eventual tracking down and punishment of their killers. And then to the realization that even with that conclusion, he had never felt even a bit of closure.
When he opened his eyes they were moist and he felt himself trembling.
Time did not heal wounds for him. Not for someone who could never forget. Their murders were as fresh now as when they occurred. Not just the visuals, but also the emotional hatchet attached to the mental images. They would be until the day he died.
He glanced out the window in time to see Jamison’s tiny car pull up out front. He wiped his eyes, rose, and slapped himself a couple of times in the face.
He could either live in the past or he could venture out and see if he was capable of having a future.
And some days the decision would be easier than others.
He headed to the door.
CHAPTER
11
THE RAP ON the door startled Mars. Then the door slot opened at the bottom.
“Get your ass over here,” said the voice.
Mars obediently rose from his bunk, turned his back to the door, placed his hands behind his back, and slid down on his haunches until his hands were level with the slot. Handcuffs were attached to his wrists. Then he rose and stepped away from the door as it opened.
It was Big Dick. He’d been here as long as Mars had. And the years had just made him meaner.
Big Dick was so wide his bulk filled nearly the entire opening of the cell door. A scowl and a smile fought for supremacy on his features.
“What’s going on?” Mars asked.
“Shut up! I tell you to talk, boy?”
Two other guards emerged from behind Big Dick and shackled Mars’s feet. He was hustled down the corridor, his chains clanking like Marley’s ghost.
He passed walls of cells with faces looking out the square chicken-wired windows. Then he felt on his face the rush of Big Dick’s foul breath, smokes mixed with whiskey.
“You a lucky man,” said Big Dick, his thick neck flexing rhapsodically with each syllable. “You off death row for now. You heading to gen pop. Folks’ll be glad to see your chocolate ass, Jumbo.”
Mars did not consider himself a lucky man. Going back to general population meant only one thing.
He was heading to an unofficial execution.
His own.
* * *
If you wanted to survive in prison, there were strategies and tactics.
If you wanted to kill someone, there were also strategies and tactics. His leaving his cell and the security of death row was the strategy.
The tactics of his planned murder were about to be revealed.
He was led into another building. When the second door slammed shut with the shriek of automatic hydraulic rams doing their job, he was brought to a halt by the meaty hand of Big Dick on his shoulder.
“Last stop, Jumbo.”
His handcuffs were removed but not the leg shackles. Then the guards turned and left him.
Mars looked around.
Death row was housed in Building 12, but he was now in the prison’s open area with all the other inmates. The place was filled with convicts, some in pants, some shirtless, some in shorts cut from their prison pants. Though it was technically winter, it was stifling hot in here. Overhead fans spun away but barely moved the thickened, humid, malodorous air that hung over them all like a marine layer of toxic gas.
A group of prisoners sat at tables bolted to the floor. Some stood conversing. Still others were doing push-ups, or else pull-ups on bars built into the walls. The stench of sweat, cigarette smoke, and the fuzzy must of prison-alchemy drugs hit him like a wave. Guards hovered, their batons smacking lightly against callused palms. Their eyes spun around the space, looking for signs of trouble. But they kept coming back to Mars.
He was obviously the special guest today.
The show was about to start. Everyone had good seats. The only thing missing was the popcorn.
The prisoners had also turned to look at Mars. Those doing push-ups and pull-ups stopped. They wiped off their hands and moved back against the wall.
And waited. Their expressions were clear.
Thank God it’s not me.
The news had spread fast. Mars might be getting out after nearly being put to death.
Getting out.
Uh-uh. Wasn’t to be. At least not standing up.
Mars rubbed his wrists where the shackles had cut into him. The pain was actually welcome right now. If you could feel pain you were alive. That status could change, surely. But right now he was breathing.
He looked up one story to the catwalk that ran around the perimeter of the open area. Big Dick was up there staring down at him. The smile on his face was something to behold. Next to him was the runty Reedy looking just as gleeful—the royals above, the gladiators below.
Mars looked back at the group of prisoners watching him. Two in particular seemed to be paying him a good deal of attention. They were both white, bigger than he was, prison-barbell-muscled, tatted, bearded, crazy-eyed, with rotted teeth, strung out on the shit they smuggled in or made right here.
Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.
Mars didn’t know them or what crimes they’d committed to be sent here. But he could easily see that they were exactly where they belonged. They weren’t humans. They were animals in a cage. But they weren’t in a cage right now. They were right out in the open.
With me, thought Mars. And my legs are chained.
He stretched out his neck and felt a gratifying pop as a kink was relieved.
Next he eyed the field in front of him like he had as a running back earning his future between the tackles in the old Southwest Conference, smashing into men bigger than he was and yet almost always somehow winning the battle. He’d always divided the field into grids, planes of existence through which he had to navigate. He was blessed to have vision that saw everything all at once. That attribute was perhaps the rarest gift in sports. And he still had it even all these years later.
His breathing slowed, his nerves calmed, his muscles relaxed. He felt good, actually.
Twenty years of my life. Twenty damn years.
The anger in him was suddenly immense. The frustration just as potent.
Somebody had to pay. And somebody was about to.
Jumbo was about to come down for an extremely hard landing.
He shuffled forward with what seemed to be the intention of joining a couple of inmates.
Mars knew the lay of the land, and the pair did what he expected them to do. They turned and walked off. Nobody mixed with the leper. The infection might rub off on you.
He looked back up at the catwalk. At Big Dick and Reedy.
He knew what they expected to see on his features: fear.
But instead, he smiled.
And on their faces he saw what he wanted to see: surprise.
He turned back to face Dee and Dum, who had separated from the pack and were now circling him, wild dogs on the prowl. There were lots of wild dogs in Texas and they always hunted in packs. They went after wounded animals, running them out of air and then ganging up on them for the kill.
Well, Mars was not wounded and he had plenty of air.
He wondered what their reward would be. Drugs, smokes, maybe a local skirt snuck in for an hour?
Well, he would make them earn it.