was, on account of the tat—prison ink, blurred and bluish, a hooded snake rising up his neck from the open collar of his jumpsuit.
“Where am I?”
“You’re a regular riot, you know that? We’re at the Red Roof.”
“The what?”
He made a little snort. “The fucking Red Roof, Grey. What did you think, they’d send us to the Ritz?”
They? Grey thought. Who were they? And what did Ignacio mean by “send”? Send for what purpose? Which was the moment Grey noticed that Ignacio was clutching something in his hand. A pistol?
“Iggy? What are you doing with that thing?”
Ignacio lazily raised the gun, a long-barreled .45, frowning at it. “Not much, apparently.” He angled his head toward the door. “Those other guys were here for a while, too. But they’re all gone now.”
“What guys?”
“Come on, Grey. You know those guys. The skinny one, George. Eddie whatzisname. Jude, with the ponytail.” He looked past Grey toward the curtains. “Tell you the truth, I never did like him. I heard about the stuff he did, not that I’m anyone to talk. But that man, he was flat-out disgusting.”
Ignacio was talking about the other sweeps. What were they all doing here? What was he doing here? The gun wasn’t a good sign, but Grey couldn’t call up a single memory of how he’d come to be where he was. The last thing he recalled was eating dinner in the compound cafeteria: beef bourguignon in a rich gravy, with a side of scalloped potatoes and green beans and a Cherry Coke to wash it all down. It was his favorite meal; he always looked forward to beef bourguignon. Though as he thought about it, its greasy taste, his stomach clamped with nausea. A squirt of bile shot up his throat. He had to take a moment just to breathe.
Ignacio gave his pistol a halfhearted wave toward the door. “Look yourself if you want. But I’m pretty sure they’re gone.”
Grey swallowed. “Gone where?”
“That depends. Wherever they’re supposed to go.”
Grey felt totally at sea. He couldn’t even figure out what questions to ask. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t like the answers, though. Maybe the best thing was to lie quietly. He hoped he hadn’t done something terrible, like in the old days. The days of the Old Grey.
“Well,” Ignacio said, and cleared his throat, “as long as you’re awake, I guess I better be moving on. I’ve got a long walk ahead of me.” He rose and held out the gun. “Here.”
Grey hesitated. “What do I want a gun for?”
“In case you feel like, you know, shooting yourself.”
Grey was too stunned to reply. The last thing he wanted was a gun. Somebody found a gun on him, they’d send him back to prison for sure. When he made no move to accept the weapon, Ignacio placed it on the bedside table.
“Give it some thought, anyway. Just don’t drag your feet like I did. It gets harder the longer you wait. Now look at the fix I’m in.”
Ignacio moved to the door, where he turned to cast his gaze a final time around the room.
“We really did it. In case you were, you know, wondering.” He took a long breath, blowing out the air with puffed cheeks, and angled his face toward the ceiling. “Funny thing is, I really don’t see what I did to deserve this. I wasn’t so bad, not really. I didn’t mean to do half those things. It was just the way I was built.” He looked at Grey again; his eyes were filmed with tears. “That’s what the shrink always said. Ignacio, it’s just the way you’re built.”
Grey had no idea what to say. Sometimes there was nothing, and he guessed this was one of those times. The look on Ignacio’s face reminded him of some of the cons he’d known in Beeville, men who’d been inside so long they were like zombies in some old movie. Men with nothing but the past to dwell on and, ahead, an endless stretch of nothing.
“Well, fuck it.” Ignacio sniffled and rubbed his nose with the back of his wrist. “No use complaining about it now. You make your bed you have to lie in it. Think about what I said, okay? Be seeing you, Grey.” And with a wash of light from the open door, he was gone.
What to make of that? For a long time Grey lay still, his mind spinning like a bald tire on ice. Part of him wasn’t sure if he was