Deviant (5 page)

“No bigger than yours,” Tony replied. “Anyway, I gotta go.”

“I'll walk out with you,” Danny said.

“In that?” she said, pointing at his clothes.

Danny realized that he'd been wearing blue pajama pants with race cars on them and an old T-shirt with a fading image of Kurt Cobain, who had died before he'd even been born.

“I guess it is kind of lame,” he said more to himself than to Tony.

“No, it's not lame, I just thought you'd be too cold,” Tony said quickly.

Danny found a coat in the closet, pulled on a pair of sneakers, and walked Tony across the road. The sun was coming out and the snow was melting but it was still chilly.

Around freezing, he thought. They stopped in front of her house.

“How high up are we here?” he wondered out loud.

“The Springs is six thousand feet, we're another thousand on top of that.”

“Wow. And it snows how much?”

“It can snow every month from September to June.”

“Yikes … OK, uh, so, bye, I guess I'll see you at school tomorrow?” Danny asked.

Tony smiled. “You might not recognize me … no hair gel allowed. Actually, I better shower it out before church anyway … And of course I'll be in my uniform. You're not a genius, are you?”

Danny shook his head. “I don't think so, why?”

“Well, then, you should be in my class, 9B. We get tested every month; the kids that do better go to 9A, the others 9B,” she said, smiling sweetly.

“So you're not a genius either,” he surmised.

She walked down the path and opened her front door. “I kinda am, actually. I started the year in the eighth grade, 8B, and I've worked my way up … See ya,” she said, then gave a little wave, opened her front door, and went inside.

“See ya,” Danny replied, and began whistling. He was still whistling an hour later when Walt came down for breakfast.

Walt turned off the electric razor and looked at Danny. “How come you're so cheerful?” he wondered.

“I don't know. I guess I'm happy that we're not in jail, maybe,” Danny said.

Walt reddened. “Yeah, sorry about that, I probably shouldn't have gotten involved,” he muttered. “You check out the house? Pretty groovy, isn't it?”

Walt said things like “daddy-o” and “groovy” like it was the olden days. He was right, though. It certainly was a lot bigger than their Vegas home. Danny didn't really think much about money, but now he saw that the move here probably meant a huge pay raise for his mother. This house, the car—it changed things. Danny thought of himself as an outsider, a street kid from East L.A. like his cousins, not as
some comfortable, middle-class boy from suburban Nevada or Colorado. But in a day he'd gone from laughing at
South Park
to living in South Park.

“The house is OK,” he said.

“You wanna stay here, or you wanna come with me?”

“What? Where are you going?”

“To see that Randall guy. I'm starting work tomorrow and they want me to come over today.”

“Mom took the car.”

“You haven't seen the Tesla? We got the use of it for a month. The casino is giving away two of them as opening-week prizes, you know, ‘cause of the whole Tesla thing. Brilliant idea. That Glynn guy is smart. They wanted her to drive it around. She didn't like it, but I think you'll be impressed!”

Danny pulled on his leather jacket, grabbed Sunflower, and followed Walt outside to the garage. When they opened the garage door Danny
was
impressed, but it was important that he didn't let Walt see.

“Don't these things run out after like twenty minutes?” Danny asked, looking at the red Tesla Electric Roadster parked in the left port of the two-car garage.

“A hundred and fifty miles per charge. Totally silent running,” Walt said, looking at Danny significantly.

Which is useful why? Danny thought, but didn't say anything.

Walt tied his long graying hair back in a ponytail and got in on the driver's side. Danny got in next to him. Walt
plugged the strange address he'd been given—44 Correctional Institution Road—into the GPS, and off they went.

The Tesla was fast and sleek, and despite himself Danny felt seventeen shades of awesome riding in it. They drove quickly through what turned out to be the surprisingly small town of Cobalt. It was little more than a glorified crossroads, four streets, a couple of hundred houses, a 7-Eleven, a garage, a bakery, a Denny's.

“I think that's your school,” Walt said, pointing to half a dozen redbrick buildings cleared from the forest.

“I hope not,” Danny said.

Walt winked at him. “Meaning to talk to you about this. Listen, son, you gotta float under the radar; just stick it out for a few months until we're settled. You don't have to stay there forever.”

Danny didn't like Walt's tone. He wasn't going to be part of a conspiracy to put one over on his mother. “I'll stick out the school if you stick out the job, Walt,” Danny said.

Walt bristled. “Don't give me that goddamn look, son, I'm not a total screwup, you know.”

“We'll see,” Danny said under his breath.

The GPS took them to Correctional Institution Road in about ten minutes. Its odd name did not turn out to be much of a mystery.

In the space of about five miles they rolled past correctional institution after correctional institution. Federal prisons, state prisons, maximum-security prisons, minimum-security prisons, and a terrifying bunkerlike place
called ADX Cobalt or, to give it the full name on the sign, “The United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility of Cobalt, Colorado.”

This was the famous Supermax prison that Walt thought he'd seen a documentary about on the National Geographic Channel. “This place has got the worst of the worst. All the terrorists you can think of, serial killers, you name it. They only get out one hour a day or something. Did you see that documentary?”

“No, I hate that channel,” Danny said.

“You should watch it. It's good. You learn stuff. They had this whole thing about Stonehenge last week, did you see that one?”

Danny ignored him and looked out the window at the ADX, fascinated by the coils of razor wire, lookout towers, an alleged antiaircraft battery, and even a moat.

“Oh yeah,” Walt continued, unfazed. “Apparently, before the Stonehenge they said there was a wood henge and before that there was a dirt henge … Wait! I think this is it.”

Number 44 Correctional Institution Road was right next to the Supermax. It also appeared to be a prison, but not quite as intimidating as its neighbor. It was surrounded by a wire fence, which disconcertingly had holes in it, and beyond the fence the inmates appeared to live in what looked like mobile homes. A small sign said
COBALT COLORADO FCF
, 44
CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION ROAD
.

“Are you sure this is the right address?” Danny asked. It
wouldn't be the first time that Walt had gotten something like this wrong.

“I'm pretty sure,” Walt said dubiously, driving up to a wooden hut at the prison entrance. A none-too-sturdy metal bar ran across the road, and a sign said
PRESS FOR SERVICE
.

“I'll do it,” Danny muttered. He got out of the Tesla and laid down his board, but the road, wasn't cement—it was just compacted dirt. Disgusted, he picked Sunflower up and walked to the hut. He pushed the button.

“Yes?” a voice said through an intercom.

“We're here to see, uh, a Mr. Randall?”

“What's your name?”

“I guess … Brown.”

“Come on up.”

The swing bar lifted vertically. Danny got back in the Tesla and they drove through the gate.

A man with a shotgun in a guard tower (which looked to Danny like one of those lifeguard towers in Santa Monica) waved them on, and they were inside the prison.

A skinny-looking guy in a pair of orange overalls came out of one of the trailers and nodded to them. He was about thirty-five, with long red hair (almost as long as Walt's) and a goatee. He pointed to a parking space in front of the trailer he had just exited. They pulled into it and got out of the Tesla.

“Hi there,” the man said. “I'm Bob Randall.”

“Walt Brown. This is my son, Danny,” Walt said.

They shook hands.

“So you're the new foreman?” Bob said.

“I guess so, um, I don't really know a lot about it … my wife got me this gig,” Walt said a little uneasily.

Bob laughed. “No worries, it's a piece of cake. I do everything. You're just the exterior liaison for liability issues. We can go into my office and talk. You want a coffee or something?”

“Sure,” Walt said.

“What about you, kid, you want a soda?”

“You got Dr Pepper?”

“I don't think so … I'll look. Come inside. We got
Mad
magazine. You like
Mad
, or are you too old for that?”

They went inside the trailer. It was a small office jammed with papers, an ancient computer, a Stone Age printer. There was a funky smell and the bars across the window made it a little hard to see. Bob rummaged in a minifridge and produced a can of Coke, which Danny accepted. There was a huge pile of old magazines, among which Danny found
Surfer
and
Surfer's Journal
—two odd publications to find a thousand miles from the sea.

He started reading anyway while Walt and Bob talked.

“So, I'm not really getting what's going on here. This is a prison, right? What are we doing here?” Walt said, sipping his coffee.

“I guess they didn't tell you much of anything?”

“My wife works at the new casino they're building in Cobalt. I think her boss, Mr. Glynn, pulled a few strings …”

“Yeah, that makes sense. That's the job. The whole casino itself was more or less built by work gangs from the various prisons in and around Cobalt. Our crew will be building the road. It's pretty easy stuff. It says on your résumé that you were an engineer in the Navy.”

“Yeah. Long time ago.”

Bob picked up on Walt's worried expression.

“Don't sweat it. I run the crew. You'll be fine.”

A nervous-looking cat came in and hung around Bob's legs.

“Who's the cat?” Danny asked.

“That's Houdini. We adopted him. Great little guy. He used to come and go all the time, although lately he's been reluctant to leave my sight.”

Danny picked up Houdini and stroked his neck.

“So it's basically all prisons around here?” Walt asked.

“The Springs is a bit more interesting. Colorado Springs has the Air Force Academy, NORAD, the US Olympic Training Center, Focus on the Family, Fort Carson, and prisons. Up here it's all prisons. From Cobalt all the way to Manitou, nothing but correctional institutions.”

“So you guys, it's like cheap labor, union-busting, that kind of thing?”

“It's not so cheap when you've got maximum-security prisoners; you need a lot of guards. But it's a pretty cost-effective process with a minimum-security prison like ours. Most of these guys are in the last six months of their sentence. They're not going to do anything to jeopardize
their release. And working outside the prison is a privilege, so they do a pretty good job.”

Walt was still troubled. “I don't have a lot of experience with this kind of thing,” he confessed.

Bob shook his head. “Don't worry. We got one guy who ran his own construction firm, and everyone else is a pro … about a hundred years' experience on this crew, easy.”

Houdini went to sleep on Bob's bed.

Danny thumbed through
Surfer's Journal
and
Surfer
and finally picked up the
Colorado Springs Gazette
.

A headline on the lower part of the fold immediately caught his eye:

(turn to page 3)

Danny turned to page 3.

Rebecca Pigeon, 60, a lifelong Cobalt resident, was devastated to learn Thursday that her missing three-year-old cat, Spartacus, had been found dead. A group of Girl Scouts discovered the cat eviscerated on Gray Street. Animal welfare officer Kevin Hud said that the cat was almost certainly the victim of a coyote. “There's been a lot of hysteria about wolves lately. This was not a wolf attack. This was a lone predator, probably a coyote.”

The cat's heart was missing, but quickly damping down any untoward explanation, Mr. Hud told the
Gazette
that
coyotes will often eat the organ meat first. “It was probably startled and unable to finish its meal,” Mr. Hud explained and went on to ask all of Cobalt, Manitou Springs, and western Colorado Springs residents to keep a close eye on their pets for a week or two until the coyote moved on to new territory.

“Danny!”

Danny looked up. Bob and Walt were on their feet and staring at him.