PROLOGUE
January 1990
Mason had never seen a prison where inmates could lean right up against the wall surrounding it without getting a bullet between the eyes. He mentioned it to the correctional officer they called, Matlock, as the two of them made small talk. They were murderer and cop perched in the sun, leaning against a wall used for handball. They were underneath a gun tower, and a gray concrete wall surrounding A, B, C, and D blocks. Both men looked at the athletic field used for bloody prison sports. A few hundred men, braving the harsh January winds. Watching the flag football game: one team blue, the other yellow. No pads in sight—on every down someone pounded to the snow. That was the Graterford Penitentiary way.
"Besides getting out their aggression in a legal fashion," Mason said, "you know what else they're engaging in?"
Matlock said, "It's called football. What the hell are you on?" He lifted his eyebrows.
This was the dumbest guard Mason had ever encountered. His success at busting inmates selling drugs, producing hooch, and engaging in gambling because inmates gave him tips. Mason had been in the fourth year of his seventeen-and-a-half to thirty-four-year sentence. Matlock being called Matlock after the TV attorney was blasphemy.
"They're delusional—downright out-of-touch with reality—playing in the Super Bowl," Mason said, "pretending they're in sunny New Orleans at the Superdome. They don’t see the fucking snow on the ground. Both teams think they're the mighty San Francisco 49ers."
Matlock said, "They ain't worth a damn. Can't even get a dive play right."
Mason shook his head. Idiot. He turned to size-up the guard's profile, the bill of his fitted cap curved around a round face. Gray shirt with matching epaulets that matched his pants; radio and flash light hooked to his belt. Mason looked at his size, eye-to-eye with Matlock at six-two. From there, where Mason went straight up and down with athletic cuts hidden under prison browns, Matlock was fifty-pounds heavier. Most of the weight surrounded the guard's waist. His shirt fitting him like the skin on a sausage. Disgusted, Mason turned back to the 49ers.
He watched a sheisty black guy go deep for a pass and get clipped going up for the ball, mowed down by another black guy on defense. The few white boys—speed dealers and bikers—who had the balls and the weight, were linemen and punched each other each chance they got: every play. No Hispanics on either roster. They spectated and bet prison currency—packs of cigarettes—on the winners. Not the two Puerto Ricans doing laps around the field: clockwise, because in every jail inmates did things backward. The same two ran ten miles every day, along with twenty sets of pull-ups and dips. No weights, they needed to be lean and quick.
Ricardo Suarez and Luna Gonzalez, Pretty Ricky and Big Lu, wife and husband, both built like jockeys, both serving LIFE for murder. They hadn't done their usual ten miles, walking along the fence to observe the game, they had Mason's full attention. He had his eyes locked onto them.
After they settled amongst their kind, Mason said, "Some people are making plans to escape. What if I told you when and how?"
Matlock stared at him with his signature raised brows, his way to judge if a convict was telling the truth or giving him a crock-of-shit. "Who're you talking about?"
"There's a price for everything, Matlock," Mason said with his eyes still on the game.
"I get your weed in here."
"And you're paid well for that, sir. Now, what I need," Mason said, facing him, "is leeway to do me. Some peace. This place is the worse. Most of these muthafuckas are violent prisoners with no morals. They need the police's feet on their necks. I don't."
Matlock said, "Coming from a convicted murderer on his third state bid: did one federal for being a felon possessing a weapon, and a half dozen county bids."
"You've done your homework?"
"Yes."
"Then you know I'm not like that anymore. Look at those vicious derelicts. I'm not all that violent, perhaps a recidivist, but when they parole me, guess what, I'll be a model citizen."
Matlock raised one eyebrow. "So your rat now?"
"Not at all," Mason said, "I have to be here a long time and ensuring my future and yours. You stop a prison break, make sergeant, advance your career to lieutenant on the express train. I get peace of mind by you not bothering me. Let me run my business, keep me from working some shitty job for twelve-cents-an-hour."
Matlock furrowed his eyebrows. "Tell me something: How'd you get arrested? I mean the specifics."
"We got time for that?"
"You need to make the time because I'm not buying you rolled over and want the cheese I set aside for rats. And if I hear a lie, I’ll lock you under the jail. While you're there, I'll catch the guys trying to escape."
"OK...put that way...four years ago..."
...Fathead steered his white Corolla into a parking space in the middle of Fifty-Second Street, just off of Kingsessing Avenue. Part of the luxury of living in Southwest Philadelphia was the closeness of the often rivaling neighborhoods. That allowed men and women to skate back to the safety of their parts in the event something popped off. Philadelphia wasn’t sectioned by notorious Blood and Crip gang territories. One's drug turf was as protected, though. A fact known to Fathead when he hung his head out of the car, and yelled, "What's up, ya'll straight?" to two passing crack addicts.
"We got what ya'll looking for, right here," Juice added from the passenger seat. "We got them nick-rocks the size of jelly beans."
This wasn't Fathead's of Juice's block, but street gospel had it that Slam had the block doing big numbers, and they wanted parts. Slam's right-hand men, Mossburg and Roc Wilda were throwing a huge Christmas cabaret. Figuring they’d be busy, Fathead graced Fifty-Second Street with his presence. He hoped the block would be devoid of dealers, and they'd have a Merry-fucking-Christmas.
"Who the hell is that?" Neta asked herself within earshot of J-Cee, as they moved at a smoker's speed down Fifty-Second Street. Although solicited by Fathead, she suspected that he and his side-kick were undercover cops or youngins' out to burn them with dummy-rocks.
"That's that nigga, Fathead. He be selling that bullshit up on Fifty-Eighth Street. We ain't buying that shit," said J-Cee, a smoker who used to push Xanax and Valium on this block. The crack epidemic stopped a demand for his drug of choice.
Neta and J-Cee passed Kingsessing and bent the corner at Woodland Avenue. They spotted Slam rolling on the block in his big-body Caprice.
"Aye. Aye," Neta yelled, waving and bouncing from one foot to the other as if she was bare feet and the ground was hot. She continued to wave until she had his attention.
"What's up, Neta? What you need?" Slam asked, pulling to the curb. "And hurry before them people ride-down on us."
"Aight, give me six for twenty-five," she said as she reached into her pocket and retrieved five crumpled five-dollar bills.
While they made their transaction, J-Cee stood behind Neta watching them and looking for the police. They both knew their roll.
"Aye, Slam," J-Cee said, "you know them boys from Fifty-Eighth Street posted up around the corner. The same ones you told to stay from around here." J-Cee hated dudes selling bad coke, and he wanted them to disappear.
"Around what corner?" asked Slam in disbelief. "Fathead?" He assumed that because of an earlier incident. Slam had warned him with a gun in his face, not to catch sales on his strip. That should’ve sent a message, but obviously not.
"Yup, on Fifty-Second Street sitting in a white car. They tried to serve us that bullshit they are selling up there on Fifty-Eighth."
