The Body and the Blood Read Online Free Page A

inmate do something like this?”
    I nodded. “Not on the compound, but we have a PRIDE printing vocation program here. Lot of inmates work in it. None of the PM guys, but they could pay somebody to do it. Sneaking it down here would be the difficult part.”
    PRIDE Enterprises is a not-for-profit corporation that works in prisons across the state, using inmate labor to provide manufacturing and services to government agencies and the private sector. It provides the state with both revenue and savings and inmates with jobs while they’re incarcerated, and gives them marketable skills when they’re released.
    PCI’s printing program, which is operated by PRIDE, employs over a hundred inmates. They create and print books, brochures, business cards, tickets, flyers, newsletters with the latest equipment and software. Duplicating the priest’s unsophisticated flyer wouldn’t have presented a challenge for them.
    After a few minutes, when most of the inmates had taken their seats, things began to quiet down again, and Father James looked relieved. As the last of the inmates were seated, I walked back over and stood by Daniels.
    “He know anything about it?”
    I shook my head. “Says not.”
    Father James welcomed the men and gave his call to worship, but even after they were well into the second hymn, stragglers were still being buzzed out of their cells and joining the service.
    Potter motioned for one of the slow-moving late-comers to pick it up, and I could tell he savored and often abused what little authority he had.
    “Anything out of the ordinary going on?” Daniels asked.
    Potter shook his head. “Quiet as church. I’m about to fall asleep. Now I remember why I used to hate goin’ so damn much.”
    He looked at me.
    With a collar around my neck, I was an obvious target for his contempt, but I was probably no more connected to organized religion than he was. It’s what made my position ironic. From an early age, I’d had an intense spiritual hunger and an idealistic desire to help humanity, but had never felt comfortable or spent very much time within the structure of organized religion.
    Daniels pressed the two flyers into Potter’s chest. “Know anything about these?”
    While Potter examined the flyers, Daniels and I looked around the room. Between the exposed pipes running along the unfinished ceiling and the bare concrete of the floor, there was mostly open space with only a TV suspended from a bracket on the wall opposite us and a desk for the PM sergeant near the door.
    Every sound reverberating in the open space of the two-story bare concrete building ricocheted around the room like a racquetball, and the air was filled with the stale depressing smell of confinement—sleep, sweat, and the lingering acrid odor of cigarette smoke.
    I scanned the solid metal doors of the twenty-eight cinder block cells. With all the food tray slots closed, I could only see the inmates who were standing directly in front of the glass.
    Potter’s radio announced that two inmates were returning from medical, and they appeared at the door. He nodded them toward their cells, which popped open as they approached them, and then he turned his attention back to the flyers.
    “It’s bullshit,” Potter said.
    “What?” Daniels asked.
    He nodded toward the flyers. “We got this place locked down tighter than the warden’s black asshole. Every cell door is shut and locked. We’ve got complete control over all movement.”
    From somewhere near the staircase, an inmate asked Potter if he could be released to attend the service.
    “See,” Potter said. “Complete control.”
    Potter then radioed Pitts and asked him to unlock cell 203. The buzz of an electric lock sounded, then a click, and Chris Sobel, Justin Menge’s boyfriend, emerged from the cell and walked over toward the folding chairs. Before he reached them, Potter motioned for him, and he walked over.
    “Sir?” Sobel said.
    His eyes were red and puffy, his face