Chapter 6 - The Shadows of Rikers
The rain did not clear by Friday morning; it settled into a cold, rhythmic downpour that turned the East River into a churning soup of gray mud and black water. The bridge leading to Rikers Island was slick, the heavy security gates at the checkpoint glistening under the high, orange halogen lights of the correction facility.
Mateo sat in the back of the armored Mercedes, his eyes fixed on the gray concrete walls of the Vernon C. Bain Center—the floating jail barge anchored off the island’s northern shore where Ethan Marlowe had been housed since his bail denial.
Across from him sat Commissioner Raymond, his dark blue uniform immaculate, his face lined with the grim, professional exhaustion of a cop who had spent thirty years watching the worst aspects of the city crawl through his precinct doors.
"He’s unravelling, Mateo," the Commissioner said, looking out at the razor wire through the tinted glass. "His lawyers brought his mother down to the visitor's center at eight this morning. She fainted before they even cleared the metal detector. Ethan’s spent thirty-six hours in a protective segregation cell because the general population inmates watched the video on the dayroom television. They know exactly who he is, and they aren't impressed by his father’s logistics firm."
"He doesn't have a father's logistics firm anymore, Raymond," Mateo said, his voice flat and featureless. "The Marlowe assets were completely integrated into our maritime division at midnight. Charles Marlowe is currently sitting in a rented townhouse in Queens with a frozen bank card and two suitcases of clothes."
The car stopped at the final security gate, the heavy iron bars sliding back with a wet, grinding screech.
"Why are we here, Mateo?" Raymond asked, turning his head to look at the billionaire. "The DA has a iron-clad case. The video is clean, the witnesses are locked, and the cooperation agreements from the other boys at the table are already signed. You don't need to see him."
"I don't need to see him for the trial, Raymond," Mateo said, opening his door into the freezing rain. "I need to see him so he understands the size of the room he’s going to be living in for the next ten years."
The visitor’s room in Sub-Level 2 smelled of floor wax, industrial bleach, and old sweat. A single sheet of thick, scratched Plexiglas separated the two rows of steel stools, the metal worn smooth by the chains of ten thousand inmates.
When the guard led Ethan Marlowe into the cubicle, he looked like a ghost of the creature from table seven. He was wearing an oversized orange jumpsuit that hung loose from his shoulders, his hair—the perfect, salon-cut dark hair he had been so proud of—greasy and matted against his forehead. His face was covered in a thin, pale sweat, his hands shaking so violently the handcuffs rattled against the iron bar of his waist chain.
He sat down on the steel stool, his eyes fixing on Mateo’s charcoal suit with a sudden, wild spike of recognition that looked almost like madness.
"Mateo! Mateo, listen to me!" Ethan screamed through the small, circular metal grill in the glass, his voice high and shrill, cracking against the concrete walls. "You have to get me out of here! My lawyers said the DA is asking for the maximum! Twelve years! In a state facility! I can't survive in a state facility, Mateo! There are men in here... they look at me through the bars... they told me what they're going to do to me when the guards change shifts!"
Mateo didn't sit down. He stood in the narrow corridor, his hands clasped behind his back, looking down at Ethan through the scratched plastic as if he were analyzing a broken piece of machinery on a factory floor.
"You should have thought about the guards before you turned the trimmer on, Ethan," Mateo said, his voice dropping into that quiet, chilling register that carried through the small room like a frost.
"It was Tyler's idea!" Ethan wept, his head banging against the glass, leaving a greasy smear on the surface. "Tyler brought the trimmer! He said it would be funny! He said the catering girls always look so serious! I didn't know she was yours, Mateo! I swear to God, I didn't know! If I knew she was a Whitmore, I would have never... I would have given her a tip! I would have apologized for the jacket!"
"That’s the mistake, Ethan," Mateo said softly, leaning closer to the grill. "You think the crime was that you touched my wife. You think if she had been an actual catering worker—a girl from the Bronx with two jobs and a sick mother—your prank would have been just a three-thousand-dollar settlement and a laugh with your friends."
Ethan stared at him, his mouth open, his breath fogging the plastic between them. "Isn't... isn't that how it works? Money fixes things, Mateo. Your family knows that! You own the city!"
"My family owns the city because we understand that the people who work the trays are the ones who hold up the ceilings, Ethan," Mateo said, his face turning into a mask of pure, absolute stone. "The busboy who kept the shears? His sister is a resident at the clinic my wife funds. The nurse who processed the assault report? Her son is a mechanic at our terminal. You didn't just assault an individual, Ethan. You assaulted the network that keeps your father's ships from sinking in the harbor. And that network has decided that you are no longer allowed to breathe clean air."
He turned back toward the exit door, where the guard was already waiting with his keys.
May you like
"Mateo! Wait! Don't leave me!" Ethan shrieked, lunging against the glass until the waist chains snapped him back with a violent, metallic wrench that left him gasping on the concrete floor. "My father! Tell my father to help me!"
"Your father doesn't have an office anymore, Ethan," Mateo said, not looking back as the iron door slid open. "He’s currently trying to find a lawyer who will take his case for a standard retainer. And I’ve already bought the firm that handles the jail's food contract. Enjoy the broth."
