The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

19

ANNE SAT AT the kitchen table sipping coffee. “Did you and Sammie sleep at all?” Becky and Sammie had just come upstairs, Sammie moving to the stove to watch Mariol flip pancakes. Becky poured a cup of coffee and sat down.

“Surprisingly, we did sleep.” She didn’t say they’d slept with a warm cat between them, Sammie’s arms circling that unseen presence who had comforted Becky, too.

“Last night . . .” Anne said, “I wish you’d killed him.” That shocked Becky, coming from her proper aunt.

“I’ve prayed every night,” Anne told her, “that Brad Falon was dead.” She seemed amused at Becky’s expression. “He tried to kill you, he’s made nothing but trouble, he’s doing his best to ruin your lives. What good is he, in the world?” This Aunt Anne whom she was seeing now was far different, indeed, from the way Becky had always thought of her.

Beside the stove, Sammie turned. “I dreamed he broke in, I dreamed of a hand reaching through.”

Anne nodded. “That dream may have saved your lives.” And, as if half to herself, “The same . . . affliction . . . our mother called it, that our aunt Mae endured. She had the dreams, too,” Anne said softly. “Mother did tell me that, because of my own dreams, but she told me as if they were shameful. Otherwise she seldom talked about family, I know only a smattering of our history. I know that Mae was the youngest of our great-aunt Nell’s five children.

“Nell and her three girls moved to North Carolina after the children’s father died. He left them with very little, they sold their Arizona land for practically nothing, they had nowhere else to go but to her sister there. Mae’s two older brothers had already left home. Later Mae’s sister Nora married and settled in Georgia, our mother Nora.”

Becky laid her hand over Anne’s. “Do you know where Mae is now?”

Anne shook her head. “I don’t. It’s strange, embarrassing sometimes, shameful knowing so little about our family. Most Southern families are steeped in their history, from before the Civil War. But that’s the way we grew up. No discussion, so Caroline or I weren’t really interested. I didn’t realize then the emptiness that left in me, having no real ties to our past.”

Anne sipped her coffee, looked up at Becky. “I had a sense, too, that there might be more in our past even than the dreams, other ‘shameful’ things that Mama didn’t want to talk about.”

Becky, too, sometimes felt adrift not knowing their family history. Caroline had kept no letters, no pictures, nothing to define the past. She watched Mariol pour a glass of milk for Sammie and set her breakfast on the table. When Sammie slid into her chair, reaching for the syrup, Mariol kissed the top of her head, then turned away to test the skillet and pour more batter. Interesting, Becky thought, how comfortable Mariol seemed with the mention of prophetic dreams. As if she and Anne might have talked openly about Anne’s dreams. Maybe, in Mariol’s family, such talents were not considered strange. Whatever the case, Mariol’s acceptance comforted Becky, made her feel easier.

THREE DAYS AFTER Fred Coker died on the cellblock floor, Coker’s friend Delone cornered Lee between the buildings, flashing a thin, a prison-made knife. Lee had just left the kitchen after his shift and was heading for the automotive shop, when he heard the crunch of gravel behind him. He spun around, saw Delone coming on him fast, a blade shining in his palm.

“You cruddy old bastard, it’s your fault he’s dead.”

Lee wanted to reach for the garrote but something told him no, told him to get away. Puzzled, not used to backing off, he swung in through a side door of the masonry shop, a big, cavernous room. He saw no one, heard no sound. Dodging away among the freestanding practice walls and tall piles of stones and bricks, he lost himself in their shadows. He heard Delone behind him, heard him trip, maybe over a wooden support that steadied the masonry barriers. Dodging toward the back of the building where, Lee knew, another door led out again, he didn’t see above him the yellow shadow slipping across the tops of the stone and block walls, a shadow thin as smoke.

The tomcat could not have materialized if he’d wanted to. He was spent, his attack last night on Falon, as he diverted the intruder to protect Sammie, had left him weak as a new kitten. If this was Satan’s influence, he didn’t like it much. This happened sometimes when he sought to function in both worlds; and he had heard, last night as he dropped into sleep, the cold laughter of the dark prince; he didn’t like that much, either. Now he followed Lee along the tops of the freestanding walls until, at the far corner of the dim room, Lee slipped into darkness between the back door and tall piles of blocks.

Lee tried the door and found it locked. There was no knob to turn, no key in the keyhole. He shouldered uselessly against it, was unable to force it open, and, at the scuff of shoes behind him, swung around, waiting. Stood palming the ball of string, his finger in the loop.

It all happened too fast. A chunk of concrete fell and Delone rushed him, the knife-edged ice pick low and lethal. Lee saw too late there was no room to swing his weapon. He dodged but Delone was on him, the knife flashing as Delone rammed him into the wall. Lee felt the knife go in, low in his side.

Delone jerked the blade free, blood spurted. The weapon flashed again. Lee kicked Delone in the knee and kicked the blade from his hand. The effort doubled Lee over, the cat could feel the pain of his wound as if it were his own. He crouched to leap as Delone closed in, but instinctively backed off when Lee swung the garrote. He watched it circle Delone’s leg. Lee jerked the cord hard, the blades cut through cloth and flesh, Delone stumbled, clutching his torn leg. But when Lee jerked the weapon free again, Delone lunged. Lee dodged and swung higher, the cord whistled, light shattered off its arsenal of blades as it snaked around Delone’s throat. Lee grabbed the heavy nut, yanked the cord hard. Delone fell, clutching his torn throat. The ghost cat crouched lower, his yellow eyes burning, his own fear eased, his sense of Satan’s presence fading.

LEE, WATCHING DELONE die, knew he could have been dead in Delone’s place. He worked the garrote loose and backed away from the body. He found the lavatory, untied the nut from the cord, washed it off, and tossed it in the corner. He flushed the bladed cord down the toilet, stringing it out long, hoping it wouldn’t get stuck. He washed the blood off his hands and pressed a wad of paper towels under his shirt against the knife wound. The blade had gone through at an angle, piercing the flesh along his side and maybe cracking a rib; it hurt like hell. He prayed it hadn’t reached anything vital.

He stripped off his shirt and pants, soaked and scrubbed the blood out as best he could and dried them with paper towels. Tearing the towels in pieces, he flushed them down a little at a time. He cleaned his shoes and disposed of those towels the same way. He dressed in his wet clothes, securing the wadded towels under his belt. He scrubbed the floor, using the last of the towels; the pain turned him dizzy when he knelt. He walked out slowly, stopping only once on his way to the cellblock, at the back door of the cotton mill.

He got up to his cell all right, keeping his arm over his side against the bleeding. He pushed inside, chilled not only with the pain but with fear. This could blow his release, could put him in prison for the rest of his life. He’d snuffed a few men in his time, every one of them trying to kill him. He’d been lucky so far. This time maybe his luck had run out?

Lying on his bunk keeping pressure against the wound, he must have dozed some. He heard the Klaxon for supper, he’d have to skip that meal. He rose from his cot meaning to clean the wound better. He was standing at the small steel basin, his back to the bars, his shirt open, washing the jagged knife hole with soap and water, when he heard a thump behind him. Turning, he saw no one. On the floor inside the bars lay a little rag bundle.

He retrieved it fast, going sick with pain when he bent over. Inside were adhesive bandages, gauze pads, iodine, and ten aspirin tablets wrapped in a tissue. Thanks, Gimpy. Gimpy hadn’t batted an eye when Lee told him his needs. Lee swallowed three aspirin and, his back to the bars again, smeared on the iodine, working it in deep, clenching his jaw against the pain. He bandaged the wound, listening for the guard’s footsteps on the catwalk. He tore the bloody paper towels into small pieces and flushed them. He changed to his other shirt, pulling on the thick, prison-issue T-shirt under it. He hung the wet shirt on the hook to dry, and why would the guard ask questions? He often came in from the kitchen splashed with dishwater. When he stretched out again on his bunk he felt the cat land on the bed.

“Does it bother you,” Misto said softly, “that you killed him?”

“He tried to kill me,” Lee said gruffly.

“Does it bother you?”

“Maybe,” Lee growled. “What difference? If I hadn’t done him, I’d be dead.”

Misto lashed his tail against the blanket. Lee felt him curl up as if prepared for sleep. Maybe Lee slept, too, he wasn’t sure. The wail of a Klaxon brought them both up rigid, the cat standing hard and alert beside Lee. The body had been found. The cellblocks would be locked down, double security set in place. Fear chilled him at thoughts of the search. Before the guards reached his cell he rose, took three more aspirin, and lay down again, listening to the clang of barred doors as the search began.

WHEN THE PRISON team reached Lee’s cell, he stood in the middle of the small space, sucking in his gut when the guard patted him down. He willed the man not to feel the bandage under the heavy T-shirt. The guard jerked off his bedcovers, flipped and examined his mattress, inspected his damp shoes and wet shirt. “You fall in the dishwater, Fontana?”

“The guy works beside me,” Lee said, “sloppy as hell.” He waited, hiding his nervousness until the man finished his nosy prying and left, giving Lee a last appraising look. Alone again, Lee crawled back under the covers. That was when the devil returned, descending as if Delone’s death had kept him near. Again the cat stiffened, the air grew icy, and Lucifer’s grainy voice struck through Lee.

“That guard,” Satan said, “he could have made you strip down, Fontana. He would have if I’d nudged him a little. Or,” the devil said, “think of this. When you killed Delone, I could have led a guard in there at that moment, led him into the masonry room to find you standing over the body.

“I took pity on you, Fontana. Now, you can return the courtesy.”

“Go to hell.”

“I have a mission for you.”

“I don’t want to hear it. Get someone else for your lackey.” Lee rolled over, turning his back, gritting his teeth against the pain.

The wraith shifted again so it faced Lee. “I want you to gain Morgan Blake’s full confidence, I want him to completely depend on you.”

Lee stared at the heavy shadow. “What do you want with Blake?”

“I want him to trust you in all matters, to follow you unquestioningly. In return, I will let up on you, Fontana. I will make your life easier. Blake is already your friend, you are special to him because of his child. Now he must seek your wisdom in whatever he undertakes. It should be easy enough to manipulate him in this way.”

“Why? What do you mean to do?”

“Blake thinks you can help him, Fontana. And you can help. When you do so, my pressure on you will ease. The wound will heal, the pain will be gone. So easy to do, to gain Blake’s absolute confidence no matter what you might ask him to do . . . A fine bargain,” the devil said. “Think about it, Fontana . . .” And the voice faded, the shadow faded, the dark wraith was gone. Lee was left only with questions.

IN THE NEXT days, as prison authorities investigated Delone’s murder, Lee’s wound continued to throb; everything he did, even eating a meal, left him chilled and weak. He didn’t change his work routine, he took painkillers, went to the kitchen as usual and pulled his shift. The pain came bad when he carried the heavy trays. The third afternoon near the end of shift, as he hoisted a stack of trays, cold sweat beaded his face, and he saw Bronski watching him. Bronski stepped over and took the trays from him. “Go sit on the steps, Fontana. I’ll take care of these.” It was the only indication he ever had that Bronski knew how Delone died.

By the time security dropped back to normal, Lee’s wound had begun to heal. Gimpy passed by the back door of the kitchen twice, slipping Lee more aspirin, iodine, some sulfa powder, and fresh bandages, turning away quickly as Lee slipped the package under his shirt. Lee and Gimpy went back a long way, and Lee was mighty thankful for his friendship. He had no idea that, within only a few days, he would abandon Gimpy, that the Atlanta pen would be the last time he would ever see the old safecracker.