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By Root 534 0

him Chief. He was followed by a female cop Raymond didn’t recognize. Between them was the handcuffed figure of Jackson Keller. A hot ball of rage formed in Raymond’s gut, contending with the line of pulsing fire around his surgical scar. He couldn’t make out the words being said by the cops for the sound of the blood pounding in his ears. Keller looked straight ahead, as if the cameras weren’t there. “I have you, you sumbitch,” he whispered. “I know where you are.” He raised his voice slightly. “That’s him,” he said. “That’s the man who shot my brother.” The camera focused on the duo coming behind Keller. The small man with his hands behind his back was bent over practically double to try to hide his face. “And I’ll bet that guy is one of the ones who shot my Daddy.”

“Well, shit, vato,” Geronimo said in disgust. “How th’ fuck we supposed to whack ‘em while they’re in jail?”

“We’ll think of something,” Raymond said.

The live feed was replaced with a videotaped shot of a storefront. The words “H & H Bail Bonds” were stenciled across the front windows and repeated in a smaller format on the door. “Keller reportedly worked as a bounty hunter for this bail-bonding business in Wilmington. Calls to that business were not returned.” The camera was back on the face of the brunette reporter. One of the men on the couch said something to his partner and laughed sharply. He stood up and grabbed his crotch with an obscene humping motion towards the big screen. The two men laughed again. Geronimo spoke sharply to them in rapid Spanish. The smiles left their faces. They sat down and got back to work.

“Keller and Puryear will be arraigned tomorrow in Cumberland County Superior Court. Carmen Reyes, News at Noon.” The picture switched back to the male model. Raymond took the remote from Billy Ray and turned the sound back down.

“That’s it,” Raymond said. “That’s when we take them. When the cops move them to the courthouse.”

“Man,” Geronimo said. “You crazy. They’re gonna have cops all over the damn place.”

“No,” Raymond said. “Usually only two. One deputy driving and another with a shotgun in the back of the van.”

“I don’t like it,” Geronimo declared.

Raymond looked at him. “We had a deal. We do this my way or your boss doesn’t get my business. Comprende?”

Geronimo muttered something under his breath in Spanish and walked out.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Cumberland County Jail is a massive brick structure that sprawls across two city blocks. The face that the building turns towards the downtown area is a pleasant if somewhat sterile metal-and glass facade that would not look out of place on a museum or a corporate headquarters. Behind it, the vast bulk attached to the public space is forbidding, blank, and featureless from the outside. The inside, however, is like any other place where men hold their fellow men in captivity–a place of harsh lighting, sudden sharp sounds and loud voices. The man who said that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation has never spent time in a modern jail. The desperation in such places is deafening.

Keller sat at a gunmetal-gray table in one of the interrogation rooms. He was dressed in a shapeless orange coverall, badly worn at the elbows and seat. His shoes had been replaced by cheap ill-fitting plastic sandals. The official reason for the footwear was security; there were no laces that could be used as a garrote or a noose, no hard edges to use as a bludgeon. Keller suspected that the real reason was the gait the wearer was forced to adopt, a weary shuffle that was the only way to keep the flimsy things on the feet.

Keller stared at the mirror on one wall, keeping his face expressionless. This was another part of the game, he knew. The waiting was meant to make a subject nervous by giving him time to think, letting his imagination run over the possibilities. In this place, the possibilities were mostly bad. The result was that, while he waited, the prisoner’s own fear began the corrosive breakdown of his resistance. Waiting didn’t bother Keller. He was good at waiting.

He knew someone