched his legs around the stabber’s left leg, also grasping it with his
arms.
 
Once the man was under control,
Gage confirmed that he was the muscular man that had been flipped to the
toilet.
 
The man struggled against Gage’s
hold, known in grappling as a knee-bar.

His
own anger redlining, Gage repositioned his arms on the man.
 
With his forearm as the lever on the muscular
man’s heel, Gage torqued his own body as hard as he could, leaving no chance.

The
tendons popping in the man’s knee might have been .22 rounds going off in the
enclosed space.
 
He shrieked like an
adolescent girl.

Gage’s
back and shoulder were on fire.
 
He
ignored the pain.
 
With Salvador still
catatonic and the boxer sleeping nicely, Gage looked outside the cell at the
rapt audience of prisoners.

It
was time to leave an impression.
 

As
Gage had done with the boxer, he slid up the muscular man’s body, mounting him
securely with his knees holding steady pressure on the man’s torso.
 
When the man ceased his yelling long enough
to open his eyes, Gage said one thing to him.

“
Poner su lengua
.”
 
It meant “Stick out your tongue.”

Gritting
his teeth in pain, the man shook his head.
 
Gage placed his left index finger below the man’s right ear, digging his
fingernail into the auricular nerve, changing the man’s yell to a squeal like
that of a pig.

“
Poner su lengua
,” Gage growled, easing
the pressure slightly.

The
gangster put his tongue out, but barely.
 
Gage dug his fingernail in again and told him to stick his tongue out
farther.
 
His eyes wide with fear, but
his fear overridden by the powerful nerve pain, the man put his tongue
out.
 
When he did, Gage unleashed a
ferocious uppercut, making the man’s teeth snap shut with tremendous force.

On
his tongue.

Blood
spurted, then ran down both sides of the man’s face.
 
He writhed a moment more before falling into
a semi-conscious state, moaning in his delirium.
 
Salvador was up on his elbows now, staring
with awe at Gage as he stood.
 
Gage
motioned to the tall, skinny boxer that had been unconscious.

“What’s
his name?”

“Enrique,”
Salvador breathed reverently.

Gage
stood over Enrique, who was already blinking as if he was in a dust storm.
 
He smacked Enrique’s face several times and,
when he seemed lucid enough, told him to drag his partner out and never come
back.

A
full minute later, while the crowd dissipated, buzzing with delight at what
they’d seen and, as Enrique pulled the muscled body of his felled, and now
crying, fellow gang member into the concourse, Gage ripped open his plastic
container and removed the lone dingy washcloth.
 
He found Salvador’s shaving kit, rummaging through until he saw a small
pair of nostril scissors, clipping the end of the washcloth, then ripping it
apart with his hands.