Hard news - Jeffery Deaver [43]
Boggs didn’t move.
“You okay, my friend,” Ascipio said, admiration in his voice. “Nobody else ever try that shit with me. You fuckin’ all right.”
He extended his hand.
Boggs looked down at it.
A bird swooping in.
Boggs half turned as the fist of a fourth man, who’d come up behind him silently, caught him under the ear. A loud thwock as knuckles bounced off bone and he felt Ascipio’s hand grabbing his right wrist.
The knife fell to the ground and Boggs saw it tumble, appearing and disappearing as it fell.
“No!” The word didn’t come out as a shout, though. It was muffled by the meaty forearm of the man who’d hit him.
There were no guards, there were no Aryan Brotherhood protectors, no Severn Washington, there was no one in Lovers’ Lane except the five men.
Five men and a glass knife.
Ascipio leaned forward. Boggs smelled garlic on his breath—garlic from his private stocks of food. Tobacco from the endless supply of cigarettes.
“Yo, man, you a stupid motherfucker.”
No, Boggs thought in despair. Don’t cut me! Not the knife. Not that, please….
As the blade went in, Boggs felt much less pain than he’d expected, but the sense of horror was far worse than he’d thought.
The knife retreated and returned into his body and he felt a terrifying loosening inside him.
Then there were other shouts, from a dozen yards away or a hundred. But Boggs didn’t pay any attention; they didn’t mean anything to him. All he was aware of was Ascipio’s face: the grinny-mean eyes that never flinched or narrowed and the smile, one that might please children.
chapter 14
SHE HEARD THE NEWS ON ANOTHER STATION. NOT EVEN a network O&O but one of the locals. The one that broadcast M*A*S*H reruns and whose best-seller was a talk show that did stories about sexual surrogates and discrimination against overweight women.
Rune’s own Network News hadn’t even thought Randy Boggs’s stabbing was worth mentioning.
Rune sweet-talked Healy into taking Courtney for a few hours. She figured this was a major abuse of the relationship, but he was so happy she’d gotten the girl back (she was a little vague about how exactly) that he didn’t complain at all.
A half hour later she was on the train to Harrison, wondering if maybe she should buy a monthly commutation pass.
The prison infirmary surprised her. She expected it to be totally grim. More Big House, more Edward G. Robinson. But it was just a clean, well-lit hospital ward. A guard accompanied her, a large black man with a broad chest. His uniform didn’t fit well. The glossy blue collar buttons, one stamped with a D, one a C, for Department of Corrections, came just to the level of her eyes. He was silent.
Randy Boggs didn’t look good at all. He was shell-white and the spray or cream that he used on his hair glued it out in all directions. The eyes were what bothered Rune most though. They were unfocused and still. God, they were eerie. Corpse eyes.
“It’s you, miss.” He nodded. “You come all the way up to see me.”
“You going to be all right?”
“Got me a pretty nice-looking scar. But the knife missed all the important stuff.”
“What happened?”
“Don’t rightly know. I was in the yard and I get pulled over backwards and somebody stuck me.”
“You must have seen him.”
“Nope. Not a glimpse.”
“Was it daytime?”
“Yep. This morning.”
“How could somebody stab you and you not see it?”
Boggs tried a smile but it didn’t take. “People get invisible here.”
She said, “But—”
“Look …” His eyes came to life for a moment then faded back to lifeless. “… this is prison. Not the real world. We got ourselves a whole different set of rules.” He lifted his hand to his stomach and touched his belly. He leaned his head back into his pillows and pressed his thin, sinewy forearm over his eyes. “Damn,” he whispered.
She watched him in this still pose for a long minute, wishing she’d brought the camera. But then decided that, no, it was better to keep this private. He was the sort of man who’d never want to be seen crying.
“I brought you something.”
She opened her bag and removed an old book,