Savannah Swingsaw te-74 Read online

  Rodeo's pale face flushed with rage. His shoulders stiffened. He stepped closer to Bolan, looking down from his six-feet-six-inch height. "You're Damon Blue, right?"

  "Yup."

  "Done some time in Joliet and Attica?"

  "Word gets around."

  "To the right people," Rodeo said. "And I'm the right people in this hole. Outside you may have been a tough guy at your local bar or in your bowling league. But in here you're just a piss ant. Got me, Blue?"

  "I got a feeling you don't want to be friends."

  Reed started sliding slowly along the wall, trying to get away. A big hand with long fingers like, squid tentacles clamped around Reed's upper arm. "Not so fast, kid. You and me are gonna get to know each other. Real well. You like grass, man? Scag? Coke? I got it all. Whatever you want."

  Reed shook his head. "N-no, thanks. I don't use anything."

  Rodeo laughed. "You will, kid. I'll show you how. Ain't nothing like the first time someone fixes you up. Makes you almost glad to be in here. Stuff's easier to get than outside." He patted Reed on the head. "Yeah, kid, you and me gonna be real good friends."

  Reed flinched from the hand on his head, ducking out from under it. That angered Rodeo, who immediately lashed out with an open palm and smacked Reed across the face. The power of the blow bounced Reed's head off the cement wall and left five red welts on his cheek where the fingers had made contact.

  "Don't you ever do that again, kid!" Rodeo snarled, his upper lip curled back to reveal those twisted brown teeth. "You piss me off and I'll turn you over to half a dozen guys at once, then slice off an ear and blame it on the blacks. You understand?" He had his big hand around Reed's throat now, squeezing, lifting the kid up onto his toes.

  There was more strength in that tall lanky frame than it appeared. Reed's face was turning a little blue as his toes scuttered against the pavement. The angle of the wall made it difficult for the guards to see them, especially with so many cons milling around.

  The one guard who had perfect sight of them was obviously ignoring them. Bolan had heard from some other cons that Rodeo's drug business at the Big A and here netted him more than $100,000 a year.

  With that kind of money, he could afford a guard or two.

  "I think he's had enough," Bolan said.

  Reed looked about to pass out. "Fuck off, man," Rodeo warned.

  Bolan fired his right fist into Rodeo's kidney with enough impact to drop the big man to one knee.

  Rodeo's face contorted with pain as he grabbed his side.

  Dodge Reed sagged against the wall, rubbing his throat, sucking in air. All the prisoners who saw it just stared openmouthed, then scattered, trying to get away. Except the two badasses who'd accompanied Rodeo. They rushed at Bolan with closed fists and murderous scowls. The first was about 230 pounds, with short thick arms covered with matted black hair. He tried to wrap them around Bolan's chest, but the Executioner sidestepped him, spun around behind him and rammed his face into the cement wall. The nose popped immediately, spraying a sunburst splotch of blood onto the wall. Bolan kept his hand at the back of the guy's head, grinding it into the rough cement, scraping the skin off his face until he dropped to his knees with a howl.

  The second heavy was not as big as the first, but he was faster and smarter. He snapped his knee high into Bolan's lower back, sending a freight train loaded with dynamite rattling up Bolan's spine. The next blow was a rabbit punch, exploding at the base of Bolan's skull with brilliant fireworks. The force of the blow sent Bolan stumbling forward, almost tripping over the first guy, who was still on his knees, dabbing his fingers in blood, feeling for what was left of his face.

  Out of the corner of his eye, the Executioner saw Lyle Carrew wheeling his chair toward them. Not in any hurry though. Slowly, as if strolling.

  Bolan heard the shuffle of feet as his attacker again lunged at him from behind. Bolan ducked out of the way, tucking in one shoulder and rolling as the hardguy's size-twelve foot came stomping down where Bolan's head had been a moment before, dust puffing around the foot from the impact. The Executioner stopped his roll and looked up in time to see the man getting ready to jump on his head again.

  Quickly, Bolan rifled a leg straight out, cracking his heel into the attacker's kneecap. The fragile bone shattered, dropping him to the ground in agony. Bolan snapped his other heel into the guy's gaping mouth. The hard rubber clipped the row of bottom teeth, popping them out of the gums onto the ground like a handful of white dice.

  Rodeo's two henchmen lay moaning, halfconscious. That left Rodeo, who faced Bolan, one hand pressed to his tender side. His bald head was bumpy in the bright sunlight, the small eyes almost invisible under the dark canopy of his thick eyebrows. He reached inside his waistband and plucked out a nineinch shank. "You gonna die, asshole. In small pieces."

  Behind Rodeo, young Dodge Reed had recovered enough to understand what was going on. He looked at the two writhing men on the ground, the gleaming shiver of sharp metal in Rodeo's hand. Then he attacked. It wasn't much of an attack, a weak punch to Rodeo's back ribs, as if he was trying to find the same spot where Bolan had hit the prison tough guy. Rodeo barely noticed the punch, whirling fast enough to backhand Reed, knocking him off his feet and spinning back to face Bolan again with his blade.

  "That kid's gonna be even sorrier than you, Blue," Rodeo said, grinning. "He's gonna be the whore of some of my guys, who aren't too nice. But then, at least he'll be alive awhile. Not like you."

  Rodeo held the shank flat in his hand, the way an experienced knife-fighter would. Bolan spread his arms wide, centering his gravity as he backed up slowly.

  From behind him came the creaking of a wheelchair, and Lyle Carrew swung into view, setting the brake on his chair, smiling for the first time since Bolan had met him.

  "This I got to see," he said, rubbing his hands together. Rodeo's toothless pal groped around on the ground, trying to pull himself up. Blindly he grabbed Carrew's wheelchair. "Hey, man," Lyle said, hammering him on top of the head with a fist, knocking him back to the ground, dazed. "Hands off," he said.

  The first cut came from a fake. Rodeo thrust the blade low toward Bolan's stomach, forcing the Executioner to dodge to the left. When he did, Rodeo whipped the shank upward toward Bolan's exposed throat. Bolan pivoted in time, but the steel shank scored, tracing a bloody line across his shoulder. The slash burned a little, but Bolan ignored it. He'd fought guys with knives before.

  Many didn't know how to use them properly. Those who knew what they were doing were another matter.

  Especially when they were that tall.

  The hand with the knife teased at Bolan, flicking out, then pulling back without committing itself. Bolan watched it, saw the tattooed tail of the snake coiled around the wrist, the rattles etched onto the back of the hand.

  "Come on, you guys," Carrew encouraged. "These guards aren't going to play dumb forever."

  Rodeo lunged again, the blade torpedoing at Bolan's heart. Bolan chopped at the wrist, knocking it away. That blow would have broken an ordinary man's wrist. Not Rodeo's. He kept coming, thrusting the knife in quick jabs. Bolan leaped out of the way each time, finally grabbing the wrist and pulling Rodeo closer, snapping his forehead into Rodeo's chin, trying to twist the blade out of Rodeo's hand.

  "Guards!" someone whispered.

  Rodeo and Bolan pushed apart. There was more to fear from the guards than from each other. Inmates had all the time in the world to deal with petty squabbles. But not from solitary confinement. By the time the guards pushed their way through the crowd, Bolan and Rodeo were standing far apart, Bolan helping Reed to his feet, Rodeo nudging his men with his feet.

  "What's going on here!" the first guard demanded. "What happened?"

  "Basketball," Bolan said, "We were playing. Scrambling for the ball. A wild elbow, you know. Accident."

  "No harm, no foul," Rodeo agreed.

  "Search 'em," the first guard ordered, throwing all of them up against the w
all. They patted each prisoner down, but there were no weapons. Rodeo's blade had been passed on to a friend who was already on the other side of the yard.

  The guard pulled Rodeo's heavy henchman to his feet, wincing at the pulpy shredded face.

  "Holy! Get this one down to the infirmary."

  "What about me?" Rodeo's other man asked, his toothless mouth a bloody hole.

  "Yeah, you too. Let's go." The first guard hauled them off. But Bolan saw a look pass between the second guard and Rodeo, something like a shrug.

  Rodeo nodded and rubbed his hand over his lumpy bald head, fingering his braided tail. He stared down into Bolan's eyes, and growled, "Soon, Blue. Very soon."

  7

  Bolan leaned over his cell's tiny sink and dabbed some wet toilet paper to the cut on his shoulder. Behind him, Lyle Carrew put on reading glasses and jotted notes in his steno pad.

  "Thanks," Bolan said.

  Carrew didn't look up.

  "You talking to me?"

  "Yeah. I said thanks."

  "For what?"

  "For your help out there. Flooring Rodeo's henchman."

  Carrew looked up and laughed.

  "Hell, I wasn't helping you, fish, I was hurting him. Big difference. Bastard touched my chair. I taught him not to."

  "Yeah, well, thanks anyway." Carrew frowned at Bolan. "I don't want you getting the wrong idea, fish. That could be fatal. Nobody around here helps anybody else unless they want something. I don't know what you want from that Reed kid, that's your business. You don't look like you want him the way Rodeo wants him, but either way I don't care. Understand me now."

  "Sure. All for none and none for all. That about sums it up?"

  "You got a look, man, that says you don't believe me. Just so we're clear, you and me, and you don't go expecting any help later when Rodeo comes after you, and he will, for sure. Let me show you something."

  Carrew's hands reached back into the mechanism of his chair, fiddled with something and suddenly there was a flat blade in his hand, eight inches long, sharpened on both sides.

  "See? Now if I really wanted to help you out there, I'd have tossed you this. Am I right?"

  Bolan nodded. "Thanks for straightening me out. I'd hate to go another minute thinking maybe you were doing something nice."

  Lyle Carrew replaced his shank in its hiding place and wheeled toward Bolan. "You're a weird guy, Blue. I know your rap sheet, and I've seen you handle yourself damn well out there. You been inside before, you know how things work."

  "I'm sentimental," Bolan sneered.

  "You're something. I haven't figured out what. Yet."

  Bolan glanced at his wound. The bleeding had stopped. He shrugged back into his shirt and thought of how he could get to Dodge Reed. Now with Rodeo and his gang after both of them, he'd have to make his break soon. Real soon.

  To make matters worse, Carrew's curiosity was aroused. The man in the wheelchair was sharp, perceptive. The slightest hint that a prisoner might not be what he appeared could send a shiver of paranoia through the prison population that would result in a shank buried in his back within the hour. Cops had gone undercover in prisons before. When discovered, they didn't livelong. Carrew was peering over the rims of his glasses at Bolan. The glasses made him look oddly bookish. "You aren't talking now, Blue. You got something to hide?"

  Bolan acted angry. "What's your problem, man? Shit, you go around here acting you've done twenty years of a life term. Telling me how it is. Who not to trust. Hell, all you did was punch out a doctor and scare some nurses. Big goddamn deal."

  Carrew chuckled. "Seemed like one to them."

  "Yeah, well that kind of prankish crap don't cut it in here. Most of the guys are in here because they've wanted something and they were willing to rob or hurt or kill to get it. What you did didn't get you nothing."

  "That's a fact," Carrew said, folding his glasses and tossing them on his bunk. "You probably think I'm just some crazy black with a chip on his shoulder about his color or being crippled or both."

  "Are you?"

  Carrew shrugged. "Maybe. Yeah, maybe I'm just a bitter vet. Or bitter about being black. You want a fact, Blue? Something that'll knock your socks off? Here's a statistic for you. In the U.S. an inmate has a one in 3,300 chance of being killed during one year in prison. But the average black man outside prison stands a one in 1,700 chance. That means he's at twice the risk of being killed outside jail. Yeah, that might make me bitter, make me toss a few TV's Out of a window."

  Those were damn good reasons to be bitter, Bolan thought, but that didn't seem to be Carrew's problem.

  He was smart enough to go beyond what couldn't be changed, work on what could. The books and weightlifting showed that. "Everybody's got problems, Carrew," Bolan said.

  Carrew looked Bolan in the eyes. A slow grin spread across his face. "You're not buying that as my motive, are you?"

  "Nope."

  "Good. You didn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd take much whining. All right, Blue, just for the sake of killing some time, I tell you the truth." He leaned back in his wheelchair and sighed. "Ever follow college football back in the sixties, Blue?"

  "Some."

  "Heisman Trophy winners?"

  Bolan nodded.

  "Who got it in 1966?

  "I don't remember. What's the point?"

  "Dick Kazmaier, Princeton."

  "So?" Bolan asked.

  Carrew chuckled. "Yeah. So what, huh? That was almost twenty years ago. That was then and this is now. Only there was another football player back then, a year earlier, who'd come so close that everyone agreed he would win that damn Heisman for sure the following year. It would be his year." Carrew grinned.

  Now Bolan stared in sudden recognition.

  "Lyle 'In Style' Carrew. Penn State."

  Carrew grinned brightly. "That's me. Aren't you going to ask what happened?"

  Bolan finished buttoning his shirt, not saying anything.

  Carrew continued. "Anyway, our boy Lyle ended up in Nam in '66, making end runs with grenades, getting his legs shot to hell. Spends three months in a POW camp with no doctor, no medical treatment. Only reason they didn't kill him was they liked to watch him crawl across the room for his food. And I crawled, man, crawled for every bite. I learned something about prisons there, man. Anyway, so much for Lyle 'In Style' Carrew's career in the N. F. L."

  He laughed that gruff, humorless scraping sound.

  "So every once in a while during the N.F.L. draft season I'm a little cranky. I'm in that damn VA hospital, waiting for over an hour, listening to some doctor who was still shitting in diapers in '66, calling me "Lyle" like I was his son, but getting huffy when I call him "Dave," telling me he prefers to be called "Dr. Donnelly." So I tossed him into the X-ray machine. Things got a little carried away from there."

  Bolan laughed. "Yeah. So what do you do when you're not busting up VA-hospitals?"

  "Teach kids about the tribal rites of the Aruntas when they'd much rather be groping each other in their dorm rooms. I'm a professor of anthropology at the university."

  "You're kidding?"

  "Not at all."

  "How come they don't fire you for this?"

  Carrew laughed. "Tenure. Besides, they need me for other reasons. Aside from being a brilliant instructor and a minor authority in my field, I'm good advertising. They like showing me off as their equal-opportunity employee. Here's our crippled, black, war-veteran professor. Hell, I'm an institution."

  Carrew fell silent for a moment. Suddenly he wheeled around, facing the bars, his back to Bolan.

  "Rodeo's going to kill you, Blue. Going to do it soon, just as he promised. Probably won't come at you alone."

  "For a college professor, you sure know a lot about prison survival."

  "Three months as a POW, then eight months in a VA hospital, Blue. In some ways the hospital was worse. Not because of the staff, most of whom were terrific. But over there I saw guys struggle against impossib
le odds and survive, only to come home to a VA hospital and kill themselves within six weeks. Loss of hope is powerful stuff, man. Now I'm a black man in a wheelchair. That's two life sentences. I know how to play rough to survive."

  Bolan believed him.

  "I also know enough not to get involved in your beef. I gave the cops a hard time when they arrested me, which is why I'm in here. But when things cool down and I roll in front of the judge in my suit and tie and diplomas and medals, promising never to do such a thing again, I'll be back on campus watching the girls get younger every year. In other words, you're on your own."

  Bolan grinned. "Always have been, Lyle."

  "Yeah." Carrew nodded. "I had a feeling."

  They heard the guards' boots clomping along the metal catwalks outside their cell. Bolan and Carrew were on the first tier, to accommodate Carrew's wheelchair. The guards on each tier were selecting the first shift for open visitation, visitors and prisoners mingling in the courtyard.

  "This happens on Sundays only," Carrew explained, "and then only for the least threatening residents. Something new."

  The guard strolled by their cell and pounded his hickory baton on the bars. "Let's go. You got visitors."

  Carrew wheeled to the bars and waited. The doors on the whole row would be opened simultaneously.

  "Enjoy," Bolan said, hopping up on his bunk.

  "You bet," Carrew said.

  "You, too, Blue. Got a visitor. Move it."

  "Me?"

  "That's what I said. And change that shirt. It's torn."

  Bolan was surprised as he jumped down from the bunk, changed shirts and waited at the cell door next to Carrew. A visitor would mean Brognola. And he would only come if there was bad news. Bolan couldn't imagine things being much worse than they already were.

  He was wrong.

  8

  "Trouble," Brognola said, frowning. "Big trouble."

  Bolan laughed. "Is there any other kind?"

  "Not for us, I guess. Sort of comes with the territory."

  The big Fed popped an antacid tablet into his mouth and chewed. He had a pained expression at first, but after a few minutes, he began to look better. Bolan led him silently to a far corner of the compound courtyard, on a patch of brown grass desperate for water. Bolan gestured at the pack of tablets.