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a Lincoln.”
    “You worked in the mines?”
    “No. I wish.” He laughed.
    I knew but asked him anyway: “How did you end up in the ‘haven’?”
    He shrugged. “I won’t make any excuses. You can read about it.” Good answer.
    “What’s your plan?”
    “I’m in substance abuse, anger management, trying to finish high school. Maybe start working on a degree.”
    “I heard you had a trade.”
    “A while ago. Small engines. Did nothing with it.” He shrugged again. “You know the way it is at home. Hard to get anything going. Nobody wants to pay for anything. Fixing lawn mowers for fuck all. Eventually took off for Toronto. Land of opportunity.” He spread his arms wide. “And here I am.”
    “Well, keep at it,” I said. “The studies. The shop. There’s decent money in the shop.”
    “Just FYI,” he said, now looking around nervously. Then he had the cigarette in his mouth, hands cupped around a flame. Dropped an extinguished match, exhaled a billow of smoke straight at me: “There’s talk of another smash-up. The warden started confiscating money from our welfare fund, for broken food trays. The food here sucks. They wheel it over in metal carts from next door at Bath. Garbage by the time it gets to us. Guys have been breaking the trays, to protest.”
    I nodded at the cigarette, smiled. “You’d better be careful with that.”
    “I’m always careful,” he said. “The secret of survival.”
    “Good to know.”
    “Maybe you should pass it on. Any night now. They’ll knowwho—the gang on J.” He was rock steady, now held eye contact, bold and brave. A calculated risk, I thought—a small investment. He drew deeply on the cigarette, looked away, then pinched the ember, pocketed the butt.
    I said nothing and he seemed puzzled, wondering if I’d paid attention. Which is how you deal with them, how you both survive. I left him there.
    “Where’d you get this, Breau?” I was standing in the doorway at Institutional Protective Security. The IPSOs, as they’re known. The officer was looking skeptically at the typed-up page I’d handed him, a copy already in my files.
    “Confidential source.”
    “Come on, Tony. Give. We need to know how credible this is.”
    “Can’t. Confidential. But I have reason to believe …”
    “Just tell us if he’s one of yours.”
    “I can’t do that …”
    “Well just confirm that it’s from a con in Millhaven …”
    “Confidential source,” I repeated.
    “We’ll take it under advisement,” the officer said as he turned away.
    And Millhaven blew up just the way Strickland said it would. First the inmates blocked access to the ranges with those steel food carts they were complaining about, then they sabotaged the mechanism for the cell doors, making it impossible to close them. It went on for days, smoke and water, noise and violence everywhere as it spread to all the other units, except A. They tried to break into A, but the guards drove them back withpepper spray and fists and boots and batons. Then they managed to get into the pharmacy. It was on day three that two psychotic inmates stoned on Percocet killed the Italian. There was no reason in particular. Someone found him annoying. Someone thought he was a rapist. He was a from-Italy Italian, no friends in the joint. So they killed him slowly, carving on him for most of an afternoon. Finished him off when they heard the emergency response team breaking in. Had a pillowcase over his head so he couldn’t see who did it, just in case he survived.
    After it was over, the IPSOs wanted me to sniff around since I had such super confidential sources there.
    Sophie had set up the second meeting in her Millhaven office. No eyebrows raised, no questions asked. Strickland off to see the shrink. He was surprised and obviously frightened to find me there.
    “I need to know who did the Italian,” I said. I kept my voice low.
    “Why do you care about the Italian? He was a fuckin skinner. Anyway, you had