“Not the visitor’s room. I need to see him on his own ground, where he’s comfortable.”
“It isn’t comfortable anywhere in this place.”
Shephard set his Python on TeWinkle’s desk and stood up.
The sounds of West Block echoed around him as he stepped through the last set of sliding steel doors, flanked by two solemn guards. Music blurted from several of the cells, cacophonic and competitive. Two men screamed at each other — one dressed like a woman — from inside the cubicle to his left. From down the block, something raked against the bars in a clanging, methodical riff. Someone was singing and strumming a guitar, and a harmonica whined accompaniment from across the walkway. A Dylan song; Shephard recognized it. He could see faces coming into the dull light as he walked by, hands wrapping around bars. Somebody yelled, “Hey, sweet thing, come here to daddy.” The guard on his right nodded to the stairs at the end of the hall. “Matusic, two hundred B, as in boy. Upstairs.”
Shake got off his bed and came to the bars as they approached. Shephard studied his small eyes, set like jewels in the meaty face. He was a big man, but plump, and his expression hinted at a boy picked on for his softness. But when he smiled, Shephard saw the brutish guile of a man who’d learned how to get even. There was something damaged in it.
“Got a visitor, Shake. Mr. Shephard. Behave yourself, and show him this is a joint with class.” The guard opened the door. “I’ll be top of the stairs. Call when you’re done.”
Shephard stepped in, glanced at the open notebook on the bed, and the pen beside it. “A writer. Shake for Shakespeare?” The door slammed closed behind him. He’d forgotten to ask what Matusic was in for.
“And ’cause I shake when I move.”
They shook hands. “Tom Shephard. What are you in for?”
“Mostly rape. You’re a cop.”
“Laguna Beach.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s a long way.”
“You can sit on the bed or the chair.” Shephard took the chair, and Shake fluffed his pillow before sitting back on his bed. He balanced the notebook on his belly. “I don’t want out. So if you’re here to make a deal, forget that kind of stuff. I’m home. Everything in the world I got right here.”
“Not a thing you want? Nothing?”
Matusic pondered the question, doodling in his notebook. Shephard looked around the celclass="underline" two stacks of books in a corner, piled almost head-high; more books under the bed; a sink and toilet; one wall covered by a huge photograph of mountains with flowers in bloom; the other by large sheets of graph paper clotted with tiny, dark handwriting.
“Always use a little money,” Shake said finally. “I collect it. What you want’s the question, isn’t it?”
Shephard studied the man’s face for some avenue of appeal. “Where do you keep your stuff? Your writing?”
“Under the bed. This is my hundred and forty-third book, when I’m done with it. Collect them, too, like the money.” He tapped the notebook with the pen, and something seemed to catch his eye. He wrote slowly, his face tensing with concentration. When he was finished, he looked back to Shephard, relaxed and grinning as if he’d been caught torturing a cat. Shephard felt the hairs bristling up his neck. He put a twenty on Shake’s bed.
“I need to know some things about the riot in ’eighty, Shake. Nothing you tell me is going to come back on you, on anyone. It’s a... personal thing for me.”
Matusic’s little eyes seemed to light up. He crumpled the bill toward him and grinned. “Bad riot. Four days of confusion and pain. Sixteen men and one guard died. Brought in the National Guard, finally.” He leaned forward, catching the notebook as it slid away. “Fire everywhere and everything busted up. Guards thought we caused it, but it was the fleas caused it. That, and too many of us in the blocks.” He spread out the twenty, pressing it against his knee.
“Do you remember it well?”
“I wrote nine books about it.”
“I want to know what happened to Azul Mercante.”
“He died. How about some more money?”
Shephard put another twenty on the bed and Shake pounced. It was time now: if Matusic had what he needed, this is where it would be. “How? And don’t tell me he got shanked, Matusic. I’m not here to buy shit.”
Shake blushed, tried to straighten himself into composure, looked at Shephard with a worried grin. He’s afraid, Shephard thought. Here’s my way in. But don’t turn your back on him, not for a second. Matusic lowered his voice, speaking confidentially: “The real story is he burned to death,” he said. “That stuff about the shank was never true. This is what really happened...”
Shephard stared at him as Shake told the story, about the mattresses piled up in the black man’s cell and the way they caught fire with the paint thinner from the supply room, and the cell door slamming shut at the last minute with Azul inside and no one could get him out, so he burned up right there, I remember it, East Block number fifty-one Z.
“I heard he might have died from the guards, too,” Shephard said quietly. “Shot him, Shake, is one way I heard it.” He put down another twenty and Matusic collected it with a grin.
“That’s possible, too,” he said. “The way it happened was this.”
Shephard stared at him again as he told the story about Mercante shot by a tower guard when he tried to make it from the rec room across the exercise yard with some more towels to burn...
He studied Matusic’s carnivorous smile, which grew bigger and more eager to please. The big man folded his newfound wealth, then unfolded the bills and straightened them against his leg. He laughed, unsurely.
When Shephard stood up, he watched Shake bring up his legs and wrap his hands around them, leaning his face onto his knees, still laughing quietly. Shephard looked outside to the guard, who was kibitzing with a prisoner near the stairway. The music was still loud. “You know what happened to Azul, don’t you?” No change from Matusic, just little eyes laughing from atop his wide knees. The twenties were still in his hand. Go for broke, he thought. He brought the last of his money out, a twenty and a bunch of ones, but it looked good. He waved it.
Matusic’s big head shook sideways. “I told you,” he said quietly.
“You told me,” Shephard whined back. Fast as he could move now: the money back into his pocket with one hand, ripping away the pillow with the other, then a grab at Matusic’s throat, jamming his head into the corner of the mattress while he hopped on top and braced his knees on the big man’s belly. Shake moaned, swatted up with his empty paw, and — Jesus Christ, Shephard thought — worked his money hand between the bed and the wall where he wouldn’t lose his paycheck. Knees on the flabby arms now, and both hands secure around his neck. The longshot: “Mercante didn’t die in that riot, Shake, we all know that. Your problem now is to tell me what happened before you choke to death. How you going to manage that, buddy?”
Matusic pushed out a strangled whine; his legs pounded the bed behind Shephard, and his good hand waved harmlessly from the outside of Shephard’s knee. “I can’t... I can’t...”
“Can’t breathe? That’s a problem, Shake.” He loosened his hands a little. “We were talking about Azul, remember? How it went down in ’eighty. You still there?” Cinching his hold again, hoping the guard wouldn’t wander back.
“I can’t tell you, I swore.”
“Unswear, Shake. I’m either going to strangle you or take my money back, or both.”
Incredibly, Shephard thought, Shake used what strength he had left to jam his money down farther toward the floor. Behind him, the sounds of a radio shrieked, and there was laughing too, excited and cruel. Showtime, Shephard thought. He let up a little. “Matusic, if you’ve got any brains in your head, listen up. You’re going fast, another few minutes of this and you’re history. Mercante. What happened? Tell now, you can keep your money and twenty more. That’s a lot of money, Shake.” The poor man really was gasping, he thought. He loosened his grip a little more. “You’re not quite sure on that, are you? Shake? You there? Come clean, goddamnit, I’m getting tired of choking you.”