“These guys are really gonna miss you, Bates,” Steele said.
“They can always write me,” Dexter said.
They took him to inmate processing, where the final transfer paperwork was completed. He was being sent to Centralia Correctional Center, another medium security prison, to serve out the balance of his sentence. He had put in for the transfer purportedly to take advantage of the inmate work programs offered at that facility, and it had taken almost two years for the approval to come through.
The administrator, a frizzy haired lady with a wart on her nose, expressed surprise that Dexter was not taking any personal items with him. Most transferring inmates left with boxes of belongings in tow, as if they were kids going away to summer camp. Dexter assured Wart Nose that he would get everything he needed once he was settled in his new home.
Paperwork complete, they walked Dexter outside to the boarding area, where an idling white van was parked, exhaust fumes billowing from the pipe. “Illinois Department of Corrections” was painted on the side in large black letters. Steel bars protected the frosted windows.
It was a cold, overcast December morning, a fresh layer of snow covering the flat countryside. An icy gust shrieked across the parking lot and sliced at Dexter’s face.
He wondered about the weather in Chicago, and felt a warm tingle in his chest.
Steele slid open the van’s side door, and Dexter climbed in, air pluming from his lips. Two beefy correctional officers from Centralia waited inside, both sitting in the front seat. A wire mesh screen separated the front from the rear bench rows.
“Sit your ass down so we can get moving,” the guard in the passenger seat said. “It’s cold as fuck out here.”
Steele lifted the heavy chain off the vehicle’s floor and clamped it to Dexter’s ankle restraints. He nodded at Dexter, his blue-eyed gaze communicating a subtle message, and then he slammed the door.
As in police vehicles, there were no interior door handles. Packed inside and bolted in place, a prisoner bound for another concrete home could only sit still and enjoy the ride.
“Headed to our home in Centralia, eh?” the driver asked. He glanced in the rearview mirror at Dexter. “Just so you know brother man, whoever you were outside won’t mean shit there, got it? You’ll be everyone’s bitch, especially ours.”
“Spoken like a man who’s always wanted to be a cop,” Dexter said. “Did you fail the exam? Or wash out of the academy?”
“What a piece of work,” the passenger guard said, shaking his head. “You must want deluxe ’commodations in the hole soon as you get there.”
At the manned booth, a guard waved the van through the tall prison gates. Dexter looked out the window. The snowy plains surrounded them, so vast and featureless they nearly blended into the overcast horizon.
By design, many state correctional centers had been erected in barren wastelands, to make it almost impossible for an escaping inmate to progress far before recapture. Dexter had heard rumors of inmates who managed to get away being tracked down within three miles of the joint, upon which they were brought back, weeping like babies, to an increased sentence and a long stay in solitary.
The two-lane road was crusted with dirty slush and riddled with potholes. It wound through nothingness for close to five miles before it fed into a major artery, which eventually intersected the highway.
At that time of morning, there was no traffic, and there wouldn’t be much at all, anyway. The road dead ended at the prison, a place most normal people preferred to avoid.
The guards switched on the radio to a country-western station. The singer crooned about seeing his lady again after being away for so long.
Dexter wasn’t a fan of country western, but he could dig the song’s message.
“What time is it?” Dexter asked.
“You got somewhere to be, asshole?” the driver said.
“I want to make sure we’re on time. I’ve got a hot date with my new warden.”
“Whatever. It’s a quarter after nine, numb nuts.”
Nodding to the music, Dexter dug his bound hands into the right front pocket of the parka.
A key was secreted inside, courtesy of his good man Steele. Correctional officers were even more receptive to bribes than cops, and that was saying something.
“I’m really feeling this song,” Dexter said. “Turn it up, will you, man?”
“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said yet,” the passenger guard said, and cranked up the volume.
Dexter used the key to disengage the handcuffs, the loud music drowning out the tinkle of the chains. Leaning forward slightly, he stretched his long arm downward and unlocked the ankle restraints, too.
Then he sat back in the seat, and waited. He crooned along with the song, his intentionally bad voice making the guards laugh.
“You sure ain’t got no future in music,” the driver said. “Jesus Christ, you’re terrible.” Dexter shrugged. “A man’s got to know his limitations, I guess.”
After they had driven for about three miles, they came around a bend. There was a gray Dodge Charger stalled on the shoulder of the road. A blond woman in a shearling coat and jeans was at the trunk, apparently trying to lift out a spare tire. Her long hair flowed from underneath a yellow cap, blowing like a siren’s mane in the chill wind.
“Would ya lookit that?” The passenger guard leered at the woman. “Pull over, Max. Let’s help her out.”
A green Chevy Tahoe approached from the opposite direction.
“You know we’re not supposed to stop, Cade,” Max said.
“You better not stop,” Dexter said. “You’re going to screw up my schedule.”
“Shut up,” Cade said. He turned to Max. “Look, it’ll take ten minutes. That young broad can’t change the goddamn tire by herself.”
“You just wanna get laid,” Max said.
“Hey, I’m a Good Samaritan. I gotta do my charitable deed for the day.”
“To get laid,” Max said. But he slowed the van and nosed behind the Dodge. “You got ten minutes. No word of this to anyone.”
“I’ll snitch on you,” Dexter said.
“The hell you will,” Cade said. He licked his fingers, patted down his eyebrows, and then climbed out of the van. Strutting like a rooster, he approached the blonde.
The oncoming Tahoe suddenly slashed across the road, snow spraying from the tires, and blocked off the van. Tinted windows concealed the occupants.
“Holy shit,” Max said. “What the hell’s this?”
On the shoulder of the road, the other guard noticed the Tahoe, and froze.
Dexter dug his hand in the coat’s left front pocket and clutched the grip of the loaded .38, also compliments of Steele.
A gunman wearing a ski mask and a black jacket sprang out of the Dodge’s trunk. The masked man shot Cade twice in the head with a pistol, and the guard dropped to the pavement like a discarded puppet.
Cursing, Max fumbled for his radio.
“Hey, Max,” Dexter said. “Look, buddy, no chains.”
When Max spun around, Dexter had the gun pressed to the wire mesh screen. He shot the guard at the base of the throat, just below the collar.