Power and Empire

Chang took the small syringe from his shirt pocket and stepped forward, jamming the needle into the back of Feng’s thigh at the same moment the singing idiot decided to turn around and thank him again. Feng jerked away, swiping at Chang with one hand and throwing the pitiful toothbrush with the other. The syringe went flying and landed in the stainless-steel sink/toilet combination. Unfortunately, Chang had been in mid-push and the contents of the syringe that hadn’t gone into Feng’s leg ended up on the floor.

Chang grabbed Feng by the throat and drove him backward into the lower bunk, fingers squeezing tight to keep him from crying out. With the syringe gone, he had no way of knowing how much fentanyl had made it into Feng’s muscle. Three milligrams would be enough to kill a normal-sized man — and Feng was a runt. Even so, Chang had intended to give him half again that much, just to be on the safe side.

The DSO was making a decent side living selling fentanyl in the jail. The markup was incredible, with a five-hundred-dollar investment bringing him as much as ten grand. He could have made more out on the street. These inmates weren’t exactly rolling in cash — and he sure as shit wasn’t going to take Cup O’ Noodles or honey buns in trade. Still, ten grand was ten grand. The fentanyl came in from China, where it was manufactured in legal labs — and then stashed in the little desiccant packs of silica in pairs of running shoes he ordered online. It was almost too easy — and he got to keep the running shoes.

Everybody knew the fentanyl was coming inside — the inmates called it Murder 8. When it didn’t kill them, it made them lethargic and easy to deal with — unlike the spice and other toxic shit that was being smuggled in. Chang sometimes felt that he was providing a service of calm for his fellow DSOs.

Feng had been so flighty at booking that no one would question it if he died of an overdose. Chang had the stuff on hand already. A call from a contact said the Sun Yee On brothers needed a favor — and there would be an extra twenty G’s in it for him.

It would have been so easy if the dumb bastard hadn’t turned around.

Chang held him against the bed with his body weight, one hand on his neck, the other flat across his mouth. Finally, he felt the man go limp. Seconds later, he gave a series of gurgling croaks. If Chang had injected enough, Feng should have stopped breathing — but he didn’t. His pupils constricted to tiny black dots. His lips turned blue and his breathing was labored, but his stupid lungs still pumped away.

The syringe lay on the ground at Chang’s feet in a puddle of liquid. He thought about picking it up and trying to inject any remaining drops, but the syringe was wet. He felt in his pocket for nitrile gloves and came up with only one. That wasn’t going to work. Fentanyl was potent stuff and could be absorbed through the skin.

Chang let the man drop face-first onto the lower bunk, stifling the urge to bash his head against the wall or simply choke the life out of him. Either would leave far too much physical evidence — but if it came to that, he’d do what he had to do and work out the rest later. He couldn’t leave Feng like this. If the drug wore off without killing him, Chang would end up in jail himself — and correctional officers didn’t do well on the inside.

Alarms still sounded up and down the corridor, but the riot would be quelled at any moment. Whatever Chang did, he had to do it quickly. An army of detention officers would have descended on the dayroom by now. His Sun Yee On brothers had done what they could, but they could keep the diversion going for only so long. Chang pulled the feed to the camera in this cell just before the fight broke out, leaving the control room no time to notice the gray screen among the dozens they already had to watch.

He scanned the tiny space, racking his brain for some sort of plan. Then he looked down at Feng and realized the answer was right there in front of him.

Jail administrators went to great lengths to keep inmates from harming themselves, but if someone was determined to die, they found a way. Chang had seen some ingenious methods over his four years as a correctional officer. One guy had even stuffed enough toilet paper down his own throat that it was impossible to get out. It was interesting to watch, but Chang didn’t have time for that now. This needed to be much quicker. Fortunately, prisoners had developed several methods to bring about their own deaths that were relatively quick, and, at least as important, could be applied right under the noses of their guards.

Chang slowly released his grip on the near catatonic Feng.

“Lucky bastard,” he whispered. “On the outside, they’d kill you with an ax.”