SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #30

SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #30

JUICE

NEVADA AND MINNEAPOLIS

Banks threw the file onto the floor next to the weight bench where Derek was cranking out his reps. “You might want to read up on it. It’s going to be your home for a couple of weeks.”

Derek sat up and wiped the sweat off his face with a towel and flipped open the file. Oak Park Heights state correctional facility. Located just outside of Stillwater, Minnesota. Built for the Feds, originally to be one of their “Super Max” facilities. After the dumb shits got it done, then they realized that it was going to be too expensive to operate, so they sold it to the state of Minnesota.

Housed the worst of Minnesota’s inmates along with trouble making convicts from other state and federal prisons. Built below ground level. Inmates worked, ate, and sometimes exercised, in the same unit they lived in. Yard activities were minimal and supervised intensely. Never an escape since the joint had been built.

“Nice place.” Derek snorted.

“You’re not to suppose to love the place. You’ve been on fucking vacation too long. Getting soft. All that booze and pussy. Just do the job the way we plan it, not the way you plan it, and we’ll get you the hell out of there and ship your ass to the sunny Pacific.”

Banks had been surly since his return. Derek had to resist an urge to strangle the son of a bitch right then and there.

“What about this Gary Bryant? What’s his story? A place like this is going to make it hard to get close to a high profile prisoner,” said Derek.

“You’ll be assigned to the same cell block as Bryant. He’s been there since his escape from a federal joint out in California. That escape combined with his notoriety, he’s had two books and a movie made about him, convinced the Feds to move him to Oak Park for both his safety and their public relations. It didn’t look too good for them when he busted out of their joint and was on the loose for over a year. No one has ever quite figured out how the hell he managed to bust out of there. It was a maximum joint and somehow he got his hands on a ladder and scaled right over two razor wired fences. It’s been rumored that he had help from the Russians, but that could be bullshit.”

Bryant seemed by his history to be much different from the other bottom feeders that Derek had been assigned to liquidate.

“This dude may be harder to handle.”

“He’s a smart one, I’ll give him that. Tested out to be a borderline genius. Worked for a military contractor and sold their secrets to the Russians for years at their embassy in Mexico. There’s even been a movie made about it. I’ll try to dig it up for you. Had another flunky working for him, a drug dealer, he’s the one that got them popped. The dealer got life, Bryant got twenty five and another year or so for the escape. He’s been a royal pain in the ass since he’s been inside. He’s been a regular contributor for articles in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and this entertainment paper called the City Pages. Always bitching about inmate rights and prison reform. Physically, he’s not much. Seems to be into aerobic activities and not much into the iron pumping like muscle heads such as yourself. It won’t matter anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our inside contact is going to handle getting the weapon into the facility. Security there is too tight for you to get or make anything inside. He’ll smuggle in a shank that will appear to have been made inside the prison in one of the shops. This is going to appear to be a good old fashioned prison murder. Bryant is still jumpy after what happened though.”

Derek grabbed a set of dumbbells and started in on his flyes.

“He’s got a lot to be jumpy about by the sound of the hellhole he’s locked up in.”

“A year or so ago they had an inmate locked up there who had been running around the Midwest setting off pipe bombs, just scaring the holy crap out of everyone. Edward Karl was his name. Crazy as a shithouse

rat. He was on Bryant’s unit and was convinced that Bryant had stolen his “Id” so he tried to dust Bryant. Made some homemade mace out of pepper, Vaseline, and water and squirted it in Bryant’s face. Then he tried to electrocute him with this homemade stun gun that he had plugged into a wall socket. Damn near worked. If it had, we wouldn’t have to send you in.”

“Yea, lucky me.”

Banks slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about this. Oak Park is a country club compared to where you were locked up at. This is it. Your last assignment. We haven’t been able to locate the escapee from the security hospital. Mexico is the last report we had.”

Banks sat down on the bench across from him. “Three days and you’ll fly into Minneapolis. The contact that will meet you is the same one that you will have inside. He’ll take you to an area where you will be outfitted in a federal prison uniform and you will then be transported to Oak Park in a federal prison van. Your story is, if anyone is checking, is that you are being brought in from Leavenworth because of a hit on a rival gang that you were involved in. They want to get you out of the federal system.”

Derek threw down the weights and sat.“That’s getting pretty close to my actual situation isn’t it? Using Leavenworth and all.”

“Can’t be helped. In a situation like this we have to establish some sort of feasible explanation to why you are being transferred to their prison if anybody checks it out. We just can’t roll up to their front gates and tell them we have a new convict for them.”

Derek stood up. “Wait a minute! Wait a fucking minute! You mean Morgan is in on this?”

“He has to be. He’s our contact in Leavenworth on this. We need him to cover our bases. It’s his name on the paperwork.”

“And what’s my name going to be on the paperwork?” Derek already knew the answer.

Banks answered immediately and without batting an eye. “It’s going to be your name. Your real name. You’re back to being Jake Morrow. Officially, you are still locked up in Leavenworth, if anyone checks it out. But after we pull you out of Oak Park it’s going to be just like you’re in the witness protection program. No more Jake Morrow, no more Derek Powell. When you arrive at your new home you will have a brand new spanking identity.”

“Let me get this straight. I whack a state inmate and you guys are going to just waltz in and pull me out and no one is going to say a fucking thing? Bullshit!”

“Remember this. Bryant is also a federal inmate. The Feds pay his room and board to the state of Minnesota. What we’ll have is one fed inmate dusting off another. It will be fed business. Minnesota won’t give a shit. They’ll be anxious to wash their hands of the whole mess. A month or so after it happens, we’ll do a press release that will say that you did yourself in while locked up in solitary. By then nobody will give a shit, old news, and you’ll be out of the country.”

“I just want to make sure that all my bases are covered here. I don’t want to go back inside and have you guys leaving me with ass hanging out in the wind.”

Banks stood up and started heading out of the gym. “Don’t worry. I haven’t screwed you over yet and I’m not going to start now. We have everything covered. Trust me, everything will be fine.” The agent walked out and closed the door behind him.

“Oh yea, I’ll trust you all right." muttered Jake as he picked up his weights. “In a pig’s ass!”

Jake, Derek was now dead, looked out the window of the plane and down at the cornfields of Minnesota. It always amazed him how evenly squared off all the farm land looked from the air. It had been a long time since he had been home. It would be even longer after this visit. Jasmine had spent the last two nights with him. They didn’t drink or do any drugs. They had made dinner, popped popcorn and drank Cokes while they watched movies on the VCR, and sat around like an old married couple. After they had made love last night she had laid in his arms and sobbed quietly.

Just before she left this morning, Jake had held her tight and whispered in her ear, “I’ll come back for you. When this is over, I’ll come back for you.” She hadn’t answered. He wondered if she had heard that line before. From some other guy that Banks had set up. Banks had acted suspicious on the drive to the Las Vegas airport. Or Jake was just paranoid.

“You and Jasmine act like you’ve gotten pretty friendly. She seemed like she was actually sad to see you leave.”

“Well, we’ve fucked about a hundred times. Maybe she started to like it.”

Banks laughed. “Shit, boy. You’ll never learn. She’s a hooker. It’s her job to act like she liked it. Maybe you should ask her to marry you and you can whisk her off to the islands with you.”

Jake’s contact was already at the airport and waiting in the lobby.

His name was Barry Ely, Correctional Officer II. Prior to his employment with the state of Minnesota he had been a correctional officer for eight years in the army, first hitch in the military side of Leavenworth, the second hitch at the military prison in Mannheim, Germany. Barry didn’t drink, do drugs, and wasn’t even really interested in women though he was definitely not gay. His passion in life was being a soldier and a prison guard. That was it. Barry Ely had been the perfect recruit for Jerry Banks.

Totally dedicated and as dumb as a fucking mule, he had been mentored by Commander Morgan. But give him an order and point him in the right direction and he’d get the job done. He was standing in the lobby eating a Mars bar when Jake walked down the tunnel. Ely recognized Jake from the photo that Banks had faxed him.

“Mr. Morrow, I’m Barry Ely. Welcome to Minnesota. Did you check any bags?”

Jake looked at him like he was a moron. “No, I didn’t check any bags. I wonder what they would think if I showed up at your prison with a set of luggage.”

They walked in silence through the airport and exited out the doors into the parking ramp. It was mid afternoon and no one seemed to be around, you could hear the sound of their footsteps echoing through the

cavernous building.

“My car is right over here, sir.” Ely pointed to a rusted out Mercury Marquis.

“Jake, hey Jake. Is that you?”

Jake and Ely stopped and turned

around. A man with a huge cowboy hat pulled down low over his eyes wearing a floor length duster was walking towards them.

Jake could feel Ely stiffen up next to him. “What the hell is this all about? Does anyone know about you coming here?” Ely was staring stupidly at Jake.

Jake grinned at the correctional officer. “Did you know that they have telephones on airlines now? Of all the crazy fucking things!”

The cowboy walked up to the pair and pulled a gigantic .44 Magnum pistol out and stuck the end of the barrel dead center on Ely’s

forehead.

“Move a muscle and your brains will be decorating the floor of this parking garage, dickweed.”

Jim Pitre looked over at Jake. “How ya been you old cocksucker?”

“Never better. I was hoping you could see us coming out of the terminal or else I was going to have to take this little dipshit out myself.”

Jake turned back to Ely. “Give me your car keys.” Ely handed them over without a word. He looked on the verge of fainting.

“I don’t understand,” he whimpered.

Jake looked around the parking lot as he opened the trunk of the car. “Get in and put your hands behind your back.”

Pitre produced a roll of duct tape and they quickly taped the guard’s hands and legs up. The cowboy laughed with glee as Jake wound the roll around his eyes and mouth.

“Hold up, Jake. Someone’s coming,” whispered Jim.

A pair of good looking flight attendants was walking past with their luggage rolling along behind them. Pitre lifted his hat towards them.

“Good afternoon, ladies.” 

They both smiled back at the cowboy. “Good afternoon.”

They continued on through the parking garage.

Pitre leaned back over the truck as Jake continued his taping. “That’s gonna hurt like a bitch when they pull that off. Don’t put it over his nose or he’ll smother, sure as shit.” Pitre spit a long stream of Red Man juice on top of the guard’s head. “Bulls eye.”

Jake slammed he trunk shut and threw the keys down a storm drain. Pitre slapped him on the back.

“Goddamn, it’s great to see ya again. Come on, I got a cooler of beer in the truck. You know this fucking Twin Cities area has got some great titty bars. I’d sure like to see those two stewardesses up there on a stage shaking their money makers.”