Step On A Crack

“Sounds great,” I said, taking a half step back. My heel struck the flat, hard steel of the door. There was nowhere to run.

The heavy radio I’d been given by the warden was the only thing remotely resembling a weapon. I hefted it as Little John pulled his baton out with a sickening smile. The bastard had a face as repellent as a stinkbug’s.

“Why don’t we just talk about this for a second?” I said as I reared back, then hurled the radio. Roger Clemens would have been proud. The radio and Little John’s nose exploded simultaneously. He screamed; then he and Jack lit into me and I was lifted right off the floor.

“Upsy-daisy, Mike!” Jack yelled in my face. Then they both threw me down on my face.

Chapter 112

I THOUGHT THE PRISONERS had been loud before, but it turned out they were only warming up. As I attempted to wrestle on the cement with Jack and Little John, the communal screams off the concrete shell of the cell block sounded like a jumbo jet taking off inside a hangar.

Then stuff started to rain down from the top tiers: various liquids, wet sheets, magazines, a wad of burning toilet paper. Had I just been gassed?

When Jack got in a lick with the riot baton on the back of my head, I went down on one knee. My consciousness was coming in and out like bad radio reception. I was pi

I screamed and pushed off the floor with all my might.

I thought about my kids. I couldn’t leave them now. I couldn’t allow them to have no one. I wouldn’t let it happen. I was almost on my knees when Little John rolled off me and started booting me in the ribs.

I dropped back down, my breath gone; then his steel toe kissed my solar plexus. I wondered idly if Jack, pulling back the baton above me, might be the last sight I’d ever see on the earth.

That’s when something completely unexpected happened-an arm snaked through the bars behind Jack.

It was so huge, it barely squeezed through, and so covered in tattoos, it looked like its owner wore a paisley sleeve. A massive hand wrapped itself around the back of Jack’s uniform shirt collar. It sounded like a gong when Jack’s head was slammed back into the bars again and again.

“How you like it, CO?” the convict inquired as he slammed and reslammed Jack’s skull into the bars of his cell. “How you like it, you vicious prick? How you like that one?”

When Little John got off me to help out Jack, I managed, wheezing, to gain my feet. The riot baton Jack had dropped was on the concrete. I stooped, lifted it, brought it to my shoulder.

It had been a while since I’d had a nightstick in my hand, walking my first beat in the Hunt’s Point section of the South Bronx. On those cold, long nights I’d kept myself awake practicing with it, swinging it over and over until it whistled in cold air.

The nightstick whistled now, and I guess it was like riding a bike, because Little John’s left knee shattered like balsa wood with my first two-handed swing.

I had to backpedal immediately as the big man howled and hopped around surprisingly fast on one foot and came toward me. There was rage in his wide, bulging eyes, spit spraying out of his twisted, screaming mouth.

I swung from my toes at his jaw. He ducked, but too little, too late. I broke the baton across his temple. He hit the concrete a half second before the splintered wood.

The inmates were cheering something wicked as I stumbled around the big guard’s bleeding, unconscious hulk. Their rage-filled voices met in a violent mantra as I stepped toward the inmate who was choking Jack with both monstrous hands. Jack’s face was turning blue.

I picked up the other dropped baton. Got myself ready for this.

“Kill, kill, kill, kill!” the inmates screamed in unison.

I have to admit, the suggestion was tempting. I swung the baton hard.

But I didn’t hit Jack.

I hit the tattooed hand that was very close to throttling the life out of him. The inmate yowled and he let go of Jack, who slumped unconscious to the floor.

“Hey, like, you’re welcome, bro,” said the muscular convict behind the bars in a hurt voice. He was nursing his injured hand.

“Sorry, Charlie,” I said as I started dragging Jack around the barrage of projectiles toward the sealed gym door. “I can’t arrest him if he’s dead.”

But I can give him one good kick in the teeth. For old times’ sake, Jacko. Because we’re such buddies.

And that’s what I did-one kick-and the inmates went wild.

Chapter 113

OF COURSE IT couldn’t be quite that easy.

They found the two actual shift foremen, Rhodes and Williams, handcuffed in one of the cells on A-Block.

It turned out that “Jack” and “Little John,” whose real names were Rocco Milton and Ke

I Mirandaed Rocco “Jack” Milton in the parking lot of Sing Sing. For both business and pleasure, I made sure to do it right in front of Steve Reno and his men before opening the rear door of my cruiser and shoving him in.

Reno left in a paddy wagon filled with the rest of the suspected hijackers. Ke

I stood outside for a moment, figuring out how to play things. Then I retrieved something in the trunk of my cruiser before I climbed behind the wheel to drive Jack to New York City.

Fu

I stayed silent for the first part of our trip back to Manhattan and let his a

“Did you know,” Jack finally said, “that in the summer of ’ninety-five four guards were taken hostage out on Rikers? Did you know that, Be

I glanced at him through the mesh behind me.

“Is that right?” I said.

“Only two of us made it out.”

“You and Little John?” I said.

“On the money as usual, Mike,” Jack said. “You ever think about trying out for Jeopardy!? Suffice it to say that nobody gave a crap about a few corrections officers, especially the mayor.”

“So that’s why you killed him? Why you stabbed him? Burned him with cigarettes?”

Jack scratched his chin ponderously. “Between you and me?” he said.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said, smiling back at him.

“You better believe it,” he said. “The animals who’d gotten their hands on us blinded one of my buddies with a butter knife and put out cigarettes on our arms. Wouldn’t you know it, Hizzoner decided he was above negotiating with the inmates on that one. Guess some men are created a little more equal than others. You know, it’s fu

I nodded neutrally. I wanted Jack to keep talking, something he liked to do anyway.