Dressed to Kill Page 9
I drank more beer, then set the bottle down on its coaster. “So, then, Sheriff Hylton, you know why we’re here and what Valente wants us to do.”
“I know who he wants you to find,” Hylton said, “and how, and what he wants you to do with them once you find them. That is, if you can find them with all these uniforms and their hound dogs already way ahead of you.”
“Where are the two cons exactly?” Blood chimed in, going for broke.
She turned to him.
“Damned if I know,” she said.
“Damned if those staties know either, sheriff,” he said. “Hounds or no hounds. But we got something they don’t got.”
“What’s that, Blood?” she said.
“We got Keeper Marconi and we got me. He knows how to think like a CO and a prison supervisor. I know how to think like a criminal. We’re both righteous individuals. But we don’t do things text book.”
“That’s why Valente hired you,” she said.
“So, you gonna help us?” I said.
“For a price, Keeper,” she said.
I smirked. “How much?”
“Dinner,” she said. “I’m waiting until some of those tables clear out before I can relax. That vertically challenged trooper in there sitting at the head of the table like he’s Napoleon? His name is Vincent D’Amico. He’s made it a personal mission in life to see that I’m entirely eliminated from the search.”
“He feels threatened by you,” Blood pointed out.
“He feels threatened by anyone who stands in the way of his future promotion. Including Governor Valente who likes to micro-manage things. Then there are the COs who want the staties gone ASAP.”
“Can you get us inside the joint?” I posed. “Say, tomorrow morning?”
“Thought you were going all Lewis and Clark,” she said. “Over the river and through the woods on the trail of the bad guys.”
“I need to get an idea of their level of sophistication. More than what the media’s been hyping for the past sixty plus hours. I’d like a come-to-Jesus with the warden, squeeze any info out of him I can. Preferably something that might shed some light on where they went or who, other than Joyce Mathews and Mean Gene Bender, helped them.”
“You wanna speak with Joyce and Gene?” she asked. “I got them both locked up in county.”
“First thing after talking to the warden. All goes well, we’ll be in the field no later than tomorrow afternoon.” She nodded, falling quiet.
“What is it, Sheriff?” I added after a beat. “Something on your mind besides two escaped murderers?”
“The COs,” she said. “They’re not going to like you meddling in the case. They’re very secretive about the inner workings of their prison. Their deadly sanctuary. They feel that the escape of two killers under their own watch is their business and their business only.”
“That why the musclebound one with the cue ball head called us cocksuckers?” Blood said.
She pursed her lips, nodded. “That about explains it,” she said. “Baldy’s name is Rodney Pappas and he’s as nasty as they come. He’ll do anything to defend his turf. As for D’Amico, he’s playing a different game. He wants notoriety. He captures those two cons before anyone else, it will be quite the feather in his Stetson.”
“What do you want?” Blood asked her.
“I want the bastards back in custody. I want this town…my town…to get back to normal. I have almost zero support staff. It’s just me and a couple other bodies, and I need them here in town to keep things in order and make sure no one takes it upon themselves to do a little convict hunting. This is wild country up here, and Dannemora isn’t a gun-free zone.”
“Lots of people carrying guns and sidearms out there,” I said. “Let me guess. Not all of them are licensed for a concealed or open carry.”
She drank down her beer, ordered another round for all of us. For as attractive as she was, she was not beyond drowning her sorrows in a few beers. Couldn’t say I blamed her.
“What would you suggest I do, Mr. Marconi?” she said. “Most people in this town have families. For all we know, Sweet and Moss could be hiding out in somebody’s attic or basement. The townspeople have a right to defend their life and limb. Defend their kids. Second Amendment says so.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” I said.
She looked up at the kid behind the bar. He caught her gaze, smiled at her.
The old Chinese lady approached us.
“Dining room almost empty now,” she said, happy-faced. She touched her mouth with her fingertips. “You wish to eat.”
“There any shrimp left?” Blood asked.
“Plenty shrimp,” the old lady insisted.
We grabbed our beers, slid off our stools.
“Jason,” Hylton said, “we’re going to have dinner.”
“Okay, Mom,” the kid said. “Enjoy your dinner. And bring me back an egg roll.”
“You got it, kid,” she said.
“Mom?” I said, walking beside her back into the dining room.
“And Dad, too,” she said. “My husband ran out years ago. Back to Buffalo. In his words, back to civilization. Jason was born when I wasn’t much older than he is now.”
“Tough circumstances, but looks to me like you did a hell of a parenting job. Anyone who can spar verbally with Blood has either got to be a genius or just plain crazy.”
She laughed. “He’s about to start his third year at Boston College. Poli sci major.”
“I went to the corrections officer school of hard knocks,” I said. “My graduation ceremony was the Attica riots of ’71.”
She says, “What about you, Keeper? Wife? Kids?”
“Never had kids,” I said. “Wanted kids. But my wife died early on.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Long time ago. Time doesn’t heal like they say it does. But it does make life more tolerable sometimes.”
Turned out the dining room wasn’t entirely empty. As we entered, the COs were leaving, heading for the door, the ruins left behind at their table like the dead that littered a small battlefield. The big one, Rodney Pappas — the one with the big mouth — issued us a glare that might have melted the plastic off the menus. At least he didn’t spit at us.
“Rodney’s the band leader,” Hylton said as we sat down at a round table and took our menus from the old lady. “He’s also the union rep. The one the others look up to. He hates intruders. Dannemora is his prison. From the very top to the very bottom.”
“His prison’s broke,” Blood said.
“And he knows it,” she said.
“I’d like to speak with him tomorrow too, if I may, Sheriff,” I said.
“Aren’t you the brave one, Keeper. More than likely, he’ll be the one showing us around.”
“He’s brave all right,” Blood said.
“And stupid,” I said.
“Is there anything more dangerous?” Hylton said.
We all raised our beer bottles high, made a toast to bravery, stupidity, and danger.
______
The Corruptions is available in hard-cover, trade paperback, eBook, and audio from Polis Books.
Winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel, Vincent Zandri is the NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and AMAZON NO. 1 Overall bestselling author of more than 20 novels including THE REMAINS, MOONLIGHT WEEPS, EVERYTHING BURNS, and ORCHARD GROVE. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, Zandri's work is translated in the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, and Japanese. Recently, Zandri was the subject of a major feature by the New York Times. He has also made appearances on Bloomberg TV and FOX news. In December 2014, Suspense Magazine named Zandri's, THE SHROUD KEY, as one of the Best Thrillers of 2014. In December of 2016, Suspense Magazine selected When Shadows Come as one of the Best Thrillers of 2016. A freelance photo-journalist and the author of the popular "lit blog," The Vincent Zandri Vox, Zandri has written for Living Ready Magazine, RT
, New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, The Times Union (Albany), Game & Fish Magazine, and many more. He lives in New York and Florence, Italy. For more go to WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Vincent Zandri © copyright 2017
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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
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