"Yes. But what inspires the need for revenge?"

I didn't answer. We might have been in an empty world. No sound but the truck engine and the vents and our breath.

"Justice," he said. "Some inmates, a surprising number of them, get p.i.s.sed off when they see a CO getting away with something illegal. It offends their sense of justice."

"They play you."

"They play," he agreed. "Some of them love it. They play one side against the other like they're playing chess. Some of them think they're geniuses. I've met a couple who really were. Most of them are stupider than they realize. We have to get them out in a hurry when they make a mistake and go too far. Crowley did. Of course they say it's suicide. But I know it wasn't. You know it, too."

"Who's we?"

He didn't answer. "We've got warrants. We've got wiretaps. We're monitoring bank accounts. We're setting up relationships. We're starting to figure things out."

The words sank in. It made me queasy to think about an investigation of that scale going on. Who would go down? Then he turned on me.

"If any of this information gets out, I'll know you are the one who told it. If you tip anyone off, if you tell your best friend or your hairdresser, I'll know it was you. If a CO gets out of the country in a hurry, I'll know it was your fault."

I thought about Tony Pinckney and the three-week honeymoon he'd just taken to Australia. It was ridiculous. It was insane.

I said, "If there was something serious going on, Keeper Wallace would do something about it." It was a leading statement.

"Keeper Wallace is dirty," he answered. "A few months ago I got one of my guys to circulate five one-hundred-dollar bills inside to buy some particular services. I had my suspicions. When the money was in, we began to follow Wallace. We followed him for a weekend and saw nothing out of the ordinary. But then, a half hour before we were going to close it down on a Sunday afternoon, he walked into a jewelry store in the mall and came out with a small plastic bag. We went into the jewelry store and asked the clerk what he had bought and how he had paid for it. A necklace. In cash. We confiscated the cash. Two of the hundred-dollar bills turned up."

"It could have gotten to him a hundred different ways. It could have been money owed to him by another CO, someone who really is dirty." Who would have expected me to defend Wallace? But I felt threatened by the information, the applecart of my little world overturned by it. I'd admired Wallace once. Part of the reason why his actions had hurt me was because I admired him still.

"It wasn't proof," Ruddik said. "It just lined up some more arrows. They're pointing to places you wouldn't believe."

I could barely breathe. I cracked my window to let the air in. I wanted the cold to bring me back to life.

"I'm angry," he said. "I'm doing something here that I would never normally do. I've been watching you. I think I know where you stand, what kind of person you are. I've thought about this for a while. We've been inching along. It's not going fast enough. We need reinforcements."

"I don't know if I can do that," I said. "I'm not like that."

A rat was a rat.

"My best informant was very close to Jon Crowley. Through his information I came to believe that Crowley knew something important. I started working Crowley, bringing him along. I wanted him to know that we could stop the beatings, give him some protection if he helped us out. Imagine my surprise when he disappears and then hangs himself in the City. It's almost laughable."

I tried to swallow it down, sick to my stomach. I saw Crowley dangling forward, frozen in flight, the noose eating into his neck.

"You saw his body. What do you think? Ever been pepper sprayed in the eyes? In the old days, the boys would put you in a room, douse you with it, and block the vents and door cracks so the air couldn't clear and you couldn't get away. Ever been tasered so bad your skin burned? Ever gone days locked in darkness, thinking you might never see another person again? I don't think it matters if they made that noose and hung him with it or left him down there and told him they were coming back for more. Do you want to find out why?"

I did and I didn't. I thought of Ray MacKay, oxygen mask lowered to his chin, and couldn't get the hard lump out of my throat.

"I want you to do me one favor," Ruddik said.

He put a business card in my hands.

"There's an Internet address and a pa.s.sword on this," he said. "Go to the site and see for yourself."

"What is it?" I managed to ask.

"A video. Just watch it. Let me know if it reminds you of anything. If it does, and you want to do something about it, call me."

Then he opened the door and was gone.

19.

If he thought Fenton wasn't watching, Josh would have snaked his way through the hallways back to the kitchen. Instead, he opened the door to the yard and stepped out. The air was cold. The night was dazzlingly bright, the cold air crystallizing into sparkles all around him. The noise of the cart crashing and banging across the uneven stones was louder than he expected. He stopped. No one else in the entire world existed except for him. He was the last man alive. Two pills in his hand. He had no idea what they were. He looked up into the sky, just like Fenton told him to. The sight of the stars piercing the empty blackness took his breath away. The thought of his own little life in the midst of so much dense s.p.a.ce made him tremble. He took the pills, swallowed them hard. How good it was, despite everything, to be alive.

A hundred feet later he thought of the sentries in the guard towers. They'd be astonished to see him moving about. No doubt they had him in their sights. A sniper shot. A bullet in the back of his head as a final joke. Could Fenton arrange something like that? Checkmate. The paranoia was upon him. It happened no matter what drugs he took. The fear of total loss of control. The sense that he was under someone else's influence.

Reaching the cafeteria building, Josh expected to wait in the cold until the duty guard roused himself, but the gate was ajar and Josh simply pushed the cart in on his own. In through the cafeteria, marveling at his own sense of direction, he emerged into the kitchen. Roy was gone. Jacko sipped from a tin cup, smoking a cigarette.

"Where's Fenton?"

"He sent me to fill up," Josh said, lifting one of the large empty containers from the cart and placing it under the spigot of the cooking pot.

"I'll get that," Jacko said, and stumbled over.

He stirred the hot chocolate with the huge wooden paddle, peered in to examine the contents. "Needs more water," he said. He reached down and grabbed a plastic mop bucket, then poured the dirty water into the steaming cocoa.

"Oh, s.h.i.t." Holding the empty mop bucket in his hand and looking down to the place where he had grabbed it from. Another bucket beside it, this one filled with clean water. He chucked the mop bucket across the room and picked up the wooden paddle again.

"Advice from the cook. Go easy on the hot chocolate."

"Roger that," Josh said.

He went back to D block through the hub. There were moments when he didn't know how many steps he had taken, how much time had pa.s.sed. He kept remembering what he was doing, waking up to his present awareness, realizing that he was pushing a cart down a long hallway in a prison. His heart had never beat so rapidly. He felt as if his face were on fire. He knew his teeth were shedding. There was a finger inside his skull, sc.r.a.ping at the inner sh.e.l.l of his cranium with a nail, a hollow sound he realized mimicked the squeaky wheel of the cart.

He couldn't find Fenton. Not waiting in the hub, not waiting outside the nest in D. The mess was gone. The jack was nowhere to be seen. Josh didn't know what to do. "Hot chocolate and doughnuts!" he yelled, and behold, the gate opened and he was drawn inside, pushing the cart before him. He went from cell to cell on his own. The men said things to him, he spoke back. There was no communication to it, no connection.

Back in the hub, all the ranges finished, he crossed over to Keeper's Hall. He saw a roomful of guards. They called out to him, and he stopped and wished them a happy New Year, offering up his wares, the last box of doughnuts. They grabbed the box from him and chewed and stuffed their faces. Released, he pushed on down the hallway, more minutes gone by, and realized he was lost. Then he heard a strange sound, a faint animal growling, and pushed on farther, turning a bend. The noise was coming from behind a door, and for some reason, some unexpected bravery or curiosity in him, he pushed the door open and peered inside. A female CO, her shirt unb.u.t.toned, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s free, stood in the middle of the room, bent over but facing him, her hands braced on a table, her long hair dangling, her blue uniform pants in a pile on the floor. Behind her, thrusting hard, was Fenton, the widest smile on his face Josh had ever seen, recognition mixed with pride even as he maintained his rhythmic dance.

"Connie! We've got an audience!"

The jack's face lifted and stared at Josh, her mouth rounding, her eyes widening, a pleading expression. "Oh Jesus Christ."

And Fenton laughing. And Josh fleeing down the hall, the cart rattling wildly until he abandoned it and ran into the hub. Somewhere the tick of a clock struck twelve, and a thousand voices roared in mock celebration, like a beast awakened. He walked as fast as he could, almost a run, sweat on his neck, voices in his ears, and broke for the tunnel to the infirmary and home.

It was only when he got to the infirmary that he allowed himself to slow down. The gate pushed open. It shouldn't have been open. Why was he able to walk right in? The cells were completely dark. Only a single row of fluorescent lights to show his way. There was no one at the CO desk, no one in the common room, no nurses. How would he get into his own cell? He desperately wanted to find his bed bunk, splash water on his face to steady his racing heart, and sleep. His cell door was open. It shouldn't have been open. But he didn't go inside. Instead, he walked to the end of the hallway as though compelled, turned the corner into the cavern of the intensive care wing, each bed in its alcove, and saw the cage surrounding Elgin's bed.

"If it isn't himself," Roy said.

The cage door was open, and Roy sat on the edge of Elgin's cot, weighing it down. Josh looked to his left and his right. There was no CO anywhere. Vague memories of a party somewhere. Fenton f.u.c.king someone. He couldn't put the pieces together.

"They took his leg off today, can you imagine, and still our friend promises us the hurt."

With horror he gazed down the torso. Amputated? The blanket on the bed was suspiciously flat on the left side, but Elgin was awake, his uncovered eye darting back and forth between them. His arms were bound by the Velcro restraints attached to each side of the bed. Josh imagined Roy slipping the restraints on while Elgin was sleeping, then sitting patiently and waiting for him to wake up.

"What a surprise to see Crowley's little b.i.t.c.h," Elgin said.

Roy shushed him.

"We've been talking, Lawrence and me. He's filled with bitterness. All the pain he's caused in this world and he wants to cause more. He hates you something awful, Josh. It's remarkable, really. He thinks you're going to finish Crowley's work and that means you need to be stopped. Do you want to tell Josh what you said you'd do to him a few minutes ago?"

"f.u.c.k you, Wobbles, you c.o.c.ksucking-"

Roy ripped the bandage off Elgin's face and shoved it deep into his mouth. The mottled spots of blood made Elgin look like a motorcycle crash victim, all road rash. His good eye bulged with anger. His body undulated against the restraints, working them.

"You needed to go through me," Roy was saying. "No one gets into the City without me."

Elgin bucked and lunged, thrusting upward. He struggled to open his mouth around the cloth.

"What are we going to do with you, Lawrence?" Roy asked. His face was the picture of reasonableness. And he put his big, meaty hand across Elgin's mouth.

Josh had never seen a hand so large. It filled the trench between Elgin's chin and the tunnels of his nostrils. It embraced Elgin's face and suctioned down on it. It became the center of stillness in a writhing, bucking, undulating ma.s.s.

"There, there," Roy said.

The calm voice distorted Josh's understanding of what was happening. The frantic, biting, lunging force on the bed, each thrust to the sky more violent, more hate-filled.

"Shhhh," Roy was saying. "Don't fight it. There ain't nothing you can do."

And Josh, without understanding whether he was commanded, bidden, or destined, threw himself over Elgin's body, weighing it down, knowing then and there that he was eternally d.a.m.ned, wanting it to be over as quickly as possible, wanting Elgin to die. The wind must have been howling outside, the snow pounding down like hail. The world was a cesspool of seething hate.

The body burst upward with a violent thrust for air. Roy whispered into Elgin's ear, calming him, telling him it was going to be all right. And for a second Josh thought it was true; the great m.u.f.fled howls were gone, the rolling chest was becalmed, but the air was polluted with a stench, a foul mixture of p.i.s.s and s.h.i.t.

Josh fell back, still feeling how Elgin's heart had beat wildly, begging for release before stabbing upward with one last electric jolt. All of it over now, the calmness back. Roy undid the Velcro restraints and tsked about the raw welts on the forearms, rearranged the sheet, tucking it under Elgin's torso with a grimace. He replaced the bandage on the half of Elgin's face, like a badly fitted toupee.

"If I were you," Roy said, "I'd be in my crib an hour ago."

20.

I didn't remember driving home. I wasn't aware of the world around me until I pulled into the driveway. I was awake but moving without thought. Inside the house, I pulled off my boots and parka. In the kitchen the cat's water bowl was filled with bloated pellets of food. The fridge was leaking again, and I stepped in the pool of water with my sock foot. I stripped in the bedroom, folding my uniform over the dresser, feeling sallow and flabby, and put on a shirt, sweatpants, and slippers.

I fired up my computer. It took a long time to start. I looked at the business card, blank except for a strange URL, one of those nonsensical number-letter strings that spam addresses sometimes use, and a pa.s.sword: NOYFB. I launched the browser and typed in the address.

A s.p.a.ce came up for a pa.s.sword, and I typed that in, too. The screen flickered and changed, and a video screen popped up. I watched it load and I hit the play b.u.t.ton. A home movie started up. Credits came on, "Midnight Walk" appearing in bold white font, like words on a computer screen. Then PowerPoint candy canes and mistletoe came fluttering down the screen like snowflakes. The screen blinked, and suddenly a subt.i.tle appeared: "Produced by the Ditmarsh Social Club." A symbol below like a trademark. Three inverted triangles, encircled, the glaring pumpkin face. What the h.e.l.l was the Ditmarsh Social Club?

I felt a pin-size hole in my stomach, the beginnings, no doubt, of some kind of terrible gut-eating cancer. The person holding the camera strolled the hallways of Ditmarsh. A row of covered cell doors with wide slots at waist and floor level. The dissociation unit. The camera stopped before a cell, and a hand knocked almost politely on the metal door. In response, other hands from within were thrust out and cuffed. The door opened, and a CO went inside, visible only from the chest down. A minute later an inmate emerged in shackles. Worse, I realized, he wore ski goggles with aluminum foil in the eyes. He had on heavy ear protectors, the kind airplane flagmen wore to block out all sound. Blind and deaf, he was led forward by the arm, a troop of six unidentified COs surrounding him. A voice called out h.e.l.lo, a m.u.f.fled echo. A door opened. The camera was outside. It was nighttime. The camera panned up. The walls of Ditmarsh were revealed from inside the yard. There was no snow. Stars in the night sky above. I heard a voice. "f.u.c.k, it's cold." I didn't recognize the person who spoke.

The scene cut. A door opened to a roomful of people, one of the meeting rooms in Keeper's Hall. Party whoops welcomed the camera. The camera swiveled back and forth as though greeting people on the left and the right. Then it was placed on a tripod. A face peered into the camera as if to set it properly. I recognized Droune. Then it was back to legs.

It was as though I were watching a frat party. Typical macho CO behavior. The alcohol was flowing, the voices were loud and raunchy. If Ruddik wanted to prove to me that the guards jerked off on company time, brought in liquor and music, well then he'd proved it, but that was hardly my business.

Then some of the behavior started to get outlandish. One of the COs had dropped his pants and was shuffling around the room. I saw what must have been a female CO doing a slow grinding dance to the music, like a stripper, and wondered if it was Connie Poltzoski, a gruff woman in her early forties. A hard drinker and smoker. Debasing herself in front of a roomful of ten or twelve men. None of it looked good on camera to someone like Ruddik. But I kept watching.

The video changed again. The party must have ended or become subdued. I could hear footsteps and voices with clarity. The camera was picked up this time and thrust into a hideously made-up face. Lipstick-smeared mouth. Dark mascara eyes. A scared look. When the camera pulled back, I recognized the inmate. What was his name? The transvest.i.te called Screen Door, wearing a strapless c.o.c.ktail dress. She was slender and timid but still looked gangly and manly, awkward on high heels. The camera tilted up and around, and I saw that every CO in the picture was now wearing a hood. I was so startled by the transformation that it took me a moment to understand. The hoods were gray flannel. They were loose. They slumped to the shoulders and needed to be adjusted and shifted often.

I watched helplessly as the hooded COs converged on Screen Door. They forced him to stand on a chair in his high heels. The camera panned up, and I saw that Screen Door was wearing a bedsheet rope around his neck. His eyes bulged in terror. He was crying. The m.u.f.fled voices told him to shut up. One hand held a Taser close to Screen Door's body, and Screen Door leaned away from its touch, as if he could imagine it going off at any moment. I heard someone spitting obscenities. Screen Door was guilty of numerous crimes. He was a pipe-sucking h.o.m.o. He didn't do what he was told. He needed to be dealt with. The chair was kicked away. For one awful moment Screen Door was suspended in the air, and then he collapsed in a heap on the floor. The laughter overwhelmed the sound of the video.

Then they pulled him up and noosed him again, even as he begged for his life. The screams were horrible. The chair got kicked, and he fell the same way, and to the COs it was just as funny, even as Screen Door coughed and spit. After he was mock executed a third time, a CO lifted him up and embraced him with his arms. Then he spoke and told Screen Door that he'd been saved, that he was born anew. Someone laughed and told him to sin no more. I didn't recognize any of the voices.

The screen blackened. Somewhere in the darkness I heard a car honk hysterically, and I realized the new year had begun.

STAGE III.

21.

Ruddik wouldn't tell me what it was about. He wouldn't even tell me where we were going. He asked me to meet him at a McDonald's parking lot off Route 36 at eight-thirty in the morning, the second day of the new year.

I slept badly and woke early. Driving east, I watched the sun rising fast, changing from a dispersed haze to an intense but distant orb. The snow had receded from the road and become a grimy nothingness on the shoulder.

The McDonald's, just off the exit ramp, was adjacent to a strip mall that included a sport store, a tax attorney's office, and a Chinese restaurant. I was ten minutes early and feeling coffee-deprived, so I nudged into the drive-thru line. Naturally, as soon as I was locked into the decision, cars in front and cars behind, I noticed Ruddik sitting in a vehicle I didn't recognize, a silver Ford sedan, parked next to the Dumpster, staring forward, waiting. The sense of screwup came over me, like I was late for a job interview. I tried to catch his eye, wishing I hadn't committed to the drive-thru, but he didn't see me. I tapped the horn, but he still didn't look over, and I got an annoyed stare in the rearview mirror ahead of me.

When I had finally been handed a large coffee black, I was two minutes late. I rolled through the parking lot, saw an empty spot four over from Ruddik and an old couple in a car going for it, cut them off in a move that was half vindictiveness, half desperation, and suffered their glares as I locked up and walked over to Ruddik's car.

I sank deep into the seat. There were some food wrappers on the floor at my feet, but it was a clean car with a rental smell. "You got stuck in that lineup," he said. So he had seen me. "I thought we'd drive together the rest of the way." I nodded. He was dressed civilian. Jeans and a golf shirt under a fleece sweater. His hair looked good, like he'd just gotten it cut.

"Whose car is this?" I asked as we hit the on-ramp and cruised back on the highway.

"It's budgeted to the investigation," Ruddik answered. "We leave it at that parking lot for special occasions."

A car budgeted for special occasions. And who is we? I still didn't know, but Ruddik had an air I didn't recognize in him, a calm professionalism and confidence, a hint that the uptight righteousness he displayed in uniform was an act. I didn't ask him anything. I saw a briefcase on the backseat. Saw the gun in the shoulder holster inside his sweater. I wondered if that was special duty or just typical macho s.h.i.t. Unlike most of the male corrections officers, I didn't carry a gun on civilian time. For some reason, we were ent.i.tled to carry, even though we had to check our weapons as soon as we stepped foot inside the prison. It always struck me as the height of lunacy-pack a gun while you're out with your family at Applebee's just because you can, store it in a gun locker when you get to work so the bad guys don't wrestle it away from you.

We got off the highway, headed north on a county road, then wound our way west again around White Wolf Lake before turning into a suburb marked by one of those tony stone gates. Large houses, spread duly apart, lots of trees, plenty of judicious speed b.u.mps, the glimpse of a golf course.