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Eddie’s murder had left the atmosphere in the jail even more tense than normal. I fought to hold back my rage at the man’s death. I knew who was responsible, even if the guards appeared clueless. I suspected they knew who the guilty party was, but were too frightened to take any action. Callum had too many people behind him. The rest of the white community would riot and more people would end up dead. No one else spoke up, and I kept my mouth shut, too. I knew opening my mouth wouldn’t get me anywhere. I had to take things into my own hands.
“Do you miss your little friend?” Callum mocked me at every opportunity. “No one to share snacks with now?”
I bit down on my anger, balling my fists. He wanted me to react, and I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted—not like this, anyway. I needed to be smart. I couldn’t give anyone a clue about what I was doing. I didn’t want to spend any more time behind these bars than necessary, but Callum wasn’t going to get away with what he was doing. He was controlling men on the streets, who were putting pressure on Vee, and now he’d killed Eddie. I’d killed enough men like him in my life, and had gotten away with it.
Callum had no idea who he was up against.
I was still on yard duty for work. I appreciated the time outside, but now I had another reason to be out there. One of my main jobs was mowing the grass, something that kept me fit as well.
The next time I was on yard duty, I quickly checked that no one was looking and then leaned over the front of the machine and pulled the spark plug lead. The mower died instantly.
“Hey,” I called out to C.O. Wyber. “The mower’s just died on me.”
“Can’t you get it working again?”
I just shrugged.
“Fine. Take it over to electrical. See if they can do anything about it.”
I nodded and dragged the mower toward the building which housed prisoners working in electrical. They were taught to fix pretty much anything in the building that had power going to it—toasters, washing machines, and, of course, the garden equipment, too.
A number of men looked up as I walked in, hauling the mower with me. The doors were double wide to accommodate large items of machinery. I spotted the man I wanted.
Shawn.
The one responsible for killing Eddie.
He glanced over the mower and spotted the problem right away. “It’s the spark plug lead. Are you totally fucking useless?”
I shrugged. “It’s not my job. Can you give it a once over while I’m here? The blades have been jamming.”
“Fine,” he snapped, tipping the mower onto its side and hunkering down next to it.
I repressed a smile and left him to it.
***
Two days passed until I got back out there again. The jail had a large number of recreation areas, so the job of cutting grass was never really done.
After I finished mowing, I bent to the machine, making out as though I was clearing the grass cutting from the rest of the machinery. Instead, each day I worked, I used the end of a set of nail clippers, which I’d dismantled, to loosen the screws on the lawnmower’s throttle lever cover. I knew the time I had available to do this was barely a couple of seconds, just as the guards walked the length of the yard and turned left so their backs were to me. I wasn’t able to loosen the screws in one go. Instead, I came back, day after day, giving the screws a twist to the left each time, until it became looser and looser.
A single twist one day, then another twist the next, and the next, and the day after that.
My heart crawled into my throat as finally the cover fell away. Beneath the cover was a large tension spring—several inches in length. Working quickly, I unhooked the spring. The strong piece of metal was curved on one end, like a fishhook, and another inch of coiled wire made up the other end. I grabbed the spring, trying to hide what I was doing with my body, and rolled it into the waistband of my pants, before picking up the cover and jamming it back on with the screws. I felt sure someone would have seen me messing around with the mower, and I was poised for an alarm to sound and for the C.O.s to start yelling for me to get on the ground. But when the alarm sounded, it was only the same one that was used every day to signal the end of work duty.
I straightened and made my way back toward the building. I felt like the piece of metal twisted into the waistband of my pants was huge and impossible not to notice, but as I walked toward the building, no one paid me any more attention than normal.
I caught sight of Callum. He caught my eye and gave me one of his snide grins that made me want to knock all his teeth out. But I held myself back.
The moment we were back at our bunk beds, I flipped the spring out of the waistband of my pants. Again, using my body to hide what I was doing, I quickly slipped the spring into a hole in the mattress which I’d already created in preparation for this moment. If anyone saw what I was doing, no one dared to say anything. I hoped the guards wouldn’t decide to have another shakedown any time soon. They’d searched the dorms only a couple of days ago, so I hoped I’d be safe. If I was found with such an item in my possession, it wouldn’t look good. I’d probably end up pinned down for Eddie’s murder as well, and I couldn’t afford for that to happen.
While I wanted my revenge quickly, not only because I wanted Callum to pay, but also because I didn’t like having the spring in my mattress, I needed to bide my time. Things needed to be put into action if this was going to work, including straightening the fish hook end of the spring.
I had a quiet word with Gil. I needed to get my hands on something else before I could carry out my plan. I traded smokes for what I needed. Gil gave me the nod and handed me a carton, an old juice box, but I knew there wasn’t juice inside.
I deliberately waited in the bathroom, knowing Callum and his cronies would find me there.
They walked in, and I hid the box behind my back, but not quickly enough, making sure they saw.
“Hey, what have you got there?” Callum demanded.
I scowled. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit. Hand it over.”
I glared at him. “Make me?”
Pleasure swept across his face. “Haven’t you learned to keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told? I thought your friend Eddie would have taught that to you when his blood was running down the drain.”
“Fuck you.”
Callum gave the nod to Clark and Shawn. They rushed me, hitting me in the gut, making me double over and snatching the box from me.
Shawn took a sniff. “He’s got some hooch.”
Callum laughed. “I never took you for much of a drinker.”
I sucked in a breath; the punch had winded me. “I needed something to take the edge off.”
“This shit is ours now.” He lifted the carton in a mock toast. “Thanks for the drink. Now get the fuck out of here.”
I kept my head down, pressing the smile threatening to spread across my face between my lips, and left the bathroom. It would be lights out soon. I hoped the hooch would be strong enough to do the job.
Back in my bunk, I heard the laughter of the others as they returned to their bunks. One of the C.O.s shouted something to them, but they didn’t take them seriously. With little access to alcohol in here, our tolerance levels were at an all-time low, the few mouthfuls affecting the men like several shots of liquor would have done on the outside. I hoped they wouldn’t end up saying or doing something in their inebriated state which would get them thrown into solitary. That would ruin everything.
I lay in the dark and waited. I was good at waiting. My adrenaline levels were too high to risk me falling asleep. Before long, the dorm was filled with the usual sounds of men sleeping—rhythmical snores, grunts, someone muttering in their sleep. Still, I waited. I needed for everyone to be in the deepest point of their sleep cycle. I couldn’t risk anyone waking up and seeing me.
The time had come.
Moving as silently as possible and shielded by the cover of darkness, I slipped from my top bunk, lowering myself to the floor. My bunk mate rolled over in his sleep, and I froze, my breath held. He settled back down again and I allowed myself to breathe. Slowly and cautiously, I pushed my fingers through the slit I’d made in the mattress. My fingertips located cool metal. I’d known it had been there all along, had been able to feel the hardness pressing through the thin mattress, but I’d taken comfort in its presence. I pulled out the spring and quickly used the frame of the bunk bed and brute strength to straighten the curved end into a spike. I slipped the makeshift weapon up the sleeve of my shirt. If someone demanded to know what I had, I’d be screwed, but if someone thought I was just wandering around, they wouldn’t spot the spring.
My mark was the next cubicle over.
I walked carefully, light-footed, alert for any changes. My skills might be rusty from my time inside, but I was still a killer, a predator. Never did I feel more alive than when I was going in for a kill.
I stopped beside the bunk Callum inhabited.
The man lay asleep with his mouth open, breathing in not quite loud enough to be a snore, but not far from it. Disdain rolled within me. This was a sorry excuse for a man. The world would be a better place without him.
I removed the spring from my sleeve.
Leaned over the top of him, the metal weapon poised.
His breathing suddenly stopped and his eyes snapped open. He saw me, and the instant knowledge of what was about to happen filled his face.
I didn’t hesitate.
With a single smooth stroke, I brought the straightened end of the spring down at an angle, directly through his eye socket and then up into his brain. The eye popped in a bubble of fluid, and the orbital bone behind crunched as the spike drove straight through it. I clamped my hand over Callum’s mouth, holding down hard, using the rest of my body to pin down his arms and legs to stop him flailing around. I didn’t want any noise or movement he made to wake anyone else. The alcohol earlier had done its job, and his friends around him were all out of it.
I held Callum down until he stopped struggling. His breathing grew shallow, his remaining eye wide and staring in distant agony at the bunk directly above. I would have hit the part of his brain that controlled the body’s base functions such as breathing. He wouldn’t last much longer.
I was right. In less than thirty seconds, his body slumped beneath me. A dark patch spread out across the sheets at his groin where he’d lost control of his bladder.
My night’s activities weren’t quite done.
Working carefully, I placed my hand on Callum’s forehead and pulled the metal back out of his eye. It came free with a strange sucking sensation, but I had a strong stomach and it didn’t faze me. I’d seen and done worse.
With Callum dead, I turned my attention to the man I knew was responsible for actually killing Eddie. The one who’d done the dirty work. Callum might have been the one to order the job, but that asshole was the one who’d carried out the act. I wanted to kill him, too, as he snored, unaware his friend was dead, but I needed someone to take the fall for this. I wiped my fingerprints from the spring using my shirt, and then held the end of the metal using the same piece of shirt.
He slept with his hands folded across his chest, on top of the sheet.
Carefully, making sure I didn’t disturb his slumber, I lifted one of his hands slightly and placed the coiled end of the spring beneath it. It only needed the slightest touch to transfer his prints over to the weapon. Then I gently released his hand again. I froze for a moment, making sure there was still no change in breathing from anyone around me—except of course, for the man I’d just killed. Everything remained the same.
With the same caution, still using the bottom of my shirt to hold the end, I pushed the spring beneath his mattress, just out of sight.
The job was done.
I turned slowly, as cautious not to wake anyone now as I had been at the start. I needed to get back to my bunk without anyone seeing me, or it would be obvious I’d been the guilty one.
No one moved, the sound of sleeping all around me continued. I had no reason to think anyone had seen me. But then I saw one person was awake and staring right at me. The older Jewish guy, Gil, the same one who’d organized the hooch. We locked eyes and my breath stopped. But then he gave me one slow nod, and closed his eyes again.
I had a bottle of water, which I used to quickly rinse off my hands, wiping them down on a tissue which I threw back into Callum’s cubicle. I’d deliberately chosen the eye socket as the place to kill him, knowing the blood loss would be a lot less than if I’d cut his throat or stabbed him in the heart. I’d also known the death would be quick. While I didn’t believe he deserved a quick death, I also didn’t want to get caught.
I climbed into bed, and waited for morning for all hell to break loose.