The Corruptions Read online

  They glanced at one another.

  “Whaddya mean strip down?” Short Beer Gut said.

  “You know what it means,” Blood said.

  I gathered up both their rifles, ejected the ammo, and slammed the stocks against the nearest tree-trunk, shattering them. They both looked like they were about to burst into tears.

  “Hunt’s over for you two,” I said. “Now do like my brother says and strip down.”

  “Start with your boots,” Blood added.

  The two of them reluctantly bent over, untied their boots, kicked them off.

  “Now the pants,” Blood insisted.

  “You ain’t planning on doing anything to us when we naked, are you?” inquired Tall Cancer Beard.

  “You mean like something that goes down inside Dannemora?” Blood said.

  “You’ll just have to wait and see now, won’t you?” I said, shooting my partner a wink. Then, “Whaddaya think, Blood? The pudgy one’s got a perty mouth.”

  I could see real fear in Short Beer Gut’s face. He started to cry.

  “Strip down,” Blood insisted. “Now.”

  He then shifted the knife and ran it down the back of Tall Cancer Beard’s camo patterned jacket. The jacket slid off the bean pole in two separate halves. The move lit a fire under them, and they stripped down. That was when Blood pressed the AR-15 stock against his shoulder, shifting his aim slowly from one man to the other.

  “Now go,” he said.

  They both exchanged glances.

  “Go where?” said Short Beer Gut. “We ain’t got no clothes.”

  Blood fired a round that took even me by surprise. He wasn’t fucking around. Not with two grown men who thought nothing of referring to a black man as a spook.

  Tears running down Short Beer Gut’s face, he sprinted across the clearing and into the thick woods. When Tall Cancer Beard realized he was the last one standing, he, too, turned and ran into the woods.

  That left me alone with Blood. His eyes locked onto my own. He fell silent for a long beat, until he worked up a sly smile. I smiled too, but quickly the smile turned into laughter. The good times, however, weren’t to be had for long. Blood raised up his right hand, and with extended index finger, pointed at the metal access door.

  “They down in there,” he said under his breath. “Them two cons. I can feel it.”

  “Me too,” I said. “Question is, how do we get the rats out of the rat hole?”

  I met Blood on the opposite side of the clearing.

  “Way I see it,” I said, “we’ve got two choices.”

  “I’d say I’m all ears, if there wasn’t so much more of me to offer.”

  “We either try that door, see if it’s open.”

  “And if it’s open?”

  “We go in guns ablazin’.”

  “Guns ablazin’. Did you just say that?”

  I nodded. “Or, we think this one through a little more, for safety’s sake.”

  “I like option number two,” Blood said.

  We paused to think about it for a minute. Then, without saying another word, I made my way back to the metal door, wrapped my hand around the lever.

  “Careful,” Blood said. “Could be booby trapped.”

  The two cons were smart enough to pull off a daring if not complicated escape out of one of the most secure prisons in the country. It wouldn’t be all that far-fetched to imagine their having placed some kind of explosive device that would detonate as soon as I pulled on the lever. But time was tight. If those two local yokels were any indication, D’Amico and his men would be closing in on this position soon. Sooner than soon. Add to that Agent Muscolino’s promise that the FBI would be taking over later this afternoon, and I was about to lose total control of the situation. I promised to deliver two escaped cons for Governor Valente and that was what I planned on doing. Keeper the trustworthy.

  I pulled up on the lever. It moved slightly. But something was obstructing it from performing its intended function. Something metal and strong by the sound of it.

  I stood up.

  “It’s padlocked from the inside,” I said.

  “And if it’s padlocked from the inside,” Blood said, like a question.

  “Then without question, Moss and Sweet are home sweet home.”

  We stood there for another long moment. Mother Nature surrounded us. Song birds singing, cicadas buzzing in the trees, spiders making webs, snakes in the grass, the breeze blowing through the leaves. It was like living inside Hallmark card. But down inside that hole were a couple of rats. And we needed to figure out a way to smoke them out.

  Smoke them out…

  “I think I have an idea,” I said.

  “’Bout time,” Blood said. “I was getting bored.”

  “If they’re underground, it only makes sense they’d require some kind of air circulation system.”

  He pressed his lips together. The gesture meant he could already see where I was going with this.

  “Still carry your zippo, non-smoker?” he said.

  I pulled it out of my cargo pants pocket, flicked open the lid.

  “Now we just gotta find the vent. Or vents.”

  We split up, Blood taking one side of the clearing and me taking the other. We didn’t find any air vents in the clearing, but once we started searching the tall grass, we came upon two separate, T-shaped aluminum vents that stuck six inches out of the ground. The openings were horizontal to the ground to prevent rainwater from getting into them, and they were covered with protective screens to keep out the critters, both big and small.

  “You got your Gerber, Blood?”

  He retrieved the multi-tool instrument from the holster attached to his belt, handed it to me. I accessed the screw-driver and began removing the four screws from the first screen. Then, working as quietly as possible, removed the second screen.

  “We need something flammable.”

  “Leave that to me,” Blood said. He gathered up a small pile of dead leaves and branches that didn’t catch much of a soaking during the day’s earlier thunderstorm. He then filled the two hillbilly hunter camo-patterned shirts with the flammable material.

  “How much lighter fluid you got in that Zippo?” he said.

  I peered down at the silver-plated lighter. It had been a birthday gift from my wife, Fran, back when we were first married. It had my initials embossed into the metal. JHM. Jack Harrison Marconi. The three letters had faded a bit over the many years since I’d first laid eyes on the lighter. Wear and tear will do that to a soft metal. But the memory of Fran hadn’t faded one bit. Her long dark hair, brown eyes, and funny smile still dominated my mind with full clarity. I could even still smell her lavender scent. That kind of true love never died, even if the body has been reclaimed by heaven and earth.

  “You okay, Keep?”

  I shook my head.

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling the weight of the lighter in the palm of my hand and the heavy weight of Fran’s memory in my mind and in my heart. I didn’t smoke anymore, which meant the device contained plenty of fluid. I pulled a coin from my pocket, unscrewed the small bottom access piece until it was loose enough for me to remove it with my fingertips. Then, placing my thumb loosely over the little round hole, I sprinkled some of the fluid onto both shirts, like holy water on a priest’s cassock. When I was done, I still had at least a third of the fluid left inside the lighter. I screwed the fuel access piece back onto the bottom, then flicked open the lighter lid, pressed my thumb against the black flint.

  “Ready?” I said, holding the lighter up like I was about to pull the pin on a grenade.

  Blood nodded.

  I thumbed the flint and produced a tall flame. I touched the shirts with the flame.

  Their necks are starting to hurt from staring up at the metal door.

  “You think they’re gone?” Sweet says, the blood from his throbbing thumb wound running down his forearm so that every minute or so he’s forced to wipe it away with a filth
y dish rag. “You know what we need, Picasso? We need ourselves one of those periscopes like they use on the nuclear submarines that run under the ice at the North Pole. Then we could periscope up and see exactly who we’re dealing with. Make a surprise attack.”

  The pain in Moss’s leg is beginning to ease. Rather, he’s bleeding so badly now, that a pool of his dark red DNA has formed on the floor directly beneath his chair. The blood-letting is making him feel woozy and drugged. The pain that had been stabbing at his nervous system with every beat of his heart just moments ago is now replaced with a feeling of almost euphoria.

  “Question is, asshole,” he says, “how do you get that periscope up through a layer of ice that must be a hundred feet thick?”

  Sweet bleeds, stares at his partner like he just farted something wet and foul.

  “Can you for fucking once just go with something I say? Can you just for once accept it for what it is and not analyze the fucking living snot out of it? Can you just give me a little fucking credit for once?”

  Moss smiles.

  “I’ll give credit when the credit is due, asshole. And right now, the only credit I can give you is for being an asshole…a stupid, dumb fuck, computer geek asshole.”

  The throbbing in Sweet’s right hand is so bad, it feels like a blood-filled balloon that’s about to pop all over his chest and face. How the fuck is it going to be possible for him to hold a rifle or a shotgun? At least he’s got his left hand to work with. He uses the hand to reach for the riot shotgun laid out on the tabletop, grabbing it by the pump, cocking the weapon one-handed by snapping it up and down, John Wayne style. He then turns the barrel on Moss while he shifts his hand from the pump lever to the trigger grip.

  “Apologize,” he says.

  Moss looks at him for an extended beat. Then, feeling himself growing a smile, he starts to laugh.

  “Now that’s funny, stupid periscope-up-against-the-ice asshole.”

  Sweet stands fast, kicking the chair out from under him. “Apologize.”

  “What, you say something, asshole?”

  “Apologize, Picasso. Or I’m going to blow your brains out.”

  Moss laughs some more. “You and me, asshole. In case you hadn’t already noticed. We’re fucking as good as dead. No Mexico, no sandy beach, no crystal clear blue water, no seniorita tettas in your mouth, no freedom, no Shawshank Redemption of any kind whatso-fucking-ever. So what difference is it going to make at this point if you blow me back to hell?”

  A single, sad tear falls down Sweet’s cheek. Heart pounding in his throat, he feels the weight of the shotgun in his awkward hand, feels his finger on the trigger, and he’s amazed to see the lack of fear in his partner’s face. It’s almost like the son of a bitch wants to die.

  Sweet sniffles, swallows a wad of bitter-tasting post-nasal drip.

  “Well, well, Picasso,” he says, “if you wanna die that bad.”

  Extending his shooting arm, he aims the barrel at Moss’s stubbly, round face. Pointblank. But Moss is laughing so hard now, he can’t get a breath. He’s going to pass out.

  “Shut up!” Sweet shouts. “Shut up! Shut! Up! Shut the fuck up!”

  The cloud of smoke becomes noticeable then. It’s beginning to pour into the room from two different places. From the vent opening directly to Sweet’s right-hand side and from the identical ceiling-mounted vent on his left-hand side.

  “What the fuck is that?” he says.

  Moss’s smile fades. He suddenly finds himself perked up, and along with it, the severe pain returning to his shattered leg.

  “They’re trying to smoke us out.”

  The smoke pours in, and along with it, the oxygen replaced with toxic air.

  Sweet starts coughing. “Jesus, I can’t fucking breathe.”

  He jogs over to the vent on his right, aims the barrel of the shotgun at the vent, fires. The round of heavy buckshot blows a hole into the acoustic ceiling, and at the same time, causes the source of the smoke to catch fire. The fire immediately spreads to the old, dried out ceiling tiles.

  “Nice going, asshole,” Moss says. “Now we’re on fire. Maybe we should periscope up, see if the coast is clear.”

  “Shut up, Picasso!” he screams. “For once, shut the fuck up!”

  The smoke spreads so thick it’s blinding. If not for the fire, the place would be entirely fogged in with a thick gray-black toxic cloud.

  “We gotta get out of here,” Sweet says. “We gotta leave.”

  “I can’t make it,” Moss says. “You go. Shoot whoever is doing this, and leave the hatch open. I’ll get out on my own. Go, get lost. Be gone, asshole.”

  Sweet looks at his partner. It’s hard to see his face through the smoke. But he sees it well enough.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice, Picasso,” he says, dropping the shotgun back onto the table and shoving one of the pistol barrels into his belt. Digging for the padlock key in his pocket, he makes his way to the steel ladder. “Been nice knowing you, fat cock. Have a nice life, and an even nicer slow death.” He laughs, then sings, “I’m going to Mex-i-coooo,” to the tune of the 90s’ Dada classic, I’m Going to Dizz Knee Land…

  Climbing the ladder, Sweet unlocks the padlock. Pushing the steel hatch open, he looks one way and then the other. But the last thing Moss sees before passing out from smoke inhalation is Sweet’s gun falling through the thick gray cloud, slow motion, to the shelter floor.

  Blood was waiting for Sweet as soon as he stuck his head out of the opening and stole a deep cleansing breath, free from the black gray smoke that was also rising up out of the opening, like the exhaust on a coal-fired locomotive smokestack. It was like playing whack-a-mole at the local arcade. Only in this case, whack-a-fucking-rat. Using the butt of his AR-15 like a battering ram, he smacked the pistol out of the escaped con’s hand. The pistol dropped down into the shaft. Then, grabbing the rat’s shirt collar with his free hand, Blood yanked him out of the hole, tossing him to the clearing floor.

  “Jesus Christ!” Sweet barked. “You’re a freakin’ monster.”

  Blood pointed the barrel on the AR-15 at him. “Stay down. We not through here.”

  From down on his back, Sweet raised his hands in surrender. Rather, he raised his left hand and what was left of his right hand.

  “Easy, man,” he said. Then, trying to work up a smile, “Or should I say, easy brother. You and me, man, we like brothers. You know, black and brown against the town.”

  Blood triggered a round of over his head. “Nothin’ brown or black about you, jerk.”

  “Okay! Okay!” Sweet shouted. “Go easy, man. I’m injured. I need a hospital, like real bad.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Blood said.

  I pulled back the slide on the AR-15, held it securely by its hard rubber pistol grip, and stepped down into the opening.

  “Sure you don’t want me to go down the rat hole?” Blood said. “You need an oxygen mask.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I need you to watch Sweet. All goes well, we’re out of here in a minute. Two at most. Dinner with the girls, remember?”

  Blood nodded, cracked a hint of grin. “Watch your back.”

  “If I could, I would,” I said. Then I descended into the hole.

  The smoke had thinned now that the rooftop hatch was opened. But the place was ablaze. When I came to the bottom, I could see that most of the ceiling had caught fire.

  “Reginald Moss!” I shouted. “I know you’re down here. There’s no point in trying to hide. You can either stay here and burn, or you can come with me. I promise, you’ll be safe.”

  The pistol barrel poked the back of my skull.

  “Down on your knees,” he said, following with a cough that sounded like his lungs were about to bleed out his nostrils. He was still groggy from having passed out for a minute or two. “And drop the rifle.”

  The fire was spreading, the burning tile embers raining down on our heads. In a few seconds the wood wall finishes, rugs, and furni
ture would catch and we’d be lucky to make it out alive before the whole thing flashed. I dropped the weapon, put my hands on my head, locking them at the knuckles, and slowly lowered myself to my knees. He shifted the pistol barrel so that now it painfully prodded my cranial cap.

  “What do you want, Moss?” I said. “You haven’t got a chance if you kill me. No way you’re climbing out of that shaft alone. You’re only option is to trust me. Let me take you in. I’ll see to it you’re treated fairly.”

  “Who are you?” he shouted. “You FBI?”

  “Not at all,” I barked, the smoke and heat from the flames burning the back of my throat. “I’m a private detective.”

  He laughed. “A private investigator. Who the fuck sent you?” Then, as if already knowing the answer to his own question, “He sent you, didn’t he? The governor? He sent you personally. Bet he wants me alive just so he can make sure without a doubt that I’m dead. Dead and so very fucking silent.”

  I had to admit, it was a good guess. But why would his thought process immediately link me to Governor Valente? Reginald Moss would already have to have something connecting him to the governor for that to happen. But what could those two possibly have in common? A major political figure and a convicted murderer? And why would Valente want Moss dead?

  I lowered my head, and stared at the floor. The lower I got, the easier it was to breathe. I noticed something out the corner of my eye then. Richard’s leg. It was bleeding badly. In fact, the leg was severely busted up, like some heavy machinery had run it over. It looked like a broken tree branch. He wasn’t standing directly on it. He supported the bulk of his weight instead with the use of a crutch.

  I didn’t hesitate. Cocking my elbow, I buried it in the damaged leg.

  The sound that emerged from his mouth was more than just a scream. It was like an eruption. A primal scream that originated not from his lungs, but from deep down inside a soul blackened by fire and smoke, and also by an evil so profound it belonged only to hell. He discharged the pistol as he fell back, the round ricocheting off the wall. I flipped over onto my stomach, grabbed the AR-15 and fired three back-to-back rounds. One of the rounds ricocheted off two walls, and another connected with his shoulder, blowing a chunk of flesh and bone out of it. But that didn’t stop him from firing at me again, the bullets whizzing over my head like wasps. I triggered two more rounds that nailed the wall behind him. He fired again, the round grazing my bicep.