Savage code, p.1
Savage Code, page 1
part #4 of The Porter Series
Savage Code
A Porter Novel
R.A. McGee
WANT A FREE BOOK?
Catch up with Porter at the end of the book for your chance to grab Subtle Deceit for free.
To the real Tommy Blue Eyes
Thanks for always taking care of the family. You were an amazing example of what real power looks like…
&
To EM and her furious red pencil
Your prints are all over this project. Thanks for not setting it on fire when we started…
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Epilogue
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About the Author
One
It was the smell that bothered him most.
Phil Porter could deal with the uncomfortable chairs and lack of privacy. He could deal with the staff watching nearly every move, and the fact that there were no curtains on the thick, reinforced windows. He could deal with the hostile eyes that had been on him since the day before, trying, he knew, to work up the nerve to approach him. He could even deal with the cold, cheap sandals he’d been forced to wear.
But the smell? The smell was almost too much.
The room was one of four. Big and open, with cement floors and cinderblock walls and a tiny, nearly soundless television bolted to a stand that hung from the ceiling. Like spokes of a wheel, the rooms branched off from a main hub, which was fed by a large hallway.
His breakfast—an unremarkable plate of oatmeal with a link of mystery meat—had included multiple cartons of low-quality juice on the aluminum cafeteria tray. It might have been apple, but Porter wasn’t sure. After breakfast, he’d made multiple trips to the cheap water fountain, trying to drink his fill.
He was paying for it now.
Porter sat alone, trying to ignore the pain in his bladder. The room hummed with activity. Men walked back and forth, some finding empty chairs to sit on, others grouped around stamped metal tables—which were bolted into the ground—and playing with well-worn decks of cards.
From the hub, behind tinted glass, they were all being watched.
Porter crossed his arms and let the cartoons on the television distract him from the smell, and the growing pressure in his lower torso. Around the time SpongeBob was trying to find his snail friend, the urgency in Porter’s bladder grew to be too much, and he pushed himself to his feet, muttering a string of expletives under his breath.
He pulled at his white pants, which rode up near his calves as if he were a New England farmer’s wife preparing to hunt clams during low tide. The intake officer had told him they didn’t have anything to accommodate his height.
Porter knew the lazy bum hadn’t wanted to go find a bigger size.
His sandals clapping as he went toward the back corner of the room, Porter saw two men sitting at a table alone. He’d have preferred to avoid them, but his options were limited. Theirs were the eyes he’d felt burning into his back, but neither had gotten close enough for him to tell them to beat it.
Porter turned the corner, the large cinderblock wall creating the only place the eyes in the tinted-glass hub couldn’t see. People needed privacy to go to the bathroom. As Porter entered, the smell threatened to overwhelm him, and its source was evident.
There were three stalls with no doors. A large puddle of excrement and mystery liquid pooled underneath them all, creating a small lake that covered half the floor.
“Shit,” Porter said to no one.
He stepped carefully over the pool, trying to stay as far away from the feces as he could. Porter breathed shallowly as he stood at the galvanized metal urinal and let the stream he’d been holding fly. It sounded melodic as it rained down on the communal metal trough. Porter kept his eyes on the cinderblock wall in front of him, thankful that he had some privacy—if only temporarily.
“Hey yo, big man.”
Porter closed his eyes and rested his head on the cool block.
“Hey. We’re talking to you.”
Porter opened his eyes and shook himself. “Does that mean I have to listen?”
The man speaking to him was thin, but well-muscled. His hair was shaggy, falling around his shoulders. “It'd be rude not to.”
Porter stepped carefully to the sink. Behind Shaggy, there was another man, who looked like a worse version of Ethan Hawke, as if Ethan decided to live through a meth bender. Not-Ethan Hawke was much taller than Shaggy.
He clicked the soap dispenser and found it empty. “Rude?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Shaggy said.
Porter clicked again, but couldn’t produce any soap from the container. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.
“What’s that?” Not-Ethan Hawke said.
“Nothing. Look, whatever you’re selling, I don’t want any.”
“How do you even kn—”
“Trust me. I don’t want any. I’m a short-timer anyway, and I’m not interested.”
“But you don’t even—” Shaggy started to say.
“Sure I do. It can’t be that many things. Maybe you think you can break out of here and need some help. You two don’t look smart enough to have a plan, but it’s possible. If that’s the case, I’m not interested.” Porter took a quick look behind him, as if the pool of shit might travel the last twenty-four inches and grab him by the calf while he wasn’t looking.
“What the hell are you trying to say?” Shaggy said.
“Pretty sure I just said it.” Porter stared through the men blocking his way. “If it’s not that, then maybe you guys want to make a name for yourself. That tattoo makes me think you have people to impress. Aryan Brotherhood, right? People who’d love to see a guy that looks like me on his ass. I’m the biggest guy in here, maybe you beat me down and you’ll get a little bit of cred.”
Shaggy and Not-Ethan Hawke looked at each other and then back to Porter.
“Unless you guys are after me for sex?”
“Sex? Hell no. This is something different. Something I heard about you when you came in,” Shaggy said.
“Whatever it was, it’s not true.”
“Really? Some of the staff told me you’re in for assault. That you’re not from around here.”
Porter didn’t answer, instead debating with himself how long he could hold his breath and not pass out.
“Then I call home last night. Momma tells me my baby brother got his shit pushed in at his old lady’s trailer. Said some big black asshole wrecked his face.”
“What’s your brother say?”
“He couldn’t talk. Damn jaw’s wired shut.”
“Interesting. Well, that wasn’t me.”
“Oh no?” Not-Ethan Hawke said.
“I’m only half-black. More of a brown, really. Looks like you’re after someone else. Can I get by now?”
“No, you’re him. How many other big bastards that look like you running around this county? It ain’t that big of a place.”
Porter looked down at the men. “I just want to go sit down. SpongeBob is getting interesting.”
“See, here’s the thing,” Shaggy said. “My family’s known around these parts. People don’t even think to mess with us. They find out we can get punked by anybody, our business goes downhill. I can’t have that.”
Porter risked taking his eyes off the men to sneak a look at the pool of shit again. “Honestly?”
The two men stared at him.
“Your brother was a bitch. Now I see it runs in the family. Get out of my way, or a busted jaw’s gonna be the least of your problems.”
Not-Ethan Hawke pulled something from the front of his pants. Porter knew what it was before the man even unfolded his hand. Half a toothbrush handle, filed to a point and then carefully melted with a lighter until it was hard as a rock. A crude but effective weapon.
A shank.
Shaggy smiled, his partner’s shank a security blanket for him, like the “beer-muscles” of jail. “Don’t hear you talkin tough now, do I, boy?”
Porter gritted his teeth. “Don’t… don’t call me that.”
“That bother you?” Not-Ethan Hawke said with a smirk.
“If you’re so offended,” Shaggy said, “what say we deal with this little problem right now? That way my baby brother can get some good news when I call tonight.” He nodded at Not-Ethan Hawke, who gripped the shank tight and took a step toward Porter.
Without another word, Porter reached out and snatched the man’s wrist, squeezing it tightly. He felt the small bones underneath his grip give way. Before Not-Ethan Hawke could scream or drop the shank, Porter slammed a hammer fist into the inside of the man’s elbow, unlocking the arm and bending it back toward its owner.
He guided the shank deep into Not-Ethan Hawke’s stomach and then stepped back.
“You motherf—”
Shaggy moved toward Porter, flinging wild, futile punches, and Porter stepped forward to meet him. He grabbed the man’s thick white jumpsuit and spun him in a half-circle, his arc ending abruptly into the cinderblock wall.
Porter slammed the smaller man’s face into the hard rock, three times, until he went limp and fell like a wet towel at Porter’s feet.
Not-Ethan Hawke was bent over, clawing at the toothbrush in his stomach.
Porter turned and looked down at him. “Ouch.”
The man looked up. “Help me, man. You gotta help me.”
“No.”
“Oh God, please. I’m gonna die.”
“Nah. It’s just your stomach. Tell you what, I’ll give you something for the pain.”
Porter grabbed the man’s hair and slammed several elbows into the side of his head. As Not-Ethan Hawke went limp, Porter grabbed the man and threw him, a judo hip-toss that sent him soaring through the air, landing with a splash in the offensive pool.
He looked down at Shaggy, asleep on the floor at his feet, then back to Not-Ethan Hawke, whose jumpsuit was sponging up some of the foul liquid on the floor. A hint of regret passed over him, the thought of a missed opportunity. He should have taken a minute to ask the two idiots about Reno. Maybe they’d have had some information.
Porter quickly put that out of his mind. No one last night could tell him anything; there was no way these two would be able to.
As Porter nodded to himself, he felt something cool on his toes. Forcing himself to look down, he found himself toe-deep in the lake that Not-Ethan Hawke was bathing in.
The source of the smell.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered as he walked stiffly around the corner to the rest of the open room, in search of the showers.
Two
The shower had been unsatisfactory. The water wasn’t nearly hot enough to make him feel clean again and the soap didn’t lather at all. Still, he’d scrubbed his feet and his sandals several times, hoping the non-lathering cleansing bar had magical antibacterial properties.
Like maybe it was made out of penicillin.
After doing the best he could, Porter had gone back to his bunk, which was the bottom bed of a row of three bunks. He tried to relax in the open, communal room, but there was too much noise.
First, the men across the room in the bathroom had woken up. Loud and confused, they’d wandered out of the bathroom, holding various parts of their bodies.
They’d tried to call the nurse for a sick call. That plan went out the window when Not-Ethan Hawke was discovered to be hiding a shank underneath his shirt, stuck in his stomach.
In lieu of a nurse, a squad of officers came into the room and dragged the two men out, pulled off to God knows where with their hands cuffed behind their backs.
Porter didn’t care. He was just glad he wasn’t going to have to deal with them—at least not for a while.
He was flat on his back, barefoot as his shoes air-dried, and staring at the bunk above him. After some time, he managed to block it all out. The smell. The noise. The movement and activity around him. Even the feeling that he’d need to incinerate his feet to get them clean again. As he closed his eyes, a loud voice boomed over the speaker on the wall.
“Porter.”
He sat up, careful not to hit his head on the top bunk. “Yeah?”
“Step to the hallway,” the voice crackled.
“What is it?”
“Step to the hallway. Now.”
Porter swung his feet off the bunk and let them hover for a few moments as he decided whether it was better to put on the orange sandals, or walk through an entire jail barefoot.
He grudgingly decided the former.
He walked to the one door in the big room, a pneumatic slider with chipping paint. On the other side were three officers. One had a set of shackles in his hands.
Through the thick glass, Porter watched one of them grab his lapel radio and say something into it. There was a loud hiss, and then the door slid open.
The men stepped back and Porter moved into the hallway and stuck his arms out in front of him. “Where am I going?”
The officers didn’t say anything. Instead, they snaked a belly-chain around his waist, then cuffed him to it. He couldn’t raise his arms any higher than his belly button.
“I asked where I was going.”
The men then made Porter face the wall and lift his feet behind him as they put on the ankle shackles. When they were done, he turned around, fully restrained.
“No answer?”
The man nearest him pointed down the hallway. “You’re going that way. Now get moving.”
The group moved into position. One officer walked ahead of Porter and two fell in behind him.
He shuffled down the shiny concrete floor, and the officer in front called on his radio to have the control room open the doors as they went.
“Come on, at least tell me where I’m going.”
“The sheriff wants to see you.”
It was not unusual in a small town to have a large law-enforcement complex where the jail was connected to the offices of the patrol squads and detectives. The administrative offices, sheriff at the top, were sometimes included as well.
“The sheriff? One little fight and I have to go see the boss?”
The transporting officers didn’t say anything.
There was no sound save for the rhythmic clinking of the chain in between Porter’s legs tapping the floor as they went. Eventually, they came to a door that was larger than the rest. Bigger, thicker, and sturdier.
An exterior door.
The door opened and the sunshine smacked Porter in the face. He squinted as best he could to filter the bright light, unable to raise his hands to shield his face. Porter paused for a moment, trying to let his eyes adjust.
One of the officers put his hand in Porter’s back and gave him a small push. Porter obliged, stepping from sidewalk to asphalt and back up to sidewalk as the men walked him to another door. This one wasn’t pneumatic. Not thick glass or anything even close.
It was an office door, with a rounded handle. One officer held the door and the other two motioned Porter on.
The flooring was now industrial carpet, and the paint of the walls wasn’t gray, nor was it chipping.
An officer got in front of Porter again for the short trip to the end of the hallway, and the large wooden door there. Even from outside, Porter could smell the pipe smoke.
The officer in front reached out and rapped his knuckles on the door.
