The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana

3

Lee left his cell for the last time dressed in a prison-made pinstripe suit a size too big for him, the sleeves hanging down to his knuckles, a red-and-yellow tie so gaudy that a dog wouldn’t pee on it, and prison-made wingtip shoes that raised blisters before he ever reached the first door of the sally port, their squeaking soles providing his only fanfare as he headed out for the free world. Moving down the corridor of McNeil for the last time, toward the double-doored cubicle where he would receive his belongings and sign out, his nerves were strung tight. He’d be on his own in less than an hour. His previous five releases from the federal pens didn’t make getting out, this time, any easier. No one to tell him when to eat, tell him when and where to sleep, tell him where exactly to work each day and how to do his work. A man got out of practice making his own decisions.

At Admissions, a soft-faced officer with jowls like a bulldog produced the usual brown paper bag with Lee’s name scrawled on it, shoved it across the desk with a patronizing smirk. “Here’s your worldly goods, Fontana.” He looked Lee over, amused at the baggy pinstripe suit and fresh prison haircut, and at the one pitiful item he saw Lee take from his pocket and drop in the bag, the little framed picture of his sister, Mae, when she was ten. “Here’s your train ticket,” he said, handing Lee a plain brown envelope, “and your prison earnings. Don’t lose them, old man. And be careful, it’s a great big world out there.”

Lee moved away from the counter wanting to smash the guy. As to his prison earnings, there wasn’t much; they didn’t get paid for working the farm, only for splitting cedar shingles that the prison shop made from the trees that grew along the shore—most of that pittance, he’d spent on razor blades and soap, on cheap dime novels the guards would pick up on the mainland, and on candy bars. He wondered if the money was still stuffed into the toe of his boot, from all those years ago when he was brought into McNeil and stripped of his civilian clothes, when all his belongings but Mae’s picture were locked away as he changed into prison uniform. He hoped to hell the guards hadn’t found it. He needed cash for a gun, for any number of essentials to start life anew.

Now, as Lee headed for the sally port, the ghost cat followed him unseen, his attention on the child’s photograph that Lee had taken from his pocket, that he always kept close to him, the picture of Lee’s little sister, Mae, from those long-ago days in South Dakota. The child who looked exactly like Misto’s own Sammie, who lived now, in this time, in this moment, across the continent in Georgia. Sammie, with whom Misto had lived a short but recent life, and with whom, as ghost, he still spent many nights, unseen, purring close to her as she slept.

The exact likeness of the two little girls continued to puzzle the ghost cat, for even now in his free and far-roving state between his earthly lives, the tomcat did not have all the answers. He knew only that there was a powerful connection between Mae and Sammie, an urgent and meaningful adjunct to their lives of which Lee was the center, a connection that, the cat thought, might ultimately help to save Lee in his conflict with the dark power.

Lee, clutching his brown paper sack and brown envelope, stepped into the sally port glancing at the officer behind the glass barrier. Receiving a nod, he moved on out through the second door. He knew he should be happy at the sound of the metal gate locking behind him. But he felt only unsteady at his sudden freedom, at being turned loose with no barriers, no limits or rules, adrift and on his own after years of confinement, lost and rudderless in a vast and unfamiliar world.

The sky was gray, the morning’s heavy mist chilling him clear through. The small prison bus was waiting. He shoved the brown envelope with his ticket into his coat pocket, tucked the paper bag under his arm, climbed the three steps up into the stuffy vehicle, took a seat halfway back, nodding at the trusty who was driving and at the guard who sat angled where he could see the seats behind him. Lee was the only passenger. Earlier in the morning, and again in the afternoon, the bus would be full of schoolkids, children of the guards and prison personnel who lived on the island.

The bus rattled down the winding gravel road, past green pastures on both sides, past the reservoir and on down to the ferry landing where the SS Bennett, McNeil’s forty-foot mahogany powerboat, was tied. The churning waters of Puget Sound looked as cold and gray as death, the hills of the distant shore vague beneath the overcast, grim and depressing, the smear of crowded mainland houses, with taller buildings rising among them, all generated the prisoner’s fear of the vast and sprawling outside world. He knew the feeling would pass, it always did, but every time he was released he felt as off balance as if the cinch on his saddle had broken and he was scrambling to swing away from a bad tumble.

At the dock he left the bus, moved on down to the rocking launch where a uniformed guard and a trusty were coiling lines on the aft deck. The gray waters shifted and heaved as if forces deep down were restless. There was one other passenger, a prisoner chained to a bench on the foredeck sitting between two guards, a two-time felon who had made his third kill at McNeil and was being shipped off to Alcatraz. Lee crossed the wooden catwalk and stepped aboard, staying to the aft deck avoiding his prison mate. The hollowness in his belly was sharp with excitement but sharper with dread, leaving for the first time in ten years his secure cell, the farm where he’d felt comfortable, the animals he’d liked better than his fellow inmates—leaving the old prison tomcat, he thought, surprised he’d think of that. Leaving the old cat he’d come to care about more than he’d imagined. The yellow tomcat that had spent last night on Lee’s bed, easing Lee’s night-fears, somehow coming between him and the phantom that he hadn’t wanted to see or to hear. Now he was leaving the old tomcat that was, it seemed to Lee, the only real friend he’d had at McNeil, the only presence he could really trust. The old cat that had, some said, died and returned again. Sometimes Lee thought he’d been there all along, that what the guard and prisoners had buried had been one of his offspring. Other times, he wondered. Whatever the truth, Lee had a pang of regret and knew he’d miss the old fellow.

He stood at the rail as the tall, lean guard cast off and began to coil line. One of the guards would have a shopping list in his pocket, they’d pick up needed supplies in Steilacoom before they headed back to the island, maybe food stores that had been trucked down from Tacoma, though most of their staples came by boat from there or from Seattle. Easing free of the dock, they were under way, the twin diesels churning the water in a long white tail boiling out behind them. Moving up to the bow, Lee stood chilled by the heavy mist and salt spray, riding the choppy waves liking the speed, and soon he began to feel easier.

Off to his left the overcast had lifted a little above the hills of Tacoma, the sun trying to burn through the murky cover. But it wouldn’t burn away much, sun wouldn’t blaze down on the land like the pure, hot desert where he was headed. As they approached land, the smokestacks from the iron smelters rose black and ugly, smelters that dumped their hot slag into the sound, souring the waters so nothing would grow along that shore. He could picture the streets and sidewalks of the city slick and wet from the mist and busier than he’d known: too many people, too many cars, not the quiet he’d grown used to on the island—the prison had been quiet most of the time, until a rumble erupted to stir things up, a dose of trouble breaking the monotony until armed guards stepped in and broke up the fight. Looking away toward the vast horizon of the mainland, he felt uneasy at so much freedom ahead, so much emptiness, so many choices, no one telling him what to do, no direction to his life except that he made for himself.

The prison counselor said that was what a parole officer was for, to guide him, help him over the rough spots until he’d settled in again. Well, to hell with that. He didn’t need some wet-behind-the-ears social worker hardly out of diapers telling him how to live his life.

What the hell, the whole world lay open to him. What was he afraid of? He’d have free run at whatever he wanted. All kinds of robberies and scams were open to him, a chance at whatever he chose to take down, so what was he bellyaching about? Hell, yes, he’d get used to freedom again and to the new ways, even if life was more sophisticated, and people maybe harder to manipulate. The old habits hadn’t all died. The old-fashioned, trusting ways would still prevail among the smaller towns and farms, among the honest people with their straightforward talk, their unlocked doors and innocent views, so many folks just waiting and ripe for the taking.

He tolerated the loud suit and noisy shoes for the half-hour boat ride to Steilacoom, was eager to get rid of them as they pulled up to the scrappy little community, coming in close to the tall pier that jutted high above them, the small prison boat rocking against the tall pilings. Couple of buildings up there along the pier, and he could smell coffee over the smell of dead fish. The boat nosed into the short catwalk that led to the shore. The train station was just on the other side of the tracks, dumpy wooden building, the town rising up the hill behind it, shabby little houses half hidden by the Douglas fir trees, the homes of lumber workers and maybe smelter workers from up around Tacoma. Ten years back, he hadn’t seen much of Steilacoom, he’d been dumped off here from a marshal’s car, handcuffed and in leg chains, after a silent ride down from the Tacoma jail through dense fir forests and past a couple of lakes. The marshal had handed him over to a McNeil guard. The guard had hustled him across the tracks, out along this same ramp he was descending now, and into the prison boat, had locked his leg chain to a wooden bench, and they’d been on their way over the rough, choppy water, McNeil Island looming ahead, dark green forests, pale green clearings, hard-faced concrete buildings—heading for his new and extended island vacation, courtesy of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

Now, stepping down off the ramp clutching his paper bag, he stood a moment watching the guards unload their prisoner—chained like a walking ghost of himself from ten years back. As they moved away into the train station he double-timed up a set of wooden steps and onto the wooden pier, separating himself as far as he could from the group. Heading out along the pier past a storage shed, he followed the smell of fresh coffee toward the lighted windows of a little café.

The room was dim inside, the shellacked walls made of beveled pine boards. Four wooden booths, two tables with Formica tops and stainless steel chairs, and a wooden bar. The woman behind it nodded to him, trying not to smile as she took in his pinstripe, pimp getup. Two men at the bar, plaid flannel shirts, heavy pants and boots, maybe lumberjacks. They turned to look and nodded briefly. Lee took a stool halfway down the bar, between the men and an old woman. He watched one of the men pour half his freshly opened beer into a frosted mug, and then tip in a glass of tomato juice and a big squirt of Tabasco; red beer was popular in this area. Lee didn’t want to think how it would taste. The pudgy old woman down at the end, on the last bar stool, leaning against the wall, was dressed in several layers of clothes, none of them too clean. In his day you hadn’t seen many woman hobos, but that was what she had to be. She smelled of sour urine, sour clothes, and a body that hadn’t seen soap for a while. He ordered coffee and a slice of lemon pie from the glass case, then, hauling his paper bag, he headed for the men’s room, holding his breath as he passed her.

Beside the door to the bathroom hung four wanted posters. Lee knew two of the men, they had left McNeil in the dark of night in one of the local residents’ small boats. The boat had later been found adrift against the shore; the escapees were still at large. Lee took a good look at the other two pictures, at the men he didn’t know. He was always interested in who was on the outside, maybe desperate and volatile, that might pose a threat if he ran up against them. And maybe part of his interest in the posters stemmed from when he was a boy, on those rare trips to town when he could enjoy the handsome photograph of his famous grandpappy.

Stepping on inside the little cubicle, he changed into his soft old Levi’s and one of three shirts from the paper bag, removed Mae’s picture and put it safely in his Levi’s pocket. Feeling down into his right boot, he found the bit of paper with the folded bills inside, just as he’d left them. Seven hundred dollars, and he was mighty glad to find it all there. He left it taped in his boot, didn’t shove it in his pocket along with the train ticket, his seventy-five dollars of prison earnings, and the prison-made knife. A bit of dried manure still clung to the sole of the run-over boot. He removed his rolled-up old jacket, shook the wrinkles out as best he could, then stuffed the prison clothes down in the paper bag. When he left, he’d drop them in the refuse bin out near the door of the train station—they wouldn’t be there long, that old woman would fish them out again, sell the clothes for food or wine.

Coming out, he drew amused looks from the barkeep and the three customers, all of whom had likely seen, over the years, dozens of prisoners shed their cheap prison garb in just the same way. The barkeep set his pie and coffee before him and gave him a friendly smile, as if she knew exactly how good it felt to be back in the comfort of his own clothes. She was nearly his age, white hair smoothed back showing glimpses of pink scalp, lively brown eyes. How many departing inmates before him had she served, along with the locals, with the lumber and smelter men, and with the civilian residents of McNeil come ashore on one errand or another. He watched the lumberjacks down their red beer, still fascinated with how that would taste. He was just finishing his pie and coffee when he heard the train whistle.

Pushing some change across the bar, he rose, headed back along the pier for the station. He was just stepping across the tracks when the slow-moving engine gave a big blast and came into view ambling along close to the water, barely clearing the fir branches where they had been trimmed away, train huffing and clanging up to the station, squeal of brakes, shouts of the conductor. Lee dropped the clothes in the trash can, but kept the paper bag. He boarded quickly, with his ticket in hand, moved on in looking for a quiet space to himself.

He chose a half-empty car, took a seat away from the other passengers, laid his Levi’s jacket and his paper bag on the seat next to him, to discourage anyone from sitting there. The car smelled of stale sandwiches and ancient dust. As he settled into the dirty mohair, a fit of coughing took him. He coughed up phlegm, spat it into his prison handkerchief. He could see through the dirty window half a dozen people hurrying down from the scattered houses above. The train waited in the station maybe fifteen minutes. Only four more passengers had entered his car when the train began to back and jerk, moving with a lot of hustle, and they were on their way. If this train made every little stop, it would be a slow, halting trip down across Washington and Oregon and into California—but then soon the train stretched out, moving fast, its iron wheels hitting a steady gallop that calmed and steadied Lee, the way speed had always calmed him.

When the vendor came by he bought dry sandwiches and coffee, the same sandwiches he’d live on for the next two days. He tried to clean the grimy window with his dirty handkerchief so he could see out, but he only smeared it worse. Irritated, he went out to stand in the windy vestibule between the cars, looking out at the waters of Puget Sound enjoying the sea while he could, the cool damp air, the green marsh along the inlets, before he got on down to the dry desert. He’d been up in this country a long time, away from that hot, parched land. He craved the dry heat, but he knew the muddy, sluggish Colorado River wouldn’t be the same as the living sea, not like this surging water eating away at the lush and ragged edge of the continent. The overcast had followed them, but had thinned near the ground, enough to let him see an eagle soaring low overhead looking for dead fish. He stood clinging to the iron bar watching the dark waters and green marsh, and then looking out the other side, taking pleasure in the little farms, their cattle and fat horses knee deep in grass. When he was a boy on the dry prairie they’d never had grass like that, a man could only dream of feed like that for his stock.

Settling in for the long pull down to L.A., he gravitated between the dusty car, the narrow windy vestibule, and the men’s room where he shaved and washed himself as best he could using their dinky little bars of soap, and paper towels. He slept in his seat, ate the dry sandwiches, read other people’s discarded newspapers, and he thought too much.

The hitch at McNeil was the longest he’d ever served, he shouldn’t have had a ten-year sentence. The only reason he got caught was sloppy work, and that had worried him. For the first time he knew he was getting old, afraid he’d lost his touch, maybe lost all talent for making a living in the only way he knew, the only way he liked. He’d give all he’d ever stolen or earned to be young and vigorous again, to be back in the early part of the century, back when the prairie was free and open, a good horse under him, nothing to think about but when the next steam train was due and what it carried, how much gold and cash—but then came the diesel trains, during the war, and you couldn’t stop those babies by riding across the track waving a gun at the engineer. And those trains carried dozens of guards, soon there wasn’t just one detective named Pinkerton to investigate a train job but a whole organization called Pinkerton, nosy, high-powered bastards, and his own times, his own ways were gone into the dust of the past.

After the steam trains were finished he’d worked cattle for a while, doing his first paid work in years. Then, long before America got into the war—but when many folks knew that day would come—he had taken a job in Montana, in Billings, breaking horses for the remount. Later, during the war, he’d heard that even the coast guard was using horses, patrolling the coastal beaches at night watching for German submarines.

For two years he had worked for the government breaking horses, he’d been straight then, no robberies, and he had, strangely, felt almost good about that. But then the itch for a thrill got him. When he left Billings he took on the Midnight Limited out of Denver, a diesel carrying military payroll. He’d planned every detail carefully, had even worn gloves to avoid fingerprints, accepting the annoying traps of modern technology. He had brought off the job alone without a hitch, had left the conductor and four guards tied up in the express car, had stashed the strongbox in the truck he’d hidden in an arroyo south of Grand Junction. But then, one second of bad judgment and he blew it. Blew it all, real bad. One second, standing beside that old Ford truck thinking how the money in the strongbox was meant for the new recruits at Camp Pendleton, thinking how those marines wouldn’t get any pay, and he had turned away from the strongbox. Had left it in the truck and just walked away, knowing the sheriff or the feds would be on it within an hour. One weak minute, thinking how the leathernecks deserved their money more than he did, and he’d lost it all. Walked away, half of him feeling good, the other half shocked at the stupid waste.

And then, soon afterward, still pissed off at his own stupidity and with a lot of hustle and not the faintest plan, he’d stormed into that Vegas bank, leaned into the teller’s cage and jammed the six-inch barrel of his forty-five into the girl’s face, and before he could get a word out that feisty little bitch had slammed the brass window gate so hard it broke two fingers on his right hand. From that point on it was all downhill, the bank guard had him cold. The feds picked up a few prints on the train job, and on the Ford truck and the strongbox, where he’d been careless. They had him for both jobs though he never got a penny from the damned bank teller, and he knew he’d be doing time. He’d told himself bank robbery wasn’t his line of work, but the truth was, he’d blown it bad. Suddenly, he knew he was old. An old man who’d lost his skill, and he’d envisioned the slow, confused end to his life, imprisoned by his own weakness, imprisoned by a fear far greater than he had ever known or ever wanted to know. Trapped by a mortality that seemed, every day, to draw in closer around him—and trapped by a heavier darkness, by a convergence of shadows pressing at him in a way far more lethal than simple fear of death, by a dark and terrifying aura that seemed to reach down from cold infinity, reaching to embrace and to own him, to painfully and endlessly devour him.