One option would be to spend the day observing how everything worked, then take her chance at that point. But doing that would negate a card she could play today and, quite possibly, only today, especially if her hunch was right and the cellblocks would be opened up again very soon.
She weighed her choices, but the decision was an easy one. Rising back to her feet, she began walking toward the central buildings so that she’d be in position once yard time was over.
As the new kid, she garnered a lot of looks while she worked her way through the crowd. She was passing the entrance to Building One when someone touched her arm. She jerked it back, tensed, ready for a fight.
“Relax,” Frida said. “Only me.”
Alex smiled. “Sorry.”
“Not problem. So what you think?”
“It’s no Disneyland.”
Frida laughed. “I could not say. I have never been to Disneyland. It is good?”
“The happiest place on Earth,” Alex said. She looked around, knowing she didn’t have much time to get into position. “I need to find a toilet, so I’ll catch you around, huh?”
As she started to walk away, Frida said, “I can show you where.”
Keeping the frustration from her voice, Alex smiled. “Thanks. That would be great.”
Frida led her back through the open door to Building One. Instead of going left down the hallway, however, she turned right. There was a door five feet back, dead-ending the corridor.
“Here we are,” she said.
Alex had dismissed the door as an entrance to a closet or storage area. What it led into, though, was a narrow room with a row of toilets against one wall and a long, metal trough sink along the other. There were no dividers between the toilets, privacy not a luxury in a place like this.
Frida walked over to the nearest toilet, hiked up her dress, and sat down. From the hem around the garment’s arm, she removed a cigarette and a match.
Alex wanted to get out of there, but she didn’t want to raise any suspicions. So while Frida lit her cigarette, Alex sat on the adjacent toilet.
The smell of tobacco filled the air as Frida took her first drag, then held it out to Alex, butt first.
“I don’t smoke.”
Frida shrugged, took another puff. “Why are you in here?” she asked.
It took Alex a beat to realize she was talking about prison in general, not this particular room. “Assault. Or whatever the equivalent is here.”
“A…salt. I don’t know this word.”
“The police say I attacked someone with a knife.”
“Is this person dead?”
“If they were, I’m pretty sure I’d be here for murder instead.”
Frida considered her for a moment. “Did you do it?”
Alex purposely looked away. “What does it matter? They’ll find me guilty if they want to.”
“You have not gone to judge yet?” Frida asked.
“Not yet.”
“Many people here because waiting for same.”
“What did you do?”
“They say I try to leave country with few ounces of pot.”
“And did you?”
“Try but not succeed.” She took another drag.
“How’d you get that black eye?”
Frida unconsciously touched the fading bruise. “I hear in movie once. I walk into hand.”
“Fist,” Alex corrected her.
“Yes. I walk into fist. This is prison. It happens sometimes.”
Somewhere outside, a loud horn sounded.
Alex stiffened. “Yard time’s over?”
“You learn fast.”
Shit. Alex flushed the toilet and stood up. “I probably should go see what my assigned duty is. See you later, I guess.”
“Check with guard near main building. He will tell you.”
“Thanks again.”
Alex hurried outside, but instead of heading across the field to the administration building, she circled back around to Building Two. There was a group of women approaching the door. She fell in behind them.
And sure enough, access to the cellblocks was open again.
The layout of Building Two was exactly like that of Building One, and Alex found the front stairs right where she’d expected them. She glanced around to make sure no one was paying her any attention, then headed up to the second floor.
Keeping her gaze on the floor, she walked with purpose into block one of the second floor. She could hear a couple people talking to her right, and some movement ahead and to the left, but no one seemed to take notice of her.
She immediately noticed something different when she entered block two. While there were voices here, too, all activity seemed to be coming from a single cell toward the far end on the right.
She checked the numbers—241 through 250 on the left, and 251 through 260 on the right. The noise was coming from 259.
El-Hashim’s cell.
Alex slowed her pace, but kept on a course that would take her through the next door into block four. As she got closer to the occupied cell, the voices began to fall silent.
Tilting her head just a bit, she shot a sideways glance into the cell as she passed. There were four women inside. While one was turned away, the other three were staring out at her. Like the group of women who had been outside, these were all wearing head scarves that revealed only their eyes.
As Alex approached the end of the block, one of the women called out what sounded like a question, but Alex kept walking. As she passed through the door into block three, the question was repeated.
She picked up her pace and walked all the way into the back stairwell, where she stepped to the side and tucked against the wall.
Fadilah El-Hashim had to be one of the women back in 259, most likely the one who had turned away as Alex walked by. And judging by the way the other three cellmates had looked and acted, they were serving as El-Hashim’s protection. Two of them had been giants, both tall and wide, while the other was about the same size as El-Hashim.
Alex grimaced. Getting anywhere near the woman was going to be difficult.
A buzzer sounded throughout the floor. Alex could hear inmates leaving their cells and making their way toward the exit.
Take the stairs down or try for one more look?
She didn’t want to raise El-Hashim’s curiosity, but she also didn’t know if she’d get another chance to recon the area before making her direct approach.
One more look, then.
She exited the stairwell, and hurried over to the loosely forming line of inmates leaving block three.
As she passed through the door back into block two, Alex picked up her pace so that she was almost abreast of the woman in front of her, and could use the inmate to partially block her from view from El-Hashim’s cell.
Once she was parallel to the cell, she glanced over. The four women were still there, but none were looking out. She studied them as quickly as she could so that she’d be able to recognize them even with their faces covered.
Another three steps and the cell was behind her, El-Hashim and her friends out of sight. Alex was just starting to relax when a voice boomed, “Po-well!”
She craned her neck, looking ahead at the doorway between blocks two and one, and spotted one of the guards who had taken her to her cell last night, the one with the birthmark. He ran over and grabbed her by the forearm, yanking her out of line.
The words that spewed from his mouth were angry and loud. She didn’t understand them, but she knew they had ruined her smooth exit. Back at El-Hashim’s cell, the woman’s three protectors were stepping into the common area to see what was going on. They stared at her as if memorizing her face.