The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

8

THE CLANG OF metal and the echo of men’s voices woke Lee. Morning light flooded the cellblock, striking down from the high clerestory windows. He staggered out of his bunk in automatic response to the wake-up call, stood at his barred door in his wrinkled prison clothes and stocking feet while the count was taken, then turned to the metal basin. He splashed water on his face, used the toothbrush and toothpaste he’d been issued. He was sitting on his bunk putting on his prison-issued shoes when a big-bellied custodian in blue pants and white shirt slid the barred door open. His nametag read HAMILTON. He stood looking Lee over.

“You sleep in those clothes?’

Lee pulled the shirt straight, tried to brush out the wrinkles.

“Once you’ve made up your bunk, Fontana, you can go from here to the mess hall. Then to classifications, then return to your cell. You’ll stay here until you’re notified, until you’re allowed to move around the prison and exercise yard.”

Lee listened to Hamilton’s directions to the various buildings, then followed him out, moving away along the metal catwalk among straggling inmates and down the iron stairs.

The prison cafeteria smelled of powdered eggs, bacon fat, and overcooked coffee. Inmates pushed in around him half awake, grumbling and arguing or shuffling along silent and morose. Again a train rumbled and screamed passing outside the wall. None of the men paid any attention. Lee guessed they were used to it. Maybe the siren’s call didn’t stir their blood the way it excited him, the way it made him want out of there, made him feel all the more shackled. He kept to himself in the crowded line until he was jolted hard from behind by two men horsing around, pummeling each other. Lee didn’t look at them, he left it alone, he didn’t want to start anything.

Not until one of them bumped him hard, did he turn. The man was right in his face. Lee stood his ground. The guy would be a fool to start something here, with half a dozen guards watching. He stared challengingly at Lee, his face hatched by deep lines pinched into a scowl. Dark hair in a short prison cut, a high, balding forehead. It was the look in his black eyes that brought Lee up short, a stare so brutal Lee paused, startled by the sense of another presence within that dark gaze.

But just as quickly the man’s look changed to the insolence of any prison no-good. Lee could see the guards watching them, ready to move in. He took a good look at the man’s companion: blond pompadour combed high above his weathered face, pale, ice-blue eyes. A pair of twisted inmates that a fellow wanted to avoid. Lee moved on with the line, picked up a tray and collected his breakfast. Turning away, he crossed the room to a small, empty table.

The two men joined a crowded table in the center of the big cafeteria and in a moment all seven inmates turned to watch Lee. He ate quickly, ignoring them, trying not to think about the spark he’d seen in those dark eyes, that quick glimpse of something foreign peering out.

He didn’t look at the crowded table as he left the mess hall. Pushing out into the prison yard, he headed for the counselor’s office. To his right rose the stone buildings that would be prison industries. Beyond, at a lower level, sprawled the exercise yard, surrounded by the massive stone wall that enclosed the prison grounds. The wall must be thirty feet high. From this position he could see only one guard tower, two guards looking down, rifle barrels glinting in the morning sun. He had started toward the classifications building when a short man crossing the yard stopped, stared at him, then approached Lee with a dragging limp, a stocky man with husky arms and shoulders. His voice was grainy. “Hey, Boxcar, is that you?”

Lee hadn’t heard that name in fifty years. “Gimpy, you old safecracking buzzard.”

Hobbling along fast, Gimpy joined him, his eyes laughing beneath bushy gray brows. His hair was gray now, and he was maybe some heavier. “When the hell did you get in, Boxcar?”

“Just transferred in from Springfield. How long have you been here?”

“Two years, doing five. I might make parole one of these days.” The little man scowled. “My last safe job went sour.”

They’d been just kids when they’d pulled a few jobs together, Gimpy opening the train safes slick and fast. He was the best man with a punch and hand sledge Lee had ever seen. “Do you remember . . .” Lee began. He was silenced by the loud blast of a Klaxon, the sudden blare brought ice gripping his stomach. Gimpy nudged him out of the way as four guards ran by, followed by two medics carrying black bags and a stretcher, their white coats flapping.

“It’s in the furniture plant,” Gimpy said. They moved toward the industries building, where a short spur track ran from the loading platform out through a sally port in the prison wall. A freight car sat on the track, guards and inmates milling around its open door, pulling out heavy crates.

“Furniture crates,” Gimpy said, “desks for the military.” There was a lot of shouting, the sound of wood being pried and splintered. A guard and two prisoners eased a body out from the collapsed wooden crate, lifted the bloody figure onto a stretcher.

Once the injured man had been carried off, four inmates pulled the crate out. Lee could see the false bottom the man had built, splintered now and crushed. Gimpy said, “He must have squeezed into it after the crate was loaded. Maybe the crates on top shifted. Doesn’t say much for his carpentry.”

Lee shook his head. “An ugly way to go.”

“Hell, Boxcar, no one’s ever broke out of this joint, something always goes bad. One guy had a gun smuggled in by a guard, got himself rifle shot before he got through the main corridor.”

Lee looked up with speculation at the thirty-foot wall, but Gimpy snorted. “Not over that wall, nor under it neither. Wall’s a dozen feet thick at the bottom, and sitting on solid rock. I’ll do my time right here,” he said, shifting his weight. “No one could get over that baby.”

When they parted company Lee headed for the classifications office, moving up the steps and inside past rows of desks where prison personnel sorted though files or sat talking with inmates, men fidgeting nervously in straight-backed chairs or slouching with bored disdain. The room stunk of sweaty bodies and stale cigarette smoke. Lee’s classification officer was a soft little fellow in his forties: slick bald head, white rumpled shirt, his tie pulled loose and his collar unbuttoned. He laid his unlit pipe on the desk among stacks of jumbled papers. “I’m Paul Camp. You’re Lee Fontana? You just came in from Springfield.”

Lee nodded. Camp gestured for Lee to sit down and handed across a printed set of rules, a meal schedule, and a laundry and mail schedule. “I do three jobs here. Classification, parole, and counseling.”

“You think I can get a job in industries? I like to be doing something.”

“You’ll have to see the doctor first. When I get a slip from him, you’ll have more freedom, we’ll see what we can do. You can go on over to the hospital from here.” Camp gave him directions. “He’ll want to see you every week for a while, to check on the emphysema.” Then the jolt came. “Twice a week,” Camp said, “you’ll be attending group counseling sessions.” He handed Lee another short schedule.

“I don’t need group counseling. What do I want with that?”

Camp studied him, then thumbed through Lee’s file. “You may not think you need the sessions, but I do. If you had used a little restraint, Fontana, if you hadn’t gotten into trouble in Vegas, you’d still be out on parole.” He fixed Lee with a hard look. “Unless, of course, you wanted to be back behind bars.”

Lee’s belly twisted. “Sure I did. I have what the shrinks call a subliminal need to be confined, to be shut in by high walls, safe from the outside world and with all the prison amenities.”

Camp just looked at him. Lee couldn’t decide whether the counselor’s eyes reflected anger, suspicion, or a suppressed desire to laugh. “The Federal Bureau of Prisons, Fontana, has moved into the age of treatment. Just go to counseling, it’s the policy. Just go and endure it.”

He left Camp’s office swallowing back a cough, hating modern prison ways. He’d rather take a beating than be forced into their fancy headshrinking show. Why couldn’t they leave him alone? They’d locked him up, they had him where they wanted, so why couldn’t they leave him be?

As he headed for the dispensary beyond the officers’ mess, the thirty-foot concrete wall loomed over him and over the big exercise yard. He could see two tennis courts laid out, where six inmates in cutoffs were batting the little white balls. Two more guys were playing handball, and beyond the empty baseball diamond, on the oval track, several men were jogging laps—the place was a regular country club. His own first time behind bars, when he was eighteen, he’d had a rock pile to exercise on. Did the guards here in the South spoon-feed these punks and wipe their runny noses before they sent them out to play?

The dispensary waiting room was painted pale green like most government offices he’d seen, a color that was supposed to be restful. He wondered how many billions of gallons of that stuff the government had bought, allowing some big company to make a killing. Half a dozen inmates sat on folding metal chairs waiting to be seen by the duty doctor. Lee took a chair. He’d waited maybe twenty minutes when he got a shock that spun him around, looking.

“Lee Fontana?” a woman’s voice called out. A woman? In a men’s prison?

A young woman stood in the doorway holding a clipboard, and she was some classy lady. Dark, wavy hair cut short and neat, curled softly around her smooth face, dark eyes smiling at him through large oval glasses. The skirt of her short white uniform hit her just at the knee, the uniform accenting the curve of her hips, and was zipped down the front low enough to show the soft curve of her tanned breasts. He stared at the nametag on her lapel, but taking in a lot more. Karen Turner. Every male in the room was staring, their expressions just short of a drool. She smiled and motioned to Lee. Rising, he followed her as eagerly as a hungry pup. When he glanced back, the men were still looking. She led him into an office, handed his file to the thin-faced doctor, smiled at Lee again and left, brushing past him. She smelled good, a clean soap-and-water scent. He stood looking after her, then turned to the drawn, tired-looking doctor. His nametag read JAMES FLOYD, M.D.

Lee took off his shirt as Dr. Floyd directed, trying not to flinch as the icy stethoscope pressed against his bare chest. The doctor listened to his heart and chest as Lee breathed deeply, in and out, taking in as much air as he could manage. He took Lee’s blood pressure, looked down his throat, thumped his back. While Lee pulled on his shirt again, Floyd made a number of notations in Lee’s file.

“Everything’s as fine as it can be, Fontana. You had excellent treatment at Springfield.” Floyd handed him a slip of paper. “Give this to your counselor. I want you back here in three days. After that, once a week.”

“Will I be allowed to work?”

“I think you could take a job, something that won’t stress the breathing.” He filled out a release-to-work form and handed it to Lee.

Lee said, “I’ve never seen a woman working in a men’s prison.”

“Karen Turner?” Floyd smiled. “It’s good for the men’s morale to see a woman once in a while. She’s a premed student at the university, works for me part-time. She cheers the place up considerably; I think it’s a good change in the system.”

Sure it is, Lee thought. Until you get her hurt.

He doubled back to Paul Camp’s office, where he dropped off the medical form and the work form. Camp handed him a slip for his custodian that would let him move around the area more freely. When Lee asked about the jobs available, Camp said, “I’ll let you know later, Fontana. I’ll see what’s open in industries.”

Outside again, as Lee cut across the yard from classifications, Gimpy turned away from a group of men and limped to join him. “They getting you squared away, Boxcar?”

“Camp put me in one of those group counseling sessions,” Lee said sourly. “I start this afternoon,”

Gimpy chuckled, and scratched his bald spot. “They had me in there for a while. Guess they gave up on me. But hell, Boxcar, it passes the time.”

“I’d rather pass it somewhere else.”

“Maybe you could work in the cotton mill with me. Noisier than hell, but I like it. I like the clatter and activity.”

Lee nodded, interested. He’d feel better when he was doing something. “Let me know if they could use another hand.” He wondered if the doctor would allow it. Maybe, if he promised to wear a mask or kerchief, something to catch the lint, he could get permission.

“I’ll talk to the foreman,” Gimpy said, and swung away with his uneven, rolling gait. Lee stood looking after him; a lot of years had gone by, but Gimpy was still the same. Lee turned away, smiling, heading back to his cell, thinking about the old days.

He was moving along the narrow third-tier catwalk when a man came out of a cell walking slowly, his eyes fixed on the pages of an open book. He was heavy boned, prison pale but built like a barrel, was dressed not in prison blue but in the white pants and white shirt worn in the kitchen, the whiteness stark against the thick black hair on his arms. Lee stepped to one side to let him pass. “I guess we’re neighbors.”

The dark-eyed man smiled. “Al Bronski. I saw you come in last night.”

“Lee Fontana.”

“You looked bushed yesterday. Still feel a little pale?”

“It’s a long pull from Springfield. What are we having for the noon meal?”

“Beef stew and French bread.”

“Sounds good. If I get bored with the routine, are there any jobs in the kitchen?”

“Always use help in the kitchen,” Bronski said. “See me when you’re ready.”

Lee thought he might like the relative quiet of the kitchen better than the noise of the cotton mill, but he’d like to work with Gimpy. Behind Bronski, coming along the catwalk headed for the stairs, were the two men from breakfast this morning, the dark-haired one in the lead, his face frozen in the same pinched scowl, his black eyes fixed on Lee. Behind him, the blond man’s masklike face and pale eyes telegraphed a malice that Lee knew too well. They didn’t move over for Lee and Bronski. When Lee stepped aside on the narrow catwalk to let them pass, the dark man elbowed him against the rail. “Ain’t no place for a gab fest.”

Bronski stiffened and reached for him. The man sidestepped, rounding on Bronski. Bronski crouched, waiting—but a guard shouted from the main floor, and he drew back. The two men pushed on past, pressing them both to the rail and giving them the finger.

“Their cells are down beyond yours,” Bronski said, watching the two swagger away along the catwalk. “The dark one’s Fred Coker. The blond is Sam Delone. There’s been more than one knifing involving those two.”

Lee kept the two in sight until they disappeared down the stairs and outside. He watched Bronski amble along behind them, reading again, then Lee moved on to his cell. Swept by a wave of exhaustion, he lay down on his bunk. Nobody had to spell it out for him. He was back in a big joint, crazy hotheads around him. And more than hotheads, too, with the shadow that fit so easily among Coker and his kind. As much as he’d admired his grandpappy, he wished Russell had never bargained with the devil, wished that in that one instance Russell had backed off and turned away.

The position he was in now, Lee thought, it was time to get himself a weapon. It was one thing to be threatened by prison scum when you were young and strong, when you could handle a battle bare-handed. It was different this late in life, when every move was an effort, when in every threat you saw the face of defeat. Suddenly cold, pulling the blanket over him, bleak and alone, he felt the weight of the ghost cat hit the bed, crowding against him purring like a small engine. He almost laughed when the ghost cat clawed the mattress, licked Lee’s hand with his rough tongue, and said softly, “Screw Coker. Screw Delone. There’s more to this prison, Lee, than you yet know.”

“What? What are you getting at?” But Lee felt the cat curl up as if he’d tucked his head under, and in a moment the ghost was softly snoring. Lee smiled, turned over easy so as not to disturb him, and soon they both slept, Lee drifting off to Misto’s rumbling purr, soothed in his apprehension of the days to come.