can always tell when I’m talking to amilitary man.”) They both, it turned out, were with the 101st Airborne at more or less the same time and couldn’t quite believe they hadn’t met up in Cam Ranh Bay or the Song Con Valley.
Fifteen minutes later we had our information. Sandra Lorgeree was killed, said the deputy warden, in a hit ordered by the Aryan Brotherhood.
“The gang’s women’s auxiliary, you could say,” the deputy said. “We don’t know who did the hit. The witnesses were only willing to say that the killer had the tattoo—a little picture of a girl in combat boots with a baseball bat. They all have it, all the Aryan Women.”
I wrote the word “hit” followed by a doubtful question mark.
“What makes you think it was a hit?” Al said.
“All the markings. Yard stabbing. No witnesses. Right through the thorax, so the killer knew what she was doing. We don’t get that a lot around here, not like in the men’s facilities. Fights, sure, even stabbings, but not a clean hit like this. Not someone dead in the yard and no one willing to say much. It’s got to be the Brotherhood. No other explanation.”
“Any idea why?” Al said. “The victim was a white girl, wasn’t she?”
“She had some problems with the Aryan Women when she first got here. Ended up in the SHU over it. I’m guessing it took a while for the order to come down from the men’s prison. They don’t do much without being told, the Aryan Women. What we’re figuring is that they sent their complaint on up to the men, and then they got authorization for the hit.”
Al thanked his source and hung up the phone. He looked at me over the top of his reading glasses. “You buy it?” he said.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“Why would they need
authorization
to kill someone?”
Al shook his head. “I’m guessing if they wanted her dead, it would have happened months ago.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Not that I would put it past the those fascists to order a hit. And if they did, there’s no way the women would talk. No one would snitch on the Aryan Brotherhood. But there’s just not a good enough reason for them to order a hit.”
Al took off his glasses and chewed thoughtfully on the end. “Unless . . .” he began.
“Unless they were paid. They work for hire, the Brand does. Not just for ideology.”
“Bingo.”
The Aryan Brotherhood, or the Brand, as it is commonly known, is a white-supremacist gang that has effectively taken over many prisons, especially the maximum-security facilities. They engage in drug trafficking, prostitution, and extortion, all within the prison walls. They also murder, often seemingly with impunity. After all, when someone is serving two life terms on twenty-three-hour-a-day lockdown in a Supermax, what can he possibly have to lose? Members of the Brand kill all kinds of people: some just because they don’t like them—they hate African Americans, homosexuals, child molesters, informants, prison guards, and Jews—and some because they’ve been paid to do so. Murder for hire is a lucrative business in the prison system. Sometimes a prisoner will commit murder in return for a few thousand dollars delivered to a wife or girlfriend on the outside, sometimes for a few grams of heroin delivered to a cell. Sometimes for the services of a particularly attractive or youthful companion.
“I hate those scumbags,” Al said. He slowly drew his hands into fists, cracking the knuckles, as if imagining what he would do to the men who wouldconsider his contented marriage an obscenity and his beautiful daughters mongrels.
“You and me both,” I said. “But you know, Al, nowadays, these guys aren’t even about ideology. There are guys inside with the shamrock tattoo who couldn’t care less about killing Jews or blacks. It’s a gang—it’s about crime and power.”
“I still hate them.”
“Yeah, so do I,” I said.
“And a woman. They got a woman to stab her.”
I knew what he
Fifteen minutes later we had our information. Sandra Lorgeree was killed, said the deputy warden, in a hit ordered by the Aryan Brotherhood.
“The gang’s women’s auxiliary, you could say,” the deputy said. “We don’t know who did the hit. The witnesses were only willing to say that the killer had the tattoo—a little picture of a girl in combat boots with a baseball bat. They all have it, all the Aryan Women.”
I wrote the word “hit” followed by a doubtful question mark.
“What makes you think it was a hit?” Al said.
“All the markings. Yard stabbing. No witnesses. Right through the thorax, so the killer knew what she was doing. We don’t get that a lot around here, not like in the men’s facilities. Fights, sure, even stabbings, but not a clean hit like this. Not someone dead in the yard and no one willing to say much. It’s got to be the Brotherhood. No other explanation.”
“Any idea why?” Al said. “The victim was a white girl, wasn’t she?”
“She had some problems with the Aryan Women when she first got here. Ended up in the SHU over it. I’m guessing it took a while for the order to come down from the men’s prison. They don’t do much without being told, the Aryan Women. What we’re figuring is that they sent their complaint on up to the men, and then they got authorization for the hit.”
Al thanked his source and hung up the phone. He looked at me over the top of his reading glasses. “You buy it?” he said.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“Why would they need
authorization
to kill someone?”
Al shook his head. “I’m guessing if they wanted her dead, it would have happened months ago.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Not that I would put it past the those fascists to order a hit. And if they did, there’s no way the women would talk. No one would snitch on the Aryan Brotherhood. But there’s just not a good enough reason for them to order a hit.”
Al took off his glasses and chewed thoughtfully on the end. “Unless . . .” he began.
“Unless they were paid. They work for hire, the Brand does. Not just for ideology.”
“Bingo.”
The Aryan Brotherhood, or the Brand, as it is commonly known, is a white-supremacist gang that has effectively taken over many prisons, especially the maximum-security facilities. They engage in drug trafficking, prostitution, and extortion, all within the prison walls. They also murder, often seemingly with impunity. After all, when someone is serving two life terms on twenty-three-hour-a-day lockdown in a Supermax, what can he possibly have to lose? Members of the Brand kill all kinds of people: some just because they don’t like them—they hate African Americans, homosexuals, child molesters, informants, prison guards, and Jews—and some because they’ve been paid to do so. Murder for hire is a lucrative business in the prison system. Sometimes a prisoner will commit murder in return for a few thousand dollars delivered to a wife or girlfriend on the outside, sometimes for a few grams of heroin delivered to a cell. Sometimes for the services of a particularly attractive or youthful companion.
“I hate those scumbags,” Al said. He slowly drew his hands into fists, cracking the knuckles, as if imagining what he would do to the men who wouldconsider his contented marriage an obscenity and his beautiful daughters mongrels.
“You and me both,” I said. “But you know, Al, nowadays, these guys aren’t even about ideology. There are guys inside with the shamrock tattoo who couldn’t care less about killing Jews or blacks. It’s a gang—it’s about crime and power.”
“I still hate them.”
“Yeah, so do I,” I said.
“And a woman. They got a woman to stab her.”
I knew what he
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