Jack Reacher 01 - Killing Floor by Lee Child Page A

He moved into view outside our bars. This was a very old guy with a broom. An old black man with a fringe of snow-white hair. Bent up with age. Fragile like a wizened old bird. His orange prison uniform was washed almost white. He must have been eighty. Must have been inside for sixty years. Maybe stole a chicken in the Depression. Still paying his debt to society.
    He stabbed the broom randomly over the corridor. His spine forced his face parallel to the floor. He rolled his head like a swimmer to see from side to side. He caught sight of Hubble and me and stopped. Rested on his broom and shook his head. Gave a kind of reflective chuckle. Shook his head again. He was chuckling away. An appreciative, delighted chuckle. Like at long last, after all these years, he’d been granted the sight of a fabled thing. Like a unicorn or a mermaid. He kept trying to speak, raising his hand as if his point was going to require emphasis. But every time, he’d start up with the chuckling again and need to clutch the broom. I didn’t hurry him. I could wait. I had all weekend. He had the rest of his life.
    “Well, yes indeed.” He grinned. He had no teeth. “Well, yes indeed.”
    I looked over at him.
    “Well, yes what, Granddad?” I grinned back.
    He was cackling away. This was going to take a while.
    “Yes indeed,” he said. Now he had the chuckling under control. “I’ve been in this joint since God’s dog was a puppy, yes sir. Since Adam was a young boy. But here’s something I ain’t never seen. No sir, not in all those years.”
    “What ain’t you never seen, old man?” I asked him.
    “Well,” he said, “I been here all these years, and I ain’t never seen anybody in that cell wearing clothes like yours, man.”
    “You don’t like my clothes?” I said. Surprised.
    “I didn’t say that, no sir, I didn’t say I don’t like your clothes,” he said. “I like your clothes just fine. A very fine set of clothes, yes sir, yes indeed, very fine.”
    “So what’s the story?” I asked.
    The old guy was cackling away to himself.
    “The quality of the clothes ain’t the issue,” he said. “No sir, that ain’t the issue at all. It’s the fact you’re wearing them, man, like not wearing the orange uniform. I never saw that before, and like I say, man, I been here since the earth cooled, since the dinosaurs said enough is enough. Now I seen everything, I really have, yes sir.”
    “But guys on the holding floor don’t wear the uniform,” I said.
    “Yes indeed, that sure is true,” the old man said. “That’s a fact, for sure.”
    “The guards said so,” I confirmed.
    “They would say so,” he agreed. “Because that’s the rules, and the guards, they know the rules, yes sir, they know them because they make them.”
    “So what’s the issue, old man?” I said.
    “Well, like I say, you’re not wearing the orange suit,” he said.
    We were going around in circles here.
    “But I don’t have to wear it,” I said.
    He was amazed. The sharp bird eyes locked in on me.
    “You don’t?” he said. “Why’s that, man? Tell me.”
    “Because we don’t wear it on the holding floor,” I said. “You just agreed with that, right?”
    There was a silence. He and I got the message simultaneously.
    “You think this is the holding floor?” he asked me.
    “Isn’t this the holding floor?” I asked him at the same time.
    The old guy paused a beat. Lifted his broom and crabbed back out of sight. Quickly as he could. Shouting incredulously as he went.
    “This ain’t the holding floor, man,” he whooped. “Holding floor is the top floor. Floor six. This here is floor three. You’re on floor three, man. This is lifers, man. This is categorized dangerous people, man. This ain’t even general population. This is the worst, man. Yes, indeed, you boys are in the wrong place. You boys are in trouble, yes indeed. You gonna get visitors. They gonna check you boys out. Oh man, I’m out of here.”

    EVALUATE.