“I’m impressed,” Clara said. “I know most gangs in prison gather around racial lines, because—”
“What the boys do in their gangs is bullshit, and it means nothing to us. When you got a dick, you lose the ability to think straight.” Guilty Jen crouched down easily next to Clara. “Sometimes I think you dykes have the right idea. No men around to fuck things up, no men to play stupid games about who can piss farther or make the smellier fart. Women join gangs for protection, that’s all. They don’t really care, deep down, if your hair is straight or kinky. They know life is more complicated than that. Oh, they can memorize the bullshit lines the men hand them, about racial purity this, and ten thousand years of history that. They can talk it back to you all day. But they join the gangs in the first place because they want somebody to watch their back. So they don’t get stabbed over some drama they didn’t even start.”
“Is that why Queenie joined up with you?” Clara asked. “Or Maricón?”
“No,” Guilty Jen said. “They came to me because they wanted some respect. They wanted to respect themselves. They wanted to share the respect I get. I taught ’em that, that there’s more to life than being safe and protected. Anybody can take a beating if they have to. Maybe they don’t believe it at first, but they learn. Not just anybody can fight back, get revenge. That’s where respect comes from. These girls know I’m tougher than anybody else they’re likely to meet. They know if somebody disses them, somebody puts a hand on their stuff or maybe grabs their ass in the showers, they know I’ll be there to kick that somebody’s teeth out. That’s respect.”
Clara looked at the women of the set. Featherwood’s face was scalded. Queenie’s jaw was puffy and bruised, and when she tried to eat it hurt her too much to chew. Maricón was wearing thick bandages over one eye. “You must have kicked a lot of teeth out for these three.”
“You shoulda seen Carol, she had her leg snapped,” Maricón said. “And Shanice, she’s gonna get plastic surgery on her nose, they said, ’cause they didn’t set it until it was too late. They were both in hospital when this shit came down. Thanks to your girlfriend.”
Clara’s mouth formed an O. “I see,” she said. “It was Caxton who did all this. And yet—the last time I saw her she was just fine.”
Guilty Jen’s face remained calm. Her eyes didn’t widen, her nostrils didn’t flare. But down by her side, she brought the fingernails of one hand together and then flicked them apart violently. This was clearly a sore spot.
“She’ll get what’s coming to her. She’s going to die, there’s no question about that. In fact,” Guilty Jen said, and she started to smile again, “I think we might be able to do a little worse than just kill her, now that we have you. Like maybe, we get her to come in, turn herself in, whatever, for the vampire, and then, just as she’s about to get her blood sucked, I cut your throat while she watches. That would work for me.”
Clara felt the skin crawl up and down her spinal column. She had no doubt that Guilty Jen was capable of carrying out her threat.
The phone in her pocket rang then and saved her from having to think anymore. She knew better than to grab for it, and instead let Guilty Jen take it from her. The set leader put it on speaker so everyone could hear.
It was the warden on the other end this time.
“Hsu,” the woman said. “You’re going to die. Do you understand me? There’s no way out of this that doesn’t involve me drinking your blood. I know you can hear me. I watched you take my phone. I couldn’t stop you, but I saw everything.”
Clara looked up at Guilty Jen, who shook her head.
“Hsu’s here, alright,” Jen said, “but I’m doing the talking. You know me, Augie. This is Guilty Jen.”
“Oh yes? She went to you for protection?”