MoonFall (6 page)

“Your friends, they said it.” Noah straightened in his seat. He had to focus, had to be real clear so he didn’t dig himself no further into trouble. But her leaning forward like she kept doing wasn’t helping matters none. “That Poulson fellow, he called me Dionite, or Diorite, or Dynamite, or some such shit.”

“Oh, so now you’re pretending like you don’t even know what I’m talking about?”

“I don’t! I swear to God or Bourne there, or those mighty fine tattoos, I swear I don’t–”
 

She lashed out with the club again. He tried to jerk back, was too slow, wound up sprawling on the floor, the back of his head pounding where it hit the concrete, cheek hot and sticky with his own blood.

She stood over him, the club pressed against his throat.

“I can do all kinds of things to you here,” she said. “Not just beatings, though I’m more than happy to lay that down all over your sorry, savage ass. We have pliers back there in the other room. Knives too. And I’ve got quite an imagination when I get riled. You’d be amazed the places I’ve found to cut at, to squeeze, to rip. I’ve got a little blowtorch, one of those old gas ones. Of course, getting gas is hard these days, but it’s worth spending it when I think we’re in danger. When I think some Dionite’s tongue needs loosening.”

She reached around behind her back again, pulled a pair of wires from her belt. There were clamps on the ends.

“See these?” She dangled the clamps down in Noah’s face. “Electric cables, like people used to use to jump start cars. Of course, I was too young to ever do that. The only use I get from them is clamping them onto some asshole who thinks he’s too big and too clever to talk. Then I get the battery we keep for these special occasions, and I attach it to the other ends of these wires. And then that savage asshole, he gets to see how electricity works for the first time in twenty years.

“So, what have you got to say to me and my cables?”

“You’re rusty,” Noah replied.

“What?”

“I’m talking to your cables, like you asked. And the clamps, they’re all rusted up. No way you’ve ever latched them onto anyone. I’m starting to wonder if maybe you’ve got a gentler touch than you’re making out.”

He’d expected her to get angry, to shout at him some more. But instead she seemed to seize up into a terrible rigid silence, her face frozen but something glittering like a razor blade deep in her eyes.

Then the club came down again and again and again, battering him as he curled up around himself, arms defending his head and chest. The blows came so thick and fast that the world merged into a haze of pain, and when he finally emerged she was leaning back against the desk, panting, looking just as stunned as he felt.

“I…” She said. “I’m…”

Her expression hardened again.

“We don’t need electric leads to make your life tough,” she said. “You think you’re so smart, but I don’t even need to lift a finger to make you squirm. And don’t think I won’t, when Apollo’s safety’s at stake.

“Vostok!”

The door opened and the Russian-sounding fellow stepped inside. He gave an exaggerated wince as he looked at Noah, brow furrowing beneath his shock of blond hair.

“Sergeant Burns?” he asked.

“Take this wretch back to the cells,” she said. “But I hear that they’re getting crowded now, so we’ll have to throw him in with someone else. Make him bunkmates with Blood Dog, let him make some new friends.”

“But we’ve still got–”
 

“No,” Burns said. “In with Blood Dog. Am I clear?”

Vostok hung his head, walked over and dragged Noah to his feet.

“Come on, my friend,” he said. “Let's get you settled.”

As they left the room Noah took one last look back. Though his vision was blurred by the swelling bruise around one eye, he got a last good look at Burns leaning over the desk, ponytail hanging down past her face, her whole body sagging as she took long, deep breaths. Hot as she was, brutal as she was, he felt a strange stab of pity for the stunned looking young woman.

Hearing the howls coming from the cells, Noah doubted that feeling of pity would last.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

M
AKING
F
RIENDS

T
HE
CELLS
WERE
almost silent, the prisoners taken out for who knew what reason. Noah figured they weren’t all getting the kind of treatment he’d had from Sergeant Burns – that would run the guards ragged, even the ones who got a kick out of beating on folks.

He didn’t think Burns was that kind. Or maybe he just hoped she wasn’t. Shame to have an ugly soul behind such a pretty face.

His new cell was in the corner of the same block as the one he’d spent the night in, but on the second floor, opening onto a walkway that ran around the perimeter of the hall. Looking out through the barred door, a row of cells lay ahead and to his right, the echoing space of the prison to his left. Like his previous cell, it had concrete walls and a filthy john in one corner, but unlike that cell it had a pair of bunks instead of one bed.

The cell fell like dread across Noah’s mind. Any other time his heart would have been racing, but it was only just slowing down after the fight-or-flight-or-lie-here-getting-beaten moment with Sergeant Burns. It wasn’t that the cell seemed better by comparison, it was just that he had no reserves left to panic with.

Burns had no way of knowing how he felt about enclosed spaces, but if she had she could hardly have planned this better. The corner cell let in even less light than his previous abode, and with only part of one wall not consumed with flat concrete there wasn’t much sign of space or open air. Even if he pressed his face against the bars, he’d still have a wall looming at him from the right, albeit one lined with cells instead of that crushingly flat gray.

Though no-one was around the upper bunk clearly belonged to someone – the sheets were dishevelled and there was a tally of scratches on the wall above, like someone had learned about prisons in an old movie and wanted to make sure he was living the authentic 1940s experience. You couldn’t tell much about a fellow from his stained bed sheets and a bunch of scratches, but they didn’t make Blood Dog seem any more appealing than his name already had.

Noah shifted an old magazine and lay back gratefully on the bottom bunk. He’d tried not to show it as Vostok led him back to the cell, but his head was spinning a little from the beating, and every inch of his body contributed to a single massive ache. He wanted to work out what was going on with this place, to piece together a plan to convince them he wasn’t one of these Dionites so they would let him out. But he was too damn tired and in too much pain to deal with any of it.

He closed his eyes, shutting out the closeness of the bunk above him, the walls looming in from every direction, the terrible itch of panic being swallowed by exhaustion in the back of his brain, and let his mind wander off into sleep.

When he woke, it was getting dark again. He’d have to be careful not to let this turn into a habit. Night was for sleeping, in prison or anywhere else, and the last thing his exhausted body needed was a screwed up sleep pattern.

There was noise in the prison hall now, the clatter of footsteps and chatter of voices as dozens of men were returned to their cells. He could hear the rattling of keys in locks and the repeated jangle of chains, but none of the wild howling that had greeted him on his arrival. Maybe that had been a show for the guards, or a way to intimidate the new prisoner, or just a strange mood that seized these folks at night. Maybe it would be back as soon as he tried to sleep. Whatever it had been, it wasn’t part of this routine.

Footsteps came closer and a guard appeared, unlocked Noah’s cell and then took a step back. He looked wary despite his body armor and the club on his belt. When Noah saw the prisoner being escorted, he understood why.

Blood Dog. Noah assumed it was him because he was being ushered into the cell, and because of the big red Doberman tattooed on one cheek. He was a ridiculous and terrifying example of humanity. Vostok, the guard, was a big guy with a good couple of inches on Noah and muscles to match, but this guy would have loomed over even him. Like Sergeant Burns, he was covered in tattoos and wore a tank top to show them off, but there the similarity ended. Blood Dog must have weighed twice as much as Burns, being built like a wrestler who’d eaten fifteen cows and then hit the gym non-stop for a year. His scowl was infinitely more convincing than hers, plastered across a face that didn’t so much sit on top of his body as protrude out of it, a solid mass of muscle with little distinction between head, neck and the upward sweep of his shoulders.

“What the fuck you looking at?” he growled as he stepped into the cell.

A dozen answers leaped unbiddenly into Noah’s mind. Many of them clever, but it wouldn’t have been smart to utter them out loud.

“Nothing,” he mumbled.

“What you doing with my bikes?” Blood Dog crossed the cell to loom over Noah, even as the key rattled again in the door of the cell, locking them in together.

“Your bikes?” Noah looked around in confusion. What in high hell was this guy talking about?

“My bikes.” A finger fat as salami pointed at the old magazine Noah had discarded to get into bed. Now that he paid more attention, he saw that its once glossy pages were covered with pictures of bikes, some of them tearing down highways under men in leather jackets and neatly kept beards, others sitting in studio imitations of workshops underneath young women with less facial hair and a lot less clothes.

“Sorry.” Noah rolled out of his bunk and bent down to scoop up the magazine. As he moved his tired and battered muscles screamed in protest, stiffening up so that instead of bending down into a neat crouch he sprawled on the concrete, landings on top of Blood Dog’s magazine and further crumpling the already old and fragile pages.

“You think you’re funny?” Blood dog growled, in a tone that made it clear what he thought of funny people, and that it was a thought funny people would regret. “You some kind of wise guy?”

A booted foot nudged hard at Noah’s arm, making him wince as it knocked against his bruises. The intensity of Blood Dog’s presence filled the space of the already enclosed cell, closing him into an ever smaller fraction of the room. A room whose concrete floor now filled most of his vision, the wall occupying the rest only inches from his face, the door closed and locked and not to open until who knows when. It was all way too much. His heart was pounding like it might burst any moment, the whole space drawing in closer and closer and closer.

He closed his eyes, took a series of deep breaths.

“What you doing now wise guy?” Blood Dog nudged him harder with his foot. Noah winced. “Working up some more funny, huh?”

“No funny,” Noah managed to say.

He pushed himself up onto all fours, then onto his knees. Then he opened his eyes and picked up the magazine, held it up towards Blood Dog.

“I’m real sorry,” he said. “We’ve clearly got off to a bad start here. My name’s Noah, they’ve put me in here to–”
 

“My bikes.” Blood Dog snatched the magazine, stepped back so he could look at it in a better light. Noah took the opportunity to hurriedly get to his feet.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “I didn’t know they were your bikes. If I had, I’d obviously have shown them more respect, on account of how they’re mighty fine bikes and you’re… Well, you’re you.”

Blood Dog scowled again.

“What’s that mean?” he said. “What have you heard?”

“Nothing.” Noah backed up against the bunks as Blood Dog once again towered over him. This close he could see the tattoos in more detail despite the poor light in the cell. There was the red dog emblazoned across one cheek and an Italian flag on the other. The word ‘HATE’ in gothic letters down one side of his neck, and an automatic pistol on the opposite side, a trail of empty shell casings cascading from it down onto his shoulder and what looked like it might be the start of a dead body sprawled across his chest. And though Noah couldn’t make them out with their owner glaring down at him, it was clear that the tattoos carried on across the top of Blood Dog’s head.

What kind of lunatic got a tattoo of a dead body? And not a good tattoo either, from what Noah could see.

“Let me tell you what you haven’t heard.” Blood Dog was so close that the stink of decay and old cigarettes washed across Noah on the thug’s hot breath. “I ain’t from around here. I’m from up where they make proper gangsters, see? And down here, around you faggoty-ass rednecks, that makes me the boss, the fucking don of all you raggedy little douchebags who think you count as gangsters. That’s made me the boss since I got to this piss-hole town, and it’ll make me boss again once this trial shit is done and they let me out of here. You understand, wise guy?”

“Absolutely, yes.”

“Yes who?”

“Yes, boss?”

“Good little redneck.”

Was this guy for real? Noah felt like he was facing some cartoon of a Mafiosi thug, or some weird exaggerated vision brought on by exhaustion and muddled memories of gangster films.