Pain Killers Read Online Free

contraband thing here real serious.”
    “But you didn’t really have to sweat me, you have it on video, right?”
    “Aren’t you a sharpie!” Rincin grinned some more, then pointed to my gym bag. “Travel light, huh?”
    “Yeah, I left the cologne and tuxedo at home.”
    “Aces. We’ll just sign your butt in, get you a badge. They can use the photo off your DL. They’re puttin’ you in the Can Patch. Little trailer park on the ass end of the property. Lot of guards live there when they’re startin’ out.”
    “Great,” I said.
    Rincin just grinned. Of course. We walked toward the gray and stately administration building, where I was surprised to see more inmates in denim walking by, single or paired up.
    “A lot of your lifers are pretty mellow,” he said when they ambled by. “It’s the transitionals are the knuckleheads, punks just comin’ in who got something to prove. They’re the ones in orange jumpsuits.”
    We stepped inside, into the smell of furniture polish and dust. A bored middle-aged woman, chewing gum behind a grille on the left, buzzed us through, toward another pair of Goliath-sized glass and wood doors.
    “Hey, Lil,” Rincin said to the buzzer woman. He pointed at me. “Temp staff, here’s his DL.” She snatched my license while we waited in between the doors that locked behind us and the ones still locked in front of us. A pair of mustached young men with gym memberships and dark suits were buzzed out. They eyed me as they passed. My own outfit—black T-shirt, gray Dickies pants, scuffed boots and black leather jacket that made as much sense as ear muffs in the heat—earned a professional size-up from the exiting suits. The taller one waved to Lil and she winked back as she slid a form through the slot. Office romance.
    “Have him fill this out,” she said to Rincin, who replied, “Will do, pretty lady,” and handed it to me like I was invisible to everybody but him.
    I wrote down the address of my storage space, where most of my possessions used to live. For an extra five a month, the owner accepted mail. The one thing you couldn’t do, Omar the U-Stor-It man informed me when I signed on, was party in the storage space. “Gypsies,” he’d explained, without elaborating. “They ruin the fun for everybody.”
    At the line requesting Social Security, I didn’t hesitate. Anyone stealing my identity would be blessed with much more debt than credit. I was happy to share.
    “Done,” I said, as if I’d passed some mighty test. Rincin snatched my paperwork and slid it back to Lil. She buzzed us through the second set of doors, past the warden’s office. The whole place was high-ceilinged and airy. The floor shined like it got polished hourly. Nobody seemed concerned about their proximity to killers, thugs and sex maniacs. The air had a testosterone and Endust tang.
    I followed Rincin to a courtyard facing another beautiful stone building, 1852 on a keystone over its entrance. A half-dozen contractors banged away just under the roof. Or maybe they weren’t contractors. They all had muscles and back ink. Swinging sledgehammers on a scaffold two flights up struck me as misguided, but maybe OSHA regulations didn’t apply to prison labor.
    “That there’s the original prison site,” Rincin tour-guided. “They’re finally tearing her down. Lots of folks wanted to come in and photograph the dungeon, but the warden isn’t having it. What’s the upside of letting the
Chronicle
come in and take pictures of the rack, or all the chains still hanging from the wall rings?”
    “Well, it’s history,” I offered.
    “That’s my point,” he said.
    Rincin yanked off his hat, gave his bald spot a scratch, and slapped it back on without explaining himself further. He pointed to another edifice, from which a large Latino guard escorted a moon-faced white inmate in hand and ankle cuffs. The hefty guard waved across the courtyard to my host.
    Rincin waved back. “
Hola,
Pedro!” It