Inside

25

It was nearly one in the morning. Except for some hushed talking, the occasional flush of a toilet or the jangle of keys, the Security Housing Unit was quiet this late at night but it wasn’t dark. It was never completely dark. The lights dimmed at 2200 hours after the first-watch shift change, but that was it.

Peyton’s heels clicked as she walked down a corridor fronting eight cells. From inside one of these “pods,” the SHU appeared smaller than it was in reality. Not in terms of building size—the structure was two stories and had a central command post that sat high above both tiers—but in housing capacity. One of the largest and oldest isolation facilities in the country, Pelican Bay’s SHU housed more than twelve hundred men in gray cells made almost entirely of concrete—the bed, the chair, the desk, everything except the stainless-steel combination toilet and sink. There were no bars on these cells like in old prisons. Painted bright orange, the doors were solid steel, except for round nickel-size cutouts and a slot for the meal tray.

Most inmates in this unit lived alone, but thanks to overcrowding more than a few had cell mates. Depending on the cell mate, sometimes it was better to be alone. Peyton couldn’t imagine spending twenty-two and a half hours a day locked in such a small space with the same person for years on end. She wondered how many marriages—even happy ones—could withstand that kind of close, unrelenting contact.

But going without human interaction wasn’t easy, either. Pelican Bay was designed with no windows except a narrow vertical slit in each cell. The convicts couldn’t see trees or earth or sky, or at least no more than a few inches of it. They couldn’t see the outside of the building where they were being held or other inmates because no two cells lined up directly across from each other. Twice a day corrections officers brought trays of food. Every three days they delivered soap, shampoo and toothpaste in little paper cups. Beyond that, SHU residents had very limited contact with officers, and rarely received visitors. For one thing, family and friends had to call ahead, set up an appointment and get clearance, which made it a hassle. For another, Pelican Bay was too remote. Most of the inmates came from L.A., a two-day drive. Even when they did get a visitor, they had to sit in a booth separated by Plexiglas and speak via telephone. There were men in here who hadn’t received a visitor in years.

Some mental health professionals claimed such extreme isolation pushed men over the edge, drove them insane. Pelican Bay was often the target of this kind of criticism. After what she’d witnessed, Peyton wouldn’t argue with that. At a minimum, she believed years in the SHU couldn’t be healthy, that it would do nothing to make these men less angry or less violent. Just the opposite was true. But she didn’t have a better option for curtailing gang activity. As soon as the government provided one, she’d be more than happy to implement it. That was actually one of the things she hoped to achieve in the foreseeable future. She wanted to incorporate more consistent and effective rehabilitation programs to see if that might lower the recidivism rate for Pelican Bay offenders; if so, other prisons might adopt a similar approach. The entire system needed a massive overhaul. Just for starters, Peyton felt the state should provide a structured integration program for offenders who’d be leaving conditions such as these to go back onto the streets. A whopping ninety-five percent of the twelve hundred who called the SHU home were eligible for parole, meaning they’d be free one day.

Weston didn’t have a cellie. Peyton preferred he be alone to reflect on the actions that’d landed him in the SHU. She hoped removing him from gen pop would isolate Buzz, shift the paradigm of power enough that Virgil could make some headway. Weston belonged in the SHU, anyway. This wasn’t a place one was sent by a judge. Only those who acted up on the inside or joined a gang came here.

Clearing her throat, she stopped at his new cell. “Sergeant Hutchinson said you had something to tell me?”

The holes in the door darkened, indicating that he was standing on the other side. “Why you doin’ this to me, boss?”

His voice sounded far more nasal than usual, due to the swelling of his nose. Peyton couldn’t help feeling a bit smug that he hadn’t gotten away with the one-sided beating he’d no doubt intended when he and his three buddies ganged up on Virgil.

“You know why you’re here.”

“No, I don’t!”

She adjusted the goggles she’d donned to protect her eyes, a necessary precaution since so many inmates created homemade projectiles they launched with the elastic taken from the waistbands of their underwear. Although the missiles could be dangerous in their own right, she was less worried about the pointy end of such objects than what might be smeared on them. The inmates used feces, urine, semen, anything they could to spread hepatitis and HIV. She wore a knife-proof vest for the same reason. It not only protected her from blow darts, it covered her vital organs in case someone tried to stab her by shoving a shank through one of the holes in the door. “Come on. You started that fight in the dining hall.”

“Who says it was me?” A flash of white told her Weston hadn’t bothered to dress for this little interview. He was wearing boxers and a T-shirt—standard apparel. Residents of the SHU hardly ever wore the yellow jump-suits they were given, even in the daytime. What Weston had on now, together with a pair of flip-flops, was pretty much what he’d have on tomorrow. There wasn’t a lot of incentive to dress when you never saw anyone. Some of the men in the psych ward refused to wear anything at all.

“You tell her, Wes!” someone shouted.

With so little sensory input, the inmates became very sensitive to any change in their surroundings—and eager for the smallest distraction. No doubt the man who’d just yelled wasn’t the only one listening in. Peyton didn’t have to worry about Detric Whitehead overhearing, though. She’d been careful to put Weston in a different pod than his fearless leader. But that didn’t necessarily mean Detric wouldn’t hear about what Weston had to say, especially if it was at all out of line. “You’re telling me it wasn’t? You didn’t start the fight?”

“No, ma’am. It was that new guy. Bennett.”

She couldn’t see his face, couldn’t even see both eyes at once, but she sensed that he was scowling. “Bennett picked a fight with you—and your three friends?”

“Yes! I’m not lyin’!”

But, of course, he was. That was what he did whenever it suited him. “On his first day inside, when he doesn’t know who you are or what you can do or what the consequences might be? I find that a little difficult to swallow.”

“Then swallow this!” someone yelled, and several others laughed, the sound of it echoing off the concrete walls.

Just as she’d thought she would, Peyton regretted coming. If not for Virgil, she wouldn’t have bothered. “I don’t know very many guys who want to walk into something like that.”

“Because other guys can’t fight like this dude can! He’s not scared of anything. You saw what he did to me, what he did to Doug and Ace.”

Peyton sighed. “You brought me all the way down here for this? So you can whine and complain?”

“To tell you this ain’t fair! Why am I the only one being punished?”

“You’re the ringleader.”

“That’s bullshit!”

Growing impatient, she said, “It’s late and I’m exhausted. Do you have anything to tell me or not?”

“Like what? What do you wanna hear? What did you think I was gonna do? Turn traitor? Snitch?” He sounded convincingly belligerent, but his eye suddenly disappeared from the hole while he slipped a folded piece of paper beneath his door.

“You’re gonna make me go J-Cat in here,” he continued, probably for the benefit of the men on either side of him. “This here is the bowels of hell.”

J-Cat was prison slang for “crazy.”

“You’ll survive.”

“I’m claustrophobic,” he insisted. “I can’t handle doin’ this kinda time.”

She retrieved his note and put it in the pocket of her skirt. “Then I suggest you curb your violent tendencies.”

“That’s all you got for me? That’s it? Oh, man, this is jacked up,” he complained, but when he shuffled back to his bunk, she knew his real message was in her pocket.

Virgil wanted to get some sleep. The painkiller the doctor had given him had made him sleepy. And he needed the rest to help him heal so he could cope with whatever came along tomorrow. But he wasn’t about to close his eyes while his little rat of a cell mate kept scurrying around, pacing and muttering. After what had happened in the dining hall, Virgil doubted Buzz would challenge him, not while they were alone. But if the Hells Fury told Buzz to shank him in his sleep, Buzz would have to do it whether he was scheduled to be paroled next month or not. Buzz had access to the gang’s new enemy, which put him in a tight spot. If he didn’t follow through, his buddies would kill him before he ever got the chance to walk out of Pelican Bay. If he did as they ordered, the authorities would charge him with murder and he’d be looking at another long stay, this time in the SHU. But that was what it meant to belong to a gang. The welfare of the group came before the welfare of the individual.

To ease the pressure on his stitches, Virgil rolled over as Buzz made another pass between the toilet and the door. “What’s your problem?” he asked at last.

Buzz’s eyes darted to him, but he didn’t stop pacing. “I don’t have a problem.”

“Then you’re tweaking, because you haven’t quit moving since I got back. Why don’t you lie down and get some sleep before you make yourself sick?”

“I have a lot on my mind.”

“Think about it lying down.”

He kicked the toilet. “It’s not that easy! Havin’ you here isn’t good, man. I can feel it. And I’m sittin’ on four weeks, just four weeks, until I get outta this shit hole.”

Virgil shrugged. “So what’s the worst that can happen?”

“You act like you don’t care about your own damn welfare, but you know what? You’re gonna care when they come for you. You got my man sent to the SHU. For that, he’s gonna have you strung up by your balls.”

“I think he already tried.”

Buzz ran his fingers along the wall. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

“What, he’ll bring eight guys next time? How many of you pussies does it take to get the job done?”

“Man, you got a death wish!” he cried. Then he surprised Virgil by chuckling and shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe Virgil had actually called the HF pussies.

That was the slight softening Virgil had been hoping for. “If what I saw in the dining hall is the best you got, I’m not afraid of you or your friends,” he said. “Anyway, maybe by the time you come after me again, I’ll have some support of my own.”

Buzz quit laughing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the one who told me to clique up. You guys want to cause me trouble? I’ll clique up with the NF and give you trouble.”

Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. “That gang’s for Mexicans. They won’t want you.”

“You sure?” Virgil felt fairly confident he could convince them. He made a better friend than he did an enemy—at least, that was what he hoped to convince Buzz of. “I could always say I have Mexican blood on my mother’s side.”

Buzz started fidgeting again. “Do you?”

“As long as I’m willing to do what needs to be done and I’m loyal, it won’t matter, right?”

“You’d be loyal to those spic assholes?”

“As long as they were loyal to me.”

“What the hell? What sort of white supremacist are you?”

“One who’ll fight as hard as necessary to come out on top. Nobody in here’s going to push me around, I can tell you that. Not even my own kind. Least of all my own kind.”

Buzz brooded on that for a few minutes, then said, “What if I talked to Weston? See what he has to say about recruitin’ you for the HF?”

A quick yes would be too suspicious. Virgil had to resist, put up a fight. “Hell, no. Your boys just shanked me.”

Buzz didn’t try to talk him out of his refusal. But he climbed up on his bunk as if he’d finally thought of a solution to his problems, which gave Virgil hope that the pain he was suffering because of that fight in the dining hall wouldn’t be wasted.

Remembering what Peyton had said when she came to visit him in the infirmary, he let himself drift toward sleep. All I know is that I can’t stop thinking about you. Every time I close my eyes you’re there.

No matter how this ended, at least he had that.

Wallace was still up, looking annoyed as he used her remote to scan through the television stations on her TV. Peyton couldn’t help resenting his presence even more now. Why wasn’t he gone? Or at the motel?

Telling herself to be diplomatic—she or Virgil might need Rick’s support as they navigated the next few weeks—she tried to bear up under the stress of having him around, in addition to what Weston Jager had said in his note, and forced a smile as she walked in.

“Hey, what’s going on?” she asked, her tone friendly.

He dropped the remote and leaned his elbows on his knees. “I’ve been waiting for you. I felt bad I was tied up when you came home earlier. Didn’t mean to chase you off.”

“You didn’t chase me off. How’s it going with your wife?”

“You know how it is with relationships,” he said. “One minute everything’s fine and the next…” He clicked his tongue. “She’s coming up with all these stipulations and demands.”

“Divorces are never easy.”

“She wants to take the kids out of state so she can live near her parents. Can you believe that? They moved to a small town in Wyoming a couple years back and she’s trying to convince me it’ll be the perfect place to raise the girls. It might be perfect for her, because she’ll never have to deal with me, but I’ll never get to see my kids.”

“She doesn’t care about that?”

“She says I’m so busy I don’t see them, anyway. She doesn’t understand the pressure I’m under, never has.”

“It’s hard to understand unless you live it,” she said, but she suspected his tendency to put his own needs, wants and desires first was more to blame than his job. “Just a sec.” She went into the kitchen to set her purse on the counter and plug in her cell phone.

“Give me an update,” he called. “How’d it go with Skinner today?”

“Not as smoothly as I’d hoped. Can I get you a glass of wine?” she called back, but a quick glance in her fridge told her he’d already availed himself of the beer John had left behind when he’d brought dinner. “No, thanks.”

She poured herself a splash of chardonnay and carried it into the living room.

“So?” he said. “What happened?”

“Virgil’s already been shanked,” she announced.

His eyebrows shot up. “That didn’t take long. How badly is he hurt?”

She sat across from him because she couldn’t bear to sit any closer. “He’ll be okay, but the injury required twenty-six stitches.” After kicking off her heels, she tucked her feet underneath her. “Four men jumped him in the dining hall.”

“Four? He’s lucky to be alive. How’d he do?”

“He put three of them in the infirmary. They have to be impressed.” Which was what Virgil was hoping, of course. “Whether or not the damage he inflicted makes them want to kill him or recruit him remains to be seen.”

Wallace whistled. “We’re off to a running start.”

“There’s more.”

He was wearing the clothes he’d had on yesterday, but he’d removed his tie, if he’d ever had it on to begin with, and rolled up his sleeves. “I’m all ears.”

“Weston Jager passed me a message.”

“Weston is…?”

“A high-ranking member of the Hells Fury.”

“Right. I’ve heard you talk about him before.”

“He’s also one of the men who went after Virgil.”

“Any chance you could call him something else?”

“Like…?”

“Skinner or Bennett. Every time you say Virgil, it’s as if…as if you consider him our equal.”

This was what he focused on instead of asking about Weston’s message? “He is our equal! Why do you always have to put him down?”

“Why do you always have to defend him?”

She dropped her feet and scooted to the edge of the couch. “I should never have told you what happened between us. You can’t get past it.”

“I could if you didn’t give away your true feelings every time you mention his name! Was he that good in bed?”

He was amazing, the best, but not because he was so skilled at pleasure. Their night together, before she’d spooked him into throwing up his defenses, was the most honest sex she’d ever had, the first time she’d made love with a man whose soul was as bare as his body. Their night together had meant a lot to her. “You’re making too big a deal out of it,” she muttered. “I am?”

“Yes!”

“Fine. I just—” he pinched the bridge of his nose “—maybe it’s him. I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“This morning? At the table? There was so much raw desire coming off him it felt like he was making love to you right there in front of me. And he didn’t care whether or not it bothered me.”

Why would he care how it affected Rick? Wallace thought the whole world revolved around him. What was going on between her and Virgil had nothing to do with anyone else. It didn’t have anything to do with what Virgil was trying to accomplish or what she had dreams of doing, either. It was just…there. Unexpected, inconvenient, frightening in ways, but inescapable.

To avoid an argument, she attempted to redirect the conversation. “Can we talk about what really matters?”

“I’m in the middle of a divorce, Peyton. I’m trying to let you know that I’m interested. And all you can do is obsess about someone who’d be terrible for you. Do you realize that getting with a guy like that would ruin your whole career?”

She wanted to ask how Virgil would ruin her career. As long as they waited until after the investigation, it should be fine. But Rick hadn’t qualified his statement. If she chose Virgil over him, would he try to sabotage her position with the CDCR?

She suspected he might, which was shocking and insulting and only made her dislike him more. But Virgil’s stint in the infirmary was too fresh for her to forget the danger he was in. Maintaining the peace with Rick would create a far more stable foundation from which to help him. Anything unrelated to getting him out as quickly as possible could be dealt with later. “I just told you that Weston Jager passed me a note. Aren’t you the least bit curious about what it said?”

“What’d it say?” he asked, but she could tell he was still preoccupied with his jealousy.

She removed the torn paper from her pocket and handed it to him.

“‘Get me out of here, and I’ll get your man in.’” He glanced up at her. “What the hell?”

“I put him in the SHU because of the fight. I didn’t want to give him and his pals the chance to gang up on Virgil again. I felt the others would be much less likely to attack if Weston wasn’t there to give the go-ahead. Even if they did, Virgil would have one less opponent, right? But Weston’s scared of spending too much time in the SHU, blames his buddy’s stay there two years ago for sending him to the psych ward for good. So he wants out and he’s offering us a deal.”

“Then he knows?”

“That’s the odd part. I don’t think he does.”

“But this note…”

“Weston would never turn. He’s too strong right now, too angry. And if he knew, he would’ve gone after Virgil in a different way. It would’ve been serious from the beginning.”

“Getting shanked isn’t serious?”

“It started as a fight. They were just feeling him out, seeing what he had. Virgil admits he sort of provoked it.”

“You’re guessing that Weston’s fishing.”

“Based on the behavior he’s exhibited, yes. I’ve worked in corrections long enough to have a good feel for these things.”

He tossed the paper on the coffee table between them. “That’s quite a gamble.”

Weston’s chicken scratch stared up at her, making her doubt her conclusions. “He’s feeling us out, too. There are all kinds of murmurings and conjectures at the prison. The slightest change or even rumor sets off a chain reaction, and the men are always pushing, testing boundaries, seeing what they can get away with. Maybe our trip to the library on Friday caused some speculation. He hears something’s up, meets this new guy who can fight and gets suspicions.”

“You’re that convinced he’s bluffing?”

“I am. Otherwise, I would’ve pulled Virgil out. Weston didn’t know when he fought Virgil in the dining hall, or that incident would’ve gone down very differently. That he’d find out within hours is…unlikely, especially when he spent most of that time isolated in the infirmary.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Rick argued. “He knows. It says so right there!”

“He couldn’t. We’ve told only a handful of people, trustworthy people who have nothing to gain by seeing this fail.”

“So how do you suggest we react to this?” He gestured toward the paper. “Leave him in the SHU?”

Would that create more or less danger for Virgil? She wished she could say with one hundred percent certainty…. “Yes. We laugh and tell him he’s crazy. Even if he does know, I think it would make him question whatever information he’s received.” At least that was the conclusion she’d come to at the prison while pacing in her office, weighing every detail in her mind. She’d thought it through carefully and decided to trust her intuition and the experience she’d gained working with men like Weston. Then she’d forced herself to drive home even though she was terrified to leave Virgil behind.

Rick crossed his legs, folded his hands in his lap and leaned back. “I think you should set up a meeting with Weston.”

She jumped to her feet. “What?”

“Don’t get upset. Just listen. If we can enlist his help, Virgil will become a validated member of the Hells Fury in no time. This other guy you’ve mentioned—this Buzz who’s his cell mate—he’s small potatoes by comparison, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“And Buzz’s about to be paroled. Weston would be the better sponsor. He’s more credible. And he’s giving us an opportunity. I say we take it.”

“No.” She shook her head. “If Weston learns Virgil’s a snitch, Virgil’s dead.”

“We don’t have a crystal ball, Peyton. This was a risk from the start. You pointed that out pretty emphatically. Enlisting Weston’s help will advance our goals the quickest.”

“You’re not listening.”

“What I’m hearing is that you don’t know for sure either way.”

“It smells wrong. I work with these men every day. Weston would’ve handled this differently if—”

“If you make a mistake, you could be signing Virgil’s death warrant!”

“I understand that. But I can’t trust Weston. I just can’t do it.”

A muscle began to twitch in his cheek. “Are you saying you won’t?”

The challenge he’d issued gave her pause. He was pulling rank.

“You’re not going to respond?” he said.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Then do as I say. Last I checked, I was still calling the shots for this operation.” He cracked a smile, but she knew there was no levity in his words.

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Then I’ll take responsibility. I’m a big boy. I can deal with it.”

But if anything happened to Virgil, could she? “Fine. I’ll meet with Weston in the morning,” she said.