Hard News

other: “Come on, man. Now!”
    Boggs looked back at them. He said, “Don’t believe I will.” He measured the distance to the nearest guard. It was a long, long way. The other inmates were all studying very important things in the opposite direction from Boggs.
    This’s going to be bad.
    Ascipio spit out, “Don’t
believe
you will? Motherfucker say he don’t believe he will?”
    Then Boggs’s eyes lowered to his own right hand, which rested on his knee. He glanced down at it. Ascipio followed his gaze.
    A long fingernail.
    It kept growing. One inch, two, three, four, six. Boggs looked back into their eyes. One by one, his head swiveling.
    Severn Washington had given it to him last night, this piece of double-strength glass, a clear stiletto honed on one side so sharp it would shave hair. The handle was taped. Metal-detector-proof. The fingernail could do the most damage glass could ever do. (Boggs had said, “Would Allah, you know, approve of this?” And Washington had reassured him, “Allah say it’s okay to fuck up assholes who try to move on you. I heard Him say that personally”)
    Ascipio laughed. “Put that ‘way man. Get you pretty white mouth over here, man.”
    They’d get him on his knees then the other two would hold him and Ascipio would beat him to death and then they’d find the body in the laundry room, where the official word would be he’d died by falling down the stairs.
    Boggs shook his head.
    Ascipio said, “Three of us, man. More, I want. That”—he nodded at the knife—“that do you shit.”
    “Man,” one of the others growled at the insubordination.
    Boggs didn’t move. The blade blasted light off its point.
    Ascipio walked close. Slowly. And he looked into Boggs’s eyes. He stopped. He stood for a long moment as they stared at each other. Finally the Latino smiled and shook his head. “Okay, man. You know, you got balls. I like that.”
    Boggs didn’t move.
    “You okay, my friend,” Ascipio said, admiration in his voice. “Nobody else ever try that shit with me. You fuckin’ all right.”
    He extended his hand.
    Boggs looked down at it.
    A bird swooping in.
    Boggs half turned as the fist of a fourth man, who’d come up behind him silently, caught him under the ear. A loud
thwock
as knuckles bounced off bone and he felt Ascipio’s hand grabbing his right wrist.
    The knife fell to the ground and Boggs saw it tumble, appearing and disappearing as it fell.
    “No!” The word didn’t come out as a shout, though. It was muffled by the meaty forearm of the man who’d hit him.
    There were no guards, there were no Aryan Brotherhood protectors, no Severn Washington, there was no one in Lovers’ Lane except the five men.
    Five men and a glass knife.
    Ascipio leaned forward. Boggs smelled garlic on his breath—garlic from his private stocks of food. Tobacco from the endless supply of cigarettes.
    “Yo, man, you a stupid motherfucker.”
    No, Boggs thought in despair. Don’t cut me! Not the knife. Not that, please….
    As the blade went in, Boggs felt much less pain than he’d expected, but the sense of horror was far worse than he’d thought.
    The knife retreated and returned into his body and he felt a terrifying loosening inside him.
    Then there were other shouts, from a dozen yards away or a hundred. But Boggs didn’t pay any attention; they didn’t mean anything to him. All he was aware of was Ascipio’s face: the grinny-mean eyes that never flinched or narrowed and the smile, one that might please children.

    chapter 14    
     
    SHE HEARD THE NEWS ON ANOTHER STATION. NOT EVEN a network O&O but one of the locals. The one that broadcast
M * A * S * H
reruns and whose best-seller was a talk show that did stories about sexual surrogates and discrimination against overweight women.
    Rune’s own Network News hadn’t even thought Randy Boggs’s stabbing was worth mentioning.
    Rune sweet-talked Healy into taking Courtney for a few hours. She figured this was a major abuse of the relationship, but he was so happy she’d gotten the girl back (she was a little vague about
how
exactly) that he didn’t complain at all.
    A half hour later she was on the train to Harrison, wondering if maybe she should buy a monthly commutation pass.
    The prison infirmary surprised her. She expected it to be totally grim. More Big House, more Edward G. Robinson. But it was just a clean, well-lit hospital ward. A guard accompanied her, a large black man with a broad