The Japanese Trilogy, Book 3 - (Lust, Money & Murder Book 15)

By Mike Wells

Thanks to Elaine Brogan, Giorgio Cattoretti finally finds himself behind bars in one of the worst maximum security penitentiaries in Europe. He’s desperate to find a way out. Meanwhile, Elaine and Luna Faye continue their effort to track down The Factory, even though their boss has ordered them to drop the case. A rapidly-unfolding series of events leads Elaine to Japan, where she is pitted not only against Cattoretti and the Yakuza criminals but, to her astonishment, even her own husband. The last book of The Japanese Trilogy reaches an explosive climax that will have you turning the pages faster and faster until you reach the very end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Wells
• Release date: Aug 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005711047

Mike Wells

Mike Wells is an author of both walking and cycling guides. He has been walking long-distance footpaths for 25 years, after a holiday in New Zealand gave him the long-distance walking bug. Within a few years, he had walked the major British trails, enjoying their range of terrain from straightforward downland tracks through to upland paths and challenging mountain routes. He then ventured into France, walking sections of the Grande Randonnee network (including the GR5 through the Alps from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean), and Italy to explore the Dolomites Alta Via routes. Further afield, he has walked in Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Norway and Patagonia. Mike has also been a keen cyclist for over 20 years. After completing various UK Sustrans routes, such as Lon Las Cymru in Wales and the C2C route across northern England, he then moved on to cycling long-distance routes in continental Europe and beyond. These include cycling both the Camino and Ruta de la Plata to Santiago de la Compostela, a traverse of Cuba from end to end, a circumnavigation of Iceland and a trip across Lapland to the North Cape. He has written a series of cycling guides for Cicerone following the great rivers of Europe.

Book preview

1

Athens, Greece

Early one cold December morning, the city of Athens experienced a noisy awakening.

A police motorcade thundered through the center, lights flashing, sirens wailing.

A single motorcycle led the way, followed by a number of other law enforcement vehicles. This official entourage was followed by a procession of television news vans and cars filled with reporters from every local media outlet. Staff photographers were anxious to snap off a picture or two of the man who was receiving so much attention.

As this conspicuous parade sped along the streets, many of the uninformed locals assumed that perhaps the President of the United States or some other esteemed world leader was being escorted to an important meeting with government officials or would be making a public appearance of some kind.

Sandwiched among the squad cars, however, was not a limousine with colorful national flags fluttering on its fenders, but a plain Hellenic Police paddy wagon.

The man who was shackled hand and foot to the cold metal bench inside the van was considered to be one of the most dangerous criminals in the world.

His name was at the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted List. He had evaded capture for many years. A mugshot of him taken after his arrest, wearing his eye patch and staring stoically into the camera, had been splashed all over the local news for the past forty-eight hours.

His name: Giorgio The Cat Cattoretti.

Apprehended at an undisclosed location in Greece on an Interpol Red Notice that was issued by the United States, the flashy Italian villain was to be charged with multiple counts of currency counterfeiting and multiple counts of murder in the first degree.

As the news of his arrest spread worldwide, other countries followed suit, submitting their own extradition requests and vying for priority. Take a number, was the running joke among the Ministry of Justice staff.

The notorious criminal mastermind would be transferred from the Athens City Jail to Korydallos Prison, the largest, maximum security penitentiary in Greece.

There, he would be kept under tight lock and key until the first extradition order was granted.

2

After being subjected to a degrading body-cavity search, Giorgio Cattoretti felt like a wounded animal.

Every orifice had been poked and prodded. When he had been sprayed head to toe with some foul-smelling de-lousing chemical, it had taken all his willpower not to lash out at the guards.

But as he was marched through the huge complex towards his assigned cell in ‘Gamma Wing,’ his anger slowly morphed into fear.

The prison was known as Korydallos Kolastirio by the Greek criminal element, meaning Korydallos Hellhole. The facility had been condemned by more than one human rights organization as the worst correctional institution in Europe.

Located in a suburb six miles from the Athens city center, the depressing complex of decaying, three-story concrete buildings was originally designed to hold eight thousand inmates. Now, over twelve thousand men and women were crammed like smelly sardines into the facility. Due to the overcrowding and substandard living conditions, deadly riots and sieges were so commonplace they didn’t even make front page news.

As Giorgio was escorted between the high, razor-wire-topped walls, he vividly remembered the day he had been sentenced to Attica. He’d been barely twenty years old then, and the thought of being locked in a maximum-security prison with hundreds of murderers, rapists and thieves, most of whom were a lot older and stronger than him, had been absolutely terrifying. He had sworn that he would never allow himself to be imprisoned again. And Elaine Brogan had done this to him.

But he kept assuring himself there was nothing to worry about this time. He wouldn’t be in this snake pit long. His arrest had simply been a mistake, a political glitch, a misunderstanding between him and Ioannis Kefala.

Kefala was the Greek Minister of Justice and had been in Cattoretti’s pocket ever since he’d seized control of the Panacea clinic. The minister took a steady, monthly skim off the clinic’s income.

Giorgio was sure that Kefala had simply been caught off guard by the Interpol Red Notice that Elaine had presented to him, and the glitch would be straightened out in short order.

When the guards ushered Giorgio into Gamma Wing, he glanced around the huge space—he had to turn his head to the left, right, and nod up and down for his one good eye to take it all in. Three imposing tiers of cells covered all four sides, featuring windowless, faded-orange doors. The ceiling must have been one hundred feet high.

He had expected the usual prison ‘greeting’—to pass rows of men glaring down at him and screaming Fish! Fish! Fish! with the shriek of echoing wolf-whistles and shouted obscenities—but all the cell doors were closed.

There were plenty of animals around, though, and they weren’t prisoners.

Families of stray cats were scattered across the floor, sleeping or lazily eating what appeared to be scraps of food that had been tossed on the concrete.

The guards led him towards another officer who was seated at a desk in front of a wide, rusty-barred window.

What’s with all the cats? Giorgio muttered, as they escorted him.

"Eh?" the guard on his right said, glancing over.

The cats, Giorgio said, motioning to a couple of the felines as they passed by.

The guard shrugged as if the answer was obvious. You don’t want rats, you have cats.

Wonderful, Giorgio thought.

At the far end of the building, pigeons were fluttering around, some hopping along the floor which was covered with bird droppings. Giorgio cringed as some of the hardened pigeon poop crunched under his nine-hundred-euro Ferragamo loafers.

The man sitting at the desk checked something on a clipboard, then pointed upwards and said, "Enenínta Tría."

Giorgio knew enough Greek to recognize the words—Ninety-Three.

That was his cell number.

As the guards escorted Giorgio up the concrete stairs, he said, I want to speak to Ioannis Kefala. He had been making this request ever since he’d been arrested, and Elaine Brogan and Kefala had dumped him in the Athens City Jail.

One of the uniformed men glanced at him irritably. Kefala, Kefala, Kefala, why you keep speaking about him?

"Because I need to talk to him, that’s why. My name is not Giorgio Cattoretti. This is all a big mistake, believe me."

The guard only laughed. "Ioannis Kefala—he Minister of Justice, very important man! He head all prosecution in Greece. You want talk to lawyer, not Kefala!"

Get moving, the other guard said irritably, shoving him up the next step.

When they reached the third tier, the guards moved Cattoretti along the long row of cells until they arrived at the heavy steel door with the number 93 stenciled onto it in large, black numerals. One of the guards unlocked the door and opened it.

Cattoretti stared into the cell with disbelief.

A scraggly group of inmates was gazing curiously back at him.

One…two…three…four…five prisoners were shoehorned into this closet?

Three bunk beds were crammed into the room, with barely enough space to walk between them. The rest of the cell was taken up by a cheap plastic patio table with cigarette burns along the edges. On it was a small TV set, an electric water boiler, and an alarm clock. A flimsy plastic chair was pushed up to one side. Beyond that was a small bathroom stall, with a built-in shower nozzle visible. There was a floor-level toilet and a small, open drain in the concrete floor, for the shower water. Splotches of dark green mold were visible on the walls.

The unmistakable stench of incarceration assaulted Giorgio’s nostrils, once again triggering memories of his horrific time at Attica. It was a revolting miasma of stale body odor mixed with the dingy, spoiled clothes, stale cigarette smoke, and sewage reek from the toilet with a faint note of teargas from the last riot. In some detached way, he thought it was odd that the foul but telltale odor was immutable over such a long span of space and time.

The Cat’s one-eyed gaze took in the five scruffy men who were about to become his ‘cellies.’ They were scattered across the crude, iron bunk beds, legs dangling from the upper ones, eyeing him curiously. Their clothes were threadbare and tattered—most of the prisoners were wearing cheap jogging pants and stained hoodies or tattered, long-sleeved T-shirts.

The men ranged in age from early twenties to mid-fifties, all with black hair and brown eyes, and all unmistakably Italian. During the entry speech, given to Giorgio by the assistant warden, he was told that inmates were grouped according to nationality and/or religion. Gamma Wing was where most of the Western Europeans were housed.

This is Giorgio Cattoretti, one of the guards said, with a trace of pride in his voice, as if he were personally responsible for the arrest of the big shot, and pushed Giorgio into the cell. Make room for him.

"My name is not Cattoretti, Giorgio said indignantly, mostly for the benefit of his cellmates. I’m Adrian Garcia, a Spanish businessm—"

Of course you are, the guard said sarcastically, and then grinned at the other men. All big mistake, right? Just like everybody else—you innocent as baby.

All the prisoners in the cell had a good laugh.

Giorgio was handed his ‘fish kit’—a thin plastic drinking cup that contained a comb, toothbrush, disposable, single-edge razor, and a bar of deodorant soap hardly large enough to wash one of the stray cats. The guard removed his handcuffs.

As the two guards moved out and shut the cell door, a movement on the wall caught Giorgio’s eye.

A large insect lumbered lazily along, its two antennae quivering ahead of it.

A huge cockroach.

There were more of the disgusting creatures scurrying around on the ceiling and floor.

Giorgio winced.

Don’t worry, a voice reassured himself from inside. Ioannis Kefala is going to get you out of here.

The men were staring at him in poker-faced silence, taking in his expensive outfit, his shoes, and the eye patch.

Giorgio glanced around the cell again. Threadbare pants, socks, and towels hung from every conceivable spot in the room, draped across the rusty frames of the iron bunk beds. Clothes were even dangling from the bars on the window.

Giorgio had already been informed that there were no inmate uniforms here—the prison couldn’t afford them. At Korydallos, you wore the clothes that were on your back when you arrived. You washed them out in the sink in your cell—the prison laundry had been burned up several riots ago. When your clothes gave out, you could buy new ones in the prison commissary, if you had money.

One of the men, who had barely glanced in his direction, was standing at the sink in the corner, washing out some faded gray garment, muscles rippling on his heavily tattooed back as he worked.

He turned to face Cattoretti for a moment, sneering. He finally said, in Italian, If you’re wondering where your bunk is, Cyclops, it’s right there. His thick finger indicated a spot on the floor, between one of the bunk beds and the entrance to the toilet.

Cattoretti bristled at this. So that’s how it is, he thought. The big son-of-a-bitch was the toughest man here, the alpha, the silverback gorilla of the lot.

One of the lower bunk beds was packed with cardboard boxes full of books, clothes, and other personal belongings. The bunk directly above sagged more than the two top bunks. Giorgio understood that the ‘silverback’ slept there, and the ape had also declared the bottom bunk his space, too. The upper bunk had a view out the barred window—far in the distance, through the haze, Giorgio could actually see downtown Athens.

All eyes were on him, waiting.

Giorgio knew this was a crucial moment. Even if he was only going to be in here a few days, he had to take bold, decisive action to show that he couldn’t be pushed around, or things might get nasty for him…

Giorgio’s gaze returned to the silverback. Of course, tussling with that man was out of the question. The hulking gorilla could break him in half.

Thinking fast, Giorgio assessed his chances with the other men, his eye coming to rest on the wrinkled face and white hair, the only inmate in the cell who appeared to be older than he was. The man seemed quite small.

You’re on my bed, Giorgio snapped, in Italian, pointing at the upper bunk mattress underneath the man’s skinny behind.

Eh? the old guy said, surprised that the ‘fish’ had the nerve to address him.

You heard me, Giorgio said evenly. He took a menacing step towards the old man and stopped. Get your wrinkly ass off my bed. I won’t ask you a third time.

The older man frowned uncertainly, glancing at the silverback, perhaps expecting protection.

The other men became still, waiting with anticipation to see what was going to happen.

Giorgio sensed the tension in the cell ratchet up tenfold.

The head ape had stopped wringing the garment in his hands, his eyes focused on the two of them, but he did not move.

Giorgio waited only another second before his hand shot out and grabbed the older man’s ankle. He yanked as hard as he could. A split second later the older guy was in mid-air, falling towards the floor.

The fish kit dropped from Giorgio’s other hand and his closed fist smashed into the surprised codger’s face.

When the man hit the concrete, Giorgio kicked him hard in the groin, then the stomach, and, finally, in the mouth.

The other men all sat up straight, uneasily, glancing at each other.

But nobody moved.

While the older guy moaned on the floor, doubled over on his side, Giorgio raised his right foot, and rested it on the man’s hip. The Cat produced a crisp white Gucci handkerchief and carefully wiped a spot of blood off the soft leather tip of his loafer. He slipped the handkerchief back into his pocket and casually hopped up onto the bunk where the old man had been sitting, his heart pounding.

At that same moment, there was the thump of the cell door being unlocked—one of the guards had been near enough to hear the commotion.

What happened? the guard said.

He fell off his bunk, Giorgio replied, matter-of-factly. He was still breathing hard from the exertion, adrenaline pumping through his veins, his body trembling, but he hid it well.

Another guard stepped inside the cell, and kept a sharp eye on the inmates, one hand resting on the butt of the Taser attached to his utility belt.

Is that true, Spina? the first guard asked, peering questioningly at the old man.

Spina glanced at Giorgio, and then the silverback, who was eyeing him evenly.

I fall off bed, he said, wiping a red smear of blood from his mouth.

The guard clearly didn’t believe it. He pointed his nightstick at the bed with all the boxes on it and addressed the silverback. Get your crap off that mattress!

The huge man grunted, "In culo di tua madre!"

That translated into Up your mother’s ass! It was the kind of insult that could get you killed in Rome, but the guard, a native Greek, only understood from the tone that it was something obscene. He nodded slowly. You wanna spend three days in a Blue Cell, Marchesi?

Giorgio didn’t know what a Blue Cell was, but guessed it was some sort of solitary confinement.

Marchesi, the gorilla, glared at the guard for a moment, then grudgingly started dragging the cardboard boxes out of the lower bunk, one after the other, muttering Italian curse words under his breath.

The guard helped Spina climb up off the floor and onto the vacated mattress.

To Giorgio’s surprise, both guards left without even closing the cell door.

3

Cattoretti soon found out why they left the cell door open—all the cells in Gamma Wing had been unlocked. Inmates poured out of the cells on all three levels, spilling up and down the staircase. Within five short minutes, the cavernous interior of Gamma was a beehive of activity.

Then inmates gathered in groups, drinking Greek frappes and chatting with each other. More of the cheap patio furniture was dragged out of the cells. Backgammon and chess boards were set up. The air became filled with the crack of dice and good-natured banter about who was going to win today and how many cigarettes or disposable phone cards would be given up by the losers. Most of the in-house production typical of many prisons did not exist here—such facilities and equipment didn’t survive the riots, and the Greek government had no money to rebuild them. Roadwork and other outdoor manual labor were limited to warmer, dryer weather, so there was very little for the inmates to do in winter.

From a guard, Cattoretti learned that inmates were allowed to roam all over the prison complex and exercise courtyard, from the morning head count all the way to lights out. The prison administrators were not stupid—freedom of movement was one of the best ways to combat frustration and stress caused by the overcrowding which could easily lead to rioting. The only reason everyone had been locked down when Giorgio arrived was that they were afraid that the hubbub about The Cat’s arrest might stir the men up and trigger an incident. Apparently, the story had been running non-stop on every TV set in the facility all morning.

Nevertheless, guards were scattered everywhere, alert and ready for trouble. Giorgio sensed that Korydallos was a tinderbox hungry for a spark. The staff kept a watchful eye on everyone, their hands resting on their utility belts within inches of their weapons—Mace, batons, and Tasers.

Despite their casual behavior, the prisoners seemed on edge, too. Nobody wanted a riot, including the vast majority of the inmates. Giorgio knew that well from his experience at Attica. It was a statistical fact that when rampages and sieges occurred in any correctional facility, most of the people who ended up in the morgue were not guards or police, but prisoners.

Cattoretti figured that he’d been lucky a few minutes ago—the general fear of a riot was the only reason he’d gotten away with yanking the old guy off of the bunk and beating him up. When a small fight broke out, both the guards and inmates reacted with extreme caution, hoping to keep the situation from escalating, as they had just done.

Giorgio cautiously walked down to the lower level of Gamma Wing, keeping his distance from the other inmates and avoiding making direct eye contact with them.

He had to get in touch with Ioannis Kefala, somehow, and get the hell out of here.

It was unthinkable that he should even spend one night in this godawful place.

When Cattoretti reached the ground floor, he was amazed at what he witnessed. Some of the inmates had actually set up rickety little stalls and ‘sold’ things they made in their cells in exchange for cigarettes and prepaid phone cards. There were a couple of wrinkled old Chinese guys who were offering beautifully-handcrafted wooden items—backgammon and chess boards, and cases for cigarettes and disposable lighters. Upon closer inspection, The Cat saw that they were actually made of wooden matchsticks, chopsticks, and kabob skewers that had been glued together and varnished to a pleasing sheen.

He also noticed the sickly-sweet smell of cannabis wafting through the air.

This place is like a circus, he thought with disbelief, slowing to gawk at all the prisoners freely moving about, weaving in and out of the cats, and causing an occasional pigeon to flap its wings and take flight. The atmosphere could not have been more different from Attica, where none of this would be tolerated, especially prisoners casually smoking marijuana.

Giorgio walked across the space until he reached a security cage on one side that seemed to lead to an administrative hallway.

A guard was sitting there on a plastic chair, watching porn on his phone. Across the cage, a small TV set on the desk was showing a Greek soap opera, the volume turned down.

Excuse me, Giorgio said, in English.

The guard, who sported a thick mustache, glanced up at him through bloodshot eyes.

My name is Adrian Garc—

I know who you are, Cyclops.

Giorgio winced at this. I need to set up a meeting with Ioannis Kefala.

The guard smiled, his mustache stretching wide over his lip. And I need set up meeting with Vladimir Putin.

A guard on the far side of the cage heard this and chuckled.

I know Kefala personally, Giorgio said, determined to keep his cool. All I need for you to do is to pass a message to him. Cattoretti instinctively reached for his wallet for bribe money, but then remembered all his pockets were empty. Of course, cash was forbidden inside these walls.

I only make appointment for you talk social worker, the guard said, regarding him with a bored expression.

Social worker? Giorgio thought. He sorely doubted that a social worker could get a message to the Minister of Justice, who would be the man’s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss, about ten times removed.

Look, I’m not even sure why I’m in here in the first place—it all happened so fast that I didn't even get a chance to speak to Kefala. This was true. That betraying bitch Elaine Brogan, who had forced Giorgio’s arrest on the Interpol Red Warrant, had been within earshot the entire time. Every word I’ve heard since the moment I was arrested was in Greek.

The guard motioned to the television set. TV say you arrested on Interpol Red Notice for murders in America, and print fake American money. Italy want extradite you, too. And Croatia. The guard smiled with satisfaction. Many countries want extradite you. You very popular man, Cyclops—everybody want piece of you. He motioned past Giorgio, to the floor of the main room. "Here? You just another cat."

A few minutes later, Cattoretti was walking angrily towards the hallway where the pay phones were located. He had purchased four prepaid telephone cards at the prison commissary using a debit from his prison account which had been created that morning.

He was still smarting from the guard’s sarcastic remarks. You very popular man, Cyclops…everybody want piece of you.

The fact that he was known as ‘Cyclops’ all over the sprawling prison, in such a short time, only added insult to injury.

He’d been surprised when the guard told him that Croatia wanted to extradite him, too. If it was true, it really pissed him off. He was sure the crooked Croatian ministers that had helped him set up the pink diamond-cutting factory had also hired the hit-man who had tried to kill him for robbing it.

And now those corrupt politicians wanted to punish him the legal way?

Usually, it was the other way around.

Anyway, he could not let himself be bothered by such details—it was all water under the bridge now. Getting out of this place was the only thing that mattered.

He decided he had no choice but to try to get in touch with Ioannis Kefala by himself. The only other person in Greece who might help him get a message to Kefala was Lexy, and he didn’t want to drag her into this. He had called her using the one telephone call he’d been entitled to make when he was arrested and had told her to unlock the safe in the secret room at the Panacea villa, open the envelope she would find inside, and follow the instructions to the letter. Hopefully she’d done that and, by now, she and Pablo were safely nestled away inside one of the best hotels in the city center.

When Giorgio arrived at the pay phone hall, he found inmate queues three-people deep. Or three teenagers-deep, it seemed. Half of the prisoners here looked like they were barely eighteen years old. During entry processing, Cattoretti had learned that Korydallos inmates ranged from those merely charged with crimes, waiting for a trial or a hearing in Greece’s cumbersome criminal-justice system, to hardened criminals who were serving multiple, long-term sentences. Eighteen-year-olds who were arrested for nicking a bottle of beer from a kiosk or stealing a motor scooter for a joy ride were mixed in with serial killers and drug kingpins.

It was crazy.

Twenty excruciatingly slow minutes passed by before Cattoretti neared the top of the queue. There were faded white boxes painted on the concrete leading up to the phone, indicating spaces where you were supposed to stand while you were waiting.

Just as he started to step into the front square, a strong arm pushed him aside.

I’m next, a deep voice said in Italian.

Giorgio looked over to find that it was Marchesi, the silverback, who had pushed him.

It threw him off balance but he managed to regain his place in the box, roughly pushing Marchesi back out of it.

The big man frowned as if he were surprised Giorgio had the nerve to touch him.

This is my place, Giorgio said. I’ve been waiting twenty minutes.

I don’t care if you’ve been waiting there since the day you slid out of your whore-mamma’s stinking, diseased cunt, he said matter-of-factly.

This was too much. No Italian man would allow his mother to be disrespected like that.

Giorgio took a swing at him.

Marchesi easily blocked it with a hairy forearm and shoved Giorgio backwards, his foot deftly darting out just behind Giorgio’s left ankle.

The Cat hit the ground hard, flat on his back.

Marchesi casually took Giorgio’s place in the queue. A second later, the pay phone was free and the monkey stepped up to it to make his call.

Giorgio got to his feet, brushing the dust off his expensive suit, expecting the men around to be snickering, but not one of them so much as glanced in his direction—they seemed to be avoiding looking at him. He stepped into the faded white box behind the silverback.

The first pay phone call that Cattoretti made was to Annabelle, his general manager at Panacea, who he guessed had been climbing the walls the past few days, wondering what the hell was going to happen to the clinic, and to her job. He assured Annabelle that his arrest was little more than a mistake, that his identity had been confused with that of some notorious Italian criminal, and that he would be back at the clinic soon, when the mix-up was straightened out. He told her to stay calm and keep the clinic running smoothly in his absence.

Using directory assistance, Cattoretti then called the main switchboard of the Greek Ministry of Justice. He of course had Ioannis Kefala’s private cell number, but it was stored in his sat-phone, which he’d left at his office in Panacea when he’d been arrested and hustled away from the island. He had told Lexy to take it with her, along with her own sat-phone, so he could contact her later. He was worried about Pablo and hoped she’d followed all his instructions.

Minister of Justice’s Office, a cultured female voice said in Greek.

Giorgio asked to speak to the minister

Who is speaking, please?

Adrian Garcia. Gritting his teeth, he added, I’m calling from Korydallos Prison. I need to talk to the Ioannis immediately. He couldn’t believe that he had to call Kefala’s public number and deal with some young, pompous secretary to have a word with the minister now, and from a damn prison payphone! How quickly he had fallen from grace.

There was a long silence. One moment, sir…

Greek elevator music filled the receiver for about thirty seconds, and then she came back on the line. I’m sorry, the minister is in a meeting.

In a meeting? Giorgio thought. Kefala was actually going to give him the standard runaround reserved for some common pest?

Tell your boss to stop hiding in his office and talk to me!

Sir, the minister is a very busy man. I can give him a message if you like.

Giorgio gripped the receiver so tightly it hurt his fingers. Sure. You do that. Giorgio thought fast. "You tell him I have an appointment with a tabloid journalist at four o’clock this afternoon, and that I’ll be giving an in-depth interview about exactly how I got into this godforsaken place, and who put me here. Understand?"

There was another long silence.

Do you have that down? Giorgio snapped. His voice was a whiplash.

Yes, I have it.

Good. Deliver the message, he said, and slammed the receiver into the cradle.

4

It took Giorgio a couple of minutes to get a grip on his emotions after the phone call. The confidence he’d had about Kefala getting him out of prison was shaken.

As he walked back into the main Gamma Wing hall, his attention was drawn to a large loudspeaker mounted on the ceiling, far above his head. Every so often it would crackle to life and a male Greek voice would boom out a few words—names? The sound was so distorted, he couldn’t tell. A few seconds after each loud outburst, an inmate would purposefully cross the crowded ground floor, dodging the cats and the pigeons, heading over to the security checkpoint that led to the administrative offices, where Cattoretti had just been.

Giorgio stopped and asked one of the prisoners what the announcements were about.

The man moved nervously away, glancing around as if he did not want anyone else to see that he was talking to the fish. Most of the prisoners had avoided making eye contact with him.

Come on, it’s a simple question, Giorgio said irritably. Are you afraid to talk to me, or what?

I not afraid, he said indignantly. His accent sounded Slavic, maybe Polish.

Then explain that gibberish coming out of the speakers.

They call your name when you have visitor or appointment with social worker. The man said nothing more, and quickly walked off, glancing around again before he was mixed in with the rest of the crowed.

"Mamma mia," Giorgio muttered. He felt like he had some fatal, highly contagious disease.

Signore Garcia? a voice said casually from behind him.

He cautiously turned around.

He found himself gazing at a stocky guy about thirty years old with curly brown hair. Giorgio recognized him—he was one of the men from Cell 93. There was a pleasant, disarming smile on his face.

Name’s Frizzo, he said, in Italian, offering his hand. Frizzo’s name would not be easy to forget—the man’s hair was so frizzy it looked like a French poodle’s tail.

Giorgio was pleased that at least one person in this madhouse respected him enough to call him Signore Garcia and not Cyclops.

It’s almost lunch time, he said. He offered Giorgio a slip of paper from his pocket. I brought you a meal ticket—the guards stick them in an old cigarette carton glued to the wall inside our cell every morning.

Giorgio took the dirty-looking paper and was tempted to say I’m not going to be in here long enough to need to know such things, but there was no reason to make the guy feel bad about his own situation, whatever it might be. Instead, Giorgio merely said, "Grazie."

He looked Frizzo over, taking in the inmate’s faded, mismatched jogging outfit, and then said, I’m surprised you’re not afraid to talk to me, too. Everybody here acts like I have the plague.

That’s because the Maestro hasn’t cleared anybody to talk to you yet.

The who?

The Maestro. He owns Gamma Wing. He decides how you fit in here.

Giorgio nodded. I see. Every prison in the world had gangs that every inmate had to deal with. Cattoretti was sure that every square foot of Korydallos was controlled by one group of thugs or another.

Of course, Frizzo went on, I can talk to you because we’re cellies. We’re allowed to show you the ropes, you know? But nobody else can have anything to do with you, not yet. He paused, glancing down at the Ferragamos on Giorgio’s feet. How much do you want for those shoes?

They’re not for sale, Giorgio growled.

Frizzo eyed him curiously. You speak Italian like a native.

Giorgio thought fast. I have a talent for languages. I spent a lot of years working in Milan.

Giorgio looked him over—there was something innocent and wholesome about him. You don’t look like you fit in this place any more than I do. What did you do—cheat on your taxes?

Frizzo chuckled. No, I stole a bicycle.

"They put you in a maximum-security prison for stealing a goddam bicycle?"

It happened to be inside an upscale bike store. I’d been dreaming about saving up the money to buy it—a Trek Madone, super expensive.

I see.

One night I got drunk and decided it was easier just to throw a brick through the window and steal it. I thought I could get away clean, but… Frizzo shrugged. I punched the cop who arrested me. Stupid.

Giorgio glanced down at the greasy meal ticket Frizzo had given him, a wave of depression descending over him, but quickly fought it off, telling himself once again that he would not be stuck in this nightmare for long. He searched around the huge space with his one eye, turning his head to take it all in. So, where is the mess hall or cafeteria or whatever you call it here?

Frizzo brightened. Oh, it’s located just behind the IMAX movie theater, in between the Olympic-sized pool and the Turkish saunas.

Giorgio chuckled. He realized he had not laughed, nor even smiled, since the moment he’d been arrested.

Frizzo held up a rectangular Tupperware box. Actually, we eat out of these containers, take them back in our cells.

No wonder they have a roach problem, Giorgio thought.

There was a sudden, loud, banging ruckus at one end of the massive room. It was so unexpected that he jumped.

A gigantic metal cauldron was wheeled across the concrete floor by a couple of the biggest, meanest-looking prisoners Giorgio had ever seen. They were both outfitted in filthy denim aprons. One of the men had an enormous chest and arms, with an unnerving black tattoo that looked like an ivy vine growing up the side of his neck and face. The other man was a permanently-sneering dark-skinned man who wore a blue baseball cap backwards on his head, his hair dangling from underneath in long, greasy dreadlocks.

I’m guessing they don’t get many complaints about the food, Giorgio thought.

The cauldron they were pushing and pulling across the floor must have weighed a few hundred pounds—both men were sweating and breathing hard before they finally got it into place.

All the inmates swarmed forward, armed with their plastic containers, pushing and shoving and yelling. The cats were hovering around, too, their tails up, meowing, trained by too many kicks from the inmates.

I brought an extra for you, Frizzo said, handing Giorgio one of the containers.

"Grazie," Cattoretti said, as they were squashed up against three stinking men in front of them, others pushing impatiently from behind.

A fight broke out between two prisoners, but it was over before