The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

35

IT WAS THE next morning at breakfast that they saw Falon again, sitting alone at a small table as Morgan joined Lee in the chow line. Again Morgan was accompanied by a guard, but the uniformed man didn’t linger. He watched them settle at a table, then turned away. Once he’d left the cafeteria, they picked up their trays again and joined Falon.

“Lots of empty tables. Go sit somewhere else.”

“Does it bother you,” Morgan asked, “to sit with the man you framed?”

“What’re you doing here, Blake? What kind of stupid stunt was that, to break out, make it across the country, and then turn yourselves in? You get scared out in the big world, Morgy boy? Lose your nerve? What, were the feds on your tail? You crawl to them like a beaten dog that can’t get away?”

Lee laid a hand on Morgan’s arm until he eased back. Under the overhead lights the sleeves of Falon’s prison shirt sparkled with tiny bits of steel, as if he’d been working the lathe or jigsaw in the metal shop. “Maybe,” Lee said, “maybe after we’ve been here a while, Falon, our escape won’t seem so stupid.”

“What does that mean, you crazy old creep?” Falon rose, picking up his tray. “You’ll stay out of my way, if you plan to leave here in one piece.”

Lee smiled. “Doesn’t take much to get you fluffed, does it, Falon?”

A wash of red moved up Fallon’s face. “I don’t know what you want, old man, but you’ll be sorry you took up with this punk.” They watched him cross the room, shove in where two men had just sat down. In a moment the other two turned, staring at Morgan and Lee.

“I thought it would be simple,” Morgan said softly. “I thought when we showed up he’d get scared.”

“You knew better than that. You never thought that, you know he’s dangerous. Take your time,” Lee said, “play it close.” Lee was nervous, too, but they needed to move on with this, they didn’t have much time. Once Iverson received the paperwork from Atlanta, he’d start putting it together, Morgan’s connection to Rome and to Falon, Falon’s testimony at Morgan’s trial.

It was late that afternoon, after seeing both his doctor and his counselor again, that Lee got permission to work in the metal shop for a half shift. He was in luck, there was an opening, maybe things were turning their way. It was the ghost cat who didn’t feel good about the plan.

“This isn’t smart,” Misto murmured softly, materializing on Lee’s bunk. “That shop’s dangerous. Falon knows the moves, and you don’t.”

Lee pulled off his shoes, eased back against the folded pillow. “I’m a quick learner.” He stroked the cat’s shaggy, invisible fur.

Misto sneezed with disgust. “You blow it in there, you get hurt and it’s all over for Morgan, too.”

“I don’t have a choice. That’s where Falon works.” He watched the line of pawprints pace neatly down the bed, little indentations appearing one by one. “If I can get Falon alone in there,” Lee said, “maybe in one of the storerooms, I can work on him.”

“Is that your idea? Or is that another dark plan to trap you?” The cat, not waiting for an answer, vanished, hissing. Nothing remained but his anger. Lee stretched out on his bunk listening to the bellow of the foghorns, watching through his barred window the lights of the naval station blurred by mist. The foghorn’s eerie cry rang through him like a train whistle, the lonely call he’d followed in his youth, the siren cry that had led him ever deeper into the life he had made for himself.

Every time he was locked up he grew nostalgic for the old times, for the open prairie. No locks, no bars, no one telling him what to do. Every time he was incarcerated he had to get used, all over again, to confinement and too many people and nowhere to get away.

Well, he could have stayed in Atlanta. Could have been out and free in a few months. Now, unless Storm came through not only for Morgan but for Lee himself, a whole new sentence could be tacked on. At his age, no matter how he dreamed of a new life in Mexico, he might never live to see the buried money.

Yet he wouldn’t do it any differently, he’d climb that wall again in a damn minute. Coming after Falon was the right thing to do; he felt it in his gut that they were going to free Morgan. That this was what they were meant to do. He lay sleepless a long time listening to the foghorns, assessing just how much pressure it might take to unwind Brad Falon, to force from him the information they needed