-6-

Five more days. Four.

It was overcast, the air in the open courtyard misted with an imminent drizzle. Too cool for June; Board almost wished he had his winter pea coat on, hugged his arms as he strolled around the edges of the courtyard where it was hemmed in by towering brick walls. A football, missed by the prisoner who leapt to catch it, thudded against the wall a few feet in front of Board. For a moment he stared down at it as if befuddled, then slowly knelt to pick it up.

“Right here, vulture!” the one who’d missed it snarled, as if he thought Board might walk away with the thing. He started advancing with his shoulders squared menacingly.

Board tossed it to him underhand, continued on his walk around and around the perimeter.

After his second lap around the exercise yard, Board realized he was being followed at a discreet distance, though not discreet enough. The man was balding, as thickly set as a stevedore, and his sleeves were halfway rolled up despite the chill, revealing that his arms were black with tattoos. Board knew only his first name—Harry, nicknamed Hairy as if to spoof his naked dome. Board also knew that he was one of Henry Plough’s gang.

So someone had seen him nod at the Chinese inmate, or seen that man smile at him, after all.

Trying not to appear obvious, Board sought out Plough in the center of the courtyard. He sat playing chess with another of his gang. The young Chinese man sat somewhat behind Plough. If Plough wanted to punish Board, why wasn’t he punishing his bunkmate, too? Did he think Board was flirting but his “yellow kid” was innocent? Or did he hope to make an example of Board in front of the youth, to dissuade him from ever smiling at another man again?

Board stopped walking, leaned back against the wall with crossed arms, and looked directly at the man called Hairy as he approached. Nonchalantly, not once making eye contact with Board, Hairy stopped walking along the inner perimeter, as well—cut diagonally toward the center of the courtyard to take a seat not far from Plough…who did not look up at him.

Board kept leaning against the bricks, calm on the exterior but his heart still walking rapidly in his chest and fighting the urge to break into a mad dash. If Plough wanted him, Plough would get him; somehow he had an arrangement with some of the guards. They looked the other way when he had an inmate beaten, or when booze and other contraband was smuggled in.

He would have to appeal to Warden File directly, insist that he needed to be removed to another unit. He’d even agree to be housed on death row, where in a few days more he’d begin performing his duties. He’d be almost as safe there as he would be in solitary, and even that was looking preferable to remaining in Unit 8.

Just as in the Unit 8 rec room, a bell sounded when their two-hour exercise period was over; time to return to their cells. Board was relieved. He worked his way into the line that was forming at the arched doorway on the southern side of the huge square. Another unit would disgorge its inmates into the courtyard as soon as this group had been removed.

A commotion ahead in the line drew Board’s attention, and he craned his neck to see. Two men spilled out of the queue, their bodies tangled, one gripping the other in a headlock. Board recognized them as two of the unit’s five Assassins. Why two comrades should have come to violence he had no idea, but they could kill each other for all he cared. In fact, he’d be that much better off if they did, though he didn’t think they’d have the opportunity. Already, several guards were rushing toward them, raising their batons for use.

There was another shuffling of feet behind Board, his instincts telling him to whirl toward it. When he was half turned, he saw that other men in the line behind him had parted to let the Assassin named Linterna through. And when he had spun three quarters of the way around, Board saw the feral grin on the Assassin’s face, the handmade knife he held in his fist.

Board tried to spin back in the other direction, though the men ahead of him didn’t seem in a hurry to let him through. He shoved one of them with force, but it slowed him down. He felt rather than saw or heard Linterna rushing up behind him.

But the knife didn’t crunch into his lower back as he expected. Instead, peripherally he saw a figure lunge to the ground as though he’d flung himself there. When Board looked over his shoulder, he saw that Linterna lay on his face on the ground, jolting with spasms as if electrocuted. The handle of a carpenter’s awl jutted up from the back of his neck, its ice pick-like spike obviously buried to the hilt in his spine.

Board then looked at the men in back of him in the line. His eyes directly met those of the man they called Hairy. And Hairy nodded at him meaningfully.

The guards had hold of the two Assassins who had been scuffling, were pulling them apart without too much resistance, but now other guards came running to see to this wounded Assassin, who lay scrabbling at the ground in agonized convulsions.

Board then looked for Henry Plough in the line, finally found him up toward the front. Plough was not looking Board’s way, but the Chinese youth darted him a quick glance. No smile, but Board now understood what had happened. He nodded his thanks to his former cellmate, who he was sure had heard about the danger Board was in…who he was sure had asked Plough to keep a watchful eye over him.

The Assassin named Linterna died in the infirmary that night.

Board never spoke to Plough directly, though he did manage to pass his gratitude along through one of his boys. Still, Board didn’t press his luck by speaking with his former cellmate again, for the remainder of his incarceration.

And for the three years that remained of his sentence—no matter what they thought of his new employment—no one ever made an attempt to attack John Board again.