Black Mask (Vol. 22, No. 2 — Mary 1939)

Prison Break by K. Webster

Stir-crazy convicts loot a gun cache.

The stamping machines groaned at No. 7544’s side, and the floor trembled. His nostrils flared at the odors of leather-paint and hides, and his narrow eyes appraised the weighted cane hooked over the arm of a uniformed man.

“Damn you, Sholes!” muttered No. 1029, a blue-shirted old man at his elbow. “If you don’t work faster, that screw’ll crack down on both of us. Easy, he’s watchin’ now.”

“Phooey!” snarled 7544, his jaw muscles turning his face rocky. “I’m going to wake up this dead stir, the worst I’ve been in. Watch.”

With a full-armed sweep he pushed a shoe case off the table. It crashed to the floor, one corner collapsing.

The machines stopped as if giant fingers had grabbed their drive shafts. A whistle shrilled and the guard, looking bored, came over. Lips pursed, he stared at 7544’s blond hair as if wondering where to part it with his cane.

“Say something, screw,” taunted 7544. “Or are you yellow?”

There was an appreciative roar from the other cons, but it died quickly. Three more guards had appeared, one with an automatic rifle under his arm.

“Why, you — you screwball!” sputtered the guard with the cane.

No. 7544, watching the cane dart toward him and swing above his head, dodged quickly and leaped to the table for a kick at the guard’s wrist. The cane harmlessly drummed the floor as he came down on the guard’s side of the table. And then he was driving the guard back with short punches to a well rounded belly. The guard turned greenish white and sagged like a comic dancer.

With a triumphant cry No. 7544 put his heel on the guard’s outflung hand, laughed at the scream of pain that followed.

“Pretty hard, aren’t you?” said the rifleman. “But we’ll soften you up plenty in the next twenty years. Back up, quick!”

The leveled rifle carried plenty of authority, and No. 7544 moved away from his retching victim. A cane whistled behind him and its shadow streaked across the floor. Something exploded at his head and he drifted away in red fog, the words, “Guess that’ll teach him,” trailing along.

During a week of solitary confinement Hugh Baxter — listed in the pen as Hank Sholes, No. 7544 — had enough time to think about the crazy scheme that had brought him to fog-wrapped Sattley Prison.

Jack Baxter, Hugh’s brother, had been a guard at Sattley for ten years. Though popular with officials and cons, he was the one who got a tin shiv through the ribs, from behind — the one who laid down his life for the discovery of a bundle of loaded revolvers buried in the exercise yard.

Hugh Baxter, ace undercover agent, wasted no time. He told Governor Warner he was going into Sattley, under faked commitment papers, to find those responsible.

“Suicide,” the governor pointed out. “Those desperate killers will slit your throat in a hurry if they find you out Besides, we can’t spare you. You’ve done too much good work in our cities.”

“I want Jack’s killer, and you want the prison cleaned up. Or don’t you?”

The conference lasted a long time, but finally Warner agreed. After that Baxter personally investigated the whole Sattley staff — and found one man with a perfect record, Guard Captain Donald McCall. The governor himself gave McCall detailed instructions, and Baxter, praying there would be no leaks, was brought to Sattley in irons...

Baxter’s eyes were swollen; they had strained too hard to pick out the dim light that somehow caused oblique shadows on the corridor floor. His ears still rang with the dead silence, and his nostrils fought the stench of old sweat.

When they called for him, he stumbled out of his cell and mumbled his thanks. His eyes had a bleary focus, but they picked out the insignia on the coat sleeve of a gray-haired man with a barrel-shaped body and loose jowls — Deputy Warden Bill Gardner.

Gardner’s watery eyes, full of mockery, held Baxter’s. “Still tough?”

“No,” said Baxter meekly.

“Sir!” Gardner prompted, his jaw muscles working.

“No, sir.”

“You’ll find us plenty tough, Sholes. Move!”

Their feet clumped hollowly on the way to ground level. And then they were outside, blinking in fog whose bleakness matched that of the turrets on the spiked walls. Baxter shivered.

A one-story stone building housed the furniture shop, with its rows of drill presses, saws and planers. At the single exit were two steel-lined rooms in which the men changed clothes before leaving in pairs. A maze of pipes hung from the ceiling.

“We don’t take chances here,” said one of the guards. “If trouble comes, we just turn a little valve, like this, and gas shoots down on you. Remember that.”

A beefy man with corded forearm muscles was working industriously at a bench. He looked up quickly, and Baxter had a glimpse of his eyes — wide, colorless, wild. His cheeks were puffed, but his lips were thin and pale. And his hair was as curly and heavy as a girl’s.

“From now on, Sholes,” Gardner was saying, “you work here. Convict 7233 will tell you what to do when the inspector is at the other end of the shop. Carry on!”

During the whole afternoon No. 7233 spoke only to give curt orders. He muttered to himself continually, keeping his eyes focused on Baxter.

At six o’clock Baxter changed clothes, found his numerical place in the yard line-up and lock-walked to the mess hall. He was putting his point over. Who would suspect such a tough mean prisoner of being an undercover man?

One hour later he and the others were moving in unbroken lines to the cell houses. Baxter’s group went to Cell House 3, and his division climbed a steel staircase. Baxter stood at the last cell, waiting for the clank of the door-opening mechanism.

No cell faced his on Tier B level, and the next one was separated from it by solid steel plates. Evidently the guards were trying to isolate him — exactly what he wanted. A cellmate would only prevent conversation with McCall, who would signal him during the third inspection round.

After a while the lights went out and Baxter pulled his coarse blankets over him. He was tossing restlessly when the night guard’s flash-light put a halo around his head. Then he fell asleep, but a dream of his dead brother’s good-natured face tortured him.

Three faint taps, coming with another flash of light, brought him to his feet. The flash-light was turned off now, and he could see only a shadow.

“Baxter?” came a faint whisper.

“Yes. You, McCall?”

“Yup. Anything turn up?”

“Not yet.”

“All right. See you this time tomorrow.”

Next morning No. 7233 managed to stay close to Baxter, who again felt the scrutiny of those wild eyes. Just before noon he began talking:

“What’s your name?”

“Hank Sholes.”

“Jolt?”

“Twenty years.”

“For what?”

“Safe blowing and assault, if it’s anything to you.”

“It is — plenty. And don’t use that attitude with me.”

Baxter snorted. “All right, wise guy. What’s your name and what are you doing time for?”

No. 7233’s eyes rolled loosely, but he didn’t move his head. “I’m Al Steward, a lifer. I shot my wife because she stood in my way.” His forearm muscles twitched. “She wouldn’t give me a divorce.”

Baxter remembered Al Steward, who, because of his seven-figure wealth, had made national news during his entire trial. A high-priced battery of lawyers had tried to have him committed to an asylum, but the State’s alienists had convinced the jury of his sanity. So the lawyers had concentrated on saving him from the chair.

Baxter knew, too, from remarks made by his brother, that Steward was suspected of buying privileges by giving some guard coded orders for cash, payable by the attorney in charge of the Steward estate. His prison record was studded with offenses — fighting, insubordination, conspiracy. But he hadn’t spent much time in the hole, had never involved his “connection,” if there was one.

“Sholes,” Stewart said, “you want to know why you’re here?”

“Sure, you sap. For blowing a safe. I told you that before.”

Steward turned, quick rage running across his face. Baxter was beginning to understand some of the impulses that had turned this man, educated and probably well bred, into a killer.

Steward was fingering a hammer. “I’m warning you, Sholes, for the last time. You know damn well I mean this shop, not the stir.”

Baxter’s face hardened and he stepped up to Steward. A guard yelled, “Hey, you two! Break it up!”

Baxter moved back with apparent reluctance, and Steward mumbled:

“Damn screw! Anyway, Sholes, you’re here because I want you here. You may think you were transferred because you bopped a screw in the shoe factory, but that isn’t it. Or maybe it is. If you hadn’t slugged him, I wouldn’t have heard about you.”

“You’re talking in circles, Steward,” snapped Baxter. But there was one thing that made Steward’s story ring true, the prison rule that trouble-makers should never be put together. “Don’t play me for a fool. You’re only another con.”

Steward shrugged slightly. Watching the guards, he muttered: “I know how to use my money, and I’ve got plenty.”

“All right,” said Baxter wearily. “You had me transferred. Why?”

“I need guys like you, tough guys with guts and muscles.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to crush out, and so are you.”

“Yeah? You probably want a fall guy.”

This time, instead of getting angry, Steward showed a warped grin. “You’re so suspicious you wouldn’t trust anybody. And that suits me fine.” He fell into deep silence, apparently concentrating on a mortise, then added: “Think it over, Sholes.”

Baxter grunted. Steward, who mixed good English with prison jargon and whose dangerous hair-trigger temper could be controlled, must have some power, or the prison would have robbed him of all delusions years ago.

Later in the day Baxter handed Steward a chair spindle. “Think we ought to send this back to the turners?” Then he whispered: “I’m in on that job with you, pal.”

“Good!” said Steward.

“Hey!” yelled a guard. “Come over here, you two.”

Baxter and Steward laid down their tools and went to the entrance, where a floor guard stood with Deputy Warden Gardner, whose watery eyes were laughing. Baxter, grim-faced, came to attention.

“No. 7233,” said Gardner to Steward, “you’re a pretty good man with tools. You and No. 7544 will go to the warden’s home with an escort and repair a few doors that stick. Fall in!”

They fell in between a couple of armed guards, with Gardner carrying a small tool kit in the rear. As they crossed the bleak prison yard, Steward muttered, “Keep your eyes open, Sholes.”

There was a spattering sound, followed by a quick groan from Steward. And then Steward was on the ground, his right hand clapped to a bloody spot behind his ear. Gardner stood above him with a police positive, gloating.

“For Gawd’s sake!” screamed Steward. “What have I done?”

“Plenty!” snapped Gardner. “You said something to No. 7544. Talking isn’t allowed, except at prescribed times.”

The five men passed through a little door in the wall to get into Warden Dodge’s back yard. The house, simple and attractive, stood on prison property, but outside the walls. There were rolling lawns, broken only by walks and driveway strips from the garage to the street.

Steward, still holding his head, staggered into the house. Baxter, prodded forward by a guard, saw a gleaming kitchen. He was wondering why convicts should be allowed in the warden’s house, even to make repairs. If Steward had arranged this trip, he must have strong influence.

Gardner set down the tool kit and gestured toward a door, and Steward pulled it open.

Baxter, looking through a dining-room, saw a girl with a warm tan skin and mellow eyes. Her legs, crossed, showed a pleasing expanse of silk that ended in high-heeled pumps. Her black dress had sheen enough to match her hair, appealingly piled on her head. She looked up, startled, and moved out of Baxter’s sight. But her fleeting smile stayed in his memory.

A moment later she came through the dining-room, and Baxter had an uneasy feeling that she was going to parade her social position. But she smiled at him and spoke in a soothing voice:

“Will you be finished soon?”

Gardner glared as if he resented her friendly attitude.

“Yes, Miss Dodge,” said Baxter quickly. “You’re the warden’s daughter, aren’t you?”

“Silence!” commanded Gardner.

“Yes, I am,” said the girl, still smiling. “My friends know me as Joan Dodge... Mr. Gardner, I’m a human being. I can’t be rule-conscious and hard — like you.”

Happiness surged through Baxter, and he noticed that even Steward was smiling a little. That girl was worth plenty — to humanity, to her father, to the man who would become her husband...

An hour later, back in the furniture shop, Steward cursed profanely and gave Gardner a few gutter names.

“He’s a heel,” Baxter agreed. “A guy I’ll take apart first chance I get.”

Steward stopped cursing and glared. “You only think so, Sholes. He’s plenty tough and bad medicine.”

Baxter shrugged.

“You notice the arrangement of the house and the garage?” Steward asked nervously.

Baxter nodded.

“Swell! When we get out of the little wall door, which Dodge always uses, we’ll snatch the girl and run across to the garage for the car.”

“You want a hostage, huh?”

“That’s right. But we’ve got to take the chance she’ll be there when we crush out. Without her we’ll have more trouble.”

“And we’ll time our break so we catch Dodge just when he’s ready to go home, huh?”

“Say,” said Steward admiringly, “you catch on quick. Here’s the rest of the plan: There’s a ventilating shaft in the wall near your cell. It’s got a grilled plate in front, but there aren’t any screws holding it. The screw heads at the corners are just screw heads — nothing more.”

“Well, I’ll be damned! How’d you manage that?”

Anger flared in Steward’s eyes again. “How I get things done in this stir is my business. Anyway, the shaft goes in two feet and then angles toward the tier above. The angle isn’t very sharp, and it’ll hold a package.” He shook his head. “The screws — they’re watching!”

A little later he began talking again. “The package I was telling you about has six one-grand revolvers in it, all loaded.”

“You mean,” said Baxter incredulously, “they cost you a thousand bucks apiece?”

“Right. And I’m letting you in for what you’ve got guts enough to do. When you see a con on your tier stumble and fall down, you’ll know I’m ready. Then you’ll pull out the plate, start shooting and wait for me.”

For hours that evening, Baxter lay tossing, thoughts surging fitfully through his head. Six loaded revolvers in the wrong hands meant endless suffering — and death. And Joan Dodge, if she became a hostage, would never really smile again, alive or dead. For Steward and the rest, woman-hungry for years, would turn into slobbering beasts. Something more poignant than pain filled his throat and caused an involuntary groan.

Protection for the living was more important, suddenly, than getting his brother’s killer. But it was likely that by exposing the leaders of this uprising he would find the one whose gun smuggling had resulted in Jack’s death.

What the hell could he do? Certainly he’d have to prevent either the break or its success. But if the break didn’t occur now, why couldn’t the crooked prison official — whoever he was — plan something else? He’d sold out a couple of times, and he’d do it again. And if he had another chance, Baxter might not be here to stop him. No, the break would have to come — even at great cost to the innocent.

Baxter heard the tramp of a night guard making the first inspection round and saw a spot of light on one cell wall. When the spot shifted toward him, he closed his eyes.

After that, cold sweat came to his forehead. He knew what he was going to do, but if things went wrong he’d be plagued the rest of his life — if he had one to live.

The night guard came back, and Baxter trembled involuntarily. He kept trembling until it was time for Round 3, McCall’s. Light flashed then, and Baxter rolled out of his bunk, half crazy with fear and uncertainty. He couldn’t let Guard Captain McCall know that; he must be casual, competent.

The guard captain’s flash-light swung jerkily, and reflections showed a lean body and a hard bony face with a flat nose and a loose mouth.

“Baxter,” came a faint whisper.

“Here,” Baxter whispered back. “Got something this time, McCall.”

“Yeah?” There was eagerness in the muffled voice, and Baxter could see the man straining forward. “What is it?”

“They’ve got some loaded revolvers planted in the ventilating shaft on this level.”

“My Gawd, man! Are you sure?”

“No,” admitted Baxter. “I want you to find out. If they’re there, check their caliber and get some blanks for them. But, for Gawd’s sake, get the loaded cartridges out!”

“I’ll get rid of the guns, if I find ’em.”

“No,” snapped Baxter testily. “I want this break to come, so I can find out who’s involved.”

“The governor gave you full charge here,” said McCall. “So I’ll follow orders. But if it was me working this out, I’d get rid of the guns.”

“Get started,” ordered Baxter, “before somebody hears us.”

McCall nodded and went down the corridor. The ventilating shaft was out of Baxter’s line of vision, but he could hear McCall’s heels clump away. A moment later muted sounds, like those of a man walking on his toes, passed through the sheet-metal wall, which felt refreshingly cool against Baxter’s hot cheek.

McCall padded back to Baxter’s cell and whispered through the bars; “I found ’em, all six. Thirty-two’s. Should I report to the warden?”

“No. He might even be the man we want. We don’t know. Protect yourself by notifying the governor. You can send a registered letter.” Baxter paused, then added tensely: “Get those blanks in, pronto!”

Baxter himself was hardly prepared when, at cell line-up next evening, a ratty little man stumbled on Tier B and went down with a cry. Glancing quickly at the guard, who was watching the little con, Baxter broke away from the end and raced to the ventilator shaft.

He got two fingers into the plate and wiggled it. Then it was free, and the shaft yawned. His hand darted into it and his fingernails scraped rough cardboard beyond the bend. A box without a cover slid down.

There was a grunt behind him, and hot breath struck his turned cheek. A hard forearm closed on his neck, choking off his air supply. Blood pounded in his temples as he kicked back to break the stranglehold. A knotty fist ground into the hollow behind his ear and he began falling to the left, his eyes giving him a blurred picture of stamping, chanting cons and fear-crazed guards.

His shoulder broke his fall, and he immediately curled upward. Standing above him, the box under one arm, was Steward. His face was a tight mask, and there was revolver in his right hand.

“Dirty copper!” he snarled. “You’re getting it, right now, just like your brother did.”

A gun roared from another balcony, and lead screamed on steel a foot from Steward’s head. Steward ripped out a full-throated curse and whipped the revolver muzzle toward a guard on a Tier B runway. Baxter kicked at Steward just as the revolver crashed.

The revolver wasn’t loaded with blanks! Baxter, incredulous in spite of what he’d learned, saw the guard spin and fall.

Five more convicts, gray faces full of desperate hope, were clamoring for guns — and getting them. Steward, apparently forgetting Baxter, began running.

Baxter was dimly conscious of the high-pitched wail of the prison siren, the occasional smash of a bullet, the uneasy shuffling of the men not taking part, and the groans of the wounded guard. Looking over the railing, he saw Steward and the others coming out of the spiral staircase, twelve feet down. With a prayer in his throat he vaulted the rail and dived.

His legs went over the shoulders of the fourth man. There was a loud snap, and Baxter, hurtling clear, knew he had broken the man’s neck. He snatched up the revolver and fired at Steward, who was fumbling with a dead guard’s keys.

Steward snapped back the bolt, paused to return a shot. But his aim was hurried, and the bullet brought a scream from somebody at the far end of the cell house.

Baxter raced after Steward and a dozen others, most of them unarmed. Giant search-lights traced weird patterns across the prison yard, and a machine-gun on a wall began vomiting sudden death. Three convicts went down screaming.

Then Baxter saw something else on the wall — a rifle barrel glinting in a stray beam of light. It was aimed, not at the cons scattered in the yard, but at the guard with the machine-gun.

Flame leaped from its muzzle and the vicious slap of a bullet merged with other sounds. The machine-gunner flung his hands upward as if for an invisible support, and his gun fell outside the wall. He pitched forward, lost a hold on a spike, dropped twenty feet.

A dim, thick figure lumbered toward a watch tower. With a harsh sob of rage, Baxter lifted his revolver and fired twice. The rifleman stopped short, sagging awkwardly.

“Why in hell did you do that?” grunted a huge man beside Baxter. “He saved us.”

“Let’s go,” snapped Baxter, pushing him toward the side gate, where Steward was firing at a lone guard. The big fellow broke into a run, and Baxter, leaping forward, slashed at his head with the revolver barrel. The running man missed a step and came to his knees. Baxter, not slowing down much, scooped up the other revolver and sprinted for the side door, now open.

A ring of keys hung at the door’s lock. Next to the door lay Warden Dodge, face twisted.

Dodge painfully crawled to the opening, but Baxter got away from his clawing fingers. Smoke was coiling from the windows of the warden’s house, and Baxter cursed violently. Rats, all of them! They’d added arson to murder just to give the law more trouble.

The garage door hung open, and Dodge’s car was backing out fast enough to throw its passengers forward. Baxter recklessly opened fire. The car sagged, a rear tire badly shredded by a bullet.

Lead slugs were coming back now; Baxter could hear their hum of death. He flattened out on the ground, aimed carefully at a figure in the car. His revolver kicked and roared, and a man in the car yelled.

A gun crashed somewhere behind him and a bullet smacked the ground near his head. He rolled over and over, wildly, until his eyes were aligned with the house. Silhouetted against crackling flames from a kitchen window were Steward and the girl.

She was kicking and screaming so much that Steward couldn’t aim at Baxter. But Baxter couldn’t shoot Steward, either, without endangering Joan.

A guard’s machine-gun began pounding out its song of death. Baxter, turning his head, could see Steward’s three surviving partners in a shaft of light, helpless. The machine-gunner found his range, and they all folded into inert heaps.

Baxter got up, ran toward Steward and Joan. Steward flung the girl aside and fired.

Lead tore into Baxter’s thigh, stopped him short. He flopped forward, his cheek grinding into cool sod. Pain burned through him, but he lifted his revolver.

Steward, driven completely mad, was running toward the blazing house when Baxter saved him for the State with a bullet. Steward’s revolver left his hand and fell ten feet away.

A search-light stabbed the dark lawn, finally picked out Baxter. The girl ran to him with a little sob and bent over him.

“Oh, I’m so glad you aren’t dead,” she murmured. “Stopping those men was the most courageous thing I ever saw. I... I’ll have my father take up your case with the State Board of Pardons.”

Baxter tried to grin. “Unnecessary, Miss Dodge. I’m not a convict at all, just a State investigator.”

“Oh!” Then the girl’s full lips drooped, and Baxter knew she was thinking of her father.

“Is... is my father dead?” she cried suddenly.

“Don’t worry,” said a calm voice behind her. “I’m here, wounded a little but all right otherwise.”

Warden Dodge, looking dignified despite the support of two guards, stepped into the light. “No. 7544,” he said coldly, “you have some explaining to do.”

“He’s not a convict, Father,” the girl broke in.

“Nonsense,” Dodge snapped.

Baxter tried to get up, but pain held him.

“He saved me,” protested the girl.

“Call the governor,” said Baxter. “He’ll tell you my job here is done, if you say your deputy was wounded or killed for trying to help the cons crush out.”

“Deputy Warden Gardner?” said the warden incredulously. “You’re out of your mind!” He turned to a third guard, who stood at one side. “Get some men and stretchers out here. And bring Gardner.”

“I don’t think he’ll come,” said Baxter. “I brought him down.”

“What! You shot him?”

Baxter nodded shakily. “I recognized his gait and shape when he ran toward a watch tower after shooting a guard who had a machine-gun. But I’d have shot anybody for that.”

Dodge shook his head.

“All right, don’t believe me,” said Baxter. “But I’ll give you the facts.” Briefly, then, he told about the unwarranted slugging of Steward by Gardner; about the loaded revolvers and McCall’s job of changing cartridges.

“McCall,” he added, “couldn’t have been Steward’s inside man because I’m still alive. He couldn’t have risked letting me live to say he didn’t follow orders.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?” demanded Dodge.

“Yes. I got suspicious of Gardner when I figured he probably slugged Steward to cover his friendly connections with him. And I was pretty sure of it when Steward, after cussing about him, tried to talk me out of beating him up. Maybe Steward thought I’d kill Gardner — something that might have wrecked the whole scheme.”

Half a dozen guards came. When they laid down their stretchers, McCall’s bony face appeared. There was a purple bruise on his jaw, with a red cut running away from it.

“All accounted for, Warden,” McCall reported, his voice slightly blurred. “We’ll take you two to the hospital now.”

“Did you send a letter to the governor?” Baxter asked.

“I phoned him last night Why?”

Baxter looked at Dodge. “That’s something we can easily check. It’s going to prove McCall wasn’t worried about getting involved in an investigation.”

McCall said, “Gardner double-crossed me and everybody else by getting rid of my blanks and putting back some loaded cartridges.”

“How did Gardner know about your plan, if I didn’t?” the warden asked icily.

“It looks now like he was keeping an eye on the ventilating shaft where the guns were planted. He wasn’t even supposed to be on that floor when I started substituting blanks for bullets, but he saw me and came over.” McCall wiped his moist face. “Anyway, I was so sure he was all right that I told him everything and asked for his help. I got it, all right — in the neck! Because no one else could have swapped the cartridges.”

“And then Gardner told Steward that I was in on it,” Baxter said.

“Is Gardner dead?” Dodge asked.

“That dirty lug is in hell, where he belongs!” McCall grunted savagely. “When I caught him sneaking toward the machine-gunner, he knocked me out with his rifle. And I’m pretty sure he was coming back to kill me when somebody shot him down. He and Steward must have figured on killing Baxter and me.”

“I shot him... He’ll never use any more of Steward’s dough. Why didn’t you shoot him yourself?” Baxter asked.

“I was awake, but I couldn’t move. Paralyzed, sort of.”

Nausea and weakness hit Baxter then, and his eyes dimmed. With a little sigh he passed out...

When he came to, everything seemed worth while. For Joan Dodge was sitting near his bed in a clean white room that looked and smelled like part of a hospital. And the soft expression in her liquid eyes, combined with a shy smile, told him she was waiting for him to get well.