The Animal Factory (5 page)

“How much has he got?” Earl asked.

Black Ernie answered, “Half a piece. It come in on a visit a couple days ago and he kept it cool, just selling to some dudes over in the South block.”

“He won’t have half an ounce now,” Earl said.

“He’s got a couple, three grams left,” Paul said. “When Ernie told us, we sent a runner in to see if we could buy some … told him we had a couple hundred dollars. He sent word that was just what he had and to send the money in.”

“An’ that, folks, is just where we are now,” T.J. said.

Earl grinned, his hard-angled face turning warm. “So okay. I know you motherfuckers had a reason to send for me. What is it?”

“Ah, brother,” T.J. said, “you’d have gotten fixed if you all was layin’ in the hospital with a broken dick.” He hugged Earl again, and although the older man was an inch taller and weighed one hundred and ninety pounds, he felt like a rag doll in the grip of a grizzly bear.

“I believe
that
,” Earl said, “but in the heat of a scheme you didn’t call my name just because you love me.”

“Hunch on down here,” Bad Eye said. “We’ll run it to you. Ernie brought it to us because it’s a white boy … and the motherfucker didn’t throw us our end. We’re the motherfuckers that be fightin’ when the rugs start wasting people around here.” Bad Eye’s face was flushed and he was blinking rapidly, a mannerism of his whenever he was angry, and he tended to anger whenever the clique was into something tense.

“We’ve got to get him out of the cellhouse,” Paul said. “We can’t get in there. One of us might sneak in, but it’s a restricted section and this crew here carries too much heat.”

“You want me to get him out?” Earl said.

“You can do it,” Bad Eye said. “You’re the juice man around this camp.”

“Uh-huh … And what if you crazy motherfuckers kill him!”

“We ain’t gonna do that,” T.J. said. “Hellfire, we’re jes’ gonna talk to the ol’ boy—in the North block rotunda.”

“Here’s how we figure it,” Paul said. “We’ll make up a bogus money package, some lettuce or green paper in cellophane and Scotch tape. I’ll send word that we’re gettin’ him out—or that
I’m
gettin’ him out—and then I’ll lure him into the rotunda. The fellas here can ease in behind and rob both of us. The sucker trusts me … not enough to
give
me anything, but enough to show up. You can’t be one of the robbers,” Paul added to Earl. “He knows you and me are together from when he hit the ticket last month and I paid him off.”

The group watched Earl, and although he had some misgivings, there was no doubt that he would help. He would have preferred to tell them to wait, that he was being sent a load of heroin by someone they knew in Los Angeles, but none of them were
interested
in what might happen in a week or two; they wanted it now. Almost equally important, they wanted some action, something to ease this boredom, and prison limits the choices in that area.

“When do you want to do it?” Earl asked.

“As soon as we can,” Vito said. “I need a fix.”

Earl went back up the stairs two at a time, but instead of
turning
right into the big yard, he went left down the road between the education building and library. The yard office was a hundred yards from the arch, a five-year-old building with front and rear office and toilet. It was redwood and glass, designed thus because too many beatings had taken place in the old solid-walled office it replaced. A fence ran from in front of it across the road. Beyond was the plaza in front of the chapel, the custodial offices, and main gate.

When Earl entered, the Indian day clerk, Fitz, was at the
typewriter
. A solid convict who was personable unless drunk, Fitz looked at Earl and winked. “Pretty early for you, ain’t it?”

“Business.”

Through the glass wall Earl could see Lieutenant Hodges in the rear office. Hodges disliked him and the feeling was reciprocated.

Big Rand, the three-hundred-fifteen-pound guard who ran the office, sent yard officers on escort details, and otherwise
coordinated
activities, jerked open the washroom door. “I heard you out here, Copen, heard every word.”

“Well, tell your mother about it,” Earl said. “Assuming you can get the bitch out of the whorehouse.”

Big Rand tried to puff his face into a mask of rage, but when Earl gave him the finger the guard began grinning. Earl glanced through the glass to the rear office. “Cool it,” he said. “You forget who’s the lieutenant today. Remember, he kept your big ass in a midnight-to-eight gun tower for three years.”

“Yeah … the cocksucker,” Rand said.

“C’mon outside, Supercop. I need something done.”

“I know this is trouble,” Rand said, but followed Earl into the sunlight.

“There’s a guy in ‘A’ Section I want pulled out for fifteen or twenty minutes. His name’s Gibbs, but I don’t know his number. We can get it off the spindle.”

“Whaddya want him for?”

Earl shook his head and made a face of disgust.

“Jesus, Earl,” the giant said in defensive plaint, “I wanna know so I can protect myself in case …”

“In case what?”

“You kill the guy or something.”

“Fuck, I don’t do any shit like that.”

“Not anymore, but—”

“Okay, if any questions come up, you called the guy to interview him for a janitor’s job at the office. The guy’s on restriction because he doesn’t have a job.”

“We only use niggers as janitors.”

“So you’re a bigot now? Won’t hire a white boy?”

Rand made a “sss” sound and slowly shook his head, a surrender in what had been a game more than a test of wills.

“Wait about ten minutes before you call over there,” Earl said.

“What if he shows up?”

“Interview him for the job.”

“What’s his name?”

“Gibbs. They’ll know his number over there.”

Rand stepped back to the door and stopped. He pointed a threatening finger. “I’ll bet this has something to do with dope. I’m gonna bust you someday.”

“You’ll bust your mother. You’d rather jump in a pit with a grizzly bear than fuck with me.”

In mock rage, Rand kicked the door frame. “You’d better show some respect. I’m Supercop.”

Earl ignored Rand and began walking away.

“Inmate Copen!” Rand bellowed. “You’d better be here for work early. I wanna see you.”

Earl kept walking but glanced back. Rand was in the doorway, both arms extended, and he was giving Earl the finger with both hands.

Ten minutes later everyone except Paul was at the northeast end of the big yard; they were all watching the other end where Paul would come through the throng near the canteen after meeting Gibbs at the South cellhouse entrance. To a casual spectator they would have looked languid, but Earl saw the flared nostrils, tight lips, eyes bright with concentration. This was a big score in prison terms, and Earl had no doubt that any one of them would kill Gibbs to get the heroin if there was a chance of getting away with it. What strange icons men worship, he thought. How fucked up we get in this place—and I want it as bad as they do. Heroin is the only dope that takes away prison’s misery.

“Gimme a cigarette, Homeboy,” Bad Eye said to Vito.

“I’m dry … just a poor Mexican trying to get high.” He was slender, with striking green eyes and a bright white smile. Earl liked Vito; everybody liked him.

“How big is this
vato
?” Vito asked.

“He’s big,” Ernie said; he had a shoelace in his hand and was snapping it nervously. “We oughta get some steel.”

Earl made a deprecating sound. “Shit! If five of us need iron for one dude, even if he’s King Kong, we better go ask Stoneface to lock us up for protection.”

Black Ernie winced at the rebuke.

T.J. spoke. “Yeah, we don’t need to carry a felony for this fool. We just fake. He’s big … but he’s weak as soggy toilet paper.”

Paul Adams appeared, moving quickly from the thickest part of the crowd. He was alone.

“Check him,” Vito said. “Old folks has the coldest stroll in town.”

Earl grinned, for Paul’s walk epitomized the 1940s hipster: a hand in one pocket, the other swinging high with a snapping motion, the shoulder dipping and rolling.

“Where’s the guy at?” Ernie said, voice shrill. “That old
motherfucker
better not have fucked this up.”

Earl watched T.J. and Bad Eye look at Ernie, who never noticed the narrowing eyes. Vito did and winked at Earl, saying silently that Ernie was a fool and should be ignored. He’s a fool, Earl thought, but those youngsters are bigger fools. They’ll feed him his heart if he fucks with Paul. And if they can’t, they’ve got fifty more who will.

When Paul arrived, his usually doughy complexion was florid. “He’s coming in a minute. You dudes come in right behind us. And don’t start laughing. This is serious shit.”

“Serious as a heart attack,” Bad Eye said.

Earl was going to stand lookout. When Paul moved away from the group, Earl went ten yards the other way and stretched on the concrete bench fastened to the East cellhouse wall, crossing his legs and bracing himself on one elbow.

Suddenly Paul started moving back toward the crowd, and Earl saw Gibbs emerging. The two met, exchanged words, and came toward the North cellhouse door. Gibbs weighed over two hundred pounds, but his belly bounced against his shirt and his movements were ungainly. He looked as square as Paul looked hip.

Earl watched Gibbs’s eyes to see if they were focused on the waiting group, who were ignoring the walking men and feigning conversation among themselves. They didn’t stand out because of the other clusters of convicts. Gibbs wasn’t even looking around. He was listening to Paul.

Earl scanned the yard for guards; none were visible except one on the gun rail, and he was a hundred yards away and looking in another direction. As the two men neared the open steel door, Paul put a hand on Gibbs’s shoulder and held back a pace to let the man enter first. The instant he disappeared, the four thugs began moving, and Earl got up to arrive just behind them. As they slipped through into the semi-darkness, Bad Eye pressing to be first, Earl took a position outside the door. There was risk that a guard might start to come out of the cellhouse or Death Row.

A young black appeared beside Earl, moving quickly and glancing over his shoulder. Earl would have felt the same way if he’d met four known black militants in a blind spot like the rotunda.

Earl leaned to his left and peeked around the door into the gloom. Paul and Gibbs were against a wall, the four bandits crowding them, with Bad Eye and Vito holding right hands inside their shirt bosoms as if they had shivs hidden there. Paul was holding up his hands in supplication. T.J. snatched something from him and
pocketed
it—the cellophane-wrapped paper.

Through the yard gate came the gangly figure of Sergeant William Kittredge, walking slightly behind and to the side of a tall black convict whom Earl recognized; he had stabbed a white tier tender in the East cellhouse during a race war six months earlier. Sergeant Kittredge was obviously taking the man from the visiting room back to segregation in “B” Section and would not come toward the North cellhouse rotunda. A few seconds later, Earl heard the splat of flesh striking flesh, and then grunts and shuffling feet. Before he could look inside, a figure flashed past him, followed by a grasping, burly arm covered with red hair. The arm missed and Gibbs was loose in the yard, running in a ludicrous pigeon-toed gait, his shirttail
flapping
behind him.

Running was forbidden and the quick movement immediately attracted the attention of a gun rail guard. A police whistle bleated. Sergeant Kittredge froze and turned as Gibbs ran toward him—and saw the four thugs scurrying along the cellhouse wall. He also saw Earl—and Earl knew it, so instead of walking away he entered the cellhouse. After all, he lived there.

The bottom tier was active, especially around the television set where the Army-Navy game was about to start. Fear gnawed at Earl’s stomach. They could all spend a year or two in segregation over this, and it had been a long time since he’d been in the hole. Kittredge had seen all of them, and if Gibbs was questioned by Lieutenant Hodges … Earl next felt anger, wondering what the fuck had gone wrong in the rotunda. Had Gibbs balked? Unlikely. Someone had punched him when it wasn’t necessary, had scared him too much, and he’d panicked.

Earl went to the front row of the television seats where his place was saved by Preacher Man, a chubby thirty-year-old member of the Brotherhood who handled the North cellhouse tickets. Preacher was bundled in a heavy melton jacket zipped to his throat, and a black knit cap was pulled over his ears. It was Preacher’s usual mode of dress and, also as usual, he needed a shave. Earl gave him all the tickets he’d collected on the yard, which was the reverse of the usual process, and told him to hold them until later. Sensing something amiss, Preacher wanted to know if help was needed. Earl shook his head and went back through the rotunda. He stopped in the shadows to peer out. Kittredge, Gibbs, and the black were gone. Nothing was happening. The sergeant would have had to keep going with the black, so there would be a delay before the repercussions started.

The gang had scattered. Earl prowled in the direction they’d gone and found Paul.

“What happened back there?” Earl asked.

“Ernie trying to be a bully. He smacked the chump in the mouth and the guy broke and run. He was scared shitless. Ernie couldn’t wait for the chump to dig it out of his sock.”

“We shot a blank, then?”

Paul made a face of disgust and nodded. “We might wind up busted, too … if Kittredge saw us.”

“He saw you. Where’d Gibbs go?”

“They got him, took him to the hospital.”

“So where’s everybody at?”

“Vito split to the West block, Ernie’s with his friends, and the Dynamic Duo went to the gym. Bad Eye is madder’n a
motherfucker
. He’s cussin’ a blue streak. T.J. is phlegmatic as usual, but you know how he is. He can be murderous and you never know it. If we go to the hole, Ernie might be in trouble.”