The Corruptions Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Also by Vincent Zandri

  About The Corruptions

  Quote

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright Notice

  Permanence

  The Innocent

  Godchild

  The Guilty

  The Remains

  Scream Catcher

  The Concrete Pearl

  The Shroud Key

  Moonlight Falls

  Moonlight Mafia (A Dick Moonlight Short)

  Moonlight Rises

  Blue Moonlight

  Murder by Moonlight

  Full Moonlight (A Dick Moonlight Short)

  Orchard Grove

  When two cons doing several respective back to back life sentences for murder make a daring, if not Hollywood style escape from the Dannemora Maximum Security Prison in Upstate, New York, Jack Marconi PI receives a personal invitation from the Governor of New York State to track the murderers down, and deliver them personally to the front door of the Governor’s Mansion on Eagle Street. But what Marconi and his side-kick, Blood, don’t yet realize, is that something more insidious than a simple prison break has occurred in the small town of Dannemora. Because in the course of tracking the criminals down, the two gumshoes will also expose the Crypt, an insidious operation taking place down deep inside the depths of the 160 year old prison. What kind operation is it? Something so evil it will reduce the tough-as-nails Marconi to tears.

  From bestselling Thriller and Shamus Award winning author Vincent Zandri comes a riveting crime novel in the acclaimed mystery series that fans of Michael Connelly, Charlie Huston, Robert B. Parker will devour. The Corruptions is sure to keep you up all night.

  “I hope I can make it across the border.”

  —Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption

  What follows is based on fact. Some of the names have been changed for legal purposes and/or to protect the innocence of the individuals to which they belong.

  Clinton Maximum Security Correctional Facility

  Dannemora, NY

  20 miles south of the Canadian Border

  Present Day

  Little Siberia.

  It’s what the three thousand inmates call this iron house…this frigid stoney lonesome. What they started calling it not long after the stone walls were first erected back in 1844 when the inmates were forced to work the local iron mines for ten hours a day, six days a week, until their shackled ankles bled, their hands blistered, and their lungs turned to black from iron ore dust.

  The mines are gone now, but the relentless cold has decided to stay on, like a stiff, icy, iron hard-on. A reminder of the life and death that awaits you as soon as you enter the prison gates for the strip-searched, full anal cavity check primary indoctrination. Some of the New York State Historic Landmark’s old stone walls remain as a visitor center showcase, while several new and improved cell blocks constructed of prefabricated concrete panels now house the majority of the hard-core inmates. The blocks are set inside castle-like, razor-wire topped reinforced concrete walls protected by strategically positioned guard towers manned by teams of riot shotgun and M16 packing corrections officers.

  Without the mod con benefits of an efficient heating system, the upstate New York winters can be harsh and deadly in Little Siberia. At night, an inmate will gnash his teeth. He’ll toss and turn and shiver on his rack in the relentless cold. He’ll dream of sandy beaches, sultry summer nights, and cold, refreshing bottles of beer. But when he wakes up, a layer of frost will coat his blanket.

  But the torture doesn’t end there. The real cold that invades your bones hasn’t got shit to do with the weather. The real cold comes from the sounds of the inmates who surround you. Their crying. Their sobbing. Their moaning. Or maybe you’ll hear them pleasuring themselves under their blankets, the sound of skin slapping skin, bruising your already shattered imagination. Or maybe two cellmates have married, and you’ve got no choice in hell but to swallow the squeaking of springs and a metal bed stand pounding the concrete block wall that separates your cell from theirs. You shiver from the dark, cold loneliness and you listen for the boot steps of the black-uniformed, ballistic-vested screws who pass by every fifteen minutes for yet another head count, and you think about the woman you left behind while you do a twenty-five to life stint. Sure, she writes you, calls you, and even visits on occasion. But in your frozen brain you can’t help but see her slipping off sheer satin panties while wrapped in the arms of another man, maybe your best friend, her manicured hand running up his thigh until she finds exactly what she wants. Exactly what she’s been missing.

  That’s the life you lead in Little Siberia, which isn’t really life at all, but an existence of sorts, until parole comes your way or you die. Either way, you get the hell out. But getting out can take a long time. An eternity. A time so long that many men have gone insane, going to their deaths a sniveling, whitehaired, toothless shadow of their former selves.

  But for two inmates, Reginald Moss, a stocky, black-haired forty-something white man doing life for murder one and his cellmate, Derrick Sweet, a skinny, white, nervous thirty-something former computer geek who’s also doing a homicide-mandated life sentence, waiting it out until insanity and death embraces them is no longer an option. Instead they choose freedom.

  They choose escape.

  The prison and surrounding forest are still cold even early June, with night temperatures sometimes plunging into the forties or even thirties.

  “Fuck, it’s cold,” Sweet says, pulling up the collar on his prison green work shirt, as if the act will make an ounce of difference. “Those global warming freaks are full of shit.”

  “Shut up and work,” Moss says, sawing away at the horizontally-mounted main sewer line located behind their cell.

  “You’re a fucking robot, you know that, Picasso?” Sweet says, working his own blade on the same pipe so that the square opening they’re about to complete will allow both their frames access to the pipe’s interior. “What kind of human being dismembers his boss, huh? You’re a fucking psycho, you know that? Psychopath-robot-Picasso…that’s you, my friend.”

  Moss looks up. His eyes blink only when he wants them to. And right now, he’s not giving them permission.

  “You shot a sheriff’s deputy twenty-two times,” he says in his monotone drawl, his slicked back hair held perfectly in place,
making his full face even fuller, his thick neck even thicker. “You then ran him over with your pickup. Like he wasn’t already roadkill. Like his face wasn’t entirely shot away, his brains already blown out the back of his skull. Who are you to call me a psycho? Psycho.”

  Sweet chomps down on his bottom lip, runs his hand over his cropped scalp, and down his trim mustached and goateed face. While his Adam’s apple bobs up and down inside his long turkey neck, his big brown eyes grow even wider, like one of those little rubber toys you squeeze with your fist to make the eyes bulge out.

  “Fucker had it comin’, bitch. I mean, he was a cop. All cops got it comin’, you know? Got it comin’ one way or the other. Filthy bastards. Whadda we want? More dead cops. I like the way Obama keeps pissin’ on ’em. He’s got my vote next election.” Mulling over what he’s just said for a moment, as if digesting words of brilliance. Then, shrugging his shoulders, “Can we vote for US president in Mexico?”

  “Obama’s already done his eight years, imbecile,” Moss says.

  But Sweet ignores his partner, shakes his head. “God, it’s fucking cold.”

  Then, the abrupt clang of a square metal section of pipe dropping onto another section of pipe.

  Both men lock eyes like, What the fuck!

  They stand stone stiff, knowing that sounds, especially metal against metal, can reverberate throughout the concrete prison block with all the alarming concussion of a lightning strike. Time ticks by…tick, tick, tick.

  After a few beats, Moss wipes his brow with the back of his hand.

  “Be more careful, for Christ’s sakes, Sweet,” he whispers, his voice harsh but controlled. “This is our one and only shot. Mean Gene might be looking out for us. But I think he’s having second thoughts about helping us. Won’t take much for him to renege on his promise to keep the screws away from our cell tonight.”

  Sweet pictures the tall, gray-haired, middle-aged corrections officer who’s not only taken a liking to Moss over the years, but who’s been paying them both in favors for information on other inmates and, even more importantly, other COs working deep down inside the Crypt. Mean Gene has also adopted an appreciation for Moss’s artwork, often trading gifts of food and other luxuries for one of Moss’s oil paintings.

  Sweet blows Moss a kiss, which Moss ignores. Instead, both men look into the dank blackness of the pipe interior.

  “Jeeze, it smells bad, Picasso,” Sweet says. “Think I’m gonna gag. Then I’m gonna puke all over my work boots.”

  “You can gag a free man or you can sleep here tonight and tomorrow night and all the nights after that ’til you die.” Cocking his head in the direction of the cell, he says, “Grab our stuff and let’s go.”

  “Why I always gotta take your orders, Picasso?”

  “’Cause I like it that way. And I’m older than you. And smarter.”

  “The sensitive artist. You’re stuck up, you know that? You think you’re better than everyone. You and that paint brush and that cock of yours…just ask Mean Gene.”

  Moss has got a choice here. He could grab the framing hammer that’s set on its head on the floor and jam the business end through the skinny punk’s forehead. He could bash the kid’s brains in in the time it takes to say Merry fucking Christmas. He might then spit down into the bloody mess, drop the body off the catwalk into the no man’s land between cell blocks, and make the great escape all on his own. But instead, he chooses to suck it all up and force a smile. It’s a small smile. A Mona Lisa smile. A smile that’s more common coming from one of the prison screws. Or so it seems. But he smiles the smile of a man who is about to be free of this place and free of homicidal whack-jobs like Derrick Sweet. Besides, as much as he hates the bastard, he needs a second pair of eyes to back him up. At least until they are far away from Dannemora and under the cover of the great Adirondack wilderness and the deep night.

  “Yeah, well, you’ve used that ten-inch cock to our advantage, Picasso, I gotta give you that,” Sweet remarks. “Let’s just hope Blondie is Janey-on-the-spot with the ride as soon as we get through that manhole cover.”

  Now Moss pictures the small blonde woman he’s been bedding down with inside Tailor Shop Number 1 for a few years now. The voice inside him says, Yeah, it pays to have friends on the inside. Pays to have a killer porno cock too.

  “She prefers Joyce, her real name, and don’t forget the deal, Sweet. We pay her husband a visit while he sleeps in his bed and then we head south for Mexico.”

  “Yeah, I haven’t forgotten the deal.” He puckers up his nose again. “Can we just go now already, Picasso?”

  “Go get the shit. And don’t forget to set the painting back in place when you come back out.”

  “Yeah, fucking, yeah already, I know the drill, Picasso.”

  “And stop calling me Picasso. Van Gogh is more my style.” He pronounces Van Gogh in the formal manner. Like Van Gock.

  Sweet backs away from the pipe, about-faces, steps back up onto the metal catwalk that accesses the electrical utility boxes. He finds the back of their cell, the four-by-four hole they’ve cut through the wall concealed by a piece of cardboard painted a dull gray to mimic the painted concrete block. Grabbing their single laundry duffel and the few items of clothing and homemade weapons it contains, he makes a quick check on the bunks, both of which are stuffed with clothing and fake papier-mâché heads, making it look like the two inmates are fast asleep, just like that old Clint Eastwood Escape from Alcatraz movie he watched on Youtube in the library. Satisfied their plan is proceeding as well as can be expected, the nervous man once more pushes the fake wall aside and slips on through onto the catwalk. Replacing the wall, he approaches Moss.

  “Got the shit,” he says, reaching into the duffel, producing their one and only flashlight, “Can we go now, Picasso? I’m freezing and I wanna get this shit over with.”

  Moss is still staring down into the hole, not like he’s inspecting the pipe. More like he’s looking into his future. Both immediate and beyond. Like he’s seeing the beaches of Mexico, feeling the warmth on his skin, a cool drink in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. But first, he’s got to squeeze himself through this asshole of a sewer pipe, crawl through its metal, shit-lined intestines, and pooped out the other end.

  “Let’s do it,” he says. Then, “Oh, and, Sweet? No bitching, you hear me? We maintain absolute silence all the way through. That clear? And like we planned, no flashlight until we’re beyond the prison walls.”

  Sweet smiles, bearing crooked, gray teeth beneath tiny, overly thin lips.

  “Yeah, Picasso,” he says, running his free hand nervously over his short stand of receding black hair. “Sweet idea. Get it?” He follows with a snort, like it’s the first time he ever used the silly quip instead of the millionth.

  “You first,” Moss says. “Like we talked about. I get stuck, you don’t want me blocking your way. You’ll suffocate to death.” But the painter is also thinking this: I’m older than you. Out of shape. I don’t wanna slow you down. Yeah, he might wanna kill Sweet sometimes, but other times it pays to be considerate. He can use all the good karma he can muster up, given crappy the circumstances he’s currently faced with.

  Suddenly Sweet’s smile disappears. Tossing in the duffel, he crouches and slips his entire torso down into the pipe, headfirst, like he’s entering into an MRI machine, only narrower, tighter, longer, smellier…

  “God, I’m gonna puke,” comes his muted voice.

  “Shut up and get going,” Moss says, assuming a crouched position as soon as Sweet has started his crawl into the pitch blackness. He’s about to place his round head into the pipe when he remembers something. Reaching into the chest pocket on his work shirt, he pulls out a Post-it-Note. Neatly illustrated on the little square slip of yellow paper is what bigots used to refer to as a Chinaman, the face smiling, eyes sloped down towards the slit-like nose, a triangular bamboo hat set precariously on the round face’s head like the bad cliché that it is. Below the face
, “Have a nice day!” is scrawled in happy-go-lucky Crayola Crayon handwriting.

  Moss sticks the note onto the pipe beside the newly sawed opening, and for what feels like the first time since he entered Little Siberia years ago, he issues a short, nearly noiseless laugh. A laugh meant entirely for his own enjoyment. A laugh in the face of the rank shit stink rising up from the pipe like a poison gas. A laugh in the face of the screws who beat him and forced him to work down inside the Dannemora Crypt, making movies with little kids barely more than a decade old. A laugh in the face of the man who is sleeping side by side with his wife in Mexico…a man who will soon be dead. A laugh only the devil himself could understand while slipping under red satin sheets, lighting a cigarette, and pouring a snifter of brandy. A laugh befitting of a cold, evil son of a bitch.

  Albany, New York

  60 Hours Later

  I was debating whether or not to eat the second half of my Italian combo with extra provolone submarine when the goons walked in without knocking. They were big. Bigger than my five feet ten, and chestier. Not like gym rats but more like chronic roid users. Muscles for show rather than the smaller but more utilitarian muscles I worked on in the Albany Strength gym five days a week. Mine weren’t nearly as glamorous or tough looking. But they worked the way I expected them to on those occasions when I was required to punch someone, or be punched, and that was just fine by me.

  The first goon, a black man whom I took for the leader, shot me a look from underneath a pair of sleek wrap-around Rayban sunglasses. He was wearing a dark blue suit with a matching blue tie and a gray button-down shirt underneath. His shorter, whiter, but just as stocky partner wore an identical suit, shirt, tie, and sunglasses. Both of them had earbud wireless radio devices shoved in their left ear canals so that they could communicate with whoever was monitoring them from the outside. My guess was they thought they looked Jason Bourne-cool and that other people were in awe, if not fear, of them. I thought they looked like funeral directors.

  As they searched the room with their eyes, turning every now and then on the balls of their feet, I just hoped they didn’t decide to search my sandwich. I was still hungry after all.