Page 53 of Three-Inch Teeth

“Technically, our winter season starts in October,” the attendant said. “So in twenty-five minutes, it’ll close.”

“Gotcha,” Cates replied.

But the attendant lingered.

“Something I can help you with?” Cates asked finally.

The attendant shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “You’re Dallas Cates, aren’t you?”

Cates and Soledad exchanged looks, then Cates said, “Dallas who?”

The attendant laughed like he was in on the joke. “I remember seeing you on TV. My dad is a great rodeo fan—he used to rope in college. We watch every minute of the national finals every year, and since you’re from Wyoming …”

When Cates didn’t respond, the attendant said, “Don’t worry. We get celebrities here. It’s no big thing. Last summer, Carrot Top was here. You know, the comedian? He was right here in the same pool you guys are in.”

“Imagine that,” Soledad said. “Carrot Top.”

“Swear to God,” the attendant said. “We also had the host of a TV game show. Wink or Blink Something. I can’t remember his last name.” Then: “Wait until I tell my dad I met Dallas Cates.”

After the attendant skipped away, Soledad asked, “Does this happen often to you?”

“More often than I’d hoped,” Cates said.

*

AXEL SOLEDAD WAS a strange and enigmatic creature, Cates thought. Since Axel’s arrival in Jeffrey City, Cates had been trying to figure him out. All he knew about the man was from messages they’d sent back and forth to each other while Cates was in prison.

Cates clearly remembered the first message he’d received out of the blue:

My name is Axel. We are destined to be friends because I know we have common enemies.

Cates had waited days to reply. He had good reasons to be suspicious. The message could be from a crank, from a troll, or even from a CO trying to set him up. Inmates weren’t allowed to communicate with anyone from the outside without approval, and he knew he should fully expect the conversation to be monitored or recorded. But Soledad’s initial message had come through an illicit and obscure chat site on the prison library’s computer, which was supposed to filter out that kind of interaction.

Finally, Cates had written back.

Tell me more about yourself. And who are these common enemies?

*

THE CORRESPONDENCE WENT on for months. Cates found out that the app was engineered to delete their communications a few minutes after they’d been read by the other party, so there was no thread and no digital record of the exchange. And it appeared that the communication channel was one-on-one, with no other participants involved. Soledad had explained that he was the designer of the app, and that he’d built it solely to talk to Cates.

Cates had become comfortable with Axel Soledad, whoever he actually was. He’d tested him several times to find out if Soledad was in contact with the COs by claiming he planned to break out on a certain date and how he was going to do it. When there was no reaction on that day by the officers, Cates had confessed to Soledad what he’d done. Soledad had replied that he’d have done the same thing in that situation, no hard feelings.

*

OVER THE MONTHS of electronic communications, Soledad had tried to get Cates to buy into his ideology. It was something about taking down the deep state that had betrayed him while he was in a special military unit overseas, serving what he later found out was a pack of self-interested liars in Washington, blah-blah-blah.

To strike back, Soledad had begun a movement that manipulated parties already at each other’s throats in already-broken American cities and encouraged violent riots and unrest. He did so by arming members of the homeless, destitute, oppressed, and forgotten and urging them to rise up against local governments.

It had all been going according to plan, until …

Blah-blah-blah, Cates thought.

He was bored by it all, and only read Soledad’s long diatribes because it was something to do. None of that stuff interested him. What happened in cities had never interested him, especially since all the racial enmity could plainly be seen throughout the cell blocks of the prison. What did interest him, though, was the possibility of aligning with a brilliant mind with a common goal.

Which was why, Soledad had explained, he’d researched Dallas Cates and figured out a way to reach him.

*

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