2nd Chance (16 page)

If you were a law-enforcement agent – especially a woman – this was the kind of place you didn’t want to go.

There’s a sign, as they process you through the front gate, warning that if you’re taken hostage you’re on your own.
No negotiations.

I had arranged to meet with the assistant warden, Roland Estes, in the main administrative building. He kept us waiting for a few minutes. When he showed up, Estes was tall and serious, with a hard face and tight blue eyes. He had that clenched-fist unconfidingness that comes from years of living under the highest discipline.

“I apologize for being late,” he said, taking a seat behind his large oak desk. “We had a disturbance down in O block. One of our resident Nortenos stabbed a rival in the neck.”

“How’d he get the knife?” Jacobi asked.

“No knives.” Estes smiled thinly. “He used the filed-down edge of a gardening hoe.”

I wouldn’t have had Estes’s job for a heartbeat, but I also didn’t like the reputation this place had for beatings, intimidation, and the motto “Snitch, Parole, or Die.”

“So, you said this was related to Chief Mercer’s murder, Lieutenant?” The warden leaned forward.

I nodded, removing a case file from my bag. “To a possible string of murders. I’m interested in what you may know about a prison gang here.”

Estes shrugged. “Most of these inmates have been in gangs from the time they were ten. You’ll find that every territory or gang domain that exists in Oakland or East L.A. exists here.”

“This particular gang is called Chimera,” I said.

Estes registered no immediate surprise. “No starting with the small stuff, huh, Lieutenant? So what is it you want to know?”

“I want to know if these murders lead to these men in Chimera. I want to know if they’re as bad as they’re made out to be. And I want to know the names of any reputed members who are now on the outside.”

“The answer to all of that is yes.” Estes nodded flatly. “It’s a sort of a trial by fire. Prisoners who can take the worst we can dish out. The ones who have been in the SHU’s, isolation, for a substantial time. It earns them rank – and certain privileges.”

“Privileges?”

“Freedom. In the way we define it here. From being debriefed. From snitching.”

“I’d like a list of any paroled members of this gang.”

The warden smiled. “Not many get paroled. Some get transferred to other facilities. I suspect there are Chimera offshoots at every max facility in the state. And it’s not like we have a file of who’s in and who’s not. It’s more like who gets to sit next to the Big Mother fucker at mess.”

“But you know don’t you? You know who’s in.”

“
We
know.” The warden nodded. He stood up as if our interview had come to an end. “It’ll take some time. Some of this I need to consult on. But I’ll see what I can do.”

“While I’m here, I might as well meet with
him
.”

“Who, Lieutenant?”

“The Big Mother fucker. The head of Chimera.”

Estes looked at me. “Sorry Lieutenant, no one gets to do that. No one gets into the Pool.”

I looked Estes in the eyes. “You want me to come back with a state order to get it done? Listen, our chief of police is dead. Every politician in this state wants this guy caught. I’ve got backing all the way. You already know that. Bring the bastard up.”

The warden’s taut face relaxed. “Be my guest, Lieutenant. But he doesn’t leave. You go to him.”

Estes picked up his phone and dialed a number. After apause, he muttered sharply, “Get Weiscz ready. He has a visitor. It’s a woman.”

W
E
WENT
THROUGH
a long underground walkway accompanied by Estes and a club-toting head guard named O’Koren.

When we came to a stairway marked
SHU-C
, the warden led us up, waving at a security screen, then through a heavy compression door that opened into the ultramodern prison ward.

Along the way he filled me in. “Like most of our inmates, Weiscz came in from another facility. Folsom. He was the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood there, until he strangled a black guard. He’s been isolated here for eighteen months now. Until we start sending people to the death house in this state, there’s nothing more we can do to him.”

Jacobi leaned over and whispered, “You sure of what you’re doing here, Lindsay?”

I
wasn’t
sure. My heart was starting to gallop, and my palms had busted out in a nervous sweat. “That’s why I brought you along.”

“_Yeah, _”Jacobi muttered.

Pelican Bay’s isolation unit was unlike anything I had ever seen. Everything was painted a dull, sterile white. Burly khaki-uniformed guards, of both sexes but uniformly white, manned glassed-in command posts.

Monitors and security cameras were everywhere.
Everywhere.
The unit was configured like a pod with ten cells, the compression-sealed doors tightly shut.

Warden Estes stopped in front of a metal door with a large window. “Welcome to ground zero of the human race,” he said.

A muscular, balding senior guard holding a face visor and some sort of Uzi-like taser gun came up. “Weiscz had to be extracted, Warden. I think he’ll need a few moments to loosen up.”

I looked up at Estes. “
Extracted
?”

Estes sniffed. “You would think after being holed up a couple of months, he’d be happy to get out. Just so you know what’s coming next, Weiscz was uncooperative. We had to send a team in to pretty him up for you.”

He nodded toward the window. “There’s your man… ”

I stepped in front of the solid pressure-sealed door. Strapped to a metal chair, his feet bound in irons, his hands cuffed from behind, hunched a hulking, muscular shape. His hair was long and oily and straggly and he wore a thin, unkempt goatee. He was dressed in an orange short-sleeved jumpsuit, open at the chest, revealing ornate tattoos covering his pumped-up arms and chest.

The warden said, “There’ll be a guard in there with you and you’ll be monitored at all times. Stay away from him. Don’t get closer than five feet. If he as much as juts his chin in your direction, he’ll be immobilized.”

“The guy’s bound and chained,” I said.

“This sonofabitch eats chains,” Estes said. “Believe it.”

“Anything I can promise him?”

“Yeah.” Estes smirked. “A Happy Meal. You ready…?”

I winked at Jacobi, who widened his eyes in caution. My heart nearly stopped, like a skeet target exploded out of the sky.

“Bon voyage,” Estes muttered. Then he signaled the control booth. I heard a
ka-shoosh
as the heavy compression door unlocked.

I
STEPPED
INTO
THE
STARK
WHITE
CELL
. It was completely empty except for a metal table and four chairs, all bolted to the floor, and two security cameras high up on the walls. In a corner stood a silent, tight-lipped guard holding a stun gun.

Weiscz barely acknowledged me. His legs were fastened and his hands tightly cuffed behind the chair. His eyes had a steely inhuman quality to them.

“I’m Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer,” I said, stopping about five feet from him.

Weiscz said nothing, only tilted his eyes toward me. Narrow, almost phosphorescent slits.

“I need to talk to you about some murders that have taken place. I can’t promise you much. I’m hoping you’ll hear me out. Maybe help.”

“Blow me,” he spat with a hoarse voice.

The guard took a step toward him, and Weiscz stiffened as if he’d taken a jolt from the taser. I put up my hand to hold him back.

“You may know something about them,” I continued, a chill shooting down my spine. “I just want to know if they make sense to you. These killings… ”

Weiscz looked at me curiously probably trying to size up if there was something he could get from this. “Who’s dead?”

“Four people. Two cops. One was my chief of police. A widow and an eleven-year-old girl. All black.”

An amused smile settled over Weiscz’s face. “In case you haven’t noticed, lady, my alibi’s airtight.”

“I’m hoping you may know something about them, then.”

“Why me?”

From my jacket pocket, I took out the same two chimera photos I had shown Estes and held them in front of his face. “The killer’s been leaving these behind. I believe you know what it means.”

Weiscz grinned broadly. “I don’t know what you came in here for, but you don’t fucking know how that warms my heart.”

“The killer’s a Chimera, Weiscz. You cooperate, you could gain back some privileges. They can always move you out of this hole.”

“Both of us know I’ll never get out of this hole.”

“There’s always something, Weiscz. Everybody wants something.”

“There is something,” he finally said. “Come closer.”

My body stiffened. “I can’t. You know that.”

“You got a mirror, don’t you?”

I nodded. I had a makeup mirror in my purse.

“Shine it on me.”

I looked at the guard. His head twitched a firm no.

For the first time, Weiscz looked in my eyes. “Shine it on me. I haven’t seen myself in over a year. Even the shower fixtures are dulled here so you can’t see a reflection. These bastards just want you to forget who the fuck you were. I want to see.”

The guard stepped forward. “You know that’s impossible, Weiscz.”

“Fuck you, Labont.” He glared viciously up at the cameras. “Fuck you, too, Estes.” Then he turned back to me. “They didn’t send you in here with much to bargain with, did they?”

“They said I could take you out for a Happy Meal,” I said with a slight smile.

“Just you and me, huh?”

I glanced at the guard. “And him.”

Weiscz’s goatee split into a smile. “These bastards, they know how to ruin everything.”

I stood there nervously. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t want to show the slightest empathy for him.

But I sat myself at the table across from Weiscz. I fumbled in my bag, took out a compact. I expected any minute a loud voice was going to blare over the intercom, or the stone-faced guard was going to rush over and knock it away. To my amazement, no one interfered. I cracked the compact open, looked at Weiscz, then I turned it toward him.

I don’t know what he looked like before, but he was a horrific sight now. He stared at himself, wide-eyed, the truth of his harsh confinement setting in. He fixed on the mirror as if it were the last thing he would see on earth. Then he looked at me and grinned. “Not much to go on, for that blow-me thing, is there?”

I don’t know why but I gave him a begrudging smile.

Then he twisted his neck around to the cameras. “Fuck you, Estes,” he roared. “See? I’m still there. You try to squeeze me out, but I’m still there. The reckoning is going on without me. Chimera, baby… Glory to the unstained hand who stills the rabble and swarm.

“Who would do this?” I pressed. “Tell me, Weiscz.” He knew I knew he knew. Someone he had shared a cell with.

Someone he had traded histories with in a prison yard.

“Help me, Weiscz. Someone you know is killing these people. You’ve got nothing to gain anymore.

His eyes lit up with a sudden fury. “You think I give a shit about your dead niggers? Your dead cops? Soon the state will be gathering them up anyway. Putting them in pens. A twelve-year-old nigger whore, some monkeys dressed up as cops. I only wish it was my finger on the trigger. We both know, whatever I say to you, I’ll never get as much as a second meal out of these bastards. The minute you leave, Labont’s gonna stun me anyway. There’s a better chance you’ll suck my dick.”

I shook my head, stood up, and motioned for the door.

“Maybe one of your own assholes has come to his senses,” he yelled with a smirk. “Maybe that’s what it was, an inside job.”

A tremor of rage burned through me. Weiscz was an animal. There wasn’t an ounce of humanity in him. All I wanted to do was slam the door in his face. “I did give something to you, even if it was for a moment,” I said.

“And don’t be so sure you didn’t get something in return. You’ll never catch him. He’s Chimera… ” Weiscz jerked his head down to his chest, pointing at a tattoo high on his shoulder. All I could make out was the tail of a snake. “We can endure as much as you can dish, copper lady. Look at me… They stuff me in this hellhole, they make me eat my own shit, but I can still win.” Suddenly, he was loud and angry again, twisting at his restraints. “Victory comes in the end. God’s grace is the white race. Long live Chimera.”

I moved away from him, and Weiscz twisted defiantly.

“So what about that Happy Meal, bitch?”

As I got to the door, I heard a zap followed by a garbled grunt, and turned as the guard pumped a thousand watts into Weiscz’s twitching chest.

W
E
CAME
BACK
TO
TOWN
with a few names, courtesy of Estes. Recent parolees thought to be members of Chimera. Back at the Hall, Jacobi parceled out the list to Cappy and Chin.

“I’m gonna start calling a few PQ’s,” he said to me. “You want to join?

I shook my head. “I have to leave early, Warren.

“Whatsamatter, don’t tell me you got a date?”

“
Yeah.”
I nodded. No doubt my face sort of lit into an incredulous smile. “I’ve got a date.”

The downstairs buzzer rang about seven.

When I opened the door, my father was peeking out from behind a catcher’s mask, his hands outstretched in a defensive pose. “
Friends…?”
he asked, an apologetic smile sneaking through.

“Dinner… “
I smiled begrudgingly “That’s the best I can do.”

“That’s a start,” he said, stepping in. He had cleaned himself up. He was wearing a brown sport jacket, pressed pants, an open-collared white shirt. He handed me a bottle of red wine wrapped in paper.

“You didn’t have to,” I said, unfurling the wine, then gasping in surprise as I read the label. It was a first-growth Bordeaux, Chateau Latour, the year 1965.